The Chosen

Reuven can read and write again in time for final exams, and he’s confident he did well on them. After school, he goes home and calls Billy, and Billy’s dad answers and says Billy’s surgery didn’t work. Reuven wants to visit, but Billy’s family is moving to Albany. Upset, Reuven hears Savo saying how the world is “crazy” and watches a spider trap a housefly in its web before he blows the spiderweb away.

During the summer, Reuven plays baseball three mornings a week and studies the Talmud with his dad three mornings a week. Danny spends all his mornings studying the Talmud but hangs out with Reuven at the library in the afternoons. Reuven studies math, and Danny reads Freud in German—a frustrating endeavor due to Freud’s complex ideas and vocabulary.

Reuven’s dad works tirelessly on articles about the Talmud, and father and son follow the war closely. During a Talmud battle with his dad, Danny breathes loudly, jumps out of his chair, and smiles. Danny realizes reading books about Freud will help him understand Freud—like how reading the Talmud can help a person comprehend the Torah and Jewish beliefs.

Reuven and his dad spend August in a cottage near Peekskill (a city in New York State). Before he goes, he gives Danny two books on contemporary Judaism. They displease Reb Saunders, though he’s less annoyed when he discovers Reuven recommended them.

School starts, and Reuven is president of his class, so he’s busy, and he and Danny spend less time together. In December 1944, the Battle of the Bulge starts. The Nazis push back some U.S. troops in the Ardennes Forest, and on a map, the troop positions look like a bulge. By early 1945, the Allies are in control, and Reuven and his dad are ecstatic, and so is Danny, though Danny doesn’t follow the war too closely. Trembling with tears in his eyes, Danny’s dad declares an end to Hitler.

In the spring, Danny gets the flu and bronchitis, and Davey Cantor runs into a student council meeting to announce the death of President Roosevelt. On the trolley and sidewalks, people don’t talk, but they cry. At synagogue, people are also in pain. Reuven’s dad tries to tell him about the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s policies to counter the economic catastrophe, but then he starts crying. Reuven sees fear and emptiness, and he compares Roosevelt’s death to Billy’s blindness. He cries, too.

Reuven gets sick, his dad gets sick, and Reb Saunders gets sick, but in May, the war ends, and Reuven’s dad, recovering, reads an account of Theresienstadt—a transit camp, concentration camp, and ghetto. The number of murdered Jews climbs to six million, and Reuven can’t fathom how the number could be so high. At Danny’s house, Reb Saunders says the world kills Jews and makes them suffer—it’s God's will.

Reuven discusses Reb Saunders’s reaction to the Holocaust with his dad. Reuven doesn’t think it was God’s will, and neither does Malter. Reuven’s dad wants to give the genocide meaning, and it’s up to American Jews, the one Jewish community remaining, to do so.

Two days before final exams, Reuven’s dad has a heart attack. Reb Saunders doesn’t think Reuven should live alone with Manya, so he invites Reuven to live with his family until his dad is better.

At Danny’s house, Reuven notices how pretty his sister is, and she makes fun of them by calling them David and Jonathan—a reference to 1 Samuel 18, where David and Jonathan put aside their supposed differences and become close friends. Reuven also notices Danny’s ghostly younger brother, Levi, picking his nose and poking at food.

At the library, Danny explains Freud to Reuven. Freud doesn’t have a rosy view of people. Danny thinks Freud uncouples humans from God and connects them to Satan.

Reuven and Danny visit Malter in the hospital, where Reuven’s dad reads everything he can about the Holocaust. Malter mentions December 17, 1942, when England’s foreign secretary Anthony Eden outlined for the House of Commons how the Nazis were systematically murdering Jews, but England did nothing. Screaming, Malter says Jews can’t wait for the Messiah. They must turn Palestine into a Jewish homeland.

Reb Saunders disagrees. He refers to Israel as Eretz Yisroel (the traditional name) and calls Jews who want to create a pre-Messiah Holy Land “goyim” (non-Jews) and “apikorsim.” The death of six million Jews doesn’t mean that Jews should dismiss the Messiah and the word of God.

At the library, Danny talks about Levi with Reuven. He needs glasses, and he’s sick, but he’s a solid kid, and he’d make a good tzaddik. He can be the tzaddik instead of Danny. Danny admits that he’s not close with his younger brother and only cares about his health so Levi can grow up and become the tzaddik.

Reuven steers the conversation to Danny’s sister. Danny says his dad “promised” her to a follower’s son. When she turns 18, she’ll marry him.