And the Malter family's friendship with the family of Abraham Gordon, a most unorthodox Jewish scholar, has repercussions that - in the end - no one could have foreseen. In the background, great changes are shaking up the Yeshiva world: new rabbis from Europe, refugees from The Holocaust, have arrived and are pushing an almost reactionary brand of Orthodoxy, threatening the livelihood of Reuven's father, who is moving in an ever more progressive direction. Chaim Potok takes us back to New York City a few years later, where Reuven Malter is now studying for his semicha (rabbinic ordination) and Danny Saunders is finishing up his doctorate in clinical psychology. But it is a work that will haunt you.The 1969 sequel to The Chosen. Its story is quiet and its narrator reserved. Together, the three of them must find a way out. Reuven knows what it is to wonder if you can hate your own father. Danny knows what it is to live in silence. He is troubled and violent, but refuses to speak. Their stories gracefully intertwine with that of Michael, the son of a scholar who hates all the academics who attack his father. If he cannot save Michael with his unorthodox treatment, it will mean that everything he did was in vain. The others secretly whisper he is a genius, but Danny fears to fail since he walked away from his old life to pursue this career. And Reuven who wishes to use a different methodology is faced with the choice of remaining true to himself and losing all the fruits of his hard work, or lying to graduate.ĭanny meanwhile lives the tiring life of a grad student as he trains to become a psychologist. His new teacher, in particular, sees only one right one for a person to be a faithful Jew and a scholar of the Torah. Their experiences have removed them from him and their concerns and fears to him seem sometimes overbearing.

Told through Reuven’s eyes, The Promise unfolds the story of Reuven’s neighborhood as it fills with men and women who escaped from the concentration camps.

As Danny struggles to save Michael, a teenage boy who suffers from a secret inner rage, he and Reuven may discover that they are not so very different from this boy. The way is still difficult, however, and the past can never truly be forgotten. Now that Reuven and Danny have grown, they are following their own paths. Perhaps it is no surprise then that he manages to follow The Chosen with a book just as sensitive and raw. Can Reuven and Danny help Michael escape? ReviewĬhaim Potok always writes a memorable story. Then his life becomes entwined with that of Michael, a teenage boy trapped by his own fear and rage. And Reuven is struggling in school to gain recognition for his abilities. His best friend Danny Saunders has chosen not to become a rabbi like his father but to pursue a career as a psychologist. The neighborhood is filled with men and women who escaped from the concentration camps.

The promise book chaim potok