don't ya hate it when that happens?
Friday, September 22, 2006
"The Chosen" - Chaim Potok
I just started reading this book today and i totally love it. it took me all day to finish... The characters are so real and you feel their pain, you feel them grow and transform. it explained a world to me in a point of view that i would never have experienced otherwise. i like the way that potok chooses to tie the story together, i like the lessons learned, the culture... i love his attention to detail, the themes of freedom, friendship, differing cultures within a culture, etc...I'm really happy I found this book at the goodwill
my favorite quotes... don't read this if you plan to read the book...
pg 204
' "Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye." He paused again, his eyes misty now, then went on. "I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasureable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here." '
pg 249
"You can listen to silence, Rueven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it."
"You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't always talk. Sometimes -- sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to."
pg 265
"One learns of the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the Universe. Only slowly, very slowly, did I begin to understand what he was saying. For years his silence bewildered and frightened me, though I always trusted him, I never hated him. And when I was old enough to understand, he told me that of all people a tzaddik especially must know of pain. Tzaddik must know how to suffer for his people, he said. He must take their pain from them and carry it on his own shoulders. He must carry it always. He must grow old before his years. He must cry, in his heart he must always cry. Even when he dances and sings, he must cry for the sufferings of his people."
1 Comments:
Sooooo, should I just stop checking this or....what
By 
, at
10:57 AM
