In Proverbs 18:15 “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out. ” In the book The Chosen by Chaim Potok, The similarities or the characters through the entirety of the book, in the book, David, Danny, and Reuven all share the love for knowledge and wanting to know more and more every day about everything and anything they can get their hands on. The love and pursuit of knowledge with these three men is a very interesting, in how much they love to learn and they want for more and more knowledge.
David, the father of Reuven, possess the want to know all he could, and pass it on to his son the love of knowledge and wisdom. “If a person comes to apologize for having hurt you, you must listen and forgive them. ” (p. 68) here he shared knowledge and wisdom with his son in forgiving those who hurt you. He allows his son to pick any profession trusting him with what he taught him, and believing that he would make the right decision also holding the Orthodox Jewish beliefs and rituals.
The knowledge to guide his son in the right direction and knowing how to do that correctly and loving guiding him the way he wants him to go in the Orthodox Jewish ways, but also in the ways of the world and progressing on with the world and getting and education in the modern arts. David himself loved to learn and strived for every piece of knowledge he could get his hands on, he stand as the voice of reason through out the story, he stand as the teacher for the Jewish students at a yeshiva.
He love the learn take in all the things he learned, but he also loves to pass it on to other to his son and students. Danny raised in a Hasidic Jewish home, with a father who wants nothing to do with the outside world, only thinking about his religion practice and Danny becoming a rabbi. Even thought his father will not approve of the world around them and the materials and education out side of religious text. Danny’s love for knowledge over rules what his father says, Every day goes the library and reads six to seven books a day.
He was reading with phenomenal speed. I could almost see him read. He would start at the head of a page, his head tilted slightly upward, and then his head would move downward in a straight line until he got to the foot of the page. ” (p. 153) soaking up the knowledge and learning like a sponge. The wanting to learn and gather wisdom and knowledge as much as possible and at the rate of reading he reads at sets him up for success in the study of knowledge.
Reuven, he, much like Danny, wants to know and possess knowledge and understanding, Danny invites Reuven to the Library and over the his house to spend time reading and learning, they go to the library they read books about the modern arts and Educational materials. At Danny’s house they study read and talk over religious materials, but always reading and talking about what they read and discussing is with each other asking one another opinions, always picking at each others brains, testing one another.
Understand the knowledge giving to him and wanting more and more. “You can listen to silence, Reuven. 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. ‘”(p. 262) he can even learn from silence its self, the knowledge in leaning from silence.
Through out the whole book, these three characters constantly looking for ways to understand the world around them and read and listen everything they can get their hands on. The knowledge in the most powerful thing in the world, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. ” Kofi Annan said this in a speech of his as secretary general of United Nations. Each of these three people love knowledge and learning and try to get anything they can to increase their knowledge.
