Talking with Chaim Potok is a fairly arduous task. First of all, Potok is a very famous writer. Many of his books (The Chosen, Davita's Harp, the ones on Asher Lev) are often required reading for American students.
Potok is also a very busy man, who works a lot, and the work of writing is a jealous god.
Finally, Mr. Potok has a presence that is slightly intimidating, with his paternal but always pensive air, his penetrating gaze, and a voice that seems to be coming from far away.
He is a little bit like we have imagined those father figures whom he described in such a profound and deeply felt way in his stories.
When my family and I arrived in New York, Lee Road, in the heart of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood called Williamsburg, was one of our first stops. It is there that the world of Danny Saunders, the chosen one in Potok's book with that title, revolves.
We had been so charmed by reading those books that we had to "go see." What I would never have imagined was that just a few years later I would meet him in person, have dinner with him, chat with him on the telephone. But there are lots of things that one never imagines.
A few days ago I thought of interviewing him and so I asked him. I was relatively ill at ease. It is true that we had met, it is true that-among other things-the dinner in Pesaro would remain in both our memories, but I am not even a journalist, while he is a real writer.
In any case, I picked up the telephone and called: "Mr. Potok, how are you? Am I disturbing you?" "I am fine, thank you. How are you? Yes, you are disturbing me, but go ahead."
I would have been very happy to stop right there. I didn't do so for two reasons. First, because I really was disturbing him, and second, because I had still before my eyes the image of that late August evening in Italy.
"I wanted to ask if I could interview you for Traces," I said to him.
"For Traces, I accept."
The following recounts our conversation.

Why do you write? I remember you telling me that as a kid you loved drawing, but your father was unhappy with that. Drawing is not a thing a Hassidic kid is supposed to do. But since you had to express yourself somehow, you began to write. Why do you still write?
I write because when I was in my teens I read some books that influenced me a great deal and taught me how to create worlds out of imagination. That's what I try to do: I try to create worlds, I give meaning to worlds using words out of imagination.

What's the spark? And once you get started what's the driving force that leads through the whole process?
That's very difficult to describe. I don't think that's ever been described, that will, that hunger to somehow give shape… there is a mystery about it…

And the mystery stays with you throughout the whole time?
Things can get very difficult, but all that means that you have to figure it out, walk away from it for a while….

Did this apply also to your most famous books?
No, all the books came out without interruptions, like a continuous stream.

Characters like Danny Saunders and Asher Lev are in search of fulfillment, but it seems as though there's not enough room for them within the community.
I think that most human beings will find themselves inside a community into which they are born.
All of us try to fulfill our own authentic individuality, our self. That means that each individuality is different from others in our community. So there are going to be tensions. The father is invariably regarded as the representative figure of the values, and leader of the community. The Rabbi, if it's a religious community, is regarded as the ultimate authority figure of that community. So you're going to come into conflict with your father, your Rabbi, your teachers as you try to establish your own voice, your own authentic self. But if the authority figures are sympathetic to you, and if you're lucky, then you might be able to work it out-have your voice, and stay inside the community.
The Rabbi helps Asher Lev because he hopes to retain Asher's loyalty to the community while at the same time he pursues his goals as an artist. The Rabbi succeeds-up to the point where Asher paints the crucifixions.
Otherwise you are in trouble… and you may have to leave the community.

Does it happen?
Oh yes. Both. Staying and leaving.

Is that what happened to you too? Did you go through something similar?
It did happen to me when I left my fundamentalist world and I went to another understanding of the Jewish tradition.

What is it that brought you to a different understanding of the Jewish tradition?
The realization that I could not write truthfully and remain inside a fundamentalist, literalist understanding of the Jewish tradition.

You are also a university professor. Why?
I teach an entirely secular subject at the University of Pennsylvania, Modern and Postmodern Thought, and I teach because I need to relate to the outside world. Writing is a very lonely occupation and you can forget at times that outside the study where you are doing your writing there's a pulsating world. So to bring me back into that world, especially into the world of young people, I teach.

It's your link with the actual world.
That's right

During one of the conversations we happened to have last summer in Italy you defined yourself as a Jew and as an American. What does it mean for you to be American?
For me being an American is participating in politics, being aware of what's going on all around me, participating in the general community, teaching. In general, doing the things that you do that permit you to participate in the democratic community. In the US the question is also whether the country is really one country or several countries, where the country is going… all of us are talking about that today.

You are American, you teach. Education has been in the spotlight recently due to many dramatic events, like the school shootings. What went wrong? What is missing?
There's a good deal less violence in the school system today then there was some ten years ago.
What's happening is that the suburban school system, the school system of the well-to-do, has all kinds of people in it, and sometimes things just go wrong… but I'm concerned about the problem of teaching values in schools and how that gets done. Schools are increasingly concerned about that also and are beginning to take up the problem of how to teach values without necessarily inculcating this or that religion. That's becoming a major issue in education in the US today. There's no question that there's a problem. That's no question that the culture that the kids are confronted with is essentially a culture that doesn't promulgate positive values. Much of it is violent. I'm talking about the general culture, the movies, television games. Much of it is violent, erotic, and of course the fact that both parents have to work today means less watching of the children, less eyes on the children as they grow up. So there's all kinds of trouble inside the body politic, especially among our teenage children.
The school shootings have focused eyes on the problem, and the problem is being addressed now by many people.

Is the lack of fatherhood and motherhood part of the problem?
Yes, to a great degree the problem exists because parents are so preoccupied with careers and double jobs. Everybody seems to be caught in a crush of contradictory values here, everyone's trying to strike a balance, and it's very hard to do.

We need a point of departure. Which one?
First of all you have to recognize that there's a problem. And I think a general recognition of the problem will ultimately lead to some kind of solution to the problem.

Let me ask you something about your summer in Italy. The Meeting in Rimini, the people you met…
I found it to be very open, very receptive to other ideas, very welcoming, deeply religious. But religious in a warm and accepting way of other religions.
They were all very aware of the fact that I am a thoroughly committed Jew, and they were willing to listen to what I had to say.

Were you surprised?
No, I sensed it and understood it from what I had heard people say to me when they were inviting me. Otherwise I would not have come. But I was happy at the warmth and the depth of the openness. That was gratifying.
And of course I would go back.

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And thus we said goodbye, while I still had before my eyes that late August evening after our dinner in Pesaro, Italy: Chaim Potok rising to his feet as we sing the Hebrew canon, "How sweet, how beautiful that brothers stay together." He half-closes his eyes, then, as the song moves forward, he opens them wide, getting up from his chair and moving his hands like a river flowing, following the wave of melody. I don't know what was running through his mind and, frankly, I didn't have the courage to ask him. Maybe he felt like a child again in his Hassidim community, maybe he was only aesthetically swept away, maybe he was wondering who we really are. I thought about these things, and about our life in the United States.
And I recalled everything that Father Giussani tells us about the Jews.
I realized that this is the fulfillment of a history, of which we are living now in New York the first glimmer of dawn.