Book Log 2023 #4: The Chosen by Chaim Potok

It's another book assigned in junior high, but this time one I actually finished and liked (helped, I would think, by being about two high school boys).

Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter meet during a baseball game which is as much a contest between two strains of Judaism - Reuven and his team are from an Orthodox school, while Danny and his team represent a nearby Hasidic school - as it is a game. The two schools are geographically close, but the kids don't really know each other that well.

When Reuven is injured by a ball hit by Danny, it leads (eventually) to a friendship. They confide in each other about family (Danny's father only talks to him when studying Talmud) and the future, where Danny wants to become a psychologist rather than follow his father as leader of their community. The relationships between the fathers and the sons is a major theme of the book, as is the role of tradition and faith in the modern world.

I, of course, missed a lot of this when I first read the book, having no real experience with Judaism or the expectations of living up to a specific tradition. I'm glad I revisited it.