tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11692757.post6155785504588981064..comments2023-11-02T07:37:01.396-07:00Comments on Lubavitch In the News: Is Asher Lev An Idolater?Editorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12953020477427374440noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11692757.post-46329698630518023562009-04-17T19:41:00.000-07:002009-04-17T19:41:00.000-07:00First off, Polonius gives that advice to his son, ...First off, Polonius gives that advice to his son, Laertes, not to Hamlet. It's not especially good advice, when read in context, and Hamlet sees though it immediately (see Act II, scene ii).<br /><br />The crucifixion (as symbol) was not conceived as an active rebuke to Judaism. Throughout history it has been deployed that way, but Asher Lev spends a lot of time learning about that symbol and its prevalence in art. The cross means a hell of a lot more than the immediate reflexive offense felt by his father. And that's why Asher chose it for his paintings.<br /><br />Of course Asher's parents don't need to justify their shame. Their shame was the whole point of the exhibition. Asher may not fess up to this explitly, but it is obvious to anyone who labors to be existentially free. That's why it's not enough for Asher simply to paint the Brooklyn Crucifixions in Paris; he must preserve them and make a show of them back home instead of destroying them. And that's why it's not enough simply to have his show and earn his accolades as a courageous artist; his parents must be there in public to witness their crime (and their crime is not deicide, it's the soul-murder that might have succeeded if Asher didn't happen to have the gift he had). <br /><br />This public shaming is also what makes Potok's story ripe for theatrical elaboration because theatre was created to air tightly-guarded secrets about ourselves. Potok himself attempted this by extracting the gallery scene for a one-act play called "The Gallery" some time ago.<br /><br />Thank you for pointing out the passive relationship Asher has to his Gift. As a fellow artist, I found it hard to portray this constant disavowal throughout the play -- until I realized that this disavowal was just an echo of the paternal command that Asher wanted to free himself from.<br /><br />To return to the specific point of your post, I don't think Asher is an Idolater because he still affirms his identity as an "observant Jew." There is no indication he believes in Jesus, so his appropriation of the crucifix (a la Chagall) does not stem from some newfound reverence for that form as much as inspiration from that image. <br /><br />Doesn't the very phrase "observant Jew" become tellingly literal by the end of Potok's book? Asher certainly "observes" his faith (much the way he passively observes his gift running amok on its own) but he also has the courage to deracinate everything inauthentic about that faith -- particularly the absurd pain it exacts on his mother. <br /><br />Can a man follow the long litany of rituals, gestures, rites and utterances that constitutes "observance" while simultaneously knowing that the psychic and emotional concessions to the same god are criminally unacceptable? This is the agon joined (briefly) by Potok's story and our stage presentation of it.<br /><br />Thank you for your insight into the book and the play. Forgive me if I take your analysis too personally, but I can't remember a single instance of sarcasm in my performance. I agree that Asher is a sadly humorless fellow. The one bona fide "one-liner" I can recall comes towards the end: <br /><br />"No, no nudes, just a couple of crucifixions." <br /><br />But even that line owes its humorous disparity to a tension between sex and death that has been thoroughly mined for all its tragic import in the preceding action of the story.<br /><br />I have rambled enough for now. Please take my contention as evidence of the enduring (and rewarding) disputation ignited by Potok's work. As a lapsed Christian and a struggling artist, I spent a lot of time wrestling with Asher from a very different vantage and I can assure you that none of this labor was devoted to getting laughs. At its best moments, Potok's story uses Art (with a capital A) as a magnifying lens for the quotidian conflicts we all engage with our parents and society. But for this same reason, Asher's false binary (Observant Jew v. Painter) presents an ongoing challenge in direct address performance because it risks commodifying Art with the same arms-length passivity.<br /><br />If anything, Asher makes an idol of Art. Potok has described his efforts with this book as a kind of wish fulfillment -- if only he were a gifted enough painter to merit the exemption the Rebbe repeatedly gives Asher. But Jacob Kahn rightly points out that "millions of people can draw; art is whether there is a scream inside him waiting to get out." As long as we're working backwards from an infallible Identity (Jew, chosen one, loyal son), that scream can only be read as a momentary deviation. I think Asher's scream hints at something much bigger. And that's why the book has something to offer an atheist artist like myself something, too.Karl Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11406387629846020306noreply@blogger.com