I just heard news that Chaim Potok died today.

I read The Chosen when I was 13. I remember checking it out of the library. I remember thinking hard about this book, trying to figure out why I liked it so very much. I remember having the thought this is what a novel is.

The epigraph to my favorite Chaim Potok novel, My Name is Asher Lev, is this: Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth--Pablo Picasso. I read this book when I was 15. It shaped then and now how I think about art and loyalty and love. Quince once asked me what my favorite book was and I told him My Name is Asher Lev and he read the entire book that same night. He later called me to read his favorite parts to me over the phone. When I went away to college he gave me a first edition of this book.

Chaim Potok was a conservative Jewish Rabbi. He could not be further from me in time, space, or reality. I thank all the gods for him, though. I would not be this me that I am without him.