Chapter Summary Of Reuven's Team

“Reuven, he has already talked to Danny about it, he has talked to Danny through you” (pg 101)

Potok uses diction and syntax to dramatize Reuven's experience with Reb Saunders by using diction to relate Reuven's incident to the German Holocaust. For example, Reuven's first feeling is the loss of breath. "His reaction had caught me so completely by surprise that I had quite literally stopped breathing, and now I found myself gasping for breath." (Potok) Reuven's loss of breath relates back to the German Holocaust because of, "the brick cells where men sentenced to death by suffocation were walled up." (Rosenthal) During the German Holocaust, there was also suffocation dungeons. "Into the suffocation dungeons the visitor is taken for a moment and feels himself strangling." (Rosenthal) The diction used in both 'The Chosen' and 'No News

Reuven Malter plays one of the protagonists in The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. Reuven, who is around the age of fifteen and plays baseball for his all boys’ school. He displays his true leadership skills on and off the field with his teammates. In this story, Reuven experiences an eye injury caused by Danny Saunders during one of the games. Although the injury gives Reuven and his father much anxiety about the future, it also positions Reuven and Danny onto a long path of friendship.

“What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? … I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. . . .”

When Danny visited Reuven in the hospital he started to reveal how he really felt not only about Reuven but about his future. He started telling Reuven how he did not know if he really wanted to follow his father’s footsteps and take over being Rabbi. He also stated how much he studies every day and although he is good at his studies he does not enjoy it. This was all surprising for Reuven and opened his eyes to a different kind of Hasidic boy. His image of a Hasidic Jew was

Reuven Malther has an epiphany and realizes that Danny Saunders does not hate him and is normal, allowing the two to become friends. After Danny hurt Reuven’s eye at a baseball game causing Reuven to be hospitalized, Reuven believed that Danny hated him and “deliberately aimed at me [Reuven]” (54). When Danny visits Reuven

The relationship between Danny and Reuven is a very big theme in The Chosen. Danny and Reuven are two boys who have grew up within a few blocks of each other, but in two entirely different worlds. They meet for the first time in at a school baseball game between their two Jewish schools. Even though at first their only feeling for each other is one of hatred, they eventually get over their differences and become the best of friends. They learn a lot about each other and about the others life and religion. The boys’ fathers have very different views and that’s gets them in trouble. Danny’s father disagrees with Reuven’s father’s point of view on a certain topic, and forbids Danny from ever seeing Reuven again. After some time Reb gets over himself and permits Danny to see Reuven again. This situation goes back to the fathers’ ways of raising their child and their view on their religion.

When Danny goes up to bat later in the game, he hits a line drive and accidently hits Reuven in the eye sending him to the hospital. This is essentially where the friendship starts, when Danny goes and visits Reuven in the hospital. From that point forward the boys were friends, learning about one another and their families. Danny’s father is a rabbi and expects Danny to follow in his footsteps, but Danny loves to go into the

If you are truly his friend, you will discover otherwise” (Potok 142). Rueven Malter is a modern orthodox Jew unlike Danny. Because of this difference in religion, Danny and Rueven grow up in completely different cultures. Rueven grew up like most children of his day. He attends to yeshiva, plays baseball, and goes to synagogue on Shabbat. But Rueven’s life is not all fun and games. While playing a baseball game against Danny’s Hasidic team Rueven is hit in the eye with a baseball. Danny is the one who hits the ball that strikes Rueven in the eye. Seems like a strange way to start a

Repeatedly throughout the book we see Mr. Malter earnestly advising Reuven to befriend Danny. Once they are friends, he is persistent in making sure that Reuven is there for him, and supports Danny. Mr. Malter was not only aware of Danny's brilliant mind, but he understood his anxiousness to leave Hasidism. This desire was not stemmed from bitterness, although that by no means would have been unwarranted. However, Danny's desire was driven by him not wanting to be tzaddik, but to be a psychologist. There is a scene in the book where Reuven watches a fly caught in a spider's web. Intently Reuven observes as the fly struggles to escape the web, before the spider can make it's way to it. Reuven blows at the fly, attempting to help free him from

At the beginning of the novel, their whole friendship wouldn't have started if one, Reuven didn't listen to his urging father and forgave Danny, and two, if Danny didn't stubbornly persist in visiting Reuven in the hospital, where he patiently waited for him to vent his anger. "Also, yesterday I hated him; now we were calling each other by our first names. I sat and

The conflict in the book is character vs. society, where Stevie, Susan and Chip are trying to take down a group of blackmailers. The blackmailers hacked into Chip Grabers grades, and changed two classes that he passed with failing grades. This new grade sheet would have made him ineligible to play the first half of the season. Then, they went to Chip and told him he had to throw the championship game, or the fake grades would be released. This would result in his dad, who was the coach, to be fired, and forfeit all their wins that season. Lastly, they put over five million dollars in bets on the games. With this plan they would have won their bets no matter what. However, the conflict is resolved in the end when Steve Jurgensen breaks in

Juan and I grew up together. We were brothers. Donnie and Tyrell were my teammates. They kept calling me names and threaten to give me hell on the bus ride home after the game. I was the only one who hadn’t been through the “freshman initiation” yet. They finally gave

The next day Colten goes into school and everyone is congratulating him but it doesn’t make him feel happy this time. This time he just keeps a straight face and goes to math class. When walking into class, he looks at the board and sees an equation that looks like a foreign language that he doesn't understand. Colten starts to stress. He feels discouraged and begins to accept that he probably isn't going to make the game.

When it comes to Danny and Reuven there friendship is nothing but surprising. Reuven even understands that there chance friendship is like none other, written in the book he thinks “Danny and I probably would never have met...had it not been for...the Jewish parochial schools to show the gentile world that yeshiva students were as physically fit...” (13). With their differing Jewish traditions a reunion like the one in the hospital is unbelievable. Even though they are different they continue on in their friendship, but still carry on respectfully in their customs. Some differences are the secularity of Reuven differing with Danny’s safe and strict rituals. They both are Jews and hold many of the same traditions, but struggle with some of their differences. Such as when Reuven held onto Zionist customs and Reuven was forced to take a break with their friendship. Even through a major obstacle of religious traditions the boys were able to stay united