My Name is Asher Lev: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Asher goes to see his high school registrar, demanding to know why he has been signed up for French. The registrar patiently explains that the Rebbe has specifically requested that Asher take French. Asher submits.

On Rosh Hashonoh, Asher prays fervently in the synagogue. He weeps on Yom Kippur when he remembers his father’s own weeping on the holy days. On Simchas Torah, he dances with a Torah scroll and sees Jacob Kahn standing on the edge of the watching crowd. He pulls Jacob into the line, and they dance awkwardly together with the scroll. Asher continues studying with Jacob, painting, drawing, and sculpting. He continues making an effort with  his yeshiva studies, too.

That October, Asher goes to the opening of Jacob Kahn’s gallery show, a black-tie affair. He sees a sculpture that consists of his and Kahn’s heads facing in the same direction; it has been purchased. He circulates through the crowd, listening to the intelligent talk. Anna Schaeffer is exuberant, but Jacob himself looks stiff and uncomfortable. Later, Anna tells Asher that a famous collector purchased the sculpture, and he is shocked when he hears the name. He congratulates Jacob on selling all his pieces, but Jacob looks “bereaved.”

Uncle Yitzchok fixes up his attic so that Asher will have more space to paint, and Asher quickly begins filling up the room with paintings. In February, both Asher and Jacob attend the Ladover farbrengen commemorating the death of the Rebbe’s father. At one point, Jacob leads Asher outside and tells him that he will soon be going to Europe for a month. He bids Asher a quick farewell and leaves. Asher goes home to bed. He later tries to work in Jacob’s empty studio but finds this “intolerable.” Instead he goes home and makes many paintings of Jacob. After Jacob returns, he reports having seen Asher’s parents. They resume working together as if Jacob had not left.

When Asher’s parents return at the end of March, Aryeh looks much healthier, strengthened by Rivkeh’s presence. However, he says little to Asher; there is “a permanent high wall of uncertainty and hostility.” When Uncle Yitzchok shows him the attic filled with paintings, Aryeh looks angry. Yitzchok begs Aryeh to be reconciled to his son. Later, Rivkeh’s eyes look sad. She says it is impossible to speak to Aryeh about Asher, and it is painful for her to be caught between them.

After Asher’s parents return to Europe, Jacob tells Asher that he, Jacob, has made an enemy of Aryeh. Aryeh is convinced that Asher is wasting his life, but Jacob says that nothing can be done about this—Aryeh and Asher are simply “two different natures.” Asher shouldn’t try to understand this; rather, he should focus on becoming a great artist: “That is the only way to justify what you are doing to everyone’s life.”

Nevertheless, Asher continues to brood about his family. He does not want to hurt anyone. He simply wants to paint. He wants to paint much as Aryeh wants to travel for the Rebbe, for the sake of “a truth I did not know how to put into words” and can only bring to life through his art. He dreams again of his mythic ancestor.

The next two summers, Asher goes to Provincetown with the Kahns. The second summer, he begins to join in the conversations with Jacob and other artists. After that summer, his parents return briefly. They urge Asher to come to Vienna the following summer. Asher is afraid that they will talk him into staying longer. Plus, he has come to enjoy living with his uncle’s large, noisy family, and he doesn’t want to live with his father. Finally, he relents. However, the coming months are filled with brooding for Asher. As he paints and talks about art that year, he sometimes notices Jacob giving him a “strange and curious look.”

En route to Vienna, Asher becomes ill. He is sick the whole time he is in Vienna. His thoughts are incoherent while there. He is back in New York by the end of July. A few weeks later, he goes to Provincetown to join the Kahns. “[Jacob] missed you,” Tanya tells Asher.

At yeshiva, the registrar explains that the Rebbe has asked that Asher be enrolled in Russian, but Asher resolutely refuses to take the class. Rav Mendel Dorochoff asks to see him. He asks Asher about his college plans and brings up Russian again. Asher still refuses. Later, the Rebbe himself wants to see him. He tells Asher that sometimes, the Master of the Universe gives glimpses into his greater plan. He tells Asher that one of these glimpses is the promise of Asher’s future greatness. Asher will someday travel the world. For that reason, he thinks Asher should study Russian. The following fall, Asher enrolls in Brooklyn College and registers for a class in Russian.

Asher continues painting and attending college and yeshiva. One day he and Jacob visit Anna Schaeffer’s gallery. As Asher admires the current exhibit, Anna tells him that his own exhibit will hang here in the spring. Asher is shocked. Jacob explains that he didn’t let Anna exhibit his work already because “a boy should not rush to make his soul naked.” He later tells Asher to be happy; these are the good times in an artist’s life. That winter, Jacob comes and selects the pieces that will be included in the show. He insists on including two nudes, because these have been important in Asher’s artistic development. Asher, he says, must “enter in truth or you will not enter at all.”

That spring, the show is “a moderate success.” Asher stares  at “all the years of [his] life summed up on the walls of a gallery” and then watches as some of these disappear by the end of the show. The show is kindly reviewed, except for one critic who calls Asher a fraud, with “a menacing affinity for Picassoid forms.” Jacob Kahn is amused by this expression.

The following spring, Asher has another successful show. His father finishes his work abroad and is reassigned to work in the Ladover building. His parents move back into their old Brooklyn apartment. Asher moves back in with them, but there’s not enough space in his bedroom for him to paint. His father suggests that he paint at Uncle Yitzchok’s house.