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The Rebbe
Jacob Kahn is a famous sculptor who was once part of Picasso’s circle in Paris. He fled Nazi persecution to the United States during the Second World War. When Asher first meets him, he has flowing white hair and a “walrus mustache.” Though he is not a religiously-observant Jew, he meets frequently with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe pairs him with Asher in the hope of directing Asher’s artistic passion. He is 72 when Asher begins studying with him at age 13. He quickly becomes a father figure to Asher, who visits his Manhattan studio throughout the year and spends summers with him and his wife, Tanya, through his teen years. Jacob is blunt, especially when it comes to warning Asher about the perils and challenges of the artistic world, but he has a tender heart. He is occasionally given to depressive slumps, especially when he thinks about past sufferings and his artistic limitations. By the time Asher is a young man, he is beginning to surpass Jacob artistically, and they drift apart. The last time they see one another, Jacob is past 80, sick, and frail.
Jacob Kahn Quotes in My Name is Asher Lev
The My Name is Asher Lev quotes below are all either spoken by Jacob Kahn or refer to Jacob Kahn. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7 Quotes
“Now, between today and the middle of March is a long time. You will do something for me in that time. You will take a journey to the Museum of Modern Art, you will go up to the second floor, and you will look at a painting called Guernica, by Picasso. You will study this painting. You will memorize this painting. You will do whatever you feel you have to do in order to master this painting. Then you will call me in March, and we will meet, and talk, and work. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“It is in my nature to be blunt and honest. I shall ask you a question. You are entering the world of the goyim, Asher Lev. Do you know that? […] It is not only goyim. It is Christian goyim.”
“Yes.”
“You should better become a wagon driver,” he said, using the Yiddish term. “You should better become a water carrier.”
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My father carried his burden of pain all through the celebration of my bar mitzvah. People knew of the Rebbe’s decision. No one dared question it. For the Rebbe was the tzaddik and spoke as representative of the Master of the Universe. His seeing was not as the seeing of others; his acts were not as the acts of others. My father’s right to shape my life had been taken from him by the same being who gave his own life meaning—the Rebbe. At the same time, no one knew how to react to the decision, for they could see my father’s pain. I had become alien to him. In some incomprehensible manner, a cosmic error had been made. The line of inheritance had been perverted. A demonic force had thrust itself into centuries of transmitted responsibility. He could not bear its presence. And he no longer knew how to engage it in battle. So he walked in pain and shame all through the Shabbos of my bar mitzvah and all through the following day when relatives and friends sang and danced their joy.
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Chapter 8 Quotes
“You are entering a religion called painting. It has its fanatics and its rebels. And I will force you to master it. Do you hear me? No one will listen to what you have to say unless they are convinced you have mastered it. Only one who has mastered a tradition has a right to attempt to add to it or to rebel against it […] it is a tradition of goyim and pagans. Its values are goyisch and pagan. Its concepts are goyisch and pagan. Its way of life is goyisch and pagan. In the entire history of European art, there has not been a single religious Jew who was a great painter. Think carefully of what you are doing before you make your decision. I say this not only for the Rebbe but for myself as well. I do not want to spend time with you, Asher Lev, and then have you tell me you made a mistake.
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Chapter 10 Quotes
Often in the early mornings, I came out of the house and walked across the dunes to the beach. The dunes were cool then from the night. I wore sandals and shorts and a shirt and had on my tefillin. Those mornings, the beach was my synagogue and the waves and gulls were audience to my prayers. I stood on the beach and felt wind-blown sprays of ocean on my face, and I prayed. And sometimes the words seemed more appropriate to this beach than to the synagogue on my street.
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“Asher Lev, an artist who deceives himself is a fraud and a whore. You did that because you were ashamed. You did that because wearing payos did not fit your idea of an artist. Asher Lev, an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist. It is of no importance to me whether you wear your payos behind your ears or whether you cut off your hair entirely and go around bald. I am not a defender of payos. Great artists will not give a damn about your payos; they will only give a damn about your art. The artists who will care about your payos are not worth caring about. You want to cut off your payos, go ahead. But do not do it because you think it will make you more acceptable as an artist. Good night, Asher Lev.”
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Chapter 11 Quotes
On Yom Kippur, I wept when I remembered my father’s weeping over the martyrdom of the ten sages. On Succos, I marched in the synagogue procession with the lulov and esrog my uncle had purchased for me. On Simchas Torah, I danced with a Torah scroll—and there on the edge of the crowd of thousands that always came to watch our joy on that day was Jacob Kahn. I pulled him into the line and we held the Torah together and danced. His small dark skullcap was as awkward on his head as was the grasp of his fingers upon the Torah. But we held it together and we danced.
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Chapter 14 Quotes
“I understand,” he kept saying. “Jacob Kahn once explained it to me in connection with sculpture. I understand.” Then he said, “I do not hold with those who believe that all painting and sculpture is from the sitra achra. I believe such gifts are from the Master of the Universe. But they have to be used wisely, Asher. What you have done has caused harm. People are angry. They ask questions, and I have no answer to give them that they will understand. Your naked women were a great difficulty for me, Asher. But this is an impossibility.” He was silent for a long moment. I could see his dark eyes in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. Then he said, “I will ask you not to continue living here, Asher Lev. I will ask you to go away.”
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Asher Lev, Hasid. Asher Lev, painter. I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. […] The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine. […] I was demonic and divine. Asher Lev, son of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, was the child of the Master of the Universe and the Other Side. Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause. But as a great painter I will cause pain again if I must. Then become a greater painter.
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Jacob Kahn Character Timeline in My Name is Asher Lev
The timeline below shows where the character Jacob Kahn appears in My Name is Asher Lev. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7
...On Asher’s chair, the man has left a pencil drawing of Asher’s face, signing it “Jacob Kahn.” Asher sits down and quickly draws a sketch of Jacob Kahn’s face, signs it,...
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Kahn sighs. He tells Asher that they’re all crazy. Asher’s father will become his enemy. But...
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Kahn tells Asher that between now and March, he must go to the Museum of Modern...
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...the reproduction during the week and visits the museum each weekend. In March, he calls Jacob Kahn.
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Chapter 8
When Asher calls Jacob Kahn, Kahn grills him about his study of Guernica. Then Kahn gives his address and...
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...Rivkeh remembers that Asher had mentioned liking his work. The professor also told Rivkeh that Jacob Kahn is one of the world’s greatest living artists. He’d worked with Picasso in Paris...
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On Saturday night, Jacob Kahn calls. He tells Asher to bring his Guernica drawings and any others he wants....
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Asher finds Jacob Kahn’s building and signs in. The doorman takes Asher up to the fifth floor, commenting...
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Anna’s eyes are fixed on Asher’s sidecurls. She tells Jacob that he is “tricky and nasty” for not having told her. Jacob tells Anna that...
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Anna tells Asher that Jacob has seldom taken students, not since Hitler, when the students became unkind. She tells Asher...
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Jacob returns then with a drink for Anna and asks if they’ve become acquainted. Anna tells...
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After Jacob Kahn reviews Asher’s drawings, he looks sad. He tells Asher that he could paint portraits...
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While Asher waits, he studies Kahn’s paintings and observes that none of them include representational forms; their subject, rather, is “color...
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Jacob goes on to tell Asher that there’s not too much else he can teach him...
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For the sake of honesty, Jacob adds that he isn’t really doing this for the Rebbe’s sake. He’s doing it because...
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After he sees Anna out, Jacob returns and tells him that Anna found him in Paris when he was starving. But...
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Kahn and Asher spend the rest of the day talking about art and watching each other...
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...for word of his father. In the meantime, Asher studies Michelangelo’s David and returns to Jacob Kahn’s once again.
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Chapter 9
...her husband, and Asher moves into Uncle Yitzchok’s house. Asher spends the summer traveling to Jacob Kahn’s studio two or three times a week. It’s an oppressively hot summer in New...
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One day Jacob Kahn tells Asher that there are only two ways of painting the world—the geometric approach...
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One day in July, Kahn takes Asher to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and they spend the day looking at...
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One Sunday morning at the end of July, Asher comes to Kahn’s apartment and finds a young woman there. Kahn explains that Asher will draw this woman...
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...shamefully bad. But Asher spends the whole day drawing the girl repeatedly in various poses. Kahn shows Asher the vast improvement between the first and last drawings. He tries to tell...
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...pimply-faced boy starts leaving cruel limericks about Asher and famous Jewish artists inside Asher’s Gemorra. Kahn tells Asher that his attempts at expressing his feelings are producing failures; he should spend...
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...of my journeys away from it and of the alien skills” he brings back from Kahn’s studio. Then he has a sudden idea. He draws a scene from Michelangelo’s Last Judgment,...
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...Aryeh. She becomes angry when Asher pleads with her to stay. When Asher talks to Kahn about it, Kahn tells him that there’s only so long the world will indulge him....
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...energy” and “fulfilled.” During these weeks, Asher paints many paintings of himself and his mother. Jacob Kahn watches in silence. When Asher bids his mother goodbye at the dock, he tells...
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Chapter 10
That summer, Asher goes with Jacob Kahn and his wife, Tanya, to Provincetown, Massachusetts. In the mornings, he stands on the...
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Asher begins to understand Kahn’s approach to painting. Kahn believes that trying to convert three-dimensional objects onto a two-dimensional canvas...
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Jacob Kahn also teaches Asher how to swim in the ocean. It reminds Asher painfully of...
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As they stand on the beach later that night, Jacob tells Asher that he must not become a “whore.” He says that Asher is already...
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...his time reading the Torah and Hasidic works. He fasts on Tisha b’Av. That day, Jacob invites him on a walk. He tells Asher that he has never understood fasting, despite...
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The next day, Jacob doesn’t get out of bed. Tanya calmly says that her husband is “in a mood,”...
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One day as Jacob and Asher visit a Cubist exhibit in Boston, Jacob shares some memories of Picasso. He...
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A few days later, Jacob drops off Asher at the Provincetown docks for a day of sketching. Later Asher sketches...
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Chapter 11
...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,...
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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...
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...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...
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After Asher’s parents return to Europe, Jacob tells Asher that he, Jacob, has made an enemy of Aryeh. Aryeh is convinced that...
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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....
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...the end of July. A few weeks later, he goes to Provincetown to join the Kahns. “[Jacob] missed you,” Tanya tells Asher.
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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...
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...for one critic who calls Asher a fraud, with “a menacing affinity for Picassoid forms.” Jacob Kahn is amused by this expression.
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Chapter 12
...Aryeh says that such people can be dangerous. When Asher brings up this conversation with Jacob, Jacob says that Asher should not be surprised by his father’s “aesthetic blindness.”
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...attend art exhibits, he begins carrying messages to other Ladover Jews at his father’s request. Jacob smiles at the Rebbe’s cleverness in recruiting Asher in this way.
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After the show, Jacob and Asher take a walk. Asher feels empty and horrified, not wanting to repeat himself...
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...they give up the discussion as futile. Rivkeh asks Asher if he is still seeing Jacob Kahn. Asher says that he hasn’t recently. When he looks out the window of his...
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Chapter 13
...its history and studying art in the churches and galleries. “Florence was a gift,” as Jacob Kahn had told him it would be. Watching evening descend on Florence is a “loveliness”...
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...again. He knows that his feeling of “incompleteness” would matter little to anyone else. Only Jacob Kahn would have been likely to detect it. But leaving the painting incomplete “would have...
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Chapter 14
...of his paintings, including the crucifixions, have already been sold. She also tells him that Jacob Kahn is recovering from major surgery. Asher thinks about how quickly everyone ages. He feels...
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...Rivkeh’s eyes are troubled. They walk together to the subway, and Asher goes to the Kahns’ apartment. Jacob Kahn’s face looks sunken, and he is “sickly pale.” Asher struggles to approach...
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