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Rav Yosef Cutler (the mashpia)
Uncle Yaakov is Rivkeh’s older brother. He does not appear directly in the story, but his death in a car accident when Asher is six is devastating to Rivkeh, to whom he was a paternal figure. He was a gentle, scholarly man whose catchphrase was, “What’s new in the world?” After his death, Rivkeh sometimes adopts his mannerisms or appeals to him in moments of distress.
Uncle Yaakov Quotes in My Name is Asher Lev
The My Name is Asher Lev quotes below are all either spoken by Uncle Yaakov or refer to Uncle Yaakov. 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 1 Quotes
“Asher, are you drawing pretty things? Are you drawing sweet, pretty things?”
I was not drawing pretty things. I was drawing twisted shapes, swirling forms, in blacks and reds and grays. I did not respond.
“Asher, are you drawing birds and flowers and pretty things?”
“I can draw you birds and flowers, Mama.”
“You should draw pretty things, Asher.”
“Shall I draw you a bird, Mama?”
“You should make the world pretty, Asher. Make it sweet and pretty. It’s nice to live in a pretty world.”
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Chapter 13 Quotes
Trapped between two realms of meaning, she had straddled both realms, quietly feeding and nourishing them both, and herself as well. I could only dimly perceive such an awesome act of will. But I could begin to feel her torment now as she waited by our living-room window for both her husband and her son. What did she think of as she stood by the window? Of the phone call that had informed my father of her brother’s death? Would she wait now in dread all the rest of her life, now for me, now for my father, now for us both—as she had once waited for me to return from a museum, as she had once waited for my father to return in a snowstorm? And I could understand her torment now; I could see her waiting endlessly with the fear that someone she loved would be brought to her dead. I could feel her anguish.
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Uncle Yaakov Character Timeline in My Name is Asher Lev
The timeline below shows where the character Uncle Yaakov appears in My Name is Asher Lev. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...only quieted when the Rebbe came to the apartment. Later, Asher learned that his Uncle Yaakov, his mother’s brother, had been killed in a car accident in Detroit, while traveling for...
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...Rackover starts coming to the apartment to clean and cook. Rivkeh was “almost destroyed” by Yaakov’s death. Afterward, she is almost unrecognizably thin, and her eyes look dead. She avoids everyone....
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...and Aryeh in the living room and explains to them that she wants to finish Yaakov’s work. It would be a victory for the sitra achra, she says, if Yaakov’s work...
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Chapter 2
...sister, Leah. At supper, Rivkeh has “a little of the dead look” she’d had after Yaakov’s death. Asher asks her about it, and she apologizes to him for being “such a...
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...while studying for an upcoming test. When Asher wakes her the next morning, she says, “Yaakov, I will pass the examination.” When her mind clears, she checks on Aryeh and sends...
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...But as it starts to snow heavily, Rivkeh frets, staring out the window and asking Yaakov to be an interceder for her with the Ribbono Shel Olom. Aryeh returns home, exhausted...
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...that night, he hears his mother in the living room, chanting the Psalms and asking Yaakov, “I am only a little girl. What do you want from me?” They have no...
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Chapter 4
...leave a great work incomplete?” She explains that she is studying Russian history because Uncle Yaakov was supposed to become a professor of Russian history. After she graduates from college, she...
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Chapter 6
...is now working toward a master’s degree in Russian affairs. She talks about her brother Yaakov. After their parents had died when the children were young, Yaakov had been like a...
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...has never visited the museum before, except to see an exhibit of Jewish manuscripts with Yaakov. “We never thought it was important,” she says. They go upstairs to the galleries; guards...
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...in front of the window in the middle of the night. He hears her begging Yaakov for intercession. Finally, a few days later, the Rebbe calls with the news that Aryeh...
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Chapter 11
...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....
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Chapter 13
...keep both alive. She had encouraged Asher’s drawing, kept herself alive by resuming her brother Yaakov’s work, and kept Aryeh alive by allowing him to resume his own journeys. He thinks...
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