The chosen door Chaim Potok

Book 1

The book is about the friendship between two boys. In the 2nd world war, the Jewish people were very hated. The American government decides to bring those people together with baseball leagues. So there’s a baseball game between Reuven’s team and Danny’s team (Hasidim). They’ve been warned several times by scholars for the reputation of the Hasidic.
The Hasidim thinks they are the only good persons and they came to teach Reuven’s team a lesson. During the game there’s a lot of hate. When it’s Reuven’s turn to pitch he sees Danny on front of him grinning, and when he throws the ball for the third time, Danny swings it right in his face. He has to go to the hospital. Because there’s some glass in his eyes he has to stay there a while just for precaution. He meets there two other patients. Billy a blind boy who was involved in a car accident, and mister Savo.

While Reuven is resting is his bed, he noticed that someone is standing asides of him. He looks up and sees Danny. He came to apologize, but Reuven became angry and sends him away. He talks about it with his father and he says that he must forgive him because that’s written in the Talmud. (Kind of bible for the Jewish) So the next day Danny came to visit he accepts his apologize and let him explain the situation. The become friends. Danny visits him a few times, and they’re talking about their interests etc. They both like to read.

Book 2

Reuven’s back home now. He can’t stop thinking of Danny. He likes him, and he doesn’t act like a Hasidim at all, but more like an apokorism. He asks his father about Danny and he explains a whole history of the Jewish. In that story he explains why Reb Saunders (his dad) is such an important man. And he tells him that Danny is a very lonely boy who needs a friend.
Later Danny came to visit Reuven and asks him to come over his house because his father wants to meet him. He accepts the offer and goes with him. While there are walking to his house, Danny tells about his father. Why he’s such a great man, and that he is a Tzaddik, a kind of messenger of God. They arrive in the synagogue and are waiting for Reb Saunders. Reuven didn’t feel himself comfortable, because everyone is talking Yiddish and everybody stares at him. When Reb Saunders with his other son is walking into the holy halls, everyone stopped talking, without a signal or something. Reb starts to talk with him, about his eye and mathematics. Then finally Reb starts to talk about the Talmud. At the end he asks Danny what he has to say. And Danny told him what was wrong about the service. But one thing he didn’t noticed and Reb turns to Reuven. He asks HIM what was wrong in his speech about geometry. Reuvens answers the question right and he build up a kind of respect by the people in front of him. At the end, Reuven noticed that Reb and Danny haven’t exchanged a single word.

Danny tells Reuven that he likes to read and that he studies German. They decide to go to the library to read. On the day that he’s again with Danny’s father, Reb suggests quietly that Danny might go down to bring a cup of tea. Now they are alone, Reb tells him he know everything about their library visits. He asks to tell him what kind of books he’s reading and Reuven doesn’t know anything to say. He decides to tell him everything, about the meeting with his father, about the books that he’s suggesting to read etc. Later he tells Danny about they’re conversation, and danny’s a bit of shocked. And Reuven asks him about his father, he says it’s very strange why he confronts HIM with it and not his own sun. Danny says they just don’t talk.
Reb Saunders and Reuven’s dad became ill on the same day. And two days before Reuven’s final examination, his father suffered a heart attack. Because his father has to stay there, Reuvens is moved in Saunders’s house. While he was there he was talking about Freud (a book) with Danny. And he becomes mad, because everything is contradicted with what he has learned. In September, Danny en Reuven entered the Hirsh College.

Book 3

Reuven tells his father that he wants to become a Rabbi. Reuven’s father is a Zionist. And later he’s holding a speech in front of thousands of people. Reb Saunders heard about that speech and forbids Danny to see Reuven again. The didn’t speak to each other at all for a long time. And Reuvens starts to hate him. He began to study the Talmud, and became a very good student. While he was explaining some passages of the Talmud, he could see Danny nodding, and smiling. The Zionist group became increasingly active, and after a recent graduate was killed in the fighting around Jerusalem, their wasn’t a sign of the anti-Zionist group anymore. Later Danny came over to his table on school and asks him to help him with his experimental psychology. They become friends again, and Danny told him that he still hasn’t spoken with his father at all. Danny tells Reuven that he wants to study in Colombia. Reuven went over to Danny’s house and hadn’t seen Reb Saunders since the day that Danny began to speak at him, but he dislikes his father. He talks about Danny with his father. His father explains why Reb Saunders doesn’t speak at him. He says it’s a way of bringing up. In the mean time Danny’s father kept asking why Reuven didn’t come over anymore. And later Reuven decides to visit Danny and his father. While he was their Danny’s father, Reb explains why he hasn’t talked at him. He must find his own soul. Then he turns to Danny and he asks him to forgive him. He says that he knows about Danny’s plans to go to the university, and that he doesn’t want to marry with the girl they picked. His father accepts everything.