Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Chosen Period 5 Live Blog

1 comment:

alisonr2012 said...

I personally loved The Chosen. I thought it was the best book we have read this semester. I found it interesting and I know that this probably means nothing to some people but I found it almost better than Twilight. The Chosen has taught me a lot about life and Judaism. It has also taught me about silence. At the beginning of the book I thought that the silence between Reb and Danny was horrible and that no one should ever be raised in silence. By the end of the book I decided that the silence can help people grow and learn. No one really knows what that is like until they experience it. I think that we all experience silence like that for a short time but we can still learn from it. I went without talking to my parents for three days and in that time I could hear the silence and I could hear the pain I was putting my parents through. I enjoyed the silence because I was able to focus more on things and find a deeper meaning in simple things like school. I thought that Danny was The Chosen. At the end of the book Reb explained that Danny was born with a brilliant mind but that he had no soul. This makes me believe that not a lot of people are born like that so Danny was chosen to be that way. I also thought that Reb had the greatest influence on Danny. Even before Danny met Rueven he was reading books and doing what his father didn’t want. I think that the silence Reb created between him and his son allowed that to happen and that without Reb Danny wouldn’t have become a psychologist. Silence, I thought, was the most powerful symbol in the book. The silence between Reb and Danny was something that Rueven couldn’t get over and silence was in every chapter. Eyes were only really brought up in the first book but silence was in both the second and third books. The greatest factor contributing to Danny becoming a psychologist was being raised in silence. The silence allowed Danny to separate and expand his knowledge. If Danny hadn’t had the silence he wouldn’t have been able to learn about psychology. For the final poll question I believe that you can stop yourself from seeing things you don’t want to. I have learned a lot in the past couple of days and part of what I have learned is that you can control what you see. I can’t really explain why without going into a lot of details and I don’t want to post that. I thought that it was interesting at first that Danny and Rueven became friends. I never thought that two people that were so different could ever be friends. I believed that until I realized that that is how it is in all my friendships. We have things in common but we are so different. This book has changed my view on many things and it has opened my eyes to many things.