SOURCE: "A Way of Seeing: Chaim Potok and Tradition," in The Christian Century, May 16, 1984, pp. 515-18.

In the following essay, Timmerman examines the tension among individuality, personal growth, and the force of tradition in Potok's fiction.

During the past decade Chaim Potok has emerged not only as a pre-eminent American author, but also as one whose books are avidly and widely read. Why has this Jewish author whose books are openly religious in theme and tenor achieved such uncommon public success? Why does he appeal to this age, saturated as it is with the expressive realism that oozes from books, films and television? In a sense Potok addresses those very questions, for the central theme of all of his books has been the enduring and changing religious tradition of a people, and how that tradition shapes the present moment and is shaped by it. As a result, Potok's...