Chaim Potok was born in New York City on February 17, 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression. His father, Benjamin Max Potok, was a businessman, while his mother, Mollie Friedman Potok, ultimately pursued a graduate school education. Out of his extremely Orthodox Jewish family life— rooted in Talmudic study and the mystical traditions of the Cabala and the Zohor, and always at odds with the prevailing secular culture—Potok developed the materials and themes that have animated all his novels.

Potok graduated samma cum laude from Yeshiva University in 1950 with a bachelor's degree. By 1954 he had earned a rabbinical degree from Jewish Theological Seminary. He served as a military chaplain in Korea from 1956 to 1957 and then completed his secular education at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965, graduating with a doctorate in philosophy. As a Conservative rabbi, writer, educator, editor, and military chaplain...