Ash­er Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Rib­bono Shel Olom, the Mas­ter of the Uni­verse. Ash­er Lev is an artist who is com­pul­sive­ly dri­ven to ren­der the world he sees and feels even when it leads him to blas​phe​my​.In this stir­ring and often vision­ary nov­el, Chaim Potok traces Asher’s pas­sage between these two iden­ti­ties, the one con­se­crat­ed to God, the oth­er sub­ject only to the imagination.

Ash­er Lev grows up in a clois­tered Hasidic com­mu­ni­ty in post­war Brook­lyn, a world suf­fused by rit­u­al and revolv­ing around a charis­mat­ic Rebbe. But in time his gift threat­ens to estrange him from that world and the par­ents he adores. As it fol­lows his strug­gle, My Name Is Ash­er Lev becomes a lumi­nous por­trait of the artist, by turns heart­break­ing and exul­tant, a mod­ern classic.