Paper Assignment

Introduction

Chaim Potok's novel The Chosen presents a rich, nuanced view of the Jewish faith as it was experienced in the melting pot of New York City in the post-World War I1 era. Although narrated in a single voice, that of Reuven Maker, the novel in its various characters (David and Reuven Maker and Reb Saunders and his son Danny) presents a diversity of viewpoints on how best to live a good human existence in the Jewish faith. Throughout the novel the pursuit of the good within this faith takes place in the context of suffering.

In this regard, the novel is a meditation on the role that suffering plays in the formation of human values, a question that we have considered in other religions of this course as well. Your task in this assignment will be to develop and substantiate a thesis on how the novel's view of the relationship between suffering and values correlates or contrasts with the views found in another religion studied in this course.

Assignment

For this assignment, you will need to do the following:

1. Identify those parts of the novel that deal with suffering and the formation of values. It is best to choose one character (Danny, Reb Saunders, Reuven, David Malter) and consider how his particular experience of suffering gives rise to values. Consider the following
questions:

• What particular value(s) is/are shown to come out of the suffering?

• Is suffering necessary to produce that value?

• What role does the person's religious faith play in this process?

• Within that person's Judaic faith, how is the Sacred related to suffering and the production of values? Does the Sacred cause suffering? Does the Sacred allow suffering? Do values originate in the Sacred? Or do values come from elsewhere?

2. Now consider how this theme of suffering, values, and the Sacred is viewed within one other tradition (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, or Hinduism) that we have studied in this course.

3. On the basis of what you have discovered in steps one and two above, develop a thesis on how the view of suffering, values, and the Sacred within the novel compares/contrasts to the view of the same within one of the other traditions you have studied in this course.

4. Write a focused, clearly organized, and substantially argued paper in which you demonstrate how a Judaic view of suffering, values, and the Sacred found in Chaim Potok's The Chosen is related to the view found within another traditions studied in this course. Your paper should be written for a peer in this class who has also read the novel and is acquainted with the paradigms that we have used to explain religion.

Length, Format, and Sources

Your paper should be:

1. Three to four pages long (typed, double-spaced)

2. Have an introduction (with thesis), body (with evidence), and a conclusion.

3. All sources should be documented with parenthetical citation (source page number)

4. The evidence backing your thesis concerning suffering, values, and the Sacred

a. at least four substantial references to the novel

b. at least one article from a reference work (e.g The Encyclopedia of Religion)

c. at least two references taken from our textbook (Smith).

d. one electronic source.

5. You should include a Works Cited page.

6. Your work in this paper must be your own. You may discuss this paper with classmates, but your You must acknowledge any information you have derived from another source.

If you make use of another person's words, you must place them in quotation marks and cite the source. Plagiarism will be penalized with a grade of zero for the entire assignment and will be reported to the Executive Director of Center for Residential Living and Leadership (Bradley University Student Handbook).