Free Will In Asher Lev's Struggle

591 Words3 Pages
Asher Lev, the main character in the book My Name is Asher Lev, faces many dilemmas on his road to becoming an individual and finding his destiny. Asher is the son of Rivkeh and Aryeh Lev. His father is the loyal servant to the Rebbe, while his mother stays at home to guide Asher and attends college. One of the main themes of the book that Asher Lev has to deal with in order to have freedom and be considered an individual is having his own free will versus his planned out destiny. This predicament is influenced mainly from his family, friends, and especially Jacob Kahn. A main cause of Asher Lev not being able to have free will versus destiny would be his father. Since Asher’s father is a loyal worker of the Rebbe, his father assumes and…show more content…
When Asher’s father does not support his talent, it shows the readers how it is hard for Asher to have his own free will within his family. While Asher paints all the time, his father tries to convince him that painting is a foolish waste of time and that he should grow up and make their family proud. Also when his father tells Asher in the morning while they eat breakfast, “it is a great honor to travel for the Rebbe”, it shows how his father wants him to travel for the Rebbe and carry the honor that his father thinks it is to serve for the Rebbe (9). This really complicates Asher’s free will because he wants to make his father proud and do the destiny that he has planned out, but Asher cannot decide what is right for him. His father even said to him that, “his father traveled for the Rebbe”, which shows how it is destiny for the men of Asher’s family to travel for the Rebbe and make the family name proud (10). All of this pressure and criticizing from his father makes it extremely hard for Asher to choose what he wants. He has trouble deciding if painting and having free will can make him happy, or if his destiny planned by his family will make him unhappy. However, as the book goes on Asher’s destiny begins to
Open Document