Reb Saunders

Reb Saunders is the main antagonist of the 1967 novel The Chosen

Biography
Reb Saunders personifies the Hasidic rebbe (from "rabbi," or teacher) and personifies strict, traditional, Orthodox Judaism. He led his followers out of Russia to the United States to escape physical persecution by the secular authorities. The Reb and his disciples devote themselves to a life similar to that led by their ancestors in the eighteenth century, including strict, ultra-Orthodox religious rules and customs and a unique style of dress, including long black coats, round fur hats, and Jewish prayer shawls underneath their clothes. They remain largely isolated from the outside, secular world, believing that their religious practices are vastly more important than world knowledge and, thus, must be protected from secular threats. Reb Saunders and his congregation expect that Danny, his son, will follow the Hasidic tradition and assume his father's position.

The Reb acknowledges that Danny is brilliant and that it would be fruitless to try to rein in his abilities. This decision does not come without a price, however. By the last scene in the novel, the Reb is described as a weakened, tired man whose "dark eyes brooded and burned with suffering." Even though he accepts that Danny will not follow in his footsteps as leader of his people, the "loss" of his son takes a great toll on him. Just as Danny finds it difficult to reconcile his secular interests with his religious obligations, Reb Saunders has difficulty reconciling his responsibility as a tzaddik to his people with his role as a father. He tells Danny, "A wiser father . . . may have done differently. I am not . . . wise." He does remain the unquestioned leader of his congregation, however. For example, when he authoritatively announces Danny's decision not to become the next tzaddik, "no one dared to challenge" the decision.

Quotes
"The world kills us! The world flays our skin from our bodies and throws us to the flames! The world laughs at Torah! And if it does not kill us, it tempts us! It misleads us! It contaminates us! It asks us to join in its ugliness, its impurities, its abominations! The world is Amalek! It is not the world that is commanded to study Torah, but the people of Israel! Listen, listen to this mighty teaching." His voice was suddenly lower, quieter, intimate. "It is written, 'This world is like a vestibule before the world-to-come; prepare thyself in the vestibule, that thou mayest enter into the hall.' The meaning is clear: The vestibule is this world, and the hall is the world-to-come. Listen. In gematriya, the words 'this world' come out one hundred sixty-three, and the words 'the world-to-come' come out one hundred fifty-four. The difference between 'this world' and 'the world-to-come' comes out to nine. Nine is half of eighteen. Eighteen is chai, life. In this world there is only half of chai. We are only half alive in this world! Only half alive!"

"My father himself never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me with silence. He taught me to look into myself, to find my own strength, to walk around inside myself in company with my soul. . . . One learns of the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul. And it is important to know of pain, he said. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, our indifference toward others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the Universe. . ..