My Name is Asher Lev Education Quotes

Rivkeh becomes obsessed with studying after the death of her brother Yaakov, and she works to instill in Asher a similar tendency towards scholarly efficiency. Unfortunately, this doesn't exactly sink in with Asher. Or if it does, all that efficiency gets put towards painting.

We learn relatively early on in the book that Asher isn't much of a student. He fails arithmetic tests and draws in his Chumash and is generally the shame of the yeshiva. Given that he comes from such scholarly stock, this comes across as ironic to most of the other congregants.

This quote underscores the collective disappointment the community shares in Asher's inability to live up to the pious and scholarly attitudes of his fancy father. Come on, Ash, get it together, man.

Aryeh's disapproval of Asher's gift is particularly obvious here. Painting isn't exactly a scholarly pursuit—at least not in his opinion—and he wishes that his son could be someone different and more studious, or at least studious-seeming.

Asher is always distracted from his yeshiva homework by the opportunity to study art history, which he gobbles up in a way that he's never before gobbled up any yeshiva topic. Although he tries to fight it, Asher will always be an artist.

Jacob Kahn says this to Asher when he first takes Asher on as a student, adding some credence to the commonly-held belief that great artists cannot be taught. They can be encouraged and shown a few tricks of the trade, but the only way to get an education in art is to make it your darn self.

Jacob Kahn explains the essentials of what it means to be a good artist; juxtaposing the education he's giving Asher with a traditional Hasidic education. This is especially ironic considering that Asher has rejected his own Hasidic education.

Jacob Kahn praises Asher with this quote, and it's true: the one realm of study in which Asher has excelled is the study of art and art history.

Asher attempts to give Aryeh an education in the basics of painting when Aryeh expresses some interest in learning. But true to the history of their highly strained father-son dynamic, Aryeh lacks the ability to understand Asher's world.

Anna Schaeffer tells Asher this after his final show, the one in which Brooklyn Crucifixion I and II appear. This signifies that Asher has surpassed his instructor in terms of artistic ability—he is now the one who's fit to teach Jacob Kahn. And he's also about to make Schaeffer rich. We can picture her rubbing her hands together like an evil villain. Except she's not evil. You get the point.