The Book of Lights
The Book of Lights is a 1981 novel by Chaim Potok about a young rabbi and student of Kabbalah whose service as a United States military chaplain in Korea and Japan after the Korean War challenges his thinking about the meaning of faith in a world of "light" from many sources. Synopsis The novel's central character is Gershon Loran, a young rabbi who is "the product of a parochial New York Jewish upbringing," who is "irresistibly drawn to the study of the Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah." Raised by an aunt and uncle after his parents are killed in 1937, in terrorist cross-fire in Palestine, Gershon is taught that Judaism has made "a fundamental difference in the world." He later serves as a U.S. military chaplain at the end of the Korean War in Korea and in Japan, countries "where Judaism has played no part, has had no reality, has never existed," and yet countries that seem to be touched by the light he had experienced through his studies of Kabbalah. Here he begins to see his faith, his people, and himself in a new light, in a way that casts doubt on his beliefs and his thinking. Described as