In the beginning of the chapter, Asher draws the yeshiva burning. This is the one that the communist Jews burned down when his grandfather was creating yeshivas. It seems that when Asher hears of something bad happening, he has to draw it. This is why he had to draw his mother during her illness. I think that it is his way of saying that the world isn’t beautiful.

It is strange how Asher was drawing in his book subconciously. Maybe Chaim Potok is trying to give hints that the gift is really from the other side. Also, the content of the picture which he drew in his book shows something. He drew the Rebbe with strange eyes. Maybe it isn’t showing that the gift is from the other side, but rather that Asher is drawing what he is feeling.

In chapter 5 Asher begins to explain why he can’t go to Vienna. He says how he can’t even paint his own street yet with all of its familiar people and places, so how could he ever paint a foreign one. Asher would be homesick if he moved to Vienna, but it would be in an artistic way. Asher thinks more about his art then his family’s needs.

Asher is beginning to perceive things differently know. He just began to notice how the crack in the paint on the wall made spidery fingers. Maybe Asher is beginning to notice how paint works now that he wants to use it to make his art. It may also be that the gift is becoming even more pronounced and that he is able to see things using the gift that he never saw before, and this is why he is able to draw so well.

Why does Asher’s mythic ancestor keep coming back in his dreams? What is he trying to tell Asher? Is he mad because Asher is making art? I think that Asher knows how his great grandfather would feel if he knew he was making pictures of the Rebbe. Asher’s great grandfather was a strict Hasidic Jew and so he would not approve of what Asher was doing. He would probably be more like Asher’s father and tell him to concentrate on his studies.