Chaim Grade and Hersh Rasseyner in My Quarrel
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Chaim Grade and Hersh Rasseyner in My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner and Yosl Rakover in Yasl Rakover Talks to God all share characteristics that connect them despite glaring differences and display the evolution of Jewish faith throughout the Holocaust. Their sense of Jewish pride links them as followers of God, which to them is paramount; above all else including pride for a country. Chaim, Hersh, and Yosl profess different, yet intertwined views of Judaism that show definitively that their different expressions of faith unite them despite the perceived dissimilarities. Over time, Chaim and Hersh both come to appreciate each other as comrades, and although Hersh fundamentally disagrees with Chaims views he is able to overlook that and appreciate Chaim as a human.
The dialogue between Chaim and Hersh is representative of the divulgence of Jewish ideological beliefs that began in the early part of the 20th century and continue today. In all three of the meetings described in My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner the two men argue. However, neither one of them is right. Rather, each of them is equally correct. It is impossible to declare without bias that Chaim is correct for his progressive attitude, or to state that Hersh is a better Jew for his devoutness to original religious thought.
Hersh Rasseyner, a devout Mussarist Poland, portrays a traditional view of Judaism. As much as he himself holds religious devotion vital, he also holds the failure of original faith and evolution to progressive faith of those around him as a personal failure to God. Much of the dialogue between Chaim and Hersh stems from their contradicting values. Hersh, a man of traditional Jewish principles, displays displeasure in Chaims transformation to progressive Judaism. Hersh establishes his cynicism in mankind in the third section of My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner and displays outrage when Chaim claims that he could weep when he sees the bronze statues because they represent the greatness of humanity and of the artists who created them.
For shame! How can you say such foolish things? So you could weep when you look at those painted lumps of matter? Why dont you weep over the charred remains of the Gaon of Vilnas synagogue? Those artists of yours, those monument-choppers, those poets who sang about their emperors, those tumblers who danced and played before the rulers – did those masters of yours even bother to think that their patron would massacre a whole city and steal all it had, to buy them, your masters, with gold the writer shows how the wicked man is the victim of his own bad qualities.