I will go wherever the truth leads me. It is secular scholarship, Rebbe; it is not the scholarship of tradition. In secular scholarship there are no boundaries and no permanently fixed views.” Lurie, if the Torah cannot go out into your world of scholarship and return stronger, then we are all fools and charlatans. I have faith in the Torah. I am not afraid of truth.

After the publication of Old Men At Midnight he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He returned to Philadelphia in 1977. [page needed] Brought up to believe that the Jewish people were central to history and God's plans he experienced a region where there were almost no Jews and no anti-Semitism yet whose religious believers prayed with the same fervor that he saw in Orthodox synagogues at home.

Potok is most famous for his first book The Chosen a 1967 novel which was listed on The New York Times’ best seller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3400000 copies.