Photo Credit:
Chaim Topol as Tevye, and Norma Crane as his wife, Golde.

One of the things that characterizes the views of a Centrist is that very few things in life are black and white. Except for those Torah laws universally understood and accepted, things are pretty much grey.

It is because of this that one will see an occasional controversial view posted here. A view that either the right or the left (religiously or politically) will have trouble with. But since this blog is about trying to ascertain the truth, being controversial is not an impediment.

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For example, the play Fiddler on the Roof is often cited as anathema to a Torah Hashkafa. The story line follows the path of ‘Tevye the milkman’ as he evolves in his thinking about accepting non traditional sons in law. Especially their having met his daughters in non traditional ways without a Shadchan (matchmaker).

The 1st is an observant but unlearned man – Motel, the tailor – who has not studied Torah in depth and remains somewhat ignorant about Halacha. Tevye analyzes the relative merit versus debit of such a man marrying one of daughters in one of his famous ‘On the other hand’ soliloquies. He ends up with an acceptance of Motel for his daughter.

The 2nd daughter marries a free thinking socialist who is not religious at all. Tevya does the same thing here and accepts him too.

The 3rd daughter falls in love with a non Jew. Tevye goes through it one more time and this time to his credit he incompletely rejects the intermarriage of his daughter.

Unfortunately the play is sympathetic to the errant daughter and gives the impression that the right thing for Tevya to have done would have been to accept them the same way he accepted the other sons in law.

The bottom line of this play is that the Judaism of the unenlightened European Jew should be seen as archaic. Although sweetly portrayed the message is clear. Tolerance trumps tradition. So that to the extent that Tevye sticks to traditional Jewish values is to the extent that he errs. To the extent that he accepts the non traditional is to the extent that he is seen as doing the right thing. Rabbis that promote traditional Jewish values are symbolically ridiculed by portraying the community rabbi as a doddering old fool.

The reality of life in ‘the old country’ is that in the vast majority of cases the rabbi was anything but an old fool. To me that was an outrageous and disgusting thing to do.

And yet, I still loved that play. When I first saw it in back in the early 60s no one saw it negatively. In fact if I recall correctly it was used as a fundraiser for one of the religious schools. How does one reconcile that with the more or less accurate description of the message of that play being anathema to Torah?

I think the answer is the following. Although it was somewhat anti religious, it nevertheless portrayed life in the ‘Shtetel’ of Europe warmly – with a sense of nostalgia. We loved all those characters and saw them as our own relatives – our ancestors of just a few generations ago.

Many religious leaders nevertheless condemned it and never saw it as anything but anti Torah. But was that all it projected? Did all who saw that play have negative thoughts about traditional Judaism planted into their unconscious minds? Did its treatment of that end up creating or reinforcing negative thoughts about following Halacha – seeing it as primitive and not in concert with modern thought? I suppose it might have done so in some cases. But in other cases it inspired! Some Jews were actually moved to explore their roots. And in some of those cases it actually led some non observant Jews to become observant.

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Harry Maryles runs the blog "Emes Ve-Emunah" which focuses on current events and issues that effect the Jewish world in general and Orthodoxy in particular. It discuses Hashkafa and news events of the day - from a Centrist perspctive and a philosphy of Torah U'Mada. He can be reached at [email protected].