8 — THE BULLETIN — Thursday, August 17,1989
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Are Tevye/Shylock two sides of the same coin?
By MICHAEL AJZENSTADT
"A fiddler on the roof Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Aanatevka, every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck. . . How do we keep our balance? That lean tell you in one word: Tradition!"
Michael Ajzenstadt visited Stratford, Ontario to see the 1989 production of The Merchant of Venice and also attended the Vancouver performance ol Fiddler On The Roof. He is a regular arts and music reviewer for The Bulletin.
These are the opening words that Tevye, the wise milkman, tells the audience, as the curtain rises on Fiddler on the Roof, that beloved musical written by Joseph Stein (book), Jerry Bock (music), and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics). And as traditions go, this one was not broken when Chaim (life) Topol addressed the audience as Tevye in Vancouver this summer.
Tradition. One simple world that conveys within it the essence of a nation and of a people who, from the beginning of history, have had to struggle, ftghti and battle in order to survive.
In various times and places, every Jewish person has carved his own niche in this tradition, emphasizing the gist of the faith, religion, and of what it is to be a Jew. As Sho-lem Aleichem, upon whose stories Fiddler is based, has said, "It's not easy to be a Jew." • i
I was able to encounter within a short space of time two quite different Jews in the theatre, each fighting in his own special way, to carve his own traditional niche, each solving similar problems in rather contrasting ways. These are Tevye in Fiddler and Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (at the Stratford Festival).
Comparing the two might seem like sacrilege to many. After all, how can one compare a Shakespearean character with one that comes from the world of the Broadway
musical? Aren't these two worlds apart from each other? Well, as Tevye might say, on the one hand, yes they are different, but on the other hand, they are not that different.
closely, we realize that above all these two Jews are survivors. In that they are quite similar.
Tevye tells Hava that he forbids her to talk with Fyedka, the Russian she
TOPOL as Tevye at Queen Elizabeth theatre and Brian Bedford as Shylock at Stratford Festival.
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Consider the general circumstances of their lives. Both Tevye and Shylock live in a gentile society, trying to avoid as much as possible any contact with the non-Jewish population of either Anatevka or Venice, respectively.
Both have female offsprings. Tevye has five daugh-, ters, Shylock only one. But Shylock's Jessica does the same thing that Tevye's Hava does — she runs away from home and marries a gentile.
How do these two rather different characters deal with this situation? How do they manage to survive within the gentile society that surrounds them? If we examine them
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loves. Hava runs away from home, marries Fyedka, and becomes a Christian. Tevye mourns the "death" of his daughter. "We have other daughters," he tells his wife, as he forbids her to talk with Hava or even to mention her name.
Shylock is different. When he finds Jessica has run away from home and married Lorenzo, he is more concerned about the fact that she has taken all his money.
Shylock does not seem to care about his daughter or for the fact that she has left her religion. His only concern is his money.
For both Tevye and Shylock the loss is enormous. But they learn to live with it, and almost completely to forgive, if not understand. As Hava and Fyedka come to bid Tevye goodbye, eventually he breaks down and murmurs to the young couple, "and G-d be with you." No, Tevye has not forgiven. There are parts of his tradition that he is not going to bend. But neither is he a fool. He realizes he can-' ii'ot deny hi^'bwh fl^sh and
Shylock appears to deny his own flesh and blood, albeit incompletely. Near the end of the play he is forced to bequeath all his property to Jessica and Lorenzo. Reluctantly, he agrees. He does so because he, like Tevye, must go on.
Both are full with a bursting life force that moves them onwards. Both react differently to this life force, and to the gentile society that surrounds them, which they spite.
But the uniqueness of the poor Tevye and the rich Shylock is that both survive. And survival is what the Jewish people do best.
When I asked Topol if he would like to play Shylock, he said: "No, it's an anti-Semitic play."
While I do not agree with him, I can see his point. After all Tevye and Shylock are really many worlds apart from each other. Or are they?
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From Page 1
munity," Reich said.
Jackson has remained in the public eye since he lost his bid for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination to Michael Dukakis. He is now contemplating running for mayor of Washington.
Hyman Bookbinder, who was longtime Washington
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Silverman has
— Gordon been named
national executive director of Na'amat UlS.A.^ succeeding Tehila Elperri. jta
representative for the American Jewish Committee before he joined the Dukakis presidential campaign, said he finds Jackson's remarks particularly disappointing, because during the past two years, Jackson had appeared to be making a concerted effort to reach out to the Jewish community and atone for past offenses.
"This statement is going to set him back a good bit," Bookbinder said. "He's going to find that he's lost a lot of ground that he was beginning to make up in recent years."
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SIDRA:EIKEV THE HEALING EFFECT OF "HEELING"
The Torah portion of Eikev is named for the word ''eikev" in the portion's first verse, ''Because (eikev) you listen to these laws and safeguard and keep them .. Eikev also means "heel." This gives rise to a number of commentaries by our Sages.
Among them:
a) Eikev refers to those mitzvos that people treat lightly and are "tread upon with their heels," or "are tossed under their heels. "The verse thus implies that those commandments, too, shall be obeyed.
b) Eikev alludes to the time just before the coming of Moshiach — "On the heels of Moshiach."
The verse is thus telling us that close to Moshlach's coming, Jews will surely obey G-d's commands. This is in keeping with the Torah's assurance that prior to Moshiach's coming the Jews will return to G-d.
When there are several commentaries on the same verse in the Torah, and especially on the same word, the explanations are interrelated. What then is the relationship between the two abovementi-oned comments on Eikev?
Immediately following the words "Because (eikev) you listen to these laws and safeguard and keep them" the Torah-goes on to state,"G-d yourL.:^rd will [therefore] keep his Sfvenant and kindness that He swore to your fathers."
Divine beneficence may come about in one of two manners:
a) It may be engendered as a result of the person's good actions he earns it, or it may be purely an act of G-d's kindness and benevolence, whereby He showers goodness even upon those who are unworthy.
b) G-d acts in a beneficent manner towards the Jewish people because of his covenant with, and his oath to, our forefathers, for which reason Jews must receive all manner of good, even if they are — Heaven forbid — unworthy, and even if G-d is not "feeling" particularly well disposed towards them.
It would seem that in this instance G-d has no choice, as it were, in the matter; He must provide the Jewish people with all manner of good because of the "covenant and kindness that He swore to your fathers."
This being so, how is it that the verse makes G-d's "covenant and kindness" dependent on the Jews' good behavior — "Because you listen ..." On the contrary, the whole point
of the covenant is that He will act kindly toward them even when their behavior is wanting?
Conversely, when Jews do indeed "listen to these laws," performing even those mitzvos that may be taken lightly, then it follows that they will earn G-d's beneficence. At such times for G-d to provide His benevolence to them because of His "Covenant, kindness and oath" becomes totally unnecessary?
By nature man enjoys that. which he worked for. Present a person with a gift that is wholly unearned and the recipient will accept it with a sense of shame, having done nothing to make himself worthy of the gift.
Since G-d desires to provide the Jewish people with complete goodness. He therefore established that all Divine beneficence should come as a "reward" for the person's service.
For this reason even that which the Jew receives as a result of the "covenant and kindness that He swore " must also be engendered by the person's spiritual toil as well.
Furthermore, when the person does indeed "listen to these laws" he then receives Divine beneficence that is truly limitless — in keeping with G-d's infinite kindness that He swore, "and not only a measure of reVar^cTditimen-surate with the person's limited degree of service.
The merit of a Jew's service is particularly felt at the conclusion of the exile, when Jews are "on the heels of the Moshiach."
For then the darkness of exile is particularly intense and the Jews' spiritual might is waning; at that time Jews perform mitzvos not out of any sense of personal delight, but out of self-sacrifice to G-d.
This quality found at the time when Jews are "on the heels of the Moshiach" also finds expression in the performance of those commands that a person tends to take lightly and "treads upon them with his heel."
When a person performs mitzvos out of a sense of self, he will then naturally differentiate between those mitzvos that he deems to be more important — the level of "head" — and those that he deems of lesser importance — the level of "heel."
When, however, mitzvos are performed solely because the person has accepted the Divine yoke, because G-d has so commanded, then "head" mitzvos and "heel" mitzvos will be performed with equal intensity.
From Page 6
Amram glimpsed the beauty of one of the women, and grabbed a ladder In the midst of his climb, he cried out, "A fire at R. Amram's." When the rabbis came running, they reproved him. "We have shamed you," they said (they'd shamed him into revealing his passion). And so he answered, "Better that you shame Amram in this world than you be ashamed of him in the next."' ^ ■■ ■ „^
How many of lis, half-way up that ladder, would have had the Courage to risk ourVeputations when silence \yould mean no one -—except G-d — need be the wiser?
ShabbaiShalom.
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