Rabbi Arnold Saltzman
Let’s face it. We are not going to fix everything that is wrong with the world at our service. We need a Shabbat to not obsess over the news and difficulties.
When everything seems overwhelming, what can we do? Music has always helped me; theater and art, as well as the beauty of religion at its best.
Fifty years ago, in 1964, a new musical with music by Jerry Boch, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein invited the world in to see the workings of Jewish life and culture. A work based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem, whose descendant, author Belle Kaufman, just died last week at the age of 103.
As a young student I was fascinated by this work and its magical quality, part of it being the choreography of Jerome Robins of West Side Story fame, and part the sets and costumes of Boris Aronson based on the work of Marc Chagall’s painting ‘The Fiddler’.
My father occasionally spoke about his Shtetl, Boznova, or as I thought it was called Bossa Nova, and my father’s memory of it was that it was one of poverty, sleeping on a bed of straw, working long hours, already a tailor when he was five or six, however looking for fun and mischief. He once climbed the rabbi’s cherry tree and ate the fruit on the tree leaving the pits hanging. Suddenly, the rabbi arrived, startled, my father fell from the tree leaving a permanent uneven crevice in his skull for the rest of his life, only covered up by good haircuts!
So, at first the idea of a show based on Shtetl life didn’t seem so wonderful, yet, what makes Fiddler so universal and lovable? What makes its story enjoyed by religious and non-religious, Rabbis and Nuns? This musical captures a special insular life which existed for generations and which had great richness and beauty. It is about a character many people can identify with: Tevya, the milkman. That now sounds like ancient history, since most people don’t know what that type of occupation is like. Today its all IT, Computers, Programs, High Tech, Security, Medical professionals…
The premise of the show: Life is shaky like a…like a Fiddler on the Roof…Menchen tracht, Gott Lacht! Man ponders, labors…as the saying goes and Gott laughs.
In a time of upheaval, with Pogroms, attacks, as part of the Tzar’s solution of 1/3 converted and assimilated, one third killed, and one third expelled, millions left Russia mostly to arrive in the United States and to become -composers of musicals!
Tevya is the father of five daughters (in some stories it is seven), so much so that anyone with five daughters is called Tevya! What to do – all life is consumed with finding matches for them, the right matches – and there was no J -Date, only Yenta, the Matchmaker, who occasionally slipped in a match with a guy who limped, or was older but richer. Please no students or secularists need apply. Yenta did not carry liability insurance.
And the daughters, the daughters! Dance with the laundry and a broom for a groom! As happy a scene as exists in all of Broadway. Now the tailor, Mottl, is the genius of his day, since he has discovered the sewing machine, a revolution. Mottl gets the nerve to ask for a daughter rather than wait for Yenta, the suggestion sometimes being that there might be a necessity for him to speak up, as Tzeitl is looking more round than usual.
Much is made of Tevya’s ‘If I were a Rich Man’ – he would ‘bidi, bibi, bum’ and sit in the synagogue and pray, since he could afford to do that. Little did Tevye know of the future, when people could earn more than the gross national product of a country. Tevya’s charm is built on faith, dedication, Judaism, tradition, the music and dance of a culture, and a world that did not judge him on the basis of his weight or physique, or the fashion runway!
Most importantly, Tevya has love in his life, married to Golda for twenty five years. Wow, at one time I thought that was terrific – now being married for thirty six years, they seem like a young couple!
Fiddler beckons us to immerse ourselves in a world of Jewish culture, religion, in a way which is universal: I know many Christians identify with its themes of loyalty, love, prejudice and war. The beauty of sharing this experience seems like a privilege for the audience, the viewer.
Carol Nissenson, “Mrs. Rabbi Saltzman,” was in the first National tour of Fiddler on the Roof with Jan Peerce, and later with Robert Merrill. For six months she performed in what was called a bus and truck company crossing the country singing ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ to the acclaim of audiences everywhere.
Fiddler is ‘the’ American musical which captures, the Sabbath, the culture, the humor, the arguing (pil-pul), the family life, the yearnings, the pain of non-acceptance, the reality of ‘lets get out of here – its dangerous!’ Lucky for me that Carol had that experience, as she came from a very American household, and she understood something profound from these experiences: Seminary students were not all that bad after all, maybe even likable!
The winds of war, the ticking clock, now digital, reminds us of how nothing stands still, yet we wander with our belongings, and our longings, our culture and beliefs portable wherever…
May the Lord Protect and defend you, May you be safe from harm, may you come to be in Israel a shining name…Hear our Sabbath Prayer…Amen.
Tradition…Life is a shaky as , as a ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ Shabbat Shalom.