Our local Fayetteville Technical Community College put on the Broadway Production of Fiddler on the Roof in fall 2008. The Director, Dennis Johnson, asked my daughters and I to choreograph it, and it was a once in a lifetime experience. A few months later, my daughter Casiphia, was the only audience member to meet and talk to Topol! She prayed that she would! What a thrill!
The response to Fiddler On The Roof, in our small city has been powerful. I am convinced that what audiences have experienced, and have been so moved by is the presence of the glory of God. The beauty of the music and the joyfulness of the dances are a delightful arts experience. The power of these performances arises from the great depth of the musical.
In an age when ambivalence and relativism rule, our communities struggle to find a center. The village of Anatevka is a community which still has a center. Although not a prosperous village, the heart and soul of the town draw and warm the viewer. That heart and that soul are the presence of God in the life of the village. The Jews of Anatevka have a covenant relationship w/ God.
The reality that the villagers experience on a day to day basis has a center. Their reality arises from the revelation given by the God of their Covenant. Their family unit, their business life, and all their other dealings are established by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There is tremendous security in that.
The people of Anatevka are a cast of personalities, individuals with a spectrum of temperaments, strengths and weaknesses, yet all known to their Creator, and connected to Him and to one another as a result.
The traditions, celebrations, & feasts connect the Jews with cords of love. The Sabbath and the Sabbath Prayer ground the rest of the week and make a meaningful time and place for each family that carry them through the seasons and their entire lifetime.
The world of Anatevka is full of struggle, yet it still has meaning and hope. Male and female are still united tenaciously in marriage. Young love causes celebration and hope for the future. Human struggles still have meaning, and faithfulness to God is still valued. The faith of the Jewish village people has not been dislodged from its foundation by new philosophies of chance and impersonal forces. It still has a center. The response of audiences to this play demonstrates how essential this is to human beings.
The faithfulness of Tevye to his God is warming, yet full of irony, for God is silent for him, and the instigator of suffering, as well. Yet Tevye continues to revere Him, although he takes Him to task for all the trials that befall him. Tevye knows a little of his Holy Book; he is a hard-working man. And like the rest of the village which is almost Medieval in its lack of education and advancement, they labor and have little opportunity for study or for recreation. He is not aware of an ancient enemy, who is not made of flesh and blood, and who is bent on the destruction of God’s chosen people, in order to attack God Himself. Tevye doesn’t know the writings of the prophet Joel, either, that describe the sufferings of the nation of the Jews. He is not aware of the prophesied restoration of Israel and the honor that Isaiah foretells that is coming for the nation.
The plight of the Jews, that they are the Chosen people, yet have suffered contempt from the world is paramount in the last scene, as the Jews are forced out of Anatevka, when the Rabbi’s son says that they have been waiting for the Messiah for a long time, and wouldn’t this be a good time for Him to come? The Rabbi states that they will have to wait somewhere else.
The hope for Messiah speaks of deliverance, and for the villagers it has been a hope deferred. Yet they continue to revere the God that they know and to wait, accepting their identity, one that arose from a covenant by an ancestor of ages ago.
The longing for deliverance rings true with the viewer. All know that things are not as they should be. Every person longs for another world where the lion will lay with the lamb. Deliverance and Redemption are the desire of every person’s heart. For Tevye, and for us, the Prophets speak of the second coming of Messiah, a Conquering Messiah. The Prophet Isaiah tells how this Messiah follows the first Suffering Messiah. Deliverance has come and will come a second time.
Our hearts are knit with Tevye and his family and his village. This nation is our older brother, and redemption came through them, and will come again.
Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov, and Lacheim to the audiences, and to the cast of Fiddler on the Roof.
No comments:
Post a Comment