Meeting the Fiddler...On the Roof and in Our Lives.

Meeting the Fiddler…
On the Roof and in Our Lives
The image of “the fiddler on the roof” has become so well established in our culture, it’s
hard to remember that it is a relative newcomer to our vocabulary of symbols. However,
beneath this modern incarnation of the rooftop fiddler, there is a tangle of ancient and
sacred historical roots.
In the complex system of Jewish
iconography, stringed instruments
like the fiddle are among the oldest
symbols for the voice of the human
soul. Consider, for example, this
painting of fiddles hanging in a
grove of trees (shown at right),
which was discovered in the archaic
synagogue of Czernowitz
(Chernivtsi, in modern Ukraine).
From the Czernowitz synogogue, Ukraine,
This painting is a reference to
now housed at the Center for Jewish Art, Jerusalem
Psalm 137, which was dedicated by
the prophet Jeremiah to the musician-poet King David. We usually think of King David
playing a harp, because the ancient Hebrew word kinnor has been translated as “harp” for
centuries. But it is equally possible that David’s stringed instrument was played by
bowing, as well as plucking, much like the rebab, an ancient stringed instrument that is
still played in the Middle East. And indeed, the word kinnor has been designated to mean
“fiddle” as well as “harp” in modern Hebrew, thereby removing any distinction in the
Hebrew language between the harp and the fiddle (which, by the way, is simply the
Germanic word for the Latinate “violin”).
But back to those fiddles hanging in the trees… Psalm 137 commemorates the exile of
the Jews following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, and its text is
eerily resonant with the story of Fiddler on the Roof:
By the rivers of Babylon we lay down and wept
when we remembered Zion.
There on the willows
we hung our kinnor,
for there our captors asked us for songs.
Our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
But O, if I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
The Fiddler – page 1
© 2013 by Barbara Hort, Ph.D.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not make of Jerusalem
my highest joy.
Thus, it appears that stringed instruments have carried the songs of joy, sorrow and
yearning for centuries of Jewish history. We can imagine that this is because of the
stringed instrument’s capacity (especially in the case of the fiddle) to convey anguish,
sweetness, despair, and hope — the essential expressions of a human soul that remembers
how rejoice even as it suffers, much as the Jews have learned to do. Through centuries of
persecution and wandering, the Jews have miraculously remembered to savor the gifts of
life. “God would like us to be joyful, even when our hearts lie panting on the floor…”
As a cultural symbol and a personal icon, the fiddle held enormous allure for the young
Jewish writer, Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, now known to us as Sholom Aleichem.
Born in 1859 in the portion of the Russian Empire that we presently call the Ukraine,
Sholom Aleichem described his reverence for the violin in 1902, in an autobiographical
story called “The Fiddle.” Here is an excerpt from that story:
The fiddle...is an instrument that is older than all other instruments. The first fiddler
in the world was Tubal Cain or Methuselah, I am not sure which. You may know, you
study such things in heder. The second fiddler was King David. The third, a man
named Paganini, also a Jew. The best fiddlers have always been Jews. I can name you
a dozen. Not to mention myself.... They say I don’t play badly, but how can I
compare myself to Paganini? Paganini, we are told, sold his soul to the devil for a
fiddle. He never would play for the great of the world – the kings and the princes – no
matter how much they gave him. He preferred to play for the common people in the
taverns and the villages, or even in the woods for the beasts and birds. Ah, what a
fiddler Paganini was!
At the same time that Sholom Aleichem’s stories were sweeping the world of Jewish
culture, another brilliant Jewish artist was growing up in the portion of the Russian
Empire that is now called Belorussia. Born Moishe Shagal in 1887, we know him today
as Marc Chagall, the name he took when he moved to Paris to pursue his incandescent
gift for making art.
By the time Chagall began to paint, Sholom Aleichem’s writing had become extremely
well known, especially in the realm of Jewish culture that suffused Chagall’s work and
consciousness. So it is very likely that Chagall was familiar with “The Fiddler” story, as
well as the rest of Aleichem’s work. But even if Chagall never read “The Fiddler,” it is
clear from the writings of the two men that they perceived a similar power and nuance in
the music of the fiddle. This, for example, is from Aleichem in “The Fiddler”:
I only heard a singing, a sighing, a weeping, a sobbing, a talking, a roaring – all sorts
of strange sounds that I had never heard in my life before. Sounds sweet as honey,
The Fiddler – page 2
© 2013 by Barbara Hort, Ph.D.
smooth as oil, kept pouring without end straight into my heart, and my soul soared
far, far away into another world, into a paradise of pure sound.
And here is what Chagall had to say about the fiddle playing of his uncle Neukh:
My head floats gently around the room by itself./
Transparent ceiling. Clouds and blue stars
penetrate along with the smell of the fields, the
stable and the roads./ I’m sleepy./ I’m content to
pick up the crusts of bread, the spoon and eat my
supper, trembling.
Whether or not Chagall was directly inspired by
Aleichem’s writing in “The Fiddler,” it is clear that
Chagall’s personal passion for the fiddle led him to a
momentous inspiration in 1908, when he created his
first work in a long series, which he called “The
Seated Violinist” (pictured at right).
Four years later, Chagall painted what would become
The Seated Violinist, 1908
his most famous fiddler, and the first whom he would
place upon a roof. Entitled quite simply “The
Fiddler,” this painting (pictured below left) was to ignite a theme in Chagall’s work that
would appear in his paintings for many years.
Chagall’s
fiddlers came
in a variety of
colors,
including
“The Green
Fiddler,”
painted in
1923 and
shown at
right.
The Green Fiddler, 1923
The Fiddler, 1912
And there was also a “Blue Fiddler,” painted in 1947, and shown below at left.
The Fiddler – page 3
© 2013 by Barbara Hort, Ph.D.
Chagall’s fiddlers were not always the main
characters in his paintings. In fact, they often
appeared (rather like the Fiddler character in
Fiddler on the Roof) as enigmatic companions to
the proceedings. Consider, for example,
Chagall’s Tree of Life, painted in 1948 and shown
below, with the fiddler enlarged in the inset:
Blue Fiddler, 1947
Chagall was also aware of the
paradoxical nature of the fiddler and his
sacred instrument. Not only could it
capture the infinite marvels of human
life, it could also express the mystery of
death and our reactions to it. Below,
for example, is his painting “Le Mort”
(“The Dead One”), painted in 1924:
Le Mort, 1924
Chagall’s rooftop fiddlers had become iconic by the 1960’s, when the Jewish-American
playwright Joseph Stein was hired to write a novel based on Sholom Aleichem’s Tevye
and His Daughters. Stein’s novel, which was designed to be the basis for a new
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© 2013 by Barbara Hort, Ph.D.
Broadway musical, was originally supposed to be called Tevye. But for reasons that have
eluded my investigative skills, the novel was given a more potent symbolic title that has
become a tradition of its own — Fiddler on the Roof. Stein’s novel, combined with
Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics, finally put into explicit words the implicit essences of Marc
Chagall’s rooftop fiddlers, Sholom Aleichem’s paean to fiddle music, and King David’s
fiddle-laden trees by the waters of Babylon.
Of course, there are an infinite number of potential meanings for the rooftop fiddler, as
there are for any archetypal image. But let’s begin with those that pertain most closely to
the context of Fiddler on the Roof and its Jewish heritage.
There is a specific blend of courage and whimsy, audacity and poignancy, tenacity and
sensitivity that has evolved in the Jewish people throughout their centuries of cultural
tradition, religious devotion, and secular persecution. One might say that there is a way
in which the Jewish culture and consciousness have been refined and honed by their
centuries of suffering, much as fine metal is tempered by a searing fire. Mind you, it is
not an enviable gift to have one’s collective soul “refined” in this way. As Tevye
remarks in one of his conversations with God, “It’s true that we are Your chosen people.
But once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?”
It is also important to observe that this remarkable combination of traits is not unique to
the Jews. In theory, it is available to any group of human beings who are able to
withstand the suffering that is inflicted upon them, while still sustaining their sense of
identity, purpose, and hope. Caught between the afflictions of their circumstances and
the promises of a better future, these are the peoples who manage to find a balance
between the traditions that define and sustain them, and the brave innovations that will
enable them to incarnate their dreams.
Such peoples must dance with a foot in each of two worlds — the past and the future, the
known and the unknown, the traditional and the innovative, the material and the spiritual.
It requires a nimbleness of heart, body and mind to live in this way, to fiddle upon the
roof of this precarious place. Fortunately, many peoples who have found themselves
upon this precipice have also found themselves accompanied by what a Jungian would
call a psychopomp, which is the Greek word for “s/he who accompanies and conducts
souls between worlds.”
This is precisely what the Fiddler character seems to be in Fiddler on the Roof, as his
sacred instrument gives voice to the full range of feeling that his people are experiencing
while they attempt to navigate among the various worlds and forces that are surrounding
them. No wonder we feel relieved at the end of the play, when Tevye invites the Fiddler
to accompany the Anatevkans to the new worlds that await them.
When we step back and consider the many groups of immigrants who have come to the
United States since its inception — most of them refugees from the ravages of culturally
sanctioned persecution — we see “Anatevkans” of many origins. That is, there are many
immigrant peoples who have sung and danced on the precipice with their rooftop
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© 2013 by Barbara Hort, Ph.D.
Fiddlers, and who have achieved some sense of stability and resolution on American soil.
Puritan and Quaker, Italian and Irish, Chinese and Mexican, dissident and homosexual —
America has welcomed countless peoples fleeing culturally sanctioned persecution, each
carrying little more than their rich traditions and their courageous dreams.
This, I suppose, is one of the reasons why Fiddler of the Roof is beloved by so many
people — people of all colors, creeds, cultures, and identities. No matter who our
ancestors were, no matter where they came from or what they suffered, the truth is that
we have all suffered from some kind of culturally sanctioned discrimination or
persecution. We may not have experienced a pogrom or a Holocaust, but if we are honest
with ourselves, we realize that we are the refugees from some form of societal affliction,
some kind of culturally sanctioned disapproval, discrimination, persecution, or outright
abuse. Sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, militant fundamentalism of religion or
politics — these are among the myriad ways that human beings can shun and demonize
each other, and we have all been the targets of one or more of these cultural afflictions.
When our cultural afflictions become intolerable, it is our healthy human instinct to seek
comfort and safety in our clans — either the clans we were born into or the clans we have
subsequently recognized and chosen as our own. Within our clans, we can immerse
ourselves in the values, symbols, and rituals that honor our essential identities. And at
the same time, we are called to find some context of greater meaning and purpose, some
sense of ourselves as characters in a story that is larger than our small lives. In addition,
we are challenged to find and function in some larger community — hopefully one that
will support both our traditions and our dreams.
In the best sense, then, we are all the wounded refugees of past afflictions, the grateful
members of our chosen clans, and the new arrivals in our chosen communities…just like
the Anatevkans at the end of Fiddler on the Roof. We recognize as our own the
Anatevkans’ ongoing challenge of maintaining a balance in this precarious place, this
ever-changing world of cherished values and evolving possibilities. And like the Fiddler,
we try to experience and express, moment by moment, the joy and anguish, the despair
and hope, and the sorrow and the whimsy that comprise the voice of the human soul.
Sholom Aleichem, Marc Chagall, Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Jerome
Robbins, and King David himself comprehended and shared with us the essential truth of
the Fiddler’s story, as artists are able to do. And through the work of those artists, and all
the artists who bring this great story to life, we have the opportunity to grasp and enjoy its
sacred gifts as well. L’Chai’im!
[Note: Much of the background content in this essay is owed to the fine research of
Mirjam Rajner in her brilliant article “Chagall’s Fiddler,” published in Ars Judaica,
September 2005, pp. 119-132. The rest of the references are owed largely to my trusty
research assistant, Google.]
The Fiddler – page 6
© 2013 by Barbara Hort, Ph.D.