Lessons from “Fiddler on the Roof” …

“Matchmaker, matchmaker”, “Tradition!”, “If I were a Rich Man” … “Fiddler on the Roof”! Perhaps I ought to preface this article by saying that I enjoy watching “Fiddler on the Roof” – especially the songs. My sisters and I were watching this movie the other night for the twentieth time and it set me thinking and I realized that there a few lessons that can be learned from it, though I don’t think they are the ones the writer intended.

Ever since the first time I watched it, I always thought it was sad that Reb Tevye’s three eldest daughters went against what he had taught them. First, the eldest only strayed a little bit … she begged her father to let her marry a man of her choice, a poor Jewish tailor. She succeeded.

Then the second daughter takes it one step further: she decides who she is going to marry – a Jewish man with radical ideas about change – and asks for her father’s blessing but not his permission. He grants both.

But it doesn’t stop there. The third daughter goes even further than her sisters. They had at least married Jewish men who shared the faith of their father but she doesn’t. She not only decides who she is going to marry, against her father’s command but the man she marries is a Russian and a Catholic.

The entire movie is about breaking traditions – and praising those who do so. The traditions they leave are not harmful and the girls have been brought up to always adhere to them. Why would they desert that which has been imbued in them from birth?

While watching the movie, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the verse: “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3) Reb Tevye failed to give a foundation for any of his traditions. The girls were merely taught to do things for tradition’s sake – not for any higher purpose. This movie is a classic example of what happens when foundations are lacking. Reb Tevye is always misquoting the “good book” or claiming It said something it never did. Further, if asked about how the “traditions” that he follows got started – he “doesn’t know but it is tradition!”

~Why do Jewish Papa’s choose their daughters future husbands – Tradition!

~ Why are the Papa’s the head of the home – Tradition!!

~Why do the Jewish wear head coverings and prayer shawls – TRADITION!!!

The many remarks that Reb Tevye makes, placed in the setting that they are, are humorous but also give us the clue as to why his daughters strayed from what they were taught.

Father being head of the house came from the Word of the LORD. The LORD made it perfectly clear in just the first five books of Moses that the Father was the head. Father choosing the husband of his daughter was, quite possible, linked to that and his responsibility for his daughter and her welfare. It was not because he wanted to be a tyrant and in control of everything. However, the daughter’s don’t seem to completely realize that.

Another thing that I noticed … the abandonment of the Father’s authority, by the sisters, started with the eldest and trickled right on down, becoming worse as it went, giving an example of the influence, however subconscious, of the older siblings upon the younger.

Now, I am not saying that I agree with all the traditions in this movie. I am not saying that I dislike the movie either – my sisters and I go about the house singing the songs for fun and we have half the lines in the movie memorized! I was simply intrigued by the lessons one can find in the movie.

We must build a foundation – a Biblical foundation, for everything we do, so that when someone asks why we do, what we do, we can give them an answer based in the Word of God!

To the KING be all the glory!