QUARANTINE BLOG # 400

May 4, 2021

👉  Words of Wisdom:

👉  Half a year ago, a SpaceX rocket lifted off with the four astronauts – three from  NASA, one from Japan’s space agency – sitting inside one of the company’s Crew Dragon capsules.  On Sunday, the same capsule, named Resilience, returned safely to Earth, just before 3 a.m. Eastern time.  It was the first nighttime landing for NASA since Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders returned from the first manned orbit of the moon in Apollo 8 on December 27, 1968.  

👉  Here are some “cat-toons:”

👉  I am writing this blog on Monday morning so it will be in your mailbox the morning of the date indicated, and it is raining, which prompted me to go to the jukebox and play a couple of tunes.

First, “Rainy Night in Georgia,” with Ray Charles.

And second, “Rainy Days and Mondays,” by the Carpenters.

👉  Let’s go back to the theater with “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Fiddler is set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia around 1905 (The Pale was a western region of the Russian Empire that included all of modern day Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova, much of Ukraine and Poland, and relatively small parts of Latvia.  In that region, permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was forbidden).

The fiddler is a metaphor for survival in a life of uncertainty, precarious as a fiddler on a roof “trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck.”  The fiddler also represents that tradition that Tevye sings of in the opening number, the traditions that Tevye is trying to hold onto in a changing world.  The main theme is that without their religious traditions, the lives of Jews “would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.”  The title stems from “The Fiddler,” a painting by Russia-born artist Marc Chagall.

The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, had the first musical theatre run in history to surpass 3,000 performances.  Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until “Grease” surpassed its run. It won nine Tony Awards, including best musical, score, book, direction and choreography.  It spawned five Broadway revivals and a 1971 film adaptation (which in the opinion of the QB is very dark, the play is more hopeful).

“Matchmaker, Matchmaker” features Tevye and Golde’s daughters sing about a matchmaker choosing a partner for them.  Hodel and Chava sing excitedly about their future marriages, arranged by the matchmaker, Yente.  However, Tzeitel, the eldest daughter, warns the others that, as they are from a poor family, they’ll have to marry whoever Yente brings for them, regardless if it’s an unhappy marriage. 

But the girls want to choose their own partners and not use the matchmaker. Traditions are changing. Those old traditions are beginning to crumble.  Which is very much in opposition to the song with which Tevye begins the story, “Tradition.”

In “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye asks, “Would it spoil some vast eternal plan, if I were a wealthy man?”  And then he steps in a barnyard mess.  So much for his dreams of glory.  And eventually the Tsar forces them to move.  Curtain.

👉  Today’s close is from Charles Spurgeon.

“In the world you shall have tribulation” (John 16:33).

Do you ask the reason for this?  Look to your heavenly Father, he is pure and holy.  One day you will be like him and it is not easy to be conformed to his image.  It will take refining in the fire of affliction to purify you.  It will not be an easy thing to make you perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.

Next, look down.  Do you know what foes you have beneath your feet?  Once you served Satan and no king will willingly lose his subjects.  Do you think that Satan will leave you alone?  He will always be prowling, “like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

Then look around.  Where are you?  You are in the enemy’s country, you are a stranger just passing through.  The world is not your friend.  There are foes everywhere.  When you sleep, they are waiting on the edge of the battlefield.  When you awake, suspect an ambush at every corner.

Lastly, look inside, into your own heart and observe what is there – sin and self are still within.  If you had no devil to tempt you, no enemies to fight you, and no world to trap you, there would still be inside evil to fight, because “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” 

Expect trouble, but do not give up when it comes, because God is with you to help you and strengthen you.  He has said, “Call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory” (Psalm 50:15).

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