A Puzzlement

A Puzzlement

The King and I, the fourth longest running show on Broadway, is playing at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood these days. It’s marvelous to see how a classic production from 1950 can still speak with a modern idiom, and how the messages it conveys are particularly relevant even today. In short, the play characterizes a 19th century English educator traveling Southeast Asia to work in the country of Siam (now Thailand). The King is committed to modernizing the country in response to the looming threat of imperial domination by the French, the English, and even the Americans. The King succeeds in impressing the English emissary who comes to visit the Siamese people by sharing the many ways they can imitate European culture as inspired by the schoolteacher.

In the middle of the play, the King enters into a monologue with these words.

When I was a boy, world was better spot
What was so was so, what was not was not
Now, I am a man, world have changed a lot
Some things nearly so, others nearly not….

There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know
Very often find confusion
In conclusion, I concluded long ago

In my head are many facts
That, as a student, I have studied to procure
In my head are many facts
Of which I wish I was more certain, I was sure
Is a puzzlement…

The play highlights the real conflict people and even the monarch’s experience in moments of radical change. The story of the American Civil war and the issue of slavery is woven through each scene along with some Shakespearean love and tragedy. (I even saw a little Fiddler on the Roof in there too!) The emotional outcome of those moments is clear. But the uncertainty about the present and the future of community, of a nation, persists in this monologue.

There’s something so revealing here which we grapple with in our present and future too. While watching the petulant, confident, and determined king scratch his chin in “A Puzzlement” (the title of the song), we too may be standing face-to-face with a future that is going to look dramatically different than our present. How we comport ourselves and embrace the changes to come is a defining quality of our character as Jews. 

We have good reason to think that we can confront the challenges of our day with the same dignity as our ancestors. We will do well to remind ourselves of their stories in our present to model for us and for our children.

We read of Jacob and Esau. Jacob returns to the land of Canaan after decades of living in the ancestral homeland and raising a young family. He returns to confront his brother, who awaits his return with blood-curdling vengeance. Two children, one blessing. Two brothers, one parent’s affection and acceptance. At the moment we expect them to take to battle and slaughter their anger and spite on the war field, they come forward to embrace. They hug. A puzzlement, indeed.

We read of Hillel and Shammai in the Talmud, two leaders famed for their disputes over ritual life in Judaism. We’re about to light the Hanukkah candles this week, and it is their famous argument over how many candles to light and in what order that guides our practice. Their argument is preserved in our tradition for one reason - a puzzlement. While we practice as Hillel now, and accept his reasoning for doing so, Shammai’s voice reminds us, our answers do not always have to appear to be uni-dimensional. A puzzlement, indeed.

Here’s what the Talmud also recorded about Hillel and Shammai:

Rabbi Abba said in the name of Shmuel, For three years, the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai argued. One said, 'The halakha is like us,' and the other said, 'The halakha is like us.' A heavenly voice spoke: "These and these are the words of the living God, and the halakha is like the House of Hillel." A question was raised: Since the heavenly voice declared: "Both these and those are the words of the Living God," why was the halacha established to follow the opinion of Hillel? It is because the students of Hillel were kind and gracious. They taught their own ideas as well as the ideas from the students of Shammai. Not only for this reason, but they went so far as to teach Shammai's opinions first. (BTEruvin 13b)

Why would the Talmud, a book chronicling truth, record this powerful statement about Hillel and Shammai?  Is it possible for us to sift through the morass of today’s political and social uncertainty and emerge as dignified as Hillel? Perhaps this is the message we must continue to study and rehearse as we confront the puzzlements of our own day?

Here is what is certain, and what the King of Siam learns too, there are fundamental truths about the dignity of all human beings that we as Jews are responsible to protect and to educate. Whenever we hear of Jews suffering from acts of ‘modern-day’ slavery, institutionalized poverty, denial of access to education, and blatant acts anti-semitism and anti-Judaism, we must respond with full-throated voice to practice what we believe to be Truth. We are all created in the image of God and our duty is to see that radiant image in the face of the other wherever we are privileged to behold it.