Fiddler on the Roof - Life Imitates Art
Published by admin under Children, Dating, Movies, Music, Parenting, Thanksgiving on December 1, 2008
This weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving, a fairly quiet 4 day weekend, we don’t shop on “Black Friday”, I handle most of that online. We had a break with tradition this year by having dinner at my brother’s home, 12 of us, each household bringing a dish or 2 to share.
But where does “Fiddler on the Roof” (click image for info on the collectors edition) come in? This weekend it was on television, so hubby and I watched it….again. We’ve seen it many times together in our 30 years of marriage, and I remember seeing it in the theaters when I was dating. Today I was reflecting on how my view of the movie has changed through the years. It goes something like this:
- When I saw it 30 some years ago on a date, I related to the girls in the movie, with all the romantic notions of a girl or young woman who has not yet met “Mr. Right”, and the date I was with when I saw it wasn’t “Mr. Right” by the way :-).
- When my husband and I watched it together as a newly married couple with no children, we had many hopes and dreams. No children, what would it be like to raise children? Would we have daughters or sons? Would my husband be a “rich man” or sing “if I were a rich man”? I’d say right about now he’s singing the latter…but we didn’t have any idea back then, viewed it through eyes of hopes, dreams, expectations.
- Watching it with children, hubby and I would look at each other knowingly as we saw the daughters rebel to one degree or another in the movie.
- When we watched it this year, with a married daughter, feeling like we still have hopes and dreams, but a lot more memories than we did when we first viewed the movie, we felt empathy with the change the parents were facing, and not always happy changes. We’ve walked through many challenges together as a married couple, and looked at one another and thought “Do I love him/her”, “does she/he love me?”and thankfully can say “Yes, I do”.
What is it that we love most about this movie? The constant dialogue the character Tevye, a role so perfectly suited to the actor, Topol, had with God. He talked to God about everything, from the silliest to the most serious things, no matter what condition he was in, he was not afraid to talk to his God. Oh that we all would feel so free to talk to God, our Father in Heaven. Thanks to what Jesus has done for us, we have that freedom available to us, the thing I’m most thankful for this year.
