An Insider’s Battle With Ritual Washing

Here is a Jewish group (Mark 7: 1-23): Pharisees and teachers of law were part of the leadership and influences of that time; Jesus was an emerging leader and he has his disciples with him. Here is an inside conversation presented to us. They are not talking about the Romans, who had ruled over them for years; they are not talking about Samaritans, whom they were in conflict with. They were talking about themselves and their ritual purity. They are talking about how special and chosen they are, and how others defile them, make them impure. It often happens that when people are in an exclusive group, all support one another and admire how special and chosen they and their practices are, and irrationally perpetuate the evil they do.

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The hardest thing about this conversation is that Jesus had to appear like a traitor. The biggest challenge of a messiah is to be an insider and have to challenge traditions and practices within; to have the courage to talk truth to power. It is easy to project outsiders as evil and enemies; you become a hero in the process. To question an evil with a group by someone within the group is hard, and it is a lonely path. It is no surprise that they called him mad and possessed; and eventually handed over to be crucified. It is interesting to note that Jesus was handed over to be crucified by insiders.

Fiddler on the Roof one of the best musical films of all time, directed by Norman Jewison has Tevye, the milkman as its main character. He is an orthodox Jew living with his five daughters in the undivided imperial Russia of early 1900s. He tries hard to keep up with all Jewish practices and customs, and hand it over to his daughters in the midst the hard political and social influences in Russia. For Tevye the only way to keep the balance is by fallowing the traditions. And he adds in the musical lyrics, without traditions our lives will be as shaky as a ‘fiddler on the roof’. In many senses its tradition that keeps our balance and keeps our civilisation going. It tells us how to eat, how to clothe and how and when to marry etc.

As the film progresses his daughters fall in love with people who are not Jews and do not follow the traditions and practices. Though Tevye first opposed, later gives in for love and humanity. But he had his struggle as an insider to say that it is okay. Of course, the movie goes further to the takeover of the Jewish territories and properties by the Russian government; and what are traditions and practices when the basic rights and dignity of people are tossed in the air.

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SPRINGBOARDS and WALKING STICKS

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