So prays Reb Tevyve, the papa and lead character in the wonderful musical play, Fiddler on the Roof.

For most of the past thirty-plus years, I had the privilege of founding and leading the Coming Home Network, which continues now under the leadership of my son, Jon Marc.  The work of the Coming Home Network is all about truth: helping our separated brethren—family and friends—recognize the fullness of faith found in the Catholic Church. Jon Marc and his staff and volunteers attempt to do this through many means, but in the end we all know that “conversion happens” primarily through the work of God’s grace. All the great Catholic books in the world, videos, tapes, television and radio programs, blogposts, online videos, even heart-felt personal testimonies, can not break through without the inner working of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the testimonies of so many converts indicate that the Lord can use almost anything to reach even the hardest of hearts—even a non-Catholic, secular community theatre.

Years ago, our three sons, and occasionally my wife and I, were very active in many musical productions with our local community theatre. One particular season, Jon Marc was asked to play the rabbi’s son in Fiddler on the Roof, while Peter, our second son, had the role of a village youth. After a week of rehearsals, they had not as yet found someone to play Perchek, the socialist student who wins the hand of Tevyve’s second daughter, Hodel, wooing her away to follow him into exile in Siberia. One Sunday afternoon, I made the mistake of helping out by reading the part, and sure enough, this fifty-year-old was talked into becoming a twenty-something year old Perchek.

I wasn’t pursuing this role. Lord knows I had more than enough to do! But with hindsight I came to see that it was surely God’s plan, because it was a very enriching experience. Please allow me to share just a few things.

First, after weeks of listening to the seventy-nine year old local Jewish judge recite with great feeling the lines of Reb Tevyve, the father, (which he was playing for the seventh time), I became amazed at Tevyve’s running conversations with God as a model for intimate, personal prayer. Rent the video and watch and learn. Tevyve believes deeply in the Lord; he lives by the good book and talks with God—even complains—out of awesome respect. I wish we all prayed our impromptu as well as our devotional and liturgical prayers as intimately and sincerely.

“On the other hand,” (a phrase used many times by this faithful Jew) this play is an interesting illustration of the problem of personal interpretation of both Tradition and the Scriptures. One of the running gags in the story is the interesting spin put on the words of the good book by both Tevyve and the local rabbi—or even imputed to the good book. One of my favorites is when Reb Tevyve states, “As the good book says, ‘when a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick.’” The rabbi’s son (played by my son Jon Marc) replies, “Where does the good book say that!” And Reb Tevyve replies, “I don’t know, but somewhere it says something about a chicken!”

No where, however, is the danger of personal interpretation more evident than when my character, the young Socialist, teaches the two innocent young daughters that the clear meaning of the biblical story of Leban and Jacob is that “one must never trust an employer!” In a sense, the entire play is about the struggle of a family trying to live out the truths of Scripture and Tradition in the midst of pressures from society and culture. 

But I learned one more important personal lesson. After five performances in which I had portrayed my role with (by God’s mercy) few flaws, and might I add with much acclaim, the good Lord brought me back down to earth—just in case I had any fleeting ideas that I should quit my day job and head off to Hollywood. In the sixth and final performance, in the scene where my character is persuading Tevye’s daughters that the Bible teaches socialist ideals, the Lord had fun with me. The younger children exit, leaving me with their two older sisters, Hodel and Chavah, and I am to sit on a small bench to read, awaiting Hodel’s mild rebuke. As I sat down, listening to her say, “That was a very interesting interpretation!”, the bench suddenly crumbled beneath my weight. And I didn’t merely fall backwards, both of my feet went up into the air reminiscent of a Chevy Chase pratfall. Scrambling up as quickly as a fifty-year old could, I noticed that Hodel and Chaval were struggling to keep from splitting a gut laughing. Regaining my composure, I adlibbed, “Not as interesting as that fall!”, and then went on with the scene as if nothing had happened. At least one moral of this story is that next time they need to find a younger and lighter bloke to play Perchek!

The fiddler playing precariously on the peak of a roof is an image of a family trying to balance their lives on the security of long-held beliefs and traditional customs. How many of our non-Catholic Christian friends are just like this, trying to live their lives and bring up their children based around what they think God is teaching them through the Bible alone, through the interpretations of their local minister, or through the unexamined traditions of their particular denomination?

There is also a message in this play, however, for Catholics who practice the rules and rituals of our faith without knowing the reasons why: for when culture or our families challenge our beliefs—in the play, allowing our children to marriage people with contrary traditions or little faith—do we understand our Catholic faith enough to stand firm on what is true? In the play, Tevyve leaned on “TRADITION”, which by the end had crumbled (like the bench I sat on) under the weight of his circumstances. In Protestantism, the Bible is held up, which under the weight of rationalism, selfism, indifferentism, and a myriad of contradicting traditions, also crumbles. Thank God, we have the Church to help us understand how to live our lives under the guidance of both Tradition and Scripture. Now if we can only be humble and submissive enough to listen and joyfully obey.