Cinderella (1)

 

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was well known for composing remarkable stories, full of Kabbalistic and philosophical allusions. He also taught us to pay careful attention to ancient tales, which contain deep secrets as well, even though those who relate them have lost the keys to understanding them. Not only have the keys been lost, but the very awareness that there is a lock to be opened, that the story contains a secret to be sought, has been lost as well.

 

     I will attempt to return the lost keys to three stories that you must remember from your childhood. I will do this because I believe in them.

 

Cinderella

 

I believe in Cinderella.

 

Once upon a time there were three sisters who lived together. One dressed in silk, the second in satin, and the third in torn rags. The two older sisters made their little sister's life miserable, and they made her into their servant. The third sister had no friends save the mice in the kitchen. Since she spent most of her time washing the floors and removing the ashes from the stove, she was called Cinderella.

 

     One day, the royal heralds announced a great ball in honor of the prince, heir to the throne. The elder sisters, gorgeously arrayed, prepared to attend the ball...

 

The rest of the story is well known. The prince searches for the owner of the glass slipper. Cinderella wishes to try it on. Her sisters laugh at her:

 

"Do you consider yourself a princess? You are the queen of filth; the prince will marry me."

"The prince will not marry rags and tatters. The prince will marry me."

The prince places the slipper on Cinderella's foot, and discovers that she is the mysterious princess.

 

Cinderella's Sisters

 

Many chapters of the spiritual history of humanity have been written by Cinderella's two sisters. The sisters have said harsh things to Cinderella:

 

"It is astonishing, and it is worthy to consider the strange sight - to see this Jewish nation continuing its existence for so many years, and to see it always downtrodden and tattered; however there is a purpose in this, as a proof for Jesus the Messiah, both for [the Jewish people] to be constant in its existence, to be chastised, and to be downtrodden and tattered, for their children crucified Him. And although it is contradictory that there be a nation which is both downtrodden and tattered and constant in its existence,...the Jews have no redeemer, they wait for him in vain." (Blaise Pascal Pense'es, 640, 747)

 

"The existence of the Jews, as is generally known, is an acceptable proof of the existence of God. It is an acceptable proof of the depths of human guilt and paucity, and thus also of the inconceivable greatness of God's love, in the event in which God through the Messiah conciliated between the world and Himself. The Jews in the Ghetto bear witness to this without intention, enjoyment or fame, yet they bear witness. They have nothing to give witness about, save the shadow of Jesus' cross which falls upon them." (Carl Barth)

 

"The Christian message says in this context: God desired all this, Jesus the Messiah was rejected by his nation, prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, Jerusalem was destroyed and it will never again return to Jewish sovereignty." (Carl Ludwig Schmidt, in a debate with Martin Buber, 14.1.1933)

 

"Since the prophets predicted that the Jews would suffer these tragedies because of the Messiah, and that they did indeed suffer them, and since we see them in exile, it is clear that it is because of the Messiah that these things happened to the Jews, and there is a correlation between the writings and the events and the order of the events in time...however if the Messiah has not yet arrived...Judea will be returned to the state in which the Messiah ought to find it, only then he will claim that another Messiah is to come in the future." (Tertullianus)

    

The debate continues. Whom will the prince marry? Is it possible that the prince might consider the queen of filth, whose only friends are mice, and will abandon her more successful sisters? The encounter with the prince is the redemption, and as for the slipper - it is mentioned in a book which hints at the final redemption: "Now this was formerly done in Israel in cases of redemption or exchange; to validate any transaction, one man would take off his sandal and hand it to the other" (Ruth 4:7). This is the slipper which heralds the footsteps of the true Messiah.

 

Exile and Trial [1:112-115]

 

Cinderella's fate returns us to what Rihal has written about exile [1:115], and to the more general issue of suffering, and thus again to the book of Job. As we have seen, the book of Job describes the suffering of a righteous man. His friends respond to the catastrophes that befall him, and accuse him of being a sinner, deserving of God's punishment. The beginning and the end of the book are familiar. They describe two concurrent realities, as though they are taking place on two stages. On the higher stage, God is testing Job to prove to Satan that there is one righteous person on earth, that there is one person capable of worshipping God not in order to obtain reward and blessing. There, everything is clear. However on the lower stage, from Job's perspective, we see the person suffering, and his feeling is that he suffers without cause. The book of Job is the story of man's trial as man perceives it.

 

     This holds true for the individual as well. However, in the Midrash, and later in the commentaries, we see another interpretation of the story of Job. Job is the symbol of the suffering of the Jewish people. Along come the friends, and his friends are the theologians and sages of various nations, who use suffering as immutable proof that the Jewish people have sinned, and are not beloved to God. According to them, the history of the Jewish people proves that the Jewish faith is false, and the nation suffers because it did not accept the Christian Messiah or the Muslim prophet. Thus the exile was not merely an experience of physical suffering, but also a spiritual, psychological and intellectual trial of the first degree. The gentiles used the exile, the alienation, the dispersion and the degradation of the Jewish nation, to prove that this is a punishment from heaven for the Jews' refusal to accept the Messiah or the Prophet. 

Translated by Gila Weinberg