Va-Eira: Hidden Meanings... Unless Ya Know the Territory (Spoiler Alerts!)

Yes, I'm still stuck on "The Music Man." In fact, we've REALLY kicked into high-gear now, with Opening Night just around the corner, on January 25th! But something

else has also evolved and grown over the time I've spent with this musical. When I was first introduced to it, and really started to understand the plot, I was - in all honesty - kind of shocked. A con-man swindles an entire town, he is discovered, and (spoiler alert) they let him off the hook. Ummm... what kind of message is this play teaching us all, anyway?!?! In speaking to a couple of my fellow cast members, we all agreed that Harold Hill did not, in fact, get what was coming to him, and the ending was unsatisfactory (from a morality and justice point-of-view). And then, wouldn't you know it - Jeely Kly and Ye Gods* - I've come to view the whole play in a new light.

There is, by the way, a fair amount of hidden meaning in our Torah portion this week too. Yes, the very FIRST thing God says in our parashah (or I'll eat hay with the horse!*) is that God never revealed the name "Adonai" to Abraham, Isaac, or

Jacob. Moses is hearing it for the very first time. This reading also divulges the names of Moses' parents and siblings, when these had all previously been anonymous characters. God and Moses hatch a plan to get the Israelites out of Egypt, while Pharaoh deceives Moses and Aaron each time he promises to let them go. Furthermore, watching plagues rain down on the Egyptians might not leave us feeling all that great about the means being employed to justify the ends. But sometimes you have to look a LITTLE BIT closer to discover the underlying meaning. And then, once you see it, why, it's staring at you, plain as a Quaker on his day off!*

I discovered two quotes in The Music Man that I love. They're subtle, and they fly by quickly, so you could be forgiven for missing them. But so it is with many, MANY things in life; the moral, the resolution, the central principle we are meant to learn does NOT come at the very end, right before the "Happily Ever After." It is instead

found somewhere else along the journey. Harold Hill, our spellbinding cymbal-salesman* of a protagonist, tries to coax Marian (the Librarian) to meet him at a romantic spot. When she gets cold feet and tries to stall, she tells him "some other time," which certainly we've all used on countless occasions in our lives. Hill responds: "My dear librarian, pile up enough ‘some other time’s and you'll find you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays." I found this to be such a compelling and thought-provoking way to put it. Setting aside the context of the show itself, this idea is really quite essential. We delay, and postpone, and put off, and drag our feet. But it may indeed amount to a lot of "empty yesterdays," if we aren't too careful. I think this is wise advice for all of us to consider.

And then Marian offers us important insight as well. Regardless of what Hill promised to deliver, what ACTUALLY happened? Was it all smoke-and-mirrors

from a swindlin' two-bit thimble rigger*?? When all the dust and the bluster settles down, Marian points out that the promise of lights, flags, colors, and cymbals WERE delivered, but in something more enduring than a few music lessons. It came, instead, "in the way every kid in this town walked around here the last three weeks, and looked and acted... and the parents, too." Even in our Torah portion, Moses and Aaron get very focused on the "parlor tricks" with snake-sticks and leprosy-hands that they can use to compel Pharaoh. But that stuff doesn't actually matter! The real shift comes in Moses' self-confidence, in the people believing they can be the masters of their own destiny, and in seizing the task of becoming their own agents of change.

I hope I haven't given away too much of the musical's plot. Seeing it is the REAL experience anyway. But I invite us all to take these lessons to heart. It's not about a trombone or a shofar, but about challenging ourselves to evolve and grow, and to seize every opportunity to live in the "Now." Real action is what matters; talk is cheep-cheep-cheep*.

Images in this blog post are all from our upcoming Music Man performance:
1. "Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, cheep, cheep, cheep!"
2. "ONE Grecian Urn!!"
3. "Think, kids... THINK!"
4. 76 Trombones; final pose!


*I couldn't help throwing some Music Man lingo into the blog this week. If a phrase is confusing to you, it's probably a quote from the show. It's meant as an inside-nod to the cast, but if you come see our production, you too can get all the references! :-)