Download Shakespeare for a Shabbat Dinner

With G0d's Help/b'ezrat haShem
Shabbat vaYechi, 5772/January 6, 2012
2 minute sermon: Shakespeare for a Shabbat Dinner
Rabbi Ari Mark Cartun
Congregation Etz Chayim, Palo Alto, CA
What can we learn from Shakespeare this week that will make our Shabbat more
enjoyable and meaningful? Here are a few Bowdlerized quotes apropos of the occasion.
I've put the sources on the sheet and you can look them all up in your complete
Shakespeare or online afterwards. The idea for this came from a joke in a Fractured
Fairy Tale skit by Jay Ward about half a century ago. The rest are my own corny ideas.
1
What Foods These Morsels Be.
A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2, 110–115
2
You may have noticed that we sing a lot at Shabbat dinners. The point is to make
our table an altar, which makes our home a Temple, with ourselves the choir of Levites.
It's sometimes hard to sing at home if we're not used to it, so at least we can come
together here and sing among friends, which makes us less self-conscious. Here is a quote
for that:
If music be the food of Judaism, play on.
Twelfth Night Act 1, scene 1, 1–3
Sometimes we surprise ourselves by finding a Jew inside, and even more surprising is
when we actually find ourselves enjoying "religious" rituals. To this Shakespeare says,
3
To thine own self be a Jew.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82
And
4
Though I am not naturally religious, I am so sometimes by chance.
Winter's Tale, Act 4, scene 4
But we might think, are we being untrue to our modern scientific selves if we act this
way? Shakespeare says:
5
If I lose mine honour, I lose myself.
Antony & Cleopatra, Act III: scene 4
This is similar to the quote:
I am a Jew because the faith of Israel demands of me no abdication of my mind.
I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires of me all the devotion of my heart.
by Edmund Fleg
6
To return to the main theme of the Shabbat dinner, for those whose Judaism is
based on suffering and AntiSemitism, here is the main recipe for our dinner:
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble..
Macbeth, Act 4, scene 1
What you may not know about this quote is one special ingredient in the witches' brew:
Liver of blaspheming Jew…
7
But to leave you on a higher note:
Be not afraid of being Jewish. Some are born Jewish, some achieve Jewishness, and
some have Jewishness thrust upon 'em.
Twelfth Night, Act II, scene 5
Shabbat Shalom, and b'tei'avon/bon appétit!
The Actual Quotes:
1
Puck:
Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
2
Duke Orsino:
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
3
Polonius:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
4
Autolycus
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so
sometimes by chance: let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.
5
Mark Antony
Gentle Octavia,
Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks
Best to preserve it: if I lose mine honour,
I lose myself: better I were not yours
Than yours so branchless.
6
Witches.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
3rd Witch.
Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.
7
Malvolio:
In my stars I am above thee;
but be not afraid of greatness:
some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.