At Havdalah and Pizza Ari K. mentioned that he had read Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” over Shabbos. It’s 120+ pages of Hemingway telling the story of an old fisherman who hasn’t caught fish in some 80 days. A young boy had been fishing with him but couldn’t anymore because it his fishing failure streak was considered bad luck. The story is about one day he’s out at sea ends up catching an 18′ Marlin! Hemingway describes in great detail the immense struggle to catch and retain this fish and endeavor to tow it back to land. But then sharks come and the fisherman does his best to fend of the sharks but to no avail, he looses his harpoons in the process and comes home with nothing but a floating skeleton tied to his ship. He falls asleep in great exhaustion, his former young fishing partner crying at his side. He awakens to tell the boy that we need to fashion new harpoons and with that the story ends.
I asked Ari. K. for the moral of the story. Another student interjected that it teaches that life is tough (in more colorful language). But Ari K. saw it differently, “Beautiful things don’t always last.” Not every beautiful moment or experience lasts forever. And there can be beauty and victory in it, even if it doesn’t last. Hearing this perspective on the Sat Night of Parsha Ki-Tavo, which has the harsh Rebuke and Curses, made me think of this as a Curses turned Blessing, a negative developed into a positive.
Oren H. said that this book illustrates the great constant (and frustrating) struggle of the Beinoni in Tanya, with total investment and dedication and supreme effort but often without lasting accomplishment or desired results. The battle may be never won, yet must be waged again and again. Alter Rebbe teaches us in Tanya that the effort and struggle itself is significant, it has great spiritual value in and of itself, even without transformative change.
Ari K. said that that old man expresses little emotion or regret, the book is more about his valiant efforts, not about how he feels about them. And then I realized that this may express the same thought as in the Beinoni Niggun Melody, as I once wrote an article for Chabad.org titled The Beinoni’s Resolve.
All this over pizza on a Sat Night at Shabbos House.