The title is inspired by a 1902 monologue by Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish (Ven ikh bin Rothschild : If I were a Rothschild), a reference to the wealth of the Rothschild family. The lyric is based in part on passages from Sholem Aleichem’s 1899 short story ‘The Bubble Bursts’. Both stories appeared in English in the 1949 collection of stories ‘Tevye's Daughters’.
Through the first two verses, Tevye dreams of the material comforts that wealth would bring him. Sung boisterously and comedically, Tevye first considers the enormous house he would buy and the needless luxuries he would fill it with, including poultry to fill his yard and a third staircase "leading nowhere, just for show”.
Tevye switches his attention to the luxuries in which he would shower his wife, Golde; providing her with servants to alleviate her workload, fancy clothes for her pleasure, and mountains of food.
In the final verse, Tevye softens as he further considers his devotion to God. He expresses his sorrow that the long working hours he keeps prevents him from spending as much time in the synagogue as he would like, and how wealth would allow him to spend less time working and more time praying and studying the Torah, and finally asking God if "it would spoil a vast eternal plan" if he were wealthy.
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This song reminds me of my early marriage years when material acquisition became too much a part of my then life. My first wife was essentially a woman of image who needed to keep pace with the Jones’, and for the initial years of our marriage, I went along with her.
After my separation and divorce, being left without a penny, I started again from rock bottom. I eventually discovered (although I didn’t appreciate at the time) that ‘rock bottom’ is often the best place from where one’s life can be successfully relaunched. Circumstances forced me to sell off all my material possessions. When I sold my beloved library of books that I had spent over £10,000 to accumulate over 13 years of high spending for a mere tenth of their value, I literally wept, and I needed to fight the strong urge to resist. After realising that they were only ‘things’ I was parting with, I was obliged to review my value system.
It was only when I learned to let go of my possessions through choice and not obligation that my value system improved immensely. I discovered that, like fasting, which is occasionally beneficial for one’s body, downsizing material possessions can also be good for cleansing the soul. Done sincerely, it brings one closer to one’s self and God and makes one appreciate the things in life that really matter!
Being an avid reader, I’d always had piles of books from my twenties onwards. I once boasted a library of 7,000 books during my first marriage and would read four or five books weekly. I had every wall in our three-bedroomed detached house filled with shelves of books. Shortly after, I was to make friends with a man who told me about the practice of himself and another friend. After reading a book, they would never put it back on their shelf, but instead, they would give it away to another person to read, before passing on to the next reader. That beautiful thought represented unadulterated selflessness and pure love being recycled.
As the years progressed from my forties onwards, I transformed my life to one that would happily sit alongside the values which my dearly departed mother displayed throughout her life. Having parented seven children, my mother was poor in pocket but rich in love and charity.
I will never forget reprimanding mum once in Manchester after a beggar stretched out his hand for money, and in a pleading voice said, ‘Have you the price of a cup of tea, please, Missus?”. Being the mother of a large family, with barely two pennies to rub together, my mother opened her purse, and without a second thought gave the beggar two shillings. After the beggar had left smiling, I told mum that it would be beer that her florin would buy and not tea. I will never forget mum’s reply. She said, ”You’re probably right, Billy, but if I ever stop giving to any beggar because they may not use the money wisely, the day will surely come when I might not give to someone who really needs it!”
I recall another friend I worked with in the Probation Service. She was a lady close to retirement and lived alone. I used to visit her at weekends with my sons James and Adam when they were boisterous three and four-year-olds. One weekend during a visit, my youngest son Adam accidentally broke an expensive china family heirloom that was positioned on a low-level table. I was so apologetic as my friend cleaned the broken pieces off the floor with brush and dustpan and when I started to speak a few harsh words to Adam for his carelessness, my friend said, “Don’t be hard on the boy, Bill. He’s only a boy and didn’t break the item deliberately. He’s ‘a person’ and what he broke was ‘a thing’. His hurt feelings matter much more to me than the china figure my dear mother left me when she died.”
Don’t get me wrong. I do not live the life of a modest monk today, and because my absence of an effective immune system frequently confines me to spend long periods in my house without going out, I have dozens of beautiful paintings and other lovely artefacts in our home that please me and soothe my senses. The difference between now and when I was first married is that today, I see things for what they are more clearly; as ‘things’.
Ever since I have been able to give away more freely any possession I own, and now that I know the difference between ‘things’ and a person’s ‘feelings’, it matters less if they are accidentally broken, lost or are given away. I have eventually learned the right order of what comes first’; people, property or possessions. And it feels ‘good’ to feel thus. Now I know how my mother felt all her life and why she never allowed poverty of circumstances to change her charitable ways in how she approached life and dealt with all manner of people types. She may have often carried an empty purse, but her heart was always full of love, forgiveness and warm feelings for others.
Love and peace Bill xxx