What follows is one in a series of essays written by students of Rabbi Larry Hoffman, Ph.D., in response to his soon-to-be-published article "Limits, Truth, and Meaning."
I come from a family of storytellers. I have vivid memories of my dad driving me to religious school (of all places), and on the way, he’d tell me the latest story in the ongoing adventures of the Three Little Piggies and the Big Bad Wolf. These stories were all variations on a theme. A memorable favorite captures the gist of them all:
I come from a family of storytellers. I have vivid memories of my dad driving me to religious school (of all places), and on the way, he’d tell me the latest story in the ongoing adventures of the Three Little Piggies and the Big Bad Wolf. These stories were all variations on a theme. A memorable favorite captures the gist of them all:
One day, the big bad wolf knocked on the three little piggies’ door and challenged them to a bicycle race. If they lost, he’d eat them up. But if they won, he’d never bother them again. The piggies accepted the challenge -- but just before the race was about to begin, the big bad wolf slashed the tires on the piggies’ bicycle. As the big bad wolf sped off towards what seemed like certain victory, two of the piggies rolled themselves up into a ball and volunteered to serve as their bicycle’s tires. They raced off to the finish line and beat the wolf only "by the hairs on their chinny chin chin.” And at the end of every one of these original stories, my dad would say: “And the big bad wolf never bothered them again” -- to which we would both add in unison, “until the next time…”
This ending -- that “he never bothered them again… until the next time” -- recurred in each story because, of course, as in all good children’s stories, big bad wolves can never be relied upon to keep their promises. But more importantly, the stories always ended this way because there was always another car ride to be shared, always another story to be told -- and there is no end to the human imagination.
I believe that the endless human imagination is the rabbi or cantor’s greatest tool. Storytelling is our craft -- both in the plain sense of telling actual stories, but also in the deeper sense of helping us to order our world. Stories give form to ideas. They tell us who we are and what we believe. It’s rather boring to merely say that God loves mercy. But to tell the story -- a fish tale, so to speak -- of a reluctant prophet who wished destruction on a sinful city, but whom God so needed as an instrument of mercy that God sent a giant fish to swallow him up and spit him out towards his mission -- now that’s a statement about how much God loves mercy! Yes, stories entertain and stories connect people to one another, but most importantly, stories bring ideas to life.
Moreover, stories have the power to transform. Like the ongoing adventures of the three little piggies that my dad would invent week after week -- only ever ending “until the next time” -- an old story can be retold in new ways, and thereby gain new meaning. A few examples: Renowned couples counselor Esther Perel says that she knows she’s been successful if a couple leaves her office with a different story of themselves than the one they came in with. What is Larry’s framework of Limits, Truth, and Meaning if not a new version of an old story, a compelling retelling of the story of Jewish intellectual history? And of course, as we grow older, we discover, hopefully, that even our most cherished stories need retelling -- that, contra to the stories of my childhood, big wolves are not always bad, and persevering piggies don’t always win the race.
I believe that we rabbis and cantors must exercise our imagination. What if rather than Talmud study, we played storytelling games, like the ones you practiced in high school theatre? Without exercising our imagination, we will only ever be storytellers, and wind up missing our true calling, which is to be storycrafters.