Tradition!!!!!!

Yesterday was a wet and windy Sunday so I decided to do very little at all and had a bit of a film fest. The History of Mr Polly - a great John Mills black and white film, Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats and then I watched Fiddler on the Roof . I had seen this as a young teenager and remembering that it was one of the only musicals I didn't like, but it was a wet Sunday and I did have an easter egg to finish and needed a film to finish the trilogy before tea. Now, for those of you not familiar with the film I copy here the synopsis from the link above " In pre-revolutionary Russia, a poor Jewish peasant must contend with marrying off his three daughters while antisemitic sentiment threatens his home." So, not many laughs there then! However...............

I was glued to the TV from start to finish - and I will admit to the odd tear (and maybe a sob or two!) as the film progressed. What I realised is that as a young teenager I possibly identified with the daughters in the film, and not being enough romance in it clearly decided it was a boring film. Now older, I am much able to put the film into context both socially, politically and from the point of view of the father who tries through the film to stick with the traditions of his faith, his generation and his culture whilst constantly met with change (both socio-political and generational). He meets each problem the same, denial, anger, reflection and then compromise and states at one time " what is tradition? Our ways were new once".

I often describe myself as a tradionalist, but what does that really mean I wonder? Wikipedia defines as "A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past.^[1][2]"    

^{I am comforted to have many family traditions that have been passed through the generations (a watch for your 10th birthday, a signet ring for your 17th birthday and the secret recipe for Harvo when you are 21! to name a few). I also like to engage in the traditions of Easter - no meat on Good Friday springs to mind as a recent ritual. I like to know that certain things I do have origins in the past but I realise from watching the film that many of my traditions focus on material things. At the end of the film, the whole village were displaced and all had to move on to other places. They packed up what they could with an air of resignation, leaving behind many items of furniture and even livestock and yet keeping their strong sense of self and community through their traditions - I wonder if I would be as resolute faced with similar circumstances - maybe I could learn a few things from this film?}