Comments on: The magic barrel

By: Carla

Carla — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:48:04 +0000

Comments for this post are closed. This post is saved for consulting only. Any new comments will be discarded.

By: Rachel Maria C. M. Moraes

Rachel Maria C. M. Moraes — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:54:23 +0000

I agree with Lucas and other people about the similarity between the
name Salsman and the word salesman suggesting that marriage was really a
kind of business and that people were really sale.

By: Rachel Maria C. M. Moraes

Rachel Maria C. M. Moraes — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:54:02 +0000

I agree with Natalie when she says that the narrator is not an uniscient
one. He really tells the story through Leo’s yes.

After I post the thing of the narrator and I read Natalie’s comment, I
changed my mind.
I’m sorry for the mistake.

By: Diana Castor

Diana Castor — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:39:28 +0000

This can be shown even nowadays when love and marriage became more a social contract related to status than anything else. It is just a place in society and har no further meaning at all

By: Jorgeane

Jorgeane — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:24:52 +0000

Well, in this SS we have Leo Finkle who has spent the last six years studying to become a rabbi at New York City’s Yeshivah University. After hearing that he would have better job prospects if he were to get married, Leo decides to consult a matchmaker or marriage brokers; they were very common in many European Jewish cultures, as well as in some Jewish immigrant communities in the United States. Leo’s own parents were brought together by a marriage broker, and Leo is determined to find the perfect jewish bride for him through the same tradition, so he contacts Pinye Salzman, a marriage broker who has advertised in The Jewish Daily Forward, New York’s leading Yiddish newspaper in order to do that.

It really seemed to me a real love story that explore issues and themes central to the Jewish community and it traces a young man’s struggle to come to terms with his identity . Totally agree with Ana when she says “ He was looking for something exciting and new, he didn’t want a female version of himself, who always did what he was supposed to, and not what he truly wanted. He didn’t even got the change to figure out and when he realized, six years had passed and he was not happy with his perspectives at all.

By: Miss

Miss — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:35:02 +0000

This SS is a classic story which gives both Jewish and non-Jewish readers a clear picture of how women are treated in that culture. In the traditional Jewish community, the arranged marriage is the model for marital relations.
“Arranged marriages still continue to exist today in modern orthodox Jewish communities. The shadchanim, or marriage brokers, were respected members of society. Often, the shadchanim were the Rabbis, who viewed the arranging of marriages as one of their duties to the community. Through time, however, the arranging of marriages lost its distinction and became the livelihood for the lower classes in the Jewish community. The professional shadchanim were portrayed as a kind of a businessman and con man rolled into one; he was someone who was only eager to earn him commission from closing a success marriage deal” source: Israel on line

By: Sabrina

Sabrina — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:22:32 +0000

I had once read something about Jew’s conception of life which sounded really interesting to me: Happiness is something you must find right here and right now during your lifetime, and not like Christians says.. that you may suffer for some reason during your life but then you will eventually find salvation after death. That Jewish point of view of life sounds somewhat sensible for sure. But I have never heard of Jewish matchmaking.. (And it is really interesting to take a look at the site Lucas had mentioned which tries to keep that tradition..)

Poor guy in the SS.. He refused all the “candidates” and failed the whole attempt to find a so-called perfect wife concerning Jewish beliefs only because he suddenly found himself questioning things, sadly looking for a real thing and a not so overly planned relationship.. something he could put his soul in.. He gets frightened to find he is a loveless man but then we have a happy ending when the story finishes. If we see it just the way Juliana said, like “shame on you”, and then only in the end “there’s hope”, in some way, it is indeed a beautiful story! But then again I keep wondering what the narrator meant by the final words “Around the corner, Salzman, leaning against a wall, chanted prayers for the dead.” If we see the whole thing as some kind of Salzman’s strategic plan to marriage his daughter to the poor guy like Lucas mentioned then we must not say that.

By the way, I thought interesting the way Érica interpreted the SS, analyzing it in universal terms, talking about secularism, merging of cultures and crisis.. It totally makes sense. That’s exactly what the SS shows. Maybe it summarizes all that we have said and even complements a bit more.

By: Priscilla Ghetti

Priscilla Ghetti — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:05:23 +0000

What called my attention while reading this SS was the conception of marriage for the Jewish: not as a consequence of love but as a prestige. The feelings are left aside and what really matters is the social status they acquire when they get married.
I also would like to point out the need of a matchmaker`s help before getting married as a guarantee of a successful relationship. The link made by Lucas between the matchmaker`s name: “Salzman” and a “salesman” expresses that they were really selling people who were treated as objects/products in that way.

By: Érica Alves

Érica Alves — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:09:32 +0000

This story, as Elisa said, is a quest for fitting-in, of displacement and finding comfort in tradition. This whole jewish culture, marriage broking thing is just a setting to speak of a much more universal theme: secularism.
The Jewish tradition has been around for millenia and it is very strong in the community. But we cannot just assume that all Jews are orthodox and very religious. In the MAgic Barrel we see a post-modern man, will all the crises, disbeliefs, and philosphical indagations. He is a New Yorker, more than a future rabbi. We see that nowadays, even the most “religious” of men are disbelievers. Our society is going through an accelerating process of seculariztion.
Mr. Finkle cannot adapt to the Jewish form of love and marriage. He does not want just anybody and he does not seem do interested in dowries and status. He is totally immersed in our eternal quest for romantic love, which is attributed to Christianized protestant burgeoise society, that is why he has had trouble in finding the right woman. This man is not Jewish at all!!
This SS shows the total merging of cultures, and the crises this involves.

By: Glaucia

Glaucia — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:11:53 +0000

“Marriage is far from being a consequence of love for them.” As Lucas said, that is the main idea of what love represents for the Jewish community; it is part of a well-structured life, it is one of the steps to be recognized by the Jewish society. As Lucas, Jean M, Verônica and others said, we can clearly see that marriage is seen as part of business: its main role is to turn the man (husband) very successful and respected by society.

At the end, the salesman, Salzman “sells” his daughter. And although it was his daughter that was going to marry, I felt that it was still a business for him.. that was my impression.