The 20th century was a time that in my opinion defined change. There were two World Wars, and many other conflicts around the globe that uprooted many people, not only literally but emotionally and mentally as well. People began to change their ways of thinking, their ways of doing, all the while completely abandoning their ‘old order’. After World War 2, the United States, unlike most of the other countries involved, was not in a state of pandemonium and utter loss, but actually in a state of prosperity. This seemed to be a time that was offering the people a chance to start over, so indeed we did. We turned from religion and took to an interest in science instead. We came up with many alternatives to the beliefs that had been passed down to us from our parents and grandparents, because it was a time for change. ‘Everything flows, nothing stands still’. Big historic events always lead to change, which we have come to take for a good thing.
Leo Finkle, in Bernard Malamud’s ‘The Magic Barrel, is a soon to be rabbi searching for a wife. This time period was after World War 2, which was a trying time for Jewish people, as well as the other minorities targeted by Hitler and the Nazis. Coming into this search for a wife, he is sticking with the old order way of things. He is not in a search for love, which is what most search for when trying to find a spouse. He is looking for a wife because he was told by a friend that being married would help him to ‘win himself a congregation’. This is an old fashioned belief. His having a wife has nothing to do with the kind of Rabbi he would make, so how would this have an effect on his congregation? It absolutely would not, but this is the ‘consensus belief’. In his search, he is unable to find someone that fulfills his view of a suitable wife for him. His specifications are strict, because more than him searching for a wife for himself, it seems that he is searching for a wife of his future congregation. He wants to find someone that will be a traditional ‘Rabbi’s wife’. He is longing to be accepted. All of Salzman’s prospects are unappealing to him. When forced to go out on a date with Lily, he discovers, due to her probing and unending questions, that he was ‘unloved and loveless’. He was inclined to go to a matchmaker because he wanted to have a congregation, and this is in keeping with his old order frame of mind. He decides to abandon his search, and it is then that he finds the picture of Stella. In his acceptance of the new order, he finds the true love that he was searching for. His former search was for a woman that would fit perfectly into the Jewish community. Stella in no way fit into his strict specifications. She was wild, and her own father described her as ‘dead to me’. This is a perfect example of going from an ‘old order’ point of view, to embracing the ‘new order’. He was no longer trying to live to please everyone else, and fit their specifications, but to make himself happy and fulfill his own personal needs.
