How we cite our quotes: Story Number.Paragraph
Quote #4
Ephraim, you must know, is a matchmaker like all matchmakers, and makes matches. […]
"As you know, Reb Tevye, I am a matchmaker, and I have a bridegroom for you, but a groom without compare, the cream of the crop!" (5.49-55)
Are we the only ones getting the sense that the matchmakers in Tevye's society are like the used-car dealers in ours?
Quote #5
For a moment I wondered what would be so bad if I stopped for a while and listened to what [Chava] had to say. […] Maybe, who knew, she'd changed her mind and wanted to turn back. Maybe he'd rejected her and she was asking me to help her get out of gehennam [hell]. Maybe and maybe and many more maybes flew though my mind, and I still imagined her as a small child. I was reminded of her verse As a father pitieth his children—to a father there is no such thing as a bad child. […] All these strange thoughts came to my mind: What did it mean to be a Jew, and what did it mean to be a non-Jew? And why did God create Jews and non-Jews, and why were they so set apart from one another, unable to get along, as if one had been created by God and the other not? To my regret, not being as learned as others in books and religious texts, I could not find an answer to these questions. (6.107-108)
Okay, a bunch of things here. (1) Check out how the questions about Jews and non-Jews that torment Tevye here are the same ones that Chava posed to him at the beginning of the story. (2) Tevye is torn between his duty as a father and his duty (as he sees it, at least) as a Jew. Does he owe more to a small community (his family) or to the larger community of Jews as a targeted and deeply oppressed minority within turn of the century Russia? (3) The problem of what he should do as a father is pretty clear according to his Torah quotation—dads are supposed to love their kids no matter what. So, it's weird that he can't come up with a Biblical verse for the duty to the Jewish community issue—and that he still picks that over his Torah-defined paternal role anyway.
Quote #6
"Walk over to us at the farm, and my wife will treat you to cheese blintzes the likes of which your blessed ancestors never partook of in Egypt." […]
"I will come to you, Reb Tevye, on the first day of Shevuos with a few friends for blintzes. But see to it they are hot!"
"Fire and flame inside and out," I said [to Ahronchik], "from the frying pan right into your mouth!" (7.19-23)
This is a small thing, but it's interesting that food is the one thing that seems to link the rich and the poor (besides Tevye's dairy cart). For this community, food is a pretty deep tradition. (Oh, and, if you ever get the chance to eat some good cheese blintzes? You'll know why Ahronchik is so psyched.)