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The Tempest

by Professor Eugene Narrett

Few people today recognize, and, such are our times, few educators want it known that the plays of Shakespeare teach in their details and story patterns the basic tenets of Judaism and the Noahide mitzvot. Let us clarify our understanding of the redemptive capabilities of these plays and how they can enlighten what Jews and Noahides, and others seeking a Godly way can do to extract the divine goodness in the Creation.

Aptly for our stormy time when the end of days seems near at hand, Shakespeare’s last play is entitled the Tempest. It is a story of learning and remembering, of learning from books and experience about the limits of relying totally on any human; about the love and education of a child culminating in seeing that child properly married to a spouse who understands that the essence of human happiness is serving one’s nearest and dearest. The Tempest is about punishment, repentance and forgiveness, about a betrayed scholarly brother returning to claim his inheritance and to see his beloved daughter find her true king and inherit the gates of those who had stolen her inheritance.

Yes, it sounds familiar…

Here’s the story in brief.

The play is set twelve years after the events that created its context. Prospero, originally Duke of Milan, was renowned for his love of study, knowledge of the liberal arts and “betterment of my mind,” he recalls. So much did he love his books, a wholesome man living in their tents, that “to my state I grew a stranger” he recalls, and delegated all his authority to his brother, Antonio. This abdication of his inheritance, “awaked in him [Antonio] an evil nature” proportionate to Prospero’s boundless confidence. After creating his own servants, Antonio has Prospero and his baby daughter, Miranda cast adrift in leaky boats. Only the kindness of a faithful servant, Gonzalo who will not worship power and who gives them food, water “and books that I prize above my life” Prospero tells Miranda, saves them for a joyous return.

When Miranda asks her father, “how came we hence,” to this island, Prospero answers, “by Providence divine.” And she asks further, “what foul play was it that we came from thence? Or blessed was it?” That puts the main issue of the adventure of our lives quite astutely. “Both, both, my girl!” answers the father. “By foul play were we heaved thence but blessedly helped hither” (1.2.60-3). The Tempest like nearly all of Shakespeare’s plays is about the effort to bring good out of evil, to find the most redemptive way to right wrongs, to motivate the sinner to return to goodness, service, awe and joy.

Above all, Prospero bids and helps his daughter to remember who she is and they are. The injunction to “remember” rings through the play like an echo of Tanach: for “the hour’s now come. The very moment bids thee open thy ear…’T’is time.” And to seize the appointed time for redemption also is the refrain of Prospero’s struggle and collaboration with his spirit, Ariel who, left to his own will would seek unstructured freedom without service or purpose: “The time twixt six and now must by us both be spent most preciously” Prospero impresses on him (1.2.241).

 In Shakespeare’s plays every character from the lowest to the highest, from kings and queens to anonymous peasants are brought to moments of choice that test their potential for allegiance and justice, that define their character and degree of suffering, nobility or repentance. So is it in the Tempest whose tight scope has many different personalities and an ongoing demonstration about the nature and limits of authority which never in Shakespeare is merely about social rank. Just as in Tanach, with which he clearly was familiar, text and principles, one has to know when to say ‘no’ to a ruler who has broken the bonds that keep us human.

The play ends with the reintegration of society, the betrothal of the beloved daughter to a worthy king, the return of inheritance, a general feeling of wonder that is “like a dream” for all but one, the evil brother whose envy seems fixed. Antonio, he is Esau… But the end of the end is the re-telling of the story amid wonder and joy that implants the reality of miracles in every one’s mind; and the telling continues after the play, in private so to speak, in an extended day of rest, an eighth day when the epitome of joy is extracted for the original family and the redeemed usurpers, -- hope for our day.

We have briefly re-chartered part of the course for the regeneration of a saving education and discernment in our nation.

Jews and Noahides have the challenging but saving tasks of bringing humankind back to a sense of awe, conscience, justice, repentance, generosity of spirit and the example of liberating service to the only rules not made by human hands or minds. The happy aspect of our work is that it makes us more human. We are not one in the forced unity of consciousness drowned by slogans, strong drink or mysticism but by sanctifying the every day work and joys of life: restoring the distinctions between private and public, between youth and age and the centrality of deference and respect; showing how the practical and spiritual always combine in preparing a meal, in reading to children, in defending one’s land, in tending a garden or making a marriage bed.

Freedom through following the basic commandments of the Eternal One is the antithesis of the state coercion and slogans of which the modern, progressive world increasingly consists. Our understanding of freedom through these commandments must be demonstrated with joy and protected with vigilant might until most people let it be or even better, acknowledge how sweet it is and share it with us. What a glorious and liberating service this is.

Professor Eugene Narrett received his BA, MA, and PhD from Columbia University in New York City.  His writings on American politics and culture, on western civilization and on Israel have been widely published.