The Circle of Love
©DISNEY. PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS
Teaching reverence for the wisdom and knowledge of the elders,
‘The Lion King’ is a Lion of Judah
Michael Elkin
L et others be nonchalant,
sing “Hakuna Matata,”
and feel trouble-free: When
you’re The Lion King, you’ve got
a prideful of problems and re-
sponsibilities. After all, it’s a jungle out
there. But among the thousands
who have gravitated toward
the Broadway hit in the past 20
years — including those snatch-
ing up tickets for its return to
Philadelphia’s Academy of Mu-
sic, May 20 to June 14 — some
contend that there’s much Jew-
ish pride to be taken in this tale
of the African Pride Land.

And much of that pride fo-
cuses on the Jewish conceit of
respect for the elders in the com-
munity. “If ever there were a theater
piece that so nearly speaks to
Judaism and Jewish tradition,
this is certainly it,” asserts Can-
tor Marshall Portnoy of Main
Line Reform Temple.

He should know: Each year
he accompanies the Junior Jam-
mers — the name of the temple’s
children’s choir — on a musi-
cally themed trip to Manhattan.

Next month, he’ll do so again,
heading to The Lion King for the
second time in 20 years.

Why? Because, in part, the
musical fosters a certain un-
derstanding between children
and their elders — a virtue in
the vanguard of Jewish values
— that is hard to come by in to-
day’s society.

This is “nowhere better ex-
emplified,” he says, than in the
reverence shown Mufasa, the ti-
tle character.

“If ever there were a theater piece
that so nearly speaks
to Judaism and Jewish tradition,
this is certainly it.”
—Cantor Marshall Portnoy
It doesn’t stop with him.

One of the other key charac-
ters, the wisdom-soaked, grey-
haired mandril, Rafiki, says
Portnoy, offers lessons to Sim-
ba, the young lion in line for
the throne, about the respect he
should have “for all who have
gone before.”
Ponder the possibilities of
tradition, advises Rafiki: “When
Rafiki takes Simba to a pond
where he gazes up at the sky,
we cannot help but be moved by
the memory of father Abraham,
when God beckoned him to look
at the sky and count the stars,”
says Portnoy.

“The stars shown to Abra-
ham are promises of the future;
the stars on which Simba gazes
are promises of the past.

“Yet, the lesson of The Lion
King and the lesson of Judaism
is the same: There is no ‘past’
and no ‘future’; there is but a
divine continuum of space and
time in which we are all privi-
leged to sing our songs, write
Continued on page 6
4 MAY 14, 2015
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