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Sportin’ Life was right, but what about that Torah tune?

[additional-authors]
June 13, 2013

   Sportin’ Life, the dope peddling conman who lived on Catfish Row in 1930s Charleston, South Carolina — at least in the musings of George and Ira Gershwin and writers DuBose and Dorothy Heyward — never did delve deeply into higher Biblical criticism.  He probably never even heard about seventeenth century philosopher ” target=”_blank”>Julius Wellhausen, for that matter. And yet, he hit the nail on the head, didn’t he?

   Singing “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” the most famous tune in Porgy and Bess after “Summertime,” Sportin’ Life chided, even taunted, the more reverent and traditionally minded folks on Catfish Row about some familiar but not so credible Biblical stories such as “li’l David” slaying big Goliath, Jonah making his home in a whale’s abdomen, and Methuselah living nine hundred years (actually 969, but who’s counting). And to underscore his point, Sportin’ Life would sing:

             “It ain’t necessarily so. It ain't necessarily so. De t’ings dat yo li’ble/ To read in de Bible/ It ain’t necessarily so.”

   Now Sportin’ Life could have gone further. Putting aside for the moment the stories about divine beings mating with human females (see Genesis 6:1-4) and winged creatures with multiple faces and a single leg (see Ezekiel 1:4-9), each of which can be forgiven as fanciful excesses in the name of literary license, the Bible contains a number of statements which are not factually accurate or at least are anachronisms. Two examples illustrate the situation:

  • Parashah B’reishit (Gen. 1:9-12) asserts not just, and incorrectly, that the Earth was formed before the Sun, but that plant life emerged before the Sun was around to fuel photosynthesis on which plants depend.
  • Parashah Lech L’cha (Gen. 14:14) describes how Avram (later Avraham) sought to rescue his nephew Lot with an army of allies pursuing Lot’s captors all the way north to the town of Dan in the Huleh Valley. The town was named after Avram’s great-grandson (Yaakov’s fifth son), but Dan was not yet born at the time of the military adventure. (See Gen. 25:7-8; 30:6.) In fact, he was not born until after Avraham died. Moreover, the town in question (originally Laish) was not named Dan until it was conquered hundreds of years later, according to other entries in the Bible. (See Joshua 19:47-48; Judges 18:26-29.) (For more, see ” target=”_blank”>reportedly tried to dispense with the rendition of Kol Nidre which immediately precedes the evening service for Yom Kippur, but ultimately failed to do so in large part because of the emotional power of the melody that accompanies the reading. Perhaps the same was true of the Gershwins, creators of quintessentially American music. Perhaps something like that musical pull was at work here, in the sense that while the Gershwins could stay out of shul, the shul still stayed in the Gershwins. Perhaps their use of the Torah blessing theme was their homage to their heritage. Unfortunately, unless someone discovers a letter to one of their contemporaries like Yip Harburg, Harold Arlen or Oscar Levant or, perhaps, an entry in a diary, we may never know what the Gershwins had in mind.

       We do know, however, that “It Ain’t Necessarily So” was an enormously powerful piece. In 1943, with the second World War raging, Porgy and Bess made its European debut in Copenhagen at the Royal Danish Opera. Not surprisingly, the Nazis were not enamored with the production of a show written by Jews and about blacks. (Apparently, they did not give much credit to the DuBoses.) Despite the efforts of Hitler’s thugs to shut the show, it was successful in Denmark, and ran in repertory into the Spring of 1944. By then, though, the Nazis had had enough, and the Luftwaffe was threatening to bomb the Royal Opera unless production ended, which it then did.

       Though George had died in July, 1937, the Gershwins would not be silenced. In response to Goebbel’s propaganda, the Danish resistance, bless ‘em, would interrupt enemy broadcasts with those wonderful words (in Danish) to that very special tune: It Ain’t Necessarily So! It Ain’t Necessarily So! It Ain’t Necessary So! (See Robin Thompson, The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (2006) at 160; Rimler, above, at 171.)

       Some may consider this conveyance of truth to power, by way of a sacred chant in a most unconventional manor and setting, to be a minor proof of the existence of God. And some may not.

       Regardless, we should all be able to agree: S’Wonderful.  S’Marvelous.

       Who could ask for anything more?


       Another version of this essay was previously published at

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