Nathan the Wise – A Story

In 1779, the German Enlightenment philosopher and art critic Gotthold Lessing wrote a play, Nathan the Wise, that neatly encapsulates the problem of religious conflict and its solution in a way that might be extended to the argument between believer and skeptic. The play is set in the twelfth century in the Middle East. The Muslim Sultan Saladin has won a victory against the Crusaders, but it cost him a great deal and there is an uneasy truce in Jerusalem, with Muslims, Christians and Jews all eyeing one another with suspicion. He summons Nathan, a leading Jewish merchant, known for his wisdom. ‘Your reputation for wisdom in great,’ say the Sultan. ‘The great religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all contradict one another. They cannot all be true. Tell me then, which is best?’ Nathan recognized the trap immediately. If he says Judaism, he insults the Sultan. If he says Islam, he denies his own faith. If he says Christianity, he offends both. Nathan therefore does the Jewish thing. He tells a story. There was one a man who possessed a priceless ring. Its stone was a lustrous opal that refracted light into a hundred colors. But is also had the mysterious power to make the wearer beloved of God and of man. The man passed the ring on to his most cherished son, and so it was handed down, generation after generation. Finally it was inherited by a man who had three sons, each of whom he loved equally. Unable to choose between them, he secretly commissioned a jeweler to make two exact copies of the ring. On his deathbed, he blessed each son separately, and gave each a ring. Each son believed that he alone possessed the authentic ring. The man died. After the funeral, one after the other of the sons claimed to be the one to whom their father had entrusted his most precious possession, the ring. There seemed no way of resolving the argument because no one could tell which was the original ring. All three were indistinguishable. Eventually they brought the case before a judge, who heard the story and the history, and examined the rings. ‘The authentic ring’, said the judge in his verdict, ‘had the power to make its wearer beloved of God and of men. There is therefore only one way each of you will know whether you have the genuine ring, and that is so to act as to become beloved of God and of man.’ ‘Bravo’, said the Sultan to Nathan, and let him go in peace.
[Told by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks inThe Great Partnership]
http://www.rabbisacks.org/books/the-great-partnership-god-science-and-the-search-for-meaning/ accessed from Steven Maimes FaceBook notes on May 25, 2015 reposted and annotated with permission. previously posted April 12, 2015 at 2:02pm