Deconstructing ‘Humpty Dumpty’
Judaism’s exposé on the enduring popularity of one classic rhyme
Jordan Peterson dissects fairytales and popular children’s stories, unpacking meaningful messages embedded within them. In the spirit of this work, I’d like to deconstruct one children’s rhyme equally familiar to young and old. Peterson would tell you: when a nursery rhyme achieves prominence, there are implicit and important ideas embedded within it. What is it about Humpty Dumpty that captured the imagination of parents and children through many generations?
To unpack this, we need to segue into the realm of Jewish mysticism and consider the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. Each letter’s shape, name, assigned number value and function, meaningfully correspond to the concept represented by that letter.
Case in point: the Aleph, a letter where we see two prongs of sorts, each straddling a slanted line which connects them. That silent letter corresponds to the number 1 and relays the concept of Divinity, the One who hides silently in the heart of the Creation.
According to the mystics, Creation derives its existence from G-d, therefore they find Creation, itself, represented in the letter: the higher prong reflects the Heavens, the lower reflects the Earth, and the line of connection, taking the form of the Hebrew letter Vav (the letter that symbolizes connectivity) connects the two realms.
This visual symbol, then, captures the cosmos as per Kabbalah: an invisible upper realm which connects to a manifest, grounded physical world. That connection is ‘slanted’, implying an ‘indirect’ type of connection. In order to make a world where free will is possible, the connection with Heaven would have to be veiled. Our task would be to discover and reinforce the connection, thereby to restore the unity that was shattered in order to mask the Divinity within it.
The Passover Connection
Rabbi YY Jacobson points out that the tripartite structure of the world was represented recently at the Passover Seder. The unleavened bread, three round matzos, are placed one on top of the other, representing the Heavens, the Earth and the connective structure between them. The Seder begins. We take the middle one, the point of connection, break it and hide half of it.
The shattering of the point of connection is the context for the Seder. Seder, in Hebrew, means ‘order’. The world has been severed from its spiritual root, throwing us into chaos. We have to restore order. The Seder provides rituals for achieving this end.
The fact of that cosmic break in reality accounts for all our personal and collective problems. Family unity eludes us. Forces shatter the peace in our lives. Some aspect of wholeness has been lost. It will be our task to retrieve the missing pieces, to gather the fragments and bring them together, reclaiming the wholeness that was lost. We send the children off to hunt for the missing matzoh.
It’s as if we are telling the children: “Go and find the broken bits. Fix what you can. Don’t begrudge what is broken. Participate in its repair. Be on the side of progress.”
The children find it. We reward them. We eat the matzah and that is also a message: ‘eventually you will partake of the wholeness that has eluded you. It will work out, in the end!’
Back to Humpty Dumpty
Humpty is perched on a wall. that, I will suggest, represents the physical world. The sky, overhead, represents the Heavens. Humpty is the vision of wholeness, the Vav, the connector that breaks, thereby depriving us of the perfection we would otherwise prefer.
Why can’t all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put Humpty together again? As children, the king represents the parent, the teacher, those with authority. As adults, the king may signify the government, the boss, the Powers that be. Were it that those at the helm could solve every problem! But problems often defy solutions, even the ones implemented by those in charge. We are being told to calibrate our expectations. The world’s problems will not be easily solved. The mess in the world is not so easily cleaned.
This is an idea that has been proven, time and time again. At the end of the day, each person has some cosmic role to play in repairing everything that’s broken. Sometimes one own’s little job may be as simple as cleaning his or her room. Interesting that one nursery rhyme, as old as antiquity, gently reminds: personal responsibility is not the last resort; it is the only resort when dealing with everything broken, including, although not limited to, the self.
