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The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt.

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Parable
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A parable is [1] a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or (sometimes) a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human characters. It is a type of analogy.[2]
Some scholars of the Canonical gospels and the New Testament apply the term “parable” only to the parables of Jesus,[3] though that is not a common restriction of the term. Parables such as “The Prodigal Son” are central to Jesus’ teaching method in both the canonical narratives and the apocrypha.

Etymology
The word “parable” comes from the Greek παραβολή (parabolē), meaning “comparison, illustration, analogy”.[4] It was the name given by Greek rhetoricians to any fictive illustration in the form of a brief narrative. Later it came to mean a fictitious narrative, generally referring to something that might naturally occur, by which spiritual and moral matters might be conveyed.[5]
Characteristics
A parable is a short tale that illustrates universal truth, one of the simplest of narratives. It sketches a setting, describes an action, and shows the results. It often involves a character facing a moral dilemma, or making a questionable decision and then suffering the consequences. Though the meaning of a parable is often not explicitly stated, the meaning is not usually intended to be hidden or secret but on the contrary quite straightforward and obvious.[6]
The defining characteristic of the parable is the presence of a prescriptive subtext suggesting how a person should behave or believe. Aside from providing guidance and suggestions for proper action in life, parables frequently use metaphorical language which allows people to more easily discuss difficult or complex ideas. Parables teach an abstract argument, using a concrete narrative which is more easily grasped.[5]
The parable can be distinguished from other narrative types which have a moral content, such as the apologue and the allegory, although this distinction has not always been clear.

The apologue is a type of fable which is intended to express a simple moral lesson. Like the apologue, the parable generally relates a single, simple, consistent action, without a great deal of circumstantial detail. And like the apologue, the parable expresses a moral lesson. However, unlike the apologue, the parable is a realistic story that seems inherently probable and takes place in a familiar setting of life. For example the characters in a parable are exclusively human, whereas the characters in an apologue may be animals or plants or other natural phenomena. For this reason, Folktales and fairy tales may generally be regarded as fables or apologues rather than parables.

The allegory is a more general narrative type, which covers any use of figurative metaphor. Like the allegory, the parable uses metaphor to make its point. But unlike allegory, the parable makes a single, unambiguous point. The allegory may have multiple noncontradictory interpretations, and may also have implications that are ambiguous or hard to interpret. As H.W. Fowler puts it in Modern English Usage, the object of both parable and allegory “is to enlighten the hearer by submitting to him a case in which he has apparently no direct concern, and upon which therefore a disinterested judgment may be elicited from him.”[5] The parable, though, is more condensed than the allegory: a single principle comes to bear, and a single moral is deduced as it dawns on the reader or listener that the conclusion applies equally well to his own concerns.

Medieval interpreters of the Bible often treated Jesus’ parables as allegories, with symbolic correspondences found for every element in the parables.
Gnostics suggest that Jesus kept some of his teachings secret within the circle of his own disciples, and deliberately obscured their meaning by the use of parable, for example, Mark 4:11-12:[7]

“And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that “they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” ’” (NRSV)

Modern critics, beginning with Adolf Jülicher, regard these interpretations as inappropriate and untenable.[1] Jülicher held that Jesus’ parables usually are intended to make a single important point, and most recent scholarship agrees.[3]

The parable is related to figures of speech such as the metaphor and the simile, but should not be identified with these.
A parable is like a metaphor in that it uses concrete, perceptible phenomena to illustrate abstract, ephemeral ideas. It could be said that a parable is a metaphor that has been extended to form a brief, coherent fiction. For example, Christian parables have recently been studied as extended metaphors.[8] However, “extended metaphor” is not in itself a sufficient description of parable; the characteristics of an extended metaphor are shared by many narrative types, including the allegory, the fable and the apologue.

Similarly, a parable also resembles a simile, i.e. a metaphorical construction in which something is said to be “like” something else (e.g. “The just man is like a tree planted by streams of water”). However, unlike a simile, a parable’s parallel meaning is unspoken and implicit, though not ordinarily secret.

Parable of the Good Samaritan, by Jan Wijnants (1670)

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HISTORY
Parables are favored in the expression of spiritual concepts. The best-known source of parables in Christianity is the Bible, which contains numerous parables in the Gospels section of the New Testament, Jesus’ parables. The New Testament parables are thought by scholars such as John P. Meier to have been inspired by mashalim, a form of Hebrew comparison.[3] Examples of Jesus’ parables include “the Good Samaritan” and “the Prodigal Son”. Mashalim from the Old Testament include the “parable of the ewe-lamb” told by Nathan in 2 Samuel 12:1-9, and that of “the woman of Tekoah” in 2 Samuel 14:1-13.
Parables also appear in Islam. In Sufi tradition, parables (“teaching stories”) are used for imparting lessons and values. Recent authors such as Idries Shah and Anthony de Mello have helped popularize these stories beyond Sufi circles.
Modern stories can be used as parables. A mid-19th-century parable, the “Parable of the Broken Window”, exposes a fallacy in economic thinking.

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The Rooster Prince
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Rooster Prince, also sometimes translated as The Turkey Prince, is a Jewish mashal or parable told by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, founder of the Breslov form of Hasidic Judaism. It was first told orally, and later published by Nathan of Breslov in Sippurei Ma’asiot, a collection of stories by Rebbe Nachman. It has since appeared in numerous folklore anthologies and works on Hasidic storytelling.

Story
In this story, a prince goes insane and believes that he is a rooster (or turkey.) He takes off his clothes, sits naked under the table, and pecks at his food on the floor. The king and queen are horrified that the heir to the throne is acting this way. They call in various sages and healers to try and convince the prince to act human again, but to no avail. Then a new wise man comes to the palace and claims he can cure the prince. He takes off his clothes and sits naked under the table with him, claiming to be a rooster, too. Gradually the prince comes to accept him as a friend. The sage then tells the prince that a rooster can wear clothes, eat at the table, etc. The Rooster Prince accepts this idea and, step-by-step, begins to act normally, until he is completely cured.
Interpretations
The main interpretation of this story is that the prince represents a simple Jew who has forgotten his true self, and the sage represents a Hasidic Rebbe who has the cure for his soul. Rather than condemn the simple Jew for being non-religious, the Rebbe “descends” to his level to meet him where he is at, then shows him how to return to God step by step, and in a manner that he can accept upon himself. Some Breslov Hasidim say that the “wise man” is Rebbe Nachman himself. In 1991, Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, himself a Breslover Hasid, published an entire self-help book based on this story, entitled Under the Table and How to Get Up. This book goes step by step through the story, expanding each detail into a personal lesson on spiritual growth.
As noted above, there is some debate as to which barnyard bird was originally being referred to in the story. The parable was originally told in Yiddish. Some early translations and oral traditions rendered the Yiddish word truthahn as “Indian Cock” or rooster. (A well-known example is in Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel, where he retells the story as heard from his Hasidic grandfather.) Others thought the word referred to the male Junglefowl or a peacock. More recently, some translators, most notably the Breslov Research Institute,[1] have rendered it as turkey. (The fan tail of a turkey does resemble that of a peacock.) These differences do not affect the basic plot of the story.

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Recently I sent an email to a small group of my friends.  On the subject line of the email I wrote:  THIS IS A TEST OF YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR.

In the body of the email I reproduced a joke that I had just read in the Jewish intellectual journal, COMMENTARY.  On reading the joke I laughed and then on reflection I realized that the joke was really a parable that contained a profound moral teaching about human behavior.  So I was moved to reproduce the joke and send it as the text of my email to my friends.  I said that the email was a test because I was curious to learn how many others would recognize that it was more than just a joke.  Several of my friends wrote back and thanked me for the joke and said that it was funny, but no one told me that they regarded it as anything more than a joke.  I was disappointed because I knew that the moral lesson contained in the joke/parable was really profound.  I hope you agree.

Here is the parable:

THE SUIT

All his life, Sol Feffer wanted a tailored suit.
Finally, at the age of 65, he went to get himself one.

He was measured.  He came for the first fitting.  He came back two weeks later for the second fitting.
A week after that he went to pick up the suit.

He tried it on and looked at himself in the mirror. He could not believe how elegant he looked.

“Gorgeous,” Klein the tailor said.

“Unbelievable,” said Klein’s assistant.

“Only one thing,” said Klein.  “You have a little scoliosis.  Maybe you didn’t know.  But your right shoulder droopsl.  I did what I could to correct for it, but there’s only so much I can do.  If you want the suit to look good you’ll hoist your right shoulder a little.”

Feffer hoists his right shoulder.

“Ooh!” says the assistant.
“Wow!” says the tailor.

Feffer begins to go.

“One more thing,” says the tailor.  “Your right leg – maybe you don’t know – is about an eighth of an inch sorter than your left.  I did what I could to correct for it, but you don’t want too much material on one side compared with the other side.  So if you just straighten you right leg and bend your left leg a little, it’ll fall perfectly.”

Feffer straightens his right leg and bends his left leg.
“There!” said the assistant.
“Magnificent,” says the tailor.

“One final thing,” says the tailor.  “Because you’re bending one leg and straightening the other, the crotch area is a little off balance, so if you just tilt your knees out a little….there!”
And the assistant says, “I’m crying it’s so handsome.”

Feffer leaves and exits onto 48th Street.  He walks down the block with one shoulder up, one leg straight, one leg bent, his knees bowed out.

He passes two men.
One says, “Oh my did you see that horribly crippled man?  He must have been in a terrible accident.
“Yes,” says the other man, “but that’s a beautiful suit he’s wearing.”

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Now, the thought occurs to me that this is exactly what must have happened in the case of Jesus Christ and his parables.  In the beginning of his ministry of preaching the gospel, when he was still relatively unknown because he not begun to perform miracles, the stories he told were perceived to be just stories, anecdotes, not parables.  Many of those who heard him were just curious, not seekers of the truth.  The fundamental human condition necessary for interior conversion is being open-minded, receptive, not just to words but the meaning behind the words.  The absence of that quality could prove to be an obstacle to perceiving the hidden message of a parable.  That explains the rather harsh saying of Jesus recorded in Mark 4:11-12:

“And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that “they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” ’”

– Abyssum