Life in a Dungeon

A peasant once sinned against the king. The king was angered, and ordered the man, along with his entire family, to be thrown into the dungeon. The dungeon was actually a very deep pit, where the hapless family was surrounded by the bare stone walls. Once a day, someone from the palace was assigned to lower a basket to them, containing enough food to sustain them for the day. Time passed in this manner, with the family having ample opportunity to regret their actions, as they recalled wistfully the happy life they led before their incarceration, and bemoaned the tragedy of their current suffering.

Years went by, and the parents died in captivity, while the children and their families aged, and new generations were born in the dungeon. Gradually, the older generations passed on one by one, and the dungeon came to be inhabited by descendents who had never known any other existence. To them the world consisted of four imposing stone walls. They knew that somehow food supplies came to them every day from above in a basket; they didn’t necessarily understand how this worked, but they all knew that this was a fact, - they saw it for themselves; this was their reality.

Of course, they were all able to recall the “bubbeh maases”, the tales that used to be told by the ancient great-grandfather and great grandmother before they died, that described a great big world, with trees and oceans, and fields and animals and heavenly bodies and vast open spaces. They had described it all very vividly, and claimed to have witnessed it all themselves “before” arriving here. Much of this was corroborated by their grandparents, and great uncles and aunts. But they already did not have such clear memories of their own, and relied on the patriarch.

But, as interesting and fascinating as these tales were, the new generation knew to take it all with ‘a grain of salt’. They considered themselves to be rational and intellectual, and they reached logical conclusions based on what they could see with their own eyes. It was plain that their ancestors were rather fanciful, and not very well grounded. Even those who gave some credibility to these stories, believed that they were surely greatly exaggerated, even  if they did have some basis, but many others dismissed them out of hand as absolute fabrications and figments of their imaginations.

In the meantime, in the royal palace, the identity and transgression of the original peasant was long forgotten; there, too, the younger folks took the place of their elders, but the old traditions continued, with someone always being assigned the important task of lowering daily rations into the dungeon.

Many years passed, and one day a new king was crowned. As he was reviewing some old documents, he chanced upon the story of this unfortunate family. The king immediately decided that they had suffered long enough, and he signed an executive pardon, allowing them to be liberated. However, the various courtiers, along with the royal psychiatrists, expressed some concern. The current prisoners had spent their entire lives in the prison, to them this was their entire universe. To abruptly yank them from there and hurl them into the real world could prove catastrophic; they may not be able to make the adjustment. After lengthy consultation, it was decided to send the chief psychologist to them, to help prepare them for the great change in their lives.

Thus it was that, the next day, as they awaited their food to descend from above as it “naturally” did every day, they suddenly saw a human being appear with it! Overcome with curiosity, they immediately surrounded him, trying to discover from where he had materialized. He told them all to listen carefully, for he had important news to share with them. Slowly he began describing to them the “real world” that exists “out there”; - the world from where he had come to them, and to which he belonged; - the world to which, very shortly, they would all be returned.

The fact of his having just arrived from the outside world was to them a living vindication of their ancestor, and a validation of his old fashioned stories. Hearing the descriptions from this man who stood before them in the flesh caused all of their doubts to melt away like flax before a burning flame, and they couldn’t hear enough from him, swallowing his information as a thirsty man his first drop of water. In no time they discarded the foolish notions that they had acquired during their lengthy stay in the prison, and began thinking like “free” people once again.