Future Shock - A Photograph as Midrash

Traditional Methods of Interpretation:

Peshat – Simple restatement of the obvious elements

Remez – Hints – References to similar elements

Drash – Stories that expand on the elements and themes

Sod – Traditionally secrets, but could be personal insights of the viewer

Midrash -Interpreting the Visual Image

Peshat – Simple restatement of the obvious elements

A young girl is watching a man using a machine to tear down a house in a residential area.

Remez – Hints – References to specific or similar elements

The girl is holding what looks like a basketball suggesting that she was on her way to play, but stopped fascinated by the tear down activity. And might she have playmate who lived in the house being torn down?

The neighborhood is of similar vintage homes, and one wonders if a replacement house would be of a similar design or more modern?

Why we might ask, is the house being torn down? Is a neighbor wanting to expand their property?

Is there a relationship between the girl and the man? Is she watching her father working?

Drash – Stories that expand on the elements and themes

What would the girl be thinking or feeling? Sad because of a positive connection with the house or the people who lived there? Happy because she never liked the house and or the people?

Would she be fascinated by the mechanics of this strange process of a house being torn down? Would she grow up to be an architect or an interior designer?

Perhaps it was her old house and her parents will be rebuilding a more satisfactory dwelling for themselves?

Sod – Traditionally secrets, but could be personal insights of the viewer.

What do I or you get out of the picture? Is there a favorite or hated house/home that this picture reminds us about?

Does it represent loss of innocence? A loss of the comfortable familiar, a moment of new possibilities?

Can the picture represent future shock which Alvin Toffler has described as experiencing too much change too rapidly? Is the young girl witnessing change in her neighborhood?

what does this picture mean to you?