Yeah I've heard that story too, lost a fiddling contest to a kid named Johnny. Makes him look somewhat less than impressive when a mere kid can beat him.
In the time of Jesus, Jewish religious officials continued the unauthorized changes (change from established norms denotes liberalism) developed by previous leadership which had established new traditions. Thus Jesus said to them, “… ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition” (Mark 7:9). His response to certain questions was never, “What do today’s scribes and Pharisees say?”; it was “What is written in the law?” (e.g., Luke 10:26). In saying that, Jesus took questioners backward 1,400 years to Mount Sinai and Moses, negating leadership’s supposedly progressive changes. Returning to a previous standard is considered reactionary not liberal.