Are We Serious

In October, the Center for Jewish Life and Learning launched its fall semester of the Jewish Lens, a film class that meets twice per month at the JCC. This semester, the theme for the course is Searching for Jewish Identity and the series was launched with, A Serious Man (USA, 2009) the Academy Award nominated film written and directed by Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen.

A challenging tale of woe and failure, the film offers interesting insights into our connections to Judaism and the challenges that we as Jewish educators face on a daily basis in today’s society. Even though the events of A Serious Man takes place in 1967, the struggles of the protagonist Larry Gopnik, (played marvelously by Michael Stuhlbarg who can currently be seen as Arnold Rothstein in HBO’s series Boardwalk Empire) in trying to discover why these horrible calamities are befalling him are a wonderful parable to the struggles of the modern, American Jewish community. While many Jews whom I have spoken with are deeply troubled by the film’s “Jewish message,” most notably the portrayal of the three rabbis from whom Larry seeks counsel and advice, I saw the film as a deep expression of the challenges we face as a modern Jewish community – most notably where and how do we seek for answers to the big questions that trouble and mystify us and what do we do with the answers that we receive, especially if we are not satisfied with them or they do not answer the question.

In reviewing the film for Tablet Magazine, Liel Liebowitz wrote that the film is less about Gopnik and his woes and more about the challenges of the Jewish people in the modern world. For Liebowitz, and I think I agree with him, simplicity is the enemy of modernity, “Modernity—in its American strand, at least—requires of its practitioners a growing specialization, an increased sophistication, a neverending striving towards certainty. It is, in other words, the very opposite of the Talmudic undertaking, in which the argument itself is the central pursuit and a finite truth, should it ever materialize, is of little concern.”

PBS religion editor, Cathleen Falsani, who wrote a book about the Coen Brothers and religion in their films; The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers, commented on the film’s rabbis and their perceived lack of advice. “To their credit, the rabbis in the film don’t really try to give an answer. I think they kind of encourage the wrestling out of the answer, which is, in fact, in my estimation, to continue to live your life.”

Is this enough? Is this what we want or do we ultimately need answers to these big questions of why? What do we make of the fact that the most enlightening moment in the film comes from the lyrics of Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love; “When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies,”

In an interview, Joel and Ethan Coen suggested that the film is the ultimate schlemiel joke (not a modern adaptation of the Book of Job as others suggest), the unlucky character who constantly fails made famous in Yiddish literature and folklore. I believe that the challenge for us as Jewish educators and as a community at large is thus: If Larry (and by extension the Jewish community) is indeed the schlemiel and enlightenment is found not in traditional places but within in popular culture -- how and by what means do we engage in the search for meaning and answers? What should we be doing to promote the concept of Jewish living through Jewish learning – and indeed is it enough? I welcome your feedback at rwalter@jewishnewhaven.org.