From the Rabbi's Study
By Rabbi Jonathan Kohn
Reel Life
[I wrote this back in 2000, about a movie that was just then hitting the screens. Several of our teens have mentioned the movie to me in recent weeks, though, so that the article seems to me quite as relevant, and at least as important, as it ever was.—JK]
I first noticed it on a TV show called Blossom. Alan King played a rabbi whose advice to a young girl was, “I’ve been young and I’ve been old, and believe me, young is better.”
That was the first time I heard an actor who played a rabbi say something that no real rabbi would say. Real rabbis are more inclined to what Rabbi Harold Kushner said when he contrasted youth and old age: something like, “The advantages of youth are that you can run fast and stay up late. Have I left anything out?”
I’ve seen this happen many times since, which is why I was less than thrilled when I heard, “Rabbi, you have to see a movie called Keeping the Faith. The comedian Ben Stiller plays a rabbi, and it’s hilarious.” Uh-oh, I thought. Goodbye Blossom, hello Seinfeld. This can’t be good for the Jews.
Everywhere I turned, though, people kept telling me, “See the movie.” A salesman interrupted his pitch to tell me about it. So all right already, I thought, how bad can it be? I went to see Keeping the Faith.
And you know what? It’s pretty good. Keeping the Faith is funny and entertaining, and it made me feel good to be a rabbi. So I’m joining the chorus: go see the movie.
But before you do, if you haven’t seen it yet, be very careful: Don’t go without reading this article. Especially if you’re young. Because, kids, Keeping the Faith pitches a brand of snake oil, and you don’t want to buy it.
Here’s the movie’s premise: A Conservative rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a high-powered secular Catholic businesswoman are lifelong buddies. The movie almost pulls it off. It makes the premise seem credible, sort of like Star Wars.
The rabbi is a good rabbi and the priest is a good priest. They’re both very mainstream. The rabbi has unusual teaching methods, but the content of his lessons is straight down the center; and as for the priest, he articulates in the movie precisely what I have always understood the life of a good Catholic priest to be. They both love their work. The rabbi loves his Torah, the priest loves his Jesus (though I don’t remember the name ever mentioned), and they both love their God.
They also both love the same woman, and therein lies the dramatic tension. Neither can marry her—the priest because he’s a priest and the rabbi because he’s an observant Jew. So the rabbi tries to date others, but—and here’s the first lie in the movie—every Jewish young woman is a jerk. The only woman he can ever get serious about is the Catholic businesswoman. (It only just now occurs to me that of all the many people who urged me to see the film, not one was female.)
The rabbi hesitates about her so long that the exasperated priest finally lets him have it—he hauls off with a sermon that changes the rabbi’s life as they wait for a light on a New York street corner. “She loves you,” says the priest. “You love her. What are you waiting for? What’s to think about?”
Now, I’m working from memory here, and the priest may have been saying something else, so check me on this, but that’s what I heard. And it’s not what any real priest or rabbi or any other religious leader would say. Listen to me good, kids—it’s a lie. Life isn’t like that.
First off, there are at least fifteen people in the entire world that you could fall in love with, not just one. Second, having a crush is nice, but it’s nothing to build on. Pump the crush up with air and hormones and call it “being in love,” and that’s nice too, but it’s not love. Love is based on shared values that you can work with to build a life. I can’t tell you how many times in the movie I heard the word fun. If you want fun and good times, go with your heart, go with the crush. If you want happiness and a good life, go with your head. There’s a reason it’s called a crush.
The message of the movie is, “Follow your heart.” It’s a terrible message. What man-made misery in all the world was not caused by people following their heart?
Hollywood loves this message. They use it also as the theme of Good Will Hunting. “Do what’s in your heart, son. You’ll be fine,” says Robin Williams there. No. Do what makes sense, do what is kind, do what God would approve of. Do what’s right, not what feels right. The heart is greedy and shortsighted, and it will lie.
“Remember all the Mitsvot of the Lord, and don’t follow your heart or your eyes that lead you wrong.” That’s from the Torah, from the Shema, and it’s good. We learn what is right from studying Torah and doing Mitsvot. That has always given us a good life. Kids who grow up discover that the wisdom of Torah is better than the wisdom of movies, and that if you’re looking for happiness then the Torah is a reliable guide.
It’s an awful lot better than your heart.
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The Religion Project
Dear Sir,
I am completing a project on world religion for my 8th grade history class. We are on a mission to better ourselves in the knowledge of other faiths. We hope to find similarities as well as differences. We hope you can complete the attached questionnaire.
Rabbi Kohn responds:
1. Q. Do you have an ultimate creator or religious GOD?
A. Yes.
2. Q. What belief do you have for after death experiences? Do you have an afterlife theory like heaven or reincarnation?
A. The afterlife is not a central concern of my religion. Immortality for us is not a matter of faith but of experience. We know by experience three immortal entities: God, the people Israel, and the Torah that links the two. Since our relation to God is through the covenant between God and Israel, it bears every element of immortality. My own individual immortality would be more important than it is if I were the center of creation, but I’m not. We have many understandings of an afterlife, many of them involving physical resurrection. For us, angels are not dead people, but a different order of being than the human. Human beings are essentially embodied, and we do not neglect the body nor hold it in low esteem. At death, “the body returns to the earth, and the spirit returns to God Who gave it.” One aspect of the afterlife that we reject entirely is eternal punishment. As individuals we are not capable enough of sin to deserve eternal punishment. Beyond that, if there were such a thing then there could be no reward for us, because we could not take undistracted pleasure when our brethren are being punished.If there were a heaven and hell, then those of us in heaven would have no business there except to intercede with God on behalf of the rest of us.
More next month…
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