{"id":150,"date":"2009-11-04T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2009\/11\/04\/150\/"},"modified":"2010-05-02T21:12:06","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T02:12:06","slug":"150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=150","title":{"rendered":"Hope and Despair"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOPE AND DESPAIR IN POPULAR CULTURE: Yesterday I encountered two different approaches to the question of God and justice. In the morning, I heard a song on the radio from my favorite band, 3 Doors Down; so I got on Google and looked up the lyrics and the video. The song is called \u201cNot My Time\u201d, and here\u2019s the video site<\/a>. <\/p>\n

According to a Christian discussion group<\/a>, 3 Doors does NOT qualify as a Christian band. (Well, all the better in my reckoning.) But the video in question clearly has a religious theme to it, reinforced by various shots of churches with crucifixes and Madonna-like statues along the path of the young running savior with dreadlocks (who is versed in an extreme sport called \u201cparkour\u201d<\/a>). And one of the refrains to the song goes \u201cthere might be more than you believe, there might be more than you can see\u201d<\/span>. Another nice line (I think it\u2019s nice, anyway) goes like this: \u201cmy friend, this life we live, it\u2019s not what we have, it\u2019s what we believe in\u201d<\/span>. Sorry if that\u2019s not enough for the \u201cChristian warriors\u201d out there. <\/p>\n

Later in the day, I decided to go see the Coen brothers\u2019 latest movie, \u201cA Serious Man\u201d<\/a>. This movie attempts to take all the hope spun out by a band like 3 Doors Down and suck it into a black hole of ironic humor and intellectual cynicism. In some ways \u2013 many ways, perhaps \u2013 Serious Man is a Jewish thing. (But the same can be said for Christianity, right?) The questions transcend the suburban Jewish culture through which the Serious Man story is layered. <\/p>\n

In a nutshell, Serious Man is the book of Job presented without a happy ending and with a streak of dark humor. Or attempted humor, anyway. There were about 15 other people in the theater with me, and some of them laughed at the bizarre way that Professor Gopnik\u2019s life just kept getting worse and worse, in spite of his efforts to find solace in God and his Jewish tradition. This was a very nervous, tentative laughter. I did not join in.<\/p>\n

Despite the failed attempt at belly laughs, there are some profound moments in Serious Man. Such as the pleading fashion in which the Professor asks a rabbi \u201cwhy does God make us feel these questions if He does not intend to answer them?\u201d Obviously (given the movie\u2019s cynical bent), the rabbi provides a crass, irrelevant reply, something to do with Hebrew letters etched into the teeth of a non-Jew. Another interesting point focuses around the \u201cold rabbi\u201d, Rabbi Marshak, the bearded grand poobah of the Gopnik family\u2019s temple. Professor Gopnik pleads with Marshak\u2019s secretary to arrange for him a talk with the old wizard regarding his many afflictions; we then see her open the door to his chamber (more than an office), discuss Gopnik\u2019s request with him, then return with the message \u201cthe rabbi is busy\u201d. Gopnik, feeling another sting on top of all the other insults and injuries to his life, tells her \u201cHe doesn\u2019t look busy.\u201d She replies: \u201che\u2019s thinking\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ah yes, another cheap shot at the hypocrisy and ultimate irrelevance of religion. But in a way, the Grand Rabbi is right; God went silent on Job; he also went silent (or isn\u2019t there at all) for Gopnik, and now the wise old Rabbi decides that if God can\u2019t say anything relevant, he certainly can\u2019t either. After all the bogus sympathies and wisdoms thrown at Gopnik by the two other rabbis that he talked with, you can see that the bearded-one just might have a point. Perhaps all that \u201cthinking\u201d of his is not in vain.<\/p>\n

Then comes an encounter between Marshak and Gopnik\u2019s son. The son, a typical pot-head teenager from the late 1960s, has just had his bar mitzvah. Part of the ritual involves a follow-up spiritual conference with the grand rabbi. After some uncomfortable staring, the rabbi puts a transistor radio with cheap plastic earphone on the table, and pushes it over to the teenager. Earlier in the movie, this same radio was confiscated from the boy as he was listening to the Jefferson Airplane and not to the venerable teacher at his Hebrew school. Now it is being returned, along with a wise quote from the old rabbi. And of course, the quote is from a classic Airplane song, with a slight twist: \u201cWhen the truth is found to be lies, and all the hope within you dies\u201d. The rabbi then attempts to name the members of the Airplane, stumbling a bit on Jorma Kaukonen\u2019s<\/a> last name. Young Gopnik, who for most of the movie is just a waste of life, now has his moment; he solemnly nods in agreement with the rabbi, forgiving his lack of finesse with a rock star\u2019s goy name (although ironically, Kaukonen\u2019s mother is Jewish; he thus qualifies as a son of Israel). <\/p>\n

Of course, just as some existential satisfaction appears amidst the gloom (along with the news that Gopnik might get tenure at his college despite some blackmail letters accusing him of moral turpitude), the Coens then set up a grand ending: Gopnik sells out his morals to a student offering a cash bribe (Gopnik needs the money to help his worthless brother, who is in trouble with the police); then he is told by his doctor that \u201cwe need to talk in person about your test results, right now\u201d; and then a nasty tornado comes straight at his son in the Hebrew school parking lot. And then the credits roll; no resolution, no \u201ctonic note\u201d to it all. Everything just goes dark. <\/p>\n

Yes, yes, I get it already. Life\u2019s a bitch, and then you die, no matter what you did or didn\u2019t believe. 3 Doors Down must be wrong \u2013 this life is NOT what you believe in. It must be what you have<\/span>, after all. <\/p>\n

I got a good laugh from the ending to the \u201cNot My Time\u201d video; by contrast, I didn\u2019t laugh at all during \u201cSerious Man\u201d. But my style of laughter is different from many people\u2019s. I laugh at things that bring unexpected joy to me. I hardly laugh to scoff or ridicule someone else. <\/p>\n

Perhaps though we should laugh at what the Coens serve up \u2013 laugh at the wrongness of it all. I can\u2019t deny the fact that horrible injustice exists in this world (especially all the horrors experienced by Jewish communities throughout history). But to declare that all is darkness in this realm . . . . well, it seems a bit premature to me. By the same token, you can\u2019t believe that a parkour angel in sneakers will surely save you the next time a truck runs a stop sign in your path. <\/p>\n

We live poised atop a question mark. It\u2019s tempting to give in to the darkness, or alternately to imagine that all is in the hands of a loving creator. But in reality, the great question remains unanswered throughout our lives. The glass remains half empty and half filled. I myself am trying to hold out for hope, despite black tornadoes and painful death from cancer. Even if this world is just a fleeting blip of randomness, as physics Professor Gopnik seems forced to conclude, it will still be a better blip if we can hold out hope. (One bit of proof: the music on a 3 Doors Down album is 10 times as good as anything on the Serious Man sound track! I never liked the Airplane all that much anyway).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOPE AND DESPAIR IN POPULAR CULTURE: Yesterday I encountered two different approaches to the question of God and justice. In the morning, I heard a song on the radio from my favorite band, 3 Doors Down; so I got on Google and looked up the lyrics and the video. The song is called \u201cNot My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}