Stay until the very end of all the credits at the conclusion of the Coen brothers new movie, A Serious Man, and you'll see something I'm certain has never been done before in the history of Hollywood cinema. Viewers are reassured that, "No Jews were harmed in the making of this motion picture."
Unfortunately the statement is a blatant lie.
The harmed victims run the gamut from rabbis to God -- all of whom are mercilessly mocked in what is purported to be a modern day retelling of the biblical book of Job.
"No Jews were harmed in the making of this motion picture." Unfortunately the statement is a blatant lie.
Let's state at the outset that the Coen brothers are master craftsman. And that's precisely what makes the failures of this film so troublesome. Because they've won Oscars before, this movie is assured keen interest and attention. But David Denby, cinema critic of the New Yorker magazine, got it exactly right when in his review he wrote, "As a piece of moviemaking craft, A Serious Man is fascinating; in every other way, it's intolerable."
The film's emphasis on Jewish themes is probably more pervasive than any other film in recent memory. Would you believe an opening quote, without any elaboration, from the greatest of all Jewish biblical commentators, Rashi, followed by an eight-minute segment of an Eastern European shtetl story including a dybbuk, acted entirely in Yiddish with English subtitles!
What follows, seemingly unconnected to the prologue, is the harrowing tale of the endless misfortunes besetting Larry Gopnick, the 1967 Minneapolis suburban Jewish stand-in for the ancient Job. They are the contemporary equivalents of biblical curses: the imminent breakup of his marriage -- his wife wants to leave him for an obnoxious, smarmy character reverentially admired by his rabbi as "a serious man;" a career-threatening attempt to bribe him to change one of his students grades that leaves him threatened with a lawsuit for defamation; a son about to be bar mitzvahed addicted to pot and rock 'n roll and a daughter desperate to get a nose job as the American-Jewish rite of passage, joined by the moocher brother who moves in with no intention of ever leaving or getting a job.
As the world around him progressively falls apart, Larry wants to know why. Even though in his role as a junior professor of physics he teaches his classes the Uncertainty Principle, he still wants to believe that life makes some sense. He has been a devoted family man, a quiet neighbor, a hard-working professor -- an almost too-good-to-be-true man who turns down the advances of his seductress neighbor. If he cannot turn directly to God for an answer he contents himself with seeking a response from His rabbinic messengers. Surely those who carry the modern mantle of spiritual leadership must have some wisdom to impart to him.
So Larry meets with three spokesmen for the Almighty. And this is where the Coen brothers, who themselves grew up in a suburban area outside Minneapolis "detesting Hebrew school and their boring rabbis" at long last exact their revenge.
Each one of these encounters is more than black humor; it's defamation. Of course there will be those who will immediately counter my criticism with the putdown, "What's the matter, can't you take a joke?" But I somehow can't think it's funny when a film that sets out to explore a contemporary response to the why of human tragedy only finds it possible to offer us three eccentric fools as representatives of the wisdom of Judaism as it confronts the problem of human suffering.
Every meeting between Larry and a rabbi is a comedy "shtick." The first modern "prophet" is the young assistant standing in for his senior rabbi. The inanities coming out of his mouth, asking Larry to consider the beauty and profundity of the outdoor parking lot as a theological statement, elicited loud guffaws of laughter from the audience where I watched it. "What an idiot!" one man actually yelled out in the theater.
So Larry pleaded and actually got to meet an older rabbi. Here surely, I hoped, some semblance of wisdom would substitute for immature ramblings. But this meeting turned out to be even more preposterous than the first. To a man groping for guidance, the rabbi only had a meaningless story -- a story we later learn was a pat response to almost every questioner -- about mystical encrypted Hebrew messages in the teeth of "a goy" that begged God for help. Please don't ask what the story means. Although it's played out with flashbacks and is fully developed, it's obviously only meant to serve as a replay of the theme that rabbis masquerade as scholars, using nonsensical stories as substitutes for valid insights.
Larry desperately seeks a meeting with the third rabbi, the man commonly spoken of with awe as "the best and the brightest." He pleads with the rabbi's secretary for just a few moments time with the person whose profession obligates him above all to be available to the needy, the troubled, the seekers of spiritual solace. After venturing into the office in which we see the rabbi alone, the secretary returns to tell Larry that the rabbi is too busy to see him. When Larry, who noticed there was nobody with the rabbi, asked what he was busy with, he's told, "He is busy thinking."
The film offers no theological explanations for God's silence in the face of evil, only cheap gimmicks at the expense of the Creator.
Take that, all you rabbis who dared to mess with the Coen brothers when they were kids! Nobody will ever take you seriously any more.
And wait till you see what they did to the Hebrew school teacher in the movie. "No Jews were harmed in the making of this movie" indeed -- merely lampooned, satirized and stereotyped to anti-Semitic perfection.
But the one who suffers even more as victim of Coen mockery than rabbis and teachers is none other than God himself. With no defender of His ways other than the incompetent fools posing as spiritual leaders, the Almighty's mismanagement of the world deserves only scorn and laughter. Since the Coen brothers can claim no familiarity with theological explanations for God's silence in the face of evil -- a subject of monumental concern and discussion by some of the greatest rabbinic minds of the centuries -- they are left only with cheap gimmicks and snide jokes at the expense of the Creator.
The only answer they indirectly imply as a Jewish response to human suffering is remarkably enough a Christian approach thoroughly rejected by Judaism. The prologue, with its shtetl fantasy ghost tale, leaves us with a shrieking Jewess convinced that her family will now be cursed for generations -- shades of original sin and children being punished for the sins of their parents. So suburban Milwaukee Jews must end up suffering hundreds of years later to validate a religious concept embraced by others and considered untenable by Jewish faith that is guided by the biblical pronouncement that "children shall not be put to death for the sins of their fathers nor fathers put to death for the sins of their children"!
Remarkably enough, the time period covered by the film is 1967. No Jew sensitive to momentous moments of history can fail to recall that it was this very year that allowed us to witness a miraculous divine response to the suffering of the Jewish people. In 1967, in all of six days, Israel achieved a military victory that stills strains credulity and was viewed by millions as a supreme example of the hand of God in history. Indeed, many mark it as the true beginning of the Ba'al Tshuvah movement, the emergence of a powerful resurgence of returnees to Judaism, to God, and to religious commitment.
Nowhere in A Serious Man is there any hint of these historic events taking place contemporaneously with personal questioning of God's presence in human affairs, events that might allow for far greater perspective and understanding. Nowhere, in fact, in the movie is there anything serious to be found about the most serious question of our lives. The problem that Job immortalized, the Coens have trivialized. And to turn Job into a joke leaves us wishing that a truly "serious man," rather than two disgruntled Jews, would have taken up the noble challenge of a modern-day biblical sequel.
Rabbi Benjamin Blech is the author of 12 highly acclaimed books, including Understanding Judaism: The basics of Deed and Creed. He is a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and the Rabbi Emeritus of Young Israel of Oceanside which he served for 37 years and from which he retired to pursue his interests in writing and lecturing around the globe. He is also the author of 
(54) Bob, January 31, 2010
The rabbis were represented clerical arrogance
The rabbis presented in the movie are very similar to many I knew when growing up and many I know today. In the movie, as the rabbis had more experience, they became more difficult to approach. They were arrogant men who believe that if their explanation is not understood, then it is the listeners fault. This characteristic is still often seen. A few years ago, a rabbi at a conservative synagogue I was visiting said in his sermon that we should not question the rabbis who came before us because they are more learned than we could ever hope to be. I asked a friend of mine who studied with this rabbi if he included himself in that statement. He smiled and said, “Of course not!” Certainly not all rabbis are like the three in the movie. And the phenomenon of clerical arrogance is not only a rabbinical trait. I have seen this with all religions. But you demonstrated it yourself by referring to rabbis as, “spokesmen for the Almighty.” Let G-d speak for Himself. Rabbis are people who have studied Judaism and hopefully can help others understand the wonders of our G-d and our world. But all too often, they blame those who seek their help for their own inability to provide the help. (It was no accident that the main character was a physics professor, a man very capable of intellectual thought.)
(53) Anonymous, January 19, 2010
Is the naked king angry?
Finally I got around to see the movie. It left me very sad. And it reminded me of the fable of the naked king, whom nobody dares to tell that he is naked, until a child finally blurts it out. Are the Coen Brothers this child? The movie left me sad, because it describes so precisely my experience with Judaism. While there is infinite wisdom in the words of our Sages, I have yet to meet a Rabbi who is not pretty much like the Rabbis depicted in A Serious Man. Maybe Rabbi Blech is a very blessed man and has had very different experiences with his Rabbi and his Hebrew School than me and my friends. But why does the feeling haunt me that the Coen Brothers' only misdeed is to have called out the naked king for being naked?
(52) Cohen's 2 cents, December 21, 2009
Lets celebrate the positive of this movie
As a person who grew up in the reform/conservative Jewish world of the 70s and 80's and then in college took on an obervant (orthodox if you will) lifestyle, I actually got something out of this movie that was in a strange way fairly positive. The film was a vivid reminder of the emptiness of the reform, conservative, hebrew school world that I and so many fellow baalai tshuvah(returnees to orthodoxy) have happily left behind. The Coen bros, (through no intention of their own I would guess) have made a movie that mocks this shallow, cold, sterile versions of reform and conservative Judaism of the late 1960's. Perhaps the film will turn some people off to Judaism but on the other hand, it may actually increase the motivation who have left or those who are thinking about leaving secular Judaism for the deeper more spiritually enriching Orthodox Jewish life. Of course this would have been better left out of the mainstream American cinema as it really is an internal Jewish struggle and the chillul Hashem factor here leave me nauseas, but sometimes from out of the darkness comes light and it could be this will somehow provide a positive spark for those who are seeking to grow to higher levels of Jewish life.
(51) Pleasant, December 4, 2009
I sympathize with your feelings, but:
I have been on the receiving end of some really stupid conversations with rabbis that were equally unhelpful, and insensitive, and most of all IRRELEVANT to what I was going through. But worst of all, out of touch with the temperature of the water us lowly, everyday jews are swimming in right now. It's very hostile and anti-semitic these days, rabbi. And consequently hard to make a living. I think more and more that I shall loose my jewish identity in order to survive. I mean, JFS, ACLU and most rabbis are just too busy to care.
(50) Linda, November 23, 2009
A Profound Message For Our Times
Without a doubt,this is a profound film for our times and has generated passionate discourse among Jews who have studied it, religious or not. Love it or hate it, it offers a challenge and a mirror for us to take a hard look at ourselves and ask why.....why have we come to this? In their way, the Coen bros provide a hook for Jews who have disenfranchised to reengage in serious discussion. That in itself is a miracle! What does it mean to be a Jew....what is expected of us and why have we veered so drastically off course and mission? Do we want to remain unknowledgeable and illiterate as Jews? Do we want to be the butt of a Joke? Or do we want to pick our sorry selves up off the floor and regain what we have forsaken? I have chosen not to view another film since I saw "A Serious Man" because I do not want to dilute the importance of it's message in my mind. It has inspired me to remember what I'm here to do and what I am not here to do. The task is great. The workers are clueless. The Master is waiting...