Cyberthought by Rabbi Zelizer -- August 4, 2008

The Dark Knight and the Dark Fast

Those of us who are faithful to Judaism share a tendency which is common to all people of faith- to regard secular and popular culture as divided off from the religious values we hold most dear. Film and TV, for example, can hardly teach us any religious insights. We tend to describe them as profaning; degrading; watering down religion; or stronger words such as negating or belittling religion. Certainly there is much in popular secular culture which is profaning, degrading, and even insulting to the values of Judaism and religion. And even competing. The name of God, certainly, is invoked more frequently in a golf course on Saturday morning than it is invoked in a shul!

One of the most threatening secular aspects to religion is the secular calendar itself. Look at what will be happening next Saturday evening. Not only must the observance of the 9th Day of Av compete with its own obscurity, not only must it compete with the summer vacation, but this year it must compete with the secular calendar which places it late on a Saturday night when people are doing so many other things. After all, how can swim clubs, movies, family barbecues, and sitting on the deck, compete with mourning the destruction of Jerusalem, invoking the exile of the Jewish people from the ancient homeland, and sitting on the floor? Popular culture is a big nut to crack when it comes to Tisha B'av on Saturday night.

That is often the case. But what frequently goes unnoticed is when popular and secular culture give us a crisp insight into Judaism maybe more lucidly than our own Hebrew texts and observances.

Let me give you a case in point. I recently saw the new summer film hit "The Dark Knight." As you know, it is another sequel in the Batman films. For those of you who were raised on super hero comics, as I was as a boy, or who saw the early TV 1950's depictions of Batman, this film is not of that kind. For those of you who like your super heroes, as I once did, and my grandson now does, portrayed as good guys vs. bad guys, this film will hardly satisfy you. The lines between good and bad are vague, fluid, and bending. On the other hand, for those of you who think that all  secular and popular culture profane or cheapen religion, step back, take a breath, and see the film. Not that the film intends to make a statement on religion. But it does ,willy nilly, give a critical insight. Religion, Judaism, can be illustrated and made more crisp by some of the best in popular culture, of which this film is one.

Let me show you how that works by first returning and illustrating from the first sentence from each of the five chapters of the Book of Eichah, Lamentations that we are going to chant plaintively cnext Saturday night as we mourn the ancient destruction of Jerusalem and exile. Chapter 1:1 – "Eichah Yashvah VaDad" – "How desolate lies Jerusalem that was once full of people! She who was once a princess among peoples is now a vassal." Chapter 2:1 – "Eichah Yaiv B'apo" – "How the anger of the Lord has covered Zion with a cloud. Alas God has hurled Israel’s glory from Heaven to the earth." Chapter 3:1 – "Ani HaGever Raah Ani B’shevet Eurato" – "I am the man who was seen affliction under the rod of God’s anger. He has caused me to walk in darkness and not in light." Chapter 4:1 "Eichah Yoam Zahar" – "How the God has become tarnished and the sacred gems are scattered in every street." Chapter 5:1 – "Zachar Adonai Ma Hayah Lanu" – "Consider Oh Lord what has happened to us behold and see our humiliation!"

In psychological terms we would describe the authors of  these verses at they witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem an its aftermath  as individuals in severe depression. The tenor of those plaintive cries is  that the expected and comfortable order has been upset. Things are not what they are supposed to be. The world is "Olam Haufuch" – turned upside down. Jerusalem is sacked, when it should be sturdy. Israel’s glory is in the dirt, when it should be elevated. A person who should be lifted by God, feels God’s rod and anger. Sacred gems are not carefully coddled , but crushed in the street. Instead of being bolstered by the Almighty, we are humiliated. Indeed in the kind of modern psychological terms that you and I think of that is humiliation and depression. But in religious and theological terms it goes further to the cause of the depression. The world as we knew it is in chaos. Chaos means the disordering of order. Perhaps you in your life have felt at one time or another, God forbid that feeling of personal chaos – at a death, at an illness, at an event over which you could not control which overpowered you. One striking Midrash from the lens of the rabbi's (Midrash Rabba on Eichah) selects one of the verses in Lamentations which reads "Hayu Tzarehah L’rosh" – "The tormentors of Jerusalem have become the chiefs." The Midrash of Eichah reads that verse in an unusual way..against the grain.  It says that "Ad Shelo Havah Yerushalayim. Lo Hayetah Medinah Hashuvah Klum, Misheneharuah Yerushalayim, Naaseh Kesarin Metropohtan" – "Until Jerusalem was sacked by its tormentors it did not have any importance at all. Once Jerusalem was destroyed it was converted into an important metropolis." What a striking understanding of the verse in Lamentations. The very order and importance brought by the ers tormentors of Israel was itself chaos to our predecessors. Back to the film, "The Dark Knight." Batman is the good guy. The Joker is the bad guy.

Several times in the film the Joker utters to Batman "You are order, I am chaos." The thrust of the film – without ruining the plot – is that chaos prevails over order and order is a myth, or at the most, depends on the flip of a coin rather than any purpose or meaning. See the film and you will know what I am talking about. That tension between order and chaos is exactly what religion and Judaism are positing in our lives. Judaism is saying " Shma Yisroel…Adonai Ehad " – "Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one" – There is one God who gives overall meaning and purpose and order to our lives, to sickness and death, and to the world we live in, which at times may seem like chaos. Our few years on this earth are not meant as the flip of a coin, but are purposeful and directed by the Almighty. Marriage gives order to the potential chaos of love. Shabbat gives order to the potential chaos of time. Shivah and mourning gives order to the chaos of death. Indeed that is how the Book of Eichah finishes in its last verse of Chapter 5 "Hadesh Yamenu Kikedem" – "Restore our days as of old." – That is – God should take this chaos, experienced in these five chapters of Lamentations, this disorder, this moral messiness and restore the order and meaning and predictability that we knew in the Temple in Jerusalem. Secular popular culture has occasional moments when it illustrates, as well as our own texts, a crisp insight into what religion, Judaism, and the Book of Eichah will be saying in our ancient language and this summer observance of Tisha B'av.