Q&A: The Jews Are Coming
The Jews Are Coming
Question
Hello Rabbi,
In your last column, in one of the examples you mentioned The Jews Are Coming.
I’d appreciate some clarification: does the Rabbi think that it’s not relevant to feel hurt / get upset by a program like that? Is the problem not in what I feel, but in the question of how I react to it (that is, to address it substantively and not get hurt and call to ostracize the program)?
Thank you very much!
Answer
To be hurt or not to be hurt is an instinctive question. There is no value in being hurt. If you aren’t hurt, you don’t need to work on yourself so that you will be hurt. There is nothing wrong with you.
If you don’t want to, don’t watch the program (personally, I tried a bit and didn’t enjoy it). Satire is meant to sting, and it’s excellent that there are people who do that.
Discussion on Answer
What do you think?
I agree with most of it, and I already wrote briefly in a similar spirit here. Two points:
1. I’m not sure that the ability to watch without being shocked is a flaw in religious faith. It depends on the importance of religious feeling (which in my view is not very great).
2. As for mockery of idolatry, the writer opposes ridiculing Christianity and Islam, even though that too is mockery of idolatry. Moreover, if he supports mockery of idolatry, which according to his interpretation means ridicule for educational and value-oriented purposes, I don’t see why he reserves that right only for religious people (to ridicule idolatry). The creators of the program ridicule ideas that in their view are foolish and harmful. From their perspective, that too is mockery of idolatry. It’s easy and convenient to present them as wicked people whose whole aim is only mockery and belittlement, but I don’t understand what that is based on.
Forgive me. Forgive me.
I’m quoting from your reply: “The creators of the program ridicule ideas that in their view are foolish and harmful.”
If only that were all it was. If only!
That sentence might fit Underdos, with excellent and self-directed humor.
In The Jews Are Coming, as I wrote in the past, they dramatize passages from the Hebrew Bible. They make them ridiculous, add crude words to them, mock what is holy. And all that with our money.
From season to season, things keep getting worse and worse.
And they outdid themselves in one of the latest programs with the pronunciation of the Divine Name.
What do you mean, what is it based on? You just have to watch the program and come away with a bad impression!
(And even from the secular side I would have expected at least some word about making the Holocaust ridiculous. Not humor and not satire. How can you laugh about the Holocaust? And with our money???)
Rabbi, maybe you could devote a column to this?
A short column here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%99%D7%94%D7%95%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9D-2
This program contemptuously mocks the sacred things of Israel with utter disgust. It brings passages from the Hebrew Bible and ridicules them in the most abhorrent way.
And this is what you call satire and stinging????????????????????