TBT Blog

Whenever something explicitly Jewish hits the media world, I often get a flurry of questions about it. This past week, there has been a lot of conversation about Adam Sandler’s new movie, “You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah!” on Netflix. (Yes, I saw it. Yes, I thought it was cute. Yes, Rabbi Rebecca is hilarious and I aspire to take b’mitzvah meetings from a treadmill desk like her. And yes, it’s problematic that they refer to the party as the bat mitzvah, with little regard for the actual ceremony.)

But the truth is, no matter what media I’m consuming, I’m always doing it through a Jewish lens. Far fewer congregants have asked my opinion on the Barbie movie, but in the Jewish professional online spaces, there has been abundant conversation about the Jewish themes in that movie, including some Garden of Eden parallels, what it means to stand before your creator, and grappling with your sense of purpose when there’s free will. That doesn’t even get into Barbie’s history and the fact that she was created by a Jewish woman and modeled after the German Lilli doll in a post-WWII world. If you haven’t seen Tiffany Shlain’s 18-minute film, The Tribe, it’s worth the watch. For me, these intellectual endeavors to uncover Judaism in secular media are far more interesting and provide more spiritual ignition. 

I’m far from alone in this. For most of our history, we have been a people straddling two worlds. 

There is plenty of evidence that some of our foundational Jewish texts were influenced by the stories of surrounding cultures. For example, The Epic of Gilgamesh is ancient Mesopotamia’s flood myth that predates the story of Noah in Genesis. Each story has a dramatically different explanation for why humanity ultimately survives. Historians also say that there are other Near Eastern stories predating the Book of Job that describe the sufferings of a righteous man and deal with theodicy. While we may never know the exact context of how and why these non-Jewish texts influenced the Hebrew Bible, I like to imagine that those early Biblical authors saw the spark of something Jewish when they encountered stories from surrounding cultures and then wanted to offer their own explicitly Jewish framing for our people.

The rabbis of the Talmud actually discuss the importance of pursuing Jewish learning from all spheres of life. It’s a disturbing story, but in Tractate Berakhot, a student is caught hiding under his rabbi’s bed, and when the rabbi starts scolding the student, he says, “This, too, is Torah, and I must learn!” While the specific scenario described is problematic, the rabbis make an excellent point, as Gabby Tropp writes on MyJewishLearning, that “[this phrase] asserts that Torah comes from many sources, learning can happen anywhere, and even unconventional or new sources of wisdom are fonts of tradition nevertheless.”

I couldn’t agree more! For me, bringing non-Jewish sources to a Jewish conversation only enhances the dialogue. That’s why for Selichot this Saturday night, we will be watching and discussing the film “Stranger Than Fiction” starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. It may not be a "Jewish film," but there's plenty that's Jewish about it. The story brings up questions about teshuvah and human agency, not to mention being written (or not being written) into the Book of Life, and more. As we prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the coming weeks, this film gives us the opportunity to reflect on some of the most significant themes of this holiday season. I hope you will join me this Saturday for Selichot as we discover our own modern midrash in this film.

Find out more about Selichot and register here!