Mrs. Maisel, Marvelous?
So I caved and watched the acclaimed series. It’s hard to appreciate my divulgence unless you know that the last movie I sat through was Forrest Gump and that was before I became frum. You see, I didn’t grow up in America where entertainment is a “birthright”. I had to be coaxed, cajoled and compelled to spend a gratuitous hour on this national obsession. Yet I did, after some friends and family piqued my interest in its Jewish content, well that, plus 19 hours onboard the world longest flight from New York to Singapore and back.
While the show is masterfully executed, the incessant and excessive verbosity is cause for brain-clutter, though I found myself glued to the foul-mouthed manager of the protagonist, remembering I, too, was once fluent in the vernacular of the sailors until I discovered the privilege of speech — the condition that separates us from all other life forms, i.e. animals. The gift that turns us into co-creators with the Master of the Universe who with His speech brought the world into being.
What was most unsettling, sadly, is the show’s depictions of Jewish lives devoid of Jewish values. So I called a trusted friend: “Do we need another distorted portrayal of our people and sacred traditions?” “Haven’t our children paid the price of mis-information, exaggeration and assimilation?” Turned out, she too, watched the entire series with one finger on the fast-forward button, speed-reading through subtitles. We commiserate over time, forever squandered.
From the debacles in the synagogues, to the desecration of God’s name, holy-days, ceremonial rituals, to the hyperbolised “Jewish” neurosis, the show is a reflection of its producers’ distaste, disrespect and disregard of the Jewish plight.
Understandably stereotypes are based on some truths and the depictions of family disintegration, human idiosyncrasies and sexual deviance sell, but does it justify the derogation of a people in the climate of widespread anti-sematism. How is that not defamation, because it is a show?
Oh please, you might say, it’s just comedy, relax. At a time when Jewish lives, businesses, establishments and synagogues are threatened, Jewish students are tyrannized on campuses and sports fields, Jewish journalists persecuted and beheaded; a time when the memory of the holocaust is still fresh on our minds?
Comedy is a powerful tool for education and reflection. As the patriarch of the show cautioned his daughter: “If you’re going to have a voice, you better be careful what that voice says.” Ironic that the show misses this point.
Hollywood has done a number on our psyche. It’s encumbered upon us to repair and raise our children above the deplorable and limited representations of our people. We are at core a virtuous, cultured, and dignified people whose history and continuing effort upholds morality and philanthropy in the world. We are ambassadors to God, the ones to shed light unto the nations. The ones chosen to show the world how it is done, not one lacking in altruism, decency or morals, absorbed in self-grandiosity or desperate for the approval and applause of others, much less from a secular culture hungry for meaning and substance. The characters in Maisel are the antithesis of everything we represent.
We must steer our children toward that which is deserving of our admiration and emulation. When we put our faith or trust in someone or something as though it were God, when in fact there can be no other god but God, it’s an act of idolatry — idols are false gods, as such, they will always disappoint.
A human being has the capacity and free will to go below the human condition or reach above. If we climb the ladder, we are lifted above our natural state, if we don't, we go down to the animalistic, vegetative and and eventually mineral state where we feel less than human. Worship is immersive; we become that which we worship. Hence, if we worship things that are below us, if we go below the human level, we’d never be fully satisfied.
Like the difference between sex & intimacy (chapter 19 of my royalty-free book, Creating a Life that Matters). They look the same, but are vastly different. Intimacy bonds us, sex separates us. A couple who experienced intimacy is bonded forever, conversely when a couple engages in sex, they remain separate no matter how good the sex is. Our goal is oneness because oneness is holy. Oneness with our Creator and oneness with one another, it’s our destiny.
Shortly, the Jewish people are to celebrate the birth of this oneness. The birth of a nation when G-D himself reached, extended and took us out of the slavery of (our ignorance, fears, limitations and God forbid, obsession with self, wealth, and all things sub-standards, like mindless Hollywood productions.)
The Torah tells us that there were no intermediaries, no administering angels, G-D himself, came and freed us. We are free to live out our distinctive purpose mandated by our Creator no matter what our back story is. Why? Because it is His plan, not ours. This is why we have G-D on our side. Judaism is never a religion. It’s a relationship.
Passover is the holiday that solidifies this bond we have with G-D. A holiday that tells us who we are and gives us our eternal identity. The time when G-D came to us and said: I am yours and you are mine. Ever wonder why Passover is the most celebrated of Jewish holidays? No matter how long we are married, we never forget when we were proposed to.
A cosmic window opens at the time of Seder to assist us in our spiritual quest to go beyond “smallness” to greatness. An opportunity to fulfill our personal and collective mission and purpose in this realm which is to make holy that which is mundane. To bring heaven on earth. We do this by the simple methods the Torah calls mitzvah — every good deed connects us to the Almighty and rekindles the physical with its spiritual source. Reach for that which is above us, we rise above the human condition and connect ourselves with the divine.
Thankfully, there are countless Torah shiurim /lessons worthy of our devotion. We live in a privileged time where technology connects us to the Divine. We can fill our minds with contents that elevate, not humiliate. Be lifted and be free, people. Next year in Jerusalem.