My aunt is a forwarder — one of those folks who considers her in-box as just a brief resting place for messages before they are sent out again to everyone she knows. She sends the occasional joke or funny story about kids’ malapropisms on history tests (“Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.”) She passes along every internet-based rumor, even though I’ve sent her the address of Snopes at least a dozen times. But mainly, her messages are Jewish in nature.
It’s not always the kind of Jewish posts I agree with — her unwavering support for Israel is typical for her generation and her disparagement of anyone Arab or Muslim upsets me — but she’s my aunt, and so I find myself compelled to read everything she forwards on.
Today’s forward was pretty interesting. It was a Saturday sermon by Rabbi Alan Lucas of Temple Beth Sholom in Roslyn, New York. Rabbi Lucas was responding to a question voiced by many of his congregation: “Should a Jew Go See ‘The Passion of the Christ’?” Rabbi Lucas’ answer was, “No, I don’t think you should.” He continues:
He relates his trip to the movie with another Rabbi and three priests — an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian and a Greek Orthodox. In an essay that is lacking in the vitriol which this movie has frequently engendered, Rabbi Lucas discusses his impressions of the film and his understanding of the film’s meaning. What he comes away with is this:
When Christians speak of a God of love – I can relate. When Christians speak of a God of forgiveness – I understand. But this God is not one that I can relate to, not even remotely.
I have no plans to see the movie in the theater. I do not believe that I have become desensitized enough to extreme violence and glorified torture that I could sit and watch such brutality at larger-than-life sizes. I’ll wait for it to come to video. Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that, even as a non-practicing Jew, the religion I grew up with is written all over my psyche. It’s a different way of looking at things, I guess — not any more right or wrong than any other way. It’s summed up very nicely in a sentence near the end of Rabbi Lucas’ sermon. He says:
