[HANASHIR:16917] RE: Mel Gibson's Passion

[Jacqueline Guttman <jguttman...>]

As I was driving home around 9 tonight, I was station-surfing on the radio
and came upon, I think, WWRL in New York City. I don't know if the station
caters to an African-American audience, but the call-in show I heard does.
They were discussing The Passion and I thought I should listen, since I've
only heard other Jews talk about it and read articles in the Jewish Press.

The first person said something about "Jews having something to hide", which
was that Jesus, who is said to be a Jew, was actually a Galillean, and since
only his mother was Jewish, even though he was "accepted into the Jewish
community" he was not really Jewish. (Obviously, he was not acquainted with
matrilineal descent.) The moderator, I was glad to hear, was very polite,
but pointed out to the caller that saying Jews "have something to hide" is
the kind of statement that can hurt people, and -- I was relieved to hear --
gently took him to task.

Then I heard a woman say that the emphasis should not be on this awful and
ancient violence but on the lessons that Jesus taught -- that if he died for
"our" sins, that's done and that nowadays, unity is far more important than
separatism.

Finally, as I neared home, I heard a young-sounding man who has Jewish
friends decry the movie and the way Jews are portrayed, both then and now.
He went on to discuss how Jews have been made into scapegoats historically
and how that happened politically and why. He tried to give a Jewish
perspective to the discussion, which left me pleasantly amazed.

I have to say that I started listening with a bit of trepidation and was
both surprised and relieved to hear the moderator and the last 2 callers'
words. I think we need to hear what the majority Christian community's
response is, because even if people watch it and agree with the story
"line", that may not mean that they will transfer it into additional
anti-Semitism as a result. And the anti-Semites will and would do their
miserable thing in any event -- with or without such a movie.

Jackie Guttman



> From: Barry Pilson <bpilson (at) ix(dot)netcom(dot)com>
> Reply-To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:57:58 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
> To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Subject: [HANASHIR:16911] RE: Mel Gibson's Passion
> 
> I was hesitant about bringing this subject up to the list. But If you have not
> read this column by  Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman ('The G-d
> Squad') it's worth the read. It is, I believe the most objective piece I have
> seen. I know it has gone out on the Rabbi's listserve, and my Rabbi shared it
> with the congregation on Friday night.
> 
> Barry Pilson
> Northern Virginia Hebrew Cong.
> 
> --------------------
> A common passion between Jews and Christians
> --------------------
> 
> Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Thomas Hartman
> 
> February 19, 2004
> 
> The central problem we all must face regarding Mel Gibson's culturally and
> spiritually cataclysmic movie, "The Passion of the Christ," is that although
> Jews and Christians can sit in the same theater, they cannot see the same
> movie.
> 
> Christians will see a powerful, inspiring movie about the sacrificial,
> redemptive suffering of their Savior and emerge wondering what all the yelling
> is about. Jews will see a threatening, ominous film reviving the Medieval
> curse of deicide on the Jewish people and emerge wondering how this vile blood
> libel could surface again in our time.
> 
> Until we can see this film through each other's eyes, we can't find one
> another, and if we can't find each other, we can't find God. We believe,
> however, that there is a way for us to receive a new heart, new eyes and new
> compassion for each other and each other's stories.
> 
> The beginning of the way back is for all of us to remember and understand that
> the death of Jesus was not a murder but a gift. If his death was just the
> torturous murder of an innocent teacher, the central question of the Passion
> is indeed, "Who killed Jesus?" But if Christ's death was a gift to save the
> world from sin, the central question of the Passion is, "Who gave us this
> gift?"
> 
> We suspect the reason Gibson is so bewildered by criticism of the film -- and
> why Jewish leaders are bewildered by Gibson's bewilderment -- is that they're
> asking different questions. Jews see "The Passion" as the story of a murder
> for which they've been blamed, while Christians see it as the story of a gift
> they've received to share with the world.
> 
> The answer to the question of who killed Jesus is simple, yet complex.
> Obviously, the Romans actually crucified Jesus because the Jews were under
> Roman domination at the time and because crucifixion was against Jewish law.
> However, the story taught to so many Jews over the centuries that the Jewish
> leaders were only passive observers to the death of Jesus is not true.
> 
> Jesus was a Pharisee, a member of a group of itinerant scribes and scholars
> who would become the founders of rabbinic Judaism. Caiphas, the high priest,
> was a Sadducee, a member of the priestly ruling class who disputed the new
> Pharisaic teachings of a personal Messiah and life after death. The Pharisees
> taught these new ideas by ascribing them to an oral law supposedly revealed to
> Moses when he received the written law on Mount Sinai. So Caiphas hated not
> only Jesus, but all Pharisees.
> 
> The leaders of the Pharisees also hated Jesus because, against rabbinic law,
> he taught in his own name rather than in the name of previous rabbis, and
> because his followers claimed he was the Messiah even though he didn't gather
> the exiles or defeat the forces of evil in the world, as required by Jewish
> messianic teachings. It is long past time for Jews to say that no Jews at the
> time wanted Jesus dead; they are strong enough and secure enough to admit
> this.
> 
> Christians must also own not just their formative story but also its
> historical consequences. The Christian story has anti-Jewish elements at its
> core because it cannot comprehend how the people who knew Jesus best, and
> among whom Jesus was born and raised, rejected him as Messiah despite evidence
> of his resurrection and the messianic promise of their faith.
> 
> To say that the Christian story is anti-Jewish, however, is not to say it's
> anti-Semitic. Anti-Judaism is the view that Judaism has been superceded by
> Christianity and that Jews should be warmly welcomed into Christendom after
> they convert. Anti-Semitism, by contrast, does not seek to produce living
> converted Jews, but only to produce dead Jews.
> 
> Did the anti-Jewish elements of the Christian story lay the groundwork for
> anti-Christian Nazi anti-Semitism? Yes, but this doesn't mean Christianity is
> totally to blame for the immoral twisting of its teachings into the vile
> screed of racial genocide. It only means the Christian story has suffered
> dangerous but predictable perversions that must be admitted by every honest,
> sensitive Christian and zealously guarded against.
> 
> Pope John XXIII saw this clearly. That's why the 1965 papal encyclical, Nostra
> Aetate, absolved the Jewish people of collective guilt for Jesus' death.
> Sadly, Pope John XXIII learned from the work of sociologists at the time that
> the most religious Catholics were also the most likely to be prejudiced
> against Jews. His efforts and the recent efforts of Pope John Paul II to offer
> a sincere atonement and educational purification of Catholic teachings are
> compassionate and hopeful achievements.
> 
> We fear that "The Passion," even without the now deleted scene from Matthew
> 27:26 in which the Jews say, "His blood be upon us and upon our children," may
> cause Christians, particularly Catholics, to forget these changes to their
> teachings. They may return to the wrong question about the Passion and reach
> for the old, hurtful answers.
> 
> Christianity did not end with the death of Jesus; it only began there and
> continues to evolve to embrace new and humane interpretations of its core
> story. Whether it grows to embrace its Jewish roots or falls into revulsion of
> them is the question "The Passion" brings searingly into focus.
> 
> The challenge to Jews on their side of the ugly shouting match is equally
> poignant and profound. They must freely and finally grant to Christians the
> right to tell their story in their own way. That story will always have rough
> edges because Christians came from Jews and must try to understand how and why
> the Jews did not come along with them in hearing the good news of the risen
> Christ. But Jews must be confident that the Christian story will never again
> lead to crusades, inquisitions or pogroms.
> 
> The same story that produced the anti-Semitic Pope Innocent III and Torquemada
> the Grand Inquisitor in the Middle Ages has produced in our own time John
> XXIII, John Paul II, Mother Teresa and priests and sisters like Fr.
> Maximillian Kolbe who went to their deaths defending their faith and their
> Jewish brothers and sisters in the midst of the kingdom of night. Their
> sacrifices and example of true Christian love should remind us there is
> nothing essentially corrupt or prejudiced, demeaning, destructive or
> anti-Semitic about the story of a Galilean Jewish carpenter who was given to
> all humanity to save it from sin.
> 
> We are very concerned about the numbing power of the violence depicted in "The
> Passion." The ocean of blood may make it difficult for audiences to emerge
> from this cinematic ordeal filled with Christian love rather than sharp,
> vengeful hatreds. A movie that forces us to witness hours of torture and only
> 15 seconds of resurrection is in danger of transforming Christ's blessed gift
> into nothing but a crude and mangling murder.
> 
> But even for this we don't blame Mel Gibson, nor will we join the chorus of
> those who call him an anti-Semite. We believe he has both the artistic and
> spiritual right to explore the meaning of Jesus' suffering and death because
> that suffering, in all its bloody reality, remains the truest and most moving
> measure of Christ's sacrifice and gift.
> 
> We call upon Jews to let Christians have their story, and we call upon
> Christians to show Jews that this story need not lead to cruelty. Mostly we
> call upon Mel Gibson to do something healing and hopeful.
> 
> If "The Passion" is used to foment violence against Jews, we hope Gibson will
> embrace the sacred responsibility that comes from the privilege of making the
> film and stand up and say, with all the passion and force that have fueled his
> art and his faith: "Have you no shame! This is not the way I wanted my movie
> to be used, and your vile hatreds of Jews are not the reason Jesus came and
> died for me and for all of us. I will not allow my work to be used as a new
> tool for Jew hating or as a manifesto for crucifying yet another Jew. I tried
> only to create a tool for the glory of God and the salvation of all sinners,
> including me, who live in our unredeemed, broken and sinful world."
> 
> Jews and Christians cannot watch "The Passion" with the same eyes, but we can
> watch it with the same heart. We can watch it with the love of the same God
> who bestows different gifts upon different people but the same hope to all
> humanity. If this happens, then the approaching celebrations of Easter and
> Passover will not be idle rituals. Instead, they will be transforming fires
> out of which we can emerge speaking calmly about the ways we're different and
> singing joyfully about the ways we are all the same.
> 
> ----------
> 
> (Concerned about a religious, ethical or moral issue? Send questions to
> godsquad (at) telecaretv(dot)org, or visit www.askthegodsquad.com)
> 
> 
> Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune
> 
> --------------------
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Adrian A. Durlester" <adrian (at) durlester(dot)com>
> Sent: Feb 24, 2004 12:41 PM
> To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Subject: [HANASHIR:16905] RE: Mel Gibson's Passion
> 
> Chaverim:
> 
> I'll try and be a little tolerant of discussion of this subject here,
> although there are many, many other online forums where such discussion
> might be more appropriate and on-topic. If enough of you write me off-list
> that you feel we should squelch this discussion, then I will follow the will
> of the majority of those who express their opinions to me.)
> 
> -Adrian
> 
> 
> 

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