Why We Didn’t Finish Watching “Avatar”

ME: “THEY SURE USED A lot of tech to spin a yarn about how tech is bad.”

She: “Nice visual imagination, though.”

Me: “Very nice. And the acting and casting are spot on. But it’s a planet full of Magic Negroes. Blue Magic Negroes. And there’s still two hours left.”

She: “Let’s read aloud ‘Lord of the Rings’ instead.”

Me: “Okay.”

(Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh. But I did find it to be so obvious as to insult my intelligence. (I mean, the Good Guys wearing organic bodies and the Bad Guys wearing robot bodies would be thrown back as too small by other metaphoragers. But mostly I don’t like being preached at, even when I agree with the preachment (and especially the latter if it’s heavy-handed). I did want to like it; some of my friends did, and one who’s reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver’s character, and doing some fairly serious and beautiful work along tangential lines (i.e., avatar as revelatory experient), is “all about it” the way I am about, well, Judaism. But when A&I started saying things like “This must be where the hero doesn’t know that the monster behind him frightened off the monster in front of him,” the spell was, alas, broken.)

On The Road To Karlin

THIS TALE COMES FROM LOUIS Newman’s 1963 “Hasidic Anthology,” a thick collection of stories, teachings and parables of the Hasidim, which is Hebrew for “pietist” but in this context refers to the 18th century Jewish ecstatics whose infectious enthusiasm rang through Eastern Europe to echo today; for example, in the following story: where a Hasid, or seeker-after-God, encounters a Rav, or rabbinic judge, on the way to finding the True Rabbi, or teacher, who in this particular case and for this particular seeker resided in the Belarusian town of Karlin. May we all find the True Rabbi, wherever we look.

A Hasid was on his way to visit the Karliner Rabbi. A Rav met him, and said: “Cannot you find a Rabbi nearer than Karlin?”

“No, I cannot,” answered the Hasid. “I read the thoughts of all the Rabbis, and I find them to be spurious.”

“If you read thoughts,” said the Rav, “then tell me what I am thinking now.”

“You are thinking of God,” answered the Hasid.

“No, your guess is incorrect; I am not thinking of God.”

“There you have it,” remarked the Hasid. “You yourself have stated the reason why I must go to Karlin.”

Favicon Plugin created by Jake Ruston's Wordpress Plugins - Powered by Briefcases and r4 ds card.