CLAL on Culture Archive

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Sunday, the Rabbi Got Real

By Jennifer Krause

What is a rabbi for? A participant in a class I was teaching raised this question two weeks ago. In exquisite Talmudic fashion, the question and ensuing dialogue had absolutely nothing to do with the day's topic. It grew out of a story shared by a participant about a time when she had been in crisis and had gone to her rabbi for guidance. She noted that, before that moment, it had never once occurred to her to seek out her rabbi in such a way. In her mind, this was not what rabbis were for. "So," another woman in the class asked, "what is the rabbi for?"

"The rabbi is for religion," answered one with complete authority.

Said another with an equal amount of certainty, "No, the rabbi is for life."

As a rabbi, this debate was of particular interest to me. It was also timely, as I had just seen a new movie called "You Can Count on Me" over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Not only was it one of the best written and well acted films I have seen this year, but it also included one of the most daring portrayals of a clergy member - in this instance a priest - to reach the big or the small screen in some time.

The characterization was daring because it was complex, not at all content to enter or even lean against the usual boxes normally reserved for the clergy in television and film. It was refreshing to see that this priest was not portrayed as a belligerent watchman of the faith peering disapprovingly from an Everest-high pulpit. Nor was he a pietistic know-it-all ultimately exposed as a hypocrite through some lewd or lascivious act. He was not a befuddled yet endearing character living in a little faith utopia with a variety of amusing congregational high jinks going on behind his back. He was not corny, drunk, cloying, or clueless. And thankfully he was not a straw man in a suit whose most inspired lines begin with the words, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…." This priest was a real person serving real people struggling with the meaning of their lives and the ever-changing landscape of faith. In this sense, he was allowed to be a three-dimensional character who enriched the plot rather than stood apart from it.

It seems like this more nuanced depiction of religious leaders is a trend. In "Keeping the Faith," we see a rabbi and a priest demonstrating through their own struggles that a religious life is messy and that its messiness is its power. In "The Third Miracle," we meet a Catholic priest on the verge of leaving the priesthood because he cannot believe in miracles, although it is his job to investigate them on behalf of the Church. The struggle of the spiritual leader reveals itself in current literature as well. For instance, Mark Salzman's Lying Awake tells the story of a Carmelite nun living cloistered in a San Francisco convent. Diagnosed with a specific type of brain tumor known for inducing religious visions, she wonders if her entire relationship with God has been nothing more than a delusion with a clinical diagnosis and cure. Could it be that our society's renewed fascination with religion and spirituality has deepened and expanded the ways in which members of the clergy may be portrayed in the world of popular culture?

Perhaps there is a direct correlation between the portrayal of spiritual leaders and society's general understanding of religion. When religion is seen as an entity outside of life, separate from it, the rabbi or priest remains shipwrecked on some faraway island of total irrelevance. Yet when we view religion as something inside of life, when we see it as a living, breathing, evolving organism with as many heartbeats as there are people, the clerical figures are also given the breath of real life.

We are living in a time of tremendous spiritual and religious opportunity, a time of openness and exploration, of renewed excitement and interest. As the priest in "You Can Count on Me" explains in a beautiful and surprising moment, he does not see himself as a piece of driftwood floating invisible and forgotten on the sea of all that matters to people in their lives. In another scene, as the priest listens to one of the main characters confess to having had an affair with her married boss, he teaches that a religious life is not a life minus the life. When the priest offers a question rather than a punishment, she asks, "Wasn't it better when the priest was a mean man who would yell at you and tell you that you're going to burn in hell?" The priest replies, "No." Without neutralizing the seriousness of her actions, he attempts to create a context in which she can engage in the work of cheshbon nefesh - an inventory of her soul meant to inspire her to do things differently, to live with awareness, insight, and commitment.

The portrayal was all the more powerful when I watched the credits roll and realized that the priest was played by Kenneth Lonergan, the film's writer and director. Lonergan has not only created a movie that captures the real texture and intricacies of human life, but also suggests that religion might just capture them, too. By writing the character of the priest and playing it himself, Lonergan reminds us that people have about as much use for cardboard religious leaders as they do for cardboard religion. Rabbis, priests, and all spiritual leaders must, in the end, be "for life" because religion without life is about as real as a movie.