The Yiddishkeyt of the Coen Brothers in the Christian epic "Hail, Caesar!"

I thought it appropriate to reflect upon other Jews who wrote about Christian protagonists. (Spoiler Alert! See Hail, Caesar! before and after reading this.) 

The ultimate story-maker is God, and the Bible is the story of how God acts in the world. Movie creators act in imitatio dei as they create a mimetic universe. The Coen Brothers have created a meta-movie, Hail, Caesar!, about the story of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) making the movie Hail, Caesar! – a story of the Christ. This and other meta-films comment upon the story-making process itself. Other movies where the theme of a demigod-like filmmaker/illusionist is explored include Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Red, and Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, NY. Hail, Caesar! is an ironic title derived from the Christian biblical quote: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” (Mark 12:17). In the movie they are making, it refers to Autolochus, a Roman centurion, who comes to reject worship of Caesar for faith in the one true God.

Several Coen Brothers movies view the way God acts in the world from a Jewish perspective. In Hail, Caesar! it is the divine aspect of loving-kindness, chesed, that predominates. They showed us the other side of God, His justice, din, in A Serious Man -- their retelling of the Book of Job. That movie ends with a tornado coming down from the sky; this one with a sun sending golden beams down to Capitol Pictures through the clouds – the glory that ensues when we work with God, rather than against Him. In their Jewish vision, God works with us and through us with chesed when we do right; when we do wrong, God acts against us with din. In their earlier film, The Man who Wasn’t There, we also saw an intimation of the din aspect of God: even when we think we’re invisible, the all-seeing God metes out justice.

Hail, Caesar! also comments upon the Coen Brothers’ earlier movie, Barton Fink, which was set ten years earlier at the same fictitious studio, Capitol Pictures. Barton Fink, like the writers in Hail, Caesar! who form the Communist cell called “The Future,” sees himself as the champion of the common man. The buffoonish character Baird Whitlock echoes Barton Fink when he condescendingly declares, “Of course I’m for the little guy.” Eddie Mannix, like his predecessor at Capitol Pictures, Jack Lipnick, runs the studio with godlike authority. But while Barton Fink’s world is demonic, Hail, Caesar! takes place in a kinder, gentler world ruled by Providence.

The Coen Brothers are Jewish filmmakers telling the story of a Catholic filmmaker who is telling the “story of the Christ.” Although Eddie Mannix is a devout Catholic, and the film he is producing is Christian, the sensibility of this movie is strictly kosher. In Judaism, unlike the tenets of some other religions, non-Jews can be among the righteous of nations.

One of the ways Jews understand God’s seemingly incomprehensible world is through story, aggadah. Just as we ask questions to answer questions, we tell stories to explain stories. Metafiction comes naturally to us. The Bible was a document written in the media of its time. Now we have movies. As Eddie Mannix explains, “The Bible of course is terrific. But for millions of people, pictures will be their reference point for the story – the story’s embodiment, the story’s realization.”

In this parable (and unlike the real MGM "fixer" Edgar Mannix), Eddie Mannix is an everyman, a Man X. We first meet him in the confessional where he comes every day seeking absolution. He is desperately trying to do what God wants him to, to be a righteous man. This is the journey he takes us on.

Eddie has two foils on his journey. Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) is the man of unshakeable faith who always acts righteously. Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is the man of no faith – in fact, “faith” is the word he always forgets in his lines. Baird behaves immorally and is swayed by the unbelievers. We learn that he got his big break, cast in another movie with a religious title -- On Wings As Eagles (Isaiah 40:31), by committing an act of sodomy with the director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). Hobie is the uncommon common man, a former cowboy who does his own stunts and sings cowboy songs in his movies. Baird is a talented “serious” actor, who never fails to impress with his moving portrayals. In the story of the artist Bezalel (Exodus 31), we learn that our talents are God-given and ultimately serve His purpose whether we mean them to or not. It is a Jewish concept that the Coen Brothers employ: talent comes as inspiration (the filling of our spirit) from God. God graces even the undeserving like Baird Whitlock.

The Talmud teaches that God purposely left creation incomplete, and that it is man’s purpose to complete it. In this parable, Eddie is God’s partner in creation. Eddie has to choose between the hard job, making movies, and the easy job, making H-Bombs for Grumman. Creation will be good or bad – the magic of movies or the destruction of the hydrogen bomb -- depending on our choices.

In the Coen Brothers’ vision, movies, even if they are pure illusion, are the illusion God wants for a greater purpose: to give people meaning, a respite from the hard work of completing creation, and inspiration to do the right thing. The Narrator (Michael Gambon) tells us: “Capitol Pictures, whose tireless machinery clanks on, producing this week’s ration of dreams for all the peoples of the world.” The actors are just frail and morally corrupt, but the movie is greater than any of its parts. Unlike the Communists who can see only exploitation, Eddie realizes that we all have our parts to play in creation, and that’s what gives our lives meaning: “You’re going to do it [act] because you’re an actor and that’s what you do. Just like the director does what he does, and the writer and the script girl and the guy who slaps the slate.”

Baird, we are told, makes a choice – a bad one. The Narrator explains: “Baird Whitlock has become an acolyte of the Communists, a convert to their cause, his belief compelled but not grudging – no more than was Saul’s on the dusty road of long ago…” Saul is Paul who, like Autolochus, renounces his old ways and chooses faith in Jesus. In contrast, Baird, the faithless man, tells Eddie, “I mean we might tell ourselves that we are creating something of artistic value, that there’s some kind of spiritual dimension to the picture business, but what it is is this fat cat Nick Skenck out in NY running a factory that makes these lollipops that pacify…” Eddie, acting righteously, will not brook this kind of atheism, this ridiculing the holiness of creation. He slaps Baird. “Nick Skenck and this studio have been good to you and everyone who works here…” God’s goodness is unassailable.“You’re going to do it because the picture has worth and you have worth if you serve the picture…”

Perkei Avot (2:21) teaches: "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." Or as the Narrator paraphrases: “The stories begin, the stories end, but the work of Eddie Mannix will never end…Eddie Mannix continues his work day, a day that has no beginning, no end – for he is ever at work.”This is a profound insight into the Shabbat – God was able to rest from the work of creation for all time because he created us to take over for all time, with only a weekly day of rest until the World To Come.

When Eddie is tempted by a Satanic (the Satan is the tempter in Judaism) offer of cushier job making H-bombs, he questions whether he should be doing the exhausting work at the studio. He says to the Father, “But then there’s another job that’s not so easy. In fact it’s hard. It’s so hard, Father—sometimes I don’t know if I can keep doing it. But it seems right. I don’t know how to explain.” Then the answer comes from the Father: “God wants us to do what’s right… The inner voice that tells you it’s right – it comes from God, my son”

Providence is the unseen actor behind the scenes. Just as a writer manipulates a screenplay, God is manipulating the meta-screenplay – the story of the story of screenplays – our history. The Coen Brothers reveal the actions of the unseen actor throughout the movie. Providence may seem like luck – good luck for the righteous, bad luck for the wicked.

When his son, Little Eddie, didn’t get the Little League position he wanted, “I’ll call the coach,” Eddie says, adding yet another task to his long list. But when he forgets to do that, he finds that his son has learned to prefer his new position. “Great. It took care of itself,” Eddie says incredulously. His daughter is doing well too. God is acting behind the scenes to take care of Eddie. Mrs. Mannix (Allison Pill) is supportive when Eddie is contemplating a job offer, “What do you think, honey? You know best.” While some may see this as the pre-feminist 1951 housewife’s reply, it is actually a loving and supportive statement. In choosing how to live righteously, Eddie already has all the inner wisdom he needs to make the right decision. His wife is encouraging him to make the decision only he can make.

Eddie sees the miraculous hand of Providence in solving his problem with DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) who is unwed and pregnant. As he matter-of-factly explains, “the public loves you because they know how innocent you are.” He knows that God’s illusions, the movies, must be defended. When she, like Mary, marries Joe Silverman (Jonah Hill), the dependable father she seeks for her child, Eddie is nonplussed. “Huh,” he says.

Hobie is the righteous instrument of Providence. In contrast to Eddie, who wrestles, Hobie acts. Hobie is providentially put into a position to do God’s will. Nick Skenck, the unseen studio boss in NY, in a seemingly incomprehensible move, insists that Hobie be cast as a debonair.

Hobie is luckily in a series of right places at the right times, and by managing to keep Baird Whitlock out of the papers, keeps the studio intact. Unlike Eddie, who doubts, Hobie, like the prophets in the Bible, is sure of the right thing to do. It is “so simple” for him. Skenck, the studio owner in NY, places Hobie where he has to be to do the right thing. Hobie intuits that the extras on the set are involved. His belt ties the attaché case holding the ransom, and he recognizes it (echoing his character’s recognition of the valise in his movie Merrily We Dance) when he luckily happens to see Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) at the Brown Derby after his premiere. This is a set of coincidences so unlikely that we suspect the hand of Providence is involved.

Providence is at play too when the briefcase full of money for the Soviets is unluckily lost. The Communist’s plot is foiled. God is not on their side.

The idea of God as the unseen actor is taken very literally. When Eddie asks for endorsement from a variety of religious leaders, the Rabbi (Robert Picardo) says, “…for we Jews, any visual depiction of the Godhead is most strictly prohibited.” In the closing credits we see: “No depictions of the Godhead were used in the creation of this movie.” Eddie, who is always trying to do right, doesn’t take any chances. We never see Jesus (even the actor who plays him isn’t sure if he’s a principal actor in this story), the thieves, or the Father that Eddie confesses to. We never see Skenck (or the image of the Coen Brothers, for that matter). One of the writers in the Communist cell wrote the screenplay called The House of Ahasuerus, which is a reference to the Book of Esther. Esther is the only book of the bible where God’s name is never mentioned – He is the unnamed Force behind the scenes.

God will provide, whether we act or not. In that, we should have faith (the word Baird Whitlock can’t remember). Eddie Mannix learns to have faith.

The Jewish sensibility is reflected in the socialist politics of the writers. There were many Jewish communists, many Jewish writers in Hollywood, and some were both. The Coen Brothers mock those who profess to be for the common man while doing nothing to help others. Like Barton Fink, they are portrayed as schlimazelim (sufferers of bad luck). In Judaism, tzedukkah (charity/righteousness) is the proper way to help others. And as Maimonides explained, creating a job for someone is the highest form of tzedukkah. The studio creates jobs, the Communists only extort ransom, exploiting others. In Judaism, it is the action – praxis in Professor Marcuse’s words– that is important, not the convoluted thinking about it. It boils down to giving the thirsty water to drink (as Jesus does in the interior movie they are making), rather than bringing the end of history (which is never supposed to end by man’s hand). To be “for the common man,” religion offers a better alternative than Marxism. It is God who takes care of the “little man” through his servants on earth, by creating jobs and feeding their spirit. Eddie rejects the Marxist point of view. In the Jewish point of view, every life is a universe. All people have intrinsic value, and have an important part to play in the work of creation -- here, the making of movies.

Incidentally, the real Professor Herbert Marcuse, like Professor Marcuse (John Bluthal) in the movie, was a Marxist who believed that the Hegelian dialectic is the driver of an inevitable history, and end of history (when Man realizes his erotic nature). Like Marcuse, he advocated subversive action against the status quo, but unlike Marcuse in the screenplay, he was not a supporter of the Soviet system.

It is impossible to speak of Jewish sensibility without mentioning Jewish humor, and the Coen Brothers offer us some of the funniest shticks ever shown in a motion picture. They have created a classic in the Vaudeville-like routine between Hobie and Laurence Lorentz. Hobie’s hickster drawl “Would that itwuhr so simple” is contrasted to Laurence Lorentz’s Noel Coward-like elegance. The punch line doesn’t arrive until several scenes later when the editor, the chain-smoking, scarf-wearing, CC Calhoun (Frances McDormand) shows us the final cut. The line has become, “It’s complicated.”

It is worth noting the meta-joke in the dance number “No Dames!” which ironically features a straight actor (Channing Tatum) playing Burt Gurney, “Mr. Laurentz’s current…protégé,” dancing a very gay dance, which only we in the movie audience seem to be aware of.

The mostly Jewish studio heads created the history of the movies just as God, with our help and sometimes hindrance, created the history of the Jews. The Coen brothers pay tribute to that history with nods to Gene Autry, Will Rogers, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Richard Burton, Esther Williams, Abbott & Costello, Gene Kelly, Carmen Miranda, Ernst Lubitsch, Margaret Booth, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.

The Coen Brothers have created a seriously religious work of art in their comedy, Hail, Caesar! Unlike many “message” movies, the themes are handled with such grace and humor as to be easily overlooked. Its essentially Jewish character can be enjoyed by people of any (or no) faith.

What is Charisma?

Many performers, politicians, religious leaders and business leaders have a quality that makes us pay attention to them. Barack Obama has it, Bill Clinton does too. Remember the line from Evita: “Just a bit of star quality.” When they orate, we feel charged. Adele has it – when one of her songs is playing, we listen, her mood becomes our mood. Katharine Hepburn famously said, “I don’t know what star quality is, but whatever it is, I’ve got it.” Yes she did, and we collectively spend billions of dollars a year to watch movies with stars who have it.

The bible is full of allusions to “Men of God” – prophets who usually persuade others to heed their advice. When a prophet had this quality, people seemed to recognize it immediately even when they weren’t ready to obey. The people of Ninevah surprised Jonah by embracing his message immediately. Jeremiah, on the other hand, was frustrated that his warnings were not heeded. Even among prophets, some had it, some didn’t.

Joan of Quebec had it, as did her spiritual progenitor, Joan of Arc.

Microexpressions

What is it that the person with charisma is putting out there, and what are we taking in? It may have something to do with microexpressions. Charles Darwin believed that humans, and possibly other animals, have evolved the ability to convey and respond to a universal set of emotions. It helped us to survive to be able to quickly detect whether a stranger is friend or foe. The sociologist Margaret Mead, believed that facial reflections of emotions differ depending on the culture. Paul Eckman traveled to the highlands of Papua New Guinea in 1967 and found a tribe that had no exposure to any cross-cultural contamination. What he learned was that they produced and recognized the same facial expressions that we produce and understand. He identifies seven facial expressions of emotions that are universally recognized - happiness, disgust, anger, fear, surprise, contempt and sadness. Darwin was right!

Eckman and others have demonstrated that both the production of the facial expression and its recognition are done in well under a second, possibly as quickly as 15 thousandths of a second. This is much too fast for us to be conscious of – it’s the kind of fast mental processing characteristic of instincts. Eckman called such expressions “microexpressions.” We all produce them instinctively as we feel emotions. We all read them instinctively from others as they feel emotions.

Not only are facial expression of emotions almost instantly produced and recognized, but we pick up and produce a host of other momentary cues about emotions. The tilt of the head, the holding of the shoulders, the reddening of the face, the way the hands and arms are used – the body language – provides cues of emotional state. So does the voice: Does it quiver or is it forceful? Is it louder or softer? Does it rise or fall in pitch? Do the words come out quickly or slowly? What is the intonation, the inflection, the stress, the phrasing, and the rhythm? Without thinking, we react to all these vocal cues from others very quickly. Nor do we have to think about them as we talk – they are instinctive.

Babies read these cues from their mothers and mothers from babies. Dogs seem to as well. In fact, one of the big differences between non-domesticated wolves and domesticated wolves (i.e., dogs) seems to be their ability to read human emotions and intentions, perhaps even better than humans can.

Homunculi

How do we read emotions so quickly and effectively? It turns out we all have a homunculus inside – actually, a few of them. A homunculus, Latin for “little human,” is a scale model of the human body. The Greek philosopher Epicurus believed that our soul is like a being within us that accounts for our sense-perceptions. Scientists now believe that there is a little human, a “sensory homunculus,” mapped into a specific section of our brain. When you receive a sensory stimulus from, say, giving someone a thumbs-up sign, the thumb area of the sensory homunculus lights up on an fMRI. The homunculus is upside down and is opposite to the side of the body that is receiving stimulation; your right thumb is on the left side of my brain. Here’s a depiction of where the brain-mapping areas are for sensory organs:

There’s a second homunculus. The second little person in your brain corresponds to your movable parts.  Whenever you want to move some part of your body, the corresponding area in your motor cortex lights up in an fMRI. The exact location and size will vary from person to person. Here’s a general idea of where that “little human,” the one who is responsible for initiating movement, resides in the brain:

Mirror Neurons

Not only do neurons in this area fire when you intend to act, they also fire when you watch others act. The two homunculi aren’t just little versions of you, they’re little versions of other people too. These are the places where we read others’ facial expressions, voice, and body language. There is a lot of overlap between the mirror you hold up to yourself and the mirror you hold up to others – so much so that when you watch someone else walking, your brain areas get charged up just as if you yourself are about to walk. You know how it feels for the other guy to be walking. We physicalize (to the extent that motor neurons are charged and ready to fire) and feel along with the other person.

There are mirror neurons in the sensory homunculus, in the motor homunculus, and in the  areas of the brain that quickly identify and produce emotions and their resulting microexpressions. The brain regions involved when you experience an emotion and when you see others experience that emotion are exactly the same. Not only do we know which emotion the other guy is feeling, we feel exactly how he feels when he shows anger, or smiles, or is surprised. When he smiles, you instinctively begin to smile. When he shows anger, your first impulse is to mirror his anger. This seems to be the neurological basis for empathy.

Empathy

Several researchers have found that the mirror neuron system is activated in empathy. People who consider themselves to be particularly empathic demonstrate particularly strong activation of the mirror neurons for emotions, sensations and body action intentions. We’ve all known that if we smile when we’re feeling sad, we’ll feel happier -- the motor neurons are a two-way circuit that feeds back to the cerebral cortex. However, empathic activation requires that you be able to display the same action as the other guy. If you botox the area between and above your eyes, you may soon lose the ability to instinctively comprehend that the other guy is surprised, and your own feelings of surprise may be dampened or slowed down as you move away from your natural instinctive control to something you have to consciously control.

It may be that some people have the ability to get their and our mirror neurons firing like crazy. We identify with them, feel exactly what they’re feeling. We may even want to do whatever it is they’re doing. When we’re tuned into them, we feel like them more than ourselves. The empathy is powerful, and it feels good too. Maybe the strong firing of the mirror neurons causes a surge in neurotransmitters like oxytocin and dopamine, the same way they surge when we look into the faces of our babies. I think this may explain how charisma works. This may be how a St. Joan is able to seduce a nation into going to war.

Charisma

It may be that some individuals can evoke a charismatic response in us in some modes but not in others. Stage actresses Mary Martin and Ethel Merman were known to entrance theater audiences but evoked a lesser response on camera. Perhaps their body language was charismatic in a way that their close-up facial expressions were not. Aretha Franklin makes us all want to sing joyously along with her, but by most accounts, is fairly boring to watch in concert. Tina Turner, on the other hand, electrifies from the moment she walks on stage. Some stars became stars because the camera loved them. Facial expressions, enlarged to silver-screen size, may evoke a response that a life-sized version never could. Studio moguls learned early on that they had to watch the actor in a screen test to assess their star quality. The camera loves Hollywood’s top paid actor, Tom Cruise, but with his slim build and below-average (5’7”) height, do you think he would grab your attention if he were walking on the other side Times Square? I suspect he might disappear into the crowd if you could not clearly see his facial expressions.

This leaves open the question of why some people have charisma and others don’t. It seems to be innate. Even little children can have it – think Shirley Temple or Honey Boo-Boo. You can’t stop watching them even if they offend your aesthetic principles. I think some people are born with the ability to micro-express face, body, and voice in such a way that it triggers our mirror neurons, and the homunculi in our heads produce a strong empathic response.

Is there a charismatic figure you instantly relate to? When you watch or listen to him/her, do you feel like you  can feel what he/she is feeling? Do you feel like you trust him/her implicitly? If he asked you to vote for him, did you?

Justice and the Death of Children

Today we mourn the death of murdered children. It is a crime so vile that many of us experience a visceral reaction – we feel nauseated, dizzy, tears come. The instinct to preserve children is one of the most basic. It seems especially honed by evolution in humans because we are unique in the length of time we must care for our young. Jane Goodall described the heartbreaking story of a mother chimpanzee carrying the corpse of her dead baby and refusing to part with it. How much more heartbreaking is the story of human parents who must bury their children, given our longer lasting instinct to protect and care for our young.

In our culture, children symbolize innocence, and any attack on the innocent epitomizes injustice. The Holocaust will forever stand stand as the ultimate icon of injustice. For all generations we will grapple with how such monumental injustice could have occurred in what we hope to be a just universe. Arguably, Anne Frank will be our icon of the Holocaust in the popular imagination. We are outraged at the Universe, some of us at God, when innocent lives are unjustly cut short. Something is wrong with us. Something is wrong with the Universe.

If both our nature and our sense of order in the world are outraged at such a crime, how much more the outrage at the murder of one’s own offspring. That ultimate betrayal is at the heart of many of our religions. Because Abraham was willing to do God’s will despite his devotion to his only son that he loved, and his revulsion at such a heinous act, the near sacrifice of Isaac has become the seminal event in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Canaanite worship of Moloch – a god who required child sacrifices – was the cause of their destruction by Israel, according to the Bible. There is an implied promise that God will, in the end, protect children or at the very least, avenge their deaths. It is a promise central to any theodicy – any theory of why evil, and redemption from evil, occurs.

So why does evil happen, and how are we redeemed from evil? There are two kinds of evil: the evil we do to one another, and the evil that is done to us. Depending on your idea of free will, you may have some control over the evil you do to others. It fulfills our innate sense of justice when evil is avenged, as in the satisfying conclusion of a Dickens novel. But that leaves open the question of why evil befalls the seemingly innocent. The answer varies widely by religious belief. Jews believe that the reason why evil happens is God’s business, not ours; Catholics believe that evil began with the Fall and God redeems us ultimately; Hindus and Buddhists believe that evil is karmic retribution and that over-attachment is the source of human suffering; Zoroastrians believe in an equal and opposite principle to Good (an idea adopted by Christians in their idea of Satan); Gnostics believe an evil Creator, the demiurge, has imbued evil into Creation; similarly, Kabbalists believe that cracks appeared in the integral goodness of the Universe when God had to withdraw Himself to make room for Creation. Sociologists and psychologists only address the first part of the question of evil – why we and our groups attack others, but they have little to say about the seemingly random horrific events that befall us through no fault of our own.

Theology/ Psychology/ Sociology	People do evil because…	Evil happens to good people because…
Judaism	Free will disobeyment of commandments	Only God knows. Maybe a symptom of exile, maybe a test, maybe rewards come later.
Kabbalistic Judaism	Free will choice of the evil inclination	A necessary bi-product of the divine act of Creation
Catholicism (St. Augustine)	We lost our gift of the ability to resist evil impulses by Original Sin.	Satan and his fallen angels wreak evil. Evil highlights the Good.
Protestantism (Luther, Calvin)	Human nature is totally depraved and corrupted by Original Sin.	Satan’s causes evil, but why God allows it is a mystery.
Eastern Orthodox	The world and human nature is in a fallen state full of demonic temptation and death, ever since mankind chose to participate in evil.	Evil is the absence of Good. God permits trials and suffering as sources of salvation.
Zoroastrianism	People may choose to dishonor the order of creation.	Angra Mainyu is the evil opposite of the good creator-god Ahura Mazda, and assaults creation.
Hinduism/ Buddism	Excessive attachment	Karmic justice
Islam	Free will actions that displease God or manifest unbelief.	It’s a test of one’s belief that can open one to God.
Gnosticism	We lost connection to our spiritual essence.	The material world, created by the Demiurge, is inherently evil.
Sociology	Failure to submit individual desires to the group order
Psychology	Pathological impairment of moral constraints (superego) to animal nature (id).

We struggle with the Problem of Evil. Justice, when good is rewarded and evil incurs divine retribution, is satisfying to our nature. That is how we are supposed to operate morally, on an individual basis, and that is how the Universe is supposed to operate on a metaphysical basis. But the Newtown murders force us to face the problem of Injustice – why are innocents harmed? Why doesn’t the moral behavior we expect and demand of ourselves also apply to the Universe and to God?

We are emphatically admonished “Justice! Justice! You will pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16:20) But why is God not also bound by that divine injunction? Is Justice a quality of God, as Maimonides teaches, or is Justice a quality that God loves? A version of this question was raised by Plato about 2,500 years ago. It is called the Euthyphro Dilemma. Most major religious thinkers have grappled with it in one form or another ever since, because depending on how one answers it, God may not be omnipotent and transcendent or the Universe may be arbitrary. However, the dilemma is not limited to religion and is relevant to Sandy Hook.

The religious version of Euthyphro’s Dilemma as it pertains to Justice (Plato addressed it more generally as “the Good”) can be stated as:

I. Is Justice commanded by God because it is morally good, an inherent property of the Universe, an essential quality that transcends God, that He Himself is slave to?

or

II. Is Justice morally good because it is commanded by God? If Justice is commanded by God, then it’s arbitrary on His part, and we declare it “good” only because we have to.

Some break the dilemma down further. Justice may be an obligation or a value. When Justice is an obligation, doing it is right, required or permissible, and doing injustice is wrong, forbidden or impermissible – doing justice is right because it is commanded. However, when Justice is a value – its goodness (and, conversely, the evil of injustice) – is independent of the divine command to act in imitatio dei, with justice. According to this view, God, being the source of all goodness, is imbued with and is the source of Justice.

In Joan of Quebec, Joan believes God has commanded her to do His will in the world in leading the people to independence. Because it comes from God, she is confident that it is good, as Father Feuel maintains, but because the war will result in the death of children, she questions whether such injustice can be good, as Sister Thérèse maintains. Is goodness and justice a quality greater than God? She is on the horns of Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma.

The dilemma doesn’t go away for the atheist and the humanist:

I. Does mankind love justice because it is good? This implies the existence of a metaphysical quality we are powerless to de-value – Justice is inherently good.

or

II. Do we deem justice good because we seem to be naturally compelled by it, we are driven to satisfying an internal (biological) imperative, and feel dissatisfied when justice doesn’t happen? In this view, justice is evolutionarily obtained because it contributes to the survival of our species, but it is only “good” in that utilitarian sense. Since evolution is indifferent to human values of good and bad, we are then mistaken when we deem justice good and injustice bad.

The debate raging now in America over mental health and gun violence is but another version of the Euthyphro Dilemma. Do we believe Adam Lanza was insane because he killed children, or did he kill children because he was insane? How we answer that question impacts how we think about and deal with mental illness. It will have implications for resources we allocate to mental health screening and treatment, gun control, and the laws we will pass to deal with the criminally insane.

Chanukah - The First Anti-Assimilationist War

It is ironic that in America, Chanukah has come to be conflated with Christmas. Well-meaning Christians, trying to be loving and inclusive, secularize both when they wish others "Happy Holidays!" Meanwhile, Jews have seized upon the superficial similarity of lighting displays, and some, out of a concern that their children may feel deprived by not having the kind of Holiday of Gifts that their Christian friends celebrate, adopt the Christian custom of exchanging gifts, some even one-upping the Christians by giving gifts on all eight nights. This does a disservice to the meaning of both holidays. Here is a link to a very interesting analysis that supports the theory that Jews with children at home unduly celebrate this minor holiday out of concern that their children will convert or intermarry. It seems doubtful that Chanukah can serve its original anti-assimilationist function if it is celebrated as the Jewish Christmas, a betrayal of the Maccabean fight for Jewish particularism against Greek pluralism.

Chanukah celebrates the successful nationalist uprising against the dominant assimilationist culture, possibly the first of its kind. In many ways, it resembles the separatist struggles of the French-Canadians against the English-Canadians in Joan of Quebec. Both are driven by fear that the national culture will disappear under the pressure to assimilate. Both are inspired by deep religious convictions. While there were earlier wars fought against conquering oppressors, Chanukah marks the first time in history, to my knowledge, that a war was prosecuted against a dominant culture that sought to be inclusive rather than oppressive.

For those who wish to look more deeply into the light of the eight candles, here is the true story of Chanukah.

The Greek Ideal: Homogeneous Culture

The Kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by a policy of annihilation through assimilation on the part of the Assyrians. The Kingdom of Judah, including the Beth Hamikdash (Holy Temple), was pillaged by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar who took Judah captive en masse. Then Cyrus the Mede conquered Babylonia.[1]

Judaism flourished under Cyrus[2] and the Persian Empire. That empire was a model of what is best about a multicultural state. They encouraged each religion to maintain its integrity and contributed funds to the rebuilding of temples, including the Beth Hamikdash. Jews associated mostly with other Jews, yet felt great loyalty to the State. They paid taxes, flourished in business, and volunteered for military service. Jewish culture blossomed: the synagogue, the Sanhedrin (Rabbinical Court), and the widespread learning of Torah (Bible) date back to those times. Many Jews did not return to Judah when Cyrus encouraged the rebuilding of the Temple. Many preferred to remain in Persia, where they continued to build the first great diaspora culture.

In contrast to the multicultural Persian Empire, Alexander brought monocultural Hellenism in 332 BCE. Hellenism was universal and inclusive: all nations were welcomed as Greeks. As conquerors go, the Greeks were nice guys. They did not plunder and spoil. Instead they encouraged economic growth and unity. After Alexander, Judah was governed by the Egyptian Greeks (the Ptolemies) until 200 BCE, and thereafter by the Syrian Greeks (the Seleucids). The Greeks brought heretofore unheard of prosperity to the Jews. They encouraged commerce, and facilitated trade within the Empire. Greek became the universal language (The Ptolemies subsidized the translation of the Torah into Greek, the Septuagint.) Jews studied Greek philosophy, sculpture, and architecture. Jews loved Greek sports, theater, music, and poetry. A well-bred Jew would have a Greek name, attend the Gymnasium, and travel widely throughout the Greek empire.

A reform movement emerged in Greek Judah, in many ways similar to the Reform movement that would later emerge in Germany as a result of the Enlightenment. The reformers were by-and-large upper class, well-bred, intellectual Greek Jews. They reasoned that the Torah was full of fables and out-of-date laws geared to a more primitive, less civilized people.[3]  Now that they were able to use their new-found science of Reason, they were capable of shaping the Law to fit the ethical and moral needs of their culture -- of picking up where God left off with the “less progressed” Israelites. They did not want to completely disregard the Law, but only to modernize it -- bring it into line with the way Jews live in the modern world. They wanted to be allowed to belong to a world that wanted nothing more of them than that they belong to it. Was this so bad?

Now the Greeks also had a big, general idea on offer: universalist culture. Alexander had created his empire as an ideal: he wanted to fuse the races and he ‘ordered all men to regard the world as their country . . . good men as their kin, bad men as foreigners’. Isocrates argued that ‘the designation Hellene is no longer a matter of descent but of attitude.’[4]

Syncretism

As James Frazier was to re-discover over two millennia later[5], there are many similarities among ancient religions. There is a Flood story, for example, in Greek, Aztec, and Babylonian mythology. The ritual expulsion of scapegoats (or other animal that carried away the sins of a people) was pandemic (India, Polynesia, Egypt, California Indians, Medieval Europe, Abbysinia, Albania, Peru). Also, the offering of first fruits (Madagascar, India, Indonesia, Fiji, Samoa, Natchez Indians, Old Prussia, Rome, England, Russia, France, Sweden). One needn’t look very hard to find gods that served parallel functions across cultures.

Most of the nations conquered by the Greeks had a god of resurrection: Osiris (Egypt), Adonis (Syria), Thammuz (Babylonia), Attis (Phrygia), Dionysis (Greece); Goddesses of reproduction: Isis (Egypt), Astarte (Syria), Istar (Babylonia), Cybele (Phrygia), Aphrodite or Demeter (Greece); Sun gods: Apollo, Ra, Helios; etc. These similarities were well known to the Greeks and were commented upon by Herodotus as early as the fifth century BCE. It seemed to them that all religions and all people were the same; that all men, if enlightened, would realize they were brothers.

The Greeks were only too happy to conflate the Egyptian Ammon, the Persian Ahura-Mazda, the Greek Zeus and the Jewish Jahweh. They wanted the Jews to join them in their humanistic culture and humanistic god.

The War Against Syncretism

In 175 BCE, the new Seleucid monarch Antiochus Epiphanes allied himself with the Jewish reformers. Jason was installed as High Priest. Jason diverted Temple funds to community activities (like the Olympic Games, and plays).  He raised taxes, and gave military support to Antiochus.

Impatient with Jason’s progress, Antiochus replaced Jason with Menelaus in 171 BCE. Menelaus raised taxes still further and built a Greek acropolis replete with a hippodrome (racetrack), a stadium, and a gymnasium. Menelaus, backed by the Jewish reformers, instituted secular law. As a final touch, he built a statue of Zeus in the Temple, and opened it up to ecumenical worship.

In 166 BCE, the un-Hellenized unwashed masses revolted against the reformers. Led by Matisyahu  (a.k.a. Matthias) Hasmon and his five sons (who were called the Maccabees, from a Greek word for hammer) they drove the Seleucids out of Jerusalem after two years of fighting. Matisyahu's son, Judah (a.k.a. Judas), became the new high priest at the rededication of the Temple, which we celebrate as Chanukah.

Rededication of the Temple

The temple was purified and rededicated in a ceremony lasting eight days. Judah Maccabee declared an eight-day celebration to be analogous to the temple dedication ceremonies of Solomon and Hezekiah. Only a couple of months earlier, they were forced to celebrate the eight-day Feast of Tabernacles (Succoth) cowering in the Judean hills (in II Maccabees, Chanukah is called the Camping Out Festival). They saw this as a celebration to make up for the lost opportunity to truly celebrate the eight-day Succoth holiday. They ended their celebration with the lighting of torches reminiscent of Simchas Torah (the last day of Succoth). The festival was called Tabernacles and Fire, because fire for the altar had descended from heaven at the altar dedications of Moses, Solomon, and Hezekiah.[6]

Judah Maccabee declared it a festival for all time, and it was celebrated at first with much the same spirit that Americans celebrate Independence Day. However, by the end of the Hasmonean dynasty it was barely remembered. By the first century CE, Josephus did not know why it was called the Festival of Lights, and in the second century, no mention of it whatever is included in the Mishnah  (the commentary on Torah laws redacted in the 2nd century CE).[7]

The Magillat Taanit (Scroll of Fasts) written by the Tanaim  (Rabbis who worked on the Mishnah) in the first century mentions the holiday as one of 36 on which it is forbidden to fast. The Tanaim confirm the explanation of I and II Maccabees:

In the days of the Greeks when the Hasmoneans entered the Temple they had seven torches. Why eight? When Moses dedicated the temple in the desert, he made it a 7 day holiday. It took 8 days to restore the temple.

Gemarah

By the fifth century, the Talmudic rabbis, the Amoraim[8], mention Chanukah in the Gemarah but try to strip it of its political significance. This may have been politically correct at a time when to be politically incorrect was a mistake punishable by death. In addition, the Hasmoneans had eventually become an embarrassment. The holiday was not well known, since they lead off their discussion with “What is Chanukah?”

What is Chanukah? For our Rabbis taught: On the 25th of Kislev commence the days of Chanukah which are eight ... For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest, but which contained sufficient oil for one day’s lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein and they lit the lamp therewith for eight days. The following year these days were appointed a festival with the recital of Hallel and thanksgiving.[9]

Mitzvah of Publicizing the Miracle 

It was then politically expedient to not too openly discuss among gentiles the true meaning of the holiday.  The miracle was not a legend about some long-burning oil, but the miracle of survival among gentiles who would have destroyed the Jewish people by forcible assimilation.

In Israel now, the holiday is openly celebrated for its true meaning with giant Chanukah lamps blazing atop the Knesset and other public buildings. The Amoraim evidently understood the true meaning of the holiday, although they could not openly discuss it.

The display of the Chanukah lights was an act of public defiance and hope. They wanted Jews to understand that the miracle was not in the lights but in the public display of the lights:

If the lighting fulfills the precept, one may light from lamp to lamp [as is done with the holy menorah in the Temple] but if the placing of the lamp fulfills the precept, one may not light from lamp to lamp. For the scholars propounded: Does the kindling or the placing constitute the precept? ... It was stated: Rab said: one must not light from lamp to lamp.[10]

The passage continues to discuss that the lamp should be kindled and displayed outdoors, and if there is a decision between the Chanukah light and the Sanctification of the Day, “The Chanukah lamp is preferable on account of advertising the miracle.”[11]

---

[1] The history that follows is gleaned from Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (1987) and H.H. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People (1976)

[2] God’s annointed, or Messiah according to Isaiah 45:1

[3] Robert Nisbet traces the origin of the Idea of Progress to the Greeks, History of the Idea of Progress (New York 1980).

[4] Isocrates, Panegyr, 4:50; as quoted in Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York 1987), 101.

[5] Frazer, James George, Sir, The Golden Bough (London 1890)

[6]  I Maccabees (4:36-59), II Maccabees (1:18-36,  2:12,10:1-5)

[7] Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Chanukah”

[8] Rabbis who worked on the Gemarah. The Gemarah is the commentary on the Mishnah redacted in the fifth century. It is often referred to as the Talmud, which is the combination of the Mishnah and the Gemarah. The Talmud is a series of opinions that teach Jews how to practice the laws of the Torah and the traditions of the Jews.

[9] Talmud tractate Shabbat 21b-22a

[10] Shabbat 22b

[11] Shabbat 23b

Is Bigotry Innate?

In a recent 60 Minutes segment (thanks to my niece Eliza for posting it), researchers at Yale found that infants discriminate against others who are even slightly different from themselves. This conflicts with the conventional wisdom that, in the words of Oscar Hammerstein II, "you've got to be carefully taught." It cannot be doubted that prejudices are socially reinforced, and may be overridden by learned attitudes and behaviors, as demonstrated at the end of the 60 Minutes segment. Research on adults has demonstrated a neurochemical basis for the trust and parochial altruism we exhibit towards the group we associate ourselves with (the "in group"), as well as the xenophobia and violence directed against the groups we differentiate ourselves from (the "out group"). Interestingly, the same hormone/neurotransmitter, oxytocin, seems to play a role in both effects. Nursing mothers, aroused by the secretion of oxytocin, become hypersensitized to perceived threats and exhibit aggressive attitudes and behaviors towards them. Paradoxically, testosterone, the hormone usually associated with aggressive behavior, seems to moderate oxytocin's ethnocentrist effect by encouraging individual rebellion against in-group cohesion.

Are we biologically doomed to eternal ethnic conflict?

Here's what a fictional social scientist says about it in one of the testimonies:

     I am a specialist in the study of the neurological basis of nationalism. I am Professor of the Neuro-Psychology at the University of  Rochester. We have separated nationalism into two distinct psychological effects. The first is in-group cohesion. This is regulated by the neurotransmitter oxytocin produced in the hypothalamus. When someone is identified as one of one’s own kind, oxytocin is released, and the subject is likely to make altruistic decisions with respect to one’s own kind. We call this the “tend and defend” response.

     On the other hand, out-group hatred, when someone is identified as foreign or a threat to one’s own kind, the neurotransmitter norepinephrine is released and the prototypical “fight or flight” reaction ensues.

     We set up an experiment among white American students, all of whom clamed to have no prejudices against any ethnic group. We gave them a simple hypothetical problem: they had to choose whom to allow on an airplane sent to rescue a group of people from an island in the path of a tsunami. When the names were Anglo-Saxon, blood levels of oxytocin increased, the fMRI showed that areas of the brain that were linked to compassion lit up, and the decisions were made quite rapidly. When the same group of students were shown names that were Arab, African-American, Chinese, German or Russian, norepinephrine levels increased, the fMRI showed that areas of the brain linked to fear lit up, and decision-making slowed down. 

     Ethnocentrism, nationalism, as it were, seems to be hard-wired into our brains. It probably arose as a product of normal evolution. Those humans who banded together for mutual protection were more likely to survive. Those humans who were suspicious and alert to foreigners were more likely to survive. Perhaps there is a nurtured element as well. We did not delve into how we learn to identify some people as in-group or brothers and some as out-group or others. 

     Some of us are able to override these lower-level cognitive functions. Many of the college students in our study, after some hesitation, nevertheless chose a balance of foreign names to be rescued.

Should every ethnic group have its own country?

In the Ages of Kings and Imperialism, the only constraints on the geographical limits of the State were power and ambition. On what basis ought the borders of a country be drawn?

In one of his testimonies, Louis Drapeau says about the Bosnian Crisis:

Each ethnic group believed it had a right to its own nation; Balkanization, we call it. On one city block there were ethnic Albanians, on the next block were ethnic Serbs, on the next were Bosniaks, on the next Croatians. It became a reductio ad absurdum. Every block believed it had an inalienable right to be a nation-state, and demanded recognition by America, Germany or Russia. When Serbia invaded Bosnia and sought to ethnically cleanse it, however, those nations who had given so much lip-service to recognition of statehood did nothing while thousands of civilians were slaughtered and buried in mass graves.

Ethnic nationalism has caused the most misery in the world. I would argue that the American Revolution was anti-colonial rather than nationalist, because the Americans were not a separate ethnic group from the British. The French Revolution was a class war. Those who believe that the language one speaks gives one the right to a nation-state, might be interested to know that at the time of the French Revolution, about half the people in France spoke no French at all. The state preceded the national identity. The same could be said about Italy.

But almost every ethnic group since then has used the ideals of those American and French revolutions in their justification to fight for their own nation-state. When the Greeks rebelled against the Ottomans in 1821, the world championed her cause. I’m not saying the Greeks weren’t oppressed and didn’t have to stop that oppression, I’m just saying that the Greek War of Independence resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, including the Greek massacres of innocent Jews. The poor Jews are always blamed by every side, aren’t they? The Greek Revolution spurred nationalist/anti-imperialist revolts in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Armenia, and Poland.

Many of the wars of nationalism were indistinguishable from wars against imperialism that used ethnic nationalist spirit to motivate revolution. The great imperialist nations – The Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and Germans lost their colonies in Africa, Asia and Latin America to anti-colonial uprisings.

The United States, believing in its manifest destiny to rule from sea to sea, massacred its native Indian population in the 19^th Century. But then, in the 20^th Century, the nationalistic idea of ethnic purity became pandemic. The Germans instituted ethnic cleansing and systematically murdered Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. Ethnic purity of the majority was the excuse used for genocides on the part of Turks, Bolsheviks, Serbs, Croatians, Hutus, the Khmer Rouge, and by Australia, Abkhazia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. Violence and mass deportations on the part of ethnic majorities have become a global phenomenon.

Today, ethnic minorities, who are not necessarily oppressed, lead separatist movements, sometimes with violence, in almost every country. In Europe: there are the Catalonians and Basques in Spain and France; the Bretons in France; the Flemish in Belgium; Northern Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish and Manx in the UK; Silesians in Poland and the Czech Republic; Sorbs and Bavarians in Germany; Frisians in Holland; Padanians in Italy; In the Middle East: there are the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq; the Palestinians in Jordan and Israel; In Asia: the Chechans, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Russia; the Uighurs and Kazakhs in China; the Bolochs, Balawari, Waziri, and Pashtun in Pakistan; the Moslems of Jammu and Kashmir and  the Siligurians in India; Tamils in Sri Lanka; the Karen and others in Burma; In the Americas: Mayan Zapatistas in Mexico; the Aymara in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Bolivia; in Africa, there are hundreds of separatist ethnic groups who often kill or lose their lives, depending on the balance of power.

Václav Havel resigned as President rather than preside over the breakup of Czechoslovakia into ethnic states.

Albert Einstein stated, “Nationalism is an infantile disease… It is the measles of mankind.”