What's the point of laborious and stilted religious rituals, like Bar Mitzvahs for 13 year olds? Recently a new movie by the Coen Brothers called A Serious Man depicted a neurotic Jewish physics professor in Minnesota who undergoes midlife crises galore during the height of his son's Bar Mitzvah preparations.
Crises Galore (with an undercurrent of Jewish paranoia)
Larry, the main character, has moral dilemmas, family arrests, car wrecks, etc., within his marginalization as a Jew living in the 1960s Midwest. Suddenly one day, his conservatively dressed wife, Judith, loudly announces her intentions to divorce him and marry a widowed neighbor.
At home, he feels surrounded on either side of his well-manicured house by militaristic, crew-cut duck-hunters with loaded rifles and pot smoking sexy neighbors who sunbathe in the nude, both neighbors on either side of his pristine suburban white home with the perfect lawn.
So, before chaos strikes, Larry maintains the ideal front of the perfect American life, when suddenly his wife demands divorce. Absorbed in math equations and fending off a Korean student who bribes him for an undeserved grade, he also miraculously keeps up proper appearances before the impending tenure committee’s decision.
He also puts his car in the middle of a 3 car collision and walks around with untreated whiplash, and soon his widowed brother gets arrested for solicitation in North Dakota.
Unavailable, Ineffectual Religious Institutions
When he turns to the rabbis at temple, they are either too inexperienced or busy to help him. Crises keep unfolding until he starts having nightmares and publicly displays his son who goes to the bimah stoned on pot, barely being able to see his portion of Torah scroll text.
Strains of Jefferson Airplane play in the background of this film, very appropriately as young Danny has his older version of the Ipod confiscated by his Hebrew teacher early on, only to be returned personally on the special day by the ancient white-bearded rabbi who never sees anyone anymore.
Funniness Boils Over and Releases Tension
The tension among competing elements, including darkness handed down from the shtetl tradition, Midwestern stoicism and cleanliness, the 60's free-love revolution, academic pressures, and everything else helps push the pressure over the edge and make laughing a necessity.
If you don't mind some darkness and tension of opposing forces, you, as practitioners of laughter yoga whether you know it or not, might enjoy the ridiculousness of the main character, who doesn't laugh at himself and his situation nearly often enough.
Elizabeth Herman - Elizabeth Herman (Betsy) recently completed a doctorate in Rhetoric and Composition. Her dissertation research investigated possible ...
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