Keeping the Faith

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
June 16, 2000

 
One day Ruby received a phone call from a dear friend who said to her: "You'll never guess, but Gene – her husband and my dear colleague in the rabbinate – is in the movies! They needed a mohel for the scene, so they got Gene!" "Which movie?" "Keeping the Faith." "What's it about?" "He didn't know, they just needed a mohel. He didn't ask and now he hopes it's okay!"

And that is how I got "shanghaied" into watching a movie I otherwise would not have seen. The promotionals had already indicated to me that this movie's theme placed in the genre of both editions of the "Jazz Singer", the former with Al Jolson and the latter with Neil Diamond, among others like "Abie's Irish Rose" and "Bridget Loves Bernie". Jewish boy finds non-Jewish girl and, after some meandering plot, they live happily, or somewhat happily, ever after. Keeping the Faith just wove the plot a little tighter. The Jewish boy is a Rabbi, Rabbi Jake. He has a boy-hood friend who is a priest, Father Brian. Their beautiful childhood friend is Annie Riley. Both Rabbi Jake and Father Brian fall in love with Annie, and so their faith is tested: the Rabbi in Jew with non-Jew, the Father, and his vow of celibacy. Thus the title of the movie: Keeping the Faith.

I didn't need to see this movie to know it. I deal with these issues constantly in my Rabbinate. There is a current controversy surrounding the next Jewish census about "how" to count and "whom" to count. And I scan the Sunday section with the engagement and wedding announcements. After the movie appeared, until the phone call, I avoided seeing the movie. After the phone call I had to see my friend in the movie. Then everyone started asking me: "What do you think about this movie?" I promised my Talmud class that tonight I would answer the question.

As you may imagine, I was disappointed in both Father Brian and Rabbi Jake. I am not surprised in that they doubted or struggled with their respective faiths. Every Rabbi, Priest, Minister and Reverend struggles with articles of faith because we articulate and represent loyalty and allegiance to God whom we know mostly from sacred scripture and not from a speaking voice. We ask Him questions, too. All clergy represent faith systems that make claims upon human behavior in world when media, which moves at ever faster lightening speeds, shriek louder than us. Religion does not speak the language of instant gratification, in a world that spins ever faster. Though Rabbi Jake brings the gospel choir to sing Ein Kalohenu, it's cute but not Jewish prayer. All religions advocate morality, civility, justice, righteousness in a world that is self-centered, overflowing with jails and death row inmates, and depersonalized through computers in home and workplace cube farms. All faiths have to answer the question best phrased by my colleague Rabbi Harold Kushner, "When – why – do – Bad Things Happen to Good People?" We are supposed to appeal to children, though we deal in an adult commodity. It is hard enough to be the messenger. Every clergy struggles with the message. Every clergy wishes to reach out to more people on a consistent basis than preach to empty seats. I am not surprised that Father Brian and Rabbi Jake have doubts.

I can honestly say, though, that I truly understand Father Brian's dilemma. When I was a Rabbi in Windsor, Ct. the clergy association adjourned one day each year for a retreat. In the era before cell phones and pagers, we went away so that no one could bother us. In that privacy we shared those matters, which troubled our souls. My colleagues in the ministry whose faith requires celibacy return to their own room without the love of a spouse and the gladdening voice of children are severely challenged. I have the highest respect for them. I will never forget those retreats and the perspective they taught me. My – our – Judaism instead of testing me, supports me in my humanity, and with the support of family, has enabled me to be a Rabbi. Father Brian was severely tested because he had to abstain from that which our humanity indicates is normal and desirable.

Rabbi Jake is another matter. I don't know what it means to be unmarried and a Rabbi. I don't know what it means to be thirty something and single. I was 23 when Ruby and I married after my first year in Rabbinical School. I've been married my entire Rabbinical career. Marital status not withstanding, when we don the title Rabbi and to cloak ourselves in the tradition of the Rabbinate we represent the faith of Judaism. While we may alter, add or delete a few rituals, one cannot remove the bone and muscle, the skeleton and flesh of the faith. Even as I continue to work diligently and heartfelt to enable people to chose Judaism as their personal faith, for reasons which I have presented in greater depth at other times, the first and primary path is that of intramarriage, that between Jew and Jew. That is what I, a Rabbi, represent. Rabbi Jake failed the test.

When I interview couples preparing for their wedding I ask their addresses. With some frequency the answer is "the same." I note it without batting an eyelash. Yet Judaism cannot be misconstrued as validating or advocatingpremarital or non-marital sex. Again, I realize that religion preaches a message; Judaism articulates a posture that goes against the grain. So be it. Judaism most proudly declares that sexual activity is the most intimate human behavior that is most properly fulfilled between two people who have made a total, complete and concrete commitment between them. Sex is holy and should be done in a state of holiness, the marriage bond. Rabbi Jake had sex with Annie outside of marriage and with a woman who wasn't Jewish. As long as his mom and congregation said okay, everything was wonderful. As I watched the movie, the only thought that came to mind was, that if we wore frocks I would defrock him. I needed this movie like a "loch in cup!" Rabbi Jake did not Keep the Faith

Yet, there were two redeeming religious components to this movie. The third protagonist is a most interesting character. Annie is a high-powered executive, hard driving, ruthless, totally consumed. She walks around with a cell-phone plugged in her ear. She summarizes the way she lives with the following words: "If God had had me working for Him, He would have finished the world by Thursday morning, instead of in seven days." How many of us and people we know are like that? Then, in contact with the Rabbi and Priest, Annie Riley begins to question her world and asks herself: "Is this really the way to live?" This movie had another message, lost in the hype, the message that all religions, loudly proclaim:

that making money in large amounts cannot buy happiness;

that power over people does not bless us with peace of mind;

that total consumption in work cannot replace your humanity.

Whether or not Father Brian and Rabbi Jake are good representatives of their faith systems, they represent, symbolize and embody faith and belief in higher values whose source is a supreme power beyond us. Some Annie got the message. A better title for the movie, though not as easily contained in a sound byte is:

What is the faith that Annie seeks and wants to keep?

Somehow the Father and Rabbi represent the message of their faiths. Annie rejects the world as we know it in search of the faith. The movie presents us with this person. It doesn't tell us what faith she wants to keep.

While the movie never uses the word, Annie is "taking classes" for the sake of conversion. The nature of the classes and the ultimate question, will she, is beyond the scope of the movie. Yet it is fascinating that the resolution of this movie, regardless of the number stars, is the conversion of the non-Jew to Judaism. Despite its failings, at least to me, this movie will go down in Jewish cinematographic history as a revolution. It is more than okay to convert, rather it is a positive thingto become a Jew. I really hope that Jews hear this message:

Judaism has a good, powerful and necessary message that the world wants to hear.

We are the messengers of that faith.

We should be proud and illustrative representatives of Judaism.

This is the faith that I want to keep.