Rabbi Daniel Lapin on Mel Gibson

One thing that did catch my eye in the comments section of another blog (not DWM) was the actual blood-alcohol level recorded which, while over the legal limit and impairing, really wasn’t all that sky-high, relatively speaking. I’m sure I’ve had many rational conversations with people who probably would have clocked in at .12 (I think that’s what it was) but were seemingly well aware of what they were saying. Of course, individual people respond radically differently to the same level of alcohol, and, again of course, temperament, temper and so forth also come into play. Still, it’s an interesting point that commenter made.

My question, and one I don’t know how to answer, is how far we allow bad thoughts, if they’re not accompanied by bad acts. Normally, I’d say we shouldn’t control thoughts at all, we care only about acts. This is why I find the thought police taking over American college campuses so despicable and 1984-ish. But what about a situation when someone does an act — say, making The Passion of the Christ — which seems to be a subliminal forum for the thoughts — such as anti-Semitism?

Respectfully, this is far scarier territory to me than the drunken rantings, whether emblematic of true feelings when sober or not, of one actor/director, famous or not, who may have jumped the shark. He’s being pilloried–absolutely appropriately!–in the media and blogosphere, so the system is working! To go farther than is to proceed into dangerous territory indeed–at least if one believes in the principle of, to put it simplistically, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

And overreacting to Gibson’s assholery of the other night by calling for an investigation into his alleged hate crimes threatens to debase the very meaning of such a category, not to mention others. I’ve blogged about that at DWM, if you’re interested.

It is disconcerting that someone could write (as #6 above):

I did not waste my time seeing it [Gibson's "Passion"] but a friend (formerly Catholic) did and wrote some excellent reviews. It surprised me that so many “Fundamental Christian” leaders were conned into encouraging their church members to see it.

Gibson’s film on the last few hours of Christ’s life is a powerful and brilliant work. Yes, it includes some dubious touches, but they are hardly germane and they are surely not heretical. The resurrection of Christ might indeed have proven His Divinity; but a Christ, a God Incarnate, who does not suffer by taking the sins of the world — the blame for everything — upon Him is neither a savior nor a God. The Passion is the climax; the resurrection the denouement.

That some deemed the film “too graphic” miss the larger point: Christ’s crucifixion was far more graphic than the film could ever depict. For one thing, Christ most likely hung on the cross naked. Just imagine that. And as for this idea that Christ is no longer hanging on the cross — that Catholics are fixated on a dying, injured God — the crucifix symbolizes that Christ’s sacrifice is eternal, his very wounds still with him even after his resurrection. God is broken when making us whole.

As for the controversial allegations of anti-semitism in Gibson’s film, or in the New Testament itself, what is entirely overlooked is that the offending passages in the Gospels — and perhaps in the Pauline epistles — were written and believed by Jews. They were not Gentiles who wrote such provocative words: they were Jewish men. Were Matthew, Mark, John, and Paul thus anti-semites? I will let my Jewish friends decide that. But if it is true that they are anti-semites, then does it not follow that anti-semitism has Jewish roots?

A tough, tough question.

Peace to you, always.

By the way, I’ll admit that we Jews are a bit sensitive. My mother always said “Never marry a non-Jew.” I asked, “Why?” “Because,” she said, “one day, you’ll have a terrible argument about something and he, in the heat of the moment, will turn to you and say, ‘You dirty Jew.’” My mother was the product of a most unhappy mixed marriage and, while I’ve never asked, I suspect that she saw that worst-case scenario played out, and it affected forever her view about the true philo-Judaism of even one who marries a Jew. I’m not sure that one needs to be so worried in 20th or 21st Century America, but that certainly was a real scenario in early 20th Century Europe.