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<\/a>Living on the F train subway line in Brooklyn, I am regularly exposed to one of the more consistently curious sights that New York City has to offer, one that tends to trump those attention-seeking sights that surround it by virtue of its contrasting virtues: the Hasidim, the black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews who\u2019d rather go unnoticed in our midst.<\/p>\nFrom where I\u2019m standing, their disdain for the vanities that drive those other eye-catching strangers on the train who actually want your attention only makes the Hasidim that much more interesting.<\/p>\n
All the full-sleeve tattoos, cringe-worthy piercings, and whacky hairdos combined can\u2019t add up to the sight of a single Hasidic man mumbling over the Torah in his broad black fedora and long black coat deep down the infernal New York underground during last week\u2019s brutal heat wave.<\/p>\n
From my standpoint, they\u2019re nothing short of fascinating for their steadfast resistance to the mores of the larger culture into which they refuse to be absorbed. Is there anything more radical in our workaholic, super-consumerist day and age than a genuine observance of the Sabbath? I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
Of course this resistance generates accusations from the larger culture of extreme insularity, of an untouchable status in the societies where they live and flourish. Such accusations aren\u2019t always without merit, as recent efforts in certain communities to block outside oversight into their own cases of child molestation attest.<\/p>\n
Exemption from taxes is one thing; from state law another.<\/p>\n
Still, in a society like ours whose church-at-large is generally so assimilated into the dominant culture that witness<\/em> often falls far below fitness<\/em> on many of our to-do lists, the sight of the Hasidim dressed for colder weather on a blazing summer day can be one that brings with it equal parts refreshment and rebuke.<\/p>\nBut that\u2019s just me.<\/p>\n
Hence my nearly instant click on Netflix when my brother recently recommended My Father, My Lord<\/em>, a small but mighty film and searing domestic drama about the cost of religious devotion to an ultra-Orthodox rabbi\u2019s family of three in today\u2019s Jerusalem.<\/p>\nWith a level of understatement totally foreign (pun intended) to contemporary American cinema, the film packs more in a mere eighty minutes than most Hollywood products deliver with twice the running time and monstrously larger budgets.<\/p>\n
(If you decide to see the film, and please do, notice among other subtle touches the way that director David Volach renders the Abraham and Isaac theme with such disquieting delicacy that its effect is crushing once you apprehend it.)<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, this experience with My Father, My Lord<\/em> was followed in short order by my chance notice of another such film while trolling the movie listings for something more than summer dreck: Fill the Void<\/em>, about an ultra-Orthodox family\u2019s struggle with bereavement, freedom, and tradition in modern Tel Aviv.<\/p>\nWhat in the name of G-d was going on here?<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t praise enough Rama Burshtein, the writer\/director of Fill the Void <\/em>who has the double distinction of not only presenting a masterpiece with her debut, but of also being the first Orthodox Israeli woman to helm a feature film.<\/p>\nShe would probably shy away from such praise in light of her religion, and the film\u2019s PG rating carries a tag that applies to more than just the question of suggestible content: \u201cModesty is respected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Modesty is respected. And the results blew my mind.<\/p>\n
Set in the, yes, insular, but equally expansive world of the Mendelman family and their Haredi community in Tel Aviv, the void in question befalls the clan with the death of the older daughter, Esther, in childbirth on Purim\u2014a tragedy whose ironic import in light of Esther\u2019s biblical namesake is never mentioned by any character because it needn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n
These are Jews, after all, children of Job: \u201cThe Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or, as community members say to the Mendelmans, in keeping with the tradition of shiva: \u201cMay the Lord console you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Esther\u2019s younger sister, Shira (played by the extraordinary Hadas Yaron), has only just taken her own first step toward marriage and eventual parenthood at the start of the film.<\/p>\n
But Shira\u2019s mother, Rivka (the equally extraordinary Irit Sheleg), is desperate not to lose her only grandchild when her grieving but eligible son-in-law, Yochay (the no less extraordinary Yiftach Klein) considers the prospect of a second marriage in Belgium.<\/p>\n
Hence the question Rivka poses and the movie\u2019s overarching story: Will Shira fill the void left by Esther to marry her brother-in-law, become mother to her nephew, and keep the family together?<\/p>\n
From that point the story unfolds to the most simple but most moving climax in a film that I have seen in a long, long time.<\/p>\n
In his glowing review for The New York Times<\/em>, A.O. Scott writes that the movie \u201cis at times almost unbearably full of feeling and significance.\u201d And not simply feelings of constriction or grim obligation as one might suppose. The three principles of Hasidism being joy, charity and prayer, Bursthein and her incredible cast give each its proper but not exaggerated due. A modest answer to an uninformed audience that might assume the three principles are narrowness, austerity, and tribal law.<\/p>\nScott goes on to employ two adjectives for the film that defy the kind we might more typically\u2014or stereotypically\u2014associate with Hasidim: \u201caccessible and thrilling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thrilling? Fill the Void<\/em> is a thriller? Yes, it is. Not technically, according to the narrow genre bandwidth movies must occupy, but emotionally and spiritually speaking.<\/p>\nThe next day I made good on a long-standing wish to some day attend a service at a Messianic synagogue. So I fittingly took the F train to one in Manhattan, and the experience filled a certain void in its own right.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a story for the next post.<\/p>\n
Bradford Winters<\/a><\/strong> is a screenwriter and poet, and works for The Levinson\/Fontana Company as a producer and writer in television. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Living on the F train subway line in Brooklyn, I am regularly exposed to one of the more consistently curious sights that New York City has to offer, one that tends to trump those attention-seeking sights that surround it by virtue of its contrasting virtues: the Hasidim, the black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews who\u2019d rather go unnoticed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1072,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,48,51,402],"tags":[452,42,53,453],"class_list":["post-3948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bradford-winters","category-faith-topical-categories","category-film-topical-categories","category-review","tag-fill-the-void","tag-film","tag-judaism","tag-my-father-my-lord"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Living on the F train subway line in Brooklyn, I am regularly exposed to one of the more consistently curious sights that New York City has to offer, one that tends to trump those attention-seeking sights that surround it by virtue of its contrasting virtues: the Hasidim, the black-clad ultra-Orthodox Jews who\u2019d rather go unnoticed in our midst.<\/p>\n