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Rabbi Barry Leff Digest
Number 46 Date 062903
Back to Divrei Torah
(Torah Commentaries)
Back to Jackson Snyder Free Sermon
Last week we had a discussion about the movie Bruce
Almighty. The conversation is not recorded here....but the questions
are...some good things to discuss around your Shabbat table!
Baha’alotcha 5763 –what if you were God
God in this week’s parsha is a very scary God. The kind of God that has
given the “Jewish God” a difficult reputation over the millennia.
This week we get God as an angry God. The people complain about the food,
they want meat—God says “how dare they complain, after all I did for them!
They want meat, I’ll give them meat!” God acts almost like someone having
a temper tantrum: he buries the people in meat, and then makes them sick.
When Miriam offends God’s friend Moses, God strikes Miriam with an
affliction.
What’s troubling about this week’s parsha, is that God’s boundless
compassion, His endless kindness, seem to be hiding. Frankly, God appears
all too human.
What happens when God is too human? This is exactly the point of the movie
“Bruce Almighty.” It’s a very entertaining movie, I recommend it. Bob
Jones University (very conservative Christian university in the States)
calls it “blasphemous.” That’s probably a good recommendation! It won’t
ruin the movie for you if I explain the basics of the movie for discussion
purposes.
Jim Carrey plays Bruce, a TV journalist who feels very frustrated in his
career. He keeps getting the lousy assignments—the “human interest local
stories”—which are not going to further his career ambition of becoming a
TV anchorman. After a particularly lousy day, Bruce complains loudly to
and about God…"God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying
glass and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted
to". He even tells God, "You suck!"
So here’s our first theological question…is anger at God OK?
God appears in the wizened form of Morgan Freeman. God tells Bruce,
“you’re so mad you could do better? I’ve been working hard, I’m ready for
a little vacation. I’m going to transfer all my powers to you—there are
just two rules. You can’t let people know you’re God, and you can’t mess
with free will. Other than that—you do what you want.”
Given that set of instructions, what would you do? Something for yourself?
Others? Would it seem “petty” to use that power to do stuff for yourself?
Would you change the way the world works? Get rid of earthquakes, or
cancer? Do you have any idea what the unintended consequences might be?
Bruce keeps hearing voices, driving him crazy – it’s all those people
praying. What would you do with those prayers? Answer all of them?
Bruce does, and starts riots – everyone who prayed for it wins the
lottery—and there are so many winners, each person only gets $17.
How would you decide which prayers to answer, and how you would answer
them? Which you would ignore?
Bruce’s biggest challenge comes when his girlfriend leaves him. Bruce
asks: "How do you make somebody love you without affecting free will?" The
Lord replies, "Welcome to my world, son. If you come up with an answer to
that one, let me know."
Thinking about the implications raised by the movie convinced me that I
would not WANT God’s infinite powers unless I got God’s infinite wisdom to
go with them.
Shabbat Shalom
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