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Opening
Commits Concerning "The Passion of the Christ" Good
evening! Thank
you for the invitation to be here this evening. I choose to begin my statements tonight with a disclaimer.
I do not speak for the Jewish Community in any official capacity.
What you will hear are some of my own opinions and observations about Mr.
Gibson's movie and some reactions in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities. I
do not feel the need to point out the number of historical inaccuracies in the
film, except for one, which I will address shortly. Since I could understand the Aramaic, I had a slight
advantage over the average moviegoer, especially concerning what was actually
being said as opposed to what appeared on the screen. At
no point did I personally, as a Jew, worry about the reaction to the movie in
this country. I can understand
alarm bells going off in the minds of Jewish leaders. I am sure they feel, as I do, that the movie's release in
Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia will fuel anti-Jewish incidents and
sentiments, which appear to be on the rise around the world. What
were Mr. Gibson's intentions? I
don't believe it was a conscious effort to stir up hatred of the Jews.
The evidence of the movie is predominantly that he sought to make a movie
that showed the suffering of Jesus to the world, and that it was sufficiently
important for him to make it, no matter the obstacles. The
dispute, it seems to me, is not about Christianity, but about Mel Gibson's
version of one part of that story. He
chose to emphasize the things that were important to him and his B.S., -- that's
Belief System, folks! What
I find more distressing than the movie is Hutton Gibson's psychotic ranting, his
holocaust denying and his echoing the Jew hating of Henry Ford, Charles
Lindbergh and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Mel Gibson's refusal to distance himself from his father's
views, I believe, comes out in the film. In
Gibson's movie, "Satan" or the "devil" appears four times.
Not one of these appearances occurs in the four Gospels, an
inconsistency, which is an invention or innovation of Mel Gibson's conscious or
subconscious Belief System. This sinister figure moves among the crowd of Jews as if to
define the crowd. Satan is at home
moving among his own people. For
the Jews, after millennia as the "outcasts", the rejected ones,
Satan's spawn, parasites, it is not a far leap to vermin, subhuman, something to
be exterminated. Mel Gibson may
deny his true beliefs and feelings, but they manifest themselves in the film.
We
should also remember that this movie is "Hollywood" as well.
I do not feel the piece had a lot of merit as a film.
I have seen a number of other films that I think are a better portrayal
of the Life and Death of Jesus. If
one were not familiar with the Christian Bible, one would be lost in the film's
flashbacks. The four or five that
were covered left me wanting more in that context.
But then again, no one gave me 25 million dollars to make a movie! I
move a lot in non-Jewish circles and have done so for the past 15 years in
Dallas. I have gone out to many
churches and other houses of worship of other faiths. I serve both the Plano and Dallas Police departments as a
Chaplain serving all faiths. In all
of my encounters with Christians, clergy and lay people, I have not heard one
anti-Jewish reference or statement. In
fact, this film has caused many Christians to revisit their own beliefs and
re-evaluate their religious education and, in some cases, their commitment to
G-d. The media blitz and
controversy surrounding the film has brought the Life and Death of Jesus into
the popular American mindset. Other
books have recently done the same thing like the Da Vinci Code, which brings up
a lot of questions for people about religious authority.
Many people are asking questions, and I believe that is good. Let
me conclude by reiterating two questions that Christians asked to one another
during my visits. The
first question affected me deeply. How
can the scourging, humiliation, torture and crucifixion of Jesus possibly add up
to all the hatred, horror, persecution, atrocities and deaths done in Jesus'
name or in G-d's name? No Hollywood
movie could represent what human beings have done, and continue to do to one
another in this world. And finally, if Jesus is supposed to die to bring salvation from sin, why blame the Jews?
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