Jewish Addiction-Ary: Reflections on Some Films In This Year’s Festival

Among the panoply of films in this year’s Jewish film festivals from around the world, as seen in Boulder’s very successful movie week, the theme of addiction was unusually prominent. Whether gambling in “Yaniv,” or alcohol in “The Ring,” or smoking weed in several films, or unthinking fear of German shepherds, people’s inability to control habitual instincts seemed to takes over. Are addictions a significant factor in Jewish life? Some people say ‘yes!’ They point to Jewish involvement in ritual drinking on holidays or Kiddush clubs in shuls, or betting or card games. Though compulsive behavior among our people may be climbing, perhaps it’s due more to an infiltration of secular mores than intrinsic Jewish values.

A prominent rabbi, Shais Taub, wrote a book about alcoholism called “G-d of Our Understanding.” His basic premise was that addictions are generally not a problem but rather an attempt at a solution. He illustrates by referring to a talk he went to where in one room were addicts and in another room were Talmud students. The former group he explains were much more attentive to his talk than the other group because it was a matter of life and death to them, whereas to the other group it was a talk about general information. It’s like Reb Zalman Z’L used to say, someone may show you an x-ray and you may say it’s very interesting, but if they tell you it’s YOUR x-ray, you react very differently!

So what happens to the obsessed folk in these movies? They are not addicts or alcoholics because of the prominence of Jewish customs in their lives but because secular culture has made its way into Jewish practice. Indeed, there are enough admonitions in these films to point out the negative consequences of these addictive behaviors to even indirectly point out the dangers.

However, one might counter, ‘aren’t some Jewish rituals in themselves signs of addictive behavior?’ Here we can defend what seems irrational with the premise that these practices are part of Torah as revealed at Sinai, and one might say, this makes all the difference. Faith in some divine contact at Sinai is even the foundation at the root of different Jewish denominations. That faith is not just based on a mutual collective experience that no other claim to revealed religion attempts to base itself on. Even more, the collective experience itself is non-conditional and non-rational in its absolute acceptance as conveyed in the statement, ‘Naaseh V’Nishma,  we will accept and (then) understand.’

This acceptance is what Hassidic mystics refer to by the description, ‘Shtut l’maala Mittam V’daat,’ folly that is ‘higher than any reason and comprehension.‘ The previous Lubavitcher Rebbe amplifies this concept in his last public teaching, called ‘Bati LGani- I have come into my garden’- a verse from Song of Songs. This world is considered a divine garden, but human acts can push away G-d’s manifest Presence through unholy folly. The world at large has customs that are not subject to any rational reason. These customs can fit into a category called, ‘Shtut l’mata M’itaam V ’Daat, ‘a folly that is lower than reason and comprehension.’

Practices like sleeping at a certain hour, or eating three times a day, or following etiquette like bowing or certain traffic rules, or extravagant purchases, even when there is no practical purpose or benefit, are a few examples. However, if the Torah comes from a divine source, then the directives that seem to have no logic in them, may be considered higher than reason, because they come from a world that is more attached to faith than to logic. Even if one were to find some rationale in them that would not exhaust the divine reason for their fulfillment. For example, kosher laws may not seem to affect the body, but they do affect the soul. Now if a Jewish man or woman is not in touch with this ‘higher folly,’ they most likely will look for the related emotions in more worldly or even profane areas. That is how I understand the addictive motivations in Jewish films in particular.

Especially in the last few years after October 7^th, both in the trauma of the hostages and in their families, and indeed in all of Israel, many of the reactions have been those of heightened immersion in addictive behaviors. This is, as Rabbi Taub points out, a search for solutions to their gnawing and often unbearable pain. I am thinking in particular to the book “Dog” by Yishai Ron.  It is a novel that is largely based on his post traumatic experiences as a soldier in Gaza. Rather than facing his psychological fallout, after the war he, like too many others threw himself into a life of the emotional numbness of heroin and fentanyl and other drugs, before finally coming to terms with his PTSD.

However, thank G-d in Israel, the better kind of folly is emerging. Numerous hostages and survivors have begun to re-order their priorities, and are turning to more traditional Jewish values. They have found heavenly light in the darkness of hell. One tortured hostage, threatened with torture and death unless he renounced his Judaism, cried over and over, echoing Daniel Pearl, ‘I was born a Jew and I will die a Jew!’  And one formerly secular woman who managed to live through miracle after miracle, proclaimed over and over, ‘G-d is my best friend!’

Whether in fact or in fiction, the addictive state may be a default mode in our world that is saturated with the ephemeral ‘happiness of stuff’ rather than the eternal ‘stuff of happiness.’ We are continually tasked with figuring out the difference, and choosing wisely. May we learn from and be inspired by the holy fools of our times. Remember that the Talmud tells us, Mashiach will come when we least expect it, meaning when we can realize that there is much more to our lives than our habits, reactivity, or even rational perceptions: there are the wings of ‘holy folly’ that can carry us beyond the heavens.