When news hit several weeks ago that Mel Gibson is working on a new movie project about the Maccabees, I thought “O boy – here we go again!”

Given Mel’s penchant for bloody and gory stories, the Jewish civil war that raged 2175 years ago in the Judean hills between the extreme Hellenized Jews and the traditional Jewish priestly class (i.e. the Hasmoneans) seems a natural for him. A film-maker of Gibson’s abilities and notoriety will probably net him and everyone associated with the film a fortune, not that he needs the money!

Already, Jews are worrying. Given Gibson’s offensive track record concerning Jews (e.g. the anti-Semitic “Passion of the Christ”, his drunken anti-Semitic rant on the PCH and his father’s anti-Vatican II and philo-Nazi sentiments), we have come out of the woodwork to comment – me included.

What can we expect in Gibson’s treatment of our uniquely Jewish story of Judah Maccabee and the Maccabean Wars? Will he distort the history beyond recognition? Will he cast the story in a self-serving way that characterizes Jews, ancient and modern, using negative stereotypes? We can’t know at this point as no one has seen a script, and we can only hope for the best.

A more immediate question: Is Mel Gibson an anti-Semite? His history suggests that he is, but I’m not so sure. Though it’s usually true that if a creature looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck, I have questions about what Gibson really believes and feels about Judaism and the Jewish people based on what people who know him say about him.

My friend, Alan Nierob, is one of Gibson’s chief public defenders. Alan is Gibson’s long-time publicist and so, understandably, it is his job to manage Gibson’s image, but Alan also considers Gibson a friend and has told me for years that Gibson is not an anti-Semite. Alan is a child of Holocaust survivors, and I would think that if he believed Gibson were anti-Semitic, he would fire him just as Ari Emanuel did immediately after Gibson’s long-time agent died this past year.

I am also cautious to characterize Gibson as an anti-Semite because Rabbi Irwin Kula, President of Clal, The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership based in New York, is consulting with Gibson about the Maccabee movie. I can’t imagine that Rabbi Kula would do so if he thought Gibson were an anti-Semite.

This past week The LA Jewish Journal featured a substantial four-column expose, “Could Gibson Be Good for the Maccabees?” (written by Danielle Berrin) on Gibson and the run-up to this movie. It is an excellent piece that addresses all the relevant issues, interviews Gibson’s friends and foes as well as a number of Jewish leaders. It is worth reading (see below).

In the meantime, though Gibson has not asked the Jewish community for forgiveness for his past misdeeds and insensitivity to our tradition and people (note: without a sincere request for s’lichah – forgiveness, we are under no obligation to forgive), we need to remember that forgiveness is more about us than about the person who hurt us. To continue to nurture the wounds inflicted upon us long ago gives ultimate victory to the perpetrator. On that basis alone, it is best that we (regardless of what the other says or does) move on, live our lives forward, not bother ourselves overly much with who Gibson is or isn’t, and wait to see what comes of his project.

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah!

http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/could_gibson_be_good_for_the_maccabees_20110921/

The last time I heard Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg speak was more than 30 years ago when he addressed a Jewish Federation gathering of young leaders that my wife Barbara and I were a part of in San Francisco where I served as the Associate Rabbi at Congregation Sherith Israel. “Yitz,” as he is widely and affectionately known, was compelling then, a favorite speaker of the organized Jewish community, a Jewish scholar of note, a significant theologian and thinker, a teacher par excellence, and a writer always worth reading.

In the intervening years I have read his books and marveled at his courage as a modern Orthodox Rabbi who insisted that all the religious streams had to keep talking together, critiquing each other honestly, listening to one another, and striving for mutual understanding, at the very least. He is courageous because, despite his intellectual heft and taking a back seat to no one, his pluralistic outreach to Jews of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements set him up for calumny heaved at him by the small-minded right-wing orthodox rabbis and Jews, who have now taken over far too much of the traditional world in America and Israel.

Today, here in Los Angeles, I joined with more than 170 rabbis and rabbinic students at the annual Board of Rabbis of Southern California High Holyday practicum to hear Rabbi Greenberg, hosted by Stephen S. Wise Temple over the 405. In the intervening years he has lost none of his luster. Aging gracefully, tall and still lean, Yitz is a towering intellectual and spiritual figure. Having earned his s’michah (rabbinic ordination) in 1953 at Yeshiva Beis Yosef, he was a student of the great Rav Joseph Soloveitchik.

Rabbi Greenberg shared with us the essence of his forthcoming book; the grand Jewish narrative that embraces the themes of Creation, Covenant and Redemption. He argued persuasively that this narrative of Jewish tradition is the most influential narrative of any religion in human history. Upon it Judaism has based its sacred literature, liturgy, holydays, rituals and observance. This narrative theme also is found at the basis of Christianity, Islam and modern western civilization thereby including 2.5 billion people living today.

The High Holiday Practicum, a highlight of the Board of Rabbis calendar year, is NOT where we all get our sermon ideas for the holidays, as so many congregants suspect. Nevertheless, this day of learning does feed the heart, mind and soul, and as a result ideas begin to percolate as we rabbis struggle to find something meaningful, spiritual, Jewish, and personal to say when the Yamim Noraim arrive in just 6 weeks!

Yes – if you are wondering. I have been thinking now for several months and I have begun writing. Yet, what I write in these initial days of preparation is never what my congregants end up hearing, for “writing” is really all about “re-writing,” and that continues literally until the moment I stand on the bimah and start talking.

Rabbi Greenberg’s talks today were wonderful, and it was great to see and hear him again.