Of all places, a kosher restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee while on line waiting to pay for a couple of hot dogs. The price of kosher meat down south took me by surprise and at first sight of my bill I uttered in disbelief, "Jesus Christ". The clerk behind the counter stared at me and my yarmulke in awe. I, suddenly becoming uncomfortably aware of my words, quietly apologized. She smiled a proud and comforting smile believing she had witnessed my salvation. "If you need him, you can call him", she said. 

Growing up in New York where everyone within daled amos was a Jew, married to one, or working for one, and all Christmas meant was a bonus episode of He-Man in prime time, I never had to take Jesus seriously. Jesus (with or without the "H. Christ" accompaniment) was a word I learned through pop culture to be interchangeable with "Wow" or Holy Smokes" or "Holy four letter word." Yes, on the periphery I knew the word beheld some gravity because there was occasionally some older, wiser, grumpier Jew around to admonish my careless speech practice. "Don't say that name!" Why not sir? "Just don't say it…say Yushky or cheese and crackers." The most I could get out of the adults of the world was the following impression: As Jews, we don't "believe" in Jesus.

During the years that followed new and sometimes stunning revelations dawned on me – all through various educational resources, not limited to but certainly not assisted by yeshiva. I was living during one of the rare moments in the past two thousand years where Christians (followers of that unmentionable name) were not making life difficult for Jews; that Jesus himself was a Jew; that people hate Jews because we killed Jesus by pegging him to a cross (yes, the cross – that symbol I see all the time glowing, shining in lights – especially on Sunday morning when nothing good is on TV and all those men are yelling about Jeezuz). Later, I learned that we really didn't kill him, but we were the only one who knew that. It was quite the relief finding out that we were not responsible (the Romans were I was informed), but did it matter if all these people believed otherwise? Again, not that it made a difference either way. No one ever called me a Christ-killer or accused me with a blood libel. I never felt threatened by that little slice of our history. After all, Jesus was Jewish, right? We don't kill our own and even if we did, how were we to know how popular he was going to be?

Then the bombshell (maybe eighth grade or so). Jesus' death was not just an age old factual event to which we can apply the rules of logic and reasoning. You see, according to those cross wearing masses, Jesus was not a man at all. He is divine. The child of God and a human mother who died for "our" sins. To take a page from our book (as Christianity does rather liberally), he was the messiah.

Of course in college I would get the run down regarding the further interconnection between our faiths, the edited Gemara in Sanhedrin, the work of Saul of Tarsis etc.

            Exodus

Now, that was a rather elementary foray into the mind of a sheltered orthodox kid growing up at the close of the millennium. The point being that our generation has been miraculously pulled from the flames of history and live in relative harmony, side by side with our good neighbors who believe and are instructed that we had a hand in killing God and that Hell is our likely reward. This peace affords us somewhat of an arrogant and unfeeling perspective. Of course I am not complimenting restraint, civility, or morality as if crusades and inquisitions are normal, expected behavior – but we must appreciate and acknowledge our good fortune in this blessed United States. It is a monumental historical event that a Jew like me can even post an article like this for all eyes to see and not fear for my life.

The collective Jewish national fear in quiet times is always the same: What cataclysm will disturb this peace and set into motion the cycle that keeps us always guarded and ever alert for our security.

What Mel Gibson's new film opening today about the last twelve hours before the crucifixion represents is that tremor, an expanding of the crack that blips our sensors to code orange and warns…is this it? Could this be it? Has it come to a movie in Latin and Aramaic?

                                                            Leviticus 

Times are different you will say and you will be right. Times are different, however do not be foolish enough to believe that popular entertainment cannot trigger real dangers and incite real violence. Passion plays (performances historically depicting the suffering or "passion" of Jesus) notoriously were staged throughout Christiandom to drum up the ire of Christians against us heathens, resulting many times in marauding and plunder.

The questions pacing nervously in the back of our minds today is simply this: Will the movie instigate riots, usher in an era of modern day pogroms, or something less, or something more? I can't reasonably imagine riots and pogroms, but will it set off a few fanatics and cause harm to Jews in this country and around the word? Undoubtedly it will. The director himself confesses that his intention is to push his audience over the edge. Can you imagine what kind of reaction he will elicit from those watching who were previously over the edge? In an effort to remain above all the drama we have to ask a second, more intellectually important question: Does this make the movie and by extension Mel Gibson, the auteur, bad or wrong? 

Mel told Diane Sawyer the other night that he is not anti-Semitic and he does not deny the Holocaust. He enjoys parading around Maia Morgenstern, (a daughter of survivors) who plays Mary in the film, to physically show his lack of bias. As one church lady used to say, "How convenient." Regardless, a talented actor and director like Mel Gibson (who clearly had gone through a traumatic religious metamorphosis) can hate Jews and deny holocausts. He is not a historian of any merit or a political leader affecting international policies. His opinions as an educated layman are as valid as the rest of ours, whether he is misguided or not. True, he made a movie which appeals to a wide public audience, but crazed men have been making crazed movies with crazed messages ever since the early days of racist cinema in the 40's, and history will judge these filmmakers accordingly. With the press this movie has received, at the very least, we must admit that the film will not blindside anyone. Those in attendance are well aware of what they bought tickets for, they have been armed with whatever preconceived notions their environments have wrought. If you go in thinking the damn Jews killed Christ, you'll see bloodthirsty Jews accursing themselves for eternity. If you believe they didn't, you'll see a violent but inaccurate depiction of an historic episode. If you could care less, you'll see a gory murder where Jews and Romans are the bad guys (and it won't be the first movie where a Jew is the villain and it won't be the last).

Gibson had at least one valid point during the bizarre nationally televised interview where Mad Max truly seemed mad. He said a movie like Schindler's List depicts Germans in a most unfavorable light and yet we don't blame the Germans of today for the atrocities of their fathers. He's correct. I don't hate Russians after seeing Red Dawn, or Vietnamese after seeing Platoon. I have the capacity to separate a movie from reality and between the past and the present. Why should we not attribute the same sensibility to Christian audiences?

The simple answer in opposition to his allegory is that the Holocaust is a human tragedy; the crucifixion is deicide. While his idea is conceptually sound, one can't compare the motivations and zealousness surrounding religious fervor with anything else in creation. Mr. Gibson has plucked at the rawest of nerves yet I cannot blame him. He is expressing himself through the medium of film and using the text of his bible as the basis. I am sure that we, as Jews with our biblical commentaries and super-commentaries enough to fill all the garden apartments in Queens, can understand that when it comes to bible interpretation, there are thousands of possibilities - and who is to proclaim which are meritorious and which are to be disdained? Gibson has chosen one of the thousand – the one he believes is most correct.

Mel grew up in a home where Jews were (at the very least) spoken ill of and the Holocaust was called fiction …but to be fair…I grew up in a home where the New Testament was called fiction. I deny him and he denies me. It's a draw. Jews and Christians (even more so than Muslims) are not even, at this point, remotely on the same page from a theological perspective (The Rambam says Christianity is Avodah Zarah at the level of Yaharaig V'al Ya'avor, but not Islam). We are an intrusive, scrappy thorn forever sticking in their religious sides, but we have found a way in our time to agree to disagree and wait it out until the apocalypse to decide who's right. This movie merely reminds of the disagreement, but let us not pretend it creates it.

                                                                        Numbers

Mel Gibson, the filmmaker, is not bad or wrong under the common definition. He is or is becoming a religious fanatic, and the most dangerous kind – the kind with money and influence. Being a fanatic is bad and wrong because in one's eagerness to serve God, a fanatic never stops to consider that this same God has put us on a planet with many different people with many different beliefs – and we all have to live here together. 

A Christian co-worker of mine told me that Mel may have an evangelical motive here and Mel has not contested this point. Bottom line is if you are the type of person who develops an opinion about faith and God via a movie made by the some Hollywood playboy gone preacher, you were a lost cause to begin with. If this kind of film enhances your religious experience, more power to you. Spirituality is hard to find in these dark, confusing times. 

                                                          Deuteronomy

Finally, I think there is some truth to the argument that Jewish organizations generally overreact in these proceedings. I completely understand where they are coming from and that they are our protectors first, but sometimes - sometimes we need to tone it down a bit because the net result of all the hoopla is…a chilul Hashem. Jews look worse for it – to Non-Jews and fellow Jews alike. We become the media manipulating, control obsessed connivers of stereotype. In the case of this film, Jews organizations attacked the movie before seeing it – that's an uglier version of censorship, a major no-no in America. If you reap the benefits of the freedoms in this country, it's bad form to demand others to compromise their own. Sure a movie like this hits us and pretty hard at that, but we have to realize that in this First Amendment  land of unrestricted lunacy, everyone gets knocked around now and again. The church and Christianity got pummeled last year in Dan Brown's number one bestseller The DaVinci Code and again in Norman Jewison's The Statement. Of course we can do without more anti-Semites, but this is and was and always will be who we are. We are hate magnets wherever we go. So I'm always a bit shocked when there is an uproar over an anti-Semitic comment made in the media. That this governor or that actor is not a fan of Jews. I expect nothing less.

Here's my gospel: Instead of constantly worrying from where the next anti-Semite will pop up, an event we have not control over, let us each be fair, decent, sincerely friendly, and respectful to ANYONE we come across, and then let our Lord and Savior, in His infinite wisdom, judge the Mel Gibsons of the world b'mihara b'yamenu.

                                                            AMEN

Epilogue: The press screening Bangitout.com was invited to for this film took place today, Wednesday, February 25^th. I have an urge to see the film,  but may not. I have no place there. As far as I know Jesus did not die for me. The movie is a deeply religious experience for someone of a different religion. I would not expect a Christian to sit through a film graphically showing the skin flaying and the burning alive of our martyrs (R' Akiva etc. as read on our High Holy Days). If I do by chance end up committing myself to a showing, I will report back here.

If a Jew chose to see this movie, I imagine it would stem from pure curiosity. Jesus is the most famous Jew who ever lived (right up there with Moses) and his history is ours – however, there are far more productive and appropriate ways to study his intriguing life. 

Bangitout.com looks forward to hearing from any readers who saw the movie and choose to contribute relevant comments.