Jewish Identity and Biblical Exposition in Darren Aronofsky's Films

Jewish Identity and Biblical Exposition in Darren Aronofsky’s Films by eric x. jarrard

“This is why you should never trust aca- Some have suggested that the mismar- demics. Midrash? More like mid-trash! ” keting of the film was what earned it such —Anonymous internet comment1 a low rating. Kevin Lincoln, for example, observed that among these 19 films, f there is another film in recent about half of them displayed a trend that memory so deeply disliked by audi- he terms “misleading auteurism.” These mother!, 121 minutes, ences as Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, it are films, like Aronofsky’s mother!, that are 2017; and Noah, 138 idoes not come to mind. Statistically speak- written, directed, and/or produced by Acad- minutes, 2014. Both ing, there is good reason for the near im- emy Award–nominated directors that de- directed by Darren possibility of recollecting such a maligned liver a bait and switch. They are intended Aronofsky, Protozoa movie. When the film debuted in Septem- as thought-provoking, artistic pieces, but Pictures, distributed by ber 2017, it joined the unenviable ranks of are shoehorned into ill-fitting marketing Paramount Pictures. only 19 other movies in the history of Cin- categories. Such was the case with Steven emaScore—a metric of audience satisfac- Soderbergh’s 2002 film Solaris, marketed tion widely used to survey moviegoers’ re- as science fiction but brazenly defying the actions on opening night—that earned the genre’s stereotypes at every turn. This up- abysmal rating of F. Yes, only 19 other films heaval of audience expectations, argued since 1978 have been so roundly hated by Lincoln, was the downfall of mother!: Par- audiences. To give you some perspective on amount Pictures marketed the film as a just how bad this rating is, even the 2003 horror movie, but Aronofsky delivered protozoa pictures protozoa Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck disaster and a “roller-coaster-of-weird exhibitionism.”2 consummate punchline, Gigli, was able to The apparent deception was unpalatable for mother!, mother!, manage a D-. moviegoers. Certainly, one can imagine the

harvard divinity bulletin . 69 appreciable disappointment experienced by not provide a productive analytical tool for the audience: When you order the crème Aronofsky’s œuvre. Instead, an analysis of brûlée but receive the soufflé, the restau- how well he uses traditional modes of Jew- rant experience may be irredeemable. But ish interpretation does offer the possibility 1. Comments on a this critique is less of Aronofsky’s work and of an objective approach. Thus, in this third review of Noah by more of Paramount Pictures. type of criticism, one would assess the suc- Alissa Wilkinson on A second kind of critique has focused cess of the crème brûlée by how precisely Christianity Today, www. instead on the merits of the film. Here, the the dish was executed according to the rec- christianitytoday.com. critical response that evaluates his work on ipe by which it was prepared. its own content rather than audience ex- Put more simply, in the remainder of this 2. Kevin Lincoln, pectations is also mixed. The film received essay I will assess whether Aronofsky’s two “What the 19 Movies a Metascore of 75 and a Tomatometer 69 most recent films, Noah and mother!, are the to Ever Receive an ‘F’ percent rating. Anthony Lane, critic for instantiations of the Jewish modes of in- CinemaScore Have The New Yorker, wrote: “If you gave an ex- terpretation—midrashic and allegorical, rein Common,” Vulture, tremely bright fifteen-year-old a bag of un- spectively—that he claims them to be. To do September 20, 2017, familiar herbs to smoke, and forty million so, I will (1) briefly summarize the historical www.vulture.com; dollars or so to play with, ‘Mother!’ would antecedents—specifically midrash and al- Owen Gleiberman, be the result.” Per the norms of popular legory—that Aronofsky seeks to replicate “Film Review: ‘mother!,’ ” film criticism, in Lane’s critique there is in his works; (2) discuss Aronofsky’s use of Variety, September 5, a type of subjective criticism wherein the these ancient Jewish interpretive modes; 2017, variety.com. film does not measure up to the critic’s and (3) evaluate Aronofsky’s adherence to own idea of successful execution; Lane or- their internal mechanisms, as well as his ef- 3. “mother! (2017),” www. dered and received the crème brûlée, but fectiveness in using those modes of inter- rottentomatoes.com; it failed to meet his imagined standards pretation. In so doing, I hope to demon- “mother! Reviews,” for the dessert.3 strate that the most penetrating criticism www.metacritic. Neither of these two critiques—sub- of Aronofsky’s work will benefit from an un- com; Anthony verted expectation or subjective disap- derstanding and appreciation of the histori- Lane, “ ‘Mother!’ and pointment—target the mechanics of the cal models of biblical interpretation that ‘Battle of the Sexes,’ ” filmmaker’s artistic product. Any subjec- the auteur has inherited. Moreover, this The New Yorker, tive criticism of Aronofsky’s work accord- analysis will demonstrate specific deficien- September 25, 2017, ing to one’s own taste or an abstract artistic cies in Aronofsky’s use of these techniques www.newyorker.com. ideal is easily eschewed by the auteur. Such that undermine the auteur’s intent. In order was the case with Aronofsky’s rejoinder to to explore Aronofsky’s attention—or lack 4. Eric Eisenberg, the severe response to mother!: “Anytime thereof—to the mechanisms of early Jewish “How Darren you do something that aggressive there interpretation, it will be helpful to begin by Aronofsky Feels are going to be people who enjoy it, who considering the origins of the two interpre- about the Reaction to want to be on that roller coaster ride, and tive techniques—midrash and allegory—on Mother!,” CinemaBlend, then there are others who say, ‘Oh no, that which these films most clearly rely. September 18, 2017, was not for me.’ ”4 Aronofsky’s response to www.cinemablend. the criticism was to put the blame on the nsurprisingly, biblical inter- com. audience; they either did not understand upretation has its roots within the Bi- the work, or they did understand it but re- ble itself, where we can observe the phe- 5. Jonathan Romney, jected the artistic mirror that Aronofsky nomenon of inner-biblical interpretation: “Mad Maths,” The held up for them. According to Aronofsky, places where the text self-reflexively rein- Guardian, January audiences did not like his film because he terprets earlier traditions. The most obvi- 5, 1999, www. did his job well. ous example is the relationship between theguardian.com; In yet a third, more apropos, category of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. In these idem, “Blood, criticism, one might evaluate Aronofsky’s two works, the latter significantly redacts, Sweat and Murder work by how effectively his own methods contextualizes, and shapes the former for at the Ballet: The and goals for the film were met. There is lit- its own rhetorical purposes—for instance, Endless Torture of tle doubt that the vast majority of Aronof- the omission of the story from 2 Samuel 11, Darren Aronofsky,” sky’s films are influenced by his Jewish back- on David’s illicit affair with Bathsheba is Independent, January ground, which he has described differently a significant change meant to bolster the 9, 2011, www. at varying points in his career.5 The mere presentation of David. Another oft-cited independent.co.uk. existence of this influence, though, does example is the 70-year prophecy of the end

70 . autumn/winter 2018 of the Babylonian exile, found in Jeremiah Excluding the final, contemporary use 25:11, and its reflex in Daniel 9:24–27. In of the term, to which I will return below, both of these examples, we see the biblical we can still distill a “spirit” of midrash. For author(s) grappling with how to interpret the ancient interpreter, the biblical text is texts that are problematic in their contem- omni-significant—every detail has mean- poraneous context. For David Stern, there ing—and that meaning has contempora- are commonalities in the inner-biblical and neous relevance for its interpreter. Gerald post-biblical interpretation. Specifically, he Bruns clarifies this relationship: “What points to the tendencies of both types of matters in midrash is not only what lies be- interpretation “to harmonize conflicting hind the text in the form of an originating or discordant verses; to reemploy and re- intention but what is in front of the text apply biblical paradigms and imagery to where the text is put into play. The text is new cases; to reinvent ‘old’ historical ref- always contemporary with its readers or lis- erences with ‘new’ historical contexts; and teners, that is, always oriented towards the to integrate non-historical-portions of the time and circumstances of the interpreter.”8 Bible within the larger context of biblical Said another way, the onus is on the darshan history.”6 (explicator of scripture) to make the con- At some point in the Second Temple pe- nection between the omni-significant fea- riod, though, the biblical canon became tures of the text and his or her own contem- fixed, and the ability to offer these rein- porary setting.9 terpretations within the biblical text itself Although there is considerable debate came to an end. The need to contempo- regarding whether there are rules for mi- rize and harmonize, however, remained a drashic interpretation (middot), at least four concern for post-biblical interpreters, and characteristics of midrashim can be dis- the modes of these later interpreters—the tilled for my purposes: (1) attention to detail, Qumran community, the rabbis, and Philo, specifically the verbal, phonetic, and ortho- among others—continued to be largely con- graphic features of the text; (2) a plurality of gruous with the earlier methods and moti- interpretations; (3) contemporizing of the 6. David vations of inner-biblical interpretation. biblical text; and (4) character development. Stern, “Midrash A few examples from Bereshit Rabbah are and Midrashic Midrash: Properly speaking, midrash illustrative of these characteristics. Interpretation,” in (plural, midrashim) refers to a type of rab- The first two characteristics—attention The Jewish Study Bible binic biblical interpretation taking place to detail and plurality of interpretations— (Oxford University in the Southern Levant at the beginning of can be seen in two different midrashim on Press, 2004), 1865. the common era—primarily in and around the first four words of the Binding of Isaac Galilee post-135 CE—and roughly 500 years (Gen. 22:1). The passage begins: “After these 7. Ibid, 1864. In these 10.(ויהי אחר הדברים האלה) ”. . . following. The term “midrash” is from the things ,d-r-sh) meaning “to midrashim, the rabbis, led by the belief that 8. Gerald L. Bruns ;דרשׁ) Hebrew root seek” (often the meaning of) something. every feature of written Torah (the bibli- “The Hermenutics The term “midrash” has more commonly cal text) held significance, created multiple of Midrash,” in The come to signify the yield of that activ- expansions to the biblical text that make Book and the Text, ed. ity—including the actual collections of sense of idiomatic features of biblical nar- Regina M. Schwartz midrash—as well; that is, the act of seek- rative. In this case, the rabbis marked the (Blackwell, 1990), 191. ing meaning from a biblical text and the text with a midrashic red pen: “Antecedent meaning derived from the process of seek- unclear! After what things?” 9. Though it must be ing are both “midrash.” To confuse matters They gave future readers two equally in- eminently noted, as was still further, David Stern points out that teresting options to resolve the issue. The pointed out to me by in scholarly circles midrash has also been first midrash links the Binding of Isaac to Jon D. Levenson, that used to describe all ancient (usually Jewish) the chapter preceding it—which includes the historico-political biblical interpretation, and that outside of the feast for Isaac’s weaning (Gen. 21:8). In situation of the scholarly circles, the term functions as a this expansion, Abraham laments not hav- rabbis is rarely, if ever, stand-in for all manners of “creative inter- ing offered a sacrifice to God for his good explicitly identified in pretations of the Bible that seek to move fortune, prompting a conversation among the midrashim. beyond the historical, ‘original’ sense of the heavenly host. In this conversation, the biblical text.”7 God reaffirms God’s trust in Abraham to 10. Ber. Rab. 55:4.

harvard divinity bulletin . 71 his court: Abraham would not even with- Abraham’s sensitivity to Torah observance hold his beloved son, Isaac, were God to is, on one level, a contemporizing of the demand Abraham to sacrifice him. In the biblical text for the rabbis, but on another, other expansion, we receive the story of an it functions as character development for escalating sibling rivalry between Isaac and the limited characterization of Abraham in Ishmael, who debate which of the two sons the Torah. This midrash, among many oth- of Abraham is more beloved by God. The ers related to Abraham, gives the midrashic debate culminates in Isaac boasting that Abraham a greater sense of interiority—he he would offer his own life if asked, which thinks, worries, cares for his father—at least kindles the narrative fire of Genesis 22. more so than the biblical Abraham. The Characteristic of midrashic interpretation, combined effect makes him more human, each story offers an expansion on the bibli- and perhaps more imitable for the contem- cal narrative as an explanation of the ante- poraneous generation. cedent of “these things,” and, as is typical in From these examples, we can see how midrashic collections, both are presented midrash as an interpretive method is pri- without comment or preference. Thus, it marily oriented to the world “in front of” seems just as important for the rabbis to the text, to echo the previously mentioned resolve the grammatical conundrum of an sentiments of Bruns. Stern, too, has ex- unclear antecedent as it is to present the pressly reiterated this position: “Midrash multiple received traditions that satisfy the has been celebrated for seeing meaning ‘in issue; the interest of the rabbis is dialogic, front’ of the text, in the intertextual play not expository. between verses, in the deferral of a single Among the multiple midrashim ad- absolute meaning in favor of a multiplicity dressing God’s call to Abraham (Gen. 12), of provision and possible meanings.” This we can see the second two characteristics contrast between an interpretive method at work: contemporizing of the biblical oriented toward the meaning “in front of” text and character development.11 In one the text is made even more apparent when story, Abraham is concerned with leav- juxtaposed to allegoric interpretations, or ing his father, Terah, to answer God’s call. those, according to Stern, “said to posit Leaving his father to die alone presents the existence of a reference or meaning a significant problem for Abraham: not ‘behind’ the text as a kind of static meta- 11. On this final only would it violate one of the ten com- physical presence.”13 point, I give credit mandments (Exod. 20:12), but it would also to Matthew Y. Hass bring shame upon God, presumably for se- Allegory: As a mode of biblical interpreta- and his forthcoming lecting a covenant violator. The solution tion, allegory posits that the true meaning dissertation from is twofold. First, R. Isaac notes that the of the text is something other than its plain Harvard University. wicked (a typical characterization of the sense (peshat). It bears the same spirit as mi- midrashically idolatrous father of Abra- drash in that it attempts to contemporize 12. Ber. Rab. 39:7. ham) are called “dead” even when they are the meaning of the text, but, unlike midrash, alive. Second, Abraham receives a preemp- it assumes a specific cultural milieu wherein 13. Stern, “Midrash tive reprieve from the commandment: “I the peshat of the text is irrelevant or at least and Midrashic set you (alluded to by the use of lekā; Gen. opaque for the interpreter. Interpretation,” 1872. 12:1) free from honoring your father, but I The work of the early Jewish inter- am not setting anyone else free from hon- preter Philo of Alexandria provides a lu- 14. Gerald L. Bruns, oring (their) father or mother.”12 cid example of allegoric interpretation. A “Midrash and Allegory: One might rightly wonder why Abraham Hellenistic Jewish philosopher of the first The Beginnings is worried about a commandment that is century CE, Philo’s hermeneutical method of Scriptural not, chronologically speaking, given until assumes two ways of understanding a text. Interpretation,” in The much later, when Moses receives the ten The plain meaning, which “circulates widely Literary Guide to the commandments on Mt. Sinai. The rabbis, and which everyone can recognize,” and the Bible, ed. Robert Alter though, have a specific idea of Abraham’s figurative meaning, which “requires study, and Frank Kermode relationship to Torah; in rabbinic litera- reflection, investigation, and the assistance (Belknap Press of ture—and for Philo as well as in Jubilees— of the sorts of special insight possessed by Harvard University Torah already exists for Abraham, and unique individuals.”14 Philo’s commentary Press, 1987), 637. thus he is expected to follow it completely. activity is not primarily exegetical in nature;

72 . autumn/winter 2018 it is interested in interpreting the Hebrew especially the haggadic midrashim (midrash Bible as moral philosophy and exposing related to biblical narrative). The most ob- the hyponoia—the underlying meaning that vious motivating factor behind such ef- emerges after thought and reflection—of forts is their ability to lend authorization the text. to Aronofsky’s own narrative expansion: An example of allegoric interpretation he can expand and reinterpret the biblical should help to clarify the hermeneutics story of Noah because so many before him of this mode. Philo has great difficulty have done so too. with the literal reading of the creation of This authorization provides Aronofsky Eve from the rib of Adam (Gen. 2:21). In the leeway to pursue what he believes is the his work Legum Allegoriae, Philo goes on underlying question of the biblical Noah at great length about how utterly prepos- story: why Noah was spared by God. This terous it would be to think an anatomical question of divine selection is, of course, rib would be removed from Adam to cre- not new; it was treated at great length by ate Eve: “The literal statement conveyed in the rabbis, not only for Noah, but for vir- these words is a fabulous one; for how can tually every other patriarch. At the heart of anyone believe that a woman was made of a the issue for the rabbis and for Aronofsky is rib of a man, or, in short, that any human be- the question of Noah’s (or anyone’s) merit. ing was made out of another?”15 Instead, he Two aspects of Aronofsky’s resolution interprets “rib” as Adam’s nonphysical mind provide an interesting take on the prob- (not his anatomical brain). That is, Eve re- lem. First, the film is careful to depict a ceives Adam’s intelligence, not his rib. He gradual decline in the character of Noah offers this solution with both a practical from protagonist—even chiding his son for justification—the mind is not physically at- picking a flower without cause—to antago- tached and thus is easily removed and trans- nist—allowing a young girl, Na’el, to die in ferred—and a philosophical one—that the the forest and threatening to kill his own mind and intelligence transcend the physi- grandchildren. In this way, it takes up the cal body and its limitations, a clear marker midrashic exposition of Noah’s character. of the Platonic influence on Philo’s thought. When Noah is compared to his generation Having rehearsed the background and (Gen. 6:9), he is righteous, but when he is on methods of the two primary methods of the ark with his family, his righteousness is Jewish interpretation utilized by Aronof- much less pronounced, if it exists at all. Sec- sky in Noah and mother!, I can now examine ond, Aronofsky also leaves unresolved the how Aronofsky applies these techniques to veracity of God’s calling of Noah. Because his own films. God is never seen in the film, the implica- tion may be that Noah suffers from mental hat the film noah is somehow a illness with delusions of grandeur: he imag- tmodern midrash on the biblical text is ined the whole thing. Or, if we are to believe not a new idea. The identification of mi- Noah’s visions and that he is truly called by drashic antecedents in the film was quite God, by the end of the film Noah is unable popular fodder for think pieces after the to bear the weight of his chosenness, and movie’s release, and the incorporation of thus God is wrong—either in his choice of these traditions was openly acknowledged Noah or in his creation of humanity. 15. Philo Alexandrinus, by Ari Handel, the movie’s co-creator.16 The Leg. All. II.19, trans. list of instances is remarkably expansive: he film mother! ostensibly tells C. D. Yonge (H.G. Noah’s vegetarianism, his agrarian lifestyle tthe story of a brooding artist who, in Bohn, 1854–1890). and success as a farmer, his interaction with his obsessive pursuit of fame and adora- the descendants of Cain and their subse- tion, ruins the lives of his wife, child, and 16. Paul Brandeis quent attempts to enter the ark, Noah’s care everything he touches. The film begins Raushenbush, “Noah: for the animals on the ark, and the (t)zohar- with a burned house and a man, Him, plac- A Midrash by Darren light, to name just a few. What is clear from ing a crystal on a mantel, causing the home Aronofsky and Ari the impressively long list of midrashim in- magically to be restored. A woman, Mother, Handel (Interview),” corporated in Aronofsky’s work is that the wakes from a peaceful rest. Soon after, an The Huffington Post, filmmaker is certainly aware of the larger interloping man with a wound in his side March 24, 2014, www. rabbinic corpus surrounding the work, and arrives and is invited to stay in the home by huffingtonpost.com.

harvard divinity bulletin . 73 Him; the man’s wife arrives shortly there- with even a basic knowledge of one of the after, followed by their two sons—one of most famous stories in the world: Him = whom has fratricidal tendencies. A wake en- God, Mother = Mother Nature, the house = sues after the death of one son at the hand Eden, Man = Adam, Man’s wound = place of the other, followed by a kitchen accident where the rib was removed, Woman = Eve, that floods the home and leads to the evic- and so on. On his construction of the al- tion of the house guests. legory, Aronofsky responded: “Lightning After the house guests leave, Mother struck for me as a writer when I real- conceives, Him writes the baby a poem, ized my initial intentions of creating this and the poem becomes so wildly popular allegory in a very Luis Bunuel [sic] type of that the house eventually fills to capacity way . . . taking a piece of a world and con- with the overzealous. In the last third of the fining it to a space and making it a conver- film, the house conditions rapidly deterio- sation about society, lined up with a per- rate in chaos and violence, in the midst of sonal human story, and I figured out how which Mother bears her child only to have to structure it with a biblical core, and was it murdered in a frenzy of adulation. Him able to write so quickly.”20 The most ob- begs Mother to forgive the crowd, but she vious point of departure for Aronofsky’s flees to the basement and starts a fire that vision is in the film’s perspective: he tells 17. Richard Brody, destroys the home and everything in it, the story of humanity, not from the per- “Darren Aronofsky save Him and a horrifically burned Mother. spective of the chosen people or their God, Says ‘Mother!’ Is about The movie ends as it began, with a woman but from the perspective of Mother Nature. Climate Change, but emerging from the ashes (Mother 2.0, or 3.0, Beyond that, the film is simply an allegori- He’s Wrong,” The New or 59789.0, we cannot be sure) and awaken- cal interpretation of the biblical and human Yorker, September 20, ing from her sleep. narrative and an environmental indictment 2017, www.newyorker. If mother! were a text, the peshat would be of humankind. com. virtually incomprehensible. The nonlinear plot, the nameless characters without back- here can be little doubt that 18. Adam Chitwood, story, the uneven pacing, all have the com- tboth Noah and mother! attempt to en- “Darren Aronofsky bined effect of utterly defying cinematic gage in two forms of ancient Jewish bibli- Confirms What convention. As Richard Brody described cal interpretation—midrash and allegory. ‘mother!’ Is Really the film: “There’s a special kind of movie Were the films not evidence enough, the About,” Collider, that invites questions from viewers and an- filmmaker has gone on record in multiple September 18, 2017, swers of the sort that Aronofsky offered, interviews confirming as much. It is cer- collider.com. W.T.F. movies in which the drama itself is tainly clear that Aronofsky is interested in utterly unclear.”17 This incomprehensibility, engaging with the interpretive models he 19. Chitwood, “Video: the “W.T.F.”-ness of a text—written, visual, has inherited. Decidedly less clear, though, What ‘mother’ Is or otherwise—is characteristic of allegory, is whether Aronofsky grasps the mecha- Really About” Collider, and indeed, Aronofsky intended it to be un- nisms fueling the works he is so eager to collider.com. derstood as such. In an interview with Col- incorporate. Three aspects in particular lider, Aronofsky commented: “The struc- stand out as deficiencies in Aronofsky’s use 20. Anne Thompson, ture of the film was the Bible, using that as of Jewish biblical interpretation. “ ‘mother!’: Darren a way of discussing how humans have lived The first disconformity between Aronof- Aronofsky Answers here on Earth. . . . I started off with the sky’s work and early biblical interpretation All Your Burning themes, the allegory; I sort of wanted to pertains to the question of discomfort. In Questions about tell the story of Mother Nature from her my earlier discussion of midrash, David the Film’s Shocking point of view.”18 Stern described the “prenatural sensitiv- Twists and Meanings,” Not unlike the equivalence manuals cir- ity” of the rabbis “to the least ‘bump’ in the Indiewire, September culating the Hellenistic world in the first scriptural text . . . a mere hint at something 18, 2007, www. century (Adam = Natural Reason, Eve = The unseemly in the way of behavior.”21 Their indiewire.com. Senses, etc.), a similar manual could be pro- attention to these details, however, was not vided for mother!, Aronofsky acknowledged, to exploit these unseemly behaviors in the 21. Stern, “Midrash for instance, that the crystal in the begin- text, but rather, to smooth out the edges, to and Midrashic ning of the film was the fruit of the Tree create unity where there is disunity. Aronof- Interpretation,” 1870. of Knowledge,19 but other equivalencies sky, on the other hand, seems by all ac- are not difficult for the thoughtful viewer counts to be motivated by the opposite. As

74 . autumn/winter 2018 a director, he seems to indulge intentionally His engagement with the midrashim rein and dwell on viscerally graphic violence lated to the biblical Noah story avoids any and images in a way that few other filmmak- notion of literary connections to rabbinic ers dare. The most interesting example of material outside of Genesis. This isolation- this inclination is not from Noah or mother!, ist reading of select midrashim connected but from Black Swan, a film for which he to a particular biblical story is incongruent received an Academy Award nomination. with rabbinic methods, for rabbinic litera- In his 2014 interview with Aronofsky, Tad ture is, as Shaye Cohen argues, “linked by Friend relays the following story: [the rabbis’] common education, vocabu- lary, values, and culture, [and] the rabbis When “Black Swan” was tested, [Aronof- clearly constitute a unified group. Rabbinic sky] told me, “Fox used the scores to attack literature is a remarkably homogeneous me with notes. They wanted me to cut the corpus.” At the same time, however, this 22. Tad Friend, “Heavy bird-legs thing”—the freaky moment when unity does not suggest a homogeneity in Weather: Darren Natalie Portman’s legs become swan legs style or thought. Indeed, Cohen continues: Aronofsky Gets and then snap backward—“and the gore of “these facts do not mean that rabbinic lit- Biblical,” Winona Ryder stabbing herself in the face. The New It was the best stuff in the film!” Aronofsky erature really is seamless or that all rabbis Yorker, March 17, 2014, refused to make the suggested cuts, and of antiquity thought and behaved in iden- www.newyorker.com. argued with Claudia Lewis, the president tical fashion. . . . Every generation of rab- of production at Fox Searchlight Pictures.22 bis had its own interests.”23 If we were to 23. Shaye J. D. Cohen, rely solely on Aronofsky’s use of midrash, From the Maccabees Whereas the rabbis endeavored to harmo- we might believe that the sole purpose of to the Mishnah nize disjunctive features in the text, Aronof- rabbinic midrash was expansive narrative (Westminster John sky apparently relishes opportunities to cre- exegesis. Such a belief, however, would be Knox, 2006), 205–6. ate them for his audience; he intentionally ignoring not only the rabbinic motivation and deliberately interrupts the moviegoing for doing so (i.e., their attention to details 24. Aronofsky, quoted experience. This is confirmed by a second in the text, noted above), but also a wealth in Terri Schwartz, story later in the same interview: of other material: the rabbinic parables, “First Look at Darren halakhic (related to legal material) midrash, Aronofsky’s ‘Noah’ In March of last year, Aronofsky screened and a large volume of other rabbinic output. Graphic Novel his rough cut of “Noah” for Paramount and its funding partner, New Regency Similarly, his notion of allegory is limited Hits the Web,” IFC, Productions. It was two hours and forty- to formulaic allegorical equivalencies: this October 21, 2011, www. six minutes long, filled with half-realized biblical character = this movie character, ifc.com. effects, and had only twenty minutes of and so on. If there is a larger philosophical music. Clint Mansell [the film’s com- purpose to his work—some vague notion poser] urged [Aronofsky] to include addi- of environmentalism notwithstanding—it eric jarrard, a tional “temp music,” borrowed from other is difficult to discern. Harvard doctoral films, to help sell the experience. “Darren Finally, and most importantly, there is candidate in Hebrew said absolutely not,” Mansell told me. the obfuscation of the God character in Bible, researches both “He’s more comfortable with other people Aronofsky’s work. While it is a matter of memory studies and feeling uncomfortable with the film than debate whether one can distill a consistent with him feeling uncomfortable with it.” the Hebrew Bible “theology” of midrash or early allegoric in- and biblical themes in I remain wholly unconvinced that Aronof- terpretations of the Bible, no biblical reader, contemporary popular sky’s uncompromising artistic vision for ancient or modern, has ever picked up the culture. His dissertation his films could ever fully square with the Hebrew Bible and thought: “I don’t think is titled “ ‘Remember rabbinic vision of the relationship between it’s a very religious story.”24 While I suppose This Day on Which written and oral Torah. First, for the rabbis, some arguments could be made about mod- You Came out of Egypt’: the two halves combine perfectly and seam- ern notions of religion and the development The Exodus Motif in lessly to create a single whole. The divinely of ancient Israelite religious institutions, Biblical Memory,” and given whole is the gift, not their own vision this, I would argue, misses the point of he has a forthcoming for how that gift should be presented. Aronofsky’s inability to see these stories as article in Biblical Second, Aronofsky seems uninterested “religious.” What he claims here, and what Reception, “Now You’re in attending to the unity of the biblical text both Noah and mother! boldly assert, is that in the Sunken Place: in the rabbinic imagination or to the diver- the God character is superfluous, or even Constructed Monsters in sity of rabbinic interpretation as a genre. detrimental to the story. Yet the lack of Daniel 7 and Get Out.”

harvard divinity bulletin . 75 cohesion in the rabbinic characterization(s) contingent on Aronofsky’s ability to or in- of God and the general sense of ineffability terest in remaining loyal to the mechan- of the deity’s majesty is certainly not ow- ics of ancient Jewish modes of biblical in- ing to the deity’s lack of importance. Quite terpretation. Put simply, audiences likely the opposite. If the rabbis were unable to do not care how good an ancient exegete theologize consistently about the deity, it Aronfsky is or is not. Yet the three above- is because God is everywhere in the Hebrew mentioned failings of Aronofsky’s work do Bible. Aronofsky’s movies are appropriately indicate that there is much at stake in his titled: mother! and Noah. He is blind to the interpretive work, and all the more so when character of God in the stories, and that he represents his work as the successor of blindness manifests itself as absence and/or such rich and complex traditions. hallucination in Noah and in the terroriz- Thus, I am inclined to agree with Stern ing narcissism in the character of Him in when he says that he “would prefer to re- mother! What Aronofsky cannot under- strict the use of the word ‘midrash’ to the stand about the biblical narrative and the ancient biblical interpretations of the Rab- ancient interpreters who wrestled with bis.”25 If I were to offer to expand on Stern’s it is that the text and its interpretations preference, I would extend his desire to dif- are never solely human actors, but rather ferentiate works of classical midrash from about the God who acts through humans. If neo-midrash to the genre of “allegory,” too. Aronofsky were to make an accurate movie While Aronofsky may owe much to the cre- about any part of the Bible and incorporate ators of the traditions with which he en- any ancient interpretations of the biblical gages, he is no darshan or allegorist, in the text, only one title would suffice:God . classical senses of those words—at least not 25. Stern, “Midrash To be sure, and as evidenced by their until he can embrace their subject matter and Midrashic nearly $120 million combined domestic and diversity in their multiple forms and Interpretation,” 1864. gross, the success of these two films is not singular concern.

An Alternative Theology of Destruction: Aligning with Suffering Jewish Flesh by miriam-simma walfish

n tractate berakhot of the the Romans to visit punishment upon them. Babylonian Talmud, the third-century God’s grief stems from the alienation God sage Rav imagines God as a lion, roar- feels from God’s chosen people. This theol- iing nightly the following words after the ogy, with origins in the Hebrew Bible, has Roman destruction of the temple in Jerusa- been invoked, especially in Jewish liturgy, Rabbinic Tales of lem in 70 ce: “Woe to Me, that due to their to explain various communal catastrophes. Destruction: Gender, sins I destroyed My house, burned My tem- Such a theology can be deeply problem- Sex, and Disability in ple, and exiled them among the nations of atic, as it blames the victim of catastrophe the Ruins of Jerusalem, the world” (B. Berakhot 3a). Rav’s statement and imagines a God alienated from and the by Julia Watts Belser. epitomizes the best-known rabbinic view cause of human suffering. It can even pre- Oxford University about the temple’s destruction: The Jewish vent victims and witnesses from coming to Press, 2017, 280 pages, people are in a covenantal relationship with terms with trauma, disaster, and pain, and, $74. God, and the temple in Jerusalem was the furthermore, it suggests that, on some level, home in which this relationship reached its those who cause national trauma are doing most complete fulfilment. Its razing thus so at God’s behest. signified a breach in that relationship, a In Rabbinic Tales of Destruction, Julia breach that this source and others in rab- Watts Belser charts the presence of an alter- binic literature attribute to human sin. Had native theology. Focusing on 27 tales found the Jewish people not sinned, this line of on a few folio pages of tractate Gittin (55b- reasoning goes, God would not have used 58a), Belser argues:

76 . autumn/winter 2018