New Film Explores Kabbalah, the Need for Religious Identity

Karen Wright

 

Disclaimer: Although she is the most famous Kabbalah follower, Madonna does not appear in this documentary.

 

Steven Bram is 49 years old and where many men his age buy convertibles or leather jackets, Steven’s search for a new identity leads him to Kabbalah, the Orthodox Jewish faith his parents abandoned in their youth.

 

Steven is happily married with two daughters and had settled into the non-religious life of so many Jews who claim their ancestry but without its practical limitations.

 

But when Steven starts to ask questions, the Jewish community is happy to reintroduce and integrate him. As his rabbi cousin explains Kabbalah, Steven states that while some people are introduced by rituals, his motivation is to learn his heritage without any guarantee as to what he will do with that new knowledge. In fact, at the beginning of the documentary, Steven seems to be going through the motions of the rituals, just for the sake of experiencing something new, perhaps as you would try a new ride at the amusement park.

 

Steven’s wife, Miriam, also a Jew by birth, is not interested in becoming ritualistic. He introduces her as being interested in yoga, a Buddhist practice, and she introduces herself as not wanting to become too entrenched in Judaism.

 

If, as it is explained in the documentary, that the study of Kabbalah is to learn how souls merge and that everything has cosmic significance, then we wonder why the documentary keeps revisiting Miriam’s interview, reiterating her desire for spiritual awareness in her daily life without the need for religion, or we question the parade of agnostic friends and coworkers who contrast with the devout Jews who fill the remaining frames of the documentary.

 


 

But if it is instead that Kabbalah predates religion, so that it doesn't belong to any one religion and so doesn’t exclude non-Jews or Jews who would rather not practice Jewish rituals, then Miriam and the girls are on board as long as the now-kosher Steven doesn’t mind them eating lobster or bacon.

 

The stark contrast in this documentary is a man searching for a new identity while others fight to maintain the identity he already has. Will this new interest in Kabbalah drive a wedge between Steven and his yoga-loving wife? Can Miriam accept that the man who taught her how to eat lobster is now kosher?

 

The documentary asks the question that has no suitable answer. If this, instead, was an epic tale, Miriam as protagonist would ask the questions uppermost in many minds when it comes to talk of God, "Can't you just be spiritual? Why do you also have to be religious?

 

And Steven, the hero, but also the enigmatic prince, answering with the faith paradox. “If you don't understand, I can't explain it to you. That’s Kaballah.”

 

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