“Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.”

• Professor Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Ch. 6

A Serious Man by the Coen Brothers contains a similar scene in the beginning of the film. Set in late 1960’s America, Danny Gopnik, a teenager who is about to celebrate his bar mitzvah, is seen sitting in his boring Hebrew class. A cord connects one of his ears to his walkman so he can secretly listen to Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane. His body throbs as Bloom describes.

Like many Coen Brothers films, A Serious Man is funny and thoughtful. On the surface one gathers that it’s a Job story. And it is. But it is more. It grapples with the larger frustration of the totality of Jewish identity and existence. A Serious Man depicts the Jewish anxity about their relationship to Hashem, The Name. They have heard from Heaven, but they don’t know what it means. At the same time, they do know what it means. They know and they don’t know. This is what the film is about. Or at least it’s my take.

More Than A Job Story

Larry Gopnick, our protagonist, is similar to Job in that he has almost everything taken away from him and then restored to him in the end…only to have it taken away again, as the final scene strongly suggests that he will lose his life. It’s also opposite from Job in that Larry is not a righteous man. He’s not an obviously wicked man, but it shows a deeper kind of wickedness. He is the worst kind of wicked man. The man who does nothing. One of the most repeated phrases in the film from Larry and others are,

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Larry, you haven’t done anything.”

This is Larry’s attempt to justify himself, but it serves more accurately as an unwitting confession. He is confessing his sin of passivity. He stands by and does nothing, like Adam in the garden. Larry is a kind of Adam.

Like Adam, he needs to fight invading snakes. And he doesn’t. His son is listening to subversive rock music. In fact, his son is stealing his money and buying albums in his father’s name. A squandering of his father’s wealth. His son is doing drugs. His daughter is loud, disrespectful, and perhaps euphemistically hinted as engaging in self abuse with the washing of her hair in the bathroom. The same applies to Arthur’s “draining of the cyst” in the bathroom, because we see in other parts of the film, he doesn’t need to be in the bathroom to drain his cyst. When his wife wants to talk to him, Larry barely pays attention to her until she mentions getting a divorce. We are dropped in on a home falling apart because Larry hasn’t done anything, like Adam. The garden is threatened, the wife and children are threatened, and he isn’t doing anything.

The earphone cord that connects the walkman to Danny’s ear looks like a snake whispering in Danny’s ear,

“When the truth is found to be lies
And all the joy within you dies

Don’t you want somebody to love?
Don’t you need somebody to love?
Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love.”

The man that is stealing Larry’s wife is named Sy Abelman. Sy has this slithering snake hiss sound to it. His name is an onomatopoeia for the serpent and a symbol of Larry’s passivity.

When King David should have gone with his troops to war against Israel’s enemies, he stayed home and while he was doing nothing on his palace roof, he spies Bathsheba bathing. Adultery and murder follow. Larry has his own King David moment when he is on his own roof, trying to fix the television antenna for his son, facilitating his sons further descent into pop culture depravity. While on the roof he sees his Jewess neighbor sun bathing in the nude. Adultery and drug use follow. Larry truly hasn’t done anything, and in his doing nothing he is destroying everything.

Interestingly, and significantly I think, this is all happening during Israel’s Six Day War, which took place on June 5 – 10, 1967. This is not prominent in the film at all. But we see a calendar in the Jr. Rabbi’s office that is open to June 1967. Israel is off doing battle against her enemies, and Larry is the voyeuristic King on his roof.

The Redeemed Goyim

This is contrasted with the healthy and proactive goyim, who we can reasonably infer are Christians.

Larry’s cousin, Arthur, is a mentally disturbed unwelcome guest in Larry’s home. He invades their home, and doesn’t appear to have any plans on leaving, and Larry is too passive to kick him out or prompt a deadline for him to leave. Though Arthur is pitiable, he is another snake type figure that Larry doesn’t confront. Arthur is a degenerate, tortured man, and also a confused prophet. Arthur has a notebook filled with the scribblings of a madman, but written with the enthusiasm of a prophet. It’s as if he’s hearing from something, but it’s incomprehensible.

The goyim police arrest Arthur for solicitation and sodomy. They bring him back to Larry’s house. They are restoring law and order. They are dealing with the invading serpent. They aren’t letting Arthur do whatever he wants. They aren’t passive like Larry. If I recall correctly, the police visit Larry’s house once before looking to arrest Arthur, but it’s during a shiva, the seven days of mourning after a funeral, and they apologize and leave respecting the solemn occassion. The occasion itself is absurd, as it’s a funeral for his wife’s paramour. And Larry is humiliatingly forced to pay for the funeral. The police are respectful and are the only people who apologize for anything in the whole film.

Larry’s goy neighbor is a good father. We see him throwing a baseball with his son. We never see Larry do anything like this with his son. This good goy father steps in to defend Larry when Larry is threatened by his student’s father. “Is this man bothering you?” He’s a good neighbor.

The good goy father is seen returning with a buck on his car after a hunting trip with his son. Again, the father is spending quality time with his son. Larry is astounded he would take his son out of school to go hunting. A nod to the stereotypical Jewish concern for academics. And perhaps also a kind of picture of Jacob and Esau. Jacob dwells in tents and Esau goes out and hunts. But Esau is depicted as the good guy who loves his son, while Jacob is depicted as a clueless father who is losing his family.

The goy father has a heart for his son and the son for his father. Malachi prophesied this would happen with those who accepted the Messiah.

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6)

While Larry is speaking to his goy neighbor about a territorial dispute, the goy father sternly tells his son to clean up and the son dutifully obeys after a second, and more firm command is uttered by the father. The son obeys. Not immediate obedience, which perhaps anticipates the coming societal breakdown, but he ultimately obeys. He hears the voice of his father, unlike the Jews, who in the film don’t have children who obey their parents. And are children themselves who don’t hear or obey their Heavenly Father.

The goy encroachment on Jewish territory is also perhaps a subtle nod to the gentile receiving the “property” or inheritance that Jews believe only belong to them. The goy insists that it’s a poplar tree that demarks the property line. Perhaps a subtle allusion to the cross. This also inverses the Jacob and Esau story, in that Esau is taking Jacob’s inheritance. But this is the message of Scripture, that the Gentiles will receive the Jewish inheritance.

The goyim are not depicted as baffoons or incompetent. It’s almost like the Coen Brothers are paying a compliment to them at every turn in the film. And this is something I’ve noticed in Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Mad Men, all of which are created by Jews. The Christians in these shows, the Christian clergy especially, are almost always portrayed respectfully, and depicted as loving, kind, and faithful people. Whereas the Jews are petty, selfish, and degenerate. A fascinating pattern, and one which comes across as the Jews telling on themselves. LIke they’re confessing to everyone that they know they’re supposed to be Christians.

Hearing From Heaven | Schrödinger’s Cat and Math

Larry is a physics professor. In one of his first scenes, he is teaching his class the math behind the classic Schrödinger’s cat paradox. The illustration of the cat being alive and dead in the box at the same time and it only being revealed hints at the tension of God being alive or dead, present or not present throughout the film. Is He there or not?

It’s also a commentary on the stories in the Old Testament. Larry tells a student that Schrödinger’s cat is just a story that isn’t real. It helps you understand the math. The math is real. The math is all that matters. So, too, the Divine is like math, but it’s communicated in stories. You can’t just know the stories. You have to know the math behind them. Of course, as Christians, we affirm the stories and the math as both real. But I think this set up in the beginning of the film is trying to communicate this belief/unbelief among the Jews. Or perhaps a comprehension/incomprehension tension. They know the stories, but they don’t know the math behind the stories. They know, but they also don’t know.

Larry scolds one of his students who is trying to bribe him. The student didn’t understand the math. He only understood the stories. And the student, who is Asian, pleads cultural miscommunication. Larry tells the student that actions have consequences. So, even though the student understood the stories, because he didn’t understand the math, he was going to receive a failing grade. Larry is experiencing the same thing. His actions, or inactions, have consequences that he can’t figure out because he doesn’t understand the Divine math. The math is incomprehinsble to him like the scribblings of Arthur’s book. The cultural chasm between him and God is far more distant than merely an Asian student at an American university. It’s the distance between heaven and earth that Larry is dealing with. His own alienation is symbolized in the Asian student. Larry is an alien to his family. An alien to America. An alien to the Heavenly Country.

Hearing from Heaven | The Three Rabbis

Instead of Job’s three friends, we get three Rabbis. Larry sets out to see the Jr. Rabbi, the Sr. Rabbi, and Marshak, the head honcho. The deacon, priest, and bishop, in goy terms.

The Jr. Rabbi gives banal advice about seeing things with new eyes and with a new perspective. “Just look at that parking lot, Larry!” Even though the scene is hilarious, and comes across trite, it’s also true. The Jews do need new eyes.

“[B]lindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” (Romans 11:25)

“[T]heir minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” (2 Corinthians 3:14-16)

Then Larry sees the Sr. Rabbi.

[Scene description]: The Sr. Rabbi tells Larry a story about a Jewish orthodontist. He makes a mold of the teeth of a goy. On the inside of his teeth are Hebrew letters that read, “Help me! Save me!” The orthodontist is distressed and seeks for the meaning in all sorts of ways. He looks for other messages in other peoples’ teeth. He deciphers a phone number through gematria. He calls the number and it leads to a grocery store. He can’t sleep at night until he finds an answer.

The orthodontist goes to the Sr. Rabbi and asks, “What does it mean, Rabbi? Am I supposed to help this man? Or help people generally? Am I supposed to be more righteous? Is it a sign from Hashem? Is the answer in the Torah? Or Kabbalah? Or is there even a question? Tell me, Rabbi, what could such a sign mean?” The Rabbi, telling this story to Larry, anti-climactically, and nonchalantly, concludes here and takes a sip of his tea contented that no more needed to be said. Larry, on the edge of his seat, says, “So, what did you tell him?!” The Rabbi, surprised, says, “Is it…relevant?” Larry responds, “Well isn’t that why you’re telling me?” The Rabbi says he told the orthodontist, “The teeth, we don’t know. A sign from Hashem, we don’t know. Helping others, couldn’t hurt.” Larry, frustrated, objects with a barrage of questions. The Rabbi says, “We can’t know everything.” Larry, increasingly agitated, says, “It sounds like you don’t know anything! Why even tell me the story?!” He asks what happened to the orthodontist, and the Rabbi explains he eventually went back to living life like normal. [End scene description]

No answers. No resolution.

We feel Larry’s dissatisfaction, frustration, and anxiety.

[Scene description]: The Rabbi says maybe the questions Larry has are like toothaches. We feel them for awhile, and then they go away. Larry says he doesn’t want them to go away. He wants an answer. And he asks why Hashem makes us feel the questions if He isn’t going to give us the answers. The Rabbi says, “Hashem hasn’t told me.” [End scene description]

A crestfallen Larry buries his head in his hands.

This scene humorously and tragically depicts the Jewish frustration of knowing there is a God who has spoken and not knowing what it means. Larry is the men walking on the road to Emmaus before Christ opens their eyes to the answer of Easter morning.

Then Larry tries to see Marshak.

[Scene description]: Larry is unable to visit Marshak, the most senior Rabbi. He desperately tries multiple times to meet with him and is unable. He goes to Marshak’s office and speaks with his secretary insisting that it’s an emergency and he needs to see him. In another hilarious scene, the secretary reluctantly goes into Marshak’s study to ask if Larry can meet. With the door open, Larry can see the old man sitting behind his desk deep in his place of dwelling. Sitting there…doing nothing. The secretary returns after speaking with Marshak and says he can’t see Larry. Larry asks why. She says he’s busy. “He doesn’t look busy!” Larry blurts out in exasperation. “He’s thinking.” The secretary says. [End scene description]

On one level this depicts a dead Schrödinger’s cat. Marshak is a God-like figure, dwelling in the holy of holies, but he’s too busy to give Larry any answers because he’s thinking. A kind of cynical resentment of God not being there. Larry isn’t there for his son. Marshak isn’t there for Larry. God isn’t there for anyone. The Jewish and universal feeling that aches for God, when it feels like He isn’t there.

On another level, it can recall the Sr. Rabbi’s statement that God doesn’t owe anyone an answer. Something that is also found in Job and St. Paul. Can the creature say to the Creator, “you owe me an explanation!” No, but like Job we ought to say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Larry never blesses the name of the Lord. Instead, he justifies himself. At one point, he declares, “I am not an evil man!” He resists the fundamental Christian confession that we are all evil. That none of us are good.

Larry is unable to see Marshak, but his son Danny sees him on his bar mitzvah.

Danny enters the dimly lit study of Marshak with the cup of blessing he received at the bar mitzvah ceremony. He walks with some trepidation toward Marshak. Again, almost like approaching the Divine. As he makes his way toward Marshak, we see the study filled with symbols of science, literature, art, and Judaism. Significantly, we see a painting of the Akedah, Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac. It’s as if Danny is walking through the great wealth of tradition, accomplishment, and blessing that belongs to the Jewish people. Once at Marshak’s desk, he sits down, and they look at each other for several moments without saying anything. The clock ticking is the only noise we hear. As if Marshak has been sitting at that desk since the beginning of time. Marshak, in his raspy, ancient voice finally speaks. And it’s Jefferson Airplane.

“When the truth is found to be lies. And all the hope within you dies. Then what? Grace Slick…” He proceeds to name all the members of “The Airplane.” Attention is drawn to Jorma Kaukonen. The Rabbi can’t remember his last name, but Danny immediately knows it. Kaukonen is the only Jewish member of the band, with Jewish Russian ancestry on his mother’s side. After listing all the names, Marshak says, “These are the members of the Airplane!” And after some deep breaths, gives Danny his walkman back. And says, “Be a good boy.”

On one level, this scene is a let down. The head Rabbi simply quotes rock lyrics, gives Danny his walkman, and tells him to be a good boy. Similar to the Sr. Rabbi’s half hearted counsel. It wouldn’t hurt to do good. All of this vast treasure and wealth as God’s chosen people boils down to “Be a good boy”? There has to be more!

Furthermore, Marshak is complicit in the passivity. He doesn’t banish the serpent. Danny’s walkman, the symbolic serpent, is taken away from him for a few days. And Marshak gives it back to him. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Here you are. Now be a good boy. As Lewis says, “We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

On another level, Marshak’s Jefferson Airplane recitation is a Caiaphas prophecy.

Marshak doesn’t quote the lyrics exactly. He changes joy to hope. Instead of saying and all the joy within you dies, he say and all the hope within you dies. Why this change? Joy is removed. Hope is mentioned. But hope dies. Joy and hope are dead. This indicates the Jewish hope of a Messiah. Their hope is dead. They don’t have joy because they don’t have their Messiah, and they have lost hope in even waiting for a Messiah.

What happens next? What’s the next word he says? Grace! He’s naming the singer. But it serves a double meaning. Grace is what happens next. Christ will give grace to His people, Israel according to the flesh.

St. Paul invoking the prophets says,

“[A]ll Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.” (Romans 11:26-27)

Christ has banished the serpent. Christ will take away their sins.

Judgment is Coming

Danny means God is my judge. The end of the film concludes with approaching judgment. After the third Rabbi speaks, God speaks from the whirlwind. Job’s three friends, like the three Rabbis, speak some truth, but are ultimately wrong and disappointing. God isn’t there. But God is in the storm. A storm is approaching Danny’s Hebrew school, and are evacuated to go to the basement of the synagogue. While the students are outside, the teacher is unable to open the door of the synagogue. They are locked out of refuge. An American flag is prominently seen whipping violently in the wind. One of Danny’s friend’s, who relishes the use of profanity, says the [expletive] flag’s going to rip right off the flag pole.

Judgment is coming for America. And the Jews are complicit. Not solely responsible, but complicit. It’s almost like the film serves as a confession of this. Interlaced with this coming storm, is Larry corrupting higher education. Larry ends up taking the bribe from the Asian student and changing his grade, thus speaking to the coming degradation of the universities, which Allan Bloom, a Jewish professor for 30 something years, speaks to extensively in The Closing of the American Mind.

Larry frets over changing the grade, but ultimately decides to change the F to a C. No wait, a C -. The moment he alters the grade he receives the ill-fated phone call. The film ends with Danny and his bully looking at the storm forming into a tornado in the distance, while the serpent is singing in Danny’s ear.

This coming judgment will include a rise in anti-semitism. Arthur invading Larry’s house and being an unwanted, but tolerated guest represents the Jews generally in society. Except the underlying fear is that they will one day not be tolerated. Larry has a dream of helping Arthur leave the United States to a place where he can be free, a promised land of sorts. But he is shot by his goyim neighbor. Larry sees the neighbor with his son who has a hunting rifle. The father points to Larry and says, “There’s another Jew, son!” This reveals a fear that the righteous goyim are going to start turning on the Jews. And the film depicts this as a fear that stems from guilt.

On another level it’s connected to the American experience. it’s like a dark Jewish version of Forest Gump. America is about to be bar bitzvah’d. America is becoming a man, a world power, but, like Danny, we’re entering into this high on drugs and addicted to the subversive poets. Plato’s subversive poets that shake the walls of the city. The television show that Danny likes to watch is called F Troop. A recurring gag in the show is that a military watchtower keeps falling down in various ways. In one episode the tower falls down when music is played too loud. The music that invades Danny’s body is likened to a disease that will kill Larry’s body. Danny listening to music and Larry getting a physical exam from his doctor are paired together, intertwined at the beginning of the film. And Larry receives a call from his doctor suggests it’s terminal news. The messaging of the film is that the counter-cultural music of the 60’s is not good. And it precedes Divine judgment.

It is a rejection of Christ ultimately, and when Christ is rejected, Malachi says that God will smite the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:6)

A Serious Man

In Sy’s Eulogy the rabbi calls him a serious man. Larry says he has tried to be a serious man. But the entire film depicts the Jewish world as anything but. It’s all comical and rather unserious. Consider the beach scene with Arthur, which symbolically depicts a summary of the Jewish people. It alludes to the most significant divine encounter in the Old Testament. The Jewish exodus out of Egypt through the Red Sea, a type of baptism into Moses as St. Paul describes it. And then the receiving of the ten commandments, symbolized by the two body boards. And what happens after this? Arthur comes up with a scheme to make money out of bottled air. God’s chosen people become scheming merchants. This is hilarious, and outrageously anti-semitic. I don’t think anyone is more anti-semitic than the Jews. This brief scene, and the entire film ultimately shows the inadequecy of the law, and it shows the failure of the Jewish world to resist the devil. The Jewish world is depicted as satanic. Consider the imagery of the Rabbi at Sy’s funeral. Is this not over the top Satanic imagery, or as Scripture calls it, a synagogue of Satan? The Rabbi is praising Sy the snake as a serious man. But the only serious people we see are the goyim. The neighbor. The police. Law and order. Contrasted with the lawlessness and disorder happening in the Jewish realm.

The very first scene depicts not a serious man, but a serious woman. The scene is set in what appears to be 19th century Russia or some such place and time with a Jewish husband and wife.

[Scene description]: The husband has an encounter with a man who helped him. He tells the wife about it because she knows him. His wife informs him that this man has been dead for three years. The dead man (or is he?) comes to the house because the husband invited him. The wife stabs the dead man (or is he?) in the chest with an ice pick. The man doesn’t appear phased. He starts laughing. We then see some blood starting to pool. And the dead man (or is he?) excuses himself and leaves. The husand says they will lose everything after the body is found. “All is lost!” the husband, Velvel, says. The wife says, “Nonsense, Velvel…Blessed is the Lord. Good riddance to evil.” [End scene description]

One could analyze this a thousand ways. But the scene does leave some ambiguity about whether the man was a devil, a dybbuk, or whether the wife just killed a man. The Coen brothers said this scene was supposed to set the mood of the film, or something like that. And it does by depicting this ambiguity.

But since we’re Christians, and mathematicians, I think we can see what’s happening on a deeper level. It shows what ought to be done. The serpent, the dybbuk, must be defeated and removed from the home. The woman does what Larry doesn’t do. In Larry’s story, there are many dybbucks or serpents that need to be killed and removed from the home. Dybbucks are described as spirits that take possession of a body and cause mental distress or illness. Arthur is the most obvious dibbuck in Larry’s story. But Larry tolerates Arthur’s invasion of his home, unlike the Jewish wife in the opening scene. Larry tolerates Sy. Larry tolerates the rock music. He tolerates the drug use. He tolerates all kinds of things. He does nothing to get rid of evil in his home.

On an even deeper level, the opening scene is an allusion to Jael who killed Sisera with a tent peg. A woman who kills a serpent figure, a threat to Israel. A threat to the home. A threat to the Garden. It’s a reversal of the Garden of Eden. The woman represents the Seed of the Woman, Christ, who will do this. And yet, in layer upon layer of irony, it is the Jews who crucify Christ. And yet, it is Christ who delivers the Jews from the Serpent. The husband who invited the dybbuk into the home says all will be lost. The Jews lost their home in the years after crucifying Christ. How is the dybbuk associated with Christ? In the same way as the bronze serpent in the wildernees during the time of Moses saved the Israelites. The serpent is defeated by Christ in His crucifixion. All of these aspects are depicted in the opening scene.

Christ sacrificial act is the agape expression of love. Love isn’t passive. It is active. Love is the antidote to sinful passivity. Don’t you want somebody to love? Don’t you need somebody to love? Yes, we all do. And we only love because Christ loved us first. Christ saves us from our sinful passivity.

Christ, in His love, purges the evil. He slays the dybbuk. And he calls us to be dybbuk slayers. He makes us into dybbuk slayers, like Larry’s goyim neighbors and the police. This is a higher calling than merely, “Be a good boy,” as Marshak tells Danny. Or “it couldn’t hurt” to do some good, as the Sr. Rabbi tells the orthodontist. Christ is The Serious Man who has come to make us into serious men who are about serious business, eternal business, eternal life, blessing the nations, and resurrection from the dead. Is there anything more serious than salvation?

Larry is confronted with his own mortality at the end of the film after he has everything restored. This ultimately doesn’t deviate from the Job story in that Job ultimately dies, just as we all ultimately die. We all approach death. And perhaps that’s the question that the Coen Brothers are asking,”Well, I have all my things restored to me. Now what? I’m still going to die.” Yes, and that is why Christ came, to save us from death. To save us from the death that Adam brought in by doing nothing. Christ defeats death and He grants us life, and not only life, but eternal life. Job says, “I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27) He looked forward to Christ and His resurrecting power. The Jews no longer have to look forward. He has come.

Jesus Christ is the Messiah they’re waiting for. They know it, and they don’t, but they will.