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Why do we watch movies? If we read in search of more life, as
Harold Bloom is fond of saying, then we watch movies, this book
proposes, in search of wonder. We watch movies in search of
awe-inspiring visions, transformative experiences, and moments of
emotional transcendence and spiritual sublimity. We watch movies
for many of the same reasons that we engage in religion: to fill
our ordinary evenings and weekends with something of the
extraordinary; to connect our isolated, individual selves to
something that is greater than ourselves; and because we yearn for
something that is ineffable but absolutely indispensable. This
book, through an exploration of some of the most intriguing films
of the past two decades, illustrates how movies are partners with
religion in inspiring, conveying, and helping us experience what
Abraham Joshua Heschel refers to as "radical amazement": the sense
that our material universe and our ordinary lives are filled with
more wonders than we can ever imagine, and that it takes
spiritually-as well as cinematically-trained eyes to uncover these
ever-present ocular gems. In addition to illustrating how films
utilize religious themes and theological motifs to convey a sense
of wonder, this book offers new interpretations of key films from
canonical American directors such as Martin Scorsese, Terrence
Malick, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, and the Coen brothers.
In The Heart of Torah, Rabbi Shai Held’s Torah essays—two for
each weekly portion—open new horizons in Jewish biblical
commentary. Held probes the portions in bold, original, and
provocative ways. He mines Talmud and midrashim, great writers of
world literature, and astute commentators of other religious
backgrounds to ponder fundamental questions about God, human
nature, and what it means to be a religious person in the modern
world. Along the way he illuminates the centrality of empathy
in Jewish ethics, the predominance of divine love in Jewish
theology, the primacy of gratitude and generosity, and God’s
summoning of each of us—with all our limitations—into the
dignity of a covenantal relationship.
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