Warning: The Following Blog May Be Too Intense (and long) For Some Readers

I have a very old DVD player. In fact, it was one of the earliest Panasonic models, which I purchased after my junior year in High School (yes, that was last century). For whatever reason it doesn't play all the latest DVD releases because of their "formatting". Basically it's temperamental. So when this happens I go watch by a friends (thanx again K!). Last night we viewed The Believer, and though that might sound like a film about a hopeful full who is determined to get "her" back, it is in fact an intense, emotional picture about a frum boy who becomes a neo-Nazi. As luck would have it the DVD crapped out with 5 minutes left. It kept skipping from the next to last scene to the credits! We tried cleaning it, watching it in slow motion, in fast motion, but it would keep skipping at some point during the climax. Finally we were able to piece everything together by switching machines, fast forwarding and stopping. Was it really necessary to mention all that? Nope, but I did anyway, so tough.

The movie is based on the real life story of Danny Burrows (played here by Ryan "Have you seen my notebook" Gosling), a young neo-Nazi in the 60's who committed suicide after The New York Times broke the story that he was actually Jewish. Rather than review the film (which was slightly flawed but overall quite good) I'm going to free-associate a bit about the emotions that bubbled within me as I watched.
The movie hit me hard on several levels. First off it reminded me of how rebellious I was during my first stay at Reishit. I was angry then, and for some reason a lot of kids listened to me. Of course what I was saying was crap, but it nevertheless was appealing to a bunch of confused 18-year-old minds. Fortunately I snapped out of that mind-set. Watching the film I wondered just how far I would have gone with my rebellion, just how far I would sink. I don't think I would become a neo-Nazi but I wonder if I would have done something I could never forgive myself for. But even during my rebellion/confliction, a part of me knew that I would eventually go down a Torah derech, or at least try with all my heart. Danny vandalizes a Shul he , but can't bring himself to destroy or even disrespect a Sefer Torah. There was still that part of him that knew who he was deep down, and that all his anti-Semitic propaganda (as articulate as he made it sound) was nothing more than an illusion of phraseology crafted by a skilled wordslinger, directed at weak, angry and simple minds.
The film also scared me as I saw how easy it is for someone to self-destruct, especially when they are stubborn. To quote the great, (almost) rabbinical sage Yoda, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." How true this is.This expression defines Danny perfectly. I don't know how many of you have ever seen someone self-destruct, but it's a horrible thing to watch. Especially when you care for that person and want to help, but all that you do doesn't matter- in fact the self-destructee even comes to resent you for "butting in". I'm not sure if someone like this can be helped if they're not willing to truly help themselves, or if they just need the right person to help/save them (what do you think?). I do know that (whether they can admit it or not) someone like this is not happy in life. When so much of your emotional self is entangled within such strong feelings of negativity, the positive attributes struggle to surface, and when they do they can often be poisoned and/or manipulated by the dark side. Deep down Danny knew that what he was doing was wrong, but because of his intense anger, because of his self-hatred, and because of his stubbornness, he couldn't stop (until it was too late.....or was it? Watch the film and decide- but beware it is rated R for pretty much everything). It's so easy to give in to the darker nature of our beings. Danny was at a constant war with himself. He needed to defeat the rage, the sorrow and the hate that enslaved him. Only then could be move. Only then could he be free. Only then could he be happy.

Many times maturity (and freedom from our inner-demons) doesn't come without some sort of sacrifice. Yet over time we may realize that what we gave up really wasn't a sacrifice at all, it was in fact a necessary deletion from our (then) troubled lives. Sometimes we have to say goodbye to a certain place, a certain person(s), a certain habit, or certain mind frame. I know I had to do some of these things in order to grow, and one day I woke up (figuratively speaking) and realized that there was a grey net hanging over me for several months that had finally been lifted, and all the bright colors of the world (which I can't differentiate unfortunately), and all the positive auras seemed to flood in, and I was happy. But I was lucky too. Sometimes (as maybe it is in the film) we aren't "resurrected" until it's too late, and our lives halt or even end (Chas Vashalom in tragedy.

"The Believer" frightened me as, at times, it seemed to cross into a plain of neo-realism, and boy was it ever hard to watch, nay experience (and even if it seemed somewhat far-fetched to what the average rebellious Modern-orthodox youth goes through, all the ingredients that lead to the dark path Danny took were right on the money by comparison). It made me hope (perhaps foolishly- though I think that's saying a bit much) that those I care about who are self-destructing will have their net taken off (or remove them themselves), and see the beautiful life they have in front of them, and start their journey down a road that's been there all along. Here's hopin'....