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proudtoehaver · 6 years

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I was really happy to read your response to that essay criticizing TFA. It's my favorite SW movie and so much of the negative response to it seems to be rooted in racism, sexism, or just plain intolerance of anything new and different. I was curious what you meant about TFA being a Jewish story--that's not a viewpoint I've seen it analyzed from before and I'd genuinely like to know more if you're willing. If you don't feel like going into greater detail that's fine though.

It’s really late here so I hope this doesn’t come out too garbled.

I haven’t really done an overall analysis of TFA as such, mostly when I talked about it its been in relation to Finn (such as here). If you dig around in the ‘Finn meta’ tag on my old tumblr @luminousfinn you’ll find more.

But a good meta that touches on this question though it doesn’t use the words Christianity and Judaism, is @lj-writes‘ “The trouble with the Light Side, and Finn as the Balance”

In it she talks about how the Light side in the PT and OT is not so much about the Light, but about being anti-Dark, about preventing a fall to the Dark side. I would equal this with the way Christianity (and Puritanism in particular) is anti-sin. Like the whole focus, or most of it, appears to be on avoiding sinning.

Judaism on the other hand is concerned with doing good, our focus is on how we keep the mitzvot, how we help each other and our fellow humans and all in all leaves this world a better place than we found it.

(Maybe this is because our focus is on this world as we don’t have any coherent idea of an afterword and no concept of Heaven or Paradise as it is know in Christianity.)

But returning to TFA.

Finn, and I would say all our heroes in TFA, emulate Judaism in that they’re more concerned with doing right, with fixing the world, than they are with not-sinning, with “not falling to the Dark side”.

But it goes a bit further than just this,

Dark and Light doesn’t really mean the same to us either. In fact, it doesn’t really make sense at all.

The closet we come to it are the concepts of yetzer hara and yetzer tov.

Now yetzer hara is usually translated into English with the “evil inclination” and yetzer tov with the “good inclination”, but I woud call both of these mistranslations or at least drastic oversimplifications to the point incomprehension of the two concepts.

Yetzer hara might be seen as being closer to the concept of Id. It’s hunger, need for warmth, comfort, the company of others. Now these needs are not an evil in themselves, but in yetzer hara they are unrestrained and that’s the problem. The need for possessions such as clothes and comfort becomes greed if left unchecked. The need for company of other people possessiveness, or jealousy.

That is where yetzer tov enters the picture, which a bit simplified is self restraint.

All humans are born with yetzer hara, yetzer tov if something we develop, just as a child is born with needs that guarantee its survival and learns self-restraint as it grows up.

But yetzer hara aren’t evil as such or in the sense understood by Christians, without these impulses we wouldn’t fall in love, find friends, build families, make things. Nor would we sing or dance or be joyous. It is only when left unchecked it becomes an issue.

But then, too much yetzer tov is just as damaging to life and happiness as unrestrained yetzer hara.

Now for TFA. Have you noticed how no one ever considers getting angry is immediately sending them to the Dark side, instead it is just another part of them and often when it happens - at least for the heroes - a needed response to an intolerable situation? Or how the characters will be scared, but again no doomsaying, no danger of falling to the Dark.

Anger and fear are not evil or dangerous emotions, they’re just human ones and if handled correctly very needed and useful ones.

Throughout the movie the characters balances yetzer hara and yetzer tov. None of them perfecting it, but it was never meant to be perfect. Humans aren’t meant to be perfect, we’re just meant to try our best.

There is much more than that, but this is off the top of my head and well after midnight, I might add to it tomorrow.

But in conclusion I will say one thing. Among the many things I fear is that Rian is going to try and Christianize a Jewish story and turn it into the same dualistic bs we saw in the PT and OT. This is yet another thing I hope that JJ can salvage in Episode IX, though I’m not looking forward to having fandom try to shoehorn that movie too into the narrow Christian perspective or whine about how it doesn’t conform to their expectations because it’s a Jewish story and not a Christian one.

#the force awaken #the last jedi #jj brams #rian johnson #mara's stuff #simpleescapism

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