Amour (2012), Michael Haneke, Dir.

Heaven does not come after life; it is found in life

Michael Haneke’s film, “Amour,” follows the final stage in the lives of Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and George (Jean-Louis Trintignant). In a reversal of expected cultural norms, it is the elderly husband here who takes care of his dying wife. This reversal prepares us for a profoundly different kind of reversal—in which the conclusion of these two lives leaves us with a startling, if ancient, understanding of death, and life.

Over the course of the film Anne suffers first a brief and temporary mental fermata, then a paralyzing stroke, and then a second stroke that leaves her unable to communicate or to take care of her most basic needs. Human dignity slips away from her. Between the first and second stroke she makes George promise not to take her back to the hospital. She does not want to outlive her ability to take care of herself. George reluctantly promises while at the same time showing her, and us, how painful it will be not to give her every possible measure of care, how devastating it will be to lose her. In the end, he keeps his painful promise.

The other important character in the film is their daughter, Eva (“life”), played by Isabelle Huppert. Eva is as devoted to herself as George is to Anne—possibly signaling a failure of the parents to provide her with the same consistent love they have for each other. Whatever the reason, Eve is an infrequent visitor to her parents’ apartment and when she does come it is unpleasant. Two of her visits focus on her criticism of her father for not taking proper care of her mother by putting her in a nursing home—projecting onto George her own repressed guilt for neglect. Another visit has Eve rambling insensitively to her suffering mother about how she and her sometimes present husband Geoff don’t have enough money to buy a home due to recent bad investments. Anne struggles to speak some response but is unable to be intelligible. Her heroic efforts at speech form a stark contrast with her daughter’s waste of words.

We typically equate love with passion. Passionate love involves a giving and a receiving that elevates life. In this film Haneke shows that love transcends emotion. Every challenge that George faces he faces with equanimity. He never panics; he always reacts with a steady hand. And, most importantly, he is always there for Anne. George finds not only love in his relationship with Anne (and she with him); he finds redemption.

And this vision of redemption is the ultimate idea the film paints for us. Anne’s final agonizing pain brings forth George’s earlier silent promise to fulfill his obligation to her. His last act of love is to cover her face with the marital pillow and bring her suffering to an end.

But George’s obligation to care for his wife is the source of meaning in his life. With Anne gone, George’s life is effectively over, too. He puts a lovely dress on Anne, surrounds her head on the bed with petals as on a bier, seals the apartment with tape, and leaves us to assume that he then turns on the gas.

In the next scene George, lying on his bed in a separate room, hears dishes rattling. He gets up, confused, and shuffles into the kitchen to see what is causing the noise. There he finds Anne, washing the dishes as he, George, had most recently done after Eve and Geoff’s last visit. Anne says something to him about putting on his shoes. He does, she finishes what she is doing, and puts on her coat for what may be the routine after-dinner walk they must have enjoyed before her illness. Still confused (he has only just arrived in heaven while she has had an hour or so to orient herself) George follows her towards the door. She has to remind him to put on his coat. It is the most prosaic scene in the film. Heaven is just that; it is the quotidian life we live in relationship to the person we most love.

Making dinner, doing the dishes, going for a walk… these small acts of sharing are what delineate a redeemed life—a life that, if we are lucky enough, is punctuated by high moments of passion and excitement but which, for anyone, can be, during all of those in between stretches of time, a life redeemed. Haneke is telling us that heaven is not what comes after life; it is the life we can make, through our relationships and through the quiet, often thankless, fulfillment of duty.

This conclusion strikes me as particularly Jewish. Is this faithful to the film? One could argue that it is a secular interpretation of redemption. But the only moment in the film when the outside world intrudes is when George reads a newspaper article to Anne about a reconciliation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the American President. The scene makes sense if it is informing us of the religious orientation of the director. Many Jews, for millennia skeptical of a supernatural heaven, will recognize their own values in this film.

Debate Preview: How to Win an Election

In all of politics there are two universal constants—incumbents and challengers. During the lead up to an election each has his or her advantages unique to their position.

An incumbent has the power of incumbency. Incumbents can appear to do things that attract press attention just by doing the job they were elected to do.  They can show up at business openings, hold press conferences, initiate new legislation, propose some new programs, give out awards and appear at ceremonies, or do any of the countless things that will naturally get their doings in the news and their faces on TV.

Consider George Bush’s appearance at ground zero shortly after the attacks of 9.11. President Bush had failed to protect the country from attack and his security apparatus had failed to respond to direct and obvious communications from al Qaeda about an imminent attack and yet his appearance at the debris that was once the World Trade Center and his subsequent “presidential” comments on the “war on terror” enabled him to win a second term.

A challenger has much less ability to make news except as part of his or her campaign itself (unless they already hold some public office, and even this has limited value compared to the higher office they are running for—which the incumbent currently controls). BUT, an incumbent has one thing in the office up for election that the challenger does not have: a record. And here is where the challenger has an inevitable advantage. No matter how praiseworthy an office holder’s record of achievement, no matter how many things that person has done and no matter how many people that person has helped, no one ever achieves everything that everyone wants done. And this gives an opening for criticism to the challenger. (Irony alert:) Short of accusing one’s opponent of failure to cure lyme disease, anything goes.

Consider Ronald Reagan’s criticism of President Carter for the handling of the disastrous hostage situation in Iran and the failed rescue attempt highlighted by the crash of a Sikorsky helicopter. The President had no control over those events, nor was he responsible for the rampant inflation that accompanied his presidency, yet a former movie actor and affable governor of California was able to turn criticism of the President into an electoral victory for himself in 1980.

A challenger can always find something that the incumbent did that was not perfect. And a challenger can always find something that the incumbent did not do at all. This is what will become the basis of any challenger’s attack.

As the presidential debates approach, consider these two challenges each of the two candidates faces. Look to President Obama and watch to see if he seems to be appearing at events in which he looks “presidential.” Of course he can’t help it; he IS the President. But is he taking unfair advantage of his incumbency?

And look at the criticisms of Mitt Romney. Is he finding fault in everything President Obama has done? Is he portraying the President as a total failure, with not a single accomplishment to his credit? In an imperfect world, where compromise is the way anything in politics gets done, is Romney criticizing Obama for compromising? It is easy to do. It is the only way for him to get elected.

But will the public be convinced?

Religious Foundation of Labor Movement

The American labor movement is founded on the deeply held religious principles of our people yet many understandably associate labor with the Left.

Marx, after all, was a champion of labor and many labor organizers sympathized with the egalitarianism of theoretical communism. Yet it is the Bible and subsequent religious teaching that informs our celebration of labor on this final weekend of the summer.

While we grill our burgers and shuck sweet corn and suck a pull of Bud Light with family and friends we should pause to remember why we dedicate this day to those Americans who earn their living with their hands. The reason lies in the Bible, not the Communist Manifesto.

When early labor leaders sought protections for workers from abuse by factory owners they had Deuteronomy on their side: “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute worker… You must pay the wages owed on the same day, before the sun sets, because the worker is needy and urgently depends on it” (Deut. 24:14-15).

But it was not only a fair income that the labor movement sought for its workers. Especially after the Triangle Shirt-waist Factory fire, where the conflagration and horrifying deaths were the consequence of the owner intentionally locking exit doors, labor leaders also fought for safe working conditions.

Whose should prevail? Does the owner have the right to run his factory as he or she wishes and if you don’t like it, work somewhere else? Or do workers have a right to conditions that promote health and safety—even at the involuntary expense of the factory owner?

This is not just a modern controversy. In the 13^th century Judah, the son of Samuel of Ratisbon wrote in The Book of the Pious that an employer may not oppress an employee.

Asserting his authority as a rabbi, he taught, “When someone employs a worker, he should not burden the worker too much or give him more than he can do… Even though the worker may seek it, it is forbidden to burden him more than he can handle.” Eight hundred years later we still value statistics about “productivity” over “quality of life.” We forget that the word “economy” means “quality of life” not “profit.”

The most vulnerable workers in America today are not, thanks to OSHA, those who labor in factories, but those who work in fields. They often lack clean water to drink, somewhere to rest in the shade, or even a place to pee.

They do backbreaking work and if they get sick or hurt they return to the field the next day for fear of otherwise losing their job. Is the fruit of such labor “kosher”? The liberal branches of Judaism say No and forbid the eating of food that comes to the table as a result of oppression.

In 1978 I stood with César Chavez in San Benito, Texas (representing the American Reform rabbinate)—along with religious leaders from churches across the region—in a three-day convocation dedicated to addressing the myriad problems of migrant workers. A religious nation cares about the working conditions of its laborers, about the education of their children as parents follow harvests north from Arizona to the Canadian border, and about the possibility of their rising above this lowest rung of the American ladder.

Today, our guaranteed minimum wage, eight  hour work day, child labor laws, and unemployment compensation reflect American’s effort to make religious values real in our society. Labor unions educated their members and helped immigrants to become integrated into American society.

Many of today’s teachers and other professionals are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of these laborers. As they benefited from increasingly fair labor conditions in America—giving them health, safety, dignity, and a living wage—so should we today dedicate ourselves to nurturing this American dream, this religious vision, to a new generation of immigrants, migrant workers, and factory laborers—who are made more vulnerable than ever by a weaker union movement.

With the globalization of labor that is accompanying an increasing concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, workers need us, more than ever, to follow the teaching in Proverbs, to “Speak up, judge righteously, and champion the poor and the needy” (31:9).

A Valentine's Day Solution

There are two kinds of Americans—those who love Valentine’s Day and those who hate Valentine’s Day. For those who hate Valentine’s Day I have a solution which I’m publishing now in order to give you time to make it happen.

Among the haters of Valentine’s Day are florists. Half their annual revenue comes on this one day. Florists sell a hundred and eighty-nine million roses on February 14.

Among those who hate Valentine’s Day are chocolatiers. Fifty eight million pounds of chocolates are sold in the first half of February—including 35 million heart shaped boxes of chocolates. Eight billion pastel colored hearts proclaiming fidelity on them are also sold in association with the patron saint of love.

On Valentine’s Day it is impossible to get a table at a nice restaurant.

In the week or so leading up to Valentine’s Day jewelers’ counters and mail routes—both underutilized most of the year—are clogged. What to do?

Eureka! A solution is at hand.

The fundamental problem is the same “problem” as Christmas—all that commerce and planning and anticipation and activity is funneled into a single day.  One cannot change Christmas (although some do sensibly celebrate the “twelve days of Christmas”) but one can certainly tamper with Valentine’s Day.

My proposal is to spread it over three days. February 14 would remain the same for unmarried lovers—those for whom nothing as quotidian as a weekday will get in the way of celebrating their love. Then (and here comes the revolution) the following Saturday will be Valentine’s Day for married couples. And, finally, the Sunday a week later will be Valentine’s Day for intergenerational love—when parents, grandparents, and children will shower each other with chocolates and roses and cards and eGreetings and meet at ice cream parlors and cheesecake factories.

The advantages are obvious. Florists will have two or even three weeks to vend their bouquets. Chocolatiers will also have the same extension of time to arrange and sell their delights. Making restaurant reservations will decrease in difficulty by 50%. And by the time the third Valentine’s Day comes around—think of all the sales to take advantage of.

And for some, best of all, you can take out both your lover and your spouse on their proper Valentine’s Day. Soon there may be only one kind of American.

Are trash cans too large?

Starting today, when you think about my opinion, think “garbage.” My own was picked up this morning and I feel guilty. Not about the waste but about the weight of it all.

Remember those 31 gallon aluminum cans that punctuated property lines in the 1950s? You can still get them, but I haven’t seen many in my neighborhood. Instead, I see plastic cans with tops that catch on a rim around the top. They start at 32 gallons. But as I look up and down the street I see much larger ones. I had to replace a Rubbermaid can that, at 32 gallons, came with wheels for convenience and had lasted 15 years. The bottom finally wore off from being dragged along the sidewalk.

So I bought a newer model. It holds 45 gallons of garbage and has larger wheels. I pull it to the curb every Sunday night and don’t think about it again until Monday evening when I come home and return the empty can to its sheltered shed.

But the process of selecting this new can led me to think about who would have to lift it and how difficult that would be. A 45 gallon can, filled with garbage bags, is too heavy for me to lift easily. I’m glad for the wheels. But the sanitation workers who come every Monday morning don’t have it so lucky. They have to carry the can to the truck and lift it up high enough such that the top is lower than the bottom allowing for the contents to spill out. Not just for my can, but for Ryan’s and for Vivian’s and for David’s and for Eric’s and for… well, for everyone in my neighborhood. These men spend their days lifting those cans up high enough to empty them into the compactor.

And a 45 gallon can turns out to be one of the smaller trash cans available at home supply stores. You can buy 64 gallon, even 96 gallon cans. 96 Gallons! That’s three times larger, three times heavier, than the can I bought in 1995 when I first moved to Easton.

Those sanitation workers will have to work as long as we who work with our heads, sitting at desks in air conditioned rooms. They won’t get social security benefits any sooner than you or me. Yet they do all this heavy lifting day after day, coming home with muscles melted and clothes smelling from week old mackerel.

It gets worse. I weeded the other day. Filled my old can (only 32 gallons) with the garden refuse. Even this relatively small can was then too heavy for me to lift. How do they do it?

Rain was in the forecast when I put that can out and I thought about those dutiful men and that extra weight of water. So I put an older mis-matched cover on top of the leaves and branches. Not a pretty sight, but it deflected an inch or two of water.

There are other things we can do to help out these men who relieve us of that which we remove from our homes as quickly as possible. Reasonably sized cans are one way. But there are others. When no rain is forecast, we can remove that cover so they won’t have to pry it off—house after house. Or we can loosen the cover so it rests easily on top and is just as easily removed the next morning. We can put our trash next to our neighbor’s (my own neighbor taught me this by quiet example)—saving the trash collectors a few steps and an extra stop of the truck. We can seal smelly garbage by double bagging it and we can rinse out our cans occasionally with the garden hose. And surely we can be careful not to hide broken glass or pointed or dangerous objects with the trash.

There are rules and restrictions on what sanitation workers have to pick up at our curb but I find that they always try to err on our side—taking things that they could have left behind. They work hard and they keep our community clean. They deserve some consideration and gratitude from us. At least when it comes to trash cans, bigger is not better.

Jews are Democrats

The High Holy Days this year accompany a Presidential election season. Should we retreat from political action and assess our own personal lives or should we see this as an opportunity to reinforce the Torah’s message to be politically active? One need not sacrifice either but I urge you to work for, and vote for, President Obama and a strong Democratic Congress and I say this for Jewish reasons.

The fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats is this: Republicans believe that America thrives when individuals are left alone to work hard and fulfill their potential. If, in doing this, you make a crappy Corvair or pollute our rivers or use your access to get unfair tax loopholes then the public will not buy your product and the “market” will force you to change your behavior to what is more socially acceptable. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that America will best thrive if we work together as a society to help those who, through no fault of their own, are disadvantaged. Democrats believe in the collective use of our resources (including taxes)—to fund, not just the military and an infrastructure for businesses to profit by (e.g. roads and bridges and police) but also good schools, a clean environment, orchestras, health care, parks, safe and efficient automobiles, a safe and fair workplace…

Christianity is about individual salvation. Judaism is about redemption of the community, the nation of Israel. And so our history in America—a country where Jews have been a part of the voting public since its founding—has been a history of liberalism. Every other ethnic group in this country has voted more conservatively after its immigrant generation—once it became economically secure. The Jews of America, uniquely, continue to vote with the Democratic party, even as we have become as wealthy and as “established” as Episcopalians. The Jews of Beverly Hills are as liberal in their politics as the Jews of Brighton Beach. There is a reason for this.

But assimilation may be taking its toll and this can be measured in our politics. While the Torah demands that our politics work for the immigrant, the poor, and the needy, it is no longer unusual to meet Jews who, without embarrassment, profess to be Republican.  I’m not speaking of the ethnic Orthodox, who have always been more aligned with socially conservative Christians in their un-Jewish opposition to women’s reproductive freedom, marriage equality, public education, etc. I’m speaking of wealthy Jews who, having succeeded economically, are now acting more like those successful Episcopalians. They have every right to vote for their own economic interests, but in doing so, they demonstrate that the American system, not the values of Torah, is governing their politics. Not only assimilation, but overheated anxiety about America’s support for Israel, are taking their toll. What a loss—to America and to Judaism.

If you look up the term “sin” in the (Christian) Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible you’ll find an odd final sentence. It reads, “When it comes to repentance there is no Old Testament remedy for sin. Only in the New Testament would that come.” The writer had to ignore the central message of Isaiah in order to say that. In our Yom Kippur haftara reading we recall the prophet’s message, “Wash yourselves clean. Stop doing evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of (the vulnerable in society). Though your sins be like scarlet, they can be white as snow" (Isaiah 1). In other words, stop sinning. Start doing good. It is not God’s grace, but rather political action, that will redeem us. We can argue about some of the details about what “doing good” means but the Jewish teaching begins with the obligation to create a just society. This is why Jews have supported Democratic candidates more strongly than any other identifiable group in America—since the beginning. It is no less Jewish an act today.

No Representation? No Taxation!

We don’t know yet whether the Pennsylvania Voter ID law will survive its journey through the commonwealth and then the federal courts. But it is pretty clear to all that the Republicans passed this law to solve no problem other than the fact that more Democrats than Republicans would otherwise vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Governor Corbett, who signed this bill into law, used to be Pennsylvania’s Attorney General. While serving in that office exactly zero cases of voter fraud came to him.

There is no more sacred ritual in a democracy than casting one’s vote. It is an act so embedded in our history and culture that we have been unwilling to consider any change in the act—no matter how much more efficient or easy such changes would make our elections. To vote, one must go to a poll and physically enter one’s choices. You can’t choose to vote through your phone. You can’t vote via an ATM type machine that would give a paper record to enhance a recount if necessary. You can’t send in your vote via email.

Why is this ritual act—of voting in person at our specifically assigned polling place—so fundamental a part of being an American citizen? And what qualifies a person to be able to vote?

It is not the possession of a photo ID. It is not the quality of being an educated citizen. It is not the reward for making oneself well-informed about the issues. It is not about passing a literacy test or about speaking English. It is not even about being an upstanding citizen—without a criminal record (although many would deny felons the right to vote after they have completed their prison sentence).

The centrality of the vote in our country goes back to the Boston Tea Party—an act of defiance against the British government that imposed a tax on tea in the Colonies despite the fact that Americans had no vote or representatives in the British Parliament. It was in this fundamental act of American rebellion that we created a direct connection between taxation and voting. You cannot impose a tax on a people that cannot vote. Or, to put it positively, only a government that allows its people to vote has the right to impose taxes on that people. The legitimate taxation function of government is a direct result of democratic elections.

And now the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would deny that right to vote to anyone who does not have a picture ID.  This is a serious problem. But it invites a serious solution. Any citizen of Pennsylvania who is denied the right to vote should not be required to pay taxes. If the legislature wants all our taxes, it must allow all of us to vote.

Those who care about our democracy can go a step further. So long as the government of Pennsylvania denies the right to vote to some of its citizens, then all of its citizens should withhold their taxes in sympathy. Put them in escrow until the legislature returns the right to vote to all Pennsylvania’s citizens. That is a tea party that every Democrat and Republican of conscience should join.