I'm so fascinated with ways of being, a turn of phrase, personality and the way we use spirituality. This show Shtisel is a golden opportunity to look into a culture which I know very little if anything. It's not clear if I'm getting any knowledge by watching the show, I have no reference point. At least with some things, I have reference points. I live next to an orthodox community, and I try to engage people in discussion, but you know, talking at the park while watching kids isn't always conducive to deep conversations.
Spoilers ahead. I skim various things and got a spoiler myself. But things unfold and so I know one thing is coming. The magical realism of the show includes the presence of the dead. I actually feel a little comforted when I can predict the drama. Like I knew Ruchami would try and get Hunina's father to come to the wedding. He was estranged because his father remarried 4 months after his mother's death, and he left home. But even with predictions you can't know everything that's going to happen. I also like it when unpredictable things happen. I always think about the klangs in Shakespeare. Why is Lady Macbeth so set on her husband being king? Why doesn't Hamlet kill his uncle sooner? Every play has a little klang in it, but it advances the plot, creates tension. And who's to say what is klang we can only go on our limited understanding of the world. I think multiculturalism is built on the idea that no subset group of the world has a monopoly on the truth. Intellectual humility is important to me.
Time has moved forward for season 3. Akiava has a child Dvora, with Lippi. Shulem is obsessed with raising money for the school. Ruchami is his new secretary. Shulem's brother Sucher has reunited with an old sweetheart he almost married. Yossi (Yosa'le) is the one they're pressuring to marry now, daughter of Giti and Lippe, but because Lippe left and shamed the family, the matches are not coming easily. He meets Shira, who likes to go to Ramot Forest to calm her fears. Menucha Kenigsberg has set them up, but she complains he didn't show up. Menucha has lost some weight. He met with the wrong one, and they're Algerian. "They like their fish with more spice." Is Giti a bit of an ambitious Lady Macbeth? She wants her husband to forget that he found the wrong Shira and tell Yosa'le that he couldn't find her. Meanwhile Yosa'le will not accept substitutes, says he's in love. A bit like Akiva, falling hard. Lippe does what his wife tells him to do, and lies to his son.
There doesn't seem to be a law against scheming to get your way? Shulem tells Akiva that he would do things his mother wouldn't know about, telling him to go forward with the exhibit. Giti gets Lippe to lie all the time. Lippe blows whichever way the wind blows, like Andrew Yang, just spouts what the last person he was around says. But there's a kindness to him. A people pleaser is also a kind person and wants to give people what they want. Somehow that's a bad thing, but I don't think it is.
Meanwhile Shulem is in trouble because he smacked a kid who stole the conductor's baton. I wanted to slap him, maybe even more so because he was from a traditional culture, but you don't do that in school in America. They caught it on video and put it on the internet. They want him to retire, it appears you can't do such a thing in Israel either.
They show the wailing wall, the Western Wall. A short small injection of more realism. I like it when they read aloud. My daughter doesn't like it when I read aloud, but she's not around all the time, I could do more chanting of the sutras.
The life of the artist is fascinating. Akiva is appreciated for his loving artwork, but what he gives out literally tortures him and his family. Against his better judgement Kauffman gives Akiva the number for the person who bought his painting. He meets with Racheli Warburg.
When he goes to her house to offer 3 paintings to replace the ones of his wife, he identifies a painting by Nachum Gutman. There's been scant history of Israeli painting, and here is one reference. "Gutman helped pioneer a distinctively Israeli style, moving away from the European influences of his teachers. He worked in many different media: oils, watercolours, gouache and pen and ink."
Levitan is also mentioned, a reproduction.
It's been 5 years since Ruchama and Hanina got married. They don't have a child and Hanina wishes to count his blessings, but Ruchama wants to figure things out. There's nothing in the Torah about struggling with infertility, or rather it's not appropriate to ask his Rabbi about such things.
"Sarah only had a baby at the age of 90. Rivka waited 20 years to conceive with Yitzchak. Rachel also had trouble conceiving a baby. The Tanach mentions the wife of Manoach, Chanah, the woman from Shunam and Ruth as other famous women who had difficulty conceiving." (Jewish Link)
"Rachel, like Sarah before her, gives her handmaiden to her husband, hoping to adopt and raise the ensuing children as her own. With Bilhah and Zilpah, this turned out to be a workable solution. With Hagar and her son, Yishmael, it did not work out as well for Sarah."
They have a resource, listed in the article. My first son was born through IUI, what a blessing. But it turns out Ruchama has an IUD because there is risk in her giving birth. And that is a consideration for Hanina who has been brought into the loop by Ruchama's doctor--not sure if that violates the HIPPA rights, but that's an American thing, but I'm sure they have an equivalent in Israel. I'm sure husbands are exempt, it seems this show shows. The head of the Yeshiva says there are idea and non-ideal solutions, surrogacy being a non-ideal solution. He is sweet and says that because Hanina studies the Torah, the solution he will find from himself is based in the Torah. Ruchama likes the solution of extracting the egg and sperm and putting it into a surrogate, and pretending to be pregnant, going to the hospital and coming out with a new baby. Modern science.
Because Buddhism isn't interested in propagating the religion through reproduction, this is not such an issue for Buddhism. Infact, I recall reading in the Pali Canon that when a monk asked permission to give his ex-wife a child, she wants a child even though her husband went off to become a monk, that the Buddha supposedly said it would be better to stick your dick into a snake's mouth.
Meanwhile Shulem tried to get people to enroll in his new school. They're not supposed to poach students from a rival Cheder. And he's interested in his benefactor Nechama Yoktan. But she can't imagine it yet. The old school threatens him for trying to steal students. He has 11 so far, it's not enough. There is a protest outside his home. He gets his son down there to add to the protest. He tells everyone that his own children are not allowed in the cheder because they did not pass a test, that the new cheder will only have smart ones. People begin to leave a hope they can get into this new cheder.
This all makes me think about the prohibition in Buddhism about being a schismatic, that bringing disharmony to the sangha is a real party foul. And yet, I can't help but admire Shulem's ingenuity in trying to turn the situation in his favor. You could say the old Cheder did wrong by firing him for slapping down a brat, spare the rod spoil the child. I don't think that way, but he does.
Nuchem loses his work, his wife, and his daughter, he's indigent. He's gotten his comeuppance, and his brother needs to take care of him. He tries to commit suicide while a social worker is over because Akiva sent someone who picked up the wrong child and when he went right back to correct the mistake he had alcohol on his breath.
A Vort is a promise. Yosa'le is promised to the Shira, the one he was supposed to meet. There's all kinds of subplots and twists I'm not going to describe.
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