Shtisel season 2, episodes 7-12

I'm a Buddhist, but I appreciate all spiritual traditions and I like looking at Shtisel because it makes me reflect on my spiritual life.

Spoilers: To write about the second half of season 2, I must discuss what happens. Shakespeare tells you in Romeo and Juliet that they will die at the beginning and it's still a great story. I don't think you can spoil a great story, but out of respect for other's different views, I warn you the reader about spoilers. 

I read in Wikipedia that the wedding would be called off between Akiva and Libbi, but I kept watching, and there were further twists. To know one thing doesn't ruin a story, the story unfolds in different ways and there are many twists and turns.

Learned a new word: klafte--a naughty or nasty woman. Hana Laszlo plays the widow Menukha, of the match maker Kenigsberg. The patriarch Shulem agrees to marry her and he introduces her around and the grandmother, in the last thing she says to the family, calls her a klafte. Then the videographer who videotaped the grandmother calls her a klafte.

Akiva missed doing his prayers, he called it Tefillin. There's a video on how to prepare yourself for these prayers by putting on boxes of texts on your body. He must pray 3 times a day. They don't really show that. I'd say that's a drawback in the realism of the drama. They have so many good details. The way he flips up his long coat so he can sit down with it. The way they humbly say, "god willing." Some of the culture seems so foreign, writing what to me feels backwards, left to right, and back to front. Of course it's right for them.

In episode 9 Libbi's dad Nukhem drops the bomb on the conditions if they get married. He must quit painting, work as a travel agent, and never ever forget to pray like he did once when he was painting. It goes kind of retrograde because she was the one who appreciates his gift as an artist, and that emboldened him to try and fulfill his potential as an artist.

I think it's a flaw to repudiate art. I know Theravada monks don't believe in art as the path of devotion, but I think it is a way in which beauty can be expressed, and after all, I think the spiritual life is about beauty. I think that's taking ascetic life the wrong way. Aesthetic life doesn't have to be decadent, unwise, indulgent. It might seem that was at times, maybe. But honestly I think the artistic life is where you end up if you're well adjusted, and have the love and support of those around you.

Nukhem is the bad guy. He owes money, he's not a great businessman, and he smokes in a taxi when asked not to, throws the butt out the window risking a fine for the taxi driver, insisting on the non-artististic life. Shulem for his speech taking over Akiva's award ceremony. Libbi for embracing conformity and thinking self expression isn't serious. Giti for not getting to know Hanina before insisting on a divorce. People want their way without all the information and yet it's all about the struggle with themselves. Nukhem had to repudiate his love of music. Giti expects too much from her husband, expects to get her way all the time. She practices humility a little, goes into a pharmacist and asks for nails. It is an exercise to teach her humility. 

There's a fair bit of othering to people who not righteous like they are. You don't have to put down other people to see your good.

Other people can help you to move on and help you develop, or their desires conflict with yours, and they try to change you. Maybe for good or for bad. That's the hard thing, it's hard to know what to do, and nobody is always right, and nobody is always wrong. I used to hate it that my grandmother and grandfather would alway try to convince the other that they are always right. They would like to be listened to but they were. But they were not always right. When they were right, they would rub it in the other's face, to try to get extra. I'm not into that. People give you the credit they want to. Begging for more is just desperate. If people don't appreciate your value, go in another direction.

Giti gets Lippe to go tell Hanina to not come to the house, they are getting divorced. It feels like an outrage to not do things in a certain way, but the marriage was not done in a certain way, so you know. But when she sees how devastated Ruchama is, she gives over the notebook that Hanina wrote notes to her.

There's a kind of bulling ahead, just do what you want to do without collaborating. When people decide to do something they just do it and let the chips fall where they may. Ruchama gets married without consulting the family. Akiva quits painting and ignores the calls of Kauffman. Shulem fires Aliza, she gets another job, she wants a recommendation and then he gives it back to her after he calls off his wedding to Menukha 

Libbi goes to talk to Kaufman. Her father used to love Mahler Symphony number 5 (Wikipedia). There is perhaps a dance with desire, and the attempt to control desire. There's a similar asceticism in Buddhism. That is an explanation about why she demanded Akiva quit painting as a condition of their marriage. I think it's more the relationship to desire. Desiring too much can be a challenge. Desire to flow with nature and to progress on the path to Buddhism is the wholesome desires for me.

With the pairing of storylines Zvi Arye's wife Tovi gives him the go ahead to pursue singing. She seemed cold and didn't want to give him a kidney when everyone else said they would. Now she's allowing for an artistic career. He sings a beautiful song. His wife asks him to sing and it gets her revved up. Tunefind doesn't have a entry for Shtisel, but it is a good song.

Good drama sets us meaningful situations. With the selling of a name of a child, against Giti's wishes, Lippe makes some money. Giti decides to make a restaurant. And who comes in with only 9 Shekels but Ruchama's husband Hanina. After sending her husband to say he could never come to their home, she tells him he can always eat at her restaurant, not knowing who he is.

Akiva has a struggle with his name. First he paints and puts it under another person's name. Then he gets a sweet deal, but repudiates it, and then he wants to have an exhibition but under a pseudonym. He has a dream where he can't tell his mother what his name is, he forgets it. All he can say is, "it's me." 

Zvi Arye decides on his own to give up being in the band. Akiva decides to not get married to one of his potential loves. He's a bit of a romeo who falls hard, but on to the next one. Giti relents about Hanina, she's met him in the restaurant and decides he's a good person not knowing he's the husband of Ruchama. Somehow they find their way to the way they want to be, despite the adversity.

The father who seems to be pushing Akiva ends up accepting him for who he is. He tells the story of an almost engagement he had, where the woman told him he will push his sideburns behind his ear. He said when there are conditions, then they don't accept you. He was happy his son didn't accept conditions. Akiva points out that his mother was always pushing him. But Shulem says she wanted him to study more, shower more, be kinder to others. But she had no preconditions. As much as he loved Lippe, Nukhem was also the father in law. He thought he would make Akiva a serious Jew, that Shulem was indulgent, misguided. A screw up. When things don't go his way, he yells at his son. Shulem's feelings are easily hurt. 

Another reversal, Lippi wants to be with Akiva, wants him to be a painter. Akiva is on TV and discusses his painting. Shulem doesn't want a representation of his wife to go into a museum and goes to Kaulfman. But to raise the money he sells the plot of land he brags to his brother, that his brother doesn't have. Little does he know that he sells the plot of land to his brother to buy the painting. A brilliant twist in the tale. Libbi is disgusted when he brags to her about buying the plot, she realizes that she wants Akiva. I won't spoil the very end, you'll have to watch.

It's hard to get all the names right. The Wikipedia entry isn't very good, you're even invited to improve it. Google tries to autocorrect Menukha to Menucha. It's making me want to see more Israeli films and shows. Or adding a F to Kaufman.

I'm a Buddhist, and while I have exposure to some Jewish culture through my stepfather, and through friends and acquaintances. I'm not about to convert or anything like that. Conversion isn't really done in Judaism, maybe for marriage. I do know a few people who converted. But there's no universal creed to convert to Judaism is an ethnic religion you're born into. Is this my wannabe anthropologist aspect? Have I fallen into the grips of a novella, am I just emotionally wrapped up in a soap opera? Is it spiritual at all? I don't know, I'm in the stage of life where I'm more into the questions, not the answers.

Building a culture of spiritual intensity that includes family isn't the Buddhist way. You renounce family and go for refuge to the 3 jewels. It's hard to see how this religion will spread if it destroys family. If the Buddha had his way, civilization might die out. If everyone converted, became a monk and followed the way of the Buddha, there would be no more children. So I assume that the plan isn't that it's for everyone. Indeed the path is subtle. If you believe the story of the life of the Buddha, he did not go forth until he was 29 and had children. A former friend used to be impressed with someone if they found Buddhism when they were younger than 32. I was 35 when I found Buddhism in 2002.

I had the thought that I want to care about my life as much as a drama, but I'm crying for my life, my sorrows, my journey for self definition, my frustrations and confusions. Catharsis is about the built up emotions inside you.