The latest program by the tireless Haredi anthropologist (for the poor), Amnon Levy, caused almost no stir, which is a shame.
Levy chose to document the great repenters. The methods and techniques they use, the audience that listens to them, and most importantly, he tried to test, in his usual grotesque way, whether they were able to convert him, a secular atheist who "has no God in his heart," as he defined it, to repentance.
There is perhaps no need to write about the pitifulness of trying to demand that a rabbi - whom Levi turned into an actor in the play he staged - return the director to repentance. It is safe to say that viewers were able - even during commercials - to withstand the rare tension of whether Amnon Levi was indeed convinced by Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi's words and exchanged his black shirt for a khalet.
What was fascinating was the fact that Rabbi Mizrahi chose to personally film the entire interview and upload it to YouTube. This way, you can see the gap between the broadcast at Levi's and the actual interview.
Here are some aspects that caught my eye.
1. time. The interview between the two personalities did not exceed the few minutes mark on the program [I estimate 5-10 minutes], while the original conversation lasted much longer. This is of course logical, it is not possible to broadcast an entire interview on a prime-time program, and editing work is simply required, and yet the gap that arises would be: 1:39 of an interview [99 minutes], compared to a broadcast of 5-10 minutes. Logical? Not sure.
2. Close-ups and close-ups. The original conversation was between two relaxed people, who talked pleasantly. I don't know Rabbi Mizrahi, nor Levi, I assume they are two people with high verbal ability and that they could talk for 6 hours.
However, the television program that focused on Levy's face versus that of Rabbi Mizrahi succeeded in creating a confrontation, not to say enmity, between the two. Watching the lengthy interview teaches us: just a friendly conversation between two people about Judaism and the United States.
3. Background music. The original conversation took place, of course, in a rather bare, shabby-looking room, with the participants sitting on simple chairs facing each other. The program shows books and other elements (which were apparently present), and against the background of Rabbi Mizrahi's supposedly "outrageous" remarks on the subject of modesty, there was frequent rhythmic music.
It's hard to notice this at first glance, but watching both videos raises the question: Why is Rabbi Mizrahi speaking against a soundtrack taken from action movies? What does this serve?
4. Background images. As above. Rabbi Mizrahi explains why the punishment for a woman who commits burglary is more severe than that of an animal, and disturbing images of cows in a barn appear on the screen. The image of the cows appears for a few seconds, but as anyone who has taken a course in social psychology knows, it is burned into the brain, and its ability to influence a person's judgment is decisive.
5. Breaking threshold of the moderator. After a few minutes of conversation, Levy releases the following statement: "His opinions mostly succeed in infuriating me and arguing with him is exhausting. It's impossible to withstand this flood of words of yours. If you continued for another 10 minutes, I would say, Rabbi Mizrahi, I believe in everything, just stop, just stop.".
Here too, Levi's announcement comes against a backdrop of sounds reminiscent of the Rambo and Delta Force movies. It seems that all that remains is to pity Levi, who simply asked to repent and received a 'flood' of clichés.
What really happened? After 80 minutes of conversation, in which Levy never stopped exhausting the man with atheist questions for beginners, repeating worn-out arguments over and over again - he announces: I'm tired.
Behind Levi's declaration, which, by the way, he continued to dig despite his "tiredness" for another 19 long minutes, stands one simple truth. The classic, ultra-Orthodox recanters, from Rabbi Neugerschel to Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, from Rabbi Zamir Cohen to Rabbi Mizrahi, speak with one voice that an atheist in the era of the liberal revolution is incapable of hearing.
Religious concepts, proofs of the truth of the Torah and the Creator, questions of reward and punishment, the place of God, private providence, and the status of women, move in a parallel line to that followed by the irreligious of the 21st century.
They cannot be convinced, because they do not accept the basic assumptions of the classical thinkers. The language, the terminology, the way of thinking are completely different, and the discourse is no less than the discourse of the deaf.
What's disturbing about watching the movies is that the director and main actor, Amnon Levy, is well aware of this, only he takes advantage of the rabbis and the viewers by selling them the illusion that the game is not addictive.
Should one approach him with complaints? Maybe not. Television is an illusion, and watching is a form of entertainment. But perhaps one could have expected Levi to omit the word 'investigation'.
Better yet, a play.
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