Diaspora 2.0

One of the great things about Judaism, is the direct connection. No middleman. No priest. No son. Just you and God.

And in a wireless world, a world with more and more ways for individuals to post their own self-identities, their inner souls and to create their own programming, having the means to broadcast one’s private id anytime and anyplace, has created another potentially transformative epoch for Judaism.

In the flat world, the Diaspora world, while Web 1.0 widened the sea, Web 2.0 has deepened it. More of us are constantly linked onto the Internet but we’re also now its producers, as well as its consumers. So while the experience has become richer and more far reaching, it’s also more complex.

Question: Is your synagogue wireless? Well, if everyone carries around the Internet in their pocket, does it really matter?

Recently, I was sitting around the Sunday morning kibitz table in the social hall, when I noticed a group of us were all pounding away on our laptops. We were helping each other through the tech jungle, connecting onto one wavelength, while altering the course of typical conversation on another. Amongst ourselves, in a wireless world, do Jews communicate more directly or less?

On another level, while wireless devices are verboten in the sanctuary, it occurred to me that the idea of wireless connectivity inside the sacred hall is implicit. The public, social/tribal aspect and the private/meditative dichotomy makes for the ultimate mirror of a social networking environment. After all, everyone’s in one room, but no one’s talking to each other. We’re all in our own little worlds. And supposedly we’re sending out some kind of frequency. Whether it’s being received by a transponder and reciprocal is another question. But as far as a collective human current, I’m wondering if it’s not that much different than the world technology is creating for our lives outside of shul.

Are we all just little wireless devices sending out a signal?

Ever so conformingly, I never thought I’d become one of themæ one of those guys with the Bluetooth in their ears.

Sure, I’d wear an ear phone with a wire while driving, but hardly anyone ever saw me (aside from my kids in the backseat.) Also, the wire would get all snarled and though I wore it with the best and safest of intentions, it was probably more dangerous trying to keep it untangled and straight.

So I went wireless and now my Blackberry talks to my Bluetooth. I’m a black & blue Jew, but better for it. I’m a convert now--true blue believer, and a much safer one too.

But like a lot of technology, it creeps in and stays attached and has become more like an added appendage. The little doodad is becoming more and more permanent. While wireless in theory, the connection to ones physical being may as well be soldered.

While many of us resist technology on one level, we can’t help but join the ranks of sci-fi Trekkies on another. With more and more people donning the earpieces, it’s like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Each day, another’s wearing one and then another. Soon we’ll all have ‘em.

Here in my town, while all of Baltimore is tuned into a show called The Wire, how many of us are wirelessly watching it on our iPods, Nanos and Apples of various colors, shapes and sizes?

Likewise and on one level, for Jews, we’re all sharing in the same experience. On another, we’re blending the received content with our own unique mix of media.

Profoundly, in many ways that’s what the Talmud is all about; the word of God but with a blend of voices.

Technologically, it’s a long way from where we were just a few years ago. We’re wired on coffee while wireless at the Starbucks watching The Wire.

Now that’s something to kibitz about.

Twisting TV Jews

January 25, 2008

Twisting TV Jews

Abe Novick
Special to the Jewish Times

You don’t have to be a writer these days to appreciate their value when it comes to good, honest television. And you don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate this month’s series on PBS, “Jewish Americans.”

Amidst a writers’ strike that made the Golden Globes spin to a near halt and brought a dearth of new programming, MPT’s reported ratings for “Jewish Americans” are as populous as a boat from the old country pulling into Ellis Island.

But while many Americans have sat around their TVs, watching the story of Jews arriving, struggling and succeeding in this country, many of us may be unaware of what Iran’s state television recently produced.

Countering PBS’ meticulous attention to history, in typical Bizarro World fashion, a show called “Zero Degree Turn,” about the fate of European Jewry, aired in Iran in 2007 and is now threatening to be marketed beyond. It was one of that country’s most expensive and elaborately produced programs ever.

Apparently it was a ratings hit. It told the story of a young Iranian who goes to Paris to study at university before World War II. He becomes involved with a young Jewish woman who fears the growing strength of the Nazis in Germany.

In a sympathetic twist, from a country with a knack for twisting truth, scenes actually showed men, women and children with yellow stars on their clothes forcibly taken out of their homes and loaded into trucks by Nazi soldiers. That’s a little strange coming from a country whose president has denied the Holocaust.

But while the series of 22 installments has already aired, its radioactive effect is still being picked up on blogs and in print, including in The Jerusalem Post just this month.

Not surprisingly, while it actually got some positive reviews for at least admitting the Holocaust took place, it was full of factual errors including propagating the lie that Zionists and Nazis collaborated to provoke Jewish emigration. This theme and an emphasis on the struggle between Zionism and Judaism is worked into the story line. While both are misrepresented, Zionism is positioned (as is often the case in the Arab world) on an equal plane with Nazism.

The director of the series, Hassan Fathi, said about it, “I decided to produce this series in 2002, and in those days the Holocaust was not an issue. Even if one single Jew is killed in German camps, the world should be ashamed. By the same token, if a single Palestinian dies, the world should be ashamed. I sympathize with the Jewish victims of World War II, to the same extent with women and children victims of the war in Palestine.”

Another erroneous problem, lest we forget, is that Zionism was around long before WWII and the Holocaust. To promote the canard that Israel was conceived due to the Holocaust, is to position the Arab world and in particular the Palestinians as the victim. It’s as if Arabs are being punished by having to live with Israel in the midst of their territory, even though they had nothing to do with what happened in Europe.

So as Jews in this country tune in and see their history retold with the effort of dedicated writers, teams of researchers armed with facts and with the aid of historic photos and footage, another side of the world dramatizes their warped story.

And by producing a show with some shades of truth, perhaps just enough to gain some class, some legitimacy, it will be taken seriously by ignorant viewers who’ll watch it as if it’s “Schindler’s List.” Because Ahmadinejad is such a clown, because his claims are so preposterous, perhaps they think a softer, glossy version is what’s needed to spur on a debate.

Lost Compass

When Mad Mel snapped his cinematic whip in The Passion, Jews cried out about the film’s depiction of their faith. In Gibson’s movie, Jews were distinctly made to look sinister, marked by centuries-old stereotypes including the requisite hooked schnoz.

While many Christians thought the work a thing of beauty, most Jews I knew found Jesus being whipped to carpaccio repulsive and hard to digest.

Cut to: A new holiday movie sparking its own controversy, causing the Catholic League to call for a boycott of The Golden Compass.

The problem they say is the first book in the trilogy on which the film is based, a children’s fantasy called His Dark Materials, is anti-Catholic and promotes atheism. They’re afraid kids’ll get hooked on the series and, like Harry Potter, will devour all the books which eventually reveal God to be a charlatan right before He’s killed.

While the act of deicide would offend most religions, Jews included, the CL’s particular problem is with the depiction of a sinister institution closely resembling the Catholic Church called “the Magisterium.”

On the other side of this argumentative sphere, atheists aren’t happy either, saying Hollywood has caved into pressures from Catholics and watered down the screen version of the book.

To lend further fictional perspective to this cultural maelstrom, the Compass story takes place in an alternate universe. If The Passion was an historical event and was of this world, it was seen through the lens of an Anti-Semite (Mel’s In Vino Veritas moment ended any debate) and got the praise of the Church. But while Compass is a work of fantasy with talking polar bears, it still’s got Church leaders hot under the collar. I’m no Einstein, but on the outrage meter, there needs to be some universal equilibrium between what’s historically inaccurate and what’s make-believe.

The narrative kicking up all the dust is about a 12 year-old girl who goes on an adventure with the help of a golden compass, (a sort of magical Nintendo DS) after she hears about an amazing substance called, well, Dust. When asked a question, the compass tells the truth. (I’m sure both sides in this fight wish they had one.)

What’s interesting about this latest row is, unlike other recent holiday fare of past years, from The Lord of The Rings to The Chronicles of Narnia, Compass’s two-sided controversy and the tension it personifies are indicative of the moment.

Atheism has been re-popularized in the culture with books out by Chris Hitchens, “God Is Not Great” and Richard Dawkins’, “The God Delusion” and a Presidential election with the GOP’s Mitt & Mike ascending the lead on a platform of piety, each claiming they’re more in sync with God.

While Nietzsche claimed God is dead years ago (I thought atheism was so last, last century), today’s Earthly battle has resurfaced due to the collision between east and west and the polarity between Islam and Judeo-Christianity. For Hitchens and other atheists they figure, if all the heavenly talk only leads to killing each other, each claiming they’re side’s the true north, why not do what Gershwin lyricized and let’s call the whole “God” thing off.

The problem is that that model’s only led to nihilism and an impoverished culture in need of something spiritually more meaningful. On the flip side, the divinely apocalyptic crusaders are unable to grasp scientific theory, still mad at Galileo’s heresy.

Like any good philosopher, while gazing at the screen version of The Golden Compass last week, I questioned its meaning and concluded the whole controversy as overblown, deciding both sides are in need of a real compass—one that doesn’t just point blame.

After all, it’s possible to be an atheist but adhere to religious ideals. In other words, atheists can and do have a moral north and God for them can often simply be defined as something that is “higher” to strive toward—something within and not outside of us.

Indeed, the fissure which Compass represents is indicative of a lack of global perspective over religion and a misguided culture that has lost its way, instead relying heavily on opposing extremes, with no center or equanimity.

Mailerstrom

It was a chilly fall evening on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John The Divine in Manhattan and I was passing out flyers for a New York premiere of a play I was acting in written by the newly elected President of Chekoslovakia, Vaclav Havel.

Inside the walls of the Cathedral was an evening of the who's who of New York, because the guest of honor was Mr. Havel. Accompanying him would be music performed by Paul Simon along with a line of celebrity limos wrapped around the architectural wonder.

As I approached the steps in my worn black leather jacket and unkempt artsy attire, the first person I happened upon, to hand an invite to, was none other than Norman Mailer. It was the early 1990s and already he was carefully hobbling down the steep incline.

Upon my greeting, he was at first gruff and somewhat dismissive, as if I were handing him a menu to a local deli. Then, realizing what I was offering, he softened and became interested in the play. Our conversation wasn’t very long and I told him about it hoping he could make it. He said he would try, but I knew he made his home in Provincetown and given the gait at which he was taking the steps, wasn’t hopeful about holding him a seat.

I say all of this because what was to follow on that night was an evening of paparazzi flashbulbs and swank movie stars shuttled in through the backdoor of the house of prayer. It was a night I was to remember because never before had I seen so many stars from various categories, musicians, actors, writers all strutting by with a swagger and style that was like something out of a dream. They truly glistened with a sheen as if Annie Liebowitz was spraying the air with her magic, airbrushed fairy dust.

At that youthful time in my life, there had been a few books that truly hit me and made an impact like no other. One in particular had as one of its themes, the celebritification of a killer seen through the dark lens of our media culture – The Executioner’s Song.

By coming out some ten years earlier, it pre-saged the cultish following our paparazzi obsessed civilization, would endow the media.

With Executioner, Mailer’s tender prose and simple styling was like looking into a clear western sunset. He allowed us to see and observe something that was normally impossible, prohibitive and off limits. It was a fire that was so powerful and dangerous, yet through him, one could feel Gary Gilmore’s breath.

Having drunk in that night, I remember how it tasted like nectar and how my ears were ringing at the alter of Simon’s guitar. People were aglow in that cavernous house of the spirit as vibes were being channeled, ricocheting off the stone walls.

Mailer had greeted me as I passed into a world beyond belief that night, just as he’d let so many readers into his amazing imagination.

His style of New Journalism had already blurred the line between fact and news and gave the latter half of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary events a perspective that was dangerous, anarchic and sublime from the moonwalk and Vietnam to political conventions to the CIA.

While many of his enchantments were disappointing, when he was on fire he crackled and lit up the page, taking us on a path through an underside of a world not normally seen.

His final literary descent bathed us in Hitler’s wicked gene pool, where readers came face to face with the devil himself. Mailer intended to continue The Castle In The Forest. So how fitting, how mythic of him not to return after descending the lower depths.

Now he’ll always remain for me standing at the gates of that castle, that cathedral, beckoning us to go within.

Coulter Clash

For the past few months there have been a number public and highly visible Anti-Semitic spectacles where the microphone has been handed over to a mean-spirited clown whereupon nonsensical rhetoric gets uttered followed by listeners scratching their heads wondering why the hate-mongers were ever given a platform in the first place.

To combat this warped reality, writers like me rant about them and end up giving them even more ink than they deserve. Yet, to ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, to turn away, is morally irresponsible.

Last month it was Ahmadinejad at Columbia. This month’s Coulterclash was between famed ad man and CNBC’s host of The Big Idea, Donny Deutsch and blonde Aryan fire-starter Ann Coulter. What it hopefully revealed once and for all (though I doubt it), is the deeply disturbing vitriol at the heart of the vapid harpy and bloviating bombshell. If you didn’t catch it, it went like this.

DEUTSCH: You said -- your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth.
COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is.
DEUTSCH: But that's what you said -- don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic --
COULTER: No!
DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that?
COULTER: That isn't hateful at all.
DEUTSCH: But that's even a scarier thought

There was a time when such comments would brand one a pariah and an outcast.
Remember Jimmy The Greek? No? Well, that’s because he was tossed out of the NFL ring of gab due to a comment he made back in 1988 (that and he’s been dead for ten years) about the superiority of African-American football players and how they were bred to produce strong offspring dating back to the Civil War. It’s a wonder Coulter isn’t treated the same.

Here’s what’s different. While Coulter is a joke, her ability to draw controversy for statements like the one on Deutsch’s show lands her more ink and ratings so that she becomes like one of those unstoppable monsters from a horror movie, she feeds off of the ammo aimed her way. She’s mastered the media’s own obsession with scream-fests hosted by loudmouths posing as talkshow hosts.

Brazenly, she manipulates this very boomerang effect by knowing the media will echo her words and image, hence giving her even more airtime. While playing into her trap is not the answer, to let her go unscathed is also not only completely unsatisfying, but it sends a signal that her style is acceptable.

I’m reminded of the Army-McCarthy Hearings when the army’s attorney, Joseph Welch says to the Senator, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Ironically, Coulter authored a book praising McCarthy, actually trying to exhume his rep called “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror.” In it she argues that the U.S. Senator was unfairly portrayed by the media and is the deceased person she admires the most. That right there should have given everyone a reason to disown her. But she’s still alive. She keeps on returning!

Finding the right antidote is usually contained within the virus. So take a page out of history and apply it to her.

One of her own, a leading, well respected conservative should have the decency to confront her. No one doubted Welch’s credentials.

Likewise, when Patrick Buchanan uttered extremist Anti-Semitic rhetoric some years back, it was George Will who concluded that Buchanan exhibits a “fascist sensibility”.

Where is the courage in the Conservative press and in the Republican Party?

When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman “call the next witness.” At that point, the gallery erupted in applause.

Likewise, Coulter needs to be laughed at, shamed off the airwaves.

Lady Madonna

The last time the Madonna was spotted in Jerusalem, time split with a line marking "Before" and "After." Now, splicing Hollywood and the Holy Land together last week, the modern mega pop icon was celebrating Rosh Hashanah with Israeli President Shimon Peres and declaring herself an "ambassador for Judaism."


OK, so this Madonna, unlike the other, is not Jewish. But she is real big on kabbalah, an esoteric corner of learning that like, a slice of Levi’s bread, is wide enough that you shouldn’t have to be Jewish to like it.

But because she’s not stamped kosher, she’s gotten a lot of flack for dipping into a plate of Jewish mysticism that for some is sacred and not just another New Age fad. In fact, rabbis have criticized both her and other celebs’ fascination with the subject, claiming only bona fide students can understand the mysteries. Pouring milk on their meat, she got them kvetching with her song, "Isaac," which they claim is about the 16th-century kabbalist Yitzhak Luria and which she says isn’t.

Say what you will, Madonna has got chutzpah and unlike her younger protégé, Britney, who can’t gain any respect these days, Madonna has remained a lasting figure. While consistently ticking off the religious community, from the time she set foot on the world’s stage, through "Like a Virgin" to recently presenting herself on the cross in concert, she has always danced at the edge of the borderline.

She’s stumbled without totally wiping out, consistently remaining in control of her brand, even while re- inventing it. Her dare has always been part of her act. That thin borderline today is known as the TMZ line and while strutting on it, she’s paradoxically created for herself an iconic status that aspires toward the spiritual.

TMZ, a popular Web site and now nationally syndicated half-hour show on Fox, puts the "oi" in tabloid. It’s the site that publicized Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade, Michael Richards’ onstage meltdown and an up-to-the-minute skinny on a chubby O.J. While more and more celebrities get engulfed in it and drown in the swamp of Hollywood, she’s a survivor.

That show’s host happens to be a Jewish boy, Harvey Levin, who covers the strange fascination we have with fantasyland. On the site he writes, "I know a lot about Hollywood, in no small part because I’ve lived here almost my whole life and I’m pretty much older than dirt." Interesting description, since he peddles it, too. Meanwhile, in the past decade overall production has increased to mud slide levels.

Since the Juice in the Bronco, how far off has mainstream news been from the same feeding trough? O.J. was when it all shifted and the polluted tributary became the contaminated river. You don’t have to read the tabloids to know Rosie’s wacko, Eminem’s a misogynist and Mel’s a psycho. Their stains are all part of the same washload now. Madonna just lifted the underwear out, wore them as outerwear, pranced on the catwalk and made them hip.

Along the way, she’s rocked the books. "The Guinness Book of Records" lists her as the most successful female recording artist ever; she holds the record for the top-grossing concert tour by a female artist and has an estimated net worth of $325 million.

Fame can be nasty, brutish and short. Like our people, she has lasted. And like us, with more branches than a burning bush, stretching in various directions all pointed up, she digs our eretz, recently claiming, "I wouldn’t say studying kabbalah for eight years goes under the category or falls under the category of being a fad or a trend."

While the material girl from Michigan has her feet planted in the mud, she’s also always reached for the stars.

Jewish Flare of New TV Shows

The new fall television season is filled with mysticism, from stories about angels and the power to bring back the dead with the touch of a hand to a time-traveling hero.

I first read about the upcoming season — which starts the week of Sept. 24 — back in May during what’s called "the upfronts," when networks unveil to advertisers their fall lineup. Picking up The New York Times’ advertising column, Stuart Elliott’s headline, I read "In a Time of High Anxiety, A Sedative of the Occult," and I wondered, "Is there something Jewish behind an upcoming season with such a banner?"

By extending my antennae a bit and reaching out, I picked up the signal from last year’s hit show "Heroes" about a group of people who "thought they were like everyone else ... until they realized they have incredible abilities," such as telepathy, time travel, flight and instantaneous regeneration.

It was then I realized that if Jews were responsible for the heyday of comic book superheroes, such as Superman and Captain America, was this latest crop of prime-time players an outgrowth of that same "hero" worship, and if so, then perhaps there is something Jewish rooted underneath this new season?

While television has long been a medium for science fiction, the genre has come in waves, and we are clearly heading to a different, more supernatural world.

Part of what’s allowing us to get there is technology. Long gone are the days when we were given a choice between "The Munsters" or "The Addams Family" on only three networks. From TiVo to On Demand, television has come light years. Add those forces to cable and satellite and the choices are, well, astronomical.

Out Of The Ordinary

It was cable TV that came out of the gate early this summer. While the networks were gearing up for the fall, it launched a number of new shows. One of them was "Saving Grace."

While the term grace is usually thought of in a Christian context, the word is actually derived from the Hebrew Bible as chesed. Though "Saving Chesed" doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, according to the show’s creator, "Saving Grace" is a show about a woman who talks to an angel.

Creator Nancy Miller explains that the angel, Earl, is non-denominational. "He speaks to Grace in the language she grew up in. Grace came from a Catholic family, so he speaks in the language that she would understand," Ms. Miller said. "As we go on, you’re going to find out that Earl is a last chance angel to a Jewish guy, and speaks from that culture to him. Later on, you’re going to find out that Earl is a last chance angel to someone who is Muslim. So he speaks that language to him."

In addition to the cable stations, the networks also are channeling the spiritual and confronting the eschatological.

On Monday nights, NBC will air a show called "Journeyman" about a San Francisco newspaper reporter who travels through time and gets reunited with his long-lost fiancé who died in a mysterious plane crash. Interestingly, in Zoharic and Lurianic Kabbalah, communing with the dead is an act called yichud, and is a ritual that Rabbi Isaac Luria, one of the most influential men in the history of Jewish mysticism who lived during the 16th century, often performed at the grave.

Also, on ABC this fall will be "Pushing Daisies," a show about Ned, a pie maker with a mysterious ability to make the dead live again. The gift is not without its complications, however; if he touches this being a second time, they’ll be dead permanently. If they live for more than 60 seconds, somebody else nearby will die.

While that may sound like a weirdly morbid game show, Ned actually resembles a shaman, again a concept not without Jewish roots. If it seems like a lot of hocus-pocus, according to Rabbi Gershon Winkler, author of several books on the subject of Jewish mysticism, "Shamanism and sorcery are not antithetical to the Hebrew Scriptures."

In his book "Magic of the Ordinary," Rabbi Winkler writes, "The notion of Jewish shamanism may seem like an oxymoron to a lot of people, but it happens to be an integral part of the Jewish tradition that has been suppressed for centuries."

While this may seem foreign to Jews of the 21st century, the reason is that it was associated with devils and demons and suppressed by the Catholic Church.

"Christians considered the Jew as the magician par excellence, a reputation that ultimately turned against them since, as practitioners of the occult, they were regarded by the church as demonic," according to Rabbi Winkler.

In another of his books, "Dybbuk: A Glimpse of the Supernatural in Jewish Tradition," he speaks to the issue of why now we see this trend toward the occult and a resurgence of interest in the supernatural. According to Rabbi Winkler, "A major factor behind modern man’s renewed flirtation with the occult is his quest for meaning in life."

He says: "Trapped, the human creature opts for the achievement of powers outside the realm of the natural world."

TV As Bible

In light of the events of the past six years, as 9/11 poked a hole between East and West, media analysts and television critics have noted the shifts in the wider cultural landscape and have remarked on its reflection through the medium of television.

David Zurawik, author of "The Jews of Prime Time" and television critic at The Sun, says, "The reason it’s happening now is the post-9/11 jitters. There’s this sense that in America we don’t know what’s going on. I think there’s a tremendous uncertainty in this country, a tremendous underlying anxiety. There hasn’t been this kind of anxiety since the Great Depression and World War II."

Interestingly, it was during that very time when the fantastic era of comic books was first created, and the comic book hero was born. I brought up the issue that was still unresolved for me with Mr. Zurawik, though, that 9/11 was six years ago. Why was this new metaphysical phenomenon taking shape on fall TV in 2007?

I then shared with him a book that describes the era we are living in, while depicting the period during the birth of the comic book. About halfway into Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," there’s a passage where things change. Mr. Chabon has one of the main characters, Joe, and the creator of "The Escapist" transform, from fighting the forces of the Iron Chain, in battles that were increasingly grotesque and ornate "grinding Adolf Hitler’s empire into paste," to creating a creature of the Other World.

Mr. Chabon has Joe create Luna Moth, "a creature of the night and of mystic regions where evil worked by means of spells and curses instead of bullets, torpedoes, or shells. Luna fought in the wonderworld against specters and demons."

I wondered aloud, "So as we’ve gone from television shows like ‘24’ and ‘Rescue Me’ to this new season filled with fantasy, are we seeing a similar kind of transformation take place, a tipping point — a metamorphosis?"

I ran this notion and the passage from Mr. Chabon’s book by Mr. Zurawik, and he agreed, summing up the point simply, "For a while, Osama bin Laden was real. Now, he’s a phantom we can’t catch."

That seemed to explain so much. He then added, picking up on the hero idea again, "There’s something otherworldly we have to try to attach ourselves to, for strength or purpose or for a reason to go on, so as not to be defeated."

He likened our time to the Cold War of the ‘50s, a time like today when we lived with anxiety and a threat that wasn’t fully manifested. The show that summed up the era for Mr. Zurawik was none other than "Superman," and the other was "The Lone Ranger," a variation on a theme but with a different genre — the Western. "Together," he said, "they combined the two great frontiers — the Space Age and the frontier."

A former colleague of Mr. Zurawik, Diane Winston, who is now a Knight chair in media and religion at the University of Southern California, lent an additional perspective.

"The popularity of Westerns in [the 1950s] spoke to the Cold War mentality of good guys/bad guys, and the Americans as heroes who were strong and tough and macho in a cowboy way," she said. "We had a more conventional view of religion than today, when we’re much more interested in spirituality."

I asked her about shows like "Heroes" that tap into that sense of both the hero and the otherworldly and have led to this new slew of fall shows that portray humans with extraordinary powers.

"Everyday, people find a new reason to be overwhelmed," Ms. Winston said, "whether it’s the bridge collapsing or talk about earthquakes in California. We live in what feels to be uncertain times, all with the backdrop of 9/11. These things give us a sense of our own mortality and vulnerability.

"When we look to be entertained, we want to be soothed and calmed, we want to see things that make us feel as if people can triumph over death. All these supernatural shows feature heroes who can control what’s going on. They speak to our deepest needs and fears."

I asked Ms. Winston if she sees these stories having deeper roots, mythical ones that go back to the Bible. Her immediate reply was, "I think television is the contemporary equivalent of the Bible. Not that television supersedes the Bible, but at a time when biblical language sounds foreign to us, we find similar stories of heroism, suffering, sacrifice on television, and they are like biblical morality stories."

Indeed, finding pop culture’s pulse in the Bible is, and has been, more prevalent than a lot of us think. For example, you may not think a show about a vampire has much to do with Judaism. But it does on a few levels.

CBS’s "Moonlight" will be about a city-dwelling vampire who attempts to resist his urge to kill and drink the blood of humans, but instead decides to help them. As it turns out, the earliest reference to a vampire is in the Bible. And, of course, one who tries to help people is practicing tikkun olam, repairing the world.

Helping to tie the thread together in these particular shows was something interesting that Rabbi Winkler told me. "There are many stories about the living dead in the Zohar," he said. "As for chesed, it is the ancient act of taking care of the dead. You’re not going to get a ‘thank-you’ from the dead. It’s altruistic, unconditional love."

Why all the interest now with such notions? "The obsession with the occult is a response trying to understand the great mystery of suffering of the innocent," he replied. " ... In our own time, every human being is thirsting for something beyond what is tangible, because everything is becoming too tangible, too instant, too accessible, and the soul is searching for mystery."

Scanning over the television landscape this fall, what’s coming in clearly and noticeably is we are tuning in a new frequency. It’s a channel that’s projecting our collective psyche with shows that are far from reality TV, but instead cable and the networks have aimed their satellite dishes toward a higher orbit, one that’s closer to God, steeped in spirituality and, in many ways, grounded in Judaism.

Abe Novick is a frequent contributor to the Baltimore Jewish Times.