September / october 2006:

613 Words: What the Mel?
An expert on anti-Semitism explains what we can learn from all the ‘Mel’odrama.

by Deborah Lipstadt



Editor's Note: With this issue, we begin a new series called “613 Words” (the figure corresponds to the number of commandments in the Bible) where we ask a prominent Jewish American to compose an essay in, you guessed it, 613 words.

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. With bombs raining down on Israel and with the war in Iraq on the verge of — if not already in — the state of a full scale civil war, Mel Gibson grabbed the headlines. His vicious anti-Semitic outburst towards a California Highway Patrol officer upon being arrested for drunk driving was front page news everywhere, not just on the tabloids or the 24-hour cable networks which thrive by grabbing their audience’s attention. Even NPR and The New York Times found the space to report on Gibson’s adventures.

But that is not the only thing I don’t understand about this episode. During the debate over The Passion of the Christ, Jewish leaders asked him to sit down with them so that they could sensitize him to the film’s potential for inculcating anti-Semitism. Despite their repeated requests, he refused to give them the time of day. Yet, within a few days of his arrest on drunk driving, he was practically imploring them to meet with him.

Most of all, I cannot fathom why Gibson is so angry with Jews. Truth be told, he should be profoundly grateful to them. The repeated calls by Jewish communal leaders that Gibson change his film in order to make it less overtly anti-Semitic accomplished nothing except to win for him something he could not buy: front page coverage in the press. Protests by the Jewish community turned a film which probably would have gone little noticed — last time I checked, films in Aramaic on religious themes were not blockbusters — into a mega hit. Jews’ complaints put 400 million dollars in his pocket.

Instead of ranting about how much he hates us — in vino veritas — he should have been thanking us. Maybe he assumed that if he nurtured his image as an anti-Semite we would help guarantee the success of his next film.

So then came the question of how to respond to Gibson. One rabbi — who may well have been inebriated when he did so — inexplicably rushed to invite Gibson to address his congregation on Yom Kippur. Maybe this rabbi figured Gibson could teach his congregation the meaning of teshuvah, repentance. I doubt, however, that this is the right setting.

In fact, maybe the Jewish concept of repentance can apply here. What is entailed, Maimonides asks, in true repentance? One must, first of all, correct the wrong one has committed. One must demonstrate contrition by publicly declaring one has sinned and personally apologizing to the person one has wronged. But how can Gibson right a wrong that has potentially stirred up other people’s anti-Semitism and inculcated prejudice? It is like trying to correct the impact of gossip.

How then, Maimonides further asks, do we know when someone has truly repented? When given the opportunity to do the wrong again, they turn away from the sin. They turn away, not because they are no longer in a position to get away with it, but because they know it is wrong. They demonstrate that they have changed.

Herein might be the answer for Gibson. Let this gifted filmmaker use his God-given talents — the source of his talents may be the one thing we agree upon — to expose the dangers of prejudice in general and anti-Semitism in particular. Instead of just meeting with Jewish leaders let him use his talents to demonstrate that he understands the power of hate speech. Let him make this a prime teaching moment.

As the season of repentance is upon us, let us hope that we all — for all of us are wrongdoers to one degree or another — emerge better and wiser for having confessed, shown contrition, and changed.


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