From Abraham Belinski to Aryeh Deri - The slippery slope of Judaism

*Spoiler alert...(in case you haven't seen this 46-year-old movie yet...)

"So, cowboy. . .

. . .l am sending you to San Francisco.

-Where is San Francisco?

-By New York.

Get out. Quick."

In this, one of my all-time favourite movies.

A young good good-hearted Rabbinical school (Yeshiva) student Abraham Belinki (Gene Wilder) who finished 87 out of 88 students, gets sent to be the Rabbi for the new, growing congregation in San Francisco, with a world of adventures shared with a rough and rugged young cowboy, Tommy Lillard (Harrison Ford) who's paths crossed and later tightened as they travel accross north America coast to coast in a lovely exchange of life wisdoms - The one full of spiritual Jewish-wit, and the other with his down to earth 'gotta-bring-bread-home' kinda approach.

Today, this movie needs to be played fast forward to meet the inability to give a good joke; it needs time to broil, but even my kids watched it with me from start to end (and from end to start as Hebrew movies go) and seemed to enjoy it very much, regardless knowing that their Bar Mitzvah gifts are conditioned here.

So - lets jumpo into the spoiler shall we?

towards the end of the movie, as they reach the East Coast and swim, they happen to encounter a long-time nemesis who has been causing trouble from the start.

As the Rabbi is being held at gunpoint, the thug grabs his "Torah," which has been with Abraham all the way from Poland, as a gift for the new congregation, and tosses it into the fire.

At this point, Tommy shoots the bandit, and by firing, exposes his whereabouts, and is left without ammunition.

He calls out to Abraham to toss the freshly released pistol near him so he can save himself, and Abram goes for the Torah instead.

Later, realising his wrong decision, he decides to quit his job as a Rabbi, stating he is unfit to lead people with this kind of approach.

Well, I can't think of anything opposite than that, when I whitness the conduct of our criminal government nowadays, as Hostages are held underground (in tunnels slowly built under the current prime minister for the past 2 decades. How can it be that "negotiations" are still going on? First thing is first - those hostages were supposed to be out within a week!

And same goes for the government who refuses to be held responsible for it's actions leading to Oct' 7. 💔.

Or as Abraham belinsky (Mel Brooks, really) so werll explains this:

Then what the hell

are we talking about?

When those men were shooting

at you. . .

. . .l ran to save the Torah.

So? l understand that.

You're a man of God. l understand that.

l wasn't thinking about God.

l didn't do it because of God.

l don't know one thing about God.

l was thinking about a book.

l cared more for a book

than l did for my best friend.

l don't know if you can understand that.

l don't want to insult you. . .

. . .but do you understand what l mean?

l chose a piece of paper

instead of you.

the full script available here: https://www.scripts.com/script/the_frisco_kid_8624

And so the whole industry around this simple action is erected, the wrongdoers on one side and the dwellers on the other.

And me? I guess it is time to listen to those who barked, "If you don't like it here, go back to Europe," and heading straight (not forgetting to take a sharp left after the Indians), looking for some new adventures, back to where our ancestors fled just a little less than 100 years ago. Who would have thought

❤️‍🩹🌻💫