In the age of the screen, the greatest revolution we can start is to once again elevate the book. Indeed, this is the very revolution we proclaim every time we raise the Torah scroll in the synagogue. This humble act challenges the technological age. It bravely declares that the screen cannot redeem itself, and that visual culture cannot be understood unless viewed through the eyes of scholars who have delved into the written word.
In fact, reconnecting to the sacred texts will enable us to return to visual media from a more rectified position. The sages say that “in the future, the princes of Judah will teach Torah publicly in the theaters and circuses of Rome.”
On the surface, this seems to mean that the Roman theaters will be converted into large study halls, and instead of performances, Torah lessons will be delivered there. But we can propose a bolder interpretation: that those same “princes of Judah” will perform plays and dramas in these theaters; plays and dramas whose content and spirit will emanate from the Torah and become part of it, to the point where they will be considered Torah study in every respect.
The idea that the Roman theaters will be converted to Jewish use aligns with the midrash that says that on the same day that Jeroboam the son of Nebat erected two golden calves as an alternative to the Temple in Jerusalem, Romulus and Remus built the first two huts of Rome. The Roman Empire—kingdom of external and forceful idolatrous images and mother of modern Western culture—drew its power, as it were, from the worship of the Jewish calf. Therefore, its rectification must come through the rectification of the sin of the golden calf within us—refining our imaginative faculty until we can produce sacred plays.
The modern incarnation of the ancient Roman theaters and circuses are today’s movie theaters (with regular movie theaters being the “circuses” that screen the more popular, commercial films, and arthouse cinemas being the “theaters” that screen more serious films). If worthy “princes of Judah” rise in our generation, they will be able to fulfill the prophecy of the sages, and under the inspiration of the Book of Books, create “films of films”—sacred films that teach Torah in a tangible, experiential way.
“And through the prophets I shall be imagined.” From proper, inspired words the faculty of imagination can be rectified and revealed anew. Now is the time to return to sacred words, to leaf through them, study them, compare them, and interpret them. Instead of being flooded by external images, we must rise above them, view them from the outside, and clarify them. When our psychic lifeblood is cleared and our imagination purified, images will once again flow from us like prophecy.
And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”
