“If you’re an author or Ph.D. candidate who had the foresight to propose a book on the philosophy of ‘Avatar’ before the film was even released in theaters, the past week (and the blogosphere) has been very, very good to you.” — Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times, December 22, 2009
Well, good for me, then — I’m both an author and a doctoral candidate whose new book, “Everything Is God,” is indeed about the philosophy of the smash movie “Avatar.” That philosophy is a bit of pantheism, a bit of nature mysticism and a surprising dash of monotheism, as well. In other words, it’s Kabbalah, as filtered through the Hasidism of the 19th century and the neo-Hasidism of the 20th and 21st.
“Avatar” tells the story of Pandora — the world of the Na’vi — threatened by human ore mining. Where “Avatar” departs from classical Kabbalah and Hasidism is in its environmentalism (a feature heightened by the film’s release alongside the Copenhagen climate change talks and the season of Tu B’Shvat, the “new year of the trees”). Classical Kabbalah and Hasidism do not speak in “Avatar’s” environmental terms, because “environmentalism” would have made no sense to people living before the Industrial Revolution. Do we, today, care about whether it’s a mitzvah to preserve the planet Mars? Of course not — because we do not have the capacity to destroy it. Likewise, Jews before industrialization had no concept of a global environmentalism. They strictly regulated what they did know, such as pollution, waste and cruelty to animals, but they simply had no concept of environmentalism, because they had no concept of its opposite.
Yet perhaps the connections between mysticism and environmentalism are not so distant, after all. Let’s take a look.
First, “Avatar’s” deep ecology is interwoven with its pantheistic, quasi-kabbalistic notion of a “web of life.” Indeed, the latter necessitates the former: it’s impossible to believe that all life is deeply connected, and yet not be troubled when the sinews of that connection are frayed and destroyed. To be sure, this spiritual view of environmentalism is not the only reason to care about preserving the earth. Pure self-interest is another: If we would prefer to be able to grow grain in the Midwest and live on islands, stopping climate change is in our own best interest. Straight-up monotheism is yet another reason: If we regard the earth as God’s handiwork, surely it is a hillul haShem, a profanation of the holy Name, to treat it like some kind of vast disposable diaper.
But if we think of God not as some old man in the sky, but rather as “a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things/and runs through all things” (Wordsworth), then the cry for environmental balance is even stronger. The nondualistic reading of “all the trees of the forest sing for joy” (Psalm 96:22) is that the trees’ song is the Divine song, singing through the trees just as it does through our own poetry, lovemaking and pursuit of justice. And to pave over the trees for no reason other than the aggrandizement of the yetzer hara, the selfish inclination, is a diminution in the Divine voice.
Opponents of environmentalism will sometimes disparage such religious ideas as “pagan.” Yet, particularly in theosophical Kabbalah, such “pagan” ideas are placed at the center of Jewish religious consciousness. The Shechinah, for example, is understood as a feminine aspect of the Divine latent in creation and awaiting unification (yichud) with the transcendent God. This view doesn’t see God up there and dirt down here; it sees that part of God is there and part of God is here, and it’s our job to bring the two together.
A second convergence between “Avatar” and Jewish mysticism is the controversial point that while individual actions are important and individual responsibility remains a value, the communal matters more: the overall health of the system, the shared justice of a society. Neither on Pandora nor on Earth will any amount of recycling of water bottles compensate for a systemic, societal pattern of consumption and waste that threatens the ecological balance of the planet. And no amount of utopian community building can stop the bulldozers.
I may get into trouble with some of my environmentalist friends here, but I’d like to suggest that in this respect, a huge portion of contemporary Jewish environmentalism is profoundly counterproductive, because it is overly individualistic. We have been accustomed to reading about “10 things you can do to save the planet,” to using energy-efficient light bulbs and to thinking about eating sustainable foods. But the effects of such actions are insignificant compared with those of collective actions, like how utility plants are powered, how office buildings are insulated or how societies collectively change the fuels they use for transportation. What matters most are deep structures and collective actions. How you vote is more important than how you recycle.
Worse, individualistic environmentalism presents infinite obligations, which may dispirit and demoralize us from addressing what really matters. At the Limmud conference in England this winter, for example, someone gave a session asking whether Jews should continue to go to Israel because of the carbon footprint associated with flying. With all due respect to the presenter, even to ask such a question is counterproductive. First, whatever incremental amount one person adds to the carbon footprint of the aviation industry, it is dwarfed by multiple orders of magnitude by the efficiency of jet engines, the types of jet fuel that airlines use and the way airlines plan their routes. It’s a mistake to think that what matters eco-spiritually is whether one person flies or doesn’t; what matters is how an industry is organized. Second, to suggest that environmental consciousness means that Jews shouldn’t fly to the Holy Land will simply cause many Jews to abandon environmentalism, because the cost is too high. Let’s worry about business travelers who globe trot for profit first, religious pilgrims to holy lands second. Hyper-individualist views such as this are quite common. They are not, however, merely erroneous; they are harmful.
Unfortunately, collective and systemic change is much more difficult than individual acts of eco-responsibility. It is also, necessarily, political. But if we as a species can’t get the United States, China, India and Russia to cut carbon emissions from industry and major utilities, whether you bike to work or not really doesn’t matter.
Some environmentalists say that our situation is like that of neighbors after a snowstorm: Each of us is responsible for shoveling only our part of the sidewalk. But the analogy is a false one, because sidewalks are not the problem; roads and highways are. And there we have shared responsibility.
Of course, there are both individualistic and communitarian strands within Jewish ethics. Jewish law is, to an extent, Kantian; we are each required to act ethically, regardless of the consequences and contexts of our acts. Your personal carbon footprint may not matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is your ethical duty to minimize it, just as you ought not steal even if everyone else does.
But there is also the communitarian strain, which sees us not only as individuals, but also as a people with collective responsibility. This doesn’t mean we have to police one another because of a shared destiny — although Kabbalah and ecology both support such a view. Rather, it means that we must take responsibility for more than our patch of the sidewalk and, like the many species of “Avatar,” band together to take collective action to stop our age’s bulldozers from leveling our forests and meadows. We are one interconnected entity, and while individual actions may make you feel good, they might be distracting you from the deep structures that must change in order for the planet’s current ecology to survive.
At first blush, “Avatar” may look like a beautifully rendered bit of Hollywood fluff, with risible clichés of enlightened natives fighting off dastardly industrialists. To be sure, it does paint with a broad brush. But spiritually and practically, it is also a challenge to question what we think we know about theology, ethics and contemporary values — especially in a new year that may not be such a happy one for the trees.
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Another paradox is the inconsistency between the movie's anti-imperialistic, luddite message and the amount of money it cost to produce it plus its use of the latest, expensive technology to create the visual effects. Let me also mention here the amount of the pure capitalist profit it is reaping as we speak...
And yet, sings the zaddik Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack in everything / that's how the light gets in...."
Check out "Contemplative Ecology" in the forthcoming March 2010 issue of Journal of Chinese Philosophy. Happy New Year.
Kudos for seeing Avatar as an exposition beyond the naive, ostensible, conclusions drawn regarding a vogue championing of "global warming" and other environmentalist efforts.
Not to say that a strong call for raised environmental awareness is not present, the movie nonetheless communicates much more...
I have my own theories, and concepts I wish to pursue and elucidate in writing which do not solely pertain to theistic doctrine; I hope to venture and illuminate purely philosophical thought in correlation to this epic.
Nonetheless, supra-natural forces and entities/deities are irrefutably present, and these are elements which I likewise seek to cover. And further, I thank you for you perspicacious insight regarding this most immediate matter.
To Allie: One must remember that James Cameron is an artist. This is his masterpiece. It is a work of genius which he patiently held secret until the tools were available for his vision to be properly represented. It is paradoxical that he is rewarded by that which he condemns, but it is a matter of which he has no control and rest assured, the true reward lies within the impact the film will have on the movie industry and the enchanting affects upon all its viewers.
but similar to the above new-age kabbalah movements, there is the problematic of the romanticization of the "nature" idea, which is posed oppositionally against "culture." this binary is in dire need of deconstruction, as a (post)modern theology cannot be built on such naive pantheism. i am not against pantheism, mind you, but i am for a more radical one than the sweet and lilting one depicted in "avatar." Namely, the G?d of Nature is only connected to items of beauty and connection. When death occurs in this realm, it is soft, peaceful. A more radical pantheism has room for the violent, for the alienated. For if G?d is truly All, then G?d must include these less savory elements as well. The G?d of All is the G?d of Culture as well as Nature.
Does not Avatar compound the original sin of Adam and Eve by thwarting the commandment of Hashem? Remember Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden least they partake of the Tree of Life and become immortal. In Avatar Jake leaves his paraplegic human body and has his spirit permanently enter a Na'avi body. Thus he has achieved immortality i.e. he no longer dies with his body.
Also by abandoning his human body is Jake not committing suicide which is prohibited by halacha?
To comment about individual acts of eco-responsibility:
It might not make much difference if you bike to work or not. However, food production from animals is responsible for about 1/3 of global carbon emissions. We all hold the power to make a difference. So perhaps "10 things you can do to save the planet" could currently be reduced to one imperative; Go vegan.
To Guy Burneko: The zaddik Leonard Cohen borrowed that oft-quoted line from the goy Ralph Waldo Emerson.
At the risk of repeating Invisible Hand, if the trees are part of God, isn't the bulldozer equally part of God? A truly consistent pantheism (not that I am advocating such a thing) can't really take sides between the two.
Michaelson = superstition, miracles, mythical, magical, irrational, illogical, fairyland. Don't you have anything better to do with your time and this magazine with its space than to promote this childish unschooled illiterate nonsense.
Must we always look for a Jewish connection in everything popular? We Jews are not the center of the Universe. We share it with many others. Yes the Forward is a Jewish paper but sometimes it tries a little too hard.
Must we always look for a Jewish connection in everything popular? We Jews are not the center of the Universe. We share it with many others. Yes the Forward is a Jewish paper but sometimes it tries a little too hard.
I doubt Cameron knows much about the pop Kaballah fad that seems to permeate so much of modern Jewish 'thinking'
We as Jews are enjoined NOT to depend on miracles--all the more reason to work in THIS world as a PEOPLE to restore THIS world. Avatar is a lesson--a story to lead us to COMMUNAL responsibility for our life in this world.
I saw this movie as the same old paternalistic rescue mission. Dumb White guy saves the natives who despite their supposed connection with their planet need this moron to help them. And I am a Yeshiva graduate who received the highest Talmud scores in her class which really pissed the boys off.
I see the movie as a beautiful painting-turn down the sound and enjoy it.
Each person on this planet using less resources, while the total number of people increases, only delays the end-game. Educated populations have less children, but the technological advances created by this segment (hygene, inexpensive food production, urban infrastructure) allow the less educated masses to expand. Natural geologic certainties (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc) become ever more devastating, as total consumption likewise grows and crowds out the natural world.
Whether one believes that it is halchic duty to be "fruitful and multiply", or our inate biological imperative, that drives our collective expansion, only a distastefully enforced fascist directive (e.g., one-child per family) can save us from ourselves.
Or am I missing an alternative?
Avatar is the story of the Ani-shin-abe .... (Ojibwe/Chipewa) original people - or as translated from the Hebrew letters. "I AM (of the ) cosmic fire (of the) Father"
My next book....
http://www.Twitter.com/offgrid
A couple of points I thought were interesting, one, that Avatar expresses the idea of the religious experience when the hero becomes conflicted with which world he sees as the real world. The one he came from or the one he became involved with. Second, another similarity is how the Avatar's prayed to a diety of nature as we also express prayer to be effective within nature we pray to G-d who is nature and must communicate to us in our naturual world but who is also beyond nature, which we must understand. Third and lastly, the idea we are but vessles, us, our food, other life forms. Although not explicitly addressed in prayers before and after eating we do understand our temporal lives and the temporal lives of living things that their bodies are vessels who's spirit returns to G-d and while here is purposeful. Fourthly is the similarity of how we both are connected to our worlds. The Avatar connects to his/her world naturaly and we connect through the internet and media. Our endeavor to be 'connected' is a common motif. Judaism asks us to put that connection on Hold on Holidays and Shabbat to break away from the world and concentrate on our immediate tangable world. We are asked to communicate with who's there in front of us, our families, communities and guests. Through those connections we experience the Real more profoundly but these 'real' mediums challenge us to look into ourselves, our community and so on to find G-d, that which is beyond the immediate. There are more similarities but I think Cameron wanted to incorporate the best of many religious motifs in this cinematic experience. The blue Avatar and the Hindu Krishna, the lengthy braded pony tail of the Chinese monks, the tribalism of which all cultures come from. The big difference between the Avatar world and Human world is that they were stark differences in living conditions, natural vs the polity. Judaism is meant to integrate the two by involving our selves in the world with the world and withdrawing from it.
Good effects but you are over analyzing. Its really just a remake of "Dancing with Wolves" but this time on Uranus.
Jay Michaelson presents an interesting position. However, it leaves me confused. I thought when the hebrews were invading lands in Exodus, they were instructed to kill the humans but save the trees and animals. I am not suggesting that this is an environmentalist position as much as it demonstrates that they were thinking about the impact of war on the environment and its resources. Just a thought.
Yes, my family uses energy-efficient lightbulbs, and we try to decrease our carbon footprint in other ways. However, like Jay Michaelson, I have long been bothered by "individualistic environmentalism." I would add that reducing one's individual carbon footprint is often a middle-class -- or even an upper-middle-class -- luxury. If you and your family are barely making it financially, if you can't afford a sitter to enable your sick child to safely stay home from school, you're not going to buy locally grown organic produce and you're not going to consider the environment when buying that cheap used car you need to get to your low-paying job. I thoroughly agree with Jay's emphasis on systemic changes.
I'm what you call an orthodox Jew, but I agree with the Vatican film reviewer on this one. He describes Avatar as "a fashionable pantheism in which creator and creation are mixed up".
Yesterday, in my new semester college sociology class, as professor, I thought we could discuss why we need societies, and the problems of when societies fall into disarray, as in Haiti following this natural disaster. The article I had found in the New York Times and copied for them to read, points out that people's newer accomodation of sharing food, versus the earlier response of battling each other for food was bringing about structure and awareness of others.
Somehow, John Donne's words, "...no man is an island," came to mind and I spoke a few of lines I could recall from memory. The students were silent, enthralled, and apparently had never heard this before - not just Donne's words, but the whole idea of a society and our interdependence upon each other. Now I may see Avatar after all.
It's really astonishing that no one here has mentioned the Palestinians.
The notion that the blue smurfs were Jews, is ludicrous. The Palestinians had their land stolen, and were exiled - BY JEWS!
Zionism is the Americans in the movies. The Palestinians were the people of the land.
It's disgusting how you people focus on Darfur or Haiti when you're still stealing from the Palestinians, who exist right in front of you.