I never got tribal stuff until I got into Orthodox Judaism.<\/p>\n
Living in the frum world, I understand what it means to belong to a counter-culture, to a group with an unpopular way of looking at important matters such as law.<\/p>\n
Now I have more empathy when I try to relate to such folks as the Aboriginees, who play a prominent role in this Peter Weir film<\/a>.<\/p>\n Forty three minutes in, I found a Jewish angle:<\/p>\n Charlie, the Aboriginal medicine man, says through an interpreter (Chris): "We’re nothing but the Law. We learn from our forefathers."<\/p>\n Attorney David Burton (protagonist): "But surely men are more important than laws."<\/p>\n Interpreter (Chris): "No. The Law is more important than just man."<\/p>\n Peter Weir says in a 2001 interview: "Nandjiwarra [Amagula<\/a> who plays Charlie], a tribal elder, came from Groot Island. You couldn’t get a more remote spot in the north of Australia."<\/p>\n "I said to him, ‘Is there anything in the script that you don’t want or don’t like?’ He said, ‘Just one thing. I want to make the point that the Law is more important than the man. …For us and for our culture.’<\/p>\n "I put that line in… It gave me something so rich and so against our culture. That we should change laws obviously that are not serving us. Here was a collision with another culture where the reverse was true."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I never got tribal stuff until I got into Orthodox Judaism. Living in the frum world, I understand what it means to belong to a counter-culture, to a group with an unpopular way of looking at important matters such as … Continue reading