Beautiful Texts

2009-03-10T13:00:00.001-07:00

Shoot ’Em Ups Come of Age
‘World at War,’ a Video Game Showing Real Moral Consequences
Published in THE FORWARD (Feb. 25, 2009)
Editor: Dan Friedman

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in two words: virtual victory. Virtual victory at all costs — despite all terror: The Churchillian imperative is in full force throughout “Call of Duty: World at War,” but playing, in addition to being just plain fun, is also an incredibly visceral experience, especially for Jewish players.

Over and above their ease of use, story and visual appeal, video games can also become important cultural experiences when the creators make the world psychologically significant to the user. By making a World War II video game that is more realistic, and with more opportunities to make choices than any previous one, software developer Treyarch has created a game that can provide deep insights about violence, history and the Nazis’ significance as psychological demons. It is also qualitatively superior to other shoot-’em-ups, because of the elegant game-play and the surprisingly varied pacing of the complexly textured story.

Video games are instructive in a personal way that books are not, because whatever the limitations, the player makes the decisions: You navigate a character (your avatar), and that becomes your character. This process of identification removes your detachment from what is happening on the screen and scatters it into what is happening in your real life.

This is the fifth glittering installment of “Call of Duty.” It follows the extremely popular “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,” which pitted the player against Muslim and Russian Nationalists. In this installment, you fight in battles from the end of the war, such as Stalingrad, Peleliu and Seelow Heights. In the U.S. Army in the Pacific theater, you are Private Miller; when you are in the Soviet Red army, you are Private Dimitri Petreko.

The game culminates in a thrilling battle between the Red Army and the Nazis in the Reichstag. You fight all the way up to the famous bombed-out dome, then see the defeated German army from the roof and the city of Berlin in ruins. There is simply nothing in video games that compares to storming the Reichstag.

As a Jew, being involved in virtually ending World War II allows you to experience the closest thing possible to killing the sense of victimhood created by the Holocaust. And you do it without actually hurting any real people. In fact, it’s so satisfying that when you get to shoot down the golden eagle on the Reichstag, while sniping headshots at flame-throwing Nazis, you simply don’t want the war to end. This is weird, of course, because the war’s end is the ultimate goal of the game, as well as your desperately fought aim in real life.

The realistic portrayal of violence in video games is often decried. But those who would disparage these games for being too brutal would be those who would condemn them for not showing the realities of war. It is because of its violence that the game ushers in some of the feeling of the intensity of the battlefield.

“Call of Duty” is incredibly bloody. In earlier versions, the graphics were often comical, with grenaded Nazis flying through the air like hurled vacuum cleaners. But in this one, you can immediately see the stumps of blown-off limbs. I am pretty sure one of my bullets penetrated someone’s eye, because he immediately moved his hand up to his eye socket after I shot him. Bodies crumble instead of toppling. Corpses remain on the ground or slumped on tanks or hanging out of windows.

The nonviolent atmosphere is also very detailed. When you have your character look up, the sky looks different depending on the time of day; when he looks down, you sometimes see puddles. But you have to be careful when you do either, because if you marvel too long at Treyarch’s aesthetic achievement, you will get a bullet in the ear.

A real-world side-effect of playing too much “Call of Duty” is a particular form of overspill. Familiar to anyone who has played too much of an electronic game (I have behind me, as Churchill said, “many, many long months of struggle and suffering”), overspill is when you see the virtual world in your real world. Occasionally, walking down the street of Brooklyn’s Park Slope, I have looked at the roof of a particular brownstone, thinking I should be careful, because “that would be a great place for Panzershaft.” And while some might suggest that this phenomenon is proof that the game can encourage animus toward a contingent “enemy,” I can say only that in my case, this overspill was not accompanied by any hateful emotion. It only made my nannified neighborhood more exciting.

This is the first “Call of Duty” where one can play the campaign with other users online. Through your headsets, you can speak to each other and build camaraderie with your team, sharing the experience of the virtual war. You also can revisit the sites of the battles and play against other people. It’s like a virtual game of Capture the Flag. The computer assigns you a team, so you might even find yourself fighting on the side of the Wehrmacht, which feels uncomfortable but becomes an educational experience, like seeing “Das Boot.”

In my time spent playing the online version, and despite the M rating, I encountered more than a few children who sounded as if their parents still attached their mittens to their coats. The good thing about playing against kids, however, is that they tend to name themselves things like “justabanana.” So my Xbox would inform me, “You were killed by justabanana.” This sort of feels nice and makes you cheerfully disentangle yourself from the intensity of the game for a moment. But unwelcome reminders of the real world also spill in, like when you are virtually killed by an adult whose user identity is “Ihatejews666.”

For all the effort that the creators took to make the action convincing, there are serious shortcomings, especially to your freedom. This highlights the still limited state of video games more than it does the missteps of the games’ creators. Most notably, the story consistently pushes you onward to more battle, with barely any freedom to pursue alternatives to fighting. At one point, I found myself in a decimated Berlin library and tried to get one of the sympathetic minor characters, Chernov, also a writer, to go and look at the collection. But he just pointed his bayonet forward, telling me that we had to keep up with the troops. Another time, I did not want to leave Chernov behind to die alone after he experienced a vicious attack from a Nazi who jumped out from behind a pillar, so I tried to put him out of his agony with my rifle. But the game wouldn’t let me. After trying to pull the trigger, I had to move on and leave him. In addition to having to live with what virtual violent decisions I actually made, I would have to live with what I would have done.

Although “Call of Duty: World at War” goes to great lengths to show some of the complexity and tragedy of war, there are no bystanders in the game. No emaciated Jews or Japanese children running down the street in terror. The horrors of war are significantly underrepresented. Realism? Yes. But reality? No. The realism is an aesthetic in service of entertainment.

But, from time to time, the game stakes its claim to be taken seriously. You watch as two Germans, on their knees, crying “Bitte,” are executed by your comrades. Before you enter the U-Bahn, you, too, are asked by your commander to kill some surrendering Germans. If you refuse, someone else throws a Molotov cocktail at them anyway. Because you are in the midst of storming Berlin, you see how war can make one choose killing over capture — but it’s deliberately jarring. There isn’t a “Disarm and send on their way” button in the game, and it would be hard, I imagine, to press it in real life.

The surprising benefit of the game was that throughout my entire life, since sneaking into the synagogue library with David Yagobian and paging through a book of Nazi medical experiments, I have had nightmares about Nazis. Jewish summer camp didn’t help. In games like “Call of Duty,” you get unlimited lives; you keep playing the game until you are victorious. It’s a safe place. When your character dies, you may have to go back to a checkpoint, but this is simply inconvenient, never tragic or final. You will always have another chance to kill your demons.

One morning, I woke up extremely aware that I had just had a Nazi dream. No surprise, given that I wrote this review and played the game late into the night. But I was shocked that it did not scare me as it would have done in the past: The back of my neck was dry. The game had subconsciously flipped a switch. Although clearly there are still very real threats to Jews around the world, the feeling that Nazis were a threat to my existence was created by teachers and rabbis, rightly making sure that I knew my history. In truth, that specific anxiety was not real, but virtual. And I could vanquish it virtually, as well.

One of the tragedies of World War II, and war in general, is that it puts simple dichotomies, as opposed to realistic complexities, into our minds. Although on the face of it, “Call of Duty: World at War” rewards violent methods, its overwhelming gore and possibilities for playing the heartbreaking dilemmas of the other side, present the opportunity to put those methods into context.

Training ourselves with games like this can help us resist simplistic oppositions and the brutal desire for violent justice. Understanding the horrors of war through playing games that illustrate the complexities of violence may even help us resist the real thing.

2009-02-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

Maybe he just didn't know how to express his affection....

2009-02-09T19:48:00.000-08:00

2008-05-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

deganit,
here is another in progress....
ideas?

2008-05-07T20:45:00.001-07:00

this is the unfinished video of my playing with deganit's rehersal

2008-05-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

2008-04-29T05:23:00.000-07:00

The Bible with Zombies

Gen. 32:25-33

25 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a yellow-eyed fanged creature with him until the breaking of the day. 26 With sharp teeth arranged as wooly thistles and hands as strong as an ox leg, the creature tried to overcome Jacob and feast upon the flesh of his head, making him like himself. 27 But when the Zombie saw that he could not prevail not against his neck and face, he reached down to scoop his flesh for food, into the hollow of his thigh he dug his claws; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh bled upon the sand. 28 And they wrestled further both of them crying out into the night. 29 And when the sun began to peek over the horizon, the Zombie cried: 'Let me go, for the day breaketh.' And he said: 'I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. For your blessing will keep me safe from your kind. ' 30 And he said unto him: 'What is thy name?' And he said: 'Jacob.' 31 And he said: 'Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for thou hast striven with Zombies, and have prevailed.' 32 And Jacob asked him, and said: 'Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.' And he yelled in a bellow so loud that Jacob released him to cover his ears: 'Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?!' And he ran off to avoid the light. 33 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: 'for I may have been devoured, lest God not given me the strength to endure.' 34 And the sun rose upon him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped upon his thigh and over his own blood. 35 Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he gouged the hollow of Jacob's thigh, even into the sinew of the thigh-vein.

Rashi on Gen. 32:25-33

Gen. 32:25 And Jacob was left alone- Having sent his family over the river to protect them from the Zombies, he remained on the Eastern side to look for food.
Gen. 32:26 Making him one like himself- A Zombie.
Gen. 32: 27 He dug his claws- The reason scripture did not mention his claws earlier (Verse 26) but called them "hands" was because this kind of Zombie's claws only come out at will. His first purpose was to make Jacob a Zombie and for that he needed his hands to hold his head steady. Once he saw that he could not prevail, his knuckles split and his sharp nails appeared and he used them to root into Jacob for food.
Gen. 32: 28 Crying out into the night- Despite Jacob's wish to prevent his children and wives from being terrified, he too howled into the darkness at the pain.
Gen. 32:29 Let me go, for the day breaketh- The Zombie, knowing the urgency spoke Hebrew. For had Jacob not understood, he would have kept him in his clutches, worried that letting him go would free him to attach again. You should wonder about yourself if you thought that Jacob speaks Zombie.
Gen. 32:32 Tell me, I pray, thy name- to tell to other Zombies the source of his blessing. Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name ?! For it would be my shame for others to know that it was I that lost and gave you protection.
Gen. 32:33 The name of the place Peniel. Pen means "lest."
Gen. 32:34 Over his own blood -to cover it. This is its midrashic sense.

Rashbam on Gen. 32:25

Gen. 32:25 And Jacob was left alone- It is as Rashi said: knowing the risk of Zombies on the eastern side of the Jabbok, Jacob sent his family over the river to the West. However, his reasoning for why Jacob remained on the Eastern side alone surely cannot be correct, for how could it be that the food on one side of the Jabbok was so different than the other. Rather, Jacob knew that if the Zombies would smell the scent of humans and not find at least one on the Eastern bank that they would howl into the night rushing back and forth and terrifying his wife and family. (See: Jeremiah 49:3-- "Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai has been destroyed! Cry out, O daughters of Rabbah, Gird yourselves with sackcloth and lament, And rush back and forth inside the walls").
Gen. 32:34 And over his own blood- The Midrash states that Jacob limped over his own blood in order to cover it (Lev. 17:3) but this cannot be the case. For we know that a treif animal does not require covering. (See Chullin 86a). Over, here is used in its pshat as it "passed." Iyov similarly in "O earth, do not cover my blood may my cry never be made to rest" (Job. 16:18), used this expression because Jacob's uncovered blood testified to the pain that he suffered.

2008-04-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

2008-04-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Movements choreographed by Clare Tallon-Ruen

Dancers: Jeneca Onikoyi, Barbara DaSilva

Music: "Book of Right On" by Joanna Newsome
Videochoreographied by Micah Kelber

2008-03-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Original dance by Claire Tallon-Ruen

Dancers: Jeneca Onikoyi, Barbara DaSilva, Kathleen Provost and Adenike Agapo

Music "16 maybe less" by Iron and Wine with Calexico
Videochoreography by Micah Kelber

2008-03-04T18:00:00.000-08:00

Original Dance "Five" written by Clare Tallon-Ruen

Music written by Idan Reichel

Dancers: Clare Tallon-Ruen and Roni Hickerson
Videochoreographied by Micah Kelber

2007-12-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

איכה רבה (וילנא) פתיחתות ד"ה כד רבי יוחנן

וכיון שנשרף אמר הקב"ה שוב אין לי מושב בארץ אסלק שכינתי ממנה ואעלה למכוני הראשון, הה"ד (הושע ב') אלכה ואשובה אל מקומי עד אשר יאשמו ובקשו פני, באותה שעה היה הקב"ה בוכה ואומר אוי לי מה עשיתי השריתי שכינתי למטה בשביל ישראל, ועכשיו שחטאו חזרתי למקומי הראשון, ח"ו שהייתי שחוק לגוים ולעג לבריות, באותה שעה בא מטטרון ונפל על פניו, ואמר לפניו רבש"ע אני אבכה ואתה לא תבכה, אמר לו אם אין אתה מניח לי לבכות עכשיו אכנס למקום שאין לך רשות ליכנס ואבכה, שנאמר (ירמיה י"ג) ואם לא תשמעוה במסתרים תבכה נפשי מפני גוה וגו'

When it was burnt, the Holy One, blessed be He, said, ' I no longer have a dwelling-place in this land; I will withdraw My Shechinah from it and ascend to My former habitation; so it is written, I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their guilt, and seek My face’ (Hos. V, 15). At that time the Holy One, blessed be He, wept and said, ‘Woe is Me! What have I done? I caused My Shechinah to dwell below on earth for the sake of Israel; but now that they have sinned, I have returned to My former habitation. Heaven forfend that I become a laughter to the nations and a byword to human beings! ' At that time Metatron came, fell upon his face, and spake before the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Sovereign of the Universe, let me weep, but do Thou not weep.’ He replied to him, ' If thou lettest Me not weep now, I will repair to a place which thou hast not permission to enter, and will weep there,’ as it is said, But if ye will not hear it, My soul shall weep in secret for pride (Jer. XIII, 17)."

Source for this picture: http://www.othervoices.org/gpeaker/Passagenwerk.php

2007-06-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

On Speaking Kindly

Vayikra Rabbah 33:1 (Behar)

Rabban Gamaliel said to Tavi his servant: ' Go and get me good food from the market.’ He went and bought him tongue. He said to him: ‘Go and get me bad food from the market.’ He went and bought him tongue. Said he to him: ‘What is this? When I told you to get good food you bought me tongue, and when I told you to get bad food you also bought me tongue! ' He replied: ' Good comes from it and bad comes from it. When the tongue is good there is nothing better, and when it is bad there is nothing worse.’

Rabi made a feast for his disciples and placed before them tender tongues and hard tongues. They began selecting the tender ones, leaving the hard ones alone. Said he to them: Note what you are doing! As you select the tender and leave the hard, so let your tongues be tender to one another

Accordingly Moshe admonishes Israel by saying: AND IF THOU SELL AUGHT... YE SHALL NOT WRONG ONE ANOTHER. (i.e. Moshe encourages the Israelites to be careful with what they say to each other)

(Translation, based on Judaica classics)

2007-02-09T13:57:00.000-08:00

On Trying to Make the Bitter Sweet

Shemot Rabbah 43:3

The rabbis asked, "What does vayachal Moshe mean?" He made that which was bitter, sweet. Vayachal is language of sweetness. How is that? Rabbi Berechya in the name of R. Chiya bar Ada from Yafo in the name of R. Shmuel bar Nachman: when Israel came to Marah what is written there, (Shemot 15:23): "And when they came to Marah" Moshe began to criticize himself saying, "Why were these waters even created? What is their use in the world? It would have been better had they not been created." God knew what he was thinking in his heart, and so the Holy One Blessed be He said, "Don't say this, for are they not the work of my hand? Is there anything in the world that was created for no purpose? Rather, I will teach you what to say instead. Say this: Make the bitter, sweet." And from where do we know that the KBH said this? See what is written there: (Shemot 15:25) "Vayitzak Adonai v'yorayhu Adonai etz." And he cried to God . "Vayorayhu" tree. It is not written "vayAhrayhu," rather it is written "VayOrayhu." The language "VaYOrayhu" is the language of teaching, as it says (Mishlei 4:4) “God instructed me and said to me”—and it is written (Shemot 35:34) “and giving instructions, he put in his heart..”

So Moshe had learned something extremly profound, but he did not use it. And when did he use it? When Israel came to the desert and God wanted to destroy them, Moshe said to him, “Master of the universe, you wish to banish Israel, you want to destroy them from the world. But didn’t you teach me at Marah: that I should pray and say, ‘Make the bitter sweet.’ So now, sweeten the bitterness of Israel and heal them.” That is the meaning of Vayachal Moshe.

Why this text is beautiful: There is something wonderful about God insisting that even the things that seem to have no value in the world have value and that we shouldn't give up on anything. There is also something amazing about the way that Moshe is so upset about the waters-- and the way that the text says that "Moshe began to criticize himself" when the waters seemed bitter. It was as if he was giving up on himself and not just on the waters. God assures Moshe that everything would work out in the end.

And then, Moshe is able to remind God what God had taught him when God wanted to destroy the Israelites in the desert is just amazing. It says a lot about the truth of the goal of Judaism being to help make the world full of sweetness. And it says a lot about God that God would let his will be quieted by this reminder by Moshe.

Finally, it reminds us that trees should be used as a symbol that part of what we need to do in the world is find the good in everything, for it was a tree that Moshe threw into the water to make it drinkable for the Israelites.

2006-12-12T13:42:00.000-08:00

On Being Afraid of Hurting Others

Bereshit Rabbah 76:2

R. Yehudah said in the name of R. Ilai: Aren’t fear and being scared the same thing? (I feel “being scared” is the best translation for “vayezter lo” rather than something like “And he was anxious.”) Rather (they refer to two different things), “And he was afraid”-- referred to him being afraid that he would kill, and “he was scared” that he would be killed.

He said, “If he is stronger than I am, then he will kill me. And if I am stronger than him, I will kill him. That is why it says, “And he was afraid”-- that he would have to kill. And “he was scared” that he would be killed.

Footnote:

(The footnote seeks to explain why Mirkin has pointed it the way that he did—why point the first verb as yaharog “to kill” and the second as yayhareg “to be killed”? What is at stake is what gets the “me-od” which indicates that which Ya’akov was more afraid of—killing or being killed? From the manuscript that he is using, I assume there are no hints to guide him—both verbs are spelled yud hay reish gimel.)

Translation of the footnote: Aren’t fear and “being scared” the same thing? So why does it say “he was afraid” and “he was scared?” Rather there are two matters here. First he was worried that he would have to kill Esav. And second he was scared about himself that he would be killed. But wouldn’t it be more fitting to connect “and he was fearful” that he would be killed and “he was scared” to “that he would have to kill”? (implying that the me-od should be attached to his worry that he would be killed—the thing he should be more scared of) Rather, maybe this is the way of the thoughts of a hero who goes out to war, that at first he sees himself being able to kill his enemy, but then after, he sees the worry in his heart that maybe the opposite will happen to him.

And maybe R. Yehudah in the name of R. Ilai was seeing it as a pious person would as he was a righteous person as it says in “B”K 103a” “It once happened with a certain pious man… (and that righteous person was either R. Yehudah or R. Ilai)” (A righteous person would think : ) The killing of another is more difficult than killing oneself.

In defense of this intepretation the Mirkin cites the Albeck and Yalkut Shemoni. In the Theodore “And he was fearful that he would have to kill and he was scared that he would be killed.” (The J. Theodore and C. Albeck edition have an extra yud in the first verb “vayira she lo yAyhareg (spelled with two yuds)” implying that the second verb must be “yaharog.”) And in the Yalkut “And he was fearful that he would have to kill and he was scared that he would be killed.—(The second verb is spelled with a vuv, forcing it to be read vayaharog and the second verb must conversely be read yayhareg.)

(Mirkin then offers the parallel for “If he is stronger that me, he will kill me…” in the Theodore/Albeck.)

“If he is stronger that I am”—in the Theodore: “If he is stronger that I, will he not kill me?!, and if I am stronger that him, will not kill him?!,”( in the language of surprise). And see what is there (Ayen mah yesh).

(One question is: Doesn’t this last part undo the suggestion that the first statement referred to worrying that he would “have to kill” and the second that he would “be killed?” For it clearly states that his first thought is that Esav might be stronger than he is and he would be killed-- in both the Margulies and the Theodore.)

In fact, in the end, in the Theodore/Albeck, the ayen mah yesh is that it inverts the two so that he is very fearful that he will be killed and he is scared that he will kill.

But the Mirkin retains the suggestion that he is more afraid to kill than he is to be killed.

2006-12-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

On the Different Ways that God Acts with People

This is a text from the Tanna d'bei Eliahu 1:3. It begins by quoting Tehilim (Psalms) and then asks for the meaning of the quote:

Psalms 139:16 'Your eyes saw my unformed substance; and in your book all things were written...' What does this text mean? In the future the Kadosh Baruch Hu will sit in his big Beit Midrash and the righteous will sit before him. And he will say to them, "My sons, in this one's generation, this is how he did Torah and this is how I did righteousness with him. And this person-- this is how he did Torah and this is how I did righteousness with him. However, I do not remember his sins and they do not arise in my mind as it says, "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.," and it says "The former things shall not be remembered."

In order to understand how the drash insists that as opposed to good things that are recorded in God's book, their sins are not recorded by God, one has to look at the two pasukim in Isaiah. The first one says that God will not remember the "rishonot" or "former things." But how do we know that the former things are the sins and not the good things that people do? Because in Isaiah 65:17, it is mentioned again that the former things will not be remembered-- and it is clear by looking at the pasuk before that the former things are bad things-- it is "former troubles" that are forgotten.

See here:

Isaiah 65:16. So that he who blesses himself in the earth shall bless himself by the God of truth; and he who swears in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hidden from my eyes.
17. For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.

Therefore, what the Pasuk in Tehillim means is that the things that God records in his book are only the good things. The two psukim brought at the end of this text assure the reader that while the good is remembered, the bad is forgotten.

Why this text is beautiful: Because it stresses God's forgiving nature. Because the image of God sitting around the table with those who have acted dutifully is a wonderful image. Because it affirms that Torah in different eras is done differently and that it is the goal of people to reactivate Torah in their times.