Avatar

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I just saw the James Cameron 3D film, "Avatar."

It was, for sure, one of the top three most entertaining films featuring blue humanoids (also, "Aladdin" and "Watchmen").

The film was a little subtle, but I THINK it may have been an allegorical interpretation of the Native Americans' slaughter at the hands of the European settlers in the United States, with a little bit of "oil-drilling in the Mid East" thrown in, and a criticism of humans' for destroying their natural resources, e.g., the rainforests.

Naah, I'm probably just reading into it. This was just another run-of-the-mill blue cat/people vs. mean ol' army people movie.

"Titanic" was about a big boat. So this couldn't help but be a little more layered.

I saw the film with a dozen rabbinical students, including my wife.
They all LOVED it. Not surprising, since Judaism and the film both emphasize ecology and nature!

And rabbis love blue cat/people-related forms of entertainment. Clearly.


Remember the first crucial plants in the Garden of Eden? The trees of knowledge and good and evil (Gen. 2:17)

"When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege."
-- (Deut. 20:19)

This just makes sense.


"The earth is the LORD's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein."
-- (Psalm 24:1)

In "Avatar" the Na'vi, the blue, cat/people who are natives of the fictional planet "Pandora," value their planet, literally connect with the ground and plants.
At one point, female native to Pandora leads the film's protagonist to a place of prayer, the "tree of voices," where they bond with the tree.

The climactic battle of the film takes place at the Tree of Souls, the most sacred place to the Na'vi that has the power to restore life to sick creatures. If the tree is destroyed, the Na'vi would be pretty much wiped out-- losing their connection with the planet and their ancestors. They believe the flora and fauna of the planet communicate with them, that the plants lives just as much as they do.


Rabbi Avraham Kook, First Chief Rabbi of Israel (and a vegetarian) taught that "everything that grows says something, every stone whispers some secret, all creation sings."
-- Aryeh Levin, Lahai Roi, as cited in Joseph Telushkin's "Jewish Wisdom"

"She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her."
--(Proverbs 3:18; and used to describe the Torah, recited at the end of Saturday morning Torah reading services in synagogues)



"Science is unable to keep up with our industrial society. We are destroying species faster than we can classify them. We are destroying the food chain faster than we can understand it.
-- Writer, director James Cameron, in UK newspaper "The Sun" (Dec. 11,2009)