One of the most Jewish moments in cinema comes as Tom Waits, playing a prospector in a vignette in the film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, sees a bird in a nest from afar, so he climbs a tree and, in accordance with and clearly referencing Torah law from this week’s, shoos the mother bird from the nest. In cinematic and Jewish genius, the Coen Brothers have the prospector look up and notice the mother bird watching as he loads the eggs from the nest into his pouch. Seemingly aware of the Torah law, the prospector audibly grunts and, as he replaces two of the three eggs, asks himself, “How high can a bird count, anyway?”
In an instant, we see the full gamut of Judaism on display. The law of Torah: “You must shoo the mother bird when taking eggs from the nest,” the situational question of Talmud: “But what if the mother bird watches from afar?” And the rabbinic response: to take one egg and leave the other two.
These texts are intended to be lived texts, interpreted through the eyes of each generation, applied to the lived experiences of each generation. When we look at the world through the lens of Torah, we see a world that asks of us to be discerning in moral judgment, to be inquisitive about the way things are, and ask deeply: What could the world look like?