Jew of the Week: Michael Bay

Hollywood Blockbuster

Michael Benjamin Bay (b. 1965) was born in Los Angeles and adopted by Jewish parents. A big lover of dogs, he donated his bar mitzvah gifts to an animal shelter. As a child, he once rigged a toy train with fireworks and recorded the explosion with an old camera. Although it caused a fire and got him grounded, Bay knew he was destined to make big blockbuster movies. At 15, he got a menial job filing storyboards for George Lucas on his production of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He went on to major in film studies and English, and did graduate work at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. Two weeks after graduating, he got a job to film commercials. His first breakthrough was a popular ad for Coca-Cola, followed by an ad for the Red Cross in 1992. His 1993 “Got Milk?” ad won an award for Commercial of the Year. Meanwhile, Bay directed a number of hit music videos. This caught the attention of Hollywood producer (and former Jew of the Week) Jerry Bruckheimer, who hired him to direct Bad Boys. This was Bay’s first feature film and was a massive success, making $141 million in the summer of 1995 alone (against a budget of just $19 million). The movie thrust both Bay and Will Smith to international fame. His next film, The Rock, was another huge hit, as was the following Armageddon with Bruce Willis, the highest-grossing movie of 1998 and nominated for four Oscars. Bay also got four Oscar nominations for Pearl Harbor. In 2007, Bay teamed up with Steven Spielberg to make Transformers, another huge blockbuster that launched an entire film franchise. In 2018, he directed 6 Underground, then Netflix Studio’s largest-ever production. Bay has recently ventured into augmented and virtual reality games and films. While some have criticized his movies for being too childish, outlandish, and explosive, others have praised his artistry, ambition, and vision. Altogether, his films have raked in over $7 billion, putting him in the top-5 highest grossing directors of all time.

The Intersection of Science and Mysticism

Words of the Week

We must no longer isolate ourselves from the great scientific movement that stirs souls in so many ways; [Judaism] can remain orthodox only by becoming scientific.
– Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh (1823-1900)

Jew of the Week: Sarmad

The Persian Jew Who Inspired India

18th century illustration of Dara Shikoh (right) learning with Sarmad

Sa’id Sarmad Kashani (c. 1590-1661) was born in Armenia to a religious Persian-Jewish family of merchants. At a young age, he translated the Torah into Farsi. He later took up studies under Muslim scholars and mystics like Mulla Sadra and Mir Findiriski. Some believe he nominally converted to Islam at this time, but remained a practicing Jew. On one merchant trip to Mughal India, Sarmad met a Hindu scholar called Abhay Chand. The two learned about each other’s faiths, and it is believed Chand converted to Judaism. Sarmad eventually gave up his wealth and became an ascetic wandering mystic. He and Chand traveled and taught together all across India, eventually settling in Delhi. Sarmad made a great name for himself as a poet and philosopher. Over 300 of his short poems have survived to this day. He also wrote the entry for “Judaism” in the 17th-century Dabistan, an anthology explaining all of the world’s religions. The Mughal crown prince Dara Shikoh (whose father built the Taj Mahal) was so impressed by Sarmad’s wisdom that he became a disciple, too. Sarmad went on to devise a new mystical system, drawing on Judaism, Sufi Islam, and Hinduism. Countless followers and disciples across India learned from him. However, when Dara Shikoh was deposed by his brother, the new Mughal emperor executed Shikoh and all of his associates, including Sarmad. The emperor demanded that Sarmad recite the Shahadah (proclaiming “there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet”), but Sarmad refused and was beheaded. According to legend, Sarmad then picked up his own head and walked away—and the new emperor never had a peaceful night’s sleep ever again! Sarmad’s tomb became a popular pilgrimage site and is still revered as a holy place in India today. His story inspired numerous Indian leaders, including Abul Kalam Azad, a colleague of Gandhi (and his predecessor as president of the Indian National Congress). Azad once described himself as a modern-day Sarmad. Scholars see “Sarmad the Jew” as a key figure in the history of religions; a mystic that influenced the development of Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism; as well as an early pioneer of interfaith dialogue.

Passover Begins Monday Night – Chag Sameach!

Those We Are Still Missing

Secrets of the Ten Plagues & the Passover Seder

Words of the Week

In the chronicles of world history, no question has managed to capture the world’s interest for very long; a few decades seems to be the outer limit for consideration of even the most pressing global problems. But the world has been busy trying to figure out the question of the Jews for thousands of years – and they have not tired of the discussion! In every generation, the old questions arise anew: Are the Jews good or bad? Do the Jews bring benefit to the world or do they cause problems? Why, it is as if we have just appeared on the scene – as if the world has never before known what a Jew looks like!
– Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz (1875-1936)

Jew of the Week: Daniel Kahneman

In Memory of a Nobel Prize-Winning Researcher

Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024) was born in Tel-Aviv to Lithuanian Jews who made aliyah from France. His uncle, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, was the head of the famed Ponevezh Yeshiva. Kahneman spent much of his youth in Paris—including during the Holocaust years under the Vichy regime—before returning to Israel in 1948. He studied psychology and mathematics at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, and later became a psychologist for the IDF, where he developed the standard recruitment interview. Kahneman then moved to the United States to study at UC Berkeley, and earned a Ph.D in psychology in 1961. He returned to Jerusalem to teach at Hebrew University, and was also a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and at Harvard. He researched a variety of fascinating subjects in cognitive psychology, including attention, judgement, memory, biases, happiness, and decision-making. His key conclusion was that people are actually not rational decision-makers, and tend to make counterproductive choices based on biases and preconceived notions. His classic 1998 paper on the “focusing illusion” demonstrates how people tend to overestimate a single factor when predicting happiness. For instance, although studies showed that people across America had relatively the same levels of happiness, people would believe Californians are happier because they overestimated the effects of nice weather. Kahneman is perhaps most famous for his work in integrating psychology with economics, or “behavioural economics”, earning him the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics. Over the course of his career, Kahneman also taught at Princeton, UC Berkeley, and the University of British Columbia. He wrote several bestselling books and was awarded numerous prizes and honorary degrees. Sadly, Kahneman passed away last week. He has been hailed as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.

Words of the Week

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
– Marie Curie

From the Archives: In Memory of Joe Liberman