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<\/a><\/p>\n“The Odyssey” is advertised in the Lev Tel Aviv movie theater in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square, July 24, 2026. (Theia Chatelle)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The movie version is epic in scope, with magnificent cinematography and visual effects, and exceptional performances by an ensemble cast. And, like its source material, it tells a story of universally relevant themes: homecoming, forbearance, fate. This is why the story of Odysseus\u2019 journey back to those he loves has inspired fascination and homage from the likes of James Joyce, the Coen brothers and now Nolan. It is also why there was a time (if recent archeological investigations into an ancient Ithacan shrine are accurate) that the king of Ithaca was not only admired as a hero but also worshipped as a God.<\/p>\n
I thought a lot about that ruined shrine a few days ago, as I watched Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus in the new adaptation, swing his sword and string his bow from my seat inside a darkened theater in Tel Aviv, Hebrew subtitles flashing across the screen. And as the movie went on, even as I found myself enthralled by the unfolding story, I became increasingly aware of a dual narrative. There we sat, my wife, my children and I, watching a story about a homecoming while experiencing one ourselves. I thought about how Odysseus took 20 years to return home and about how the Jews took around 2,000 years, and I became acutely aware that the theater I was sitting in would not exist, the city I was sleeping in would not exist and the country that I love would not exist but for the enduring power of another great piece of ancient literature.<\/p>\n
Like The Odyssey, the Hebrew Bible, or Tanach, tells epic stories full of complicated characters. They are in thrall to mysterious visions. They pursue goals and passions that they do not quite understand. There are journeys and betrayals and contorted politics and brushes with the divine. But, as I watched all the battles and bloody machinations race across the screen, I began to reflect on the curious fact that there is no one on earth who still brings offerings to Odysseus or to Poseidon, no one who prostrates herself before Aphrodite or Athena, no one who prays to Zeus for mercy. Meanwhile, those of us who remain devoted to the stories in the Tanach still speak its language and sing its songs and bow down where and when it says. We still read it on an endless loop. We kiss it when it falls. We bury it when it is beyond repair. Its vision for humanity has not fallen into ruin, and it has not been sequestered inside the marble halls of \u201cgreat literature.\u201d And we build new thriving cities on the very ground it hallowed thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n
It is indeed remarkable \u2014 and not to be taken for granted \u2014 that stories written thousands of years ago, whether in Hebrew or Greek or Sanskrit, can still speak to us and inspire great art. But whereas The Odyssey remains an object of fascination, the Tanach is both an object of fascination and of passionate devotion. It is possible that Helen\u2019s face once launched a thousand ships. It is certain the unfinished journey of Abraham still guides billions of lives \u2014 the lives of Jews, of course, and many others. Why? What distinguishes the Tanach from many other ancient epics, giving it not only the power to inspire but also the power to command?<\/p>\n
In an important book written in the 1950s, \u201cMimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature,\u201d Eric Auerbach, a Jewish literary critic from Germany, suggests an answer. Contrasting The Odyssey with the Binding of Isaac in Genesis, Auerbach points to the dramatic stylistic divergences between Homeric literature and the Hebrew bible and their vastly different approaches to representing the world around us. The former, he points out, includes great detail; it is \u201cClearly outlined, brightly and uniformly illuminated, men and things stand out in a realm with everything visible \u2026 orderly, even in their ardor, are the feelings and thoughts of the persons involved \u2026The Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Odysseus\u2019 journey, the Binding of Isaac is unquestionably one of the greatest stories ever told. However, unlike Odysseus\u2019 journey, it unfolds over a mere 19 sparse verses. It does not include elaborate exposition or psychological analysis; instead, it includes yawning silences and lacunae:<\/p>\n
\u201cYitzhak said to Avraham his father, he said: Father! He said: Here I am, my son. He said: Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering-up? Avraham said: God will see-for-himself to the lamb for the offering-up, my son. Thus the two of them went together\u201d (Genesis 22:7-8).<\/p>\n
Filled with pathos and almost unbearable tension, this is among the most stirring, disquieting passages in the history of literature. But where, when and why is all this happening? What are the characters thinking and feeling? These questions are not answered in the text but are instead left for the reader to contemplate. The result is a mysterious, halting tale. It is gestural rather than precise, rooted not in the present but in a haunted past that overreaches into an imagined future. This paradoxically allows the Tanach to create characters of greater depth and complexity, Auerbach argues. The Homeric poems, in their specificity, belie the turbid, unknowable aspects of life itself. And the heroes in The Odyssey, though ostensibly more complex, are in fact much more simple.<\/p>\n
Auerbach, of course, is not attempting to resolve the question that struck me so forcefully a few days ago as I watched The Odyssey near Dizengoff Square, namely why all the shrines to Odysseus are in ruins while the world remains full of synagogues. But in one place he begins to offer a possible answer, observing incisively that the mysterious nature of the stories in the Tanach means that \u201cthey require subtle investigation and interpretation. Since so much in the story is dark and incomplete, and since the reader knows that God is a hidden God, his effort to interpret it constantly finds something new to feed upon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Essentially \u2014 though he does not use this language \u2014 he is saying that, unlike Homeric epics, Tanach stories demand midrash to fill in the gaps. They are not written with exhaustive specificity, and they are not told in order to astound, entertain or beguile. They are told to be generative and to give their readers a chance to uncover deep truths that the stories themselves only gesture towards. They are not arguments or expositions, but offerings to the imagination. They are odysseys of interpretation, questioning, reading and endless re-reading. And so they finally attain the immortality for which lesser heroes die searching.<\/p>\n
This essay initially appeared in My Jewish Learning\u2019s Shabbat newsletter Recharge. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n