Spiritual Review: The Believer, a drama on DVD

but he gets fired when he starts talking about how the best way to get rid of Jews is to love them.  “Without hatred, the so-called chosen people would vanish.  The more they’re hated, the stronger they become.”  He’s saying that Love is the only force strong enough to stop Jews from wanting to stay separate from others. Writer-Director Bean introduces other minor, but important characters who reinforce this point.  Their dialogue includes phrases like “Maybe I was a Jew in a former life,” and “Forget all that Jewish stuff.  It doesn’t play.  The only thing that matters is the market, and it doesn’t care who you are….Maybe we’re all Jews now; what’s the difference?”

Hate is based on the idea that some of our brothers and sisters are different, better or worse than others.  Are Jews really different from anyone else?  All great spiritual truths teach that the hate we feel for others is really a displacement of the hate we feel for self.  Astrologer Stephanie Azaria says “If you check yourself out in the mirror and your shirt is unbuttoned, are you going to reach to the mirror to fix it or are you going to do what needs to be done on your own person? This is no different.” 

Relevance
Daniel is a rebel.  His life is a rebellion against the meekness, passivity and non-action he perceives in Jews, and it’s a rebellion against the power-trip rules imposed on us by God.  When a judge forces him to go to Jewish sensitivity training, Daniel meets several Holocaust survivors and hears their haunting stories.  But Daniel rejects what they have to say because instead of fighting against the Nazis, the survivors accepted a victim role.  One of the survivors tells Daniel

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