Hatboxes glossary: driving on the sabbath

Lighting a fire is among the 39 labors forbidden on the Sabbath, according to the Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 7:2), and since automobile engines burn fuel (among other reasons), one of the activities prohibited on the Sabbath is driving a car.

Orthodox Jews cleave closely to this prohibition (with exceptions; saving a human life trumps all other considerations), but non-Orthodox Jews rarely do.  For example, Reform Jews may consider driving to synagogue on the Sabbath to participate in the religious life of their community more important that adhering to a rule that may seem to isolate them.

In Hatboxes, Miriam tries to dissuade Nadine from driving home after their sabbath dinner, but Nadine is untroubled about being non-Orthodox.

Nadine and Miriam chat after Shabbos dinner

What religious precepts govern your day-to-day life?

not dying of embarrassment

A consistent theme in writer/director Lisa Cholodenko's films is the comedy and mortification bound up in sex.  I was relieved to hear her talk frankly about her own embarrassment directing sex scenes in the director's commentary to The Kids Are All Right. Jules' sporting with Paul features the wacky directiveness of porn, of which we know Jules and her wife are consumers.

Greta falls asleep right there in her pleather pants during sex with Lucy in High Art.

And in Laurel Canyon, Jane's grip on her son becomes excruciatingly clear when Sam picks up the phone in the middle of making love with his fiancée.

We filmed the most emotionally intense scenes in Hatboxes on the last day of our shoot, and we scheduled them out of chronological sequence.  I was probably more twitchy about it than either of the actors, and it wasn't even like they were going to be getting all naked and getting it on.  The three of us sat down together to talk things through before we started shooting. I attributed the actors' relative serenity to their professionalism and resolved to emulate them.

Nadine and Miriam in Hatboxes

I had the set cleared of all but essential crew at about 10:30 that Wednesday evening, right about the time someone started reading aloud the ingredients in Cheetos (a word to the wise:  don't).

Balancing the sometimes conflicting, sometimes overlapping values of directorial precision, humanity, and manners, we captured essential and good footage, and no one died of embarrassment.

What embarrasses you?

Susana Darwin

Hatboxes glossary: wine

Wine figures in Jewish rituals ranging from the Passover seder to weekly blessings at the beginning and end of the Sabbath.

Kiddush cup with wine

Kiddush is the blessing over the wine.  Traditionally, it goes, "Blessed are you, our Gd,* creator of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine."  Wine is marked just like humans with wide capacities, ranging from dignity to dissolution.

Islam specifically forbids the consumption of alcohol, and many Protestants eschew alcohol, as well.  What traditions does your culture associate with wine?


*To show respect to the Divine, Jews traditional do not write out this word.

Recognition

It's been a big couple of weeks for Hatboxes – it played at the We Like 'Em Short Festival in Baker City, Oregon, it will show at the Palm Springs Gay & Lesbian Film Festival on Friday, and...

Hatboxes won an audience choice award and the award for best director at the Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival a few days ago!

Seeing Hatboxes on a big screen in a darkened theater with stadium seating with other impressive short films was a huge thrill, of course, and it's a delight to know audiences around the country are getting to see Hatboxes.

As the blog post Festive! described, getting into festivals means navigating a bewildering array of variables, and we've seen a few rejections come through in past few days. So...perfect timing on the awards.  What a lift!

Etta Worthington

But here's the thing:  none of this would have happened without the vision and energy of the intrepid Etta Worthington.  Etta saw things she liked in the script when she saw it two years ago, and I apparently inspired enough confidence in her for her to give Hatboxes the green light!  The film would not be what it is without her organizing and negotiating skills, her ability to inspire cast and crew, and all the countless other things that a producer does. So hats off to Etta – thank you!

Now, let's get back to work, sit our fannies down and get to writing, shall we?

Susana Darwin

Hatboxes glossary: "get"

Deuteronomy 24:1 forms the legal precedent for Jewish divorce, and a rabbinic debate in the first century CE established an expansive basis for divorce:  only mutual consent is required.

© Jen Taylor Friedman, http://www.hasoferet.com/ritual/myget.shtml

While Jewish law was unique in the ancient world for enacting the option of divorce and creating the ketuba, a prenuptial contract protecting a woman's economic interests in case of divorce, women are not empowered to initiate the process of a religious divorce.  "The bill of divorcement"—the document effecting divorced, called a get—may only be issued by the husband or his representative, not the wife.  Thus, a married Orthodox Jewish woman is at the mercy of her estranged husband to issue the get; "agunah"—a "chained woman"—is the term for a woman whose husband has her confined in legal limbo.

How have you experienced institutionalized sexism in your life?

Hatboxes glossary: samovar + candles

Jews from the Pale—the area of Eastern Europe stretching from Poland  through Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and into Russia—absorbed some of the cultural practices of the gentiles around them, including the use of samovars to brew tea.  Often made of brass, samovars might feature elaborate metalwork.

Russian samovar and Sabbath candles

Traditionally, two candles get lit just before sunset on the Sabbath, though more than just two may be lit. Usually women light the candles and recite the prayer, but men are required to do so if no woman is present.  The candles mark the beginning of the Sabbath, a joyous moment.

What practices travelled with your family when they left their ancestral homelands?

Meet the Hatboxes Cast: Fawzia Mirza

Fawzia Mirza plays Lena, Nadine's pal. 

You may have seen her around on stage or on screen.  She appeared recently at the Goodman Theater in Happiest Song. 

Her film work includes roles in features Jamie and Jessie Are Not Together, Promise Land, The Queen of My Dreams, and Silhouettes.

She’s produced documentaries (Fish out of Water, A Message from the East), and has done stand-up comedy.

She also admits to a past as a lawyer. But now you can see her regularly in web series like Easy Abby. She’s writer and producer as well as star of a satirical web series that follows Kameron, the fictional long-lost lesbian Kardashian sister who was cut off, kicked out, and left to fend for herself. And here’s a sample of Kam Kardashian.

Hatboxes glossary: "Shir Ha-ma’alot" (A Song of Ascents)

hand-rendered sheet music for the beginning of Psalm 126

The tune that Nadine sings in the Sabbath dinner scene in Hatboxes is Psalm 126 ("A song of ascents:  When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream.").  It gets sung before the Grace after the Meal (Hebrew: ברכת  המזון, "Birkat ha-Mazon").  The prayers may be found in a small book called a bencher.

bencher

Do you say grace before or after your meals?

Hatboxes glossary: Shabbos

The second chapter of Genesis establishes the basis of the Sabbath (Hebrew:  שַׁבָּת, "Shabbat;" Yiddish:   שאבּעס,"Shabbos"):  after creating everything in six days, the Almighty not only rested on the seventh day but blessed it and established it as a day of rest for the whole world.

According to Jewish law, all creative, productive, or transformative action is to cease from sunset on Friday through sunset on Saturday. The Talmud defines 39 types of activities that people must not do while observing the Sabbath, including lighting fires, sewing, writing, building or demolishing anything, and driving a car has come to be prohibited.

Families gather for a special meal accompanied by singing and prayer.  Just before Friday's sunset, sabbath candles get lit, and a time different from the rest of the week in its rhythms and activity lasts for just over a full day.

Miriam, Nadine, Hannah, Sarah, and Ezer at Shabbos dinner in Hatboxes

What do you do on your day of rest?

Meet the Hatboxes Cast: Tom Hickey

Tom Hickey plays Aaron in Hatboxes. A lawyer who grew up in an orthodox Jewish community, it had been hoped that Aaron might someday be a rabbi, but suddenly he leaves his strict faith and his wife and children.

Tom Hickey is a long-time Chicagoan.  He has most recently appeared on camera in the pilot episode of “Underemployed” and online ads for Uni-Ball and Hornito’s restaurants.

He has also been a member of Strawdog Theatre Company since 2000 where he has appeared most recently in Conquest of the South Pole as well as The Master and Margarita, Uncle Vanya, St. Crispin’s Day, Cherry Orchard, Aristocrats, Marathon ‘33, and Julius Caesar.  

He has also appeared in The North Plan (Steppenwolf First Look), The Pillowman (RedTwist), Thieves Like Us  and Valentine Victorious (The House), The Mark of Zorro (Lifeline), Scenes from the Big Picture (Seanachai), The Great God Pan (Wildclaw), Book of Days (Steep) as well as three seasons performing in Michigan with Lakeside Shakespeare.

Although in Hatboxes, he left his family, in real life, Tom has recently embraced family with the birth of a son, his first child.

Hatboxes glossary: Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎, "head of the year") commemorates the creation of Adam and Eve as recounted in the Book of Genesis.  It is the first day of the seventh month on the Jewish calendar, Tishri, and it falls in September or October on the Gregorian calendar. Rosh Hashanah was established as a holiday in Leviticus 23:24–25.

The Talmud identifies three other New Year's Days on the Jewish calendar—the ecclesiastical new year on 1 Nisan in the northern spring; the cattle tithing new year on 1 Elul, one month before Rosh Hashanah; and the northern wintertime New Year of the Trees on 1 Shevat (according to Rabbi Shammai; Rabbi Hillel called that one on 15 Shevat).

Observance of Rosh Hashanah features sharing wishes of a sweet new year to family and friends, often symbolized by apples dipped in honey.

© 2012 Kent Darwin. All rights reserved.

How many different new years have impact on your work and home life?

"Frum* Gay Girl"

The blog "Frum Gay Girl" addresses the lives and experiences of Orthodox Jewish gay people.  In the post "Don't Be Afraid," R. discusses her upbringing in Los Angeles in an observant family, reactions to her coming out from her family and community, and how she is making her life as an observant queer Jew.

Readily apparent in these posts, which began appearing in August 2013, is a sense of exhilaration.  Even though the blogger masks the identities of the people she interviews, the questions she poses and the thoughtful answers that come suggest a sense of possibility in spite of sometimes broad and intense disapprobation.

Reading "Frum Gay Girl" makes me wonder:  how would Miriam react to this blog?  How might her reactions shift over time?

Susana Darwin

*"frum" means