Two minor points which took me out of the show for a minute: Judaism and Islam are two religions that have many set behaviours and rules, some of which get broken by some people, but others just are not naturally/commonly broken, because traditional stress points are in other areas. So Brody drinking is one thing, to me that indicates that he's not 100% on board and/or that he's compartmentalising his identities quite strongly. But Brody, after having had sex, praying without washing even though he was RIGHT BESIDE a highly attractive ocean, was one of those "Wtf people don't do that" moments. Similarly, someone who could recide qadish fluently and from memory like Saul, even if they were largely secular at this point in their lives, would not likely think to say it in that context. A lot of people watching it with me facepalmed at that moment...
I agree with Abigail above that Peter Quinn's turn was a bit abrupt, but then, we never knew that much about him.
Are we 100% sure that Brody really did have nothing to do with the explosion? Or am I putting too much on the super awkward Carrie/Brody acting, which felt more like the scenes where they were trying to fool each other rather than genuine sentiment?
Anyway, I hope Carrie gets away with it and that she does better for staying away from Brody. Dude is a sinking ship, regardless of what he is actually responsible for. My favourite moment for him in this season was watching him kill the Vice President, seeing him actually come to life for a moment.
I don't know; I'm a fairly observant Jew who could get through Kaddish from memory as well as Saul did (he fumbled a bit on the end), and I could see saying it in that context.At services last week,a few people who, as far as I know, are not in mourning said mourner's kaddish. I assume they were doing it (as I was) for the Sandy Hook victims, even thought technically only people who have lost an immediate family member are supposed to say it. Granted, Saul isn't at a prayer service, but it still rang true to me.
re: Saul & Kaddish, please explain to the ignorant?
As I said in the review, I do expect that was it for Brody, baring flashbacks and possibly one episode guest starring, so if he had been responsible for the explosion, I think we wouldn't have gotten what felt like an official goodbye scene.
The gist is that to traditional Jews the value is not in the actual words of qadish being said but in the response they require of the congregation (which interjects at various points), like, it's only a prayer "for the dead" in that in the person's memory it causes a community to say nice things (and in traditional services it's actually mostly said in non-death related contexts anyway). If there isn't a minimum amount of people in the community, it doesn't get said, for that reason that the focus is not on the speaker but on those responses. From Saul's fluency and from his accent - anonymous, would you say it in Ashkenazis though? - it sounds to me like he probably had a traditional background or education. But you can see below disagreement from Reform people.
Saul's definitely Ashkenazi. I think you're right that whether one would find it appropriate to say it depends a lot on background and observance level. I'm observant, but not Orthodox, and belong to a community where what seems ethically or emotionally right sometimes carries more weight than the precise halacha (Jewish law); i.e, people sometimes say kaddish for grandparents or others close to them, even though that isn't required and is thus, by some technical standards, considered to be taking G-d's name in vain. If you were very strictly Orthodox, you'd be more inclined to do it by the letter of the law, in which case you do indeed need a quorum to say it. Given what we know of Saul's background and current practice, it makes sense to me that he'd do it in this case. I'd also add that even for those of us who know that it isn't actually a prayer for the dead, but for the living to reaffirm faith, as a matter of culture, many people still see it primarily as an act of remembrance.
What I was saying about the Ashkenazi thing was the pronunciation, not ethnicity per se. AFAIK no liberal Jews are taught to pronounce in the old Ashkenazi style ("yiSgadal" instead of "yitgadal") which Saul used.
Re "Very strictly Orthodox," which implies that many and perhaps most Orthodox people would be fine with saying qadish alone for non-relatives, this is simply not true, nor would the vast majority of Conservative Jews - I have literally never been in a Conservative congregation that did not require a minyan even if they were liberal in other areas. I don't think that has to do with valuing the "letter" over what you assert the spirit of the law is, it has to do with an entirely different understanding of the prayer. But, I'm guessing SelenaK's LJ is not the place to discuss it.
I have no difficulty in imagining that Saul was brought up in a strict Orthodox tradition, but if so it appears that he broke away from it (he certainly seems to have married out). In which case it could be like my occasional habit of quoting the General Confession from the Book of Common Prayer in moments of emotion, which rarely have anything to do with confessing; I've been an atheist for all of my adult life, but still find the words of the 1662 version comforting.
Saul saying Kadish in that context didn't ping me so hard, though that might be because I come from a reform tradition, where we all say the Kadish together (the original rationale was that there are so many victims of the Holocaust whose date of death is unknown and who anyway have no one to say Kadish for them, but nowadays we often mention recent deaths that have moved us or that we've heard about on the news - such as the Sandy Hook deaths, as the commenter above pointed out - even though they're not our relatives). It's also in character - he said Kadish for the dead terrorist in the first season - and I think it's a reasonable assumption that he was saying it less for all the victims and more for Carrie, for whom he could certainly be said to stand as a mourner.
Regarding Brody's lack of Islamic observance, I obviously don't have the feel for what would be more or less egregious in a supposedly devout Muslim, though I agree that alcohol (and, presumably, also pork) are protective coloration more than anything else. But I also have no problem believing that Brody is a Bad Muslim, or at least not a very knowledgeable one, who has picked up traditions from people around him (where presumably sex wasn't available to him) rather than studying them properly.
Agreed that Brody as a Bad Muslim works very well! About the washing, this is mostly something I learnt from teaching in a school with a high Muslim population. There was in fact a minor scandal when the kids were only given like a 5 minute break to say one of their prayers which occurred during class time. The miscommunication stemmed from the fact that the non-Muslim teachers didn't realise that "prayer time" had to include "go to a source of water and wash," and to the kids you just didn't have one without the other. When I've heard Muslim people talk about what counts as prayer they have always included washing, as opposed to say Jews, who also require washing but mostly don't see it as THAT important, say, in a time of stress, or wouldn't see it as a part of prayer itself. It's hard to say what Brody's education was like, but if he knows the prayers it would make sense to me that he would also know that washing was a big part of it. So I can see him slacking off and not being too strict about praying 5 times a day or at the proper times, but the not washing especially given ample opportunity seemed weird to me.
BUT, not an actual Muslim myself, etc etc. And great point about no sex, that's the best answer yet maybe (although he'd still have to wash hands and feet so...?).
Oh. Maybe. That's not how I remember it (if I recall he just took off his socks and went for it), but it's been awhile already, no reason to trust my memory.
I agree with Abigail above that Peter Quinn's turn was a bit abrupt, but then, we never knew that much about him.
Are we 100% sure that Brody really did have nothing to do with the explosion? Or am I putting too much on the super awkward Carrie/Brody acting, which felt more like the scenes where they were trying to fool each other rather than genuine sentiment?
Anyway, I hope Carrie gets away with it and that she does better for staying away from Brody. Dude is a sinking ship, regardless of what he is actually responsible for. My favourite moment for him in this season was watching him kill the Vice President, seeing him actually come to life for a moment.
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As I said in the review, I do expect that was it for Brody, baring flashbacks and possibly one episode guest starring, so if he had been responsible for the explosion, I think we wouldn't have gotten what felt like an official goodbye scene.
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Re "Very strictly Orthodox," which implies that many and perhaps most Orthodox people would be fine with saying qadish alone for non-relatives, this is simply not true, nor would the vast majority of Conservative Jews - I have literally never been in a Conservative congregation that did not require a minyan even if they were liberal in other areas. I don't think that has to do with valuing the "letter" over what you assert the spirit of the law is, it has to do with an entirely different understanding of the prayer. But, I'm guessing SelenaK's LJ is not the place to discuss it.
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Regarding Brody's lack of Islamic observance, I obviously don't have the feel for what would be more or less egregious in a supposedly devout Muslim, though I agree that alcohol (and, presumably, also pork) are protective coloration more than anything else. But I also have no problem believing that Brody is a Bad Muslim, or at least not a very knowledgeable one, who has picked up traditions from people around him (where presumably sex wasn't available to him) rather than studying them properly.
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BUT, not an actual Muslim myself, etc etc. And great point about no sex, that's the best answer yet maybe (although he'd still have to wash hands and feet so...?).
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But I will not retract on the total weirdness of how everyone pronounces Abu Nazir's son's name "ice-a"!
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