David Lynch Believes in God

by Aaron Fox

I know because I just asked him.

Many of you have done a better job than I have on keeping your eyes and ears away from bad stuff and therefore have never heard of David Lynch. He's a film maker of dark, absurd, violent and highly creative movies. There, I just saved you about 20 hours of ultimately nonredeemable hours.

Riding on the ray of light of Madonna, Mr. Lynch too has blessed us with his presence. Instead of McKabbalah, he's promoting transcendental meditation as the cure for world strife. I still think Jews keeping the mitzvot will do the trick.

So how did he tell me that he believed in God? No, he did not step out of the shadows of the corner of my living room with a sashaying midget in a red suit with Lynch giving me the message backwards into a flashlight. He was holding a "lecture" series in Israel's three biggest cities and since I live in Haifa (yes we're still #3) it gave me a chance to check him out. Since he doesn't lecture, he has an interesting Q&A format where he just takes questions from the audience for two hours. There wasn't even an opening statement just an opening question. I suggest Rabbis of Israel look into this format because I for one have been lectured to death.

He is a former hero of mine, an idol I have since smashed. I wondered, did my interest in him have any sort of commonality to what I'm into today: God, Torah and Eretz Israel?

I formed the simple question that would get to the wild at heart of the matter.

On my turn at the microphone I asked, in the presence of an auditorium filled with the classic young secular Israelis, "Do you believe in God?"

"Yes, absolutely," Mr. Lynch doesn't hesitate.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "Which one?"

Lynch didn't flinch, "The all-powerful, merciful one."

A buzz breaks out in the auditorium. I was afraid that this was the end to his answer. So I asked, "Why?"

He said, "You and I should have a long talk." That would be welcomed (with anyone for that matter). He explained himself using the unified theory of quantum mechanics which I admit did lead into his transcendental meditation pitch, much to the chagrin to our protectionist Jews out there.

But that's not the point. The point is that I made aliyah. This enabled me to send a message to my unbelieving brethren. The next time one of them is confronted with the question of God he will remember to himself that even the darkest, most violent, most way-out-there director in the history of Hollywood basis his search for happiness and enlightenment on a firm belief of an all-powerful, merciful God. Maybe God is not such a nerd after all. How's that for Jewish outreach?

If I never made aliyah, nothing would have interrupted the onslaught of technical questions from the secular Jews about lighting, sound, digital versus film, movie theater versus internet, blah, blah, blah...