Given all the huge hype before this Rosh Hashanah 5784/2023 about Barbie, and that this Shabbos UAlbany Hillel (we alternate Friday Nights) is going with a Barbie-theme – would like to share two thoughts about the Barbie film (without having seen it myself):
BARBIE THE DOLL, VS. BARBIE THE FILM
One reason the Barbie (and movies like it) are so successful is that they appeal to and evoke beloved childhood memories but enrich and expand them with adult-level enrichment and complexity. There’s dollhouse Barbie and film Barbie. One simplistic, one complex. One appeals to kids, the other to adults. One is all surface, the other much more layered and complex. The genius behind these productions imbues and infuses deeper, richer, more complicated themes into the old familiar, very recognizable childhood playthings.
This is an important reminder before Rosh Hashanah. Many of us have impressionable childhood memories of Rosh Hashanah, maybe its standing with our parents in synagogue, maybe the old classic tunes, maybe its your grandmother’s brisket or tasting the exotic fruits. But its important that our Judaism grow up, too. It’s important to grow and deepen our Judaism’s meaningfulness, to add layers of complexity and richness. We can’t have our Judaism stay at a juvenile stage. Barbie’s big appeal now is this enrichment, not just playing with dolls as we did as kids. It has new meaning, new relevance, new layers and levels.
BARBIE-LAND AND THE HUMAN WORLD
Not to be a spoiler, especially since I haven’t seen the film myself, but a big dilemma or drama in the film is the choosing between the idealized perfect (but plastic) world of Barbieland and the messy ups and downs flawed real-life world of humans.
Now, anyone who has studied the Alter Rebbe’s Tanya knows how ideal the world of imperfection is to our divine mission. The “Beinoni” the protagonist of Tanya is literally defined by (and appreciated for) his or her struggles, challenges and imperfections. But people can get the wrong idea about the high holidays. We are regretting our sins, asking to be forgiven to start again on a clean slate, and pledging to be better in the year ahead. You might think the goal is to be angels or saints or something.
The buzz about Barbie discovering the human world (and its messy flawed complexity) just before Rosh Hashanah reminds us that our goal and mission isn’t to be saintly angels, but humans (warts and all) trying harder, Jews being more Jewish in a challenging world. That’s where the mission lies. Plastic may look prettier, but its not where our purpose lies.