The New Poetics: Between Aristotle and the High Priest

Western drama, from Greek theater to Hollywood cinema, is built on the foundations laid by Aristotle in his "Poetics." The purpose of drama, according to Aristotle, is to lead the viewer to emotional release, purification, catharsis. This catharsis is achieved through dramatic tension, the clash of wills, and the struggle between good and evil. The stage is a battlefield, and the story is a tool for refining emotions.

But is this the only way? The Hebrew prophetic tradition offers a different poetics, a completely different worldview. It does not see the story as a battlefield, not a constant war between the gods and humans, not a fate that subdues man, but a space of encounter.

From Catharsis to Encounter

When on a holy day (Yom Kippur), a holy man (the High Priest) enters a holy place (the Holy of Holies), a unity of time, place, and plot is created, similar to the Greek ideal. But the goal here is completely different. It is not the purification of the viewer's emotions, but a comprehensive and embracing encounter between the Creator and the created.

The Creator is infinite, but the created is also "a drop of the infinite." The goal of poetics according to the High Priest is a lovers' meeting between two pieces of eternity. Prophetic culture sees the relationship between the Creator and the created as a harmonious partnership, a lovers' discourse. The human soul is part of the divine soul, and the story is the space where they meet. This difference changes all the foundations of drama. Instead of a war between values, prophetic culture seeks their harmonious completion, where every value and will realizes itself and completes the Tree of Life. From this stems its fundamental optimism: man is good in his essence and good in his end.

Experiencing Revelation vs. "Playing" Revelation

The difference becomes even sharper when we examine the role of theater. As Rabbi Sharki explained, Greek drama puts on stage actors wearing masks of gods, directing and playing the scene of revelation. Ancient Hebrew culture, on the other hand, did not need this. It did not need to "play" revelation, because it experienced it for real – at Mount Sinai, God revealed Himself to the entire nation in an experiential and national way. Prophecy was a living, everyday reality; there were schools for prophecy, students of prophecy. The encounter with the Source of Life, with the infinite, was part of life.

It is precisely on Purim, a holiday that takes place at the time of the removal of prophecy, when the divine face is hidden, that the need for Jewish "theater" is born. We wear masks, dress up, and play the story of redemption, because in the absence of prophecy, theater becomes a new tool for revealing the hidden.

The Call of the New Art

And now, at the time of the Return to Zion, in the Pre-Prophetic era, the longing for that direct experience is reawakened. Therefore, the new Jewish art is called to something else. It does not need to "direct and play" revelation, like Greek theater and the Western art that grew out of it. It needs to strive to stem itself from revelation, and simultaneously to prepare the tools for the renewal of modern revelation.

The film becomes a revelation of the soul. The infinite personality of the creator meets the infinite personality of the viewer. And herein lies the deep meaning of "Love your neighbor as yourself" in the act of creation: to treat the soul of the viewer as you would want your soul to be treated; to conduct a soulful discourse with him in the same constant song, in the same gentle intensity, in the same infinite richness and depth, in the same vitality of the Tree of Life. This is an embracing and living experience, a concentration of the essence of being, stemming from the Source of Life, which is the source of the infinite.