merely "a convenient way to keep
track of our days."
Rabbi Bradley N. Bleefeld, religious
leader of Reform Congregation Keneseth
Israel in Elkins Park and former inter-
im rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Oak
Park, agrees.
"There is no dimension of the spir-
itual to this transition from one mil-
lennium to the next," he says. "As
Jews, it has no theological significance.
We have a long time to go until the
millennium," adds Rabbi Weiss.
Nevertheless, many are observing
the transition ---- and Hollywood is
ready to serve as a spectral consort to
those seeking the unknown. Alpert
says that Hollywood is indeed success-
fill at getting the big picture — espe-
cially on the screen.
"They're tapping into something
very large here," she says of the films
filling audiences' appetite for answers.
"My sense," she says, "is that our
young people are not only enticed by
the spirituality of movies, but that
there's a hunger for spirituality that is
emerging in other ways, too."
In the temple that is the screening
room, Hollywood knows that the
unknown will bring in customers: "We
are at a time in society when there is
more room for mystery" says Alpert.
But Jews seeking a lifeline to the
dead may be going against their reli-
gion's roots. There is the understand-
ing that "conjuring up the dead is
against Jewish law," says Alpert.
"We don't believe in zombies," adds
Rabbi Weiss. "The contacting of souls
after death does exist in Jewish folk-
lore, but there is a prohibition in call-
ing up the dead."
But the law sometimes gets buried
in a need to attach oneself to a beloved
memory, notes Alpert. "Stories abound
of biblical figures figuring out ways of
contacting dead friends and relatives to
shed light on the darkness of sorrow."
One has only to look at today's
Jewish society to conjure up an image
of the pull of the past. "The one reli-
gious service that Jewish people espe-
cially make an effort to go to is
yahrtzeit," says Alpert, referring to the
service dedicated to memorializing the
dead. "We Jews have a need to
remember our dead."
And Hollywood, yoking itself to a
national yahrtzeit candle — illuminat-
ing a need to reanimate revered rela-
tives and friends — is casting the
shadow of memory 30 feet high on
the screen. 1-1

— Sta f f writer Shelli Dorfman
contributed to this article.

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