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I am five-years-old.  My mom is out of town, and my dad has gotten a babysitter to watch my little sister.  We are going to have a special night, just the two of us!  He is taking me to the movies!!! It is the first memory I have of seeing a move in the theater.  When we get there, I can pick out any candy I want – it is a special night after all.  And because he is such a good father, my dad agrees to sit way up in the third row because it is where I want to sit.  The theater gets dark and I can feel the excitement in my stomach.  The movie is Black Beauty, and when it finally starts a beautiful black horse, larger than life, prances across the screen. That is it!  I am hooked!  I am a movie-lover for life.  Since that night I have seen hundreds of movies and some movies hundreds of times, and I have more useless movie trivia in my head than any human being should.
 
I am 7-years-old.  I am sitting in Bible class in Jewish day school, our teacher is telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt.  We learn about Moses’ birth, the burning bust, and the Ten Plagues.  And just when I think it can’t get any more exciting, my teacher reads about the crossing of the Red Sea from this week’s Torah portion.  She tells us that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea safely and sang Mi Chamocha to God.  She opens the Torah scroll, and she shows us where Mi Chamocha is, and how it looks different from other passages in the Torah.  And I think to myself, “Wow!  You mean to tell me that one of my favorite songs from services was sung my Moses thousands of years ago and even written in the Torah?!?!  How cool is that!?!?”  That is it!  I am hooked!  I want to be Jewish for the rest of my life!
 
I am 27-years-old.  I am looking though the spring course offerings for my fourth year of rabbinical school, and I find a class called “Reel Theology.”  I am intrigued as I begin to read the course description.  It is a class where we will watch modern secular movies and discuss what they can teach us Jewishly, and it is being taught by two of my favorite professors!  Did the powers-that-be at HUC sit down and design a course just for me?!?!  My two great loves – movies and Judaism – all rolled into one class.  And I loved every moment of taking this class.  I saw films I had not seen before, I developed a deep rove and understanding for some of my favorite movies, and I gained a new appreciation for movies I had not previously enjoyed. 
 
The most important lesson the class taught me, however, had nothing to do with movies and everything to do with what it means to be Jewish.  Reel Theology took movies with little or no Jewish content and helped us to watch then with Jewish eyes, to think about then with a Jewish mind, and to understand their messages with a Jewish heart.
 
This week the Israelites truly begin their Jewish journey as a people, and each of us is on our own Jewish journey or journey with Judaism.  May we all find our own “hook” that connects us, may the Torah and the values it teaches be our guide, and may it lead us to be more kind, more just, more compassionate human beings.

- Rabbi Shana Nyer