Cell Phone on Vibrate: Ari Gold takes on Yom Kippur

Emily Gold: You want me to lie?
Ari Gold: That is the beauty of Yom Kippur, as long as you apologize before sundown it doesn’t matter what you do!
Entourage (Season 3, “Return of the King” 2007)

Pity poor type-A Hollywood agent Ari Gold on the show Entourage. He’s forced to fidget and sweat throughout Yom Kippur, unable to use his mobile phone to broker a major driven deal.

Ari Gold’s pushiness, sarcasm and neurosis conform to Hollywood’s popular notions of Jewish behavior and priorities. Even this flashy, success-obsessed character’s surname, “Gold,” is perfectly apt. Nasty stereotypes about Jews and their relationship with money die hard, because they got their start centuries ago. Since biblical times, Jews have been engaged in finance — and the complex relationship Jews have with money goes back almost that far. Myths depicting Jews as moneygrubbers were popular in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Medieval Jews weren’t permitted to own property or enter “respectable” professions, but they were allowed to act as moneylenders. Christian and Muslim rulers said lending money at interest was a sin, but they were happy to pawn off this “necessary evil” on their Jewish subjects.

In the phrase coined by sociologist Edna Bonocich, Jews around the world eventually became a “middleman minority”, one “standing between the peasant and the king, playing the role of middleman between producer and consumer, employer and employee, owner and renter, elite and masses.” Shakespeare and Dickens immortalized Jews as greedy and amoral, through their characters Shylock and Fagin.

Across the pond, American Jewish prosperity emerged from grinding poverty. Vaudeville stars were among the impoverished children of an estimated two million desperate Jewish immigrants. The Marx Brothers’ misbegotten upbringing became part of their legend, and in his memoir, Harpo recalled the adventures of “Minnie’s boys” in their crowded apartment:

“But thanks to the amazing spirit of my mother and father, poverty never made any of us depressed or angry. My memory of my earliest years is vague but pleasant, full of the sound of singing and laughter, and full of people I loved.”

Complicated feelings about money, success and security burrowed into the comedy routines of these early American performers. Jack Benny made a successful career out of the “Jewish cheapskate” persona, although the “Jewish” element was implied rather than explicit. In one radio routine, a thief holds up Benny at gunpoint and growls, “Your money of your life!” After repeated threats and a painfully long pause, Benny finally replies, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking…”

Jack Benny’s contemporary counterpart is Ari Gold, that rude guy we’ve all put up with, yacking on his cell phone about his “very important dealings.”

Gold is not evil so much as annoying. He can be petty, ruthless, insensitive, and materialistic, yet he cares deeply for his family, and at times his insecurity betrays his bullet-proof shell.

In that “Return of the King” episode, Ari is trying to broker a film deal, but the sunset deadline coincides with Yom Kippur. When he tries to negotiate with an orthodox studio head in the middle of services, he assures him: “This is time sensitive. God will understand.” His success represents the mirror opposite of that of earlier generation of assimilated Jews, who turned poverty into comedy. And yet the portrayal of Ari Gold is as unflattering as the old Jack Benny stereotype of the rich tightwad, and just as unfair.

For one thing, Judaism places great emphasis on generosity and charitable giving. The Talmud notes that charity equals all the other commandments combined (Bava Basra 9a). While the word “tzedakah” is most commonly translated into English as “charity,” it actually comes from the Hebrew word meaning “justice” or “righteousness.” Philanthropy is more than just an optional “good deed” – it’s the absolute duty of every righteous man and woman.

Secondly, charitable giving is indeed a difficult goal for many Jewish people. Despite the persistent perceptions that all Jewish people are rich, the 2004 Report on Jewish Poverty discovered that almost 20 percent of New York Jews lived in poverty. So remember: for every Ari Gold living in luxury, there’s a young Marx brother trying to scrape by.

In fact, there may be more of them, and fewer Ari Golds, now that America is experiencing an economic meltdown. Ironically, Wall Street is just a few blocks away from the old Lower East Side immortalized the saga of America’s Jewish immigrants. Literally and figuratively, maybe we haven’t come as far as we like to think.

Despite their often edgy dialogue and situations, contemporary comedies like Entourage can convey classic teachings: there is no connection between wealth and happiness (nor between an ethnicity and its material wealth). In fact, Ethics of the Fathers famously states, “Who is the happy person? One who takes joy in his lot?” (4:1) Whether Jewish comedians are making fun of poverty or wealth, the one thing the comedy imparts is the necessity to laugh with awareness.

Poverty and wealth are really just symptoms of security; if you can turn your symptoms into comedy, then you’re not controlled by the symptoms you control them. That’s important to remember all year round, especially in these trying times, when security is so fleeting.

Maybe this Yom Kippur, we should all switch our cell phones off (not just to vibrate!) or better yet, leave them at home all together. We can use the uninterrupted hours to contemplate the true meaning of life. Now that’s a “time sensitive” project that God will really understand.