An Invitation from Lars von Trier:
First TV Interview since the Cannes Press Conference; with Martin Krasnik, Danish journalist
Translators note: The following is an interview of Lars von Trier (LvT) by the Danish journalist Martin Krasnik (MK). The interview took place in Lars von Trier’s home in Brede, a small town just outside Copenhagen. The interview was broadcast on the Danish public television station DR2 in its entirety on January 12, 2015. An excerpt including the Hanukkah prayer was aired on December 23, 2014. The translation is based on a transcript drawn from an online version of the televised interview that was made temporarily available for the public by DR News Danish Broadcasting Corp (http://www.dr.dk/tv/se/krasnik-taler-med-lars-von-trier/krasnik-taler-med-lars-von-trier; last accessed on January 27, 2015).
Brede, Denmark, December 19, 2014
MK:
(Voiceover) A few weeks ago I received a text message from Lars von Trier. We have been in touch over the years, typically after I had done something on Israel or Judaism. “How about a little talk on DR2 soon?” he wrote me. Von Trier explained that he was in the middle of a great upheaval in his life. He is trying to quit drinking and has started going to meetings in AA: Alcoholics Anonymous. I also want to talk to him about why he is so interested in everything Jewish and how it is tied to the story of his father who turned out to be a completely different person than he thought. And what about his childhood? Why did he call himself Lars “Lost Property”? The last time von Trier spoke publicly in front of a camera was at the infamous press briefing at Cannes where he said that he was a Nazi who understood Hitler. That gave him a lot of trouble. Now I have gone to visit Lars von Trier to talk with him about alcoholism, about his father, about rituals and religion, and about the feeling of not belonging.
(MK walks up to LvT’s door)
LvT:
Here he comes. I fear that.
MK:
Hello.
LvT:
Hey, hey.
MK:
Good day.
LvT:
I feel like Bamse and Kylling [two fictional characters from a popular Danish children’s TV show] in the same person.
MK:
That’s really schizophrenic.
LvT:
It is one of those scenes that I hate.
MK:
I brought a little something that you are not allowed to see.
LvT:
Is it going to be like that?
MK:
Yes. It will simply be one gimmick after another.
LvT:
I hope it’s not some kind of Jewry.
MK:
It is nothing but Jewry. You are up and awake?
LvT:
I just woke up.
MK:
You just woke up, but are you awake?
LvT:
Should we have a little hug? We won’t have one at the end, will we?
MK:
No. No one wants to hug me after an interview.
LvT:
It has never happened. It would be a grave defeat if someone hugged you after an interview.
MK:
It depends on what kind of hug, right?
LvT:
Yes. In anger.
MK:
Shall we sit? You don’t have a cup of coffee or something?
LvT:
You bet I do.
MK:
(Looking out of the window) Good God, it is lovely here.
LvT:
I have played in those reeds over there, and we made maps for how to get around.
MK:
Right over there?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
What is it like to live so close to your childhood home?
LvT:
I feel very secure.
MK:
Were you outside a lot as a child?
LvT:
Yes. I played on the stream, on the small paths, and up in the trees. I was insanely brave.
MK:
You climbed higher than all the others?
LvT:
I did.
MK:
I am speechless.
LvT:
My parents didn’t say anything. I could come home at any time. They wouldn’t even notice if I were home or not.
MK:
Really?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
And that is how it was?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
And what did it mean: that you just came and went like you wanted?
LvT:
Not really, because I think you make your own rules. If you do not have a set of rules—you know that with religion and everything—if you don’t have a set of rules, you have to make one yourself. Otherwise everything slides.
MK:
Did you make one, then?
LvT:
Yes, I did… Yes, bloody hell.
MK:
What kind of rules for example?
LvT:
For when I came home, and for when my homework had to be finished—all the rules that normal parents would…
MK:
And you made all of those for yourself?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
That’s interesting? And then you broke them once in a while? Were you very disciplined?
LvT:
I was very disciplined. I did my homework on my way home on the bench at the bus stop. Oh yes.
MK:
Why is that?
LvT:
You are good with those questions, right?
MK:
Yes…I am usually told that I don’t ask enough “why” and “how” questions. So I am very proud that you say that.
LvT:
I wait in fear for what will come, because like… it is like watching the wolf smile.
MK:
How are you feeling on a morning like this one?
LvT:
I feel good. I just got out of bed. My morning rituals, they are not really… they have been shattered a bit, because I slept too long. But other than that I am feeling very good. Now I am good. It is good that you have come.
MK:
Does it have a soothing effect? I have been looking very much forward to this. I also thought a little about where we should start. But then I thought: I am genuinely curious about what you are thinking at the moment, because you said in the newspaper the other day that you are at a new place in your life, and that you are trying to quit drinking. And that thing about drinking and any kind of abuse is simply so alien to me. I am such a control-freak. I have a superego the size of a nuclear mushroom cloud. So I would like to know a little more about it. Would you like to?
LvT:
I would be happy to.
MK:
What has happened lately?
LvT:
Bloody hell. There are different ways of looking at it. But as I see it, my wife thought that it was enough with the fiercely intense drinking. And that is absolutely right; it was. My reaction was of course to go to the most ultimate treatment facility… And now I have come, now I have a terrible urge to drink. So nothing is easy.
MK:
An urge to drink, how does that feel?
LvT:
An urge to drink? It feels like when you are thirsty for water. In principle, it is the same.
MK:
Try to say more. How was it? You decide to quit when your wife tells you?
LvT:
Well, that is the thing. People will question that decision.
MK:
Why?
LvT:
Because it is a very essential part of the 12 step work. To accept that you are an alcoholic and that you cannot deal with your own life. And in some weird way I would still say, yes I can deal with my own life. But maybe my family cannot deal with my life.
MK:
Can I hear more about those meetings?
LvT:
I am not allowed to talk about the meetings. I have to respect the group so much that I don’t violate their opinions all the time, because then I will just once again be a man in a community that does not want him… It is a little like Judaism, right? Like when you do not really belong or do not belong at all.
MK:
We do not have to talk about what happens, but one of the striking things is that it is every day.
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
So you have been there every day?
LvT:
Yes. That is standard; ninety meetings in ninety days. I hit the bottom when I was in Norway to fish in a salmon river that I had dreamt about my whole life. I have difficulties transporting myself because I don’t fly, and then we went there, and I was just in bed and drank vodka and cried for a week. I never made it out to that damn river.
MK:
Why did you do that?
LvT:
It was a depressive anxiety thing. Most alcoholics drink in response to anxiety. As self-medication—it is the most common thing.
MK:
So you are sitting up there by a river in Norway?
LvT:
Yes, but I am lying in …
MK:
(interrupts) a tent?
LvT:
…the house we rented. A tent would have been even more humiliating.
MK:
And then what—in the morning one gets up early to go out fishing? Then the others take off?
LvT:
Then the others take off, and I sleep even deeper.
MK:
You brought the vodka with you?
LvT:
Yes. And some was bought and so on. I mean bloody hell.
MK:
It is expensive to buy vodka in Norway.
LvT:
(Laughing). Yes, but when you are standing there knocking on St. Peter’s door, then…
MK:
But what happens during such a week? Try to explain. Try to explain to someone who has only tried a “business class” depression—what it is that happens during such a week. You wake up and what kind of feeling do you have?
LvT:
Then I have an anxiety, right?
MK:
What does that mean?
LvT:
I always have an illness anxiety. I am sure that I will die before…
MK:
Do you remember when it was? How did it exactly express itself during those days?
LvT:
Listen, I would very much like to tell you about all the details. I also think they are relevant. But I do not really want to because it is just all that OCD stuff—there is no one who wants to … yes, there are probably many who want to hear about it. But it is just unpleasant. The thing that can be said about alcohol is that if there is something that can postpone an anxiety, it’s alcohol. But of course the anxiety is only postponed. At some point you have to reduce your alcohol intake. You cannot drink steadily, so that you are pissed all the time—well you can, but then it is difficult to live with someone.
MK:
But when you are sitting up there and you have gone up there to have fun and to fish. You love to fish, right?
LvT:
I love to fish.
MK:
And salmon in Norway, that’s up among the three big …
LvT:
Fantastic. They caught big salmon up there.
MK:
The others in your party, they caught big salmon?
LvT:
Yes. It is so stupid. But what it suggests is that there is a large degree of self-hatred in the whole issue.
MK:
Self-hatred, how?
LvT:
My anxieties…they are made to be self-destructive, right? And it is really every time I have found some kind of niche, that I think: here I can relax, here I feel good. And then a new anxiety emerges in relation to that niche.
MK:
What kind of niche for example?
LvT:
It can just be a different place on the body.
MK:
The illness anxiety? How far back does it go? Do you remember when it started?
LvT:
I clearly remember that I was watching television. I must have been 5 years or so. I was watching television, and then I saw this program about a hospital. And my anxiety is really more about the treatment system than about the disease itself. Death and so on. It is so destructive, so destructive to life.
MK:
What did you do about it as a child? Do you remember?
LvT:
I started taking a lot of valium.
MK:
How old were you?
LvT:
I don’t know, 12 years or so. I completely panicked. Completely. It was not fun. I also had some migraines once in a while. So every other day I had anxiety, and every other day I had… And then, according to my treatment facility, you still have to get down on your knees and be grateful for your life, right?
MK:
Yes. This means that you have had it for as long as you can remember?
LvT:
Yes, and that is why it is so difficult to do something about it. I have tried all kinds of therapy.
MK:
There have been different kinds of psychiatric treatment?
LvT:
Yes. But it is funny because, I was sitting at … I was at Nordvang [a psychiatric hospital close to Copenhagen] when I was a kid, and there I only wanted to be addressed as Lars “Lost Property” by the way. But there I sat with some people who were severely mentally handicapped.
MK:
How old were you?
LvT:
At that time I was about 13.
MK:
Not hospitalized?
LvT:
No, I was a day patient. My mother knew the chief physician.
MK:
How did your parents react to your symptoms?
LvT:
It was extremely difficult for them.
MK:
What does that mean?
LvT:
What should they do? My mother put great faith in institutions. That’s why she brought me to this physician that she knew. I don’t know what the right thing would have been, but that was definitely wrong. I was completely… really badly placed. Because you need to know that mental illnesses are more contagious than physical ones. They are terribly contagious. An anxiety can spread within an assembly of people at the speed of lightning.
MK:
(laughing). Yes.
LvT:
Why are you laughing?
MK:
It is airborne.
LvT:
It definitely is. It is like Ebola.
MK:
But it was fairly good that she, your mother—and perhaps your father—acted on it, that they recognized it, that they knew something was wrong, and that you needed treatment.
LvT:
Correct. But the way it was treated was completely stupid.
MK:
What should they have done?
LvT:
I should have just received treatment that … the problem was that I didn’t want to go to school, and out there was a school that you could go to. So they solved that problem, right? Damn, I don’t know. Or else they should have come through and said that I wouldn’t die at night. You know the thing is, when I asked my mom: “Am I going to die tonight?” and she says: “The chance is very small, but it exists.” Which is probably totally correct. But at that point I would have liked to… and that is what I have done differently. I have said it a thousand times, but I have told my children: “No, you will live and wake up tomorrow.” Because what is the risk for me in doing that?
MK:
Nothing.
LvT:
No. And I think that’s very important. You would have liked to know that as a child, right? Otherwise it ends up eating you.
[…]
MK:
Why do you talk so often about rejection? About being afraid of being rejected?
LvT:
I don’t know. I can’t answer that.
MK:
Are you?
LvT:
Afraid of rejection? Yes, but not so much anymore.
MK:
Have you been drinking during all your movies? I mean the last many movies? On the set?
LvT:
No. It has typically been during the writing period where I have been drinking and taken other narcotics.
MK:
That is also what you said the other day in an interview with Politiken [a Danish newspaper].
LvT:
I already said it in Politiken. But that is probably because it is true.
MK:
Is the kind of drugs you used a secret?
LvT:
Ohh, yes.
MK:
Is it because you don’t want to encourage people to do the same?
LvT:
As I said in the newspaper, I would not recommend it to anyone. But I have benefitted enormously from it.
MK:
You can say that.
LvT:
But I am also saying that.
MK:
I understand why you are split about it. On the one hand, you are saying that you are at a point where you simply have to stop drinking and doing drugs. On the other hand, you have gained so much from it.
LvT:
Yes, I think so.
MK:
You haven’t been close to dying like some of the others in AA.
LvT:
No.
MK:
You haven’t lost your closest friends or family members due to booze.
LvT:
No, because what I also …
MK:
(Interrupts) It sounds like a reluctant farewell to the booze?
LvT:
Definitely. If I haven’t done enough drugs or had enough alcohol to do my very best, then I am sorry. That’s how it is.
MK:
Why do you say that? What do you mean?
LvT:
I mean that if I haven’t gone far enough with regards to the things that I… to the quality… to fulfilling my goals. If I haven’t gone far enough, I blame myself.
MK:
You are saying that if you didn’t have enough alcohol and snorted enough to produce something that was great and good enough?
LvT:
Yes. That is what I think. And that is why I don’t talk about an “abuse” but about a “use.” Abuse is a more legal, or what do you call it, a “legal term.”
MK:
You simply talk about it as medication?
LvT:
A working tool.
MK:
You started taking valium when you were 13 years old. At that time it wasn’t a working tool?
LvT:
That is true. But what do you want to say with that?
MK:
You make it sound like it was something you chose and something that, because you wanted to make films and for them to be as good as possible, that it was necessary to empty a bottle of vodka every day.
LvT:
(Laughing). Do you feel unpleasant when you become moral all of the sudden?
MK:
Not at all. I am just thinking … it becomes fairy-tale like when you talk about it as a working tool.
LvT:
That is correct. That is how I feel. Therefore I wouldn’t recommend anyone, least of all my children, to do something similar. That would never occur to me, because it can also be a very dangerous thing. Right?
MK:
Yes.
LvT:
I just think that the thing that I maybe have done more than other directors is that I have jumped into… I have sought farther out to the edge of the branch.
MK:
You say that you are afraid of making movies now?
LvT:
Yes. That is probably just an excuse to start drinking.
MK:
Come on for Christ’s sake, you don’t really believe in that—that you can’t still make good movies?
LvT:
Well, listen. It is a question about—I didn’t think Bowie [David Bowie] was good after. I didn’t think it was good. “Let’s Dance” is shit.
MK:
I love “Let’s Dance.”
LvT:
Yes, but it is not like my romantic idol would…
MK:
Then you can make different movies?
LvT:
Yes, I thought about it.
MK:
They don’t have to be bad. Maybe they can be different movies—where people don’t necessarily get their genitals cut off. I mean, it is not absolutely necessary in order to make a good movie that someone gets the clit cut off.
LvT:
But it is a start.
MK:
A good start.
[…]
LvT:
Now we have to talk about the Jewry.
MK:
We have to talk about the Jewry.
LvT:
Little Martin, there is something we need to know.
MK:
I tried to look it up. We have this family tree at home that is several meters long. All Jewish families in Denmark are married into each other. But as far as I can see we are only related to each other very, very, very far out.
LvT:
That’s a relief, I would say.
MK:
If Trier had been your real father, then you would either have been my grand-grand-grand-grand-grand uncle or grand cousin.
LvT:
I feel that very much.
MK:
You feel a kind of kinship?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
What kind? You don’t have a picture on the wall of your father, Trier? Where is he? Is he not hanging somewhere in the house?
LvT:
Christ, that is totally … no he does not … You are absolutely right; he is not hanging anywhere.
MK:
Why not?
LvT:
Well, my mother is also not hanging anywhere. I am sort of completely liberated. But yes, it is strange.
MK:
What kind of Jewish family was it, the Trier family? Try to describe it.
LvT:
I just remember an extreme degree of cosiness and Jew jokes and cheerfulness and so on, which for me stood very clearly as a Danish Jew which … of course, he is only half Jewish, but the whole family … the traditions and the way to talk and all that was very significantly different from other parts of my family.
MK:
Was it your father’s siblings or cousins or?
LvT:
Yes. There was just this atmosphere around it, which I was really fond of as a child.
MK:
What kind of atmosphere?
LvT:
It is really difficult to describe. In the same way as, when you are in your group during treatment, then you have this group feeling. At that time, I had a group feeling, and that is why it was so tough when I found out that my father was not my father because then I had to say goodbye. Then I was precisely Lars “Lost Property,” right? I didn’t belong anywhere in a group.
MK:
I think you have to explain what happened.
LvT:
My mother had the idea to tell me on her deathbed that my father wasn’t my father. I told her that if it was a line fromDallas, or what the hell those series are called, then it was a really bad one. Because she was lying there with all those tubes…
MK:
She was about to die?
LvT:
Yes. And then she says: “You should know…” then she mumbles a bit, but: “You should know that Ulf is not your father. It is another man with whom I am sure you will have a really good relationship.” And of course I didn’t, and it all went terrible.
MK:
Let us go back to the scene: It takes 2 seconds to say, what do you then do? Do you remember?
LvT:
I think I said “Wow!” You know it is like a…
MK:
You actually said that, you said it like in Dallas?
LvT:
Yes. It was totally unexpected. The people I know—they worried they might have been adopted, right? I never did that. I felt completely secure and especially also in that Jewish part of the family. Completely safe. My mother encouraged me repeatedly to go through the family tree and to visit Jewish cemeteries where I would put little rocks on the gravestones. I wonder whether she thought about my father when she asked me to that. Because it was completely stupid, especially when Ulf is not my biological father. What the hell—why was I then supposed to go through the family tree?
MK:
She could have been determined that Ulf should be your father. And then that was the story that had to be told.
LvT:
But it was against her will that she told the story. It was just as much about covering up my biological father.
MK:
Because the truth wasn’t supposed to be told?
LvT:
Exactly. They worked together, in the same part of the government. And even more cliché, my biological father was the boss for my mother and my non-biological father.
MK:
That’s quite a drama. So she had an affair with her boss?
LvT:
She screwed around, yes.
MK:
She screwed with her boss?
LvT:
Yes. It is so stupid.
MK:
Did your father believe you were …?
LvT:
That’s what I never have been told. He died when I was 18. So there is a lot… that is really a conversation I would have liked to have with him, right? About how and why. It would be fun if there is such a thing as a paradise and I could get access.
MK:
What would that conversation be like?
LvT:
I would just tell him that I miss him terribly. I do. And I miss the part, which I don’t have anything to with after all. The Jewish part, I miss it like nothing else. It was very identity-creating for me back then. But listen here, this stuff about Jewry, it is not the media-Jewishness …
MK:
Can I, Lars? I know you have said all this before. (Holds LvT’s hand.) You know in the Middle East you touch each other a lot. It creates attention. You just put a little finger on the other person’s hand. Like: “Shut up, I am talking.” It is a bit transgressive when you do it with members of the government. I don’t think Magrethe Vestager [former member of the Danish government, now Commissioner in the European Union] would have liked it. But it is very effective because people start listening.
LvT:
A small trick.
MK:
Yes, but it is a good trick. So you say “wow, that fucking Dallas thing” …
LvT:
It was very clear that she just had to say it. Afterwards I remember my aunt asked, “did she say it?”
MK:
So your aunt knew it?
LvT:
Everyone knew about it.
MK:
Everyone?
LvT:
Probably with the exception of my father.
MK:
What do you mean by all of them?
LvT:
The whole family.
MK:
She told them?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
And the only one missing was you?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
How long did the scene take?
LvT:
10 minutes, and then I went out to tell it to my brother, who in the meantime had become a half-brother. He took it pretty easy.
MK:
He did?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
But he knew?
LvT:
No.
MK:
But he thought, “That doesn’t matter”?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
He was right.
LvT:
He was. And I would say that my first reaction was, “Yes, that doesn’t matter.” But my second reaction was a deep sorrow, not because she died, but because of that little fact. It was completely grotesque. Since then I entered into in a phase where I tried to approach my biological father’s family. But now I am in another phase where I think that the father with whom you have been also is the one who means the most.
MK:
Yes, one must say so. Why do you think she told you?
LvT:
I don’t know what it’s like to die. But I can only say that I am happy she told me. It is painful in some ways, but I am happy to know it. Of course.
MK:
Why?
LvT:
Well, if we need to know about our past, it has to be correct. Anything else would be stupid. And it probably affected the things I have done, right?
[…]
LvT:
But now we need to hear about your Judaism. Frankly. I thought your Judaism was limited. But it is not, because you are a real Jew, 100%. Your mother is a true Jew all the way down, and the same with your father. What disappoints me a bit about this is that it means you are just a follower. I could accept that, but I thought you were a bit on the edge, and that you just liked Israel, which would give you an interesting internal division. And now you just do it because of your mum and dad.
MK:
I just do what every other good Jewish boy would have done.
LvT:
Yes. And that’s what disappoints me a bit.
MK:
You thought there was an active choice involved.
LvT:
Yes, exactly.
MK:
But why am I a “follower”?
LvT:
You bought the whole package.
MK:
I don’t buy it. Consider the facts. My parents married Jewish like all their friends. I then go to Jewish childcare, I attend Jewish preschool, I attend the Jewish school—no one questions any of this. I play soccer in the Jewish soccer club. That in itself is an absurd phenomenon. It is not until I am 13 – 14 years old—when I start playing handball—that I step outside of all of this, the Jewish ghetto. Until then it is pure Judaism. So in what way can you say I bought the whole package when you consider the other choices I have made, like getting children with a non-Jewish wife?
LvT:
Yes, maybe that’s what I have been thinking about.
MK:
But my son who says, “I don’t want to do the Bar Mitzvah. I don’t want to do that shit.”
LvT:
No?
MK:
One could say that the fact that I am doing those things means that I am the last Jew.
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
I am probably also the last one in my generation to have their children circumcised. That’s not something my son will do with his.
LvT:
No, no.
MK:
I don’t think so.
LvT:
But I mean, the position I have fought for and attained in film is a bit like the position I would have had if I had been Jewish. You don’t understand, do you?
MK:
Yes, but what kind of position is that?
LvT:
It is like I am standing on the outside, right? That’s what Jews always have been able to in the countries they lived in. They have been to stand on the outside and therefore …
MK:
Been able to, yes, but not because we wanted to …
LvT:
No?
MK:
Like, you can move into that ghetto over there, and then you can just walk around and be happy to live on the outside. That’s not something…
LvT:
But the reason for their success, if I may put it like that, is that they have been able to take their culture and everything else with them?
MK:
Yes, but that is only because they were not allowed to do anything else. The only reason, or at least the most important reason Jews have been able to do it, is that they have been placed in ghettoes and been thrown out of the countries in which they lived.
LvT:
Not all, right?
MK:
Yes, all. Except Arabia, you could say. Arabia and the Turkish Middle East, but they never were allowed to live there; they were never considered full citizens, so in that way Jews have always been forced out.
LvT:
But listen, this is the chicken and egg problem we are talking about.
MK:
No, Lars—that is simply not true. The moment the Jews have had a chance to throw out all their stupid traditions and customs and sidecurls and everything—to get out of the ghetto quite simply—they have done just that.
LvT:
It might be that I have completely misunderstood this, but the self-chosen isolation is something to which I can relate, both in my film productions and in my life.
MK:
I understand.
LvT:
Okay, listen here, you need to tell me why you think Jews always have been persecuted. Because that is not true.
MK:
When was it not true? Has there been an hour and a half at some point?
LvT:
But if they have been persecuted like that, then why do they have sidecurls and yarmulke and strange hats and everything else? That’s because they hold on to some traditions, and I think that is beautiful. I really like it.
MK:
But that’s good.
LvT:
Yes, but it is just because you say that it is all…
MK:
Because they have been sitting inside these ghettoes and looked over at the Polish rednecks, right? And then they developed some kind of self-image and story around them.
LvT:
Listen, that self-image is really powerful.
MK:
Incredibly powerful!
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
And that has often something to do with believing that one is smarter than the idiots on the other side of the fence?
LVT:
Yes, one feels more intelligent.
MK:
Yes. And one is more esoteric and noisy and with big families. That kind of thing.
LvT:
Yes, and exciting traditions. That kind of thing.
MK.
What if you were offered a membership?
LvT:
That would be really fun. I would say yes on the spot.
MK:
Would you?
LvT:
Yes. The only time I would let the people have my spirit would be on such an occasion.
MK:
Okay (laughs). “Let the people have my spirit”…
LvT:
How can I put it? It would just be…it would be really cool.
MK:
Yes.
LvT:
When I think about it, it would be safe.
MK:
Okay, I have prepared a small thing for us to do. Since you like rituals and want to be member of the club.
LvT:
Exciting. A circumcision pure and simple?
MK:
A kind of circumcision.
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
Let’s see. In fact, there are multiple things. First we take this for you to look at. (Pulls out a Hanukkah menorah.)
LvT:
You have cheated.
MK:
I have cheated a little bit. I prepared it in advance. Look. You are the one who has to do it.
LvT:
But I am shaking like crazy.
MK:
Yes.
LvT:
You don’t give a damn?
MK:
I don’t give a damn. Others have done that before you.
LvT:
Okay.
MK:
When they had to light the Hanukkah menorah. And then we have… (Pulls out two Jewish prayer shawls.)
LvT:
How pretty. That one is crazy beautiful, don’t you think?
MK:
You think so? Do you know what this is? (Points to the menorah).
LvT:
It’s a candlestick.
MK:
But what kind of candlestick?
LvT:
Since we talked about Hanukkah, it probably has something to do with it.
MK:
Yes, it is a Hanukkah menorah.
LvT:
Okay. 9 candles? There are 9 candles?
MK:
No, no, there are 8 candles. Hanukkah lasts for 8 days.
LvT:
How can you say there are 8 candles when there are 9?
MK:
The 9th candle is the one you use to light the other ones with.
LvT:
Oh.
MK:
This is the servant. So there are 8 days, and we are here tonight on the 8th day. So we have to light 8 candles. Do you know why we celebrate Hanukkah?
LvT:
No.
MK:
But you have been to a Hanukkah party before? You must have been to some.
LvT:
Yes, I have been to several of them. But they were not very informative.
MK:
No, that’s obvious. And that’s the whole point about Judaism: you do things without asking why. If you first start asking, it all falls apart. If you don’t believe in God. And that’s the clever thing; the story you get about Hanukkah is that more than any other Jewish celebration it shows us what it is all about, namely, that some one tried to eliminate us, but we won because God helped us. And then we eat. That’s what all Jewish celebrations are about. So now we need one of these. This is a prayer shawl. Maybe your father had one of these. And then you must choose between four yarmulkes.
LvT:
I like this one.
MK:
Well, that one is the settler yarmulke.
LvT:
Oh, I am sorry (laughs)…is that right?
MK:
This one here is the 1970s yarmulke, like the one from my childhood.
LvT:
That’s right, it’s about fashion.
MK:
Yes.
LvT:
This one here looks a bit pope-like.
MK:
That’s the South African tolerance yarmulke. That’s perhaps more you? And this one is the spare one you borrow from the synagogue.
LvT:
Well, then I’ll take the borrow-one.
MK:
Would you?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
Okay, then I take the settler yarmulke, don’t you think that would be… Okay, then there is the prayer shawl, and there are a lot of symbols … (Puts it on LvT.) You are supposed to say a lot of prayers, but you do not have to do that today.
LvT:
Okay. I know that each of these threads means something.
MK:
If you put them all together, there are just as many threads as there are laws in the Old Testament. I think that’s how it is. Let me put it on. There is a movement where you … (Puts on his own shawl).
LvT:
It is like Batman and Robin. I remember.
MK:
True. Who would you prefer to be?
LvT:
Well, then I am Robin.
MK:
You look fantastic.
LvT:
Thank you.
MK:
Okay, we are close. You light the first—first the servant, not the other ones.
LvT:
Okay, no. (Tries to light the candle.) Does it work?
MK:
Not now, but now it does.
LvT:
One more time.
MK:
No, not there.
LvT:
Was it miraculous?
MK:
Yes, the flame came back on. Then you have to say a prayer.
LvT:
Okay.
MK:
The nice thing about Judaism is that you just say the prayers. You don’t have to understand any of it.
LvT:
No.
MK:
If I sing, will you repeat after me?
LvT:
Singing?
MK:
Yes.
LvT:
Holy crap!
MK:
Okay?
LvT:
Yes. I am game.
MK:
Good. First you sing: Baruch ata Adonei.
LvT:
Baruch ata Adonei.
MK:
…b’mitz’votav.
LvT:
…b’mitz’votav.
MK:
…v’tzivanu.
LvT:
…v’tzivanu.
MK:
…l’had’lik.
LvT:
…l’had’lik.
MK:
…ner.
LvT:
…ner.
MK:
Exactly.
LvT:
Fantastic.
MK:
And then there is another one, which we will do a little faster: Baruch ata Adonei.
LvT:
Baruch ata Adonei.
MK:
Eloheinu melech ha’olam.
LvT:
That’s difficult… Eloheinu melech ha’olam.
MK:
It means “Our God, the king of the world”… And then: she’asa nisim.
LvT:
… she’asa nisim.
MK:
…la’avoteinu.
LvT:
…la’avoteinu.
MK:
…bayamim.
LvT:
…bayamim.
MK:
…hahem.
LvT:
…hahem.
MK:
…bazman.
LvT:
…bazman.
MK:
…bazman.
LvT:
…bazman.
MK:
You have to say it with a more Orientalist accent.
LvT:
…bazman.
MK:
…hazé.
LvT:
…hazé.
MK:
Amen.
LvT:
Amen?
MK:
Yes, we say it together.
Both:
Amen.
MK:
And now you light the candle.
LvT:
I simply can’t. My hands are shaking.
MK:
Why do you shake that much?
LvT:
I have always done it, and then there is the medicine. It makes it worse. There is also nervousness somewhere. You won’t understand.
MK:
In Hebrew you write from right to left.
LvT:
Okay.
MK:
We do the same with the candles. I am thinking about all this Jewry and Judaism. Why it interests you.
LvT:
Yes?
MK:
It is because it is totally ritualized. There are rules and laws for everything, right? You have to do like this, and you eat like that. No matter if you have to fart or make love to you wife—no matter what. There are rules for everything. And you don’t have to believe it—you just have to do it. I don’t understand that kind of religious language at all. Do you?
LvT:
I have to, because if there is a difficult situation with one of my kids, then I pray to God. Without knowing where or who he is.
MK:
Do you?
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
What do you then say?
LT:
I say: “Dear God, keep your hand over Benjamin” or something like that.
MK:
I would never do that.
LvT:
Never?
MK:
No.
LvT:
I would, and it is bit like Niels Bohr with that damn horseshoe: it probably doesn’t hurt. I think there is something attractive about that. [Translators note: Bohr used to have a horseshoe hanging over the door to his summerhouse. When asked whether he thought it would bring good fortune, he answered, “Of course not, but I have heard that it also brings happiness even if you don’t believe in it.”]
MK:
How are we feeling now?
LvT:
I am feeling fine.
MK:
If you want, you are welcome. I don’t say that on behalf of any other Jews than myself. But you are always welcome.
LvT:
Well, that’s good.
MK:
Try to smell—try to smell them. (The prayer shawls.) That’s what it smells like in the synagogues among the men. Like men’s perfume and mothballs.
LvT:
Yes. (Laughs.)
MK:
Goodbye, it was fun.
LvT:
Yes. I think it was good.
MK:
It was really good.
LvT:
Yes.
MK:
Well, I don’t know if it was. It will be up to our many …
LvT:
Absent viewers.
MK:
Yes, for our many absent viewers to judge.
THE END
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