May the Force be with you...

Last night Casey and I watched Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (full disclosure: I'd never seen Star Wars before despite hometown ties). I'd been exposed to many different allusions and references to the saga and I understood a good amount of it, but last night's experience really contextualized all that I'd encountered previously.

One of the things that is inescapable in pop-culture is the concept of the Force. I always knew it had to do with religion but not because I'd ever thought about it. When I was in Hebrew school whenever someone did a good job with something we wished them "yasher koach" which I believe is something along the lines of just "way to go." In fourth and fifth grade my Hebrew school teacher, Rachel, would have us say "yasher koach" like always, but then she prompted us with "which means..." and, in unison, we'd all reply "may the Force be with you!" That was my first exposure to "the Force" (again, full disclosure: this is the same Rachel who is now the rabbi at the synagogue in Phoenixville).

When I watched Episode IV last night I was more interested in the concept of the Force than anything else. I'm shy about making any sort of analysis at this point since I've heard that the concept is further developed over the course of the saga, but there's definitely something going on there that deserves attention. One of the Star Wars related things that I've heard rumors about is the presence of a sort of Jedi religion that real people actually claim to be followers of. Upon first hearing this a few years ago I scoffed at the idea and wrote people off as being completely wacked out nerds who had nothing better to do. After seeing the first film, however, I've changed my tune. I'm not ready to embrace Jediism as a legitimate religion quite yet, but I'm not so quick to call all who believe in the Force complete idiots.

Now to wrap this all up...

I think it's important for this class to approach the various different theories and religions that we're going to examine only after reading about them in context and fully understanding them. I really scared myself last night when I realized that it'd be just as easy to call a major world religion or belief system stupid and irrelevant as it was for me to say the same of the Force.

So yeah. I guess what I'm saying is that I shouldn't be so judgmental.