That Galus Show

There is something poignant about television shows.

Growing up, I was enamored with That 70s Show. Okay, I am still enamored with it. It is a masterful story of growing up in the zeitgeist where "I" became the point, where personal choices became the new frontier, where life became a madcap adventure of growth into Selfhood. The contrast is brought out beautifully - to Red, life is about the country, the war, the duties one has a citizen of society...and to the kids, life is about authenticity, love, being who you are (and getting lost along the way to finding it).

The ending of the show, in particular, was extremely powerful. Eric returns and has a moment with Donna in which he admits to carrying her in his heart despite breaking hers. She tells him things are different now, and he silently acknowledges that. And he apologizes, and they embrace.

I loved that ending because the show returns to the narrative that was its underlying theme the entire time - the relationship between Eric and Donna. It turns breakups into temporary sidetracks, endings into hiatuses, and rewraps the entire story into a meta-narrative that subsumes the events that took place within it. And it ends in love - not infatuation, not being lost in something bigger than you are, but a mature meeting of two who become One yet remain two.

That moment, to me, is a wonderful recreation of galut and geula.

We can get lost on the Road to Selfhood, to maturity, to Being. But in the end, the narrative that matters is the one of Yisrael and G-d - and it subsumes the struggles along the way, the meanderings of a people who dont know where to go or what to be, the goodbyes of thousands of souls who thought they walked away. The restoration of the story that mattered most, though lost from the public eye, is the harbinger of a Time when all CAN be One.


May it come soon.