Language: English
Length: 90 min.
Beliefs, Customs and traditions define every aspect of Jewish life. From the day a Jew is born until after they die, every day marks a different stage of life, each with its own personal and religious significance.
The Jewish Life Cycle describes three of the most crucial landmarks. Following three beautiful stories, this film intimately depicts the way that religion intertwines and defines Jewish life.
The Eights Day
"Nature is what you started out with, not what you want to become." Spoken by Joseph the Physician to Micha, these words reflect the eternal struggle between the wish to ‘fit in’ and the desire to serve a higher calling. Religious life for a Jewish man begins on the eights day after his birth, and marks his initiation into the ritual cycle of life. Set in the days of the Maccabim when the Greeks ruled the promised land, The Eights Day follows the struggle of a father from the desire to give his son a ‘normal’ Greek life, to his recognition of the importance of his Jewish heritage and a growing urgency to proudly pass it to his young son.
The Journey
Set in the Marxist Soviet Union of 1941 when freedom of thought and belief were crimes against the state, The Journey is the story of American Civil Engineer Jonathan Levinson and youngster Nikolai Krone. As Nikolai awakens to being no longer a child, he learns that it is now up to him to ask the important questions in life, and to find the answers he needs. Through the miraculous meeting of Jonathan and Nikolai they both come to embrace the beauty and importance of the Bar-Mitzva ceremony, and the privilege and responsibility it bring to being a full adult Jewish man.
The Corridor
The last landmark in the Jewish Life Cycle is death and burial. Sharon, a young girl in Israel as a summer volunteer, has a near death experience as she survives a near-fatal car crash. Following Sharon through a series of profound discoveries, The Corridor portrays the difficulty of coping with extraordinary inner truths as she deals with skeptics and believers alike. Sharon then gets a new neighbor in the next hospital bed who reveals to her some of the deeper Jewish beliefs on the matter.
"Beyond the seven days of creation there is an eight day". Through extraordinary human stories The Jewish Life cycle paints beautiful pictures of religious discovery and the importance of these landmarks in a person's life. From the day we are born and begin a brave new life until after our death, this is the Jewish cycle of life.