Sunday, August 12, 2012

Another Hollywood Talmudic Plot

A new movie is in the works.

A Biblically-themed film.

With Russel Crowe


playing...Noah.

An item:

"Noah" won't be your average Biblical epic though. Aronofsky plans to feature wingless angel demons and giants--based on his tweets, a creature named Og. According to Indie Wire, Og was the King of Bahan, a race of giants, and part of the Rephaim in the Bible.
"According to Jewish folklore, Noah built a special compartment in the Ark for him and/or he rode out the flood by sitting on the top. Either way, we'll see how Og will make an appearance, but it's another interesting note to a movie that is playing as much with myth and legend as it is with the elements of the standard story we know," writes Kevin Jagernauth.

That, of course, is not Hollywood but Midrash:

The Midrash (Pirkei D'Rebbe Eliezer 23) relates* that Og sat on one of the rungs of the ark's ladders and swore to Noach and his sons that he would be their slave forever. Noach then punched a hole in the ark to which he would feed Og through every day. This pledge, however, wasn't enough for Og to survive the flood. The Gemara (Zevachim, 113b) relates that the waters in the flood of Noach were boiling hot but Hashem cooled all the water around the ark so Og would be able to survive and the ark could travel. So we see that Og was a pretty great man as well, for he merited a miraculous miracle.
*
And all living things which were upon the face of the 
earth decayed,^ as it is said, " And every living thing was 
destroyed which was upon the face of the ground " {ibid. 
23), except Noah and those who were with him in the ark, 
as it is said, " And Noah only was left, and they that 
were with him in the ark " {ibid.), except Og,^ king of 
Bashan, who sat down on a piece of wood under the gutter ^ 
of the ark. He swore to Noah and to his sons that he 
would be their servant for ever.'' What did Noah do ? 
He bored an aperture in the ark, and he put (through it) his 
food daily for him, and he also was left, as it is said, " For 
only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the 
giants " (Deut. iii. 11). 

And there's this in Talmud Nidah 61b:

...He thought: Peradventure the merit of our father Abraham will stand him by, for it is said, And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew, in connection with which R. Johanan explained: This refers to Og who escaped the fate of the generation of the flood.

An interesting take.

^

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