Midrash in Decalogue 5

Midrash is a Hebrew term which involves the interpretation of sacred texts and the meaning behind what is written. There are multiple forms of Midrash but the two most common are Halachah and Aggadah. Midrash Halachah is focused on the secular applications of the texts and is used to create laws which abide by the morals that these writings promote. Aggadah, on the other hand, is a bit more abstract. It focuses on interpreting the rules laid out in the literature of Judaism through the telling of stories. These stories are not meant to be taken literally but are instead intended to provoke a feeling within the audience similar to what is created when a Tennent of their faith is followed or broken. This form of Midrash is what the Decalogue series can be characterized as.

            Decalogue 5 in my opinion did the best job of telling a story that inspired a special feeling within the viewer that could easily be applied to the commandments. In the beginning the audience gets to watch two people who are both deeply flawed in the way they treat other people. The first is a taxi driver that is an extremely bitter person and is rude to people that wish to pay him for his services. He drives around the city and takes any opportunity he can to inconvenience others, such as honking his horn at a man walking his dogs for no reason other than to scare the dogs and make them run away from their owner.

            The other character is a young man that appears to be about 20 years old. It is immediately easy for the audience to dislike him as we watch him walk around town doing needless harm to others. He lies to people that want to share a taxi with him, steals from shops, and even throws a friendly man into a filthy urinal. His destructive path eventually crosses with the taxi driver, who he soon murders for what seems to be no reason at all. He is convicted of this crime and sentenced to death by hanging. It is incredible how by watching him do all of those horrible things the viewer can start to view him as something worse than a human, and therefore worthy of the death penalty. But after watching him speak with his lawyer about his life at home we see him as what he really is, a 20 year old that wants to live that is minutes away from his execution.

            If I had read in the paper that a young man murdered an innocent taxi driver in cold blood and received that death penalty I would likely think, “Good, that’s what he deserves!” but when you actually watch the process and see his face when he is brought to the noose you realize that no matter what crimes he committed he is still a child and killing him wont undo his deeds nor will this retribution make what’s been done any less damaging. Killing him only creates more pain.

            This film is Midrash that allows the audience to feel what it is like when the fifth commandment “Thou shalt not murder” is broken. This is one of the shortest commandments and I think that it is that way for good reason, it is an absolute. It is wrong to kill, and there is no possible way to truly justify doing it. We like to think that the use of the death penalty is justified due to the closure that it brings but this film showed that this is not the case. The penalty did not bring any closure and instead resulted in two deaths as opposed to one.