The Good Wife is a new legal drama on CBS. The show is great. Usually the legal issues are portrayed correctly (at least from a law student’s perspective) and the character development of the main character has been superb.
This week’s episode revolved around a chasidic couple living in Chicago who were responsible to fix a fallen eruv wire, but since it fell on Shabbos they had to wait until Shabbos had ended and in the meantime a woman claims she fell over the wire and is suing for 1.2 million dollars in punitive damages. The title of the episode does not refer to the couple, rather it refers to their lawyer with an unorthodox approach to law.
Read on for my comments, critiques and a HUGE PLOT HOLE.
The defense is based on the 1st Amendment, freedom of speech, and claims that the couple has the right to practice their religion and a jury should decide if they are liable when they believe it would be wrong for them to fix the eruv wire. That defense fails when the wife (a recent baalas tshuva / one who returns to Orthodox Judaism later in life) is found to have been making phone calls to her father on Shabbos. If she calls her father on Shabbos she should also be able to fix the fallen wire. Ultimately, the defense shows that the entire slip and fall was concocted and the jury finds for the defense.
You can read a full synopsis of the episode here or, even better, you can watch the show (at least for the time being) on CBS.com.
The portrayal of the chasidic community, the laws of eruv and the relationship between the chasidic couple were pretty good. BUt there were a few things that they got wrong. It is so funny to me that any orthodox Jew would notice the nuances that are incorrect but the entire staff of the show does not see the mistakes. Ironically, last week’s episode of The Good Wife revolved around a witness who could not tell the difference between 2 black men. It seems that people from other ethnicities have a hard time seeing the nuances of other ethnicities. It is no different when Hollywood tries to portrays Jews. They simply don’t have the sensitivities to the finer details of orthodox Judaism, especially chasidic Judaism.
Things They Got Mostly Correct
The chasidic garb. She was wearing typical women’s dress. Subdued colors and very modest. He was in black and white with his hat nearby at all times.
Strollers. Everyone had strollers in the chasidic neighborhood.
Kosher markets. There was a kosher market within walking distance.
The shomrim guy. He looked like every non-chasidic Hatzalah (Jewish volunteer ambulance core) guy I know.
The intimacy between the couple. Most couples on the show celebrate victory with public hugs and kisses. The chasidic couple did not embrace in public, but their connection was displayed by touching each other’s hands secretly.
Mistakes
The chasidic guy never smiles. That is just not nice.
The chasidic guy has a “tchup”(coiffed hair), chasidic men have hair that is cut very short.
The chasidic guy has a trimmed beard, that is not common at all.
The chasidic guy has a RING! (I mean, come on, that’s an easy one!)
They say an eruv “creates a symbolic courtyard“, that’s not quite true, an eruv joins many domains into one common domain by surround the entire community with a wall. (But that is a hard one.)
A young chasidic boy has a leather kipa perched awkwardly on the back of his head.
Something That Bothered Me
The wife was a twice rehabbed drug loving party girl who found chasidic Judaism while incarcerated. Showing her revival as a chasidic Jewish woman bothered me slightly. It was if to say, one has to be so crazy to find chasidic Judaism attractive. Maybe I am nitpicking, but it bothered me just a little.
HUGE PLOT HOLE
When the plaintiff got injured it was Shabbos. She was asked why she was walking through this neighborhood and she said she was going to the market. She was asked why this market if there are four markets closer to her home and she said because this market is the kosher market where they sell gluten free products.
Do you see the problem? (answer below)
This is an inexcusable error. CBS, next time you want to do a show with chasidic or Orthodox Jewish characters and plot elements you can hire me. I will be your rabbinical consultant and make sure you get it right.
The Good Wife is a great show. One of the reasons it is great is not the attention to detail. A twitter buddy of mine also noticed a legal problem a few weeks ago. I guess when you are law student and a Rabbi you are going to notice the mistakes of Jewish culture and law.
(Plot hole answer: The kosher market is closed on Shabbos. She could never be walking to a kosher market on Shabbos!)
Read this blog post by @matthue about his experience as an extra for the episode!
Related posts:
Wow, what an analysis. You are right on target about the ring and the hairdos and the leather yarmulke.
The phenomenon of a party girl becoming “chasidic” exists. I would say, though, while the number of former party girls who became “chasidic” is not negligible, they would be married to other baalei tshuva, not to an FFB chasid. Since I don’t watch the show, I don’t know if the husband’s background was mentioned.
Thanks.
His background was not significant. He may have also been a baal tshuva but he was more devout than she as he was visibly hurt by her breaking of Shabbos.
I caught it too and thought, okay, it’ll be addressed later on and that’ll be the clue discovered that makes her story false!!!! But then, she had already been to the grocery (she had broken bottles all around her the hatzalah guy said). I was ticked off too. Although, thought the eruv description was pretty good. When I try to explain it to non-observant people I sound like an idiot.
The eruv description was pretty good just not precise.
We have an eruv issue in Venice so I have explained it very rationally to many uniformed people. Use the explanation I gave in the post, it is very simple for a non-OJ to ‘get’.
I enjoyed the episode as well as your thoughts on it.
The fact that the chassidic guy doesn’t smile could be because he was getting sued and upset about it then he finds out that his wife was being mechalel shabbos when calling her father. I understand your point, I’m just sayin’.
He doesn’t even smile when they win.
It was completely unnatural.
Thanks for stopping by!
My wife and I caught the supermarket hole too. Other things that bothered me:
1. Why chassidim to begin with? Chassidim make up a very small part of Chicago’s frum community. Out of that percentage, many are Chabad (which this couple clearly was not) and do not use the eruv. Many of the rest are Satmar; I’m not sure whether they use they eruv or not. Why not show a couple who were yeshivish or moderni, except to emphasize the otherness of shomrei shabbos?
2. Why the semi-accent on the husband? He was clearly not European or Israeli, but he spoke English with a slight hesitation, as though not fully at home in that language. Again, emphasizing the otherness?
3. The closeup of the juncture between the eruv wire and the house did not appear to have a lechi; the wire went straight into the wall, horizontally.
4. The frum nieghborhoods in Chicago — West Rogers Park and Peterson Park — look nothing like the NY-style row houses in the episode. You can find those row houses in older, gentrified neighborhoods of Chicago like Linclon Park, but the West Rogers Park and Peterson Park are a mix of single family houses WITH front and side yards, and two-to-four story brick apartment buildings. Were they trying to make the scene look more like NY?
Excellent points.
I am unfamiliar with Chicago so I figured the neighborhood was at least close to W. Rogers Park – I guess not!
The accent was awful.
I can excuse them for not knowing about a lechi. That is an more intricate detail.
Welcome, and thanks for checking out the blog!
Interesting post even though I’ll probably never get to see the show (too little time just now and maybe impossible to watch from my side of the Atlantic).
My wife saw the episode. She noticed the plot-hole herself. She told me about the episode and I said that there is a second flaw and that is:
If an eruv wire breaks on Shabbos, even though the eruv cannot be fixed on Shabbos, it is absolutely muttar to pick up the wire and wind it around something or some other similar procedure to move it out of the way l’imnuyei hezeika (to prevent damages). This is the same reason one can sweep up the pieces of a broken glass on shabbos even though the pieces themselves become muktza.
Thus, unless the characters were real amei-haaratzim, if they were aware the wire broke, they would have moved it away and the story wouldn’t start.
I agree that the guy’s haircut and beard didn’t look at all Hassidic.
I didn’t think that the Kosher market was a plot hole, I don’t know the situation in Chicago, but in other cities (I’m thinking Toronto as an example) there are large non-Jewish supermarkets in Jewish areas with big kosher sections that are open on Shabbat, I got the impression that this was the type of store she was referring to.
I also liked the way the couple didn’t embrace (which was in character), the point when they discreetly touched hands was a great way to portray affection in the Hassidic community (and they contrasted it nicely with the way the lawyers touched in a similar way)
The show insinuated it was a Kosher type of market with only Kosher foods. The type that would never be open on Shabbos.
Thanks for checking out the blog!
I’m embarrassed I didn’t catch the supermarket thing.
But what bothered me the most out of what I thought to be a pretty interesting and fairly accurate episode, was, why would she choose Friday night to call her father? I could understand her need to call him, but why was it necessary to do so on Shabbos? Did I miss something? I didn’t hear any explanation for why she called him then. And I *think* her husband would have been more forgiving if she had done it on another day.
Great point. Maybe it was the only time she was sure she could reach her father due to his eccentric schedule…
Thanks for the insight. I caught the supermarket thing and I wondered if that was the acutal plot