There are many ‘serious’ questions that arise from Joel and Ethan Coen’s film A Serious Man. Like the biblical text it is most compared with, the questions are huge, concerning justice, the meaning of suffering and God’s relationship to humanity. I would like to focus on the one question, potentially smaller in scope, that finds its basis in the title of the film, and that is: What does it mean to be ‘a serious man’?

Read the full essay, Divine Seriousness & The Trouble With Being ‘A Serious Man’ by Jeremy Ambrose