Jewish Life Digital Edition January 2014 | Page 26

FEATURE

SUPERMAN AND

THE JEWISH

MISSION

WE ALL WANT TO LIVE IN A
WORLD WHERE GOODNESS
TRIUMPHS OVER EVIL

ONCE I MET HIM, I KNEW I WANTED TO BE LIKE HIM.
Who wouldn’t want to fly, bend steel in your
bare hands and “fight for truth, justice and the
American way”? (Are we still allowed to call it
‘the American way’?) Every embodiment of
Superman was one of greatness, sacrifice and
heroism combined with a sense of humility
and purpose of being.
I loved reading the adventures of Superman
at the cottage on summer days, as he battled
Lex Luthor, Brainiac and a host of other villains, “whose every impulse of the heart was
only evil all day long”. To this day, my comic
collection of close to 700 titles, primarily from
the 60s and 70s (the so-called Silver Age of
comics), sit patiently in plastic bags and boxes
waiting for a new generation of youngsters to
move from their smart phones and iPads and
appreciate their beauty and message. (Alas, it
may be a long wait.)
It is well documented that Superman’s creators – two Jewish lads from Cleveland, one
originally from my hometown, Toronto, and
who patterned the Daily Planet after the Toronto Star – took many cues from our Torah
to create the story. The similarities between
Superman’s origins – being sent as a baby in a
rocket ship from his world of Krypton before
it would be destroyed – parallels the story of
Moses being sent down t