The Rabbi's Cat

Going off of our discussion in class, I still can't decide if I liked or disliked this graphic novel. I thought there were many good parts throughout the story and brought up many good themes that deal with Jewish identity. I think from the class discussion I ended up liking it more than I did previous to class. Many of the questions that I had were answered.

One of the things that I found most interesting was the way in which the cat lost his voice. The cat tried to test God and used God's name in vein. God then proceeded to take the cat's ability to talk away from him, which in a way then made him then believe in god. I find it interesting that by taking something away from the cat he was actually giving the cat something also, a new found belief in God. To me, this seemed kind of ironic, as was most of "The Rabbi's Cat."

Along with the cat, the Rabbi does the exact same thing later in the graphic novel and God does nothing. I thought this was interesting and reminded me of "A Contract With God." To me, the moral of these parts were that God is always there. What I got from the parallels with "A Contract With God," was that seeing isn't always believing. If you believe in something, you shouldn't have to see it in action in order to believe.