Do Rabbis Dream of Electric Cats?

     I still can’t decide whether or not I liked The Rabbi’s Cat.  This graphic novel, as an art form, wasn’t my favorite.  It was almost too linear.  The layout never changed with a consistent six squares per page.  It was a comic strip layout.  The drawing and colors were also not my favorite.  The one thing I can say I really liked about the art was how Joann Sfar drew the cat.  But since Wednesday’s class discussion, I have spent more time thinking about the themes in The Rabbi’s Cat and more things seem to pop out at me.  In “Imperfect Masters: Rabbinic Authority in Joann Sfar’s The Rabbi’s Cat, Paul Eisenstein states, “Zblaya’s marriage to him threatens to interrupt a life…unchangeably idyllic…Jules is the cat’s first sexual rival.” (Baskind and Omer-Sherman, 163)  While yes, the cat has sex in the book, it is with OTHER CATS.   I feel the relationship between the rabbi’s cat and Zblaya is more of a child with a childish crush on a mother figure.  The cat feels threatened that he will have to share Zblaya’s affection and care with, first, a husband, and then children.  The cat feels that his life will be torn apart by these changes.  And what child has not felt threatened by changes in his or her life.  This childish worldview fits well with the idea that the cat’s version of Eden was lost with his eating of the bird and gaining a voice.  But the cat isn’t the only one to question life in this book.  The rabbi also goes through a similar loss of this mentor and the questioning of whether religious faith makes you happier.  No one in this book seems to have the answers but then again no one seems to have the answers in life.