Loving Leah in A Levirate Marriage

A new TV series is out, premiered January 25, 2009.

Loving Leah.



Here's a synopsis:

Jake is a Washington, D.C., physician who has been accepted into a fellowship program. He is engaged to Carol, who he met at the hospital when they were having lunch at the same time. Carol is pretty and seems to work at the hospital...Jake, who grew up Jewish but is no longer observant, dreams that he sees his brother Benjamin, a rabbi who he has not kept in touch with, telling him everything is now all right between them. They used to be close, as shown in flashbacks. Jake then finds out Benjamin is deceased.

Jake goes to Brooklyn to attend the funeral. He finds out that he obligated by scripture (Deuteronomy 25:5) to marry Benjamin's widow Leah. Neither Jake nor Leah wants to do this, but a halizah ceremony is required to release Jake from his obligation. The words Jake is forced to say would require him to denounce his brother, which he can't do. So he goes through with a sham marriage and moves Leah into his very masculine Georgetown apartment, giving her the other bedroom. The two rarely see each other...there is an additional complication: the mothers of Jake and Leah don't know the marriage is fake. So they have to go through the motions to keep up the charade.

Leah wanted to leave Brooklyn anyway; she wants to go to college and investigates the possibility. Very devout and conservative, she also seeks out a place of worship. The one she finds is very different from the one in Brooklyn; instead of lots of men with black hats and beards, this temple has a female rabbi.

and this:

Under an ancient law of his brother's faith, Jake is expected to marry the widow if his brother has died childless. (The practice, known as a Levirate marriage, is mandated by the torah, with many Old Testament examples.)

Here's where the viewer is asked to take a colossal leap of faith with the plot of "Loving Leah" (9 p.m. Sunday, Chs. 5, 46).

Instead of hopping on the next plane out of New York, Jake agrees to take part in a Halizah — a ceremony that will let him avoid his duty to marry Leah. As part of the ceremony, Leah removes Jake's shoe, throws it across the room and spits on the floor in front of him. For murky reasons, probably involving feelings of guilt and disgrace, Jake stops the Halizah and requests a timeout.

Alone with Leah, he proposes to marry her, take her back to Georgetown with him, live in separate bedrooms — and probably divorce her within a year. She agrees.

If this sounds preposterous, it's probably because it is.

So why is it enjoyable? For starters, the movie, based on a play by P'Nenah Goldstein, depicts a culture that's foreign to most of us, but also intriguing.

More important, for those willing to make the leap of faith, Ambrose and Kaufman have chemistry, which invites viewers to overlook improbabilities. We enjoy watching Ambrose domesticate her new husband-roommate — who has a pool table in his living room. And as Leah becomes a bit more worldly and Jake a bit more spiritual, the ending is as predictable as it is moving.

Not quite Naomi Regan and not quite Chicken Soup but in the neighborhood.