What’s so scary about “Jaws”?

by Rabbi Nancy Kasten

This summer marked the 50th anniversary of the release of the original summer blockbuster movie, Jaws. In honor of the occasion, a group of friends who had seen it together in the summer of 1975, joined by a few spouses and children, gathered to watch it the old fashioned way, projected on a sheet in the living room.

For those of you who may never have seen the film, or don’t remember it, the story revolves around shark attacks that take place over 4th of July weekend in a town whose economy depends on summer tourism. During our summer of 2025 screening, scenes of shark attacks and victims elicited multiple screams and, in one case, a startled jump, upending a bowl of popcorn. But scarier than the shark, seven months into the second Trump Administration and a few days after 4th of July floods in Texas, was the way the mayor, medical examiner, and town elders intentionally misled the public, convincing them that treacherous waters were perfectly safe.

The story begins when the remains of a young woman are found on the beach. The medical examiner informs Martin Brody, the newly appointed chief of police, that he’s sure the woman was killed by a shark. But by the time Chief Brody starts to pull people out of the water and shut down the beach, the medical examiner, accompanied by the mayor, tells him he has changed his mind. He now believes the evidence proves the death was the result of a boating accident. Chief Brody feels he has no choice but to accept the doctor’s revised report. The beaches remain open, and ultimately four additional people are killed by the shark.

Jaws is a work of fiction, but there is no dearth of real life examples when it comes to public officials who ignore, obfuscate, minimize or deny threats to safety and wellbeing when they are inconvenient or disruptive. In Texas, officials have repeatedly deferred opportunities to mitigate danger associated with floods like the recent one that killed at least 130 people, including 27 summer campers and counselors.

Across our nation, mass shootings and other forms of gun violence kill and injure individuals in every imaginable setting, yet legislatures continue to pass laws that expand access to firearms and the right to carry them, broaden the categories of who can own and operate a firearm, and add to the types of guns that can be carried, openly or concealed. There is ample evidence that states with meaningful gun control laws experience less gun violence, but legislators still vote against them.

With each passing day we see elected and appointed public officials, charged with protecting us, promoting harmful mis information and disinformation for their personal benefit.

Our religious traditions warn us of what happens to a nation governed by corrupt leaders. The prophets Elijah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah all railed against the unethical practices of their day because they contradicted the honesty and integrity that undergird a free, just, and open society. Today the rapidly accelerating erosion of trust in our leaders is undermining our ability to achieve “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.” Lacking trusted sources of information, we understandably become suspicious of everyone and everything, losing confidence in our ability to assess where true danger really lies. Anxiety and fear interfere with rational, healthy decision making.

The 20th-century historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt focused much of her work on understanding how ordinary people become actors in totalitarian systems. She wrote, “… consistent lying, metaphorically speaking, pulls the ground from under our feet and provides no other ground on which to stand.” The result of consistent lying is that we come to experience “a trembling wobbling motion of everything we rely on for our sense of direction and reality.”

We can and should expect our faith and our faith communities to hold and console us in these times of frightening uncertainty. But faith also demands that we hold our elected officials accountable to the truth. Faith calls us to reject falsehoods, to be sources of truth and righteousness ourselves, and to promote the common good, even when doing so requires discomfort, or even personal sacrifice.

We restore our equilibrium and ground ourselves in reality when we seek out and tell the truth. To avoid uncomfortable conversations with people we disagree with is understandable, especially when we care about those people, or have to live with them, and their positions are promoted by powerful leaders. But when we don’t challenge blatant lies we damage our moral foundation. Silence is often mistaken for agreement or acceptance, so staying quiet when we don’t agree with someone only exacerbates our discomfort and anxiety.

If Chief Brody had refused to go along with the mayor and medical examiner and had insisted on closing the beach, Jaws would have been a much different movie. As we do our best as individuals and as faith communities to avoid unnecessary threats, Jaws serves as a cautionary tale. When we fall prey to uncertainty, we would do well to take these words from Psalm 15 to heart, words that remind us of the responsibilities and the blessings of our covenant with God, source of steadfast truth:

“Adonai, who may live in Your tent, who may dwell on Your holy mountain?

Those who are upright, who do justly, who speak the truth within their hearts;

Who do not slander others, or wrong them, or bring shame upon them;

Who scorn the lawless, but honor those who revere God;

Who give their word and come what may, do not retract;

Who do not exploit others, who do not take bribes.

Those who live in this way shall never be shaken.”

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