Adam Brody is not a rabbi. This should not need to be said. He is an actor who plays one on Nobody Wants This, the wildly popular Netflix series that has generated plenty of conversation and controversy about Judaism, interfaith relationships, conversion, Jewish women and what it means to take religious commitment seriously.

Brody plays Rabbi Noah Roklov, a rabbi committed to his vocation and his community. He is not simply Jewish by background or cultural affiliation. His Judaism is central to who he is and to the life he has chosen to lead. Then he meets Joanne, a non-Jewish woman, and they fall in love.

The tension at the center of the show is not simply whether two attractive people with good chemistry will end up together. It is whether love can overcome or somehow accommodate religious incompatibility. Noah is forced to wrestle with what his relationship means for his rabbinate, his community, his family and his own understanding of Jewish continuity.

Joanne, in turn, has to confront something our culture of romantic comedies does not always handle particularly well: loving someone does not make everything else about that person disappear.

Noah comes with commitments. He comes with a tradition, a community, obligations and a history that began long before Joanne walked into his life. If she wants to build a life with him, she has to understand that Judaism is not simply a quirky collection of foods, holidays and overbearing relatives. It asks something of him. And being with him may ultimately ask something of her. That premise has been controversial from the beginning.

Some viewers have celebrated the show for presenting a rabbi as romantic, funny, desirable and fully human. Others have criticized its portrayal of Jewish........

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