20 Things You Didn't Know About A Serious Man
4. Where is all this leading to, Rabbi?
Our embattled protagonist seeks spiritual guidance throughout the film and he encounters the specific guidance of Rabbi Marshak, who is unavailable. Therefore he engages two rabbis, Ginsler and Nachtner, each less helpful than the last. Nachtner in particular tells an amusing but confusing tale of a dentist who becomes fixated on various symbols in his patients' teeth.
It is clear from the onset that this oral parable is not going anywhere, and leaves Larry more frustrated than he was before. The spiritual leader's penchant for telling quirky and inconclusive stories may be the Coen brothers acknowledging their tendency to do this in their work. Their filmography is populated with colourful and eccentric characters as well as stories with humorous mean streaks.
Some have even called their work nihilistic and (intentionally) vague and this is reflected in the Rabbi's tale. It helps that this film is one of their more personal works and is a possible acknowledgment of how they are perceived as filmmakers.