Mystery is not much in favor these days. We think that everything can and must be explained by reason.

In Commandments, Seth Warner, a doctor living in New York City, is knee-deep in suffering, pain, and confusion. Having lost his wife in a drowning accident, he's also been fired from the clinic where he works. Seth is ready to commit suicide atop a building when he's struck by lightning. Rachel, his wife's sister who's a lawyer, takes him in after he's released from the hospital. While he's trying to make sense of his suffering, she's handling the case of a God-fearing couple who want to give all their money away to charities.

In order to get the attention of the Creator, Seth decides to break each of the Ten Commandments. Harry, Rachel's husband who's a journalist, boasts, "I break five or six commandments every day before lunch." The two men, who dislike each other intensely, come together in a lighthouse during a hurricane. There they must decide who's going to break the sixth commandment first.

Writer and director Daniel Taplitz uses comedy to explore Seth's postgraduate course in moral education. Aidan Quinn is superb as a good man undone by grief and loss. Courteney Cox comes across well as a woman who deserves more love than she's getting. And Anthony LaPaglia is just right as the archetypal New York cynic.

In the end, all three characters are awed and stopped in their tracks by a miracle that is inexplicable. As the great Sufi poet Rumi once wrote, "Mysteries are not to be solved. The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why."