Laugh With Me

Freilich (Theo Tolby)

“If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you grow old.” (Edgar Watson Howe, 1853-1937, American Journalist, Author)

“We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.” (Agnes Repplier, 1858-1950, American Author, Social Critic)

Last week I made a phone call to an old chaver of mine who, in spite of his past friendship with an apikores, is now a well-respected Rov and Mechanech in NYC. He was actually quite happy to hear from me. It had been at least ten years since we last spoke, and it was refreshing to catch up on old times, if only for the few minutes we had. As you can imagine, he is a very busy person.

The conversation began something like this:

“Nu? Vus macht a Yid?”

“ Baruch Hashem alles gut! Vehr ist dus?”

“Gedenkst mir nit? Just how many apikorsim call you with sha'alos?”

“Aronovich??? Mechaya maysim! Vooh bist du gevven?”

“Ich blayb noch in Golus. Begashmiyus u beruchniyus.”

(He switches to part English now.)

“You’re an apikores like I’m a midget Black Muslim rodeo clown. Kumm baldt tzurik and stop this naarishkeit.”

"I'll think about it."

"Trach nit tzu fil. That was always your biggest problem."

M.M. was always a very serious fellow, even for a Litvak, and I laughed hearing him joke around like that. Maybe the years have softened him, too. That laugh brought back some old memories and feelings. That is what this article is all about. The conversation brought up some old zichronos I thought had been dormant or even lost. (Then again, would I have picked up the phone if they were?)

One would think that after 15 or 16 years of being physically, emotionally, and philosophically ‘frei’ that the feelings associated with Yiddishkeit and the inner yearning of the Pintele Yid would disappear or at least show some signs of atrophy. Apparently, the essence of the Jew doesn’t know what ‘surrender’ means. Inneveynig in hartzen, die Yiddishe neshama redt noch, albeit quietly and intermittently. It’s true. The reality is that one cannot just up and leave this life; who you are follows you everywhere, and I’m still looking at and beyond the world through chasidishe oygen, even though my seychel sometimes tells a very different story. I’m still divided. Shnayim Ochazin beTalis. I admit it. There is no shame in saying it. I’m not out to prove anything right or wrong at this point. I’m still wondering who I am or if it even matters. Again.

There remains machlokes, sefeykos, inconsistencies, fears, and plain old atzlanus. Swapping out lifestyles is not as easy as it looks. The issues of meaning and purpose still plague my psyche. That won’t ever change. But am I to offhandedly disregard something once such a powerful force in my life that I am willing to shed it like a snakeskin, when that very skin, in so many ways shaped and protected the creature that grew inside it? I can live with the doubt and the contradictions. That much is commonly human. Ober die Yiddishe neshama redt noch, and I’m hearing it, every so often, loudly and clearly above the din of my own internal machinations.

Reflecting back on my past self, similar to the addict in 12 Step recovery who inventories his past ways of living, I might imagine myself no longer that same person, and those images of a world filled with Shabbos or YomTov, chasidishe levush, streets with shtibelach on every corner, and the Rebbe’s tisch seem now, years later, like a movie with the leading role being acted by someone who vaguely resembles me, but isn’t me at all. Sometimes it appears out of focus on a faded movie screen, or as a choppy silent film with single-word subtitles playing an endless loop of Shmoneh Esreis, Melave Malkas, or Bletle Gemara, and it is unbearable to watch. I look back and can’t believe it was me doing it! At least, that’s what I tell myself now. Sometimes.

Other times these recollections feel more like an old lover from a relationship that ended without closure; where one day you just up and leave without even a goodbye. You portray yourself eloquent as Cicero, enumerating in ascending order of importance your concerns and objections to that person, as every word flows with masterful ease and expression, evoking any and every emotion you desire from her should your paths ever cross again. Yet when reality strikes and you stand there, all of the sudden confronted those old fears and feelings come flooding back over you and you freeze, solid and dumbfounded in your emotional tracks, regressing back to where you were when you knew her, still full of the lust, the anger, the longing, and the doubt. It as if nothing had changed, no time has passed, and all the mental gymnastics you prepared yourself to demonstrate are forever lost and forgotten. There is no indifference or apathic disinterest to a lover, and likewise, no such neutrality exists toward my previous life as a frumme Yid. I can rant and rave and poke fun at various aspects of the Yiddishe Derech from the safe distance of cyberspace and relative anonymity, but when confronted by it, face to face, the façade of proud and belligerent apikores vanishes. Perhaps it is only out of respect.

I did enjoy much about being a Chasidishe Yid. I loved the Chasidishe Leben. I loved the way we argued, the way we davenned, and the way we loved and hated each other in the same breath. I loved the bitachon in Hashgacha Protis, thinking that I personally and deeply mattered to the Thing that mattered most in the Universe. I miss the unique comeraderie, the beis medrash, and the heimishe simchas where close friends and mishpocho would gather in somebody’s small apartment where we’d drink, sing, and argue ourselves silly until it was either time for shachris or until an angry wife showed up to drag her recalcitrant husband home. Of course, there are things I will never like, but those same things I don’t like about one lifestyle are generally the same things I won’t like about another. Maybe I’m just too hard to please.

Mostly, I miss that special laughter. The Jewish laugh is the greatest laugh in the world and at the same time the saddest. Yidden recognize the world both for what it is and the way we envision it to be, and ne’er the twain shall meet. If that irony or that internal contradiction could be expressed as a simple sound, that sound would be the Jewish laugh. One would think that after all we, as a people, have been through that laughter would be a task difficult for a Jew to master. Perhaps the simple fact that we can still do it, in spite of our heritage and our own over-bloated sense of self-importance and seriousness is proof enough of a Ribono Shel Olam, who humbles us, yet allows us to enjoy our own inept struggle against both the world and ourselves. Who knows?

Rabi Akiva laughed in the face of defeat and suffering. Of course, he had his reasons. The laugh coming from the pain is a sunrise that follows a dark and sleepless night. Whenever the Jew finds doubt or trouble, this all encompassing and all-embracing laughter wells up from inside the Jew. Perhaps it is the collective Yiddishe subconscious telling us “I told you so!” This laugh is part joy, part sadness, part love, part hate, part obstinacy, and part acquiescence to things as they are. Rav Saadia Gaon said that when a person suddenly gains a straight perception of reality, the result is laughter. A flash of reality obliterates time-honored falsehoods, and the soul laughs.

I remember a photo of Rav Y.Y. Schneersohn OBM in which he was laughing open-mouthed with eyes wide from joy, and I have always imagined that this is the kind of face a Jew should wear as his levush. (If you know someone who has this photo, have him/her send it to me.) There is a story told of his arrest and interrogation by the NKVD, where an agent pressed a gun to his head and demanded the Rebbe name his collaborators. The Rebbe laughed. To him, no believing Jew would be afraid to declare, "I believe in Olam Haba." As he saw things, a loaded gun brings the existence of Yenne Veldt into such crisp and clear perspective, that the alternative is instantly reduced to hevel ve shtuss.

Be my friend and laugh with me. If you are at odds with what you do, what you think, and the world around you, then laugh! You will never be laughing alone. Maybe we can find some clarity together.

“If you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may say with confidence that he is a good man.” (Fyodor Dostoevski 1821-1881)

“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.” (W. H. Auden 1907-1973)