Why Are You Laughing?

What a wild and crazy ride the last six months have been. Who could have imagined that we would still be struggling with this deadly illness with the High Holidays just around the corner? Yet here we are.

There is a Yiddish proverb that many of you are familiar with. “A Mentch Tracht und Gott Lached”: “Man plans and G-d laughs.” While the original saying in Yiddish is somewhere between cute and folksy on one hand and deep Kabbalah-flavored existentialism on the other, one cannot be faulted for not finding this saying even remotely amusing. In fact, the notion of G-d laughing while we struggle can seem distasteful and theologically off entirely. Which is why I believe that was never the intention.

This is where the theology of laughter comes in.

If we take a closer look at this saying it begins to look less jingoistic.

But first things first. What are we "saying" when we say, “man thinks?" It has to be more than just an observation about the human cognitive faculty. One possibility. It is also a statement about the tools we have at our disposal to handle the challenges that come our way. Our ability to think things through calmly can frequently be all that is required to manage the complex moments that come our way, often unexpectedly. At the same time, there are moments that require an instinctive response from the gut and we sabotage that process by OVER thinking.

Then there are challenging moments where we may have exercised reason, in a healthy way, and we just don't have answers. We are stuck. Not because of ourselves. We WEREN'T in our own way, and we are still stuck because there IS no solution. (kind of like Covid-19.) We have done everything we can. So what do we do when there's nothing left for us to do?

This is where the second part of that saying comes in. "G-d Laughs." This is the moment where we channel the divine spark or energy that flows through us. This is when we laugh! What does it mean to laugh in a moment like this? It might not necessarily mean actual laughter in the strict sense of the word. It might simply be an internal nod to the utter and total absurdity of the situation we are in. That mental nod holds the seeds of acceptance that we plant at that moment. The laughter at that moment might be the natural outlet, a thing one can still do precisely when there is nothing to do. (If we think about it, we can all come up with moments where our reaction to instances of deep and unexpected challenge was to burst into uncontrollable laughter!) Only laughter can somehow facilitate a "non-doing" deed. I say laughter even though one could argue that sorrow and grief could easily be the "carrier" of this moment. The only difference is that there is a joyfulness in this type of acceptance. The acceptance is NOT coming from a place of giving up. On the contrary, the nod to the absurd is an expression of deep faith in the ultimate goodness of the universe, even in the thick of the moments where we are most tempted to lose that faith entirely.

It is a laughter that has the power to set us free when freedom itself is not an option.

To be continued... I'm still trying to work this through in my head! :))

Meanwhile, I wish you all a great Shabbat with a hope and a prayer that we can see one another soon.