An Idea for Thanksgiving: Laugh a Little!
In all other years, we've had the obligatory fights around the table. This year, let's just be glad to be together. We need to lighten things up. Laughter through tears is the Jewish way.
Jews can laugh at anything. Check out this Israeli sketch (above) from the popular comedy series, "Ha-Yehudim Ba-im" (The Jews are Coming)
This week, when your family sits down for Thanksgiving dinner (is it really this week already???), let's make it different from all other years.
Because of the war in Israel and antisemitism at home, Jews have been living in a time warp since Simhat Torah. And with Thanksgiving early this year due to the quirky arithmetic of the calendar, it only exacerbates our disorientation. Let's take advantage of the lack of prep-time by setting aside our normally-scripted diatribes and not gearing up for political battle in the typical way.
In all other years we've had the obligatory fights around the table, with family members taking on the roles of Archie and Meathead, or Alex P. Keaton and his '60s folks, or just about everyone and their Trumpy cousin. It's time for Jews to sit back and cool it for a year. I'd say it's time for everyone else to as well, but Jews are my peeps, so I'll stick to the kinfolk right now.
We've all been through too much for this to be politics as usual at the dinner table, Let's just be glad to be together, first and foremost. Secondly, let's think of those who can't be with their families, whether because of military service or if they have been victimized by violence, here, in Israel or anywhere.
The wounds are too raw for normal banter, but some good natured humor could be helpful. It's the Jewish way to laugh in the face of tragedy. One might say that the entire book of Genesis is meant to be a farce, especially the Jacob narratives that we are in the midst of reading in the Torah. Seriously - marrying the wrong bride? I can hear the Benny Hill music the whole way through, from the fights in Rebecca's womb to the birthright scene to that crazy mixed up wedding. I've got to think that these stories were initially intended to be told after knocking back a a few pints of Manischewitz.
So I have a suggestion. Rather than filling the time from the soup to the pie with political banter, tell some jokes.
For Jews it is never “too soon.” Humor even played a key role before, during and after the Holocaust. From Charlie Chaplin to the late Robert Clary, who went from Buchenwald to Hogan’s Heroes - Jews literally got the first and last laughs on Hitler.
If we could laugh at Hitler, we can certainly laugh at the unfair anti-Israel media, and if you just can’t get away from current events at your holiday table, at least there is now a way to do just that. You can choose from among the growing number of English clips from Israel’s version of SNL, Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country). Jewish humor is rarely escapist. It comes right up to our tragic predicament, so close that you can smell it - and then it pokes it in the eye.
For Shalom Aleichem at the turn of the 20th century, it was “laughter through tears.” For Eretz Nehederet, it’s a much more empowering, self righteous mockery, that puts into words how so many of us are feeling about, say, the BBC.
Here’s another.
Or antisemitism on college campuses.
Or maybe you’ll want to get away from current events entirely and go for some more generic gallows humor. Here’s one of my all-time favorite High Holiday jokes, from Rabbi Albert Lewis of blessed memory. He gave a sermon where the subject was death, and informed the congregation that everyone is going to die.
After the service, a man comes up to him all excited. The rabbi asks, “Why are you so excited? I just told the entire congregation that they are going to die.”
“Yes,” said the man, “and THAT’S why I’m so excited. I belong to another congregation!”
Here’s a perfectly tasteless but also quintessentially Jewish joke for our times:
In a small village in Poland, a terrifying rumor was spreading: A Christian girl had been found murdered. Fearing retaliation, the Jewish community gathered in the shul to plan whatever defensive actions were possible under the circumstances. Just as the emergency meeting was being called to order, in ran the president of the synagogue, out of breath and all excited. “Brothers,” he cried out, “I have wonderful news! The murdered girl is Jewish!”
You may think them tasteless, but these are Grade A Jewish jokes. But, OK, you win. Here's a more benign Amazon Prime - approved joke from "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." (In fact, here's a whole page of them. Go to town! And remember, it's OK to laugh at your table. It's what Jews do - especially if the food makes you gassy.)
Midge: Me, personally, I was never great at gift-giving. Maybe it’s because I never got to celebrate Christmas. I got Hanukkah. Doesn’t exactly prepare you the same way. For Christmas, a gentile would get a bike as a reminder that their parents love them. For Hanukkah, we would get socks as a reminder that we were persecuted.
And since Hanukkah is coming, and this week's portion features Jacob, how about some words on Hanukkah from Jacob himself!
Jacob the Bar Mitzvah boy, that is (click to play)
So let’s leave the diatribes for another day. We may not be able to shed the tears, but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh through them, with a whole heaping helping of empathy on the side, this Thanksgiving day.