Erev Rosh HaShanah: Laughing and Dreaming
Sermon by Rabbi Sim Glaser
2016/5777
Passover Seders were always a big deal at our home when I was growing up. My father would lead the Seder and my mom would make sure that the table was set just right and that all the appropriate Pesach food out at just the right time. Mom loved the holiday rituals and traditions and really, all things Jewish. You know, traditions… like someone would spill the wine, or that that the chicken should always be a little on the dry side. Traditions!
Two family traditions that especially linger for me are that my mom loved to laugh, and was my best audience. Also, during the Seder my mom had a special fondness for a certain song in the Haggadah, Laugh at all my dreams…. Originally Sachki Sachki, by a Russian poet.
The song’s words are a statement of belief in the goodness of people, a salute to the inherent decency of humankind; that despite everything you’ve heard, every hurt you’ve suffered, every time you’ve been let down, you can still trust in people to be kind and caring, to achieve peace, to bring laughter to sorrowing hearts… to repair broken worlds, one at a time.
Even as a young boy sitting at our Seders I thought it was pretty amazing that my mother, who had witnessed Kristalnacht, had left Germany at the age of 10 without her parents, journeyed halfway around the world, was adopted by a foster couple in San Francisco, later learning that her parents had been imprisoned in a work camp and then sent to their deaths at Auschwitz, could joyfully sing a song that testified to the goodness of people. Laugh at all my dreams my dearest, went the song, laugh and I repeat anew, that I still believe in people as I still believe in you.
Mom was a dreamer and she knew how to laugh and deep down I think she believed in people. She celebrated people. But in typical Jewish fashion, she wrestled with it. She knew that human beings often need their behavior to be adjusted. That we need to know how to adapt to change, but that it is within the human spirit to accomplish that.
The familiar Psalm says: b’shuv Adonai et Tzion, hayyinu k’cholmim: “When God brought back the exiles to Zion, we were like dreamers.” Despite all we have been through, or what may lie ahead, it is the most Jewish of ways to all at once dream, and to wrestle with the reality that requires dreaming. Somehow our Jewish heroes seem to be able to do that balancing act.
Three well-known Jews who truly could not be more different than each other passed away this year. Elie Wiesel, Shimon Peres and Gene Wilder. Yes, Gene Wilder. The entertainer in me needs to include Gene Wilder.
Each, in his own way, was a dreamer. Each believed in and celebrated people, each enjoyed laughter, each one lived a bold Jewish life in the face of odds stacked against him. And each one knew the great things human beings are capable of… with a little Jewish nudging, and a lot of dreaming.
As a child Elie Wiesel would sing along with his Jewish classmates Ani ma’amin b’emunah shlemah - I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah. That “perfect faith” was to be challenged in the most profound way when as a young boy Elie endured during the horrors of Auschwitz. His famous memoir Night became an international bestseller and brought the reality of the Holocaust to the world. As an adult Wiesel became the author and spokesman for a generation of victims and survivors.
Wiesel never let up, demanding that people live up to being human, and rise from the ashes of the Shoah. He taught that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it is indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it is indifference. And the opposite of life, is not death, it is indifference....
In other words, Elie Wiesel taught us that the worst thing a human being can do is to not care! That within each and every one of us there is that caring spirit that must be expressed in order to be fully human. Elie Wiesel believed that humanity could redeem itself.
But Wiesel wrestled with the reality of the Jew in a real world. Asked many times: How could anyone believe in God after the Holocaust, Wiesel would respond: “That isn’t the question. Better you should ask: How can we believe in humankind?” He rejected both the notion that God had anything to do with the horrific events but insisted that human beings have the capacity to choose good over evil, and need to be reminded frequently! Living in a world of people, he knew that humankind is our only hope.
Shimon Peres who died only this last week, was known worldwide for his tenacity of spirit and as a dreamer of peace. Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was present at his funeral only two days ago. President Bill Clinton once praised Shimon Peres saying: Here is a man who thought big bold thoughts and figured out actual ways to achieve them.
You’d have to go a long way to find a leader in the Middle East who went to the lengths Shimon Peres did to achieve peace. He used to say: As a bird cannot fly with one wing, as a person cannot applaud with one hand, so a country cannot make peace just with one side, with itself. For peace, we need the two of us.
Peres, believed in the possibility that Israelis and the Palestinian people could live side by side in harmony. It didn’t always make him popular, and he never became as beloved a leader as he might have wanted to be. We will read many articles about Peres in the weeks to come, and many of them will testify to the fact that even as he worked for peace, Peres was also the architect of Israel’s most powerful defense systems, and he was demanding of those who would enter into peace negotiations with Israel.
Shimon Peres never stopped dreaming about the human capacity to achieve peace. When asked: “What was the greatest achievement of his career?” Peres responded with this. He said: “There once was a great painter named Mordecai Ardon, who was asked which picture was the most beautiful he had ever painted. Ardon replied, ‘Ah, that is the picture I will paint tomorrow.’ That is also my answer,” Peres said. “My next achievement.” So it goes with dreamers. The greatest achievement is the one that is yet to come.
But when push came to shove, Shimon Peres lived to dwell in a world of people and he knew that humankind is our only hope.
It may seem strange to include the comedic actor Gene Wilder, but like something out of News of the Weird Wilder’s death 2 months after Elie Wiesel passed, Wilder, in characteristic fashion, almost stole the show! Why would Jewish people be so moved by the passing of this crazy actor from the Mel Brooks movies and countless other zany flicks?
Describing himself as a Jewish Buddhist Atheist, Gene Wilder summed up his religious views with Hillel’s admonition that what is hateful to you do not do to another. Gene Wilder knew that the way into the human heart is through laughter and he kept everyone, young and old, laughing throughout his career. He experienced many sad episodes in his life, losing his loved ones, and eventually succumbing to dementia. But somehow he seemed to retain his sense of humor and his love of humanity.
Whether or not Wilder identified strongly with Judaism, his characters were distinctively human… and Jewish! The neurotic worried Leopold Bloom in The Producers; a proud Rabbi carrying a Torah scroll through the old west in The Frisco Kid. Bringing sweetness and song to little children in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or in Young Frankenstein, when he corrects the pronunciation of his name – “that’s Frahn-ken –shteen!” Very Jewish.
But what is equally telling about the actor was in the last three years of his battle with Alzheimers he opted not to go public with his dementia. It wasn’t out of vanity, nor was he shirking the responsibility of bringing light to the disease. Rather, Gene Wilder’s relatives told the press that he was thinking of the countless young children that might see him out on the street, or in a park or restaurant, and might smile or call out to him ‘there’s Willy Wonka,’ – only to be told by an adult that he was ill. Wilder said he “simply couldn’t bear the idea of one less child smiling in the world.” Living in a world of people he knew that humankind is our only hope.
My mother used to come to Temple here and tell the story of her childhood and her journey half way around the world and the kids were riveted. When I took over the job, telling my mom’s story in the second person, the kids listened, but not quite as well. Part of the difference was that she was telling it about herself, about a child their very age when it all happened. And the kids thought that was pretty cool.
But the real power in the way my mother told her story was in how positive she was about the whole thing. It wasn’t a sad history lesson. It was about the childhood friend who stuck by her in dark times. It was about honoring the resilience of her parents when confronted by the Nazis. It was about her colorful grandfather who got along with every person in their little farming village. It was about her own insistence on observing a strictly kosher lifestyle in her new foster home. Going on to marry a young rabbinical student. Raising four Jewish children. Every element of her story was imbued with hope, laughter, strength and a vision for a higher form of humanity.
When kids would write her thank you letters they rarely expressed sorrow for her losses. Rather, they were amazed, amused and inspired by her upbeat let’s-get-on-with-it attitude. They liked her laughter, they were impressed with her memories of happiness, even in a dark time.
We are human. We live in a human world. We embark tonight on a new Jewish human year. This is our destiny, and hope and belief in humankind is and will always be our best hope. Being Jewish will always be a balancing act between the difficulties of a real world that is not always kind, and the firm belief that human beings are capable of great, great things.
Laugh at all my dreams my dearest, laugh and I repeat anew. For I still believe in people, as I still believe in you!
Join me as we sing the song together.