Tag Archives: Hasidic

On the Hasidic and Kabbalistic Meaning of Laughter – by Joseph Rosenfeld

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I want to apologize to all of my subscribers for being off the blog for such a long time. I was literally locked out of my account because my password recovery email changed. After some time and back and forth with WordPress, everything worked out. Here I am! Hi’neni!

For my first post in a year and change, I’d like to share a reflection on laughter by Joseph Rosenfeld a friend of mine who is a master of Hasidic, Midrashic, and Kabblalistic texts. He also happens to be a fan of Schlemiel Theory! His reflection on laughter – something near and dear to this blog and blogger – shows how deep and important laughter is to Judaism, spiritually and intellectually.

We all know that Hasidim love to dance, sing, and tell stories. Joy, as the Baal Shem Tov (Father of the Hasidic movement), breaks all boundaries. It makes it possible for God’s light to break through into darkness. What is the deeper meaning of humor? Why is laughter so key to understanding Judaism?

Take a look:

Joseph Rosenfeld: “The Root of the Dispute Between Rebbe Nachman and the Shpoler Zeide and the Secret of Laughter”

The root of the dispute lies in the sublime laughter referenced in the verse “she laughs at the last day” (Proverbs 31:25), which is revealed precisely through the reversal associated with Binah (understanding).

The essential secret of the dispute between the Zeide and Rebbe Nachman, of blessed memory, is alluded to in Rebbe Nachman’s terse words regarding opposition, where he said that in the future it will be “a fine laughter.” That is, the entire matter of opposition and the darkness it brought about will all be transformed into the secret of future laughter. This follows the teaching of the Rebbe shlit”a, that this laughter is the laughter of the Leviathan, which arises from the cosmic battle between the Leviathan and the Wild Ox (Shor HaBar). Just as the ox represents revealed tzaddikim (righteous individuals) associated with Chokhmah (wisdom), the Leviathan symbolizes hidden tzaddikim rooted in Binah.

All opposition between tzaddikim is, in truth, rooted in the mystical opposition between Chokhmah and Binah, which is essentially the tension between ayin (nothingness) and yesh (being). Chokhmah points to the ayin of Atzilut (the highest world), while Binah relates to the “I” of Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah (the lower worlds).

These two revelations are, by nature, diametrically opposed—like day and night, the sun and the moon, the “two great lights.” Therefore, they argue over the path by which two opposites can be united. The only way is through bitishah (collision), which is the secret of unity and peace within the dispute itself, in the aspect of “He makes peace in His heights”—which is an acronym for eisev (grass), as explained in Likutey Moharan I:39. This relates to the unification between Chokhmah, represented by the Divine Name AB (72), and Binah, associated with the Divine Name Elokim in its full spelling with yuds, which equals 300, alluding to the acronym AS”V.

Through dispute and collision, this wondrous unification is revealed—the secret of “a help opposite him.” For it is known that laughter emerges from gevurot (judgments) sweetened at their root, through Binah, where the secret of reversal is held, as in “v’nahafoch hu” (“and it was turned around”), with “hu” hinting to Binah.

Laughter is the ability to flip the path from what was expected to what was never imagined. As the sages say: “On the contrary, the opposite seems more correct” (adraba, ipcha mistabra)—an expression rooted in Binah, the mother. What we thought with our external intellect would lead to a known outcome is suddenly reversed. This astonishing movement of reversal is the inner sense of the joining of opposites, achieved specifically through reversal—or, as R. Aharon HaLevi of blessed memory put it, “unity from opposites.”

Laughter does not arise merely from change, but from the profound realization that what I had taken as obvious and certain was, in truth, only possible and doubtful. When a person realizes that what he assumed he had grasped remains merely hypothetical, a deep existential question emerges regarding how we perceive and interpret reality. When one sees that his previous understanding was merely a “hava amina” (preliminary assumption), his heart opens to see that he truly knows nothing. “I said I would acquire wisdom, but it is far from me.”

At the moment this awareness arises—that all prior knowledge was only a possibility—every calculation of knowledge collapses, and one enters a higher plane: the world of emunah (faith). Normally, a person navigates the world—this night-like realm—using wisdom and understanding: the mind and heart. But when these fail through sudden revelation (“my father and mother have forsaken me”), he must sink deeper into the soul’s core, the realm of Keter (crown), which transcends both Chokhmah and Binah, as in “but the Lord gathers me in.” Where Chokhmah and Binah end, there begins the power of wonder—Keter, the seat of emunah.

Only through emunah can a person withstand contradictions that defy reason. Emunah gives the capacity to hold two opposites in one subject, and through this, laughter is revealed—rooted in the union of opposites, as in “I saw an upside-down world.” This world of reversal is the realm of emunah, where the saying “on the contrary, the opposite seems correct” comes to life: the ability to discard outdated intellect and receive new insight from a higher place—the lights of Keter, the root of laughter.

The secret of laughter is the revelation of Binah as it is rooted in Keter, in the innermost dimension of Binah, which is the inner dimension of Atik, known as Radla (Reisha d’lo Ityada – the Unknowable Head).

The essence is that the root of laughter is found in Keter, as in “your God shall rejoice over you” (yasis, same gematria as Keter). There, the entirety of lower existence is rooted in the supreme yesh (being), in the necessity of existence—the true yesh—which exists only in Keter. Only Keter can hold opposites within one reality. It rules over the paradox of “above and below simultaneously,” like Moses’s unknown grave—appearing above to the lower and below to the higher—these are the consciousness of the “world of reversal.”

As long as the lights of Keter shine in the world, there is a revelation of the Infinite Light (Or Ein Sof)—for schok (laughter) equals “Infinite Light” in gematria. This is the new vitality descending from the heights into the world to sustain existence. Prior to laughter, there was a form of death—a breakdown of mind and heart—“my father and mother abandoned me.” Precisely there, in the death of intellect, is where the new revelation must emerge—from the heights of Radla. Since this revelation arises precisely from the death of intellect and heart, the new consciousness must carry within it the power to unify opposites, for the very cause of the breakdown was the encounter with paradox.

The revelation of a gap between the old and new understanding evokes a crisis of contradiction. This cannot be resolved with ordinary intellect—it has shattered. A light higher than mind and heart is required: the light of Keter, which includes both the “I” of perception and the “nothingness” of its negation. From there a new power arises—Keter, the wonder-working unifier of opposites. The core of the breakdown lies in their opposition, and the repair lies in their union—an astonishing unity at the heart of Keter’s joy: “He shall rejoice over you.”

Thus, Radla is the power of containing opposites, and through it laughter is revealed—a new understanding that what I thought I knew, I truly did not. As it says, “no one knows his burial place.” Laughter is the descent of Keter into the opposition between what was known and now unknown—this is the path to unite Chokhmah and Binah. True laughter does not unify by merging parts into something new through mutual cancellation. That method still cannot tolerate opposites.

Laughter, by contrast, allows both to exist simultaneously, even without fusing them. Its root reveals the wondrous power of linking through separation—each stands fully intact, and still, they connect. “Mem and Samech stood miraculously” (Talmud, Shabbat 104a). Their coexistence amid contradiction is inexplicable, yet functional.

This unification is not a frontal embrace (panim el panim), but a back-to-back (achor b’achor) union—each maintaining its identity, without surrendering to the other. Still, they are joined, through distance itself, in the high realm of Atik, where masculine and feminine are connected achor b’achor, like a floating tower in air, with no ground. Here, the only path to unity is through laughter, which breaks old frameworks and invites emunah into a world of new combinations beyond prior logic.

Only by breaking the strong vessels of old intellect can one enter the world of laughter, “a fine laughter, refined to the finest degree.” Through this breaking, one enters the gates of joy, where even contradiction becomes unity.

Thus, the “fine laughter” that will arise in the future from the dispute between the Zeide and Rebbe Nachman is not only a description of what will be, but reflects the very nature of the dispute—itself a form of redemptive laughter. It arises from a union forged through bitishah (crushing), an acronym for bitachon, tov, schok—trust, goodness, and laughter. This unity is possible only in the hidden realm of Radla, where the light of paradox reigns and unites opposites within contradiction itself.

Chokhmah and Binah are truly inseparable companions (trein re’in d’lo mitparshin), and thus both are needed, in the secret of “I and nothingness simultaneously,” revealed through Radla, in the unity-through-crushing (bitishah)—a mystery of “reaching and not reaching” that will be explained further, God willing.

Ultimately, the laughter that will arise from this dispute is an extended revelation of the true laughter that flows from the innermost depths of Keter—Radla. It is the path to perfect repair, revealing how both Chokhmah (ayin) and Binah (ani) work together to disclose the sublime light of Radla, the da’at (knowing) of peace.”

The Sad Fate of a Hasidic Schlemiel: On “Menashe” (2017)

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Most films I have seen on Hasidim – save for the film Ushpizin (2004) – are utterly serious and often tragic.  Think, for instance, of The Jazz Singer (1927, 1980), The Chosen (1981) or Amos Gitai’s Kadosh (1999).

We rarely see comic films on or about Hasidim.  (Woody Allen’s little quips in Bananas (1971) or Annie Hall (1977) are mere asides; while his film Fading Gigolo (2013) does address Hasidim, it does so only tangentially.)  Menashe (2017) is different.  It is a tragic-comic film (spoken all in Yiddish, with English subtitles) that takes a Hasid named Menashe and his relationship with his son, his community, and his job as its subject.  Menasche is cast as a schlemiel (comic) and a schlimazel (tragic) character.     What interests me most about this schlemiel character is how it casts a new light on the fate of a contemporary schlemiel in the American Hasidic  (real and fictional) community.

There are two main ways of approaching the schlemiel in American cinema and literature which both fit on the same spectrum.  On the one hand, the schlemiel can be cast as a charming (although, for Jewish American writers, ragged and troubled) character – which is something we see stretching from the Yiddish fiction of Sholem Aleichem and Mendel Mocher Sforim to the Jewish American fiction of I.B. Singer, Saul Bellow, and Jonathan Safran Foer.    We see this as well in cinema and in television (from Charlie Chaplin and Jerry Lewis to Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen).    But in the fiction of Bruce Jay Friedman and Philp Roth or in the cinema of Noah Baumbach and the Coen Brothers we see a schlemiel that is more tragic and pathetic than charming.     The Menasche character exists between these extremes.  And the critique he levels is similar to that of Gimpel in I.B. Singer’s celebrated short story, “Gimpel the Fool.”

Menashe is close to the American everyman.

He has a simple job (he works in a grocery store); and unlike his Hasidic companions, he has a simple understanding of Judaism.  Menashe is more a man of the heart than of the head.    (This film depicts the responses of other characters – save his son and, for a slight moment, the Rabbi – to Menashe and the schlemiel character in a negative light.  This is ironic because Hasidim are often more oriented toward the schlemiel character which his simple understanding of God and the world.)

The plot is heartbreaking.

We meet Menasche in the wake of his wife’s untimely death.  He is left with a child who he loves but, because he can’t – in the community’s eyes – make a good living and because he doesn’t have a wife, he is told – by his Rabbi and his wife’s brother – to give the child over to his brother-in-law to raise.  This breaks his heart.  And it breaks the viewers heart as well.

Menashe has our empathy.

Menashe is a charming character.  His childlike (schlemiel-ish) approach to life, his job, and his son are heart-warming.  Menashe is able to relate to his child in ways that neither his Rabbi nor his brother-in-law or sister-in-law can.

The symbol of the innocence that they share – something an adult schlemiel (father) can share with his child – is a baby chicken.  He buys it for his son when he is given a chance to take care of him (after profuse begging before the Rabbi and to the chagrin of the brother-in-law, who is a successful realtor in Brooklyn as opposed to Menashe, who can barely keep his job in the grocery).   This discloses the comic, endearing aspect of the schlemiel.

When Menashe insists on making a special meal in his place – to mark the one year anniversary of his wife’s death (her Yahrzeit) – everything starts to go wrong.   He starts, so to speak, spilling soup everywhere.

When delivering fish, Menasche accidentally forgets to close the door and spills hundreds of dollars-worth of Gefilte Fish across the streets of Brooklyn.  He is chastised by his boss.  In the wake of this mess, Menashe begs his boss for a little money (a loan) for the Yahrzeit.  He gives him a loan, but he can’t take care of his son if he takes it (he will be working overtime, after-hours, moping floors.)

When, on the day of the Yahrzeit (when he visits his wife’s grave with the Rabbi, his brother-in-law, son, and family) Menasha tries to bake a noodle kugel (noodle dish), he forgets that he left it baking in the oven.  The moment of his discovery of the burning kugel marks the time when things start becoming more…tragic.

When he comes home with the Rabbi and the entourage, his apartment and the apartment house are filled with smoke.  The bird is dead.  Even so, he makes the best out of it.   When everyone complains of frozen taste of the kugel, the Rabbi sheds some light by noting that it tastes ok.

But that doesn’t change a thing.

Menashe loses his child; he cannot have him back until he can find a new wife.  However, since this happens at the end of the film, the viewer has no idea as to what will happen next.  Can the schlemiel find a new wife?  Does the schlemiel want to?

The last scenes of the movie are of Menashe dunking in a ritual bath, a Mikveh, juxtaposed to him working in the grocery.   This symbolizes a new beginning of sorts.  But what is that new beginning?

Is he – and are we – realizing the cruelty of the society around him? Do we empathize – as we do with I.B. Singer’s Gimpel – with the schlemiel and his predicament?

At a few points in the film, we are given hints of Menashe’s falling away from the community.  One day, he sleeps too late.  He forgets to wash his hands in the morning.  He also asks about – at one point – why a person without a family is considered a heretic by his community.  Even so, Menashe doesn’t change the way he dresses and he still prays.

When Menashe studies Torah (the Bible and oral tradition with his son) he makes noises that echo a verse from the Psalms.  He is – like Sholem Aleichem’s Motl – closer to animals than to his community.

Put theoretically, Menashe is a child-like schlemiel who is closer to nature than to culture.  As Hannah Arendt said of the schlemiel (vis-à-vis Heinrich Heine), his freedom comes from critiquing the status-quo and his closeness to nature and innocence.  Menashe, in his humanity, by his very nature and his predicament as child-like defies norms; but he is alone.

While this is all fine and good and while we find his innocence charming, Menashe doesn’t seem to have a place with his community and we are unsure whether he wants one. The only thing that seems to keep him in there is his child.    We want to see them together.  But what makes this so fascinating is that the family (and not monotheism) – as the scholar Michael Wyschogrod in this book, The Body of Faith notes – is truly the basis of Judaism.

The schlemiel, it seems, is pit up against this fundamental structure of Judaism.  While he has already raised a child, if Menashe doesn’t immediately get remarried, his child may not have the nurturing that only a Jewish mother (according to the tradition and the Bible itself) can provide. The child will become – like Sholem Aleichem’s Motl – an orphan of sorts.

But in that novel, Motl the Cantor’s Son, Motl loses his father, not his mother.  Perhaps this is the tragic note.  Without a father but with a mother, the schlemiel’s life is nurtured. Without a mother, however, it is more tragic.  Judaism – without mothers  – cannot survive.

For this reason, Menashe is a tragic-comic character.   Gimpel levels a critique against the community (for the reader) because while he trusts them and believes in their goodness, they lie to him.  Here Menashe is punished by a community because he cannot raise his son in the traditional manner.

The schlemiel prompts the question: will the community change?  Will it accept the innocent character who falls on the margins?  Or does it leave no room for the schlemiel?  The irony is that the first sighting of the schlemiel character – as a literary kind of character – was in the stories of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav.  The schlemiel is a figure of simplicity and of hope.  When the community squashes that – even if it is in the name of family – what does that imply?

These are the questions I had and still have after seeing Menashe – a film that spans the schlemiel spectrum and prompts its viewers to consider the sad fate of a Hasidic schlemiel.