Rosh Hashannah Day 1, 5773 Jim Mavrikios

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Rosh Hashannah Day 1

Sep 17, 2012 / 1 Tishrei, 5773

Jim Mavrikios 

 

“We Who Laugh Last”

 

L’shana tova! I’m honored to be here with you all on this day of focused hope and trepidation. Chodesh Elul we examined ourselves and our relationships over the past year. We’re full of regret over our misdeeds, and of joy over the amends we’ve made, the relationships we’ve healed. We aim to return to a purer state and here we stand (or sit), returning, begging for a chance to begin again. Today is a day for nervous laughter, for holy laughter. While this is a serious time, it’s really laughter that I’d like to discuss. 

Today’s parsha begins with the words, “And God remembered Sarah”. At the age of ninety, previously-barren Sarah miraculously gave birth to a son, who, per God's instruction, was named Yitzchak. His name means “he will laugh,” and it’s, of course, significant that God chose this name for him. Laughter surrounded Yitzchak even before he was born, and the laughter continues through his childhood. Laughter is actually central to Yitzchak’s life, although it may not always seem like it. I’m going to focus on the laughter that follows Yitzchak, the laughter awaiting him, the laughter that defines him and, as his progeny, the laughter awaiting us all. 

We know that names are significant in the Torah. In Lech Lecha, God changes Avram’s name to Avraham, and Sarai’s to Sarah, and promises that a son will be born to them. From this son will stem the great nation with which God will establish His special bond. When Avraham hears that he will have a son he throws himself on his face and laughs. (Breishit 17:17). After all, he was 99 years old at the time. He asks himself “can someone be born to a 100 year old? Can Sarah the 90-year old give birth?” God assures him that it will come to pass, and tells him to name the child Yitzchak (17:19). 

Then Sarah hears about her upcoming maternity. Avraham noticed three passersby (who were actually angels in disguise), invited them into his tent and prepared a feast for them. The angels informed Avraham that Sarah would give birth to a child exactly one year later. Eighty-nine-year-old, post-menopausal Sarah was standing nearby and, when she heard this, she laughed (12:12). Both Avraham and Sarah laugh when they hear that they will have a son. They laugh. And they have a son. 

According to God’s instructions, they named their son Yitzchaq. In today’s reading we learn that, at his birth, Sarah exclaimed tzechok asa li Elohim, Hashem has made laughter “for” me. Again with the laughing! Our Torah places great significance on the names given to children, and it’s interesting that Yitzchak is the only patriarch whose name was not changed. There certainly was a lot of laughter going on when his birth was announced, and when it happened. However, I don’t believe his name refers only to the joy his family and community felt when he was born. I’m convinced it has a deeper significance. 

Yitzchak himself isn’t generally associated with unrestrained mirth. He had a complicated relationship with his half-brother, and incidents like the Akeda weren’t exactly humorous. It’s hard to imagine laughter in conjunction with Yitzchak. But God wanted him named “he will laugh”. Why? 

First, let’s consider the kind of laughter that surrounded him before and after birth. When aged Avraham was told he would have a son he “fell on his face and laughed”. The specific word used is va-yitzchaq (17:17) which, due to the tense-changing “vav conversive”, here means “he laughed”. It is to this that Rashi attributes the reason for Yitzchak’s name. 

When Sarah overheard that she would have a child at her advanced age, she also laughed, and the words used are va-tizchaq (18:12). Avraham’s laughter and Sarah’s laughter are described by the same verb, the words differing by only one letter. But these were different kinds of laughter, and Hashem’s reaction to the laughter of the two parents is strikingly different. Sarah was admonished for laughing (18:13) while Avraham was not. 

How do we account for the different reactions to the parents’ laughter? The Hebrew verb is the same, so where do we go for clarification? Targum Onkelos, of course, of course! Here we find Avraham’s va-yitzchaq rendered into Aramaic as vachadey, “and he was happy / rejoiced”. Sarah’s va-tizchaq, on the other hand, is translated as v’chaychat, “and she laughed”. When I look at these two Aramaic verbs in their context, it seems to me that both were a bit skeptical, but Avraham was doubtful yet overjoyed. Sarah was incredulous and a bit cynical. 

Remember, Avraham “fell on his face and laughed”. He prostrated himself as he laughed! Whether or not the prostration was inadvertent, he laughed from joy in a way that showed respect. Avraham heard he was having a son at an advanced age and thought, “What? That’s great!” Sarah heard the same and thought, “Oh, please!” Remarking on her cynicism, God asks Avraham “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Is it really true that I will give birth, although I am old?’” (18:13). Sarah’s reaction is more understandable, perhaps, if we remember that she was the one who would actually carry and deliver this child. Sarah had to do it; Avraham was just the happy recipient of a blessing. 

Of course, verbs are very fluid in the Tanach, and subjects as well as tenses can shift without warning. When the mysterious visitors told Abraham that Sarah would give birth in exactly one year, Sarah overheard and laughed. But when she laughed, God, not the visitors, asked why she laughed. God said this to Avraham, yet Sarah replied, saying, “I did not laugh”. She denied laughing because she was afraid. And God said, “No, but you laughed.” (18:15). Sarah was rebuked because her laughter betrayed her disbelief. She denied her incredulity because, in her heart, she knew it was wrong to doubt the word of God, however miraculous the proclamation. 

As I mentioned, at Yitzchak’s birth Sara says, tzechok asa li Elohim, Hashem has made laughter for me. Kol ha-shome'a yitzchaq li “all who hear shall laugh for me” (21:6). What kind of laughter is this? Here Onkelos translates tzechok as chedvah, or happiness. “God has made happiness for me.” And the second statement translates yitzchak li as yechdei li. All who hear will rejoice for me. 

Rashi also interprets this to mean not that people will laugh but that people will rejoice. Avraham and Sarah had waited so long, and Yitzchak’s birth brought great joy to them and to others. Rashi adds from the Midrash that many people who had been suffering from ill health or who had also been unable to have children had their prayers answered on the day that Yitzchak was born. This might suggest that Yitzchak’s name represents the tzechok, the “laughter/joy” that his birth brought to the world. But I think there’s more joy and laughter in his future, in our future. 

Laughter comes in many forms. There’s derisive laughter at someone’s expense. This inflates us and is borne of yetzer ra, distracting our focus from our spiritual pursuits. This kind of laughter degrades, humiliates and mocks. It tempts us to cruelty, judgmentalism and cynicism. This kind of laughter nullifies an entity, an existence. 

There are other aspects of laughter revealed in other forms of the verb. In today’s reading, for instance, we find a different form of the verb mentioned in conjunction with Yitzchak. It’s not really laughter this time, but it’s definitely “funny business,” and Yitzchak’s half-brother Yishmael is the one doing it. Sarah had a strong negative reaction to this, banning him and his mother from her house. This time, it’s not the simple qal verb tzachak, but the piel l’tzachek, and Yishmael is referred to as m’tzacheik (21:9). This verb in the piel is rare in the Tanach, and clearly has a sexual connotation. For instance, Avimelech realizes that Yizchak and Rivkah aren’t brother and sister after all, but rather have a romantic relationship when he spies Yitzchak m’tzacheik et Rivkah (26:8). This verb in the piel seems to mean “making a pass at” or “having sport with”. The piel form of the verb occurs also when Potiphar’s wife accuses Joseph of molesting her, telling her husband, l’tzacheik bi

Troubling as it is, this is the verb used to describe Yishmael’s treatment of Yitzchak. Whatever Yishmael was doing to Yitzchak, Sarah didn’t like it and she banished him from their home. The verb “laugh” surrounded Yitzchak before his birth and throughout his life, including his divinely-inspired name. 

Another kind of laughter is laughing at oneself. While dignity and self-respect are good things, one shouldn’t take oneself too seriously. This type of laughter, highlighting one’s own weakness and smallness in the face of the Creator is good, holy laughter. 

This may be what Sarah was doing when Yitzchak was born. After all, she said tzechok asa li Elohim. Kol ha-shomea yitzchak li. Prepositions are quite slippery in their translation between languages and over the ages. Certainly, though, the preposition “li” frequently means “to” or “at”. Thus, Sarah’s exclamation could well be interpreted as meaning “God has made me a laughing stock”. Sarah here is the cause of laughter, and the object of laughter without being the brunt or victim. The community is laughing “at” her, but not at her expense. They are laughing at her seemingly-impossible good fortune. 

This isn’t altogether distant from the best form of laughter, borne of pure, unrestrained joy. This is Avraham’s laughter. This laughter happens spontaneously when we catch a glimpse of complete and perfect actuality, of what awaits us. This kind of laughter, I believe, is the stuff of Yitzchak’s name. 

As I mentioned, Yitzchak himself isn’t generally associated with any of these. He doesn’t laugh at others, he doesn’t particularly laugh at himself, he doesn’t cause others to laugh at his good fortune, and he definitely doesn’t exude joy. But let’s remember that time is a very fluid thing in the Semitic worldview. The imperfect, “prefix” form of the verb probably didn’t always mean the future or even incomplete action. Action was infinitival, removed from time. We were all at Sinai, even those not yet born. We’re still there, in fact, even as we’re still escaping Egypt. The story goes on, the fat lady ain’t sung yet. Yitzchak’s name means “he will laugh,” and, indeed, he will! And the subject is at least as fluid as the tense of these verbs. So I guess we all will, since we’re all Yitzchak … bnei Avraham veSarah! We did and we do, we were and we are and will be. But let’s stick to Yitzchak for now. 

 

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that what makes us laugh is an unexpected outcome or punch line. Incongruity causes us to laugh. This really is the essence of Yitzchak’s birth. This couple was unable to have children for decades and, now that they’re elderly, have their first child together. What a punch line! Even people who are able to have children when they are young can’t at their age. They couldn’t have children when they were younger, how could they have a child now? And on top of that, we have another incongruity: a man who is a hundred years old and a woman who is ninety looking after a new baby. It’s a joke! 

This is what Sarah means when she says tzechok asa li Elohim, “God has made me a laughing stock”. This is not the way the natural world works. She laughs and causes others to laugh at her unexpected good fortune. Not a pie in her face, but a pumpkin pie with whipped cream on her table … in a time and place in which neither pumpkins nor whipped cream were known. What is this? Who cares, it’s delicious! 

This may be the essence of the name Yitzchak and, indeed, of the Jewish people. I believe this is what awaits us all … an unexpected, inconceivably delicious outcome that we couldn’t possibly see coming even while we work tirelessly toward it. It’ll be so good, we’ll spontaneously express our joy by laughing. We can sometimes glimpse it, almost taste it. And when we do, we laugh. 

Why did God set it up in such an unusual fashion, that Avraham and Sarah would struggle for so many years to have children and would only have a child in their old age? Because we, as Jews, defy odds and even the laws of nature. Rabbi Hirsch said that the foundation of the Jewish people had to be frail and rickety, with two elderly people with an only son. The message here is that it seems impossible, and yet it is. Looking at Avraham and Sarah, we would say they have almost no chance of establishing a great nation. And yet, they did. 

Cold logic would dictate that this shouldn’t work; Avraham and Sarah’s family should have no continuity. This is why God chose this very name for the second of the forefathers, because it captures the essence of Jewish destiny and the mission of the Jewish people in the world. People will laugh! Look at this tiny, insignificant nation, a drop in the ocean relative to the nations of the world. You would think we’d be obscure, that we would not have an impact. Really, you’d think we’d be gone by now, yet we are here. 

Some 250 years ago Rav Yaakov Emdin wrote that the miracle of the Jewish people’s survival in exile is greater than the miracles of Exodus – the ten plagues of Egypt, the splitting of the sea, the manna falling from heaven. He wrote this long before all the modern-day miracles we have witnessed, with the revivification of the Hebrew language, the establishment of the State of Israel, etc. The miracle of our survival defies logic. 

Somehow, we keep on truckin’. This is why, according to Rabbi Hirsch, the name Yitzchak is in the future tense. There are many who are laughing now – as Sarah said, tzechok asa li. Yitzchak’s name suggests, “in the end you, bnei Yisrael, will be laughing”. You will survive. You will be reborn and demonstrate how a people can exist on a completely different, miraculous plane, above the physical laws of this world. 

Every Shabbat just before the benching, we say a paragraph from Tehillim, the Shir HaMa'alot. One of the verses we say is az yimaleh tzechok pinu, “then our mouths will be filled with laughter,” referring to the time of the Final Redemption. This is the message that Yitzchak’s name carries, and it is the ultimate message of the Jewish people. 

Redemption is what the Days of Awe are all about. Laughter is the vehicle and the end. Yuck it up, people! We work through this process every year, trying to come closer to perfecting ourselves. And, ba-yom ha-hu, we will get there. Az yashir Moshe, “then Moses will sing”. Miriam will lead us in dance. Yitzchak will laugh. We’ll all sing, dance and laugh, and we who laugh last laugh best … the beautiful, perfect laughter of unrestrained joy. Az yimaleh tzechok pinu! 

This is the only world we know, and we’re the only creatures in this world that laugh. We are betzelem Elohim! God has a sense of humor and Yitzchak is proof of that. Existence in itself is proof! Simcha is existence, and if we combine it with kol (“voice”) we have laughter, the joyous sound that affirms and propels existence. Be God’s vehicle and laugh! Create through laughter, regenerate through laughter. Survive through laughter, defy odds through laughter. Cause others to laugh. Laugh now, laugh later! 

May we be inscribed in the Book of Life and Laughter, and may our neighbors get the joke. 

L’shana tova!