The Human Experience and the Divine Circus of Comedians
Tech Tribe Dispatch #224
💡 Think:
There are moments that life seems exceedingly unfair. We look at the daily grind, the professional and personal turmoil, the constant malaise of a life gone digital and the general vicissitudes of life.
The answer lies in one of the pivotal relationship of the Torah portion this week: Isaac and Rebecca.
The first Jewish couple take on an inner dimension in Chasidic thought - they represent the interplay of soul and body - of divine essence and human vivifying force.
It’s only through our sojourn here on earth, the very experience of the distraction —and destruction— of this world, that gives us the power to reveal the greatest light… to make the most meaningful impact on the universe.
There is transcendent power in the unexpected.
Think of the joy of the circus - the novelty of animals that can prance and play in ways that seems to go beyond their animalistic norms - or perhaps the comedian, who points out the absurdity of the mundane (or the mundanity of the absurd).
Be giving an unexpected look, by transcending the tensions of what’s expected, we laugh.
That is the balance of Isaac and Rebecca. They represent the interface of experiencing the divine in the mundane… the joy (as hinted in Isaac’s name — Yitzchak— to laugh) that we hope to reveal as our end game in this world.1
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📚 Read:
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Torah Ohr, Toldot 18a. Note, in the original the Alter Rebbe compares it to the joy experienced at the animal fights of the princes - where lions fight with other animals. “וזהו צחוק עשה לי אלה-ים שעיקר הצחוק ותענוג העליון נמשך ע"י שם אלקים כמשל הצחוק שעושים השרים שהוא מדבר חדש כמו מלחמת הארי עם חיה אחרת שמההתחדשות נמשך הצחוק והתענוג כך בחי' בטול היש לאין זהו ההתחדשות שהנברא שנעשה יש ודבר נפרד יוכל לבטל א"ע. משא"כ אם לא היה שם אלקים מסתיר לא היה נמשך בחי' צחוק ותענוג זה כלל א"כ עיקר הצחוק והתענוג עשה לנו השם אלקים המסתיר ומעלים שבסבתו נמשך התענוג והיינו ע"י בטול היש לאין.”
My thanks to my friend Rabbi Mendy Alevsky of Chabad at CWRU, who enlightened my life with this source.