The Paradox Of Stardom

I pashut CAN'T believe it.

I was brought up on a steady diet of the actor and comedian Robin Williams. It started with Mork and Mindy where he played a foreign alien and was hilarious. Then he appeared in many popular movies and made me laugh together with millions. Nu, today, and since my conversion to Judaism, I would never watch him anymore because I find most of pop-culture offensive to my values and a mammoth waste of time and brain cells but I was a young child and at the time "Gefet" [Gemara, Peirush Rashi, Tosfos] didn't do it for me.

He is dead. Probably a suicide. I just don't get it. Almost everybody in Hollywood has the same basic biography. They have some or all of the following:

1] Drug addiction.
2] Alcohol addiction.
3] Multiple marriages and/or partners. NOBODY [just about] has one spouse from the age of 23 until death. There is always infidelty as well.
4] Depression and/or serious emotional issues.
5] Few children [despite many partners] who are messed up like their parents.


They also have....

6] Beauty [particularly the women] and attractive partners as well.
7] A ton of money and possessions.
8] Fame.
9] Adulation of the masses.
10] Lots of free time to enjoy life.
11] Talent.

They often die young of overdoses and suicides.

If they have numbers 6-11, why then would they also have 1-5? I mean, they seem to have it all - so why are they so miserable and 'messed up in the head'? [The fact that dozens of entertainers recently signed a petition condemning Israel and supporting Hamas proves beyond any shadow of a doubt the Israel is absolutely right....].  It is not one of them or ten but it seems that they ALL have serious issues.

Go to any Wiki page of entertainers alive and dead and you will read of the same tragic stories. Many of the popular entertainers of the last century were Jewish born, changed their names to something goyish sounding ["Jerry Lewis" "Mel Brooks" "George Burns" "Woody Allen" etc. etc.] and lived such sad lives. Broken marriages, substance abuse, depression, a small number of children, if any etc. etc. They knew they were Jewish but wanted nothing to do with it. Gentile women aren't more attractive than Jewish women but to them they were. Very often the first wife was Jewish because they were less assimilated in their younger years but as they got older and became more goyish they almost always married non-Jewish women. Why?? Very simple. They thought that such a lifestyle and choices would bring them happiness. NONE of them were happy.

That is the bottom line. Fame and fortune, a wife who is a world class beauty and limitless material possessions DON'T bring one happiness. Period. They usually bring just the opposite. These people are generally FAKE people. The job of an entertainer is to be fake. An actor fakes being a person he is not. A singer fakes enjoying the song he is singing in order to impress the crowd. It is all about impressing other people and achieving imaginary stardom. Then, after years of hard word at perfecting their fakeness - they reach the pinnacle, the zenith, the peak. When they arrive they realize that it is all hot air and the people around them are similarly hot air. How did Koheles put it?  הבל הבלים.

As for us - we know the truth. אשרי אדם עוז לו בך. When a person is FILLED with Emunah in Hashem, when a person has a sense of purpose, when a person is REAL - he will be happy. The money, possessions, women and fame, just won't do it. Paradoxically, the very same things that people pursue to achieve that ever-so-elusive happiness and contentment are often the very things that destroy them...

A person with Emunah can say חסד ומשפט אשירה - I will sing whether I experience chesed or the opposite. Life is a song because I walk with Hashem.

Let's learn from the Robin Williamses of the world what doesn't bring happiness and go in the direction of truth, meaning and holiness.