לזכות ר' ישראל דניאל בן שיינא דינה לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיו
לזכות שיינדי חנה בת מלכה לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיה
ליצנות is the opposite of כבוד, it is זלזול. The word זלזול means to cheapen [זול זול], to render meaningless. In our generation we have LOTSSSS of ליצנות. Things that really matter are often the butt of jokes and matters that are really inherently meaningless take upon great meaning and gravitas. כבוד comes from כבד - heavy. We give כבוד to what we think carries weight. נקלה [see Yeshayahu 3-5] means to make light of - the opposite of כבוד. The word יקר is Aramaic for כבוד [see Sanhedrin 38b that אדם הראשון spoke Aramiac "ולי מה יקרו רעיך א-ל"] and means valuable. כבוד-heaviness-honor-יקר-valuable. The opposite of יקר is זול - cheap. The Targum of וידי משה כבדים is וידי משה יקירא. The idea of כבוד is the opposite of זלזול. A leaf that falls from a tree is called a זלזל because it is blows away with the wind and lacks stability.
People talk about sports or movies with the same seriousness that they talk about wars and terminal illnesses. What should be קל and מזולזל becomes יקר and נכבד. When one takes silly things like entertainment seriously, it follows that there isn't a higher purpose in life. If there is a higher purpose in life then it can't POSSIBLY matter how many games the Cubs are out of first place or what the Yankees shortstop's batting average is. The pleasure of ליצנות - being מזלזל in what really matters in life by, for example, accentuating the importance of games, is that life is no longer מחייב. It demands nothing. All that we have to do is have a good time [if we choose - and who wouldn't]. If one can make jokes about G-d, life after death, the search for meaning etc. etc. then they lose value in one's eyes and he can eat his pizza and drink his beer with no worries. Nothing matters. We are all just a cosmic mistake. A huge primordial soup [that nobody has an explanation for how it got there in the first place, but minor detail...], and then BOOM, a Big Bang and the result is this amazingly interactively complex world. Somehow everything evolved simultaneously, all by itself [if true a miracle much bigger than יציאת מצרים]. We humans need a heart to survive, so how did we make it as the heart evolved? No one knows - but minor detail. What matters is that we are here and that there is a lot of good food to eat, attractive women with whom to mate, games to play and watch, technology to keep our minds occupied when not running after the almighty dollar - and what about the Almighty? Hey - I'm a skeptic. Who knows. We don't know anything. Enjoy life. Don't ruin a good time by bringing up things we can't see like a soul or a Creator.
THAT is "shpitz" [the pinnacle of] ליצנות and זלזול. The notion that there is no מהלך in this world. The jokes express the going out of order - יציאה ממהלך. Stuff just happens. People like talking about "luck". We got lucky and the world created itself. We all got lucky and somehow a drop of semen and an egg produced an incredibly complex organism that no scientist could ever imagine creating with all of it's amazing physical capacities. Example: Your brain has about 85 billion neurons. Those neurons send signals across tiny spaces called synapses—of which you have 18–32 trillion—at a rate anywhere from 0.1–2 times per second. That means that somewhere between 18 and 640 trillion signals are zipping around your brain every second. [That would explain to me my insomnia - so much going on in there!! But BY GOLLY, how do other people seem to get to sleep??]. We also have what no other creatures possess - self awareness. The laughter of the fools - שחוק הכסיל - makes light of life, trying to show that there is no מהלך, no process, no method, no meaning, no purpose. Some vulgar humor, music, a screaming crowd - and you have late night TV.
כבוד when given to the right people, items and ideas, restore the meaning and purpose of life to their rightful place. ליצנות has an important role to play when it comes to things that are truly מזולזלים and קלים. As the Gemara teaches - all ליצנות is forbidden except when making fun of nonsense [such as עבודה זרה].
At the end of days we will fills our mouths with laughter "אז ימלא שחוק פינו" because we will leave the מהלך of this world and enter into a completely new realm of the next world. That is a positive and desirable laughter.
לצים לצון חמדו להם [Mishlei 1-22] - Jokers desire jokes because it makes life a big non-demanding joke. A Ben/Bas Torah can/should have a sense of humor but takes life VERY seriously.
[Based in part on "זה השער"]
PS - It goes without saying that people need to relax and have a good time. That is part of being human and to deny that is dangerous.
PS - It goes without saying that people need to relax and have a good time. That is part of being human and to deny that is dangerous.
