All sin is bizarre, ludicrous, ridiculous. Whenever we place our ultimate faith in anything or anyone but God, we are simply being foolish.
Shall we trust power? Here is a man who aspired to and who attained the most powerful in all
the world - the leadership of the mightiest nation on the face of the earth. And it seems that in a few weeks he may yet be toppled from power!
Others place their trust in the great potentiality of America's wealthy markets. But today the
stock exchange stagnates. Others place all their faith in the money they amass -- and the new
pessimistic economists tell us that it is quite possible that soon the money will not be worth half of what it was paid for.
So many of us, with almost naive piety, place their confidence and faith in science and
technology. What is happening? Technology often double-crosses us. For all the good it has
done, it brings us, as well, warnings of mass destruction, of irreparable environmental damage, and the specter of irreversible genetic injury.
And so we turn to God and say to Him: because we were foolish, does that mean that You, as it were, Heaven forbid, should react to us in the same way? Spare us, 0 Lord! Laugh at us if You will, but no destruction!
Tisha Be'av is the time that our historic memory turns into dire and somber expectations of a
repeat of a tearful past. Jews who have not forgotten the woes of their ancestors are afflicted
once again with the sickness that they share with God. The memories of ancient cataclysms and exiles and destructions merge together into a mighty underground river of collective
apprehension. The recollections of ancient disasters segue into their consequences which are
being played out this very day. The long chain of catastrophes intertwine with an occasional
thread of hope —not quite enough to banish the deep sense of foreboding that holds us within its grip, but at least a glimmer of hope for redemption.
At a time of this sort we turn to God, and out of our tears we appeal for His smile, we ask Him
to laugh. What kind of laugh? Perhaps the best description of the kind of laugh we would like
from Him is the one that is described in a great story — the one about the prince and the son of the maid who were exchanged at birth told by that most mysterious of all Hasidic masters,
Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, In this tale, the prince who is banished from his kingdom and his
home is lost in a strange forest. He is all alone, cold and hungry. The night comes, and he curls up under a tree. Suddenly, towards the very end of the night, before dawn, he is paralyzed with fear: from the distance, a weird noise issues, growing ever louder. Peals of unworldly laughter rock the earth and make the trees tremble and the leaves shiver in the entire forest -- convulsive laughter that makes the very earth quake under the forest! The next day, the Prince asks the strange man of the forest he had met for the meaning of this laughter. The latter explains: it is the laughter of the day as it takes over from the night.
That is the laughter that we await: the laughter of day that takes its revenge on the night; the
triumph of the light as it banishes the dark; the joy of justice as it defeats evil in its final blow.
Rabbi Lamm
Jewish Center
July 27, 1974[!!!]
