Pre Purim Shiur: An Insight into Humour, Laughter, Purim, Judaism, Life and More!

Okay, I shall end everyone and can we just start by a little wave or something so I know I'm being heard Okay, that's great. Thank you very much. Okay, so first of all thanks to Ariel and Cape Town Who is manning the Backend or the technical side and greetings to everyone you're gonna forgive me for not greeting people personally because I'll definitely leave out somebody so you're all noted and I appreciate your your joining and your support and I start as always by pointing out that First of all today is the beginning of just Close to Purim Few days before Purim and it is the 18th of March and I also start by thanking everyone who has supported Our project that's on the website many of you Have made donations That keeps us going keeps me going enables me to run the website and teach and publish and so on so As you probably know we do these pre-yant of events as sort of appreciation for Particularly for appreciation for people who are members of the newsletter and Support me in various ways. So I so depreciated a suplexly see you and You are welcome whether you in Florida. I see at least one Friend from Florida and wherever you from so You welcome. Let's talk about a Purim subject that I hope you'll find interesting and maybe a little Offbeat maybe a little offbeat But I think that's the nature of Purim isn't it. So I think I'm probably allowed to be a little offbeat and I hope you'll enjoy this and gain an insight into something deep and that is the question of laughter humor and laughter. Let's try to analyze that and Follow me carefully please because there are a number of layers here and introductory elements that are needed and I'll try to build it as carefully as possible and I hope this will leave you with an insight into the human faculty of laughter and humor as well as an insight into Purim Into Judaism and life in general and also into Torah methodology so Concentrate please and let's try to See we can think through the subject together So we know that the month of Adar corresponds to laughter the background to that Is that we have 12 months of the year and we have a statement in the Safeya Zero one of the very early foundational Kabbalistic works That explains that Every month of the year corresponds to a faculty to an organ or limb of the body and a physiological or functional aspect of the body Reason for this without going to too much detail and getting sidetracked The reason is that the world has 12 parameters if you like or what are known in the deeper wisdom as the 12 meridia And that's because again without laboring the point peps for another time We live in a world that is bounded by 12 lines That means what we in English conventionally call three dimensions And of course if you characterize three dimensions fully What you're talking about is six poles Left right front back and up down Picture the six sides of a cube and of course a cube is fully characterized by 12 lines right their 12 lines at the top 12 lines at the bottom The 12 lines that join them so a cube really is bounded by 12 lines and that's why We are talking about a reality that is 12 extensions Of course it goes without saying that the 13th is the point of unity of the 12 That's why in Hebrew the word a had adds up to 13 right the letters of a had I'll have had done it add up to 13 the word Ava which means a love which is really unification Hads up to 13 and of course everyone knows that's why Jews love the number of 13 And of course that's why the non-Jewish world is allergic to 13 And non-Jewish fellow gets on a plane and he finds it a song sitting in seat 13 he starts panicking Right where we we love it bum its verse 13 because it's integration of all the parts into a unity And so we could speak for a long time about that. Obviously. That's why the our 12 tribes Vested in the unity of Yakuof who's the father of all of them And that's why there are 12 zodiac elements. That's the framework in time that we fit into just like the 12 Diagonals or parameters of a cube time is always also characterized by 12 extensions and this again This is a very broad idea now the 12s are obviously parallel by the way I should point out to you There are 12 letters in the Hebrew alphabet that are simple letters There are three mother letters There are seven doubled letters in Hebrew right letters that take a dogge like bet And half and so on and then the 12 shootaways 12 simple letters which are single letters have no two forms In those again are parallel to the 12 extensions Now what I like to focus on for the purpose of discussion Things that they have faculties of the body that correspond to the 12 so for example One of them is speaking What is seeing what is hearing what is walking each of the months corresponds To a time it should be obvious to everybody when I mentioned that the first of the months namely Nissan In which paisach appears is the month of speaking right doesn't take much imagination to realize what that is paisach after all is the midst of haga da telling the story The very word paisach breaks down into two words per suck the mouth talks So it should come as no surprise that Nissan the first of the months is the month of talking obviously We know the human being is a speaking being That's the essence of the human creation and again you can take this in a further Almost without limit the month of adar The month that we that we are occupying at the moment the last month of the year in the depth of winter Just before the spring breaks right the month Potentially given to the greatest hopelessness again the depth of winter furthest away from the rejuvenation of spring and paisach Is adar and the physiological function the human faculty of the month is laughter truck laughter The organ that it corresponds to happens to be the spleen that I leave and for another time And that you can think about why is the spleen is interesting of course laughter is not a life-sustaining function Right not directly related to a life function the spleen as we know you can live without You may be compromised in some ways without a spleen, but you could certainly live without it And I want sidetrack today Into discussing the spleen, but let's talk about about laughter. This is the month of laughter And obviously the first thought that comes to the the beginners mind is the hilarity of purine The joking nature of purine the wearing of masks and disguises Obviously that is highly relevant, but what I'd like to go beneath the surface You can see if we can explore this subject at a deep level The question to ask is there many questions first of all why is 112th of human expression human walking, seeing, talking Right we can think of hearing these are faculties that are readily understood as as foundational but laughing Right if you look in evolutionary Research for example Evolutionists are very hard pressed to explain laughter. What was the evolutionary mechanism that led to a sense of humor the rest of the biological world functions fine Without laughing. What is the survival value of laughter most of them conclude that it's an epiphenominant It's not really selected for in survival. It's some sort of epiphenominant of a of a mind which itself probably according to many evolutionists is probably mostly a side As side an epiphenominant in itself But of course we are taught by our great Torah That laughing is 112th of what it means to be human. It's certainly central to the human condition and we need to understand that Now the next thing we observe is that the Torah is full of laughter For example the verse says "Yaysheb-bashamaymi israq" the one who sits in heaven is laughing God is laughing at history and we know that's a mocking laughter you know mock human laughter as many tones One of the tones of human laughter is mockery As we'll try to explain it a little bit further and God's laughter is mocking and we know it because the verse continues has shem yil aglamo God laughs at them and mocks them So we're talking about God sitting in heaven laughing in mockery at the wicked And then what does that mean? We know that human history Jewish history certainly be not laughing matter Not question about that human history soaked in blood Right? When humanity comes to answer for itself at the end of time Can you imagine the humiliation and the shame that humans will have to face God having soaked the world in blood And ridiculous completely unnecessary brutality And God is sitting in heaven and laughing at this process. What does that mean? Another statement we have in a verse is az yamalay sleikpinu When we talk about the messianic advent the coming of masir The verse says then our mouth shall be full of laughter az yamalay then our mouth will be full of laughter true to form The Talmud learns from that statement Halakhim principle We have a very important notion that every verse in the Torah is instruction It isn't only information it is practical instruction And here the question is what practical instruction is there in az yamalay sleikpinu and the Talmud teaches Then that statement means that our mouth should not be full of laughter now You need to laugh you need to be happy On contrary even in the saddest months other than needs to be a certain baseline simpha but not full It's insensitive to have a mouth full of laughter in or in a world that contains tragedy And so as Jews we break a glass at a wedding We pull a little bit of ash on the head of the chasm every Jewish home has a little square of wall that is unplasted We remember that we're living in a tragic world of destruction And so to have a mouth a hundred percent full of laughter is not appropriate But az yamalay in the messiallic era when the world is set to rights then Our mouth shall be full of laughter. That's the practical outcome. By the way, a sensitive view will realize that here the sages are talking on two levels. The simplistic level is that when the Meshirch arrives and the world finally comes right, are mathematically full of laughter in relief and jury. But the sensitive ear realizes that the depth theories that when the Messiah arrives that will be funny. The Messianic advent will be a joke. And that definitely needs understanding. I'll give you maybe the most peculiar of all verses in the Torah that talks about laughter. And we have a verse that says that a woman of spiritual greatness laughs at the day of death. But Tislaqliyom Akharon, she laughs at the day of death. There's a preemptive laughter here, a woman, understanding what life's all about, can laugh at the notion of death. That is a very bizarre statement. And obviously the question that it begs these first of all, why a woman? What is special about woman? That enables her to laugh at death. And why is it a tradition to sing that to our wives on Friday nights? You know, in the whole Jewish world, Ashkenazi world, the Sarday world, there's a custom to sing Hsias Hael. It's a beautiful song, a praise of the greatness of a Jewish woman. And there is this deep verse that says that a woman of spiritual perfection can laugh at death. And that is extremely bizarre. What does that mean? So that's our challenge. We set ourselves in this discussion to analyze the question of laughter. What plum the depth of what the Torah means when it talks about the faculty of laughter and try to explain some of these peculiar verses. Now let's move into the second part of our discussion. And that is methodology. When you faced with a conundrum like this, a Torah subject that is perplexing. What method do you use to plummet? You know, most of us know, no matter how religious or not yet religious you are. If I ask you to give me a talk on the laws of purim, the halak is a purim, you probably could do it. You could look it up. You tell me you have to have a meal and you have to hear them a giller read. Give gifts to your friends and give to the poor. But if I said to you, please look up for me and research for me the subject of Jewish faith or trust or free will. Most people would know where to begin. Certainly when I ask you to give me an intelligent analysis of the faculty of laughter, what are the tools you use? How do you reach beneath the surface of a subject like this? You need to know the tools. And here I'll share with you a tool which is fundamental and amazingly useful and truly a tool of enlightenment. And then there's a notion that everything that manifests in the world is projected from a higher plane. The classic teaching on this, the most explicit teaching on this, is in the classic work of the Ram Khau and Derrah Hashem, those of you who would like to look at it. It's in this work Derrah Hashem, a great amazing classic, this is English translation, by the Ram Khau, Lutsat, and in this book he delineates what he calls kei khaysnif dalim, ko hot nif dalim. That means transcendental forces. The word nif dal really means one layer above or the conventional English translation is transcendent. Everything he says that manifests has a transcendent level. Let's take an example to make this a little bit clearer. Of course let me point out to you that every level that has a transcendence, that level too has a transcendent level. And of course so does that, until you get up to the root of all existence which is Hashem himself. Let's take an example to make this tangible, perhaps the most important example, take a person. A person has a manifest level, we call that a body, but inside is a transcendent level which is more real and less physical. The soul, or the personality, the inner being that life force within is more real and less material. After all let's say you love somebody deeply, this is your child, your dear friend, or someone you married to. There's two levels, there's a body which is important, but it's not the essence. The essence is the person inside the body. The physical level is a more material, less essential level. The kakhnivdhal, the soul inside, is less material and more essential. When you relate to a person, you need a body, you know a question about it, you cannot embrace your friend without a body. You can't have a child without a body, but the body is not the point. If you are relating to a human being as a body, if you marry and what you're interested in is the body, you are on a very vulgar level of human relationship. The body is important, but it's less real than the soul, and anyone with any sense knows, even if your friend's body becomes compromised, even the comfort that they become paralyzed. It's the person inside that you're relating to. The body is an external, lower, more material and less essential level. Of course the soul has a soul too, and the naffesh has a ruch, the ruch has an ashama. This is an endless chain of transcendence. That's the important point to realize, but there are how it teaches you that it's not only human beings. You should look at a tree that way. If you look at a tree and look only at the tree, you're missing the point big time. If you look at a human being and see only a body, you don't realize the body is a projection of an ashama. You're missing the point big time, and when it comes to human beings, we do this naturally when someone speaks to you. You know, you can live with someone for 50 years, you'll never see them, all you will ever see is the body, but it's good enough. If you watch every gesture and every nuance of expression and every tone of voice, which are all physical phenomena, it informs you about who the person is and you get to know them. We have a deep tradition that women do this more naturally than men. Men may have a tendency to be more obstructed at the surface. This is a separate subject for another time, but all of us do this naturally. When you speak to a person, you're not engaging the body. In fact, you do it some naturally, you don't even register the body when someone's talking to you about something deep and meaningful. Not registering the movement of the lips and the airwaves and the vibrations of your air drum. You're using the physical to access and in a level which is much more real. My friends, anyone who looks at the world and looks at the world as it is without realizing that the rippling beneath the surface is an inner being, you're missing the point big time. When you look at a human being and you don't realize there's an inner being, right? That's an insult to what a human being is and your perception of human beings. If you look at a world, then forget to realize that there's a being moving within it, whom you will never see. You will never see God. You will never see God just like you'll never see a human soul. But that's because it's less material but much more real. And that's the way you need to look at the world. Now, this is a long subject, but let's extract one application. Anything you experience, anything you experience, every object, every phenomenon, every human experience, every moment of time, is always an outer projection of inner in reality. And the point is to use the external to penetrate and identify and connect with the inner reality. Let's take an example. Take an example. I'll give you a trivial one and a deep one. People get homesick. Believe me, ask the South Africans. Why do we get homesick? Well, if you ask the scientists, they tell you because a few million years ago when you were a pigeon. The reason you get homesick is because you're in the shaman's longing for the place place it came from. You see in the world of essence, the shaman's exiled in the world. And it's deeply longing, aching for the place that it came from. But that's projected into the trivial projection of your emotions. That's homesickness. That's the spiritual explanation. Let me take a deep one. There's a thing called "vacus". What should this look like in the projected world? It's supposed to be marriage. Marriage is supposed to be two individuals meshing into each other, losing themselves with such fearlessness and such vulnerability and such intensity that they lose personal identity and paradoxically build something larger than the sum of the parts. What happens to you when you lose yourself in a relationship like that? You discover more objectively who you are and what should you do with that new found sense of identity? You should put it back in. No, this is a lost art as any good woman will tell you. Certainly among men. But this is the way it's supposed to be. There are mbun talks about this. There are mbun talks about marital intimacy as the primary learning ground for relationship with God. But again, again, the point is that whatever it is in the world of experience is projected from a higher world. Here's the principle. Anything that God wants you to know is projected into your experience. How could he expect you to relate to him if it doesn't give you a tangible level of experience? And everything, here's the rule. Again, everything that he wants you to know or technically speaking, every component of his name, his projected into your experience, and everything you will ever experience is here to teach you something about him. That is the channel of duality. Now, we use that tool. We want to know what the Torah means when it talks about laughter. What is divine laughter? What is Hashem sitting in Shema'im and laughing? The only way you'll ever understand that is to characterize human laughter. Let's understand it in the world of our experience. If you understand what home sickness is, you'll have a deep spiritual insight. If you understand what laughter is by analyzing it objectively, you will see what spiritual laughter is. Let's do that in this theme that I'm building with you. I heard from Ramoshe Shapiro, and he told me personally that this is something he worked out himself. This is something you will not find many classic sources. Ramoshe, my great teacher, one of the great minds of the last generation. He once told me that this is the subject that he developed himself. But of course, of course, he's using well-known Torah techniques, and I think you'll see how the subject evolves. Let's look at human laughter. And again, our goal is to understand what human laughter is, and from there we project it into the meaning in its depth. The first thing you notice about human laughter is that it's uniquely human. First of all, only humans love, only humans love. No other part of the biological world loves. Yes, yes, I know about hi-eaters, but I can assure you as a South African who's watched them closely, they've got no sense of human. I can assure you. So only humans love. That's a remarkable phenomenon. And secondly, you can only love at something that's human. There's nothing a tree can do that can make you love. There's nothing a bicycle can do that can make you love. It can only love at a distortion of the human. If a tree looks like a person that might be funny. The person looks like a tree. You've got that sort of sense of human that might be funny. You can only love at a distortion of the human. The reason you love animals is only when you impute to them some sort of human consciousness and then it becomes funny. It's a remarkable thing. No physical object in the world and no phenomenon in the world can possibly make you love unless it has a human component or you impute to it some distortion of the human. Laughter is uniquely living in the world of human consciousness. Furthermore, laughter. We laugh at things that are really not funny. In fact, I would say probably most of the things we laugh at are embarrassing, humiliating, painful, dangerous and we laugh at them which is extremely weird. You know, Mother says, Oliver, are you driving on the highway? Yeah, I'm on driving on the highway. Oliver will be very careful. The police sound the radio. There's some crazy guy on the highway going the wrong way. He says, "Mom, there's hundreds of them." Now you see, "There's not funny. Somebody's going to get hurt." But we laugh at it. What is it about us? Are we twisted? Are we, sadists? What is it? When someone goes through the embarrassing experiences, tall, conceited, self-inflated individual slips on a banana peel and falls flat on his back. You have to be three years old to laugh at that. But even as you run to help him up, you can't hide a smile because of the absurdity. By the way, when you're going through those experiences, they're not funny at all. They're not funny at all. It's only when you're watching them that day funny. What is this? Are we cruel? What kind of people are we? That we laugh. And you know, it doesn't matter how bad it gets. There are two fellows on a motorcycle. You know, look, it's just before Purim, right? You'll permit me to tell a couple of stories. Two fellows on a motorcycle was a freezing cold night. So the fellow in front put his leather jacket on backwards, you know, to break the wind. Put it on with the arms in like this. Put on backwards. They had a terrible accident, terrible accident. When the paramedics got back from the accident, they asked them, "What did you find at the accident?" The paramedics said, "Unfortunately, one fellow didn't make it. The other one was doing okay till we try to turn his head around the right way." Now, you know, you have to be, I would say, you have to be, you know, you have to be pepper logically disturbed to laugh at that. But which means that we laugh at things that are bizarre even when the things objectively are not in any sense funny. What does this mean? Now, this phenomenon of human laughter has been analyzed through the ages, from Aristotle, all the great thinkers, and in fact today, there's a branch of modern philosophy, believe it or not, which studies laughed at. I think I even have a book on it. Well, I think I even have a book on it. Yes, here you are. Yeah, is a presentation on, put out by one of the, an edition of educational, university, educational thing, and the professor Stephen Gimbal, who I'm not mistaken is Jewish, professor Stephen Gimbal at Gettysburg College is a professor of the philosophy of human. That's his specialty, right? So you can research that, looking up, and he has made a study. He's only one of many who have either whole literature on the subject of human, and you will find that this has been richly studied, and there are many classic works in this both modern and ancient. Probably one of the best known is an essay written by Henri Berkson, who was a French philosopher. This goes back maybe 80 years or more, he was Jewish as it happens, Henri Berkson, a famous writer in evolution and various other things, highly respected French philosopher, and he wrote an essay, a book length essay called "Le Rier", which means "lauffing" and an analysis about laughter. You can read it in English. It's a masterful essay, fails to explain finally the final depth of what laughter is. Freud, Freud wrote a master work called "Der Witz", which means "the joke", and it's relation to the unconscious. Do I have a copy of it to show you? Yes, here you are. Here's a copy of Freud's work on laughter. It's called "jokes" and their relation to the unconscious. "Der Witz" and its relation to the unbewussein, to the unconscious. So it's a classic work of Freud, as you can see, it's a major work. It's an analysis of jokes, by the way. Unfortunately, it's full of anti-Eastern European jokes. Freud was part of the Aristocronic Western European Jewish community, and of course they looked down on Eastern European Jews, but be that as it may. And Freud, as a psychiatrist, comes to terms, tries to come to terms with what is it about the human psyche that needs laughter? As he puts it, "What's the psychic gain? What would evolution have. " What was the possible mechanism that humans evolved this, and he fails to explain it? Here's a marvelous job of characterizing humor, puns, wordplay, all forms of humor, or jokes, and it's well worth reading, but it is a failure in terms of explaining what humor is in depth. And there are many theories. One theory of laughter is called the play theory. It's a sort of an expression of play, laughter. It's a sort of a jocke full experience. Does that explain it fully? I would say it explains it partially. There's another theory called the superiority theory, which is that when the man slips on the banana peel, you laugh because you feel superior. It happened to him, not to you. Is that an explanatory go some of the way? There's a theory called catharsis theory that laughter is an explosive release of psychic energy. The humorous situation takes you in one direction and suddenly releases it unexpectedly, and there's that inarticulate expression of joy, which is a release of psychic tension. That's also a valid theory, but I'll tell you the secret. And by the way, there was also an American psychoanalyst called Berger. I think his name Bergler, B-E-R-G-L-E-R. Do I have his book here? Bergler? I don't know where his book is, but look up, look, if you're interested in the subject, there's a book by Bergler. This is Henri Bergsend, and his book on laughter. Those would like to. And there's a lot of popular literature on the subject as well, but Bergler, if you're interested in analysis, it's purely analytical look at humor, and again, there are many classic works that have analyzed you, but I'll tell you the key. And here comes the thing to focus on closely because this is the key. The result, the humor is the result of an absurd juxtaposition of opposites. We call this van Haafoch, and it was reversed. Purim is the story of inversion. When two impossible opposites are put together, the more sharp the contrast, and the more unexpected the contrast, the more the humor. When a thing moves in one direction and you suddenly realize it wasn't going that way at all, the traffic wasn't going that well in the highway. It was exactly the other way. That is what results in humor. And that's called van Haafoch, and professional comedians will do that to leverage it. Now take you in one direction, and when you least expect it as sharply as possible, they'll flip into its converse. And that flip that inversion is what causes laughter. And that inversion does not have to be at all funny, it can be tragic, but as long as it's an inversion into the unexpected opposite, and there's a juxtaposition of the two absurd opposites, one becoming the other unexpectedly, there is the secret of laughter. Let's explore this a little bit and see what it means spiritually. Let me put it at its most extreme. I know it sounds a little shocking, but hear me, hear me out, and let me try to think this through with you. The most humorous of all possibilities in the world, in life, is when life ends. Because you're talking here about a phenomenon that looks like total hopeless final disintegration and decomposition, and yet out of your range of vision begins an existence that makes this one pale into its significance. You know, let me put it to you like this. A woman who spiritually disposed can laugh at death. The reason is because she's been through that. Again, it's a woman who's been through, you know, I'll put it to you like this. We have a work called the Geshe-Rachheim. The Geshe-Rachheim is a classic work in Death and Dying. It's probably the best-known classic halachic work on mourning and the laws of death and so on. In the third volume of that work, he has a section dealing with the spiritual aspects, not the halachic but the spiritual, and he wants to convey the notion of standing at a grave side, Leilane, when somebody's being buried, and he wants to convey to you that through the pain, there should also be a vision of a new dimension opening. Incidentally, that's why it's forbidden to mourn excessively in Judaism. You may not mourn excessively. The reason being, it's a lack of faith. There's a tragedy here. It needs to be mourned, but there'll be a resurrection. One needs to know that in the morning there'll be a resurrection. You know, in my own private life, the image that comes to mind in my personal life was, when I moved to South Africa from Israel, my wife and I lost a pregnancy. There was a beautiful little baby boy that didn't survive. I personally had to do a circumcision on that dead child. But that's the custom, that's what you do. You do a circumcision, you bury the child. In the agony of going through that process, it was also in my mind that we're doing this for a reason. The reason is he'll be part of the family one day. We talk about care so much. This is not a final end. So therefore, too more excessively means you haven't seen that dimension. At the Gashar Khaym says, when you stand at a grave, the image you should have in your mind is that beyond your range of vision, this person who's leaving you now is moving into a dimension that's vastly larger than this. I'll give you his analogy and I'll see at least one pediatrician in the audience who'll appreciate this. He says, imagine two twins in the womb. Living this idyllic existence within their mother's body, the verses, "Nee yitne niqy'ah khaykh ke'em, who could give me like those months that I spent in my mother's body." In this idyllic, perfect existence, learning all of the Torah, knowing everything, cosmic wisdom, and suddenly after months of this experience, these tremors begin and the one child is thrust out into the world. The remaining twin begins to mourn for it will certainly be a death. Little does he know that's where life only begins. You know, let me put it you like this. When a woman gives birth, the rambam, I'm quoting here, the rambam. The rambam, quoting the Gomorrah. The rambam as you all know was a doctor as well. The rambam says when a woman gives birth, it looks clearly like two people are dying. Clearly, you know, I speak into the gentleman if I may for a moment. Imagine you wondering the corridors of your local hospital looking for their accounts department. When you accidentally take a wrong turn and you step into the labor ward and you watch a woman giving birth up close, you know, you'd probably call the police. And if you had to go through that yourself, I guarantee you you'd need therapy the rest of you. You'd need PTSD therapy for the rest of your life. There's no question about that. But it's nothing compared to what the baby goes through. The child goes through a transition that's impossible. The child in the womb has no hope of surviving outside the womb. He has holes in his heart with the blood flowing in the wrong direction. He has a big blood vessel taking all the blood away from the lungs instead of towards it. He's got no lungs, a little scrunched up bits of tissue. He's got blood vessels coming out through his liver. He's got the wrong sort of blood. The baby in the womb has 20 conditions that keep him alive that spell death within two minutes. And you have 20 conditions in your body that keep you alive that if you gave them to the fetus, you'd kill him. You know, talking about changing face from one face to another, you're talking about guaranteed death to life. He has a dozen conditions in his body that spell death within two minutes. And what happens? And I've delivered dozens of babies. You hold this newborn child in your hands. He goes blue. Then he goes purple. He makes these terrible, gossiping movements. He's bleeding like crazy through the umbilite. And suddenly as you stand there, the court clamps down like a cable of steel and stops the bleeding. The holes in the heart close the blood verses direction. The blood vessel from the lungs clamps down the blood hits the lungs. At the same moment it takes his first breath, the lungs pop open and three minutes later it's all inverted and he's doing fine. That must have taken a lot of orangutans in the trees during evolution to get right by accident. There must have been a lot of chimpanzees that didn't make it. And if you speak to a doctor who understands this, the cascade of chemical phenomena that the biochemistry involved in that. Do you know what? You're talking about holes in, you're talking about a major blood vessel closing down within seconds. Do you know, do you know the biochemical complexities to get? That blood vessel is sensitive to oxygen levels in the blood, or exclusive sensitivity. You're talking about a cascade of transitional elements that happen within the. This is, this is beyond, and that my friends is very funny. Because you have a situation where the child goes through a transition in which death couldn't be more guaranteed. And amazingly, but now for, it turns around. You know, the Gomorrah talks about this phenomenon. And I'll share with you one line in the Gomorrah which is beyond astounding. The Gomorrah discusses what happens to a baby when it's born, goes through all these changes, and it sums it up in one line. Listen to what the Gomorrah says. This is on tough tests if you want to look at that page 29 in the insect that needed. The Gomorrah says when a baby's born, what's opened closes and what's closed opens. Isn't that amazing? That was, that was written 2,000 years ago, right? Are you cannot say more succinctly than that? That is what happens when a child is born. Now it's a woman who's been through that. And therefore when she looks at death, she's been through that transition. What, what analogy would you like to find for death better than birth? You're talking about a face transition from this world to the next, to the next. Where would you look for the model? You look for it in the transition from the previous world to this one. And it's a woman who's been through that. And therefore she and the flesh has felt that. And she can therefore look at the day of death and understand what a transition must be. Why do we sing this on Friday night? Because Friday night is the transition from the week to Shabbos, which is a premonition of the transition from this world to a Messianic age, which is called a birth. What do we call Mashiach? Hevelay Mashiach, the birth pains of Mashiach. In no accidental metaphors, when our sages talk about the Messianic advent as a birth process, you know what they mean? Their meat will preceded by pains and evidence that there's no hope. The Jewish people's redemption will be preceded by a series of events in the world that are totally genocidely hopeless. You know, let me tell you a medrash. I mean, you can hear a poem. What happened at Poim? It was a decree of genocide. You know today they throw around the word genocide. Amazingly accusing us of genocide. If anybody's been through potential genocide, literally it's us. The Persians made a decree of genocide against the Jewish people. Literal genocide. Not the Jews in Europe where the Jews in America were safe. You're talking about total genocide. Men, every man, woman and child in the total non-world to be killed by every Jew by real, royal, or edict. Let me point out to you, by the way, without trying to depress you. That edict was made in Persia. Persia, as you know, is Iran. And you know the decree still in force. You know that. You know that there was a rule in the ancient world that a king was never able to retract a decree. A royal edict could never be revoked. And for good reason, if a royal edict could ever be revoked, the people could never trust it by the king who changed his mind. So there was an absolute rule in the ancient world. That a royal edict could never be, and that's why when Esther Morochai came to the king, he refused to revoke the decree. They managed to get him to write a new decree. That the Jews have a right to defend themselves. By the way, does that ring a chord? You have a right to defend yourselves? But what a hutspa to tell us we have a right to defend ourselves. But the original decree that Persians made was never revoked. And the modern Persians haven't forgotten it, in case you didn't notice. Iran today, they are explicitly intending to fulfill that decree. A decree of genocide against the Jewish people, and they're wheat and to forget sometimes they haven't forgotten. So what happened? A decree of genocide against the Jews people, and every step they take to kill us, ends in their destruction and our salvation. Haman makes a new Staheng Morochai. The measure says he climbed up and put his neck into make sure it would fit. And the angel Gabriel came down and said, "So it's you? You see, it's a big comedy. The comedy is that exactly what he tries to do to destroy the Jewish people, ends up destroying him in exactly the same way. And causes a rejuvenation of Torah knowledge in the world which is unprecedented. The gimos is that Purim was the time of the real acceptance of Torah. That's very funny. No, it's not funny when you're going through it. This is a birth. Right? When a woman's going through it, ask any of the doctors on the panel. Yes, a woman's saying to you, "Doctor, I'll never do this again! I'll signing on the line. I will never do it again!" Half an hour later, when she's holding the baby and I'm, "Bring it on! Bring it on!" Right? When you're going through, it's not funny at all. But when you realize that every one of those pains generated a birth, that's a whole different story. And if you're spiritually prepared, you can laugh at it while you're going through it. You know, there's a medre, if anyone's interested, I'll post it on the website. You can read the medre itself. Actually a series of medre-shim. The medre says that before the Meshier arrives, the Arabs will have a building on the Temple Mount. Now, this was written before Islam became a religion. You know, Israel, Islam became a religion in the 7th century, right? In the mid-1660s. This was written by a sage as centuries before that. That the Arabs will have a place. One medre says, "Malachah Arabium" Right? The King of Arabs. Another medre says, "Benei Shmal." Now, it's taking who we're talking about. They'll have a building on the Temple Mount. At a critical phase in history just before the Meshier arrives, the Jews don't ask me who they are, but at the leaders of the Jews go to the Arabs. They say, "Remove your building. We wish to build the Temple." The Arabs say, "No, it's our holy site." Does this sound familiar? At that point, the Arabs turn to the Jews and they say, "Why should we make a battle?" "Let's make a divine test." We Arabs have faith. In case you hadn't noticed. Ready to die at a moment's notice for their religion? We'll make a test. You choose building ults alike in days of old. Put a sacrifice on. We Arabs will do the same thing. And let's see if fire comes from heaven. We have not for which of our offerings, but we make a deal with you. If God accepts your offering, we'll follow the Torah. And if God accepts our offering, you follow our religion. And the Jews agree. The medre says, "The Arabs build a Meshier that put a carbon on the sacrifice." The Jews do the same. And fire comes from heaven to accept the Arabs offering. Well, it's a birth process, isn't it? To test, isn't it? it's it's it's it's a series of guaranteed disaster death destruction. The Arabs turned to the Jews and they say we had a deal. The Jews say never. There's a battle, those who survive fleet to the desert. And after 30 days of hiding in the desert, the Mashiach arrives. Beautiful measure, she goes to Chevron, he wakes up there, almost. I once asked the great rabbi Rabbi of Simchabasim and it would be like that. He said to me, it will be exactly like that. What's being said here? We're talking about Khevela Moschir. Birth pains, the Tomwood says let it come, but let me not see it. That's the notion we have of the pain of the Messianic transition. And therefore it's a woman who's been through that and therefore we call it the birth process of Moschir. We talk about a classic work on this, the dars-twillus, Batheramchal, a great classic work on how the treasuries of history are building redemption. There are only questionies, when can you offer it? Let's take a few examples. Take a few examples. By the way, I'm sure you all know. You must know that Tomwood repeatedly talks about Rabbi of Khevel, the father of the oral law, together with the sages, his contemporaries. And the classic example of course is the end of the Gamora Makas. Rabbi Khevel's walking around on the site of the destruction of the temple with his contemporary rabbis. And they see the destroyed temple, the ruins, the raised ground where the temples should stand, and suddenly unexpectedly a fox runs out of the zone with a holy of holies. And the rabbis begin wailing. They begin crying with tremendous mourning for the desolation of that place. And we keep a start's laughing. (laughs) Starts laughing. They say, "Rabba, why are you laughing?" He says, "Why are you crying?" They say, "Because we know there's a verse in the Torah that tells us that foxes will stroll on the site of the destruction and we see it before our eyes. We not mourn." He says, "That's why I'm laughing." Because when you see the verse in the Torah that predicts foxes on the temple mount, and that came true, then you know that the next verse that talks about children playing in the streets of Jerusalem will come true as well. That, and that's why I'm laughing. Now my friends, it's obvious the rabbis knew those verses too. But they're experiencing what's going on now. They're responding to the situation. This is a such a destruction. But we keep as a woman giving birth. He can look into the, he can know that every one of these pains is generating a redemption. The only question now is how far sighted are you, spiritual? And the whole Torah's like us. Here's an example. Here's Pharaoh. We don't have time to go into all the examples. I'll give you one or two. Here's Pharaoh sitting on his throne. And he's making a decree to kill every baby boy that's born. Every child is thrown into the river. You know the measure says he had the Egyptian boys killed as well. You know that because his astrologers couldn't tell him if the Redeemer would be Jewish or Egyptian. Of course they couldn't tell him because Moses was a little bit of both. So to make sure he has every boy killed and on his knee he's raising the child. That is trying to kill. That is very funny. Right? This is the story of the Torah. It is a story of spiritual humor. These things are not funny when you're going through them. But when you understand the message here, you understand that Hashem is sitting in heaven and he's laughing because every step of the wicked is generating their downfall and our redemption. You know the first Jewish child ever born is called Isaac. Yitzrak means laughter. It's a strange name for a child. But his parents called him laughter. Yitzrak of course means he shall laugh. We're talking about what English we call the last laugh. We're not talking about Jewish history as a laughing matter. We're talking about the last laugh. So here's the story of Isaac. Yitzrak. His father is a hundred years old. No way you can have a child. His mother's 90. She doesn't have a womb according to the Talmud. No hope of a child. So God appears to them and says you'll have a baby. So they're laugh. Of course you laugh. Laughter is the response to the impossible. Of course they laugh. And what happens when the child is born? And some child, right? The four runner of the Jewish people. As soon as he's old enough to get married, God says to his father, "That's great. Now kill him." You understand the Torah's one long black comedy. The other one takes his son and he builds an altar and he puts him on it and he stretches his neck. And what happens? The Torah says he didn't kill him. The Torah says he was killed. Why? Because the measure says the ashes of Yitzrak remained on the altar. In fact, the Torah says as the knife approached his throat. He's soul left and as the knife receded, he's soul came back. Actually, the Torah says he's soul came back as a fertile soul, including a female element. There's a long-term holistic discussion here. And Isaac went through a situation where he was killed and he survived. Is that possible? No, but it happened. We begin with the impossible ends. And what was the next event in Isaac's life, Yitzrak's life? He goes on and gets married and finds a nation that becomes indestructible. Yitzrak becomes a human being. Having gone through a death-life process, we call that "Tria Samuisin." That's called resurrection. On the one hand, he survives, narrowly survives, on the other hand, his ashes remain on the altar. And he becomes the father of a nation that for 4,000 years they've been trying to kill us, and we still hear. That's very funny. For 4,000 years, most of that time without a country, without an army, without a police force, totally defenseless, a speck of humanity. And by the way, even when he had a country, you know how big Israelis? It's smaller than the Kruger National Park. You can run across it in a day. You can jog from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in half a day. That's at the good times. And for 4,000 years, they'd be trying to guess us like cockroaches and wipe us out. And we still hear the most creative, vibrant, intellectual, panical of humanity. That's very funny. And the Torah says, the Tikkunah, the Torah says, Yitzrak, the name spells "Kate'schai." Look at the letters in Hebrew. Yitzrak, "Kate'schai" death in life. That's what Isaac means. Death in life, "Kate'schai" the next world in this world. He's a human being who walks around with his feet in this world and he's heading in a different world. That's the Jewish people. And wherever you touch it, you'll see the same thing. One more example. One more example. Where does our story begin? In Egypt. Where does that story begin? Where the brothers and Joseph, you know, the story, they sold their brother. Disaster sets in their father loses his prophecy. 20 years, they suffer. The knowledge that they've derailed Jewish history doesn't get worse than that. And then it gets worse. There's a famine, there's no food. And this weird Egyptian starts tormenting them. They don't know it's their brother. They don't know that he's putting them through a revision of what they did 20 years before to correct what they did. They don't know that. They go through a bizarre torment. And finally, the crunch comes. They finally stand in front of him. And Joseph says to them, "You know what? You can all go home. Just leave Benjamin behind. Just leave Benjamin behind." At that moment, the world ended. If you want to look this up in the Swiss embassy, speaks it out most beautifully. They will know it because that time, that only two options. Either go home with food and leave Benjamin and watch their father die of grief. As he sees them in the distance and realizes that Benjamin is not among them, he dies of grief instantly. Or take Benjamin and kill everyone. They were superhuman in their powers. Kill all the Egyptians because mass murderers and get out that way. At that point in time, after 20 years of awareness of total failure at a cosmic scale, now with no options facing them, Yehuda steps forward and he says, "I don't know what this means. This is too bizarre for words. I know we're responsible." Although the meaning of these events with an Egyptian tormentor, I have no idea what this means. But I know one thing. I promised my father I'd bring him on. And therefore, let him go, take me. And that moment of total abject negation of self. With no options at all. With total destruction staring him in the face, they hear the words, "I need you, I say, I'm Joseph." "Yew!" The source of the problem. Not the cavalry riding in to save them. "Yew!" This, in that instant, suddenly the whole world has been inverted. In that moment, they realize that every moment of tragedy and every moment of pain has become their redemption. This is a woman holding the baby in her arms. You now realize that every pain brought their child into the world. Of course, they were in laughing. They were paralyzed. The measure says they couldn't move. Joseph had a kiss, he had a hug, he had a show, he had a circumcision, he had a speak to them in Hebrew. They couldn't move. Because when you're going through it, it's not funny at all. But when you're watching, it's hysterical. The redemption doesn't come as a source of the problem. That's called the nothing, right? This is the story of Jewish history. I'll leave you with a message. The message is, you know what? I'll leave you with a message and a story. And maybe since I see some South African-Sciartiliate two stories. The message is, for those who need practical, practical message. You know this is theory and philosophy. What's the practical message? The practical message is that you need to live upside down. If you live upside down, the world will be turned upside down. The solution is to live upside down right now. You need to choose values exactly the opposite of the world's values. Raise your children to think exactly the opposite to the way the world thinks. What they think is value, you develop an attitude to living on your head. And in that, near. day when the Meshikh arrives and the world's turn upside down will be the right way up. But that's the Jewish attitude. Today it's so easy. You look at a world of such crazy ridiculous falsehood with the unashamed it, unashamed falsehood and distortions and complete inversion of values. Today it should be easy. Anyway that's the theme. We aim to be a rabbi or kibber who can look at a world of destruction and see where this is going. That doesn't mean you're laughing at this point in time. That would be insensitive. But you realize you have the faith to know that labour pains are labour pains and they have a result. And we live in a set of values that is contrary to the world. Here's a story I'll leave you with. Now the South Africans will recognize this as a fundamental story. I'm not going to explain what that means but they'll know what I mean. This is a character who, you know, a national character who goes through these sorts of experiences. Anyway be that as it may. He's driving along one day with his friend who's driving and they come to a red light and his friend goes straight to the red light. He's still, "What are you doing?" He said, "No, don't worry my brother always does." Next red light speaks right through the red light. He said, "What are you doing? You're gonna kill us." It's another year it's okay. My brother always does this. Next red light speaks through the red light. He's going to drive like that. Don't worry. My brother always does. Next light screen and the fellow screeches to a halt. Assistant, what are you doing now? It's not many cases my brother's coming through. Anyway, that is the story and we are driving with the rules that we we feel appropriate. We driving the side of the road that we feel is right. We go through the signals the way we read them. Right? That is the message. Our heads are turned around the right way. If you get my drift. And therefore we are understanding the human, the spiritual human of life. Again, no one's claiming that things are funny when they're happening. But Puri is an instruction in Vinalfaugh. Right? The McGillis says a number of times Vinalfaugh was inverted. That which you don't understand which lives behind a mask and that's the hilarity of Puri. When we go through this hillite people walking up dressed like common. What are you thinking? The answer is we are mocking the impending inversion. Right? That's what we do. And that is Jewish human. You know Jews have an amazing sense of human. We've needed it. We've needed it to survive. And that's the depth. Superficially it's good for your emotions. It's good for your hormones. You know, it's good for your physiology. Need to love. But at a deep level it's good for your soul. Thank you for joining me. I wish everybody a wonderful poem. Imitates a show we live through an inversion where the wicket will be shown to be wicket. The ones who need to be vindicated will be vindicated. The world will be set to rights. And we live in a world of azimmalay srok pin. Then our mouth shall be full of laughter. All the best.