Tackling Kabala through humor
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Sam and Terry Krause are co-authors of a book that uses humor to teach Kabala.
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December 1, 2010
In a Torah discussion group one Shabbat afternoon, Sam “Simcha” Krause whispered a joke to the guy sitting next to him about the ideas the rabbi was expounding. It was not meant as a sign of distraction, but Krause’s levity earned him a sharp rebuke.
His response was true to form. “I went home and wrote 20 pages of jokes about Kabala,” he told NJ Jewish News. “And then I put them aside and forgot about them.”
A few years later, those 20 pages won the interest of a publisher, and formed the starting point for his newly-released book, “Hey Waiter… There’s God in My Soup!” — Learning Kabbalah Through Humor.
Krause talked about his book and Jewish mysticism at the Ethical Culture Society in Maplewood.
Sharing the platform with the father of six children from Passaic was his co-parent, co-author, and wife of 28 years, Terry. The book was his idea and the jokes come from him, but the two of them study together. “She knows her stuff and she’s brilliant,” he said, and added, “I don’t write well, and she’s a great editor.”
Krause believes he is the first person to take a comedic approach to Kabala. “No one has ever done it before,” he said. A stand-up comedian from “way back,” he sees no reason to keep it separate from the spiritual teachings he reveres.
The eldest child of Holocaust survivors, Krause grew up in the Bronx. He described himself as a mischief maker and class clown, but said his mother always kept him always mindful of life’s dangers. He went into sales, tried his hand as a professional comedian, and pursued a wide-ranging search for answers to his spiritual questions. In 1988, he came upon two Lubavitch Hassidic teachers giving a class in Kabala, and realized his own tradition offered all that he sought.
Krause is very serious about being funny and he points out that it isn’t just a part of Jewish identity — “How many comedians can you think of who aren’t Jewish?” he asked — but also something the rabbis of old accepted as part of religious education. He offered a quote from the Talmud to make his point, that laughter opens the heart, and said that rabbis used to start their lessons with a joke.
“Humor might be regarded as something base, but if God created everything, he created humor too,” he said. “And it can be deep and mystical.”
And if it helps open more minds to Kabala, Krause welcomes that. In the past, it was regarded as a dangerous subject and not to be tackled until a person was mature, around 40. “But 300 years ago, the Baal Shem Tov said it was okay for everyone to study it, that the world was dark and in need of the enlightening that Kabala offers.”
These days, Krause said, while there is much darkness, there is also a sophistication that can enable people to appreciate its teaching. Not that everyone does, he said. He has no patience for the celebrities like Madonna who have made a big noise about studying Kabala without understanding the importance of doing so while living a morally disciplined life.
Krause underwent a heart transplant in 2004. It inspired his first book, Visits to My Hospital Bed, and reaffirmed his spiritual commitment. It also inspired him to continue studying Kabala, and to add his own laughter-filled voice to the commentaries that have marked its 3,300-year history.
For more information about Krause and his book, visit www.hey-waiter.com.
What is this entity we call ‘God?’
Harry: What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?
Stanley: I don’t know. What’s green, hangs on the wall, and whistles?
Harry: A herring.
Stanley: But … a herring isn’t green!
Harry: Nu, so you could paint it green.
Stanley: But a herring doesn’t hang on the wall!
Harry: Nu, so you could hang it on the wall.
Stanley: But a herring doesn’t whistle!
Harry: Ok, so it doesn’t whistle.
God, the Creator of the universe, is limitless, formless, all-knowing and all-present. Although God has no specific gender, we refer to God as “He,” because that is how the neutral gender is rendered in Hebrew, the language of the Torah. To reinforce God’s genderlessness, there is a feminine aspect of God called Shechinah, which comes from the root word “to dwell” and denotes God’s transcendent presence as it dwells in the physical world.
God is, was and always will be. He is known as the Ein Sof — “Never-Ending One” — and is also called, “The Primary Being” of the world according to Kabbalah, the body of Jewish mystical thought. In fact, “God is all there is.”
According to the famous Kabbalist, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (the “Tzemach Tzedek”) (b. 1789-d. 1866), God’s existence alone has no beginning. All other existence, in contrast, is comprised of new creations that did not exist before they were brought into being by Him. God is not time-bound; He alone existed, before time was created.
When He created the world, He also created time. To say that God has “always” existed would limit the expression of God, because “always” is an aspect of time. God exists independent of time, above the entire framework of chronology. “Time” is relevant only to created beings.
I told you all that hoping you would ask what our herring joke has to do with God, or even if it is a joke.
Whether you think it’s a joke or not, if you delve into the words a little deeper, you will discover a parallel with how God created the world, according to Kabbalah.
God looked to see what He wanted to create, and then He created the thing He desired from nothing, from no previous existence.
Just as Harry, the joke-teller above, could set up his punch line any way he wanted — while Stanley tried to poke holes in the logic of it — so too, God is not limited by a linear or logical way of thinking.
We may not understand God’s ways, but that doesn’t invalidate them. All it means is that we are limited in our ability to grasp. But in His great mercy and love for us, God patiently allows for and invites our questions.
Benjy was asked by his mother what he had learned in Hebrew School.
“Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
“When he got to the Red Sea he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge, and all the people walked across safely. Then he used his walkie-talkie to radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent F-16s to blow up the bridge and save the Israelites.”
“Now, Benjy, is that really what your teacher taught you?” his mother questioned.
“Well, no, Mom,” said Benjy, “but if I told you what she really said, you’d never believe it.”
Can God fit an elephant through the eye of a needle? This is a famous riddle posed by the Talmud. The answer is yes! But how? Would He make the elephant smaller? Would He make the eye of the needle bigger?
He would do neither. The elephant would remain unchanged, as would the eye of the needle. And under that exact set of circumstances, God would fit the elephant through the eye of the needle. If you say this makes no sense, you are right, but having created the set of rules called “logic,” the Master of the Universe is certainly entitled to ignore them.
From “Hey Waiter…There’s God in My Soup!” — Learning Kabbalah Through Humor, by Sam “Simcha” Krause with Terry Krause
Comments
Israel Teitelbaum
December 03, 2010
Great work Sam. Your old friends in Morristown are proud of your accomplisments, as you have always made us happy with your humor. Please keep up your great work.
Judith Ross Mkam
April 24, 2011
I have been trying to find Terry forever. I was at your wedddng. We lost track of each other in the mid 80’s. Contact me, please
Mark
September 17, 2011
When I did the central path of the Cabalistic ‘Tree of Life’ from Tifaret to Keter (known as Gamel- The Camel) I needed my sense of humour (irony) to retain my reasoning (sanity - whatever that is?). It is easier to thread a needle with a camel’s hair (very coarse) than it is for a materialistic individual to conceive of the Infinite! (non-material and eternal - AIN). I did that at 24 years of age and I’ve only just paid the price over 20 years later.
Upon passing over the bridge I created through Daat (the Abyss) I was faced with an horrendous and huge aspect of myself (Anubis shaped). After retaining my faculties I said to this Golem, ‘I can’t be that ugly, can I?’ Upon which it bloodily removed its hideous canine visage and observed me with an aspect of myself of such beauty and power that I wasn’t quite able to countenance it at first. I then said, ‘That’s more like it’ and the path to Keter was open to me.
Moral of the story: Don’t take yourself too seriously and never imagine that anything finite can comprehend Infinity.
If you can’t laugh at yourself then you don’t deserve to laugh at all!