To Laugh is to Live

Today – the 9th of January – is my birthday.

Years ago, I started a personal custom to publish a story each year on the date of my birth as a present to the world I was born into. To thank the Almighty, and as an offering of friendship and love to those around me, readers from near and far. If I’m not mistaken, the first of the stories was in honour of my 117th birthday (I was 17 years old at the time). It was a semi-humourous attempt to fantasize what that future birthday party would be like, and to speculate about the future of some aspects of the world around me, when I would reach that ripe old age.

As the years went by, I managed to write a few more stories specifically for this particular date – the day I rejoice in love, laughter, and living. Sometimes, a humourous piece. Sometimes, serious. However, it was the thought that counted: a literary present to the World. For the record, I wrote (and still write), creatively, mostly in Yiddish.

As time flew by, and responsibilities and such conflicted with my time for creative writing, there was a lapse, and the ‘custom’ fell into a deep sleep – though always there was in the back of my mind the hope that I could renew this. No, I did not stop writing, only I wrote more sporadically, or wrote and did not publish – not for lack of publications or audience, but for lack of time. I just didn’t have the time to complete many of my works and some remain semi-complete in a drawer somewhere at home – One day I’ll dig them up, and find the time…

In recent years, although I have continued writing fiction, humour, science fiction, and poetry, most of my non-creative writing has been in English: translations, technical, marketing, websites, and some LinkedIn posts (of which this is the 4th).

This week I was planning to publish another LinkedIn posting – like the others, about my profession as a writer and word-wrangler, and thought that the 9th of January would be an opportune date to renew my ‘custom’ (Expect it in the next few days – it’s almost complete).

… And then, this appalling massacre of the writers and cartoonists of the satirical Charlie Hebdo publication in France was perpetrated on Wednesday the 7th by Islamic terrorists.

A storm of reaction in the Writing and Cartooning World erupted. The one that most strongly reflects my own feelings is by Pat Chappatte that put it so clearly: “WITHOUT HUMOR WE ARE ALL DEAD” (https://twitter.com/PatChappatte/status/552910782212866049/photo/1)

I agree, and believe that one of the worst crimes imaginable is to kill laughter.

It is perhaps ironic, if not poignant, that it was a Frenchman – the philosopher and penman Voltaire (who himself often wrote satire and humor and had his share of threats) – who said:
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

In contrast, compare the controversial defense of Islamic terror by the radical cleric Anjem Choudary who published the following: … the Messenger Muhammad said, "Whoever insults a Prophet kill him."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/01/07/islam-allah-muslims-shariah-anjem-choudary-editorials-debates/21417461/

Why not teach Love, Laughter, Life?

Years ago, I had an argument with an ultra-Orthodox Jew about the writings of the great Yiddish humourist Sholem Aleichem. He claimed that they were often too critical of religion, or laughed at it. I told him, that: A) His writings were, after all, humour; B) they didn’t so much laugh at religion, per se, so much as at ‘Organized Religion’ and its foundations, bureaucracies, politics, and often exaggerated rules and regulations; C) In addition – and most importantly – Sholem Aleichem’s unique humour lifted the spirits of the poor, the desolate and the weak, even (and often) of the most devout – and those who had no other mouthpiece to voice their complaints, to portray the suffering of the masses, to poke fun at the rich and pompous. If it makes you laugh and feel good, feel better, is it not valuable – is it not a positive thing, I argued? Does it not heal? Sholem Aleichem, after all, said that "Laughter is the Best Medicine"!

He shut up.

To Laugh is to Live. Let’s teach this all-important message to all the children of the world – no matter what their other beliefs.