QUESTION: You said that a person shouldn’t be lightheaded and silly; that we should always have a pleasant but serious demeanor. So, what is the purpose of the sense of humor?
ANSWER: A ‘sense of humor’ you have to know is a gentile expression. There's no such thing in the language of Torah, “a sense of humor”. Now, there is such a thing as milsa debedichusa, something that causes the mind to be happy.
One of our great teachers, before he began his shiur he first said a milsa d’bedichusa. Now how he did it, it wasn't that he cracked a joke, chas veshalom, like we say. He said something that was a freiliches, to make people happy in order that the minds should open up. Your mind is more receptive to thoughts when it's in a good mood. But then, right away, he settled down b’eimah, with fear, with yirah, and he taught them the shiur with absolute seriousness.
In the olden days learning Torah was almost like Shemoneh Esrei, you have to know. They learned Torah b’amidah. Later they stopped it, but they still learned with tremedous seriousness. But before he began he had a milsa d’bedichusa to open up the minds of his students.
Now sometimes we can understand it in the following sense. If somebody makes a mistake, he said something wrong, so instead of ridiculing him which is a very big sin, so you make a joke and say “He meant well.” You can even say a peirush on his mistake; you explain his words or his behavior that it also has a meaning. His wrong words have a meaning, a remez. But that’s only in order to make him feel good. The ideal of having a ‘sense of humor’ however, you have to know we've taken a concept that's outside of Torah.
A girl was telling me she met a certain bochur but she doesn't know if he has a sense of humor or not. I don't know what that means. If he's sameach b’chelko, if he's misameach es habrios, that's good enough. That's a sense of simchah, a sense of living normally.
Hakadosh Baruch Hu appreciates people who are happy with a good disposition, not misonenim. They don't complain, they’re not grouchy; they have a friendly expression on their face. Absolutely. And that's good enough as far as we're concerned al pi Torah: Seiver panim yafos, sameach bechelko. We have our own expressions and we don't have to borrow expressions from the umos haolam.
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayeira 5785 email of Toras Avigdor, - September 1996).
Who ruled over all that he had (24:2)
These words refer to Abraham and indicate just how great a person he was. Though Abraham amassed wealth, he did not become like some other wealthy people for whom money becomes the only motivating factor in their lives. Abraham ruled over his possessions, and not the other way around. (Klai Yakar)
Reprinted from the email of R’ Yedidye Hirtenfeld’s Chaye Soro 5785 parsha sheet whY I Matter for the Young Israel of Midwood
