“Nothing is as liberating as joy. It frees the mind and fills it with tranquility.”
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov
We are the inheritors of a tradition that passes through the generations, interrupted by disaster and genocide and expulsion, but still manages to find its way to us in bedtime stories, songs, and even – or especially – in the food we eat.
For many of us the tradition of Jewish joy was shattered by the ShoahIn Hebrew, Shoah means ‘catastrophe’. There are many words Jews and other persecuted groups use for what is commonly called the Holocaust. Yiddish speakers often use the term Ḥurban, which is also used for the destruction of the second temple and the expulsion from Jerusalem. The International Romani Union uses the term ‘samudaripen’, which means ‘mass killing’. Holocaust once meant a burnt sacrifice to a god. More. It died with our ancestors. It was hidden by survivors.
Growing up in the wreckage of a culture, without happy Jewish stories or joyful Jewish culture, the only place some of us ever experienced what it meant to be part of a vibrant, sexy, and wildly diverse culture was in Israel. It was the first place many of us experienced Jewish joy.
That’s not enough. Our joy belongs here, in this place, now.
Our joy is part of a Jewish legacy of resistance.
It’s a reminder that we are still alive, part of a people that has refused to disappear, refused to conform, refused to be silenced.
We demand joy back. We demand our humor, stories, songs, dances, and dishes.
There will always be reasons to grieve, to rise up in action, and to resist. Jewish joy can contain them all: the tragedy, sorrow, anger, and hope for the future.