HOW DO YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH?
‘They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat’ is the mantra of a people whose history has required them to take crises in their stride. But even then, someone still needs to prepare the food:
The dutiful Jewish son is sitting at his father’s bedside.
His father is near death.
Father: ‘Son.’
Son: ‘Yes, Dad.’
Father (weakly): ‘Son. That smell. Is your mother making my favourite cheesecake?’
Son: ‘Yes, Dad.’
Father (even weaker): ‘Ah, if I could just have one more piece of your mum’s cheesecake. Would you get me a piece?’
Son: ‘OK, Dad.’
(Son leaves and walks towards the kitchen. After a while the son returns and sits down next to his father again.)
Father: ‘Is that you, son?’
Son: ‘Yes, Dad.’
Father: ‘Did you bring the cheesecake?’
Son: ‘No, Dad.’
Father: ‘Why? It’s my dying wish!’
Son: ‘Mum says the cake is for after the funeral.’
And someone still needs to pay for it:
Moshe was on his deathbed and raised his head gently. ‘Mendel, are you there?’
‘Yes, Moshe, I am here.’
A moment later Moshe said, ‘Izzi, are you there?’
His son, Izzi, assured him he was by his side.
‘Jessica,’ said the ailing Moshe, ‘are you there?’
‘I’m here, Poppa,’ said Jessica, taking his hand.
Moshe raised himself on his elbow. ‘Then who the hell is minding the shop?’
Practicality rather than loftiness is the gutsy ghetto answer to life’s ultimate situations:
A Jewish grandmother is watching her grandchild playing on the beach when a huge wave comes and takes him out to sea. She pleads, ‘Please, God, save my only grandson. I beg of you, bring him back.’
A big wave comes and washes the boy back on to the beach, good as new.
It’s about keeping your eye on the ball:
An elderly Jewish man is sideswiped by a bicycle as he is trying to cross the street. After a long five or ten minutes, the ambulance comes and the paramedics put him on a stretcher and lift him into the ambulance, bumping him a bit. As they speed off to the hospital, one of the paramedics puts his hand on the old man’s shoulder and asks, Are you comfortable?’
The old man shrugs: ‘I make a living.’
Without losing your critical powers:
An old Jew gets run over by a car and lies down on the ground, bleeding. A priest happens to pass by and rushes over. As he sees the condition of the man, he says, ‘Do you believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?’
Says the Jew: ‘I’m dying and he’s asking me riddles?’
(He’s still got it.)
If the suggestion in that joke is that Judaism and Christianity draw a subtly different line between life and death, we can find a similar idea in an anecdote told by the author of the new constitution of postapartheid South Africa, Justice Albie Sachs. During his time as an anti-apartheid campaigner, Sachs was the victim of a bomb that had been planted to kill him. When, after awaking in hospital, he realised he’d survived the blast, he was reminded of a Jewish joke:
Hymie Cohen falls off a bike and as he gets up he makes the four motions of crossing himself and someone says, ‘Hymie, I didn’t know you were Catholic,’ and he says, ‘What do you mean, Catholic? Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.’
‘The first thing Comrade Albie did,’ the ANC declared afterwards, ‘was reach for his balls!’*
And it’s this unswervingly unspiritual response to catastrophe (‘still got my testicles, now where’s my hat?’) that also gave Sachs hope for the future of his country: ‘This is how we’ll get our new South Africa, the Jewish joke, appealing to the African sense of storytelling.’
So for Jews, you could say, life is where it’s at, death not so much ...
Cohen is on his deathbed and tells his kids to call a priest.
‘But, but, but, Dad ...’
‘Call the priest,’ I said.
Wanting to honour his wishes, they call the priest. Cohen insists on converting. Then he gets better. Months go by, a year. He is back on form, going to synagogue, keeping kosher, observing the festivals. They muster the courage and ask him, ‘That time on your deathbed, Dad, the conversion – what was that all about?’
‘I just figured,’ says Cohen, ‘better one of them than one of us.’
* Extracted from a talk given by Justice Albie Sachs in the University of Toronto, 2010.