To Laugh

The most important time to dance with joy is when you are suffused in sadness. There is no better time to affirm life and to declare that life has meaning and one must yet live. That is the challenge and the passion of every Jewish soul, to bear the light and give it meaning. It is within us to choose to respond to the darkness that surrounds us, and though it encroaches on every corner, we must not forget to respond with joy. And the wonderful thing about joy is how it touches and multiplies. Joy is like light; it shines and shimmers and sparkles. Everything must be replete with joy, with the passion of renewal and the ability to change and continue.

Sometimes we become so sad after we look at all our many flaws, and when we encounter the pain of others, that we completely succumb to that darkness. We forget the light; we forget to laugh. But it is the laughter that shatters the dark and causes it to flare into sparklets of light, far-reaching, touching so very many. And this is a power we all have, the power to laugh, to reaffirm life, to continue onward, to prove ourselves stronger than everything which hovers and tries to destroy.

With laughter we chase away the dark, and we let the light fill us...and so we must laugh, and laugh and laugh, the pure and honest laughter of children. There is nothing that makes me too black before God, and He knows I search for Him honestly, and so, I shall be as a child before Him, and I shall reaffirm and I shall laugh...first come tears, then laughter, and it is the laughter that shall resound.