Crying from Laughter

August 21, 2026/8 Elul 5786/Shabbat Ki Tetze

לֹא־יִהְיֶ֤ה כְלִי־גֶ֙בֶר֙ עַל־אִשָּׁ֔ה וְלֹא־יִלְבַּ֥שׁ גֶּ֖בֶר שִׂמְלַ֣ת אִשָּׁ֑ה כִּ֧י תוֹעֲבַ֛ת יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ

 כּל־עֹ֥שֵׂה אֵֽלֶּה׃ 

A woman must not put on man’s apparel, nor shall a man wear woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is abhorrent to God.

(Parashat Ki Tetze, Deut 22:5)

Hevre/Friends,

Apparently boyfriend jeans were not a big seller at the Gap tent in the ancient shuk. Or maybe they sold too well. Maybe Moses wasn’t actually trying to be the fashion police and the verse isn’t as offensive or outdated as it sounds. Rashi’s commentary reads it as a warning not to dress up as someone you’re not; as a call to present ourselves to the world with honesty and transparency. In the Talmud, a person of integrity is someone who’s described as tocho kevoro - their inside matches their outside. It turns out we can lie with more than our speech. Clothing, too, can be worn deceitfully. We don't usually think of getting dressed as a moral act. And yet how we show up in the world certainly is.

We've all met someone we can't quite read. They say all the right things, but something feels off. Or the reverse: someone comes across brash and offensive, but the longer we talk, the nicer they turn out to be. Not having a handle on the people around us is disorienting. I had exactly that sensation last week, in a theatre in London's West End.

My daughter Nomi and I went to see The Producers, which has been drawing rave reviews since it opened almost a year ago. The last time I saw it, on Broadway decades ago, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick were in the leads. Could anyone really top them? But Nomi had never seen it, so it felt like the iconic choice for us. What we got was a mashup of Mel Brooks and Monty Python, and a Springtime for Hitler that left us crying from laughter.

The theatre was packed with white Brits. Statistically speaking, they were almost all non-Jews. As the hilarity built and the audience roared, it felt good - surprisingly good - to let loose among strangers at a time when we Jews carry so much suspicion of the “other”,  so much trauma and fear in this viciously antisemitic time. Laughing together as Hitler and his cronies were skewered on stage felt like a dose of humanity; a rare sensation these days while suffering betrayal after betrayal by those whom we counted on as friends and allies.  

But then I stopped laughing. 

How could this audience find the parody of Hitler's murderous hatred so funny when the UK just recorded the sharpest rise in antisemitic attacks of any country outside Israel? When Jewish men are stabbed on the streets of Golders Green and Hatzalah ambulances are burned? When they've elected some of the most extreme anti-Israel and anti-Zionist politicians in British history? Wasn't this exactly what Dara Horn decries in her haunting book People Love Dead Jews: sanctimonious grief over long-ago Jewish suffering combined with total indifference to our cries right now?

I know I can't assume, much less judge, anyone's politics or values without actually talking to them. But in that moment, the theatre felt frighteningly inscrutable. I couldn't figure out who I was sitting with. Was it safe to laugh? Was my laughter condoning what I feared was a naive, performative, deceptively jovial protest against antisemitism? I wanted to stand up and shout: Who are you people?

Of course, I'll never know. What I have instead is the lesson of that moment, which I've been trying to figure out. Here's what I've got: I can't conclude that everyone in that audience was a bumbling antisemite. That's unfair to them, and it's no help to us. For the sake of my own humanity, I have to stay open to the humanity of others. But for my own pride, and my own safety, I also have to stay awake to today's grotesque hypocrisies, the hate and the lies that have been paid for in Jewish blood. And to those who tolerate them, even if they would never perpetrate them.

The Jewish path today is strewn with obstacles. Some we can see; others are harder to detect. Like any seasoned hiker, we learn to walk with our heads held high and our eyes on the trail. Stay open to the world's beauty; beware its dangers. Notice what people are wearing, but remember: the clothes don't always make the man. Laugh, just maybe not quite as hard as we'd like. It's good medicine, they say. May it bring us the healing we so desperately seek.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dini