Laughter Will Have the Last Word
A young child lies in a hospital bed, surrounded by unfamiliar sights and sounds. There are doctors and nurses, strange equipment, and the prospect of another painful procedure.
Then someone enters the room.
A clown.
For a moment, the child’s attention shifts. A smile appears, followed by a little laughter. The fear has not disappeared, but something has changed.
In Israel, scenes like this are part of the work of the Dream Doctors Project. Since 2002, professional medical clowns have worked alongside doctors and nurses, accompanying patients through blood tests, surgery and other procedures. Today, the project operates in around 30 hospitals.
This is more than entertainment. Clinical research has shown that medical clowning can reduce anxiety and, in some circumstances, ease pain.
Long before medical clowning became a recognised profession, the Gemara tells of two men whom Eliyahu HaNavi identified as having a share in the World to Come. When asked what they did, they explained that they were jesters who cheered up those who were sad (Ta’anit 22a).
The first recorded laughter in the Torah belongs to Avraham. In Lech Lecha, Hashem tells him that Sara will bear him a son:
וַיִּפֹּל אַבְרָהָם עַל־פָּנָיו וַיִּצְחָק
Avraham fell upon his face and laughed.
Bereishit 17:17
Then, in this week’s parasha, Sara hears the same extraordinary promise:
וַתִּצְחַק שָׂרָה בְּקִרְבָּהּ
Sara laughed within herself.
Bereishit 18:12
Both laugh. Yet their laughter means something different. Rashi, drawing on Onkelos, understands Avraham’s laughter as joy and Sara’s as disbelief (Rashi, Bereishit 17:17).
But the story of Sara’s laughter does not end there.
After years of waiting, the impossible has happened. At ninety, Sara holds her son. And now she speaks of laughter:
צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אֱלֹהִים כָּל־הַשֹּׁמֵעַ יִצְחַק־לִי
Hashem has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.
Bereishit 21:6
Earlier, Sara had laughed within herself. Now, everyone would laugh with her.
She was holding the answer in her arms.
The child would carry that laughter in his very name: Yitzchak (יִצְחָק) — “he will laugh”.
Laughter does not deny pain. It gives us a little room around it.
We may not be able to change what someone is going through. But we might change the way they go through it.
And laughter can mean something more.
Many centuries later, the Psalmist would speak of another laughter, one that would fill the mouths of an entire people, in words many of us sing on Shabbat before Birkat HaMazon:
אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה
Then our mouths will be filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy.
Tehillim 126:2
Sara’s laughter marked the fulfilment of a promise to one family. The laughter of Tehillim looks towards the restoration of Zion and the redemption of an entire people.
There are times, in our lives and in the life of our people, when such laughter feels a long way off.
But Sara’s story reminds us that what seems impossible today need not remain impossible tomorrow.
Sara laughed. One day, we all will.
שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם
שמואל
