Summary: Tim Mahoney remembers Jackie Mason, rabbi turned comedian, who passed away this week. Jackie shares why humor is important to the Jewish tradition as well as the unusual beauty of forgiveness.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; …a time to weep, and a time to laugh. – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (ESV)
Jackie Mason – Comedian, Rabbi, and Contributor to Patterns of Evidence
This past week comedian Jackie Mason passed away at the age of 93. I had the opportunity to meet him during an interview I conducted at his New York City home in 2006. So what led me to Jackie? A comedian? Early on in the making of the Exodus film, I was talking with Michael Medved, radio host and film critic at the Saint Paul Hotel in Minnesota. I asked him to suggest another Jewish person I should talk with about the Exodus. He thought for a moment and smiled, “What about Jackie Mason?” I said, “Really? The comedian?” He said, “Yeah, he came from a family of rabbis.”
So I contacted Jackie. We went back and forth for a while on the talent fee which was more than I could afford, so I let it go. But a week or so later, his handler called me back and said, Jackie really wanted to be in the film. So we reached an agreement and I headed to New York city for the interview.
Visiting Jackie Mason
Jackie and his wife Jyll lived close to Central Park and Carnegie Hall. When I arrived at their home Jackie said, “Where’s the crew?” I said, “I am the crew! I am the cameraman, the sound man, the lighting guy, the director and the interviewer.” Then he got serious and said, “Okay, what’s this all about anyway, what are you trying to prove. Do you believe the Bible or are you attacking the Bible, who are you anyway!” I thought Lord, this interview is over before it even gets started. I said a prayer and at that moment a thought came to me; Tell him about your family growing up.
So I started to tell him about my mom and my dad. How my father was a decorated Korean War vet and my mother was a music teacher. I was the oldest of 4 children and my mother would read the Bible to us when we went to bed. I told him that my father one night became so angry with me that he threw me across the room and I stuck to a wall for a few seconds.
Jackie and his wife Jyll gasped. “He could have seriously hurt you!” I said, “Yes, that was what my mother was worried about. You see my dad had been through a lot in his life as a child and the war and he would snap at times. For my own safety my mother took me downstairs to a sewing room and that was where I would sleep away from the family.”
Jackie was tender in his response. “My, you were all by yourself.” I replied, “Well this was when my relationship with God began more in earnest. That night my mother knelt by the bed in that little room and prayed with me and asked God to protect me. I remember it like it was yesterday. So I wasn’t alone. God was with me.”
It seemed that conversation took the doubt away from Jackie and the interview and he said, “Good, you can set up your cameras over there.”
Excerpt From the 2006 Jackie Mason Interview
I thought I would start the interview with an easy question.
Tim Mahoney: So you’re Jewish?
Jackie Mason: Well, I came from a family of rabbis and it was considered my destiny to become a rabbi. And I felt that I owed it to my father and everything that he lived for and everything that was his most guiding principles in life, to help him survive and to be happy and live a life that would make him feel useful and to make him feel that he had accomplished his mission in life – which would give his life a purpose and meaning and a whole reason for existence. This was his whole reason for existence, to bring more rabbis on this earth and to maintain the lineage of this holy tradition – to be the messengers who teach and preach Judaism – and orthodox Judaism, the values of the religious life to other people – to perpetuate this kind of education to people, the Jews everywhere in the world.
I was supposed to be the next one to represent that message. And, so I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and I felt a moral obligation to live that way and to express myself on those terms – and to become a rabbi because that would create a whole purpose and the meaning of his life and he would be paid and he would feel that he had led a meaningful life. That’s why I went into it.
“Jokes to me create happiness…because when Jews suffer all over the world and have been persecuted, they need a laugh to survive.”
Jackie Mason: Then I became a rabbi and I realized that I was much more interested in jokes. And jokes to me create happiness and it won’t help me exactly fulfill all of his mission, but at least I’ll fulfill part of his mission. Because when Jews suffer all over the world and have been persecuted, they need a laugh to survive. It’s hard to live with just misery.
That’s why jokes were told in the midst of the Holocaust. When the Jews were going to their very deaths under the persecution of the Nazis, there is still material that has survived to this day, literature of comedy, because they needed some escape, to the very last moment from the misery they were facing and laughter was the only way they could maintain their equilibrium and their mental health. So since that was in me, that compensatory effect, the only way I could compensate for not being a rabbi was to do what I thought was my mission in life – to bring happiness to the people of the world by becoming the greatest comedian of all time. Now, if I’m not the greatest comedian of all time, there’s something wrong with other people who don’t notice it yet.
“Now, if I’m not the greatest comedian of all time, there’s something wrong with other people who don’t notice it yet.”
Jackie Mason: The joke that gets the biggest laugh in my act is when I talk about; the Lord says to Moses, ‘come forth.’ We all knew what happened. Moses came fifth and the Lord lost two dollars. And, I talk in my act about reformed Judaism and how they try to maintain Judaism. Are they trying to compromise more and more of the rituals of Judaism because they don’t want to make themselves uncomfortable, because it’s not worth being uncomfortable and Jewish at the same time?
A religious Jew to them is a person who could still have the spirit and behavior where moral principles are involved. But, where rituals are involved it’s not that important. And that’s the idea of Reform Judaism. That’s why they built reformed temples. And then I make a lot of jokes about the reformed temples because they have compromised so much of the rituals of Judaism that I said “I go to a temple that’s so reformed that the rabbi is a Gentile. And they have a big sign in the front that says ‘no Jews allowed.’ There is one temple that’s so reformed that it’s closed on Jewish holidays. And the Lord says to Moses, ‘take me back to my people, where are my people?’ and Moses said ‘what do you want from me, they’re in Miami Beach.’”
At this point in the interview I was worried that I wasn’t going to get anything I could use for our films. Then Jackie became serious when I asked him about Joseph.
“We learn so much about life from Joseph …the principle of forgiveness”
Jackie Mason: We learn so much about life from Joseph. We learn the principle of forgiveness, for instance, how he forgave his brothers for all the transgressions and for the fact that they were about to throw him into a pit and it was considered a miracle that they didn’t … kill him and instead sold him into slavery.
Somebody treats you like that, for you to forgive them is totally inconceivable to people. The whole idea, the principle of forgiveness, should be the greatest principle and it’s the most desecrated and neglected of all the great humanitarian principles of life. The easiest thing is retribution, because hate comes naturally whenever somebody commits any kind of crime against you – or perception of a crime. And here instead of thinking of the crime, he thought only of whatever happened to them before that caused it and that people could change and become somebody else, and people could feel guilty and sorry and terrible about whatever crimes they committed before and come out a totally different person… so many years later.
And you should be able to see the person as they are today, instead of the crimes they might have committed 20 years ago or whatever time – even if it was yesterday. If you feel sorry and you know you’re guilty and you want to compensate for it and you want to make up for it, you should give them the opportunity, and that’s what it teaches.
In the future I hope to share more from my interview with Jackie Mason. He was one of a kind. I really appreciated the time we spent together and his insights on the Bible and Judaism. Keep on thinking.
TOP PHOTO: Jackie Mason at his home in New York City being interviewed by filmmaker Tim Mahoney. (© 2006 Patterns of Evidence LLC)
