Bossy Pants
Tonight we are going to have a great time. We are going to read the megillah, cheering for Esther and booing for the original “he who should not be named.” Our writing team has prepared hilarious skits in the spirit of the long running sketch comedy television program Saturday Night Live. You are guaranteed to laugh—if not with us, then certainly at us!
I’ve floated in and out of SNL viewership over the years. In Jr. High I was a devoted fan, loving that I could be “in” on the slightly adult humor. Those were the days of Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey and their memorable skits such as Wayne’s World, Coffee Talk, and The Church Lady. As the years went on I moved away from watching the show.
About 15 years ago my sister recommended that I start watching again. She told me that a woman had been made head writer—the first in the show’s long history—and that I would find her funny. And so before she found her way to the weekend update desk and before her remarkable resemblance to Sarah Palin made her a household name, I became a fan of Tina Fey.
Like many of the show’s writers and performers, Fey had found her way to SNL through the renowned comedy improvisation group Second City. A few years ago she published a poignant, and hysterical, autobiography. In it, she presents “The Rules of Improvisation That will Change Your Life and Reduce Belly Fat.” I can attest that the first half of that statement is true.
The first rule of improvisation is agree. Always agree and say yes. Fey explains, “When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we’re improvising and I say, ‘Freeze, I have a gun,’ and you say, ‘that’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing you’re finger at me,’ our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, ‘Freeze, I have a gun!’ and you say, “The gun I gave you for Christmas, you jerk!’ then we have started a scene because we have agreed that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.”
“The Rule of Agreement reminds you to respect what your partner has created and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with yes and see where that takes you.”
I love that. “Start with yes, and see where that takes you.” And it makes me think–perhaps Moses was the first master of improvisation. Let’s think about it for a moment. Moses was minding his own business, tending to his sheep, when he came across a burning bush, calling his name. How easy would it have been for him to say, “bushes don’t talk, I must be dehydrated,” and move on with his day. But he stopped and engaged with the bush. He agreed to the concept, far-fetched though it might have been, displayed an open mind, and entered into a dialogue. This pattern repeats itself throughout the Torah. God presents things that are new and strange—the description for the tabernacle, the establishment of holiday practice, instructions for sacrificial worship, to name a few—and each time Moses accepts the premise.
It can be difficult—particularly at this point in our Torah cycle—to engage with our text. In a sense, we cannot accept the premise. Let’s face it…I am NOT going to bring produce or livestock to the Temple for the priests to use to make an offering to God. I can’t get to yes on that one. And I don’t have to. The rules behind improvisation are tools to move the scene forward. Moses and the Israelites accepted God’s instructions for worship, thus launching the community towards their next chapter. But the story, as we know, did not end there. In fact, it is unending. If we follow our history well beyond Moses to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, we find our leadership literally needing to improvise. The established form of worship had become impossible. This could have been the end of the scene—we cannot worship God in the way we had previously done, so let’s not do it at all. Our sages developed a series of new practices, which evolved into the Rabbinic Judaism we know today. They encountered a challenge and said yes, opened their minds and moved forward.
“Start with yes, and see where that takes you.” This is only the first of Tina Fey’s four rules of improvisation. Each deserves its own sermon.
There are copies in the lobby of Fey’s full Rules of Improvisation that will change your life and reduce belly fat. I believe that they provide wise guidance for decisions and interactions. And—to be fair—there is an asterisk next to the second part of the statement that leads to the footnote, “Improv will not reduce belly fat.” Oh well.
Shabbat Shalom