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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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*The Yiddish word meaning to cry or weep is "veynen."
Is there any truth to the Yiddish proverb,
"Ven men lakht ze'en ale; ven men veynt
zet keyner nit"? (Laugh and everyone sees;
cry and you cry alone.)
Wasn't it Nora Ephron ("I Remember Nothing And Other Reflections"), who wrote that she remembers attending a consciousness-raising grop where one of the women in it burst into tears one day because her husband had given her a frying pan ("skovrode") for her birthday? Yes it was.
I clearly remember Feb. 28, 1988, when Evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart gave his now famous, "I Have Sinned" speech as he tearfully spoke to his family, congregation, and "oylem" (audience).
Dick Cavett ("Talk Show - Confrontations, Pointed Commentary And Off-Screen Secrets") admits in a chapter titled, "I'm Not Wheeping; It's An Allergy":
"I had neither planned nor expected to cry. If it's time, as some maintain, that men who cry are pantywaists, then I stand condemned. Not being one of those whose tear production is either quick or voluminous, I was amazed at how many times, watching the all-day spectacle, I lost it."
Cavett says there are two kinds of tears:
"There's the kind produced by the death of
your dog...and there's the almost opposite
kind--but still tears--produced by watching
Astaire and Rogers, the young DiMaggio,
and the young Ali, a sudden Picasso, OL' Blue Eyes's voice, the
Twenty-third Psalm,
or any performance by Meryl Streep. Or
Obama's grin for his daughters."
Who else made Cavett cry? Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Billy Holiday and Marian Anderson singing, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."
Should we have cried with the recent fire near Haifa, Israel, with so much destruction of trees, homes, and loss of lives?
Did we cry when White House press icon, Helen Thomas, put her foot in her "moyl" (mouth) and said that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go back home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else"? (She posted a lukewarm apology on her personal website.)
Did men cry when former president Jimmy Carter told an interviewer from public "televisye" that it gladdens his heart everytime he hears of a Jew leaving Judaism and becoming a Christian? (In 2009, Carter apologized for any word or deed that may have upset the Jewish people.)
Recent Headlines:
"Incoming Speaker of the House John
Boehner Cries"
"Is Boehner Crying Crocodile Tears?"
"Is John Bohner a Crybaby?"
"Is John Boehner Crying Because He's Drunk?" ("shiker"?)
"Chris Matthews Mocks Boehner for Crying
All the Time"
"Epidemic of Crying in the Republican
Party" (Mitch McConnell of Kentucky broke
down whle delivering an ode to a departing colleague)
And Henry Alford (Crib Sheet, New York Times, 12/16/10) wrote, "John Boehner, town crier."
I watched a 60 Minutes interview with John Boehner and Lesley Stahl...and he cried. He chokes up even with "der aparat" (the camera) rolling. His wife, Debbie, says that he's just "going through an emotional period." Joy Behar ("The View, 12/22/10) jokes that Boehner's mom probably threw him out of [her] bed...and he can't stop crying."
"Di rage"--the question: Is crying necessarily a bad thing in public presentations? According to Brad Phillips, founder of Phillips Media Relations, know your limits. "If you determine that crying would distract from your message, kill the portions of the speech that are most likely to trip you up and find another way of communicating the same information," says Philips. "Mr. Boehner has a history of getting emotional when he speaks and should have known that speaking about his family would choke him up. His speech would have been better without it, and the next day's headlines would have focused on his message," says Phillips.
Jews worry--and sometimes cry--when talking about the Holocaust, global warming, the U. S. health-care reform, the economic "krizis" and recession, Tay-Sachs disease, and those people/agencies who lost their life savings due to Bernie Madoff.
According to a posting on Parshas Hashavua, "Our problem today in our modern world, is that we are losing the feelings and emotions which once defined our people. We do great things. We heed the Mitzvos. We are stringent in our religious obligations and commitments, etc. However, we have forgotten how to cry!"
When was the last time YOU cried?
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