From Nov ’09 Spotlight: “Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht.” warns the old Yiddish proverb (“Man plans, God laughs.”). But the Chicago Humanities Festival is daring to call His bluff anyway, organizing an entire month of programs on the subject of laughter. And yes, of course, Jews are everywhere on the schedule, serving as both practitioners of comedy and scholars thereof.
GOD ON TRIAL (on Sun 11/8)
Stand-up comedian and “Torah maven” Aaron Freeman intends to put God on trial for his crimes against Job, history’s longest-suffering hero.
“Job talks a lot about putting our God on trial,” Freeman told me, “so we’re going to have a trial. I’m working with Richard Henzel, who’s a mask maker, and we have masks for God and for Satan, and Richard and I will perform together, and let the audience decide whether they want to be character witnesses for the prosecution or the defense!”
“Working on The Comic Torah project with my wife, Sharon Rosenzweig, the nutshell of what we learned is in the words of the great Sufi master Hafiz:
‘God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and laughing.’”
AND MORE: The 2009 Chicago Humanities Festival opened on Oct 17 and will run through November 15. For more information, call (312) 661-1028. To purchase tickets online, visit: www.chicagohumanities.org.
