Page 21 - Jewish News_May-June-2020

JEWISH INTEREST May/June 2020 21

Aging Jewishly – What our traditions teach us about growing old

When times are tough, is laughter the best medicine?

By Rabbi Barbara Aiello

bout 25 years ago, in the mid- promotes physical and psychological disease and help you get well. tainly punctuate the discussion with a
to late-1990s, when personal health. Regular and frequent guffawing Thousands of years ago our Jew- hearty “Nyuk-Nyuk-Nyuk!”
Acommunication via the inter- can both prevent illness and help you ish traditions understood how im- Rabbi Barbara Aiello is the first
net was coming into its own, many se- get well.” (Victoria Vogt, science.how- portant laughter is to our mental and non-Orthodox rabbi and first woman
niors, like my friend’s father Sam, stuffworks.com) physical health. In Proverbs we read rabbi in Italy. She is spiritual leader
couldn’t wait to Which brings me to Louis Fein- that “A merry heart does good like a of the first active synagogue in south-
power on. Mostly, berg, Lester Horowitz and Moses medicine,” while the Psalmist recalls ern Italy since Inquisition times and a
Sam talked with Horowitz, nice Jewish boys from that “God has a smile on his face,” and mentoring rabbi for Darshan Yeshiva’s
other seniors, re- Brooklyn who were better known as that “Our mouth was filled with laugh- conversion program. She is a vice
tirees who shared Curly, Larry and Mo, of the comedy ter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.” president of Kulanu, an international
holiday and birth- team The Three Stooges. While crit- But if my Dad were here, he would Jewish organization that supports Jew-
day greetings and ics sniffed that the trio was vulgar, agree with his personal comedic sage. ish diversity worldwide. Contact Rabbi
most of all, jokes. lacked aesthetics and brought conven- That would be Curly, who would cer- Aiello at rabbi@rabbibarbara.com.
I recall Sam’s tional comedic style to a new low, the
belly laugh each Stooges were responsible for some of 280 kosher characters
Rabbi Barbara Aiello time his friend the most iconic comedies ever made.
Murray sent him some offbeat or off- Their humor was often raw, and they twitter.com/jfedsrq
color joke and how Sam searched his were not great innovators, but as quick
memory to send back another funny laugh practitioners, they placed second
story, aimed at besting Murray in the to none.
mirth factor. How these guys loved to I confess. I never liked The Three
laugh. Stooges but I liked how my father Valuable market insights
Sam wasn’t a doctor and neither liked them. Dad was educated in Ber-
were any of his friends, but they didn’t lin, played classical trumpet and was TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR REAL ESTATE GOALS
need to be. They knew something then a voracious reader in at least five lan-
that most doctors believe today – that guages. But when the Stooges came
indeed laughter is often the best medi- on television, he’d roar with laughter.
cine. Following Dad’s debilitating heart at-
As far back as 15 years ago, the tack, the Stooges continued their laugh
prestigious journal, Psychology Today, therapy and, although I have no scien-
agreed. The publication featured an ar- tific data to confirm it, I have always
ticle by Hara Estroff Marano, who re- felt that Dad survived as long as he did
ported that doctors had begun to tout thanks to Curly, Larry and Mo.
the curative properties of laughter. Recently, medical professionals re-
Marano wrote that “Laughter reduces port, and research confirms, something
pain, increases job performance, con- that many doctors and nurses under-
nects people emotionally, and im- stood for years – that laughter affects a
proves the flow of oxygen to the heart patient’s immune system by increasing Robert Krasow
and brain.” the production of antibodies. These an- REALTOR GRI
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reaction throughout the body that off depression and anxiety, prevent

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