The legacy of Robin Williams

The legacy of Robin Williams –by Rabbi Stephen Wise

August 16, 2014 – 20 Av 5774

The modern Hebrew poet Hayim Nahman Bialik put it this way:

There was a man -- and see: he is no more!
Before his time did this man depart
And the song of his life in its midst was stilled
And alas! One more tune did he have
And now that tune is forever lost
Forever lost!

I was shocked when I heard Robin Williams died.  He is probably one of the most loved comedians and entertainers, hysterically funny, zany and brilliant.  We will miss him, I already do. 

People of my generation grew up with Robin Williams. His frenetic humor, the dizzying runs of free-association, resonated across all ages; as children, we didn’t get all his jokes but we knew it was amazing.  He had the ability to make us laugh and cry.  At the end of Mrs. Doubtfire, after making us laugh as he acts like an old Scottish Nanny for half the movie, he moves us to tears about how much he loves his children.  He was a genie in the bottle for the Aladdin movie, the first time I really remember a funny Disney character whose voice made the film come alive for me.  He was Peter Pan in Hook able to re imagine what Peter might be like as an adult trying to recapture his childhood.  I loved his genius in Patch Adams as a doctor healing through laughter.  And his Oscar winning role as a psychiatrist in Good Will Hunting helping the Matt Damon character overcome his inner demons and finally breaking free into a life filled with love and purpose.   The first war movie I remember seeing was Good Morning Vietnam, and he was so funny, I bought the album and memorized all his lines.   Dead poet’s society moved me in profound ways, and the way he reached his students actually influenced the way I wanted to be a teacher when I did my masters of education degree. 

In some ways, I think of Robin Williams as an honourary Jew. 

He could effortlessly drop Yiddishisms into any conversation, he could perfectly articulate the accent of an old Jewish man and he had countless close friends and colleagues who were members of the tribe. Apparently his affection and support for Judaism ran deeper as the New York Jewish Week reported, Williams attended 13 Bar Mitzvahs in the eighth grade while growing up in Detroit. Williams provided the comedy at the 2005 annual banquet of the Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Foundation, leaving everyone in stitches; offending no one and remained at the banquet long after the headliners left. When Spielberg was filming “Schindler’s List,” Williams called him every day during the production to “brighten the director’s mood.” Indeed the Jewish Federations of North America noted on their facebook page “We mourn the loss of the great actor, comedian Robin Williams, zichrono li-veracha, “may his memory be a blessing.

A few years ago on “Inside the Actors Studio,” host James Lipton asked Williams the final question on the Proust Questionnaire: “If heaven exists, what would you like to hear at the pearly gates?”  “First, I’d like to have a front row seat,” he smiled. “It would be nice to know that there’s laughter. And it would be nice to hear G-d say, ‘Two Jews go into a bar . . . ’”

I think there some things to take from his life that can guide our lives today.

The first is that he brought laughter and joy to so many.  His used so many tones of traditional Jewish comedy.  As Rabbi Evan Moffic wrote,

He used Humor to undermine pretension and pomposity: Robin Williams managed to be lovable and irreverent at the same time. He did not fear offending anyone.

As one of his obituaries reported, he once called out from a London Stage,“Chuck, Cam, great to see you.” Charles, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Lady Camilla Bowles were in the audience. He continued, “Yo yo, wussup Wales, House of Windsor, keepin’ it real!”

He used comedy to heal.  Jewish history is filled with destruction. Hatred and persecution have plagued us for so long, and they continue to do so in the Middle East and Europe.

One of the great healing balms of Jewish life has been humor. It has helped us maintain perspective, seeing possibilities for joy amidst pain, for sweetness amidst the harshness of life.

Robin Williams’ humor—along with his many acting roles—helped heal so many. His life mirrored the role he played so beautifully of Patch Adams, the doctor who used humor to heal his patients.

He used Comedy as a way of poking fun at ourselves: Robin Williams knew his own foibles. He did not shy away from admitting his struggles with addiction and relationships.

And he would turn those struggles into brilliant one-liners. Indeed, he once described cocaine as “God’s way of saying you make too much money.”  

 

 The second lesson was can take away from his death is knowing that he was a mensch, in the sense that he was one who struggles.   We know now that this was an internal struggle behind closed doors, that Robin Williams struggled with mental health and addiction issues for many many years and to which he eventually succumbed.  Perhaps it will prompt us in the Jewish community and the wider community, to deal more seriously with mental illness.  This includes depression but also bi-polar, schizophrenia, PTSD and addiction.  We as Ashkenazic Jews are more prone and clinical trials have shown its in our DNA. 

Rabbi Jeff Salkin wrote a brilliant piece this week in the Jewish news about William’s struggle with mental illness and showed that in our history there are many Jewish heroes who suffered similarly.  Moses seemed to have struggled with a kind of depression – and anxiety, about representing God, constantly feeling that he was letting them or God down, and weighed down by the immense task of leading the people to freedom.  The prophet Elijah seems to have suffered from depression. He flees from the homicidal wrath of Queen Jezebel, finds himself at Horeb (Mount Sinai), and crawls into a cave -- either crawling back into the womb or looking forward to the tomb (I Kings 19). Some say that the prophet Ezekiel struggled with mental illness. The Psalmist had his demons. Just one example: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalms 42:11)

Many Hasidic rebbes struggled with depression. Elie Wiesel devoted his book Four Hasidic Masters and Their Struggle Against Melancholy to their storiesReb Nachman of Breslov famously battled the forces of depression, and his prayers and meditations are “gentle weapons” in that struggle. It appears that the great Zionist Theodor Herzl was given to bouts of inner darkness, and he passed on this tragic legacy to his children and grandchildren. Moshe Dayan struggled with depression; when he was Army Chief of Staff, Yitzhak Rabin suffered a nervous breakdown.

We know there is a veil of secrecy, shame and stigma when it comes to mental illness.  If someone breaks a foot playing hockey there is no shame we sign their cast.  When someone breaks their soul having put too much strain on it, let there be no shame there as well.  We want our synagogue to be a place of healing.  One way is in our liturgy when we offer the Mi Sheberach prayer for healing, we ask God to grant healing of the body, and the mind and the soul. 

When thinking of Robin Williams, he had to hide his inner demons and be a comedian on the outside.  He loved to make others happy even if he was not always happy on the inside. 

The Talmud (Ta’anit 22a) tells the story that, one day, when Rabbi Baroka was in the marketplace, he encountered Elijah and asked him: “Who among these people will have a share in the world to come?” Elijah pointed to two men, and replied: “Those two.” Baroka asked them: “What is your occupation?” They replied, “We are clowns. When we see someone who is sad, we cheer him up. When we see two people quarreling, we try to make peace between them.”

Maybe right about now, Robin Williams is sitting in the World To Come entertaining The Holy One, “who in enthroned in the heavens and laughs” (Psalm 2:4).

 

Williams’ apparent suicide is a tragedy. We can never know the pain he felt and struggles he underwent. What we do know, however, is that his life was a blessing.

He fulfilled the definition of a successful life captured so brilliantly by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Zichrono livracha, may his name always be remembered as a blessing.