David Bashevkin: 5 Things SNL Taught Me About Life (Purim Special)

Hi, friends, and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast, where each month we explore a different topic, balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities to give you new approaches to timeless Jewish ideas. I’m your host, David Bashevkin, and today we are doing our annual Purim episode. This podcast is part of a larger exploration of those big, juicy Jewish ideas, so be sure to check out 18Forty.org—that’s 1-8-F-O-R-T-Y.org—where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails. I have said many, many times that I take comedy very, very seriously. I have always loved comedy, not only because it makes me laugh, and when I’m feeling a little depressed or anxious or whatever else is going on, like, I literally turn to comedy to kind of uplift my spirits.

It is like a refuge that I go to—just the ability to laugh and, in that moment, just allow the world to kind of, like, all of the chaos of the world—and we know the world right now is in a great deal of chaos, which is why I feel like right now is so important to take comedy seriously. It is part of our self-care and how we take care of ourselves, and for me, comedy is not just something cute or something fun or like a nice respite, but I have actually looked towards comedy to develop my own style of presentation and how I think about developing Torah ideas and religious ideas. I wanted for today’s episode, because we’re getting ready for Purim and because I think everyone deserves a break from the chaos of the world, to have one car ride where, instead of me talking about all of the existential doubt surrounding the Jewish community, we could take one moment, take a deep breath in and out, and talk a little bit about my love for comedy and specifically my love for Saturday Night Live. Why are we talking about Saturday Night Live? Because unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you may or may not know that Saturday Night Live just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Fifty years on television—it is a cultural touch point where nearly anyone, at least those growing up in the United States, North America—it’s not quite as popular outside, but you can literally figure out how old somebody is by asking them who is their favorite SNL cast member, what is your favorite SNL skit.

Saturday Night Live is a show that has culturally defined different generations.I remember growing up, and still to this day, my parents, in the way they speak to each other, include references to SNL, which, unless you have watched a lot of old SNL, you may miss it. But my mother, all the time, she’ll say, “Never mind, never mind,” which, of course, originates from the original Weekend Update at SNL with Gilda Radner. She would go on these long, long excurses and get all worked up, and then all of a sudden she would realize that she’s wrong, and she would say, “Never mind.”

Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update recognizes its obligation to present responsible opposing viewpoints to our editorials. Here with an editorial reply is Miss Emily Litella.

What’s all this fuss I keep hearing about violins on television? Now, why don’t parents want their children to see violins on television? Why, I thought the Leonard Bernstein concerts were just lovely. Now, if they only show violins after 10 o’clock at night, the little babies will all be asleep, and they won’t learn any music appreciation. Why, they’ll end up wanting to play guitar and bongo drums and go to Africa, enjoying these rock and roll outfits, and they won’t drink milk. I say there should be more violins on television and less game shows. It’s terrible the way things work.

Miss Littella, that was violence on television, not violins. Violence.

Oh, well, that’s different. Yes. Never mind.

David Bashevkin: What I find so amazing about SNL is that it is a rare cultural touch point where, no matter what generation you are from, you have a point of view, a connection, a relationship to a show, and usually we only find this in sports.

But people can argue when was the best season, who was the best team, who was the best cast, and it allows people to really articulate what their cultural point of view is. But even more than that, when I think about how we develop our own traditions, how we build our own culture in our own lives, I very often turn—and I know this sounds ridiculous—to the thought leadership of SNL. Yes, I just used the word “thought leadership” to describe an improv group, but there is a real wisdom to how they put on the show. And, of course, the man behind Saturday Night Live and its longevity and its relevance for half a century is the person, the producer behind SNL, is, of course, Lorne Michaels.

Lorne Michaels was a Canadian Jew, is a Canadian Jew, he’s still alive. He was born Lorne David Lipowitz. He’s nearly—he is 80 years old right now, which is really, really wild. He spent time living in Israel.

He almost never talks about his Jewish identity, his connection to Judaism. It’s not something that he speaks about all that much. I recently read a biography on Lorne Michaels that just came out by Susan Morrison, a writer for The New Yorker. It is absolutely fantastic, taking you through his entire comedy career, whether it’s SNL, producing movies like The Three Amigos, or his work now as the producer of The Tonight Show.

And he has several principles when he talks about how does he build culture on SNL, how does he create the show that has kept our attention over all of these years. And they’re scattered throughout interviews and books, and I want to go through five lessons from Lorne Michaels that I have used when speaking with other Jewish educators, when thinking about our own Jewish lives, and then… I want to share with you my three favorite Jewish sketches. If you want to learn more about the approach of Lorne Michaels or Saturday Night Live, the three books that you absolutely need to read is of course the biography on Lorne Michaels that just came out by Susan Morrison.

There’s another book that is a history of SNL, an oral history where they just interview former cast members. It was written for the 25th anniversary of SNL. It’s called Live from New York and is put together by Tom Shales. And then finally I think really the best book, and it is so hilarious, it’s really funny and genuinely profound, is Tina Fey, who is probably one of Lorne’s foremost students.

You may know her from a show called 30 Rock. And I know I’m embarrassing myself by my… I know a little too much about Saturday Night Live. It’s not healthy, it’s not good, and I apologize right at the outset.

But in Tina Fey’s Bossypants, and I really mean this, I have used ideas that she has shared on Bossypants. She has an entire chapter on how Lorne’s management style has helped her. And when I would train advisors, when I would train staff members for NCSY, I literally put together, and we’re going to have a link to this and we can email this out, an entire packet called, Yes And: Ten lessons from improv for delivering Torah sessions, for how we think about transmitting Torah.

There is so much that we can learn from the world of comedy. And here are five lessons that I have learned from Lorne Michaels. The first lesson, which is literally the title of this entire packet, is called Yes And. What do I mean by Yes And? So this is a direct quote from the book Bossypants by Tina Fey.

And she explains that the first rule of improvisation is agree. Always agree and say yes when you’re improvising. This means you’re 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 your finger at me. Our improvised scene has ground to a halt. You don’t want to ruin it. You want to stay in this imagined world.

Now obviously in real life you’re not always going to agree with everything everyone says. But 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 a yes and see where that takes you. This is the number one principle of improv, Yes And.

And some of you may remember there was an episode of The Office where Michael Scott, played of course by Steve Carell, who himself got his start on television. He was the understudy of Steve Colbert. And they together were on Dana Carvey’s show that briefly, briefly ran Dana Carvey after he was a super popular sketch member on SNL. And he had a show called The Dana Carvey Show.

And I’ll just say as an aside, you definitely want to watch. It’s a fabulous documentary called Too Funny to Fail: The Life and Death of the Dana Carvey Show. And it’s a show about why his show after he left Saturday Night Live, failed. He had this incredible show, Dana Carvey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Robert Smigel, Louis CK, Charlie Kaufman.

Charlie Kaufman is an Oscar winner and he was a writer for the show. And it was an absolute disaster and failure. I think about this all the time when I think of some yeshivas that started or some institutions that started. They have like this amazing, all of these leaders, all of these CEOs.

And for some reason it totally fails. It falls apart because they didn’t mix together well. It wasn’t cohesive. You can take all of the best educators and put them in a room.

But if you don’t have a culture that gels them together, it’s going to be a failure. And yes, I am thinking about a very specific yeshiva in Israel that literally had the greatest rabbis and educators and it fell apart after just a couple of years. And I think it suffered the same fate as the famous Dana Carvey Show. So anyways, why am I mentioning this? Because Steve Carell on The Office had a famous scene where he tried improv classes and he violated this rule.

He was not building on his scene mates. Instead, he just always was going in his own direction.

The Office: Okay, so you start us off, Mary Beth. La, la, la, la, la, la.

Boom! Detective Michael Scott, I’m with the FBI. Think about this. What is the most exciting thing that can happen on TV or in movies or in real life? Somebody has a gun. That’s why I always start with a gun because you can’t top it.

You just can’t. I’m supposed to meet my doctor here. Have you seen him? He’s a very angry midget. Boom! Freeze! Michael Schoon, FBI.

You know what you did. Boom! Boom! Boom! Yeah, you thought you could get away with your little ruse, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Well, you didn’t because I know where you hid the diamonds. I’ve been on to you and your little friends for weeks. Boom! Boom! Boom! I’m not even in the scene.

I can’t. Boom! Boom! Boom! Okay, you shot me. Great. Stop.

Okay, you can’t just shoot everyone in the scene. Well, if you hadn’t stopped the scene, you would have seen where it was going. Okay, what about the scene they set up? Boring. No, it wasn’t.

No more guns. No, no. Michael, why don’t you give me all the guns you have? Get rid of all your guns and give them to me. Okay.

Do you want to go over the rules one more time? No, no, no, no. I’m looking in my wallet for money so you can tell me my fortune. I promise it’s worth it. Ooh, I can see you walking out of here and you’re thrilled with your reading.

What are you… Michael, what did you tell him? Nothing. Then why are his hands up Bill? He told me he couldn’t show it to me, but he has a gun. Okay, let’s call it a day.

David Bashevkin: But as Tina Fey explains in her book, bossy pants at the heart of SNL is great improvisation. Learning how to improvise is at the key of any sketch comedy. And that is why the number one rule is yes and build on what your scene mate is saying. If they say they’ve got a gun, put your hands up in the air.

Add something to what they bring to a scene. And I think of this as such a central spiritual and religious principle in the way that we relate to each other, build off of each other, build worlds with each other. I don’t think it is a coincidence, and I know Rabbi J.J. Schacter speaks about this at length, but the significance of why the first letter, that is always the first letter on a new cloth, on the paper that we use to write Torah scrolls, there is a custom, a very old custom, that I believe is brought in Shulchan Aruch, the code of law, and that is it is always supposed to start with the letter vav.

And if you look at the first letter in all the columns in a Sefer Torah, I believe they always try to start it with the letter vav. Why do they specifically start with the letter vav? Because the letter vav, when you append it to a word, is and. And every time we turn the page, we’re always saying yes and. We are building on that tradition that we are given.

This is what each generation does one upon the other, and what every time we turn a page, we are saying yes and. We are building upon the traditions that we have already received. So rule number one from Lorne is yes and. Rule number two, and this is absolutely crucial, when hiring, and this is a principle from Lorne, mix Harvard nerds with Chicago improvisers and stir.

And this is how Tina Fey explains it. The staff of Saturday Night Live has always been a blend of hyper-intelligent Harvard boys, like Jim Downey, Al Franken, Conan O’Brien, and gifted visceral fun performers like Jim Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jane Hooks, Horatio Sands, Bill Murray, Maya Rudolph. Lorne somehow, this is Tina Fey speaking, knew that too many of one or the other would knock the show off balance. If Harvard is classical military theory, improv is Vietnam.

And I think about this really in all relationships and in all homes, and certainly in any institution. I certainly think about this when I am planning episodes of 18Forty. There needs to be some balance of the cerebral and the experiential. There needs to be some balance of that kind of what he calls Harvard nerd, something more cerebral, the type of comedy that makes you think, that is this like sharp witticism on current events, and you have to stir that with the experiential Chicago improvisers, people like a John Belushi.

And even though he wasn’t from Chicago, he’s from Wisconsin, I believe Madison, Wisconsin, Chris Farley. Chris Farley is like the ultimate, just wild. You would see him crash through tables, fall over couches. He had that chaos of a personality, which ultimately led to his untimely death from a drug overdose.

But it is that experiential energy that you mix together with more cerebral comedy that makes it so enjoyable. And I think our Yiddishkeit needs a very similar balance. We need something like the Harvard nerd, something cerebral, something that is thought-provoking. But that’s never enough.

It’s never enough to just live in our heads. You need a little Chicago improvisers. You need a different experience. It can’t just be cerebral.

Lorne Michaels has a fabulous interview with Jerry Seinfeld on Jerry’s show Comedian in Cars Getting Coffee. There are some amazing interviews. But this is the analogy Lorne Michaels brings about the different experiences that you can have in entertainment and in Hollywood.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: The people who run studios, it’s a little bit like a zoo.

In the sense that when you go to the zoo, the first thing you want to see is the lion because the lion’s king of the jungle. And who would that be? That would be Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks. Yes. George Clooney, those are the lions.

Yes. Then the next thing you want to see is the bear. Then you want to see the bears. Because the bear is the strongest and the fastest.

And who are the bears? The bears are like Arnold and action people. Oh, I see. Yeah. And then before you leave, there’s the monkeys.

There’s something about the joy, the sheer fooling around because it is what comedians do. You can’t tell when they’re working. Do you know what I mean? You can’t tell what they’re doing or how they’re working. And it’s disorganized and chaotic.

And they’re doing it to make each other laugh. And they never seem to be settling down and getting work done. No, they’re talking in the hall about sports. And somehow at the end of the week, there’s a show.

Exactly. So you can’t run that through a normal organizational…

Because they’re the monkeys. Yeah, because they’re the monkeys.

David Bashevkin: I’m not sure which one I am, if any, in that group. Though I am suspicious that I am probably in that monkey category. But we have different experiences. Sometimes you approach somebody and you need a lion.

You need that, like, wow presence. Sometimes you need, like, a bear. Those are the big doers, like the people right now in Israel who are fighting, who are courageous. And the Jewish people, in many ways, is this mix.

We have our cerebral Harvard nerds. We have our Chicago improvisers. We have our lions. We have our bears.

We have our monkeys. And we need all of them. It’s what makes SNL so resonant, and I believe it’s that mix. It’s those different emotions, cerebral, experiential, laughter, courage, seriousness, that makes the Jewish experience so rich and so uplifting.

I think the most important principle that Lorne Michaels constantly, constantly says is that the show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it is 11:30. Saturday Night Live, as its name suggests, is a live show that begins at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday nights, and there is always an inclination. There is always a sense, and I know this, whether it’s producing 18Forty or writing an article or an essay or whatever it is.

There is this inclination that I don’t want to share it until it is perfect, and that desire for perfection needs to be thrown out the window. The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30. So much in my own life of my ability to grow is because I set deadlines for myself where whether or not I’m all the way there, whether or not it’s perfect, I know I need to hand something in.

And it pushes you to actually embrace the fact that you’re never going to have anything perfect. I know so many people, unfortunately, who their impact, their ability to influence, is hampered because they are still waiting for the show to be ready and do not realize it is 11:30. I think more than anything else, the Jewish people right now, it is 11:30. We have a show to put on.

We need to bring our values and our mission to the entire world. It is not going to be perfect, but now is not a time to wait for perfection. Now is a time to grab a mic and to share our values, our commitments, our passion. It reminds me of the phrase that the Lubavitcher Rebbe once said, and it always moves me, it always stays with me, If you know aleph, teach aleph.

If you know one letter, teach that. Don’t wait till you know everything. Don’t wait till you’re ready. Don’t wait till it’s perfect.

Each of us, from our experience, from our lives, have something to share. And right now in this moment, the start light is blinking. It is time to take the stage. None of us are ready.

But now is the time to share our values, to project our Yiddishkeit to the entire world. The show does not go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30. I think one of the most important quotes that I’ve ever heard from Lorne Michaels, and it is something that I think about in my own life all the time, is that he says, If you’re going to write a sonnet, it’s 14 lines.

So it’s solving the problem within the container. This is absolutely brilliant and really what creativity is all about. Without constraints, it is impossible to be creative. When you’re able to do literally whatever you want, it doesn’t make great art.

Great art is responding to a canvas. Great art is responding to boundaries. And within those boundaries, doing something remarkable, filling up the canvas. There is no creativity without boundaries.

And I think about this constantly, especially when it comes to the boundaries of Jewish life. I genuinely think this. And you can roll your eyes and cringe that I’m extracting lessons from something as frivolous as SNL to think about my own Jewish life. That’s fine.

But I genuinely believe that this is a perspective that is worth embracing. And I don’t mean this specific rule. I mean we should find meaning in the entertainment and in the world that we are exposed to. We can have a different conversation about what we should be exposed to.

And I am certainly not advocating that we should all be exposed to Saturday Night Live. That is a disclaimer that I should have said at the very beginning. I should not be the reason that you start watching Saturday Night Live. Let me say that for the record.

There are a lot more intelligent and wise things to do with your time than to become an SNL junkie. But once I’ve already watched it, you better believe I’m going to build meaning for my life. And there is nothing more powerful in our Jewish life than the reminder that there is no creativity without boundaries. When I think of the halachic system, when I think of living a life within boundaries, when I think of the comfort that halachic living brings, I think of this.

I think that there is more creativity in building a life that is committed to Jewish law, that is committed to the boundaries of what Yiddishkeit has to be. When Yiddishkeit is whatever you want, when Yiddishkeit is whatever you feel, when Yiddishkeit is just whatever is convenient and whatever whim you’re feeling at that moment, that is not going to be a creative commitment to your own Jewishness. A creative commitment to your own Jewishness is going to come through very real boundaries, and through those boundaries you create a rhythm because you’re solving that problem within the boundaries. So everyone is going to have at least a similar piece of art.

It’s going to allow more conversation, more community, and more cohesiveness. Which is why I think that communities that embrace halacha have a much stronger sense of community. It’s like those paint nights. Do you ever go to a paint night, and there’s like the artist in the front of the room and going stroke by stroke, and everybody has their own canvas as in imitating those strokes.

There is no question when you leave that paint night that everybody has something that looks extraordinarily different from one another, but also at the same time everybody also walks away with a painting that is similar to everybody else’s. They’re never identical, and that to me is the creativity, is the beauty that comes out from the communal cultivation of halacha. Communities, Jewish communities that are able to foster Shabbos, that are able to foster Yom Tov celebrations, that are able to foster communal prayer. I look at these as the most creative free communities, not the most oppressive.

Why? Because they have these communal boundaries that allow every individual to really fill this canvas in such a remarkable way and make their own imprint. When everybody is doing their own thing, I don’t look at that as creativity, I look at that as chaos. There’s no conversation, there’s no community, there’s no dialogue. And part of the gift of boundaries is the creativity and community that emerges from those boundaries.

So exactly as Lorne Michael says, to me there is no creativity without boundaries. If you’re going to write a sonnet, it’s 14 lines, so it’s solving the problem within the container. And that to me is a beautiful comedic argument for the freedom and creativity and community that emerges specifically from the boundaries of halacha. So again, we started with yes and, that was number one.

Number two was when hiring mix Harvard with Chicago. Number three, the show doesn’t go on because it’s ready, it goes on because it’s 11:30. And number four, there is no creativity without boundaries. And the last principle I would like to share, the last lesson from Lorne Michaels I would like to share is there are no mistakes, only opportunities.

The way Tina Fey explains it is, “I start a scene as what I think is very clearly a cop riding a bicycle. But you think I am a hamster in a hamster wheel, guess what? Now I’m a hamster in a hamster wheel. I’m not going to stop everything to explain that I was really supposed to be a bike. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up being a police hamster who’s been put on a hamster wheel duty because I’m too much of a loose cannon in the field.

In improv, there are no mistakes, only beautiful, happy accidents. And many of the world’s greatest discoveries have been by accident. I mean, look at Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup or Botox. When I learned about bombing as an improviser at Second City was that while bombing is painful, it doesn’t kill you.

What I learned about bombing as a writer for Saturday Night Live is that you can’t be too worried about your permanent record. Yes, you are going to write some sketches that you love and are proud of forever. Your golden nuggets. But you’re also going to write some real bad nuggets.

You can’t worry about it. As long as you know the difference, you can go back to panning for gold on Monday. There are no mistakes, only opportunities.”

What can I tell you? This is a perspective for life.

This is a perspective for your Yiddishkeit. Too often when we mess up, when we make a bad decision, we think literally our lives are over. Too often we think, and I’ve met too many people who think they are living lives in error. There are no mistakes.

There is no such thing as a life in error. Everyone has a next opportunity. As many mistakes that have gotten you to this moment, in this moment, there is an opportunity. You may have misread what your partner or what your teachers or what your community was trying to impart to you.

You misread the improvisational signals they were sending you. But in this moment, with all of the mistakes that may have piled up as high as the sky, there are no mistakes, only opportunities. In this moment, as difficult as it may seem, there is a way forward. And I think in some ways this is at the heart of what Purim is all about.

Purim, we are told, is a day like Yom Kippur. The Zohar, in fact, writes that Yom Kippurim, Yom Kippur, is to be read as a day that is like Purim, Yom Kippurim. There is this connection between Yom Kippur and Purim. They’re actually the inverse of one another.

Yom Kippur is the day where we look towards our ambitions of what we can become. We almost fake it until we make it. We try to present ourselves as angels, as somewhat people who are elevated. It’s a day where we say in the prayer services, we describe ourselves as a vessel that is filled with shame and embarrassment.

Shame and embarrassment are a product of feeling like you made a big mistake. And on Yom Kippur, that is what we embrace. We say, I wish I was already there. I wish I had already arrived.

And we look at our goals for the coming year and we bang our chest and we think about what we can become. Purim is the exact opposite. Purim is where we let go of our mistakes and realize there are only opportunities. Purim, we actually say, We will not be ashamed and we will not be embarrassed.

In the liturgy of Yom Kippur, we describe ourselves as being filled with shame and embarrassment. And in the song Shoshanas Yaakov, that is traditionally sung, right after Megillah reading, we describe ourselves as lo yicalmu, v’lo yevoshu. We won’t be ashamed.

We won’t be embarrassed. Purim is where we show up exactly as we are. It is the one day where we take all of the crumbs of all of our mistakes and we fashion them together into one whole challah roll. Which is why Rav Gershon Henoch Leiner, the Sod Y’sharim, who was a great Hasidic Rebbe at the School of Izhbitz, says that the word, the name Purim comes from the same word as perurin, which literally means crumbs.

It is the one day where we take the perurin, the leftovers, the crumbs, all of the decisions, all of the points in our lives that we think are mistakes, that we think are an error, that we think are irrevocably finished, and we gather all of those crumbs together and realize we can still fashion a whole challah roll. We realize on Purim there are really no mistakes, there are only opportunities. Wherever your life is at this moment, lo yicalmu, v’lo yevoshu. You don’t have to be ashamed.

You don’t have to be embarrassed. There is an opportunity in this very moment, with all of the circumstances of your life, of taking the crumbs of our life, the perurin, and entering Purim feeling whole.

Those are my five lessons from Lorne Michaels, yes and, when hiring Harvard with Chicago, always mixed. The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready, it goes on because it’s 11:30. There is no creativity without boundaries, and there are no mistakes, only opportunities.

Before I let you go, and I have so much more to say about SNL, but I just want this to be a short and sweet Purim episode, hopefully to bring some semblance of a smile as you are driving. But the beauty of comedy is that you can’t fake laughter. You can’t fake the resonance that comedy is coming to create.

And this is something Lorne Michaels said when he was, again, in that same interview with Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Lorne comes to this and why he does not like alt-comedy. Alt-comedy is like this, like very kind of weird, strange comedy, doesn’t have the same punchlines, doesn’t have the same sketch structure. And this is what Lorne says.

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: So you had a line about alternative comedy. I don’t know what you’re doing down there below 14th Street, but it doesn’t matter. Yeah. I know that’s half a joke.

It’s a stage, you go through it, and you can’t hide behind art. When you’re playing the real game, and you’re taking a full swing at the ball, there’s no denying that you missed. And so I think that’s a bigger stakes game.

David Bashevkin: And that idea that Lorne tells you can’t hide behind the art is something I think about a lot in my own work and when I read other.

I never liked that idea of like, you know what? It’s so profound, you just don’t get it. We need a Yiddishkeit of resonance. We can’t hide behind the art of what we’re creating. We need to evoke, whether it’s laughter, inspiration, comfort.

We can’t hide behind the art, so to speak, of Yiddishkeit. But before I let you go, it wouldn’t be fair to talk about SNL and what Lorne Michaels created without going through at least my three most favorite SNL Jewish sketches. The ones that have animated the way I think about Jewish life. Because Lorne, for me, is more than just a producer of a program.

It is a model of management. I have compared many times my mentor and friend, but someone who I am proud to call Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Benovitz, I’ve compared him to the Lorne Michaels of the Jewish community. Why do I mean that? Because he has been running a summer program called NCSY Kollel, which literally year after year services modern Orthodox Jewish teenagers and he has to assemble a staff of ever-revolving advisors and volunteer college students who are going to be learning with these Jewish high school students. And the way that NCSY Kollel works, which is so fascinating, it’s like this revolving door, very similar to SNL.

Every summer has its own cast, so to speak. There’s some overlap, of course. But every couple of years, every five years, you really have a totally new crop of advisors. And you need somebody with the style and the vision of Lorne Michaels to be able to assemble a staff like that.

And literally the same way that SNL has produced all of the comedy greats that we’re familiar with, from whether it’s television or movies, NCSY Kollel in so many ways has produced so many of the educators that populate Modern Orthodox schools, they began their career as advisors. So in some way we need institutions that take a page from SNL, that bring and give vitality to probably the most important demographic in the Jewish community, and that is Jewish educators, the one who are instilling the values for the next generation. I am glad that we have a Rabbi Moshe Benovitz who serves in some ways as a Lorne Michaels, but we need more. We need federations, foundations, fellowships, that are thinking about the Jewish community in a similar way that Lorne Michaels thinks about his show SNL.

The longevity, the cultural touchpoints, the vitality and the resonance, generation after generation, is what we need in this moment. But without further ado, here are my three favorite Jewish sketches. Number one is an oldie but a goodie. I was heartbroken when I asked my students, who has heard of Linda Richmond? And almost nobody raised their hand.

Linda Richmond was the great character played by Mike Myers of Shrek fame, as well as like a gazillion other movies, but that’s the most kosher one. I think I have expended all of my inappropriate resources for this episode, so I’m just going to quote Mike Myers as being the lead voice in Shrek. And he has a character, Linda Richmond, who plays this incredible, like classic, older Jewish woman who is obsessed with Barbara Streisand. And to this day, whenever things get heated or there’s too much drama, my reaction is the same.

Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic. Cranberry crunch. Is it a dessert or is it a kugel? Discuss.

Saturday Night Live: Welcome to Coffee Talk. I’m your host, Linda Richmond. On this show, we talk about coffee, New York, daughters, dogs. You know, no big whoop.

Just Coffee Talk. Of course, it’s Yom Kippur, a good yontif to you and yours. A lot has happened over the summer. I went to Aruba on a canasta cruise.

It was very lively, very lebedik. But, mitten drinnen, I got mittelschmerzin my zortch. What tsuris. You shouldn’t know from it. Also, my daughter Robin got married.

P.S., long story short, it was a beautiful affair and I was kvelling from head to toe. To see my baby standing underneath that chuppah. Now I’m a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.

I’ll give you a topic. Transitional Romanesque architecture was neither transitional nor Romanesque. Discuss.

David Bashevkin: I was trying to come up with a better Linda Richmond line for talk amongst yourselves.

If you could come up with one, please reach out. There’s got to be some really classic Jewish ones. But I love that. My next one that I absolutely love is the famous sketch by Vanessa Bayer.

Vanessa Bayer, who was raised a very traditional Jew. She talks about her Judaism in many interviews. She has a sketch called “Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy.” It is a classic bewildered kid who makes jokes that fall flat in their Bar Mitzvah speech.

I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. After watching this sketch, I cannot listen to Bar Mitzvah Boy speak without thinking of this. Here is Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy.

Saturday Night Live: Tonight marks the last night of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah.

Here to explain the story of Hanukkah is my podiatrist son and recent Bar Mitzvah Boy, Yaakov. Yes, Seth. My dad said to apply this twice a day and you’ve got to start wearing flip-flops in the gym showers. Okay, okay.

Thank you, Jacob. Now, I understand you are here tonight to teach us the story of Hanukkah. That’s right. Ahem.

When I first started studying the story of Hanukkah, I was worried it was going to be boring. But as I learned more about the powerful tale of the Maccabees, I realized that it’s actually pretty neat. But don’t tell my parents I said that.

You know, Jacob, that’s great, but you don’t have to give a speech like at your Bar Mitzvah. You know, you and I can just talk. The story of Hanukkah begins in 165 BCE, otherwise known as the year my bubbe was born. Just kidding.

And thank you, Bubbe and Zadie, for the $18 savings bond, which I will put towards my college funds. Although a couple bucks just might go to Yankees baseball cards. So you like the Yankees? Seth, have you seen my kippot? Oh, that’s cool. Who gave you that? The Maccabee brothers banded together in order to defeat the evil King Antiochus.

Pretty impressive, since my brother Ethan can’t even defeat cleaning his room. But seriously, we might fight sometimes, but you’ll always be my cool older brother. But don’t tell our parents I said that.

David Bashevkin: And I’m sorry if that ruins all Bar Mitzvahs for you.

It is an absolute classic. I can’t get enough of it. My final sketch, and this is just an absolute classic. I remember when this came out.

I actually remember where I was standing. I’m nearly certain I was in 5th grade the first time I heard this. And that is Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song.” Why was this so meaningful to me? Because when I heard somebody singing about Hanukkah, honestly, I felt like Pinocchio or like I’m a real boy.

To hear people comment on your own culture was like a really, I don’t know if I would call it formative, but like this arrival of like, oh, they know about us. They know about the Jews. Like it was so eye opening for me to hear a famous celebrity singing about Hanukkah. Gave me this point of pride that I remember as a 5th grader.

And to this day, I think it is so important when you think of those moments where like your Jewish identity gets hit. I didn’t learn a lot. And you know, the song, as I’ve often said, his rhyming skills are not so impressive-ukkah. You know, it’s not, it’s not such a brilliant song.

But what moved me about it is that it gave you this moment. It was like this light into the sky, like the bat signal where all the Jews like, oh my gosh, this is us. It’s talking about us. We’re real.

And you may not appreciate it if you grew up with the richness of Hanukkah in your home, but I know people. I am related to people. I have family. When they hear an Adam Sandler sing about Hanukkah on SNL, it gives them that sense of like, wow, we’re real.

This is a real thing.

Saturday Night Live: Put on your yarmulke. Here comes Hanukkah. So much funukkah to celebrate Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is the festival of lights. Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights. But when you feel like the only kid in town without a Christmas tree, here’s a list of people who are Jewish, just like you and me. David Lee Roth lights the menorah.

So do Kirk Douglas, James Caan and the late Dinah Shorah. Guess who eats together at the Carnegie Deli? Bowser from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli.

David Bashevkin: And that point of Jewish pride is so important right now in this very moment, which is why I am so grateful for the work of Adam Sandler, who happens to be a mensch of mensches. He’s one of the sweetest, nicest people.

Anytime you hear him, I love his relationship to comedy. And on his most recent special, he actually ends with a song, an ode, a tribute to the power of comedy itself. And it’s such a moving song. I’d like to leave it with you about the power of comedy to uplift, to make life a little bit easier, a little bit sweeter.

And it’s that power of comedy, which is why I take it so seriously. So whether or not you’ve heard of Lorne Michaels or whether or not you have ever watched an episode of SNL, I hope each of us have reason to start taking comedy a little more seriously. Wishing each and every one of our listeners, and we need it so badly in this moment, an uplifting Purim, a Purim where we can find a little semblance of joy, a semblance of happiness to elevate our lives, families and communities. A good joke can stay funny forever.

Adam Sandler: A good joke can stay funny forever. Movies get older, but the kids still get them. All the great laughs, yeah, we’ll never forget them. That’s why I say thank you.

Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night.

David Bashevkin: So thank you so much for listening to our very special Purim episode. This episode, like so many of our episodes, was edited by my dearest friend, Denah Emerson.

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