In case you couldn't tell by the dramatic flair with which I write each week, I majored in Theater at Vassar College. In my Drama Theory class my senior year, each student had to prepare a presentation on one particular theory of performance. As part of the presentation, the student would direct the class in a scene according to that theory. Erica got assigned a playwright who produced guerilla theater. Guerilla Theater is intended to take the audience by surprise, mainly by failing to inform them that they are an audience. For example, a troupe of actors would dress as policemen and raid a warehouse, putting everyone in handcuffs and carting them outside, only to reveal that it was "just a performance". Or a strike would be organized by such a troupe who would explain that they were "just acting" as real policemen who were putting them in handcuffs. The day Erica was presenting, she stood up at the beginning of class, before the teacher arrived, and confessed that she hadn't prepared anything since our teacher had talked to her earlier in the week about expelling her from the class. Apparently Erica hadn't been performing well, and our professor didn't see how she could get credit for the class. She was obviously upset about it and was asking for advice from us, since she couldn't graduate without the credits for this class. After a few minutes we were all getting emotional, some of us even feeling betrayed by our professor. Then our professor walked in and asked Erica if she was done presenting. At that moment, we all realized that we had just been the victims of guerilla theatre. Personally, I got a kick out of it, but Molly didn't think it was so funny as she burst out crying and ran out of the room.
King Shlomo wrote, "A fool believes all things." Rebbe Nachman said, "It is good to be such a fool." It's is true that a fool will believe those things which are false and foolish, but he will also believe that which is true. One who refuses to believe foolishness will eventually refuse to believe the truth. Molly was being foolish that day, as were we all. We all believed Erica's sob story, but Molly, her best friend, was really listening to her and trying to help her through her trial. As exciting as theater can be, it is often difficult to walk the line between truth and fiction, between what we want to believe and what is. But if we never let ourselves suspend our disbelief, we never get to experience the incredible emotions that come from investing your soul in another's story. Molly was fully invested, fully committed to Erica at the moment the "curtain" was jerked up in front of her.
As we try to find our way in the world, there are times where we have little to go on except for a foolish belief that no matter how hard things seem right now, they're going to get better. It's not logical, yet we cling to these foolish dreams as tightly as we can. In the Torah portion this week, Moshe is told that the ahron (the ark) will be built of shitim wood. The root of this word is shet, the same root that's in shoteh (a fool). So the Holy Ten Commandments that will be kept in the ahron are to be surrounded by foolishness? Curiouser and curiouser. It seems like this foolishness is not only a good thing, but a crucial thing. Without a little foolishness, how would anyone actually take a gamble to go without their car for 24 hours every Shabbat, or agree never to eat at McDonald's again, or agree to spend 12 straight hours rocking back and forth mumbling in Hebrew on an empty stomach every Yom Kippur? We do some things that seem pretty foolish, but without that foolishness we'd never open ourselves up to the miracles of G-d's world. Molly, I bless you to never fear being foolish, because it's upon people like you that our world depends.