Speaking personally? It’s not that it’s not talked about to outsiders, it’s that it’s not always talked about explicitly.
So, like... if you follow a bunch of jumblr bloggers and notice us going absolutely feral passing around some pictures of pomegranates? That’s Jewish joy. When you see our pictures of sukkot and chanukiyot and shabbat tables? That’s Jewish joy. Delightedly “yes-and-ing” each other about speculative halacha? That’s Jewish joy.
More privately, part of our morning daily liturgy -something that, in many communities, is part of the “at home and waking up” daily prayer routine as opposed to the “in synagogue and functional” daily prayer routine (although it’s usually still said in shul, at least in the spaces I’m familiar with) is called “Nissim B’Chol Yom” - (literally “Miracles in Every Day”), in which we express gratitude and wonder at the mundanities that theoretically shape our existence. Also in that “at home and waking up” section are a prayer called “Elohai N’shama” in which we express gratitude for our souls, and “Elohai N’tzor” (also said after using the restroom) in which we express awe at how wonderful it is that the human body works.
And to take that further, we have prayers of joy and wonder for surviving dangerous situations, but also for seeing mountains for the first time [ever/in a while] or the ocean or particularly beautiful people. There is so much joy and awe and wonder for the amazing world we live in, and that we are part of it, and it spills into so much of what we do.
When we’re jumping around going “YES AND THAT PERSON/TRADITION IS JEWISH” -that’s not “hey, notice us” (okay, it’s sometimes “hey, notice us” or “hey! please remember we exist”); it’s something we do in our own spaces too, and it’s an expression of joy -communal responsibility means that we aren’t just shamed by each other’s failings, but that we reflect the glow of each other’s successes.
Ever been in a shul during a celebration, when we reach a lull and pelt the celebrants with candy while singing congratulations to them at the top of our lungs? Or watched the dancing spill out into the street as a community welcomes a new Torah? Heard the mood shift during the High Holy Days as we begin Ki Anu Amecha? Seen the look on a child’s face on their first day of school when you give them a honeystick and then start the lesson?
I had a rabbi growing up who dressed as Elmo for Purim every year so small children wouldn’t be frightened by all the noise going on when we boo Haman, and every year, especially as it got late, he wound up with a whole bunch of children arrayed around him while he/the chazzan/various other congregants read the megillah; often holding a small child and pointing things out. In the synagogue I currently belong to, the Hokey Pokey is part of the Simchat Torah dance lineup so that even the smallest, least Jewishly-knowledgeable children will have something they are confident that they know and can participate in wholeheartedly. My b’nai mitzvah class (I teach Sunday school) will launch into the Torah service at the top of their lungs with the slightest provocation because they think it’s fun to sing.
I wouldn’t say that it’s about joy -not everything in Judaism is joyful, and something does not become less Jewish for not being joyous. And there is an unfortunate reality that often, when there is joy, it’s shaded together with sorrow or defiance. The broken glass at weddings, the spilled drops at the seder, the counting of the Omer, because we have so many things to never forget.
And beyond that there is so much longing written into Judaism. So many what-ifs. So many places where too many died. So many places where people still do. So many somedays and maybes. Musaf. Leshanah HaBaah. The way many people will fall silent near the end of Birkat HaMazon. And so much of that is hopeful, but at the same time, so much of it still commemorates tragedy.
But... well. It’s not that we don’t talk about our joy. We do. A lot. But I suspect it’s harder to immediately comprehend and recognize for people who want to learn but don’t have the cultural context to do so. And I feel like portraying us as joyless and miserable and archaic and so caught up by the burden of historical suffering (not of our own making, for the more charitably minded) that we can and never will be free of it even if we want to (but we don’t want to because that’s how we manipulate people, for the particularly hostilely minded) is... a very efficient way to dehumanize us? Because people, writ large, experience joy. Experience a broad range of human emotions. So if “those people” don’t? Well... there’s probably something wrong with “them.” Or at the very least weird about “them.” To acknowledge our joy means to acknowledge that we’re people. That we’re still here, that we’re surviving, that we’re continuing to grow and change.
And there are a lot of people who are very threatened by that idea. Not just our joy, of course -this is a conversation I’ve had before with friends of other minority backgrounds. And on top of that... trauma can sell, and if you can convince the intended audience that it wasn’t really that bad or give them a hero fantasy where they would’ve helped, it can sell really well. Let them say “it could’ve happened to me“ and clutch their pearls, because they didn’t quite empathize before. Let them walk away able to sleep soundly, secure that it wouldn’t’ve been them as the victim, and if it had, someone would’ve come to the rescue, because someone always does, because these are stories, not people. Let them sleep soundly, having not even considered that they would’ve been the bad guys because those are characters and they know better.
And when all you know of a people is their pain, and you learn to define them by it, it becomes very difficult to see that that’s not necessarily how they see or define themselves.
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