The Old Jew and the Chicken

Transubstantiation and Made Up Shit

I love old Jewish jokes. I grew up surrounded by the hilarious, wicked cleverness of Jewish humor. My family would gather round to listen to LPs like When You’re in Love, the Whole World is Jewish and Allan Sherman’s My Son, the Folk Singer. My Mom and I memorized duo vaudeville routines, playing “Mr. Goldberg” and “Mr. Sheen.”

Recently, I remembered a very tasty joke I grew up hearing. It came to mind as I was musing upon our current cultural madness—you know, the insanity of demanding that others participate in a “name game” in which all must, via compliance with approved verbiage, openly demonstrate some rejection of empirical truth. It’s a form of linguistic transubstantiation that is no less “magical” or ritualistic than the Eucharist.

TRIGGER WARNING: 20TH CENTURY STYLE RELIGIOUS SATIRE TO FOLLOW!

Here’s the joke.

An elderly Jew moves into a Catholic neighborhood, where all adhere to the practice of eating only fish on Fridays. Every Friday afternoon, however, the Jew bakes chicken for his Shabbat meal.

The tantalizing aroma, week after week, becomes too much for his Catholic neighbors. They convince the local priest to deliver an ultimatum: either the old gentleman converts to Catholicism and eats only fish on Fridays, or he has to move. The Jew agrees to convert. Three times the priest sprinkles holy water on him declaring: "Born a Jew, raised a Jew, now a Catholic."

The ex-Jew's first Friday night as a Catholic comes around -- and the perfume of baking chicken wafts through the neighborhood. A mob charges into the old man's apartment demanding,

"What's with the chicken? You're a Catholic now!"

Pointing to the delicious bird on the table, the old man says, "That's no chicken; that's a fish."

"Who are you kidding!" they protest. "It's a chicken!"

With that, the ex-Jew walks over to the sink, wets his hands, approaches the table and sprinkles the chicken three times, saying, "Born a chicken, raised a chicken, now a fish!"

BA-DUM-BUM. *rim shot*

You ask, why the resurrection of a creaky old Jewish joke? Am I mocking the sacraments of Catholicism? Of course not. Am I dead-naming chickens that identify as fish? Heaven forfend. I’m just rhapsodizing on the concept of suspension of disbelief. It’s far more than a social construct; some philosophers actually prescribe this practice of bypassing critical thinking and logic as therapeutic—it’s how we actively differentiate between reality and fiction. Or not.

At the core of my baptismal chicken joke is something essential to Jewish identity: you’re born a Jew, you’re a Jew. Sprinkling water and saying magic words can’t change it. Rebranding doesn’t alter the product. But there’s also a more universal reading of this old chestnut. It’s that the whole deal of naming things is, well, making shit up, then getting a critical mass of other people to agree with the made up shit. It’s about getting hip to the lingo. It’s about playing along with the story being spun. In 2023 speak, it’s about “supporting the narrative.” For some, suspending one’s disbelief feels like the most humane way of appeasing or assuaging the marginalized and disadvantaged. Some see it as a gesture one makes from a place of privilege—i.e., "it’s the least I can do.”

In some cases, it’s truly an act of charity. For example, coping with mental disabilities like dementia: “Yes, Grandma, it is your thirtieth birthday!” It’s a performance of suspension of disbelief. Sometimes, we do it to maintain a child’s innocence, like nurturing a belief in Santa Claus: “Yes, Virginia…there is, (etc.)” In both cases, we’re pretending in order to soothe or comfort someone vulnerable. This is not an ignoble goal. I cared for my mother during her dementia. She didn’t know when I was pretending. She just felt comfortingly less confused. In the case of the child who believes in magic, well, as adults, we know they’ll grow out of the delusion with time and maturity; at least we hope they will. We’re technically lying right now, but they’re having fun, what’s the harm?

Suspension of disbelief is something we consciously engage in. It’s a choice.

It’s a choice we make in order to keep aloft some collective belief that’s often, by its very nature, detached from facts and evidence—you know, reality. We do this whenever we’re part of an audience in a cinema or theatre. We all know the story is made up; we know the characters we’re investing in are merely words on a page, performed by actors on a set, surrounded by lights and cameras and crew. The world they inhabit is a green screen, or a series of painted flats. We go there imaginatively. Why? For our own delight. To experience the sensations those imaginative trips provide. The Greeks believed witnessing a performance in the theatre was purgative—catharsis a way to safely experience that which terrifies or tantalizes us the most. In religion, suspension of disbelief is called Faith, and religious Faith is blind faith—you choose to surrender your destiny to an omniscient higher power with an agenda of his/her/its own. And the rituals and prayers and chants are all the performance of that suspension of disbelief, all done for one’s fellow believers. Everyone has agreed to participate in the show. It’s an all skate.

So, what has this got to do with the old Jew and the chicken?

Fish is Fowl and Fowl is Fish

The Jew in the joke didn’t wanna move. He also wanted his winner winner chicken dinner for Shabbat. So, he did what the Catholics demanded he do: he went through the ritual of baptism and conversion. He pretended to suspend his disbelief. Then went back to his usual life. He logically concluded that the same magic applied to chickens would achieve the same ends—a delicious plateful of poultry he could call fish. Makes sense to me.

Catholics were told no meat on Fridays, because Jesus gave up his flesh for the redemption of their sins. That’s intense. Given the whole transubstantiation thing and the cannibalistic undertones, I’d lose my appetite for a t-bone. But did Catholics adopt the practice of only eating salads on Fridays? No—why do that, when they could simply declare that fish wasn’t meat! In those long ago times, meat, from the Latin caro, meant flesh meat: beef, poultry, pork, etc. Fish was abundant, and considered poor people food, whereas flesh meat was expensive and indulgent. So to eat fish on Fridays showed humility, and obedient penance for the sacrifice of Christ. I still think Catholics pulled off a neat bit of redefinition of terms. Fish is not flesh meat? Tell that to a vegan.

Let’s face it—it’s just human nature to want what we want—especially if we’re not supposed to want it! The Catholics wanted to appease the deity, and be seen to obey the rules, but they also wanted their meat and two veg every night. So they redefined what fish was—the other, non-flesh, um, meat. The old Jew was just following their lead, and playing the game. If you can declare fish isn’t meat, and you can declare a Jew is a Catholic, you can certainly transubstantiate a chicken into a fish.

See what I did there?

In an interview with Glenn Loury and John McWhorter, Matt Goldblatt, author of I Feel, Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism, offers some rather startling insight into the Woke attitude toward matters of belief. He says that, for them, “the sincerity of the belief determines the truth of the belief.” Wait. Literally, if you wish hard enough for something you make it reality? That’s the basis of every fairy tale and parable since the first storyteller said “once upon a time.” It’s also some made up shit. We know it is, because—trigger warning/spoiler alert!—magic isn’t real. To further tread—lightly, I hope—upon the sacred… Corinthians says it best: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

According to Mr. Goldblatt, commitment to Woke ideology means honoring people’s feelings, even if it means embracing falsehood. It’s about willing suspension of disbelief or at least a good performance of same. It might be the usage of someone’s preferred pronouns, signaling that you agree to be a participant in the story they are presenting as their truth. Again, I see nothing ignoble about that—it’s usually an act of generosity and kindness that costs nothing. On the other hand, it might also be “agreeing” with coworkers, or DEI consultants, or trainers, that yes, you’re a contrite and confirmed white supremacist and racist—because, I dunno, Robin DiAngelo said so, and…black lives matter…? Whether or not your performance is convincingly sincere is immaterial, so long as you go through the motions, use the right words, suspend your disbelief, in service to what I call The Great Social Project. I think a lot of the rage that seethes away inside some activists stems from the fact that they know the TRUTH, too. While the bullying is getting them some results, most folks are just playing along to appease them. They’re faking it, marking time until the day when (hopefully) reason will return to human coexistence and we can again find some collective agreement on the basics of empirical truth and reality.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. As a man who’s made performing and pretending his life’s work, I understand, and forever marvel at, the kind of power there is in a collective suspension of disbelief. But the operative word here is collective. That means everyone agrees. That means each individual, by choice, assents to altering their vernacular, adopting certain practices, and even accepting other people’s impositions on who and what they are. In the name of the cult-ahem-cause.

A performance in the theatre—that’s real make believe, you know what I mean? What happens in life—at work, at school—when progressives who themselves acknowledge that agreed upon “social constructs” are endemic to the human condition, nevertheless wish to impose their own on society: new terminology, practices, rituals, definitions, identifications? Not to mention simultaneously installing a system for policing adherence to these practices? Ain’t nothing collective about that. Sounds just a tad authoritarian to me. Requiring people to give a performance of suspension of disbelief, on pain of dismissal or discipline or ostracism, savors somewhat of the kind of thing Chairman Mao was swinging in the sixties.

The challenge to all thinking people in the current environment is this: we must ask ourselves, is one’s primary allegiance to the truth, or to other people’s feelings? If it’s to the feelings, how far will one go to demonstrate that faith? How many white lies before there’s a blizzard? To what lengths will one go to prove one has sincerely converted…? Food for thought.

As for me…

Oh, waiter? I’ll have the roast chicken.

Shabbat Shalom.