Walk on the lighter side

AVRAHAM SCHLISSEL - 67 FROM NEW YORK TO JERUSALEM, 1974.

JANUARY 4, 2018 18:39

AVRAHAM SCHLISSEL (photo credit: SHOSHANA MEERKIN SCHLISSEL) — AVRAHAM SCHLISSEL

(photo credit: SHOSHANA MEERKIN SCHLISSEL)

As Avraham Schlissel recounts his 43 years in Israel, his face lights up in a broad, crinkly smile.

Laughter, humor and adaptability are Schlissel’s hallmarks.

Since arriving in Israel in 1974, he has had a remarkably diverse range of occupations and hobbies, ranging from social worker to banker, from actor to medical clown, and today as a yoga laughter leader.

He had a typical Modern Orthodox upbringing in Queens and later in Flatbush, New York, and attended Yeshiva University.

He spent his junior year studying at Jerusalem’s Beit Midrash L’Torah, where he was inspired to prepare for making aliya.

Returning to New York, Schlissel studied social work, on the advice of the aliya shlihim (emissaries), who told him that Israel needed social workers. After two years of study, he received his master’s degree in social work from Hunter College, and on August 24, 1974 – he remembers the exact date – he landed in Israel with a group of other social-work graduates.

“I came off the plane at night,” he says, “and I looked at my watch, and I said, ‘What I am I doing here?’” Schlissel was 24, single, and felt a bit out of his element. Other than his brother and a few cousins, he was alone.

He and his fellow social workers were taken to the absorption center in Haifa, which, he says wryly, “was quite an experience.”

The first year was difficult, and six months later, Schlissel moved to Jerusalem, where he got his first social-work job, in Hadassah Hospital.

“I didn’t know what was flying,” he admits.

“I was doing casework, and I had no idea what it was.”

He returned to school and studied community center administration. Eventually, he realized that he was not cut out to be a social worker.

By this time, in 1976, his parents had made aliya, so Schlissel lived with them for few months.

A friend, whose sister worked for the American Israel Bank, suggested that he interview at the bank for a job. Schlissel, despite not having any previous banking or financial experience, was undeterred and was hired.

Grinning, he says, “I was told that I would go from helping people with their social problems to helping them with their monetary problems.”

The bank was eventually absorbed into Bank Hapoalim, and Schlissel enjoyed a successful banking career in the bank’s foreign currency department, working there for 30 years.

“I loved it!” he exclaims. “In the bank, I used to play with the customers. I had toys on my counter.”

In 1981, Schlissel got married to an American immigrant from Hatzor Haglilit. They lived in Jerusalem for two years and then moved to the settlement of Ofra in 1983.

Schlissel and his wife adopted and raised two children in Ofra.

He was drafted into the army in 1982, and spent four months in its Shlav Bet program, which was then conscripting immigrants in their 30s.

Displaying his customary flexibility and willingness to deal with different situations, Schlissel enjoyed the absurdities and irrationalities of his IDF service, being part of a group of older soldiers trained and led by commanders in their early 20s.

“What was funny about being in the army?” he asks rhetorically. “Waiting. ‘Wait over there,’ they would say. We would wait there for an hour and a half. Then they would say, ‘Wait here.’” Puckishly, he says of his army service, “There was a lot of waiting.”

He enjoyed not only his regular service but also the 10 years of reserve duty that followed.

“The army is a funny place when it’s not dangerous,” he deadpans.

While living in Ofra, Schlissel, who was already writing a humor column for the settlement’s newspaper, was encouraged to try acting, after a successful performance in the local Purim shpiel.

“I didn’t know acting,” he says, “but I always liked to make people laugh.”

Schlissel auditioned and was accepted to a JEST (Jerusalem English-Speaking Theater) production, and participated in many of its plays. JEST eventually closed, but he continued in the field, acting in other theater groups.

Schlissel’s wife took ill, and died in 2000.

He remained in Ofra with his two adopted children, and took early retirement from the bank at age 59.

APPROXIMATELY 10 years ago, he began the next phase of his versatile career.

“One day,” he reports, “I got a call from an organization called Simchat Halev, which trains people to become medical clowns, who help lift patients’ spirits with the positive power of hope and humor.

“The voice on the phone said, ‘Avraham Schlissel?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘We’re opening a course for medical clowns in Jerusalem on Sunday, and you’re coming.’ I said, ‘How did you get my name?’ The voice replied, ‘From your brother. He saw the ad for medical clown training on the back of a bus. He told us, ‘My brother needs to be a medical clown – don’t let him get out of it.’” Schlissel attended the course, and says today, “It was one of the best things I did in my life. I didn’t want to be a medical clown, but I wanted to learn about it, and I wanted to get a certificate.”

It was during his clown training that he learned about the importance of laughter.

After graduation, Schlissel approached the teacher and asked where he could learn more about laughter. He took a six-month course in yoga laughter, a practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter, which is based on the premise that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter.

Four years ago, Schlissel remarried, and now lives in Jerusalem with his wife Shoshie, an accomplished watercolor artist, in Jerusalem’s Katamon neighborhood.

He is now a licensed yoga laughter leader, and he gives presentations to groups, teaching them how to laugh actively, via laughing games and exercises.

“Laughing,” he says, “reduces pressure and tension, and it’s free!” Schlissel says that one of his main goals is to get the religious community – both the national religious and the haredim – involved in laughter.

“They are far too serious,” he says.

Schlissel says that he purchased a poster for his sukka that featured an unsmiling, stern-looking rabbi. He handed the picture to his artist wife, who altered the rabbi’s serious mien into a smiling one.

Schlissel says, “No one will believe this, but there are times I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and laugh for a minute.”

After one spends an hour speaking with him, it is easy to believe.