The Fonz’s Prayer Was More Jewish Than You Think

Let's talk about prayer and the Fonz. Hey. >> [laughter] >> As a child of the '70s, I certainly was quite cognizant of the fact that the Fonz, Arthur Fonzarelli, a fictional character from the the show Happy Days, who became an icon, pop culture icon of the time. I was certainly aware growing up that he was played by a Jewish person, Henry Winkler, and that was like a point of pride. Uh I want to show you Henry Winkler talking about a scene where the script required the Fonz to pray. In the first year, the second year, where there's a scene at the dinner table, and I they asked me to say grace. And the show was being run by a man named Bill, who was very religious. And I understood from the Fonz's point of view of talking to God. And so I said grace, I went, "Hey God. Whoa." [clears throat] >> [laughter] >> And in that whoa, I said, "Thank you, and I'm grateful." And I argued, I had to literally stop the filming for a minute and argue my case because he wanted me to say a paragraph of "Hey, we're very very thankful and thank you for everything and this is all wonderful and Mrs. C made a meatloaf." And >> [laughter] >> and I thought it all went into "Hey God. Whoa." That's perfect. Just perfect. And whoa, that was one of my only arguments in in 255 episodes. Okay, that was a very cute story, heartwarming story. Whoa was one of the Fonz's catchphrases, if you don't remember. Um and Henry Winkler actually later said that he got it from horseback riding, that he at the time was very into horseback riding. Of course, whoa is what you say to a horse to make it stop. So I guess that's where he learned that phrase, and then he incorporated it into the Fonz character, and that became like Fonz's exclamation. Whenever the Fonz would would would convey that something was really, really cool, right? Cuz Fonz was about being cool, he would say, "Whoa." That was his like exclamation, signature expression, the Fonz. [clears throat] Now, let's pull up the actual clip of how that scene went down. We're going to play the clip from Happy Days. Well, I I kind of thought that since Fonzie was a guest for dinner, maybe he'd like to say. Oh, hey. Okay. Hey God. Thanks. Okay, so there you see it. That's the episode as it aired. The Fonz is asked by Mr. C, Mr. Cunningham, played by Tom Bosley, to lead the family in grace. The Fonz looks heavenward, he says, "Hey God. Thanks." But did did you notice that? When Henry Winkler retold this story, he said that the Fonz says, "Hey God. Whoa." But in the episode, he says, "Thanks." What's up with that? Maybe Henry Winkler was remembering it a little bit better than it actually happened. Maybe he was embellishing the story. Possible. Okay. So this actually personally bothered me a lot to the point where I said, "I got to get to the bottom of this." Uh thank God it wasn't that difficult. It took a few minutes of Googling, and I want to pull up Henry Winkler's memoir. So there's a book called Being Henry, The Fonz and Beyond by Henry Winkler, and over there, he recounts this whole episode in a little bit greater detail. But those terrific writers probably felt frustrated with me sometimes because a lot of what Fonzie was becoming came from me rather than script pages. My theater and improv background and my dyslexia caused me to make up a lot right on the spot. I knew how to get laughs, and I made sure to take care of my character. In one episode, I was invited for dinner at the Cunninghams. As we sat at the table at the beginning of the meal, we all held hands and Mr. and Mrs. C asked me to say grace. I took a moment, got very serious, and slowly I look up to heaven, and I said, "Hey God. Whoa." The words kept So again, whoa. The words came out with reverence and appreciation, but apparently not enough for the showrunner at the time, Bill Bickley, who also happened to be a pastor. Bill went berserk at what he considered to be blasphemy. "You can't treat God like that," he said. I said, "Sir, what are you talking about? I said the prayer as my character would say it, with complete respect." The disagreement went on for an hour. In the end, I had to acquiesce and simply say, "God, thank you." It is truly one of the moments in my career that still gnaws at me. Okay. So there you have it, that's the reconciliation >> [snorts] >> of the details of the event. The script originally was written a whole long grace with many sentences. Henry Winkler improvised in a way that he felt was faithful to the character. "Whoa. Hey God. Whoa." Bill Bickley, the showrunner, who was a religious person, a pastor indeed, uh called him out and said, "No, you can't do that. It's inappropriate." They fought back and forth. The compromise in the end was that the character said, "Thank you." Now, what's interesting to me is that Henry Winkler, even though he kind of won or he got a compromise at least, he says it still gnaws at him. It gnaws at him. Like it really bothers him that the Fonz wasn't able to say, "Whoa." as his prayer. Even though it was a big concession from the writers to allow the Fonz to not say the whole long scripted grace and just to say, "Thanks." But Henry Winkler felt or still feels that really, really, really the Fonz should have just said, "Whoa." And I want to tell you something, I wholeheartedly agree. I think that that would have been a much stronger choice for the character. >> [snorts] >> Um you know, you're not watching my channel for uh I'm giving what do you call it? I'm not a TV critic over here, but personally, I think it's lame when he says, "Hey God. Thanks." I don't know, it was a little bit soft for Fonz's character. Fonz was always cool, confident cool. Um even when praying and and being humble and grateful, I really it would have been it would I don't think he would have said "Thanks." He says it kind of like a sheepish way. I don't know. I I I I don't I think it would almost have been better if he just would have read the script that they wanted him to say. But at any rate, "Whoa." would have been epic. That would have been so on character. And also, and here's what I want to tell you, it would have been so Jewish. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> Let me explain to you what I mean. And maybe Henry Winkler may even see this. If anybody is watching this and you know Henry, send this to him and ask him to chime in. I would love to get his take on this. I want to tell a little story, story time. Hasidic story. Baal Shem Tov story. The Baal Shem Tov was the father of the Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe a few hundred years ago. And there are many, many, many stories about the Baal Shem Tov. And here's one famous story. This story was actually told by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, who wrote it in a letter. And this this is the version that I'm telling you. One Yom Kippur, that's the day of atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year, it was toward the end of the day at the service that's called Neilah, which is as the sun is going down, at the end of the holiest day of the year. And the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples looked distraught. What was happening is that they were praying fervently to annul a decree that had been brought to the heavenly court that was going to cause calamity to a Jewish community, to an entire village. And the Baal Shem Tov was trying to pray to annul that decree on on Yom Kippur. And it wasn't going so well. And he was pushing, and he couldn't get it to budge. And he looked very serious, and his students, who understood what was going on, they were also looking very, very serious. At that moment, everyone in the shul, in the in the congregation, they didn't really understand the goings-on in heaven, but they saw that the Baal Shem Tov and his students were very serious, so they became very, very serious. >> [snorts] >> And in fact, the tone shifted from serious to sort of um desperate. And people were crying their prayers, they were calling out, they were the during the prayers, >> [snorts] >> there's many, many beautiful words that are composed in what's called the Machzor, the High Holiday prayer book, and um the people were reading these words, very holy, poetic, beautiful words with with a lot of uh emotion and tears and wailing, crying. Okay. Now, in this particular shul, there was a young man and I don't know how old he was. It says he was a young man. A bachur, that means he wasn't a kid, but he you know wasn't uh an adult, I guess. Maybe he was a teen, I'm not sure. But he was uh a villager and that means he lived in like a a rural setting. Like some type of a maybe maybe maybe he even was a farmer. It doesn't say what his job was. It just says he he grew up in a rural village. And uh he was uneducated, as many many Jews at that time were uneducated, meaning uneducated even in um in Judaism. So uh there were many Jews who at that time couldn't read Hebrew, let's say. Um and this was the case for this young man. So what did he do when he came to shul on Yom Kippur? He would just uh he would sit there. It says in the story that he would just look at the chazzan. He would look at the cantor who was praying and that was it. It was a spectator sport for him cuz he couldn't pray. He couldn't read Hebrew, didn't know the [snorts] prayers, couldn't say those words. But he knew it was Yom Kippur, it was a holy day, important day to be in shul, so he was there. And anyway, this young man looks around and he sees how everyone in shul had become really really intense and [snorts] there's the this this crying and wailing and people are saying the words from the high holiday prayer book with intense emotion and [snorts] uh he's sort of reading the room and understanding this is what this is what needs to be done right now, but he can't pray. He doesn't know the words. He doesn't know Hebrew. So uh what did he know? He knew the sounds that the animals make. Grew up surrounded by animals. And he was very familiar with their sounds. His favorite sound, the one that he felt was like the best sound, I guess was uh the rooster's crow. Now in English we would say cock-a-doodle-doo. But you know in every language they uh use the they have a different onomatopoeia to describe different uh animal noises. So in Eastern Europe, I think until today many Eastern European languages um they'll say kukuriku. So in Yiddish also kukuriku. So uh this young man spoke Yiddish, that was his language. So kukuriku is what a rooster says. At any rate, in the midst of this tearful, intense prayer at the end, which is the crescendo, the apex of the holiest day of the year, in the presence of the Baal Shem Tov and his students this young man gets up in the middle of shul and he says kukuriku! And everybody stops what they're doing. They stare at him like, hey buddy, like not appropriate and they want to throw him out. They're going to toss this guy out. What do you This is this is a travesty. You're making making a a joke. You're making a mockery of this sacred space. And uh there was the attendant of the shul. It's called the the the gabbai, like the guy who's in charge of running services. Um he quieted them down. He sort of made people calm. And after the prayers were finished the Baal Shem Tov became calm. He was settled. He He had looked very agitated previously. Now he was very settled. And when they broke the fast the Baal Shem Tov explained what happened. He said that the reason for the intensity of his prayers was that there was this terrible decree against an entire Jewish community. And he was trying to pray to nullify that decree in the heavenly court. And he wasn't getting anywhere. And his students were praying and they weren't getting anywhere. And the entire congregation was praying and nobody was getting anywhere. >> [snorts] >> And then at that very moment, in the midst of this uh battle, this spiritual battle the sound of kukuriku pierced the heavens. This simple young man imitating the crow of the rooster as his praise of God rose up to the heavenly court and that was the decisive argument. It was accepted on high to annul the negative decree. And that's the story. I don't think I have to elaborate at length about the meaning of the story, but in a sentence I'll put it like this. That often we think that prayer requires eloquence and articulation. But the essence of prayer is sincerity. That's the punchline of the story. And the story brings it out beautifully because in this case all this young man had was sincerity. It's not just he didn't have good words, pretty words. He didn't have any words. He couldn't even say one word, but what he could say was a sound that for him in his own way conveyed everything that he was feeling. And so he took all of that emotion and that heartfelt connection and and that that devotion that he felt for Hashem and he put it into the only sound that he knew how to create which happened to be this funny sound. It is funny, the sound of a rooster crowing, kukuriku. So I think about Henry Winkler. I don't know if he knew this story at the time. I don't know if he knows it now or if someone will send it to him now, he'll know it. He'll know it now. But to me that's so Jewish that the Fonz, I know the Fonz is the character the Fonz is Italian, but Henry Winkler is Jewish. Um it's so Jewish that what would be the Fonz's sincere personal way of expressing gratitude? It would be It would be something pure. It would be something simple authentic, real. Whoa. >> [laughter] >> Hey God. Whoa. And the fact that Hen- Henry Winkler says that until this day it gnaws at him, I totally get it. Not just because I think the compromise of hey God, thanks was so- somewhat lame but because it would have been so powerful if the Fonz could have prayed hey God, whoa. Whoa. Now, how can we relate to this in our day-to-day spiritual practice? How can we implement this? So I'll tell you an interesting teaching. But for that you have to understand a few Hebrew words. And you don't have to memorize it. I'm just going to I'm going to say it and I'll translate it. There's a prayer. It's a one-line prayer. It's the first thing that a Jew says every day when you wake up in the morning, modeh ani. Modeh ani means I give thanks, gratitude. Modeh ani lifanecha melech chai v'kayam. I give thanks before you, living and eternal king. Talking to God. She'hechezarta bi nishmati b'chemla. That you have graciously restored my soul to me, meaning you woke me up, you put my soul back in my body. Rabba emunasecha. Great is your faithfulness, your reliability, your trustworthiness. Meaning I gave you my soul and you gave it back to me. You woke me up in the morning. So that's the first prayer that every Jew says every day and there's an interesting law regarding that prayer. Normally before we pray, there are many preparations that have to be made to be in the proper state for prayer. One of them is you have to wash your hands. You have to have clean hands. I don't mean physically clean. That too, obviously. There's hygiene. Everyone bathes in the morning, but I'm saying to ritually purify the hands and it has to do with There's a way of ritually cleaning the hands. You take a a cup, you fill it with water, you pour it back and forth consecutively three times each hand, like this, back and forth. Uh and you clean the hands. And there's even a blessing that we make on the washing of the hands. It's a whole ritual. Now normally in order to pray, you have to have ritually clean hands. Modeh ani you say right when you wake up before you've washed your hands. Why is that permissible? So the simple answer everything in Judaism has levels. The simple answer is because if you look at the text of the prayer, it doesn't use any of God's actual holy names. You know, there are names of God that are used in prayer. And we In fact, we only use them in prayer because they're holy, so we respect them and we don't say them. That's why by the way, people always get mad when they see sometimes we'll write in our descriptions of our videos G-D. They'll be like, why are you censoring God? And some people will say, we you're censoring you set like they think I think God's a dirty word, right? God forbid. We're not censoring it. We're showing a sensitivity. The sensitivity is even the English word God, which is not one of the names of God. Names of God are our holy names in Hebrew. But even [snorts] the the English word God, we try to show it certain respect, so we don't write it out, we write {dash} to show that I mean it originated when people would write it on paper and you wouldn't want the paper to be thrown out if it actually said G O D on it, but it's a it's a sign of respect. At any rate, these names of God, we don't say them casually in conversation. We have other names or nicknames, I guess you would call them, that we would use to refer to God like primarily we say Hashem. You know what Hashem means in Hebrew? The name. So, instead of saying one of God's names, you say Hashem, the name. So, Hashem created the world. Hashem gave us the Torah. We thank Hashem for all of our blessings, right? The name. And in that way we avoid saying any of God's actual names. At any rate, that prayer, Modeh Ani, that one-liner of gratitude first thing in the morning doesn't have any of those names. If you remember, I said Modeh Ani Lifneiha Melech Chai Vekayam. So, you refer to God as Melech Chai Vekayam, which is living and eternal king. That's a way of describing God, it's not one of his actual names. So, the simple explanation is that because there are no actual Shemois, that's the technical term for it, divine names, there are no actual divine names in that prayer, so you could say it before you wash your hands. That's the simple explanation. But, there's a much deeper explanation, which I love. And that is Modeh Ani is the simplest, purest expression of gratitude. Gratitude for what? For everything. For everything because it's the first thing you say when you wake up. It's the thank you that goes on everything that go that will go on throughout the day. Whatever will happen, you don't even know if you're going to have an easy day or a hard day, but you you're thankful for that, too. We're thankful for our challenges. We're thankful for hidden blessings. For the for the for the light and the dark, whatever it is that God brings to us, we're we're we're we're humble and we're grateful, okay? So, it's all included in that Modeh Ani. And because it's such a simple expression of our deepest attachment to God, it's not subject to any fluctuation, it's not based on conditions, it's not like, "Well, I'll be grateful when such and such happens." No, no. I wake up grateful because that's my essential state. It's not grateful as a response, right? Like reactive gratitude, conditional or circumstantial gratitude. It is essential gratitude. Before my day even begins. And that essential gratitude is the most pure, sincere, simple expression of the essence of the soul. And as such, it is not subject to defilement. Meaning even if your hands are impure, you didn't have a chance yet to ritually purify your hands, you didn't wash your hands yet, but the purity of the Modeh Ani prayer, of that one-liner of gratitude, simple gratitude, can never succumb to any type of impurity or defilement because it is essentially pure. It is our essential bond to Hashem that is can never be corrupted. It's impervious to any corruption. And yeah, I would like to think that Fonzie's whoa was Henry Winkler's I'm saying the actual Henry Winkler, the person, not the character Fonzie, but Henry Winkler's personal expression of his essential soul bond with Hashem. And yeah, I get it that it gnaws at him until this very day because saying thank you just steps all over it. You're going to say thank you, might as well just read all the lines that were originally written in the script. Whoa, that would have done it. Would have done it perfectly. It would have been pure, simple. It would have been the sound of the essence of the soul expressing itself. So, I don't know, maybe they can go back and reshoot the scene. I don't know, but at any rate, >> [gasps] >> all of us uh can be we can learn from this. Henry, if you're watching this, I want to know your take on this. Anyone who knows him, please send it to him. Would love to hear your reaction. And uh yeah, let's keep it simple, keep it pure, and keep showing gratitude to God for everything.