An Interview with Modi Rosenfeld

Two years after the pandemic, a synagogue in Scarsdale was still at war with itself. One faction insisted on holding services outside; the other would only pray inside. The issue had deeply divided the congregation, and the schism was bitter and painful. Until someone decided that enough was enough, and paid whatever it cost to bring in Modi Rosenfeld.

“They took the massive ballroom and put chairs everywhere, and I stood in the middle with a microphone,” Modi tells The YARID over video call. “And for the first time, the entire congregation laughed together. It was raw. No one was writing letters, there were no committees, nobody hated each other.”

Modi had previously been brought in to repair a similar situation, a “synagogue that was ripped in half between pro- and anti-Trump, to the point where they had two minyanim, one downstairs, one upstairs.” The first time that the community came together was for his comedy show.

At the time, Modi didn’t have a name for what happened in those rooms, but today it is his life’s mission.

Modi Rosenfeld, aged 56, is described as “one of the comedy circuit’s most sought after performers.”¹ Modi has been featured on Jimmy Fallon, HBO, CBS, and ABC, and last October was the subject of a major New York Times feature profile. He has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, and video clips from his shows amass millions of views online. Born in Tel Aviv before moving to the U.S. aged seven, Modi studied at Boston University and began his career as an investment banker before becoming a stand-up performer. The Hollywood Reporter has voted him one of New York City’s top 10 comedians, and in 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared June 26th “Mordechi Modi Rosenfeld Day” in the city.

When Isaac and I speak with Modi, he is fresh from a visit to the Yard and the Law School, where he gave a talk — “I had sushi with the kids, but I tell everybody I’ve lectured at Harvard” — and is on holiday with his husband, Leo, in between tour dates. He is very generous with his time, assuring us that he is in no rush: after our interview, “I’ll have another coffee, which might give me more energy to go take another nap.”

This edition of The YARID focuses on misunderstood, absent, or undervalued elements that hold real promise for the future of Jewish life. When I ask Modi what he thinks fits this description, he doesn’t need to use words to answer. Modi reaches into his bag, takes out a yarmulke, and lifts it up to the camera. On it, in block capitals, is emblazoned his catchphrase, “Moshiach Energy” (“moshiach” is the Hebrew word for “messiah”). “That’s it, guys,” he says, “that's where the hope has to be. Living in a Messianic era. It’s not spoken about enough: it gets treated like some far-out philosophy nobody can actually connect to. But imagine living in an era where everyone’s in harmony, everyone’s at peace.”

Modi asks us to picture a world in which leaders channel their energy into health, vaccines, and cures instead of conflict. He emphasizes that the Messianic era is “not just a Jewish idea. Christians, Catholics, Muslims… it’s part of everybody’s goal.” Until we get there, Modi believes in “creating Moshiach Energy”: “Simple, if your friend is sad, your parents miss you, you buy them tickets to come see a show with me. You’ve made them laugh. You’ve created a little Moshiach Energy. Even if you use their own credit card to buy the tickets, it doesn’t matter. You still caused them to get to a place of happiness. A friend of yours is down, you go help him. That’s it. That's creating Moshiach Energy, and it’s so undervalued and so easy to do.”

To Modi, this must be at the forefront of every conversation, including the political: “When someone says ‘what should be done about Israel — this party should do this, that one should do that’ — okay, yes, but just: Moshiach. I know it sounds nuts, but Moshiach thinking should be in the process.”

Modi first made the connection between comedy and Moshiach Energy when the Covid-19 pandemic began to wind down. During lockdown, he had been doing shows online (“like this,” he adds, “in a Zoom box”) but the energy was different when in-person shows resumed. “People were coming in, and they hadn’t seen other people in a long time”, Modi says, gesturing with his arms like a scuba diver navigating unknown depths to show the novelty of the experience. “They’d been in their pods, in their families, in their homes, in whatever, and now they’re in a theater. And all of a sudden, they're laughing together, and I was like: whoa, what is that?” he says wide-eyed.

“I felt an energy that I’d probably felt before, but never quite like that. That’s Moshiach Energy.”

The role of the comedian, in Modi’s eyes, is to bring happiness to those who are sad. He feels that “the next step from there is bringing peace where there isn’t peace”, and then tells us the Scarsdale synagogue story with which this piece begins. Modi’s job is therefore one that brings healing, which he sees as a Jewish obligation. “Why, percentage-wise, are Jews so massively overrepresented in comedy, when we’re such a small people? It’s because it’s a form of healing. And when God said we’re the chosen people, He didn’t say chosen to be the biggest nation, the most powerful, the wealthiest — even though we’re not doing badly. He said chosen to bring over healing, to bring over culture, to bring over study, to disseminate. That’s why you look at hospitals, universities, museums, and there are Jewish names on all of them. That’s what we were meant to do, and comedy is a form of healing. That’s why, proportionally, Jewish people are just a lot more involved in it.”

Modi’s Jewishness is an ever-present source of inspiration for his work. In an interview with the New York Times, he declared that “Many comedians are comedians that happen to be Jewish. I’m a Jewish comedian.” I ask what this distinction means to him.

When Modi gets on stage, he says, his audience knows within a few sentences that they are listening to a Jewish guy from New York. “I always see the world in a funny spin, in a Jewish spin, too. But it’s told in a way anyone can follow. It’s a portal into the Jewish world through laughter and pride. Before I was married to my husband, I never really talked about being gay, because it was never a part of me, but being Jewish always was a part of me.” Modi sees Jerry Seinfeld’s act, on the other hand, as less focused on Jewishness: “it’s about his interactions with people, his observations. That’s what I mean when I say that.”

Modi roots his concept of Moshiach Energy in Jewish thought, in several ways. “Moshiach is everywhere” in Jewish liturgy and practice, he believes, and gives the line “Al yedei David Mashiach tsidkecha” as an example. He also draws significant inspiration from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and says that the “single biggest burst of that energy I’ve ever felt” was standing in front of the Rebbe, whose “entire mission, his entire life, was: go help somebody, and you’ll receive bracha v’hatzlacha, blessings and success. That’s the formula.” Modi refers to the Rebbe’s practice of handing out dollar bills and blessings to thousands of visitors, with the intention that they would give the dollar to charity: “When he handed out that dollar, it was: go help somebody with this, and you’ll receive blessings and success. However you can help, with whatever you have — even if it’s not money, just a smile, a hello — that’s you creating Moshiach Energy.”

For some years now, Modi’s viral short clips have often popped up on my Instagram feed, periodically with some mention of his signature catchphrase. I have long been fascinated by the interaction between Jewish teaching and Modi’s “Moshiach Energy”. Traditional Jewish thought, as I understand it, emphasizes that to bring the Messiah, people must do acts of goodness and kindness, performing the mitzvot or the Noahide Laws. The call to action, not just thought or feeling, is an important element of the Jewish tradition.

Modi speaks much about bringing Moshiach Energy through laughter and shared connection, across different communities and people. He insists that he comes at it from “the same angle” as Jewish tradition. But is there anything he hopes his audiences will take into or change in their lives after the show ends?

“Absolutely,” Modi replies. Firstly, he notes the fact that he is getting his audience members to think about Moshiach Energy and talk about it afterwards. Having people recognize that “it’s not just a Jewish thing” also matters. Perhaps most important is the further spreading of positive Moshiach Energy, through bringing somebody else to the show. “I was doing a show on Long Island once, a 2,000-seat theater, and I looked out and saw two or three women wearing hijabs in the audience. I asked someone to invite them to the meet and greet afterwards, even though I could tell from where they were sitting that they didn’t have tickets for that. They were three nurses who’d somehow found me, and they brought along their nurse friends who were Jewish to see the show. They had said, ‘Have you ever seen this Jewish comedian?’ ‘No.’ ‘Come on, let’s go together.’ That’s it. That’s it in a nutshell.”

In response to those who might question whether his comedic approach is enough at a time of rising antisemitism, Modi asserts that “through laughter, you can do so much more than lecturing and pontificating. My job is to bring laughter to someone who maybe doesn’t understand the Jewish world, or has hatred toward us — that’s my job. When you land on my page, my Instagram, my Twitter, whatever else we’re on, it’s laughter. You’re going to have a laugh, or find out where I’m going to be, or hear something from my podcast.”

“Other people’s job is ‘Israel has the right to exist, the 1948 mandate, the Balfour Declaration, the borderline of this, there’s a toilet we found from the year 840 with Jewish writing on it’ — that’s their journey. The Noa Tishbys, whatever else, bless their hearts. Mine is through laughter. And when people who aren’t Jewish catch onto it, they’re like, ‘Okay, yes.’”

When asked whether the golden age of American Jewry is ending, as Franklin Foer’s The Atlantic article puts forward, Modi replies that “it depends on your algorithm. It depends what it’s feeding you. If all day long you’re getting antisemitic content, finding out what neighborhood somebody spray-painted a swastika in, this guy said this in the Atlantic, that guy said that in the Pacific — yeah, the golden age is over. But if you’re looking at the fact that Donald Trump’s daughter is keeping Shabbos, and her husband’s been building unity between Arab countries and Israel, it depends how you look at it. You could write the article either way and back it up either way, plenty of ways, if you know how to write, which I don’t.”

Modi sees pride as the future for American Jews, including those of the younger generation. “I think there’s a shift coming toward the better. And why not think that? I think pride in being Jewish is on the way, and pride in understanding that the goal is Moshiach. Look at you two; you could’ve gone into whatever you’re studying and just done that, but instead you made the — what’s it called — the Yarid? I really wish and hope for pride, and acceptance of other people. That’s the main thing.”

It seems fitting to close by returning to Modi’s beloved Moshiach Energy. “It has to be in our process of thinking, especially in the intellectual circle. Just bring Moshiach into that thought. You have to think that it’s a possibility.” Modi sees it as “acceptance and love — it’s inclusion, not judgment. Do acts of kindness, acts of good, a mitzvah, just help other people — make someone else happy, and it brings happiness back to you. Everybody has the potential to bring Moshiach Energy.”