Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Uh, as the world around us races forward in search of tomorrow's breakthroughs, join us as we discover the insights that have shaped Jewish life for centuries.
Together, we'll study with Judaism's greatest minds, exploring timeless wisdom that continues to guide and inspire.
You're listening to Inside the Jewish Mind JLI podcast.
From Jerry Seinfeld to Jackie Mason, Jewish comedians have long shaped the world of comedy. But what makes Jewishness so inherently funny?
It might not be a stretch to suggest that there may be a connection between our heritage and our sense of humor.
In today's 2019 talk, author Mendel Commonson explores this phenomenon and shows how humor has been a cornerstone of Jewish life for generations.
You'll gain some new insights and, yes, a few laughs along the way.
Here it is.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: In 1978, Time magazine claimed that 80% of all stand up comedians in the United States were Jewish.
Only 80? Asks the astute listener.
A few years ago, New York magazine's culture section, Vulture, published a mega listicle titled the Hundred Jokes that Shaped Modern Comedy.
And with the help of comedians and historians of comedy, the magazine's editors compiled the most important jokes ever written.
And lo and behold, Jews dominate that list.
Just 2% of the US population. The chosen people had a hand in no fewer than 50 of Vulture's hundred top jokes.
And so today, what I'd like to explore is the question of whether or not, in fact, there is such a thing called Jewish humor.
How do we define it? If it exists, what constitutes a specifically Jewish joke?
And then we might wonder, where and when does this Jewish humor, if it exists, originate?
Now, it's true, to quote William Novak, who wrote a great book on Jewish humor, Jewish humor is too rich and too diverse to be adequately described by a single generalization that said, uh, to my mind, one hard and fast rule to help determine whether a joke is Jewish or not is to ask whether this joke could be told about a different ethnic group or nationality and still go down. Well, believe it or not, there's even a joke about this.
Two men are sitting on the train talking. One guy says, did you hear the one about the two Jews who were walking down the street? The other guy says, hold it. What's with you? Why are you always telling jokes about the Jews?
I find it offensive. Why must they always be about the Jews? You're right. His friend says, let me start the joke again.
So these two Chinese guys are walking down the street on the way to their nephew's bar mitzvah. Uh, but beyond mere frames of reference, there are Jokes that are unique to the Jewish experience.
For example, in the late 1930s, two elderly Jews are sitting on a Berlin park bench. One of them is reading a Yiddish newspaper. The other is reading the There's Sturemer, a virulent anti Semitic propaganda piece for the Nazis with a broad smile on his face.
This proves too much for the first Jew. He says, it's not enough that you read that Nazi trash. You find it enjoyable, no less.
Look, replies the other. Let me explain. If I read your paper, what do I see? Jewish property is confiscated in Vienna. Jews are deported in Krakow. Jews are being murdered in Kyiv. But I read the Sturmer. It's pure bliss. It says, Jews control all the banks in the world. The media. There's a conspiracy. They're taking over. This is fantastic. This is a pleasure.
A number of years ago, our community hosted Professor Deborah Lipstadt, who just spoke beautifully.
She was, as you will know, sued by the Holocaust denier David Irving and had to prove the existence of the Holocaust in court.
She won the case, thankfully, and this whole story was immortalized in the film Denial.
And she made the following observation about antisemitism. Whereas all other forms of racism ascribe inferior traits to the subjects of their hate, whom they ostracize, whom they marginalize out of fear of contamination, Jew hatred stems from the fear that Jews are superior, not inferior, and conspire to use their superiority to take over the world.
And so the previous joke does in fact sadly qualify, in my view, as a Jewish joke in as much as it captures something unique about the Jewish experience.
Incidentally, I want to share with you a, uh, fascinating quote I came across by Nietzsche, whose ideas are said to have inspired Hitler in part Yermach Shamoy.
Text 1. Friends, if I can draw your attention to text 1, it is certain that the Jew, if he desired, or if they were driven to it, as the anti Semites seemed to wish, could now have the ascendancy, nay, literally, the supremacy over Europe.
That they are not working or planning for that end is equally sure.
There you have it. The same philosopher to ascribe Jewish superiority assures us that the Jewish people have no interest in using this superiority towards world domination.
Reminds me of a friend of mine who's a rabbi in the, uh, Lower east side, struggles with a minion. And one time he went out to the synagogue, he had nine, and he was looking for a tenth. And he found the fellow. He says, excuse me, are you Jewish? The fellow says, yeah. He says, would you care to join us to help make A minion. He says, rabbi, I want nothing to do with organized religion.
My friend said, sir, if we were organized, we'd have a minion.
Another litmus test for Jewish humor is whether a joke captures a specifically Jewish trait or characteristic.
I could have chosen a whole host of jokes to make this point, but let me share with you an interesting paradox, as it were. First joke is about Jewish infighting, which, sadly, is a feature of both Jewish history then and, sadly, now.
A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Hanukkah cards.
She asks the clerk, may I have 50 Hanukkah stamps? The clerk says, what denomination?
Oh, my God, the woman says, has it come to this? Give me 6 Orthodox, 12 Conservative, and 32 Reform, thank you very much.
And yet, as the following joke suggests, this infighting, much like family tensions that resurface during family reunions, is superficial, is skin deep, and it dissipates the moment one of us is in serious trouble.
It's one of my favorites. Mr. Goldberg is on his way home Friday, late afternoon. He's a Shabbat observant jewel.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he's driving down the highway. He sees a fellow with a keep on his head standing near a car that seems to be broken down.
He has to choose. Should I stop for the Jew? Should I go home, be in time for Shabbos? Pulls over, decides to help the fellow. He opens up his trunk, he takes out the tools. Okay, this part's not so literal.
Jewish men fixing tires, but okay.
Anyhow, he helps the guy. But as he's helping him, he notices he's sporting a very large silver cross.
Quite surprised, completes his service. And then he says to Phil, sir, by any chance, are you Jewish? Guy says, no. He said, then why are you wearing a kippah? He says, oh, that. Let me tell you, it's quite simple. Every year my mother gives me a gift for my birthday. This year she called me aside and she said, son, here's this hat.
If you ever break down at the side of the highway, take it out, put it on your head, and you'll have help in no time.
There's so much truth to that.
Many years ago, when I was studying in France, I was a 15 year old boy. And, uh, unbeknownst, um, to my mother, I planned a little road trip. It brought me through Italy. I ended up in Pisa, and our plans fell through in Pisa.
What does a young Hasidic Jewish boy in Pisa do when his plans fall through?
And so I did what I thought would work. I contacted a local Jewish family, and they were so kind, so compassionate. They welcomed me and my friends into their home. They prepared beds for us, warm food. They looked after us. They ensured we made our way to the next stop.
And over the years, I've been thinking to myself, and I've been wondering and reflecting. I cannot imagine a member of any other faith knocking on the door of a random coreligionist in a foreign country if their travel plans fall through.
I haven't tested this. This is not empirical, but that's my intuition.
Jews are there for Jews when there's trouble, when there's crisis. So there you have it. Two jokes on the opposite sides of the spectrum that really present this paradox. There's something surface and there's something much deeper.
I want to share with you a beautiful text. Text two. I'm going to synopsize it. It's a beautiful story.
And the story is one of King Solomon and his wisdom.
And I think this story encapsulates the paradox described earlier. There was a fellow who came to see King Solomon, and this fellow had two heads.
And he asked the following legal question. He says, our father recently passed, and because we are not one, but two, we would like two portions of the inheritance.
What would you respond?
So King Solomon did something ingenious. He asked for a very hot bowl of water to be brought over. And he poured this water over one of those heads.
And what he was trying to demonstrate was if the other head would shout out in pain, then they're not two entities, they're one. If, however, it would act as if it had no effect on it, he would actually consider this entity two rather than one.
I think that's a beautiful metaphor, if you will, for Jewish history and the dynamic of Jewish peoplehood.
Yes. So often we appear to have multiple heads. Two Jews, many more than three opinions.
Even the same Jew has many opinions. You know the joke about the fellow? He comes back from Vilnius, he says, wow, I've never seen something like this before. I met a Jew who's a Communist, a Jew who's a socialist, a Jew who's a Marxist, a Jew who's a Zionist.
This fellow says, what's the problem? There's so many Jews in Vilna. He said, no, you don't understand. It was the same Jew.
Here's another Jewish characteristic that many of us will relate to.
I could tell you many jokes on this. It's the characteristic of Chutzpah of Gaul.
This is a great one. There was an old Jewish woman and she sold pretzels on a street corner. The pretzels were 25 cents each.
Every day a nice young man would leave his office and as he would pass the pretzel stand, he would leave a quarter for her and he wouldn't take a pretzel.
This went on for more than a year.
One day the young man passes by, puts down the quarter, begins to walk off, and the woman approaches him and says, can I have a word? He said, yeah. He said, but I know what you're going to tell me. You're going to ask me why I'm so generous, why I'm so magnanimous. She said, no, sir, that's actually not what I was going to tell you. I wanted to notify you that the price of the pretzels went up to 35 cents.
How's that for chutzpah?
I wish I had a rating app for jokes now.
Interestingly, this form of entitlement, chutzpah, as I call it, gave birth to an entire genre of jokes about the beggar, or what was called at the time the Schnurrer.
Here's one told by Freud in a book he wrote on humor. A schnrer is having heart problems and he goes to see a very expensive specialist. When it comes to paying, he says he has no money at all to pay.
So why did you come to see me? Asks the doctor angrily. You know I'm the most expensive doctor in Vienna, the fellow says, because when it comes to my health, I want only the best.
Interestingly, this story relates to a fascinating discussion surrounding an important principle of Jewish law. Text 3.
I'm going to get to the essence of it.
The Talmud basically posits that the mitzvah to help another includes helping them and and taking into account their dignity and their psychological well being. M it says, you are commanded with respect to the pauper to support him. This includes, if he was a wealthy man at a time, even a horse upon which to ride and a servant to run in front of him for the sake of his stature.
Isn't that mind boggling?
For someone accustomed to these advantages, these absences constitute a true deficiency, not an extravagant indulgence. The Gemara relates that they said about Hillel the Elder that he obtained for a poor person of noble descent a horse upon which to ride and a servant to run in front of him. One time he did not find the servant to run in front of him, and Hillel himself ran in front of him for 3 mil to fulfill the dictate which is deficient for him.
Now, the great lengths that Hillel went to for this poor person teaches us how important it is to take into account not just the financial needs, but also the emotional and the psychological needs and well being of those in need.
I'll never forget. There is one of our main patrons in our Chabad center told me a story. He was once out to dinner with a rabbi friend of his in Borough Park. For whatever reason, he was there and A young man, 15, 16 year old, was coming around and collecting money for a particular charity. And when the young man left the table, Rabbi, uh, the rabbi friend told him, you should know this boy belongs to an incredibly wealthy family.
So my friend was really surprised. So why is he going out collecting money?
So, uh, the rabbi is saying something very simple.
This young man has many brothers and his father has a custom tradition in the home that whenever they reach a certain age, they have to go out and spend a year, one night a week, collecting charity at local restaurants and institutions.
Why?
You see, this father understands that these young men will grow up to become philanthropists.
They will one day sit at the other side of the table giving out the money they must come to know what it feels like to extend your hand and ask, what a story.
Here's one of my favorite texts From Maimonides, text 4. It's quite a long text and Maimonides lays out eight levels of charity, one greater than the next at your discretion and leisure. I invite you to read through it thoroughly. But suffice it to say that the greatest level, above which there is no greater, is to support a fellow by endowing him with a gift or loan, or entering into a partnership with him, or finding employment for him. A lesser level of charity is to give the poor without knowing to whom one gives and without the recipient knowing from whom he received.
A lesser level is when one knows to whom one gives, but the recipient does not know his benefactor.
A lesser level when one does not know to whom one gives, but the poor person knows his benefactor, etc. Etc.
Which word comes to mind as uh, the logic, the rationale to explain this, if you will, hierarchy or value system applied to charity? One word, exactly the word I'm looking for, dignity. Charity is not just the transfer of funds, it's actually the elevation of spirit as well.
My father is a Rosh Yeshiva, very well known dean of a rabbinical university, written many, many scholarly works that are widely used in yeshiva's chabad and otherwise. And you know, we didn't come from a wealthy home at all. But I remember that comfortable but not wealthy by any stretch. And I remember that there were people who were, uh, collecting for various charities that would come to see us. We had a neighbor who was very successful and they would come to our home afterwards.
And while I don't know how much my father would give, but I can't imagine it was a lot, what he would do is he would take their coat off and hang it up to them. He would bring them into the dining room and he would sit them down and he would invite them to eat with him. We had an attic room that was designated for such individuals. He treated them like royalty.
Some of them, uh, said that that treatment was worth more than the actual funds they received because it really made them feel special, it made them feel human. It made them feel like what they were doing was incredible. Devoting their lives to helping others rather than, unfortunately, sometimes the opposite feeling that people who are in that space are meant to feel.
Another category of Jewish jokes is one which captures a specifically Jewish sensibility or ambition. For example, you know the joke, a woman meets her friend and says, oh, how old are your children?
So she says, the doctor is two years old and the lawyer is turning four.
So until now we've explored what Jewish jokes have to say about Jews. But now let's explore what Jews have to say about Jewish jokes.
In 1905, Sigmund Freud wrote a book entitled Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious.
He observed, and I quote, I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a degree of their own character.
A very, very astute observation.
This idea was later confirmed and reaffirmed by the well known British sociologist Christy Davies, who conducted a study of humor in central places in the world and its connection to Jewish humor. Davies argued that self directed humor of the kind that Jews display when they laugh at themselves is a unique phenomenon.
A bit of a lighter note, there's a fellow who shows up to the airport security, he has four sets of dentures.
Security fellow turns to me, says what is this all about? He says, look, I'm a religious Jew. He says, so what? He says, look, I don't mix meat and milk. So I have one set of dentures for the dairy and one set of dentures for the meat. He says, fantastic, that's two. What about the others? He said, look, I'm a religious Jew. He says, okay. He says, we have a festival called Passover and on Passover we're not allowed to eat leavened bread. So I have A specific pier for Passover. He says, okay, that explains three. What about the fourth? He said, to tell you the truth, every now and again I like to have a ham sandwich in this joke, which exposes the hypocrisy and the absurdity of a fellow who is so religiously punctilious that he has a special set of dentures designated specifically for non kosher food as well.
How about that?
But more broadly speaking, this joke pokes fun at the inconsistencies each one of us possess.
By acknowledging that each of us have our own self contradictions and blind spots, we become less self righteous and less judgmental of other people's perceived double standards.
And there are countless Jewish jokes that do the same. You know the one of the fellow who's, uh, late to his first business interview and he's driving around for a parking spot. He can't find anything, so he turns his eyes heavenward with two minutes to go. He says, God almighty, if you get me a parking spot, I promise to dedicate 10% of my earnings to charity.
No luck with a minute to go. He says, God, I get the point. 25%.
No luck with about 34, 30, 40 seconds to go, he says, God, I'm going to bind here 80% to charity, but get me this spot. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a car pulling out. And as he pulls in, he turns to God and says, God, forget the deal. I found the sp.
And what this joke does again is it exposes a certain type of religion I would call expedient religion. We all have experienced a moment of vulnerability and weakness, of insecurity, where we turned hashem and we promised the world. And then once that danger passed through, we were back into our normal daily grind and routine. So these jokes have a beautiful way of actually bringing us into touch with those blind spots. And they make us less judgmental, more empathetic, more understanding.
And here's an interesting thing. I think it takes, uh, tremendous courage, tremendous inner strength and self confidence to be self deprecating. Those who are insecure are those who typically react most severely when their deficiencies are pointed out. Which is incidentally why dictators hate humor.
Interestingly, according to Mel Gordon, a drama scholar, the humor industry in pre Nazi Berlin was only almost entirely Jewish.
Indeed, the Nazi propaganda machinery considered self deprecating Jewish humor. A way to fool the public, right? A way to fool the public. And this was in their own words, and I quote, yet another tool for the Jews unending quest for world domination.
Right. Somehow this humor would disarm. The enemy would make themselves seem innocuous, right and harmless.
The late comedian Robin Williams tells the following story.
I was once on a German talk show and the woman asked me, Mr. Williams, I can't do a German accent. I won't even try. Why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?
I said, did you ever think you killed all the funny people?
It's funnier when he said it. You can look it up online. And yet, while much of Jewish humor is self deprecating, so many Jewish jokes go to the very opposite extreme, highlighting the unique strength, the unique wit, the unique smarts of the Jewish people and their ability to outsmart any enemy. It's one of my favorites. On a Northwest Airways flight from Atlanta, a middle aged, well to do woman found herself sitting next to a man wearing a kippah. She called the attendant over to complain about her seating. What seems to be the problem, madam? Um, asks the attendant. You've sat me next to a Jew.
I can't possibly sit next to this disgusting person. Find me another seat immediately, please. Calm down madam, the attendant said, the flight is very full today. I'll see what I can do. I'll see if we have any extra seats in first class. She shoots a withering look, this anti Semite at the snub Jewish man beside her. A few minutes later, the attendant returns. The woman couldn't help but look at all the people around her with this smug self satisfied grin. The flight attendant says, madam, unfortunately, as I suspected, economy is full. I've spoken to cabin services, Club is also full. However, we do have a seat in first class. Before the lady has a chance to respond, the attendant continues, it is most extraordinary to make this kind of upgrade, however, and I had to get special permission from the captain. But given the circumstances, the captain felt that it was outrageous that someone should be forced to sit next to such a person.
The flight attendant then turned to the Jewish man sitting next to her and said, so if you'd like to get your things sir, I have your seat in first class waiting.
@ this point, the surrounding passengers stood up and gave a standing ovation while the Jewish man walked up to the front of the plane. When the attendant tells the lady the captain's arrangement, the lady indignantly says, I think that the captain must have made some kind of mistake. To which the attendant replied, no ma' am, Captain Cohen never makes any mistakes.
Now how, where and when does Jewish humor originate?
Let me preface it by saying that another classification of Jewish Humor was suggested by the authors of the Big Book of Jewish Humor, William Novak and Moshe Waldox. A great book in their view, and I quote, Jewish humor tends to be anti authoritarian and ridicules grandiosity and self indulgence, exposes hypocrisy and. And kicks pompastri in the pants. It is strongly democratic, stressing the dignity and worth of common folk.
On, uh, the note of challenging authority, General Marshall is in charge of the American army, and he visits his colleague General Goldstein in Israel. Marshall arrives at the military camp greeted by Goldstein. They both walk around the place. Marshall says, how are your men? Very well trained, General. I hope so. You see my men over at the United States army, they're the bravest men in the world.
Well, I'm not so sure about that, General, says Goldstein. My men are very brave, too. I'd like to see that, says Marshall. So Goldstein calls Private Barak and says, private Barak, I want you to stop that tank simply by standing in front of it.
Are you crazy? Says Private Barak. It would kill me. Are you some kind of fool? Goldstein turns to Marshall and says, you see, you have to be pretty brave to talk to a general like that.
Here's a good rabbi joke.
There was a rabbi who had a heart attack, and he's in the hospital, and the president of the congregation comes to see him and he says, rabbi, I have good news and bad news. Rabbi says, what's the news? Good news first. He said, rabbi, the board voted to wish you a complete and speedy recovery. Rabbi said, what's the bad news? He says, it was five to four.
One more.
There was a fellow who was sleeping in on Shabbat morning, and his wife comes to wake him up and she said, honey, it's time to go to synagogue. He says, I'll give you two reasons why I'm not going to synagogue. Number one, I'm tired.
Number two, nobody likes me there. She says, and I'll give you two reasons why you need to go to synagogue. Number one, that's what Jewish people do on Shabbat. Number two, you're the rabbit.
Another fascinating observation about Jewish humor made by Novaks is that Jewish humor is often substantive.
This is quite insightful. That is to say, Jewish jokes are about something, and I quote, as social or religious commentary. Jewish humor can be sarcastic, complaining, resigned, or descriptive. Jewish humor frequently has a critical edge. Sometimes the point of the humor is more powerful than the laugh that it delivers. And for some of the jokes, the appropriate response is not laughter, but rather a bitter nod or a Commiserating sigh of recognition.
Very insightful. This didactic quality precludes laughing for free, as in slapstick humor, which derives its laughter from other people's misfortunes.
One of the classic examples is of a particular crisis men of clergy were having. They called a summit to discuss a mice infestation in their respective houses of worship.
So the rabbi, imam and the priest get together. The imam says, look, I got no problem anymore. We taught the mice how to pray, we got them a little carpet and they prayed five times a day.
The priest says, ah, we brought them down to the local river, we baptized them and they're so devout they don't make a peep. Rabbi says, huh?
I got all the mice together, I gave them a bar mitzvah, I never saw them again.
It's a sad joke. It's one of those jokes where you sort of nod your head, as mentioned, because it takes aim at a certain type of self serving and convenient Judaism that lacks consistency and commitment. And by couching a penetrating observation in a joke, the hope is that the message gets through and inspires change.
It reminds me of that saying that a joke is a truth wrapped in a smile.
Another way to determine whether a joke is Jewish is to ask, does it convey a Jewish value or a Jewish point of view?
Here's the joke, one of many.
The world's top scientists send out a press release stating that the climate change calamity that they've been warning about is actually coming to pass very soon. They announced, it'll be catastrophic, wiping out the majority of the world's population. And it will happen in only four days.
To comfort the people of the world, the Pope, the Dalai Lama and the Chief Rabbi of Israel all appear on television.
The Pope says, my children, you have four days to begin to believe in our Savior and you will find comfort in heaven. The Dalai Lama says, friends, I ask all of you to embrace Buddhist traditions so that you may find inner peace in the midst of disaster.
The Chief Rabbi says, my people, we have four days to learn how to live underwater.
This joke emphasizes a uniquely Jewish perspective and highlights the fact that Judaism is a this world world religion and teaches that this lifetime should be focused less on achieving spiritual bliss in the afterlife and more on the opportunities afforded us by physical existence to improve this world and the lives of those whom we encounter. Let's turn to text 5.
Rabbi Yaakov would say, a single moment of repentance and good deeds in this world is greater than all of the world to come.
And a single moment of Bliss in the world to come is greater than all of the present world.
So you know the story about a couple and the woman was very health conscious and they were eating very healthy for quite a while. And then sadly one day they were driving down the highway and a truck came out of nowhere and leveled their car.
They come to heaven and angel Gabriel's ear to greet them. He takes them to their penthouse suite and they're oohing and ahhing and the husband says, how much is this going to cost in rent?
And the angel said, this is heaven, it's free.
They go out to the golf course. Fantastic golf.
How much is it for a round of golf? The angel says, this is heaven, it's free.
They go into the ballroom. Wow, what a buffet spread. The husband turns to the angel and he says, okay, where's the low cholesterol stuff? The low calorie? Where's the kale?
This is heaven. You don't have to worry about blood pressure, cholesterol, calories. At this point, the husband looks to the wife and says, honey, if not for you and your health food, we could have been here 10 years ago.
Now, in any discussion about what makes a joke Jewish, and particularly when analyzing whether a Jewish joke expresses a Jewish value, it's essential to take a step back and ask a broader when does this genre or entity called Jewish humor begin and where does it originate? Now, there have been numerous views offered.
Dr. Elliot Oring, who is the president of the International society for Humor Studies, argues that Jewish humor is a late invention.
He is summing up a widely held view of the Jewish humor emerges during the 19th century among German speaking Jews of the Haskala. The Enlightenment, so called, matured in the shtetls of Russian empire and then flourished in the 20th century America, the Borscht Belt, etc. We have here a, uh, ongoing comic Rabinhas and then it arrived, uh, yes, it arriving with the millions of Jews who emigrated from m eastern Europe to the states between the 1880s and the 1920s and then thereafter it moves actually to Israel and humor changes completely. Now is not the time, but perhaps next year we'll discuss the difference between sort of classic Jewish humor and Israeli humor. It's almost the opposite type of humor, but we'll get to that in different time.
Incidentally, Mel Gordon, a professor of theater, is one of the proponents that Jewish humor starts even earlier than the 19th century. In 1661, when the Central governing board that administered Jewish affairs in Poland called the Council of Four Lands, they met to see why God Punished the Jewish people with the horrific pogroms by Cholnicki from 1648-51 in which 100,000 Jews were killed.
Now, the council attributed this to a divine punishment and ruled that levity and luxury and humor would be prohibited.
The council, however, exempted someone called a badchen. Anyone here familiar with the term?
A wedding comedian who would poke fun at the bride and groom and guests, Using humor as a leveling device to put some of the affluent people in their place reminds you of Don Rickles.
He was the ultimate badchen, perhaps a modern day iteration of the batrin as a roast master, except that the badchen is usually far less mean spirited.
Strikingly, the noted English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead believed that the Hebrew bible is without humor at all.
He claimed, and I quote, the total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all of literature.
Wow.
I've never seen a greater misrepresentation and mischaracterization of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, last year I see many familiar faces. I gave an entire talk titled does God have a sense of Humor? Demonstrating at great length and detail the range and the scope of humor found throughout the Bible.
And I would argue that previous scholars as well have completely overlooked the very source and the very foundation of Jewish humor. And, uh, let me use a joke to make my point.
It was October, and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.
And since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the national secrets, the traditional secrets. So when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell whether this winter was going to be cold or very cold. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was going to be cold and that they should collect firewood to be prepared.
But being a practical leader, after several, uh, days, he gets an idea. He went to the phone booth and he called the national weather Service and he asked him, is the coming winter going to be cold? It looks like this winter is going to be cold. The meteorologists at the weather service responded. So he went back to his people and he tells them to collect even more firewood in preparation for the cold winter. A week later, he calls the national weather service again. Does it look like it's going to be cold or very cold?
Uh, the man says it's going to be a very cold winter. He goes back to his people, he tells them to order more firewood.
Then two weeks later, he calls back the Weatherman, are you absolutely sure it's going to be very cold? He says, absolutely. It's going to be the coldest winter ever. He says, how do you know? How can you be so sure? The weatherman says, we are so sure because the Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.
Uh, at the risk of violating the 11th Commandment, thou shalt not explain a joke.
In this joke, the new Indian chief makes a fundamental mistake about the source of the very knowledge his people have produced and given the world.
Instead of recognizing the contribution of his own tradition, he looks elsewhere and, uh, mistakenly identifies a more modern distributor of knowledge as the source of his own.
Perhaps he does so because he is a new chief and is himself uninformed and uninitiated with the ways of his past. But whatever the reason, not only is he mistaken, he has done himself and his people a great disservice. For instead of taking pride in their unique heritage and recognizing that the modern world looks to them for knowledge of the world, they look at their own tradition as primitive, as dated. And with admiration and aspiration, they look to this modern weatherman as the face of progress and modernity.
Anybody know where I'm going with this?
This is perhaps the most important insight I want to share with you today.
And it's true of so many of the ideas that have come to be known as Western values. So much of the modern, progressive, liberal furniture of the world has its roots in Judaism.
So many of the things that we have come to take and consider Western have their roots in the Torah. Let's look to text 6. There are so many beautiful quotes, but I had to choose only one. This is a beautiful quote from Paul.
Certainly the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights, but we cannot be sure.
All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed. But it requires a special genius to formulate them for them. The first time the Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human, of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person, of the individual conscience, and so a personal redemption of collective conscience and so of social responsibility, of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without Jews, it might have been a much emptier place.
How powerful. This is not a Jewish fellow historian, scholar patting himself on the back. This is a gentile Looking from the outside and analyzing the contribution of Judaism to the modern world. And the same is true in relation to Jewish humor. I would argue the source of Jewish humor is not merely a reaction to pain and persecution induced externally by our enemies. That is too great a simplification.
The source of Jewish humor is a reflection of a certain way of thinking, of a worldview, of a value system which is deeply embedded into our national psyche and is rooted in the only single thing that each and every Jew, both past and present, truly share, which is our Torah, our tradition.
Culturally, we Jews are so much different from one another. I have a community in central London.
We have every type of Jew. And many of the Jews are more culturally, uh, uh, attuned and more culturally like the Middle east, like Arabs, those who came from North Africa, those who came from Tunisia, Algeria, and so forth. Culturally, the music, the foods, their mannerisms, their disposition, what do they have in common with the cold, analytical Ashkenazi Jew from Germany?
Torah. It's as simple as that.
And here's the tragedy. Here's really the tragedy.
A, um, Pew study was done some years back about American Jews, and they came out with very interesting findings, but somewhat sad. They rated how important various things are to Jewish people in the community, and they went down the list to 73%. The Holocaust was important to Jewish identity, to 69% leading an ethical life, having a good sense of humor, 42%, almost a statistical tie with caring about Israel.
And yet 68% said that believing in God was not relevant to being Jewish.
Only 19% felt that Jewish practice was relevant to being Jewish.
In the words of, ah, Sarah Silverman, told to Piers Morgan in an interview, I'm Jew. We.
It oozes out of my pores uncontrollably.
Personally, I have no religion, but I am Jewish.
I'm culturally beyond my control.
To me, that's somewhat sad, because so much of her Jewiness derives from Judaism.
So much of what modern young Jews pride themselves in, they see as disconnected from Judaism, and yet those very ideas are rooted so deeply in Judaism. And here's a simple where does our focus on ethical living come from? What is the source of our intellectual curiosity? Where does Jewish humor originate, if not in a value and worldview system fashioned by the Torah? Do people who disagree with this think that Jewish people are naturally funnier, genetically funnier, genetically more curious, genetically better and more successful than other people?
Did you know that Jews give far more charity than their peers? As a fact, as I mentioned, there's a chronicle of philanthropy which charts the top 50 donations in the states. And, uh, year in and year out, Jewish people dominate that list disproportionately. In 2011, five out of the top six largest donations in the states were made by Jewish people.
19 out of the top 50 were made by Jewish people. Not even 2%. But we're giving almost 40% of those largest gifts. In the UK, 57% of the people in the general population give charity. In the Jewish community, it's 93%.
So I ask you, is this because Jewish people are naturally kinder, more compassionate?
The Talmud does suggest that a Jewish characteristic is chazdanim, this is true.
But in addition to a personality or a, uh, conditioning, perhaps you might say this derives from a value system. It's as simple as that. Interestingly, the Torah itself addresses this text 7.
Not because you are greater than any people. Did the Lord delight in you and choose you?
How's that for feel good literature?
So what is the source of our virtues and our qualities? Text 8. For that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the people who will hear all these statutes and say, only this great nation is a wise and understanding people. The Torah itself is highlighting that Jewish people genetically are no better or worse than others. But they have a gift. And if they internalize that gift, if they marinate and incubate in that gift, they will produce a higher standard, they will do better. They will be better. And so in the next few minutes, I'd like to show you how many of the defining features of Jewish humor originate in Whitehead's so called humorless Hebrew Bible.
Mark Twain once said, there is no humor in heaven. King David, uh, clearly disagrees. Look at text 9.
He who dwells in heaven laughs. I'm reminded about the joke about the rabbi who's offered a free pass to, uh, a golf club. Only problem is, it's on Yom Kippur. He has a bit of a moral dilemma, and in the end, he chooses golf over responsibility.
He gets to the golf course on Yom Kippur, sheepishly looking around. No one there, no one to recognize him. He gets up there and he takes his first shot, and he gets a hole in one.
All the prosecuting angels are going crazy. They turn to God. They say, what is this? Is this righteous? Is this justice? This fellow left his flock to play rank, yeah, around the gulf, and you give him a hole in one.
God smiles and says, yes, but who could he tell?
Indeed. Not only does God have a sense of humor, according to an incredible Talmudic passage, He spends quite a bit of time each day in humor and playfulness.
Text the next text. We don't have time to go through it in depth. Suffice it to say that G D separates the day into different sections. And during the fourth three hours he sits and makes sport with the Leviasan. As it is stated, there is Levyasan whom you have formed to sport with.
In fact, during a eulogy he once gave, Rabbi uh, Joseph B. Saloveitchik suggested that the above quote from the Talmud helps an individual realize a more godly personality by recognizing that one does not have to take everything so seriously.
This is from one of the greatest scholars of this generation, Rabbi Herschel Schachter adds that an essence Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik was suggesting that the statement is important in order to perform a mitzvah. Which mitzvah? The mitzvah of uh, the Halakhta Bidderachav, which means I command you this day to love the Lord, to walk in his ways. Rav Shakhta understands Rabbi Saloveitchik to be saying that playfulness, joy and laughter are not just good traits, they are godly traits.
Furthermore, as the next Talmudic passage demonstrates, bringing joy and laughter to others is a sure way of meriting a portion in the world to come. Text 12 it's quite a story. I won't elaborate, but essentially Rabbi Baroka bumps into Elijah the prophet and he asks him here in the marketplace of all the people, who is worthy, who is deserving of a portion of the world to come? And Elijah uh, walks over to two fellows and they were known jesters and they used to make light of everything. And he says these two fascinating, these jesters, he asked them, what do you do? And they say, we bring joy wherever we go.
Fascinating piece of the Talmud because we are taught that generally speaking, no one is assured a portion in the world to come during their lifetime.
Apparently exceptions are made only for those who have a good sense of humor and utilize it to bring joy to others.
These are just a small sampling of many traditional sources of Jewish literature that emphasize the importance and even holiness of joy and good humor. But what I'd like to do is actually to show you how the observations made earlier from Freud and others about what makes Jewish humor unique are deeply rooted themselves in Judaism. As we have seen, one of the features of Jewish humor is, is that it is self deprecating and self critical. I would argue that one of the greatest influences on Jewish self deprecation is the Bible itself.
Rather than present a Photoshopped image of its main characters. The Torah is unique in its unfiltered and honest portrayal of the Jewish people and so many of its protagonists. There is no whitewashing in the Torah. Everyone and everything is fear game for analysis and and for instruction. Indeed, there is a fascinating midrash that makes this point exactly.
In the book of Genesis, we read about the unsuccessful attempts of Joseph's master's wife to seduce him. And the verse says that Joseph didn't listen to her to lie down with her. The medrash tells this story. A certain Roman matron asked Rabbi Yossi, is it really possible that Yosef, a young man of 17, resisted all his heat and restrained and rebuff the wife of Potiphar?
Rabbi Yossi took out the book of Bereshis and he began reading for her the stories of Reuven and Bilhah. Huh, if you recall, Yehuda and Tamar. And he said, if with those adults and under their father's authority, scripture did not hide their misdeed with this one, not an adult and all by himself, all the more so it would have revealed the misdeed.
You get the point. He's saying the Torah doesn't whitewash. And he brought clear examples where in his view, you see the shortcomings of some of our greats. Uh, even God, who is the epitome of perfection, is portrayed in Torah amid vashim. And I want to emphasize it's God's Torah, so it's God who allows himself to be portrayed as such. This isn't man made literature poking fun. This is Hashem. Allowing for these particular portrayals to come through through the tradition, present Hashem in ways that are vulnerable and open to change. For example, a verse in Genesis describes God, and I quote, as changing his mind. Text 14. And the Lord repented that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. No doubt there are many ways to understand this, and we must look to the sages. But at face value, we have here an instance where Hashem allows himself to be portrayed as repenting.
On a bit of a lighter note, a little girl sat on her grandfather's lap as he read her bedtime story.
From time to time, she'd reach up and touch his wrinkled cheek. Then she'd touch her own cheek thoughtfully. Finally, she spoke up and she said, grandpa, did God make you? Yes, sweetheart. He said, God made me a long time ago. Did God make me too? She said, yes indeed, honey. God made you just a little while ago. She touched his face again and then her own. And she said, he's getting better at it, isn't he?
But these are fascinating statements and again I emphasize coming from Hashem's Torah. Is there any more self deprecating notion than a perfect God who can himself make mistakes, so to speak, and would need to repent for them, whatever that means.
Now, it goes without saying that these midrashim are homilies and are not to be taken literally, G D forbid. But the very fact that the Torah portrays Hashem in this way is in order to condition us to strive for a high level of self awareness.
Another feature of Jewish humor, as mentioned earlier, is that Jewish humor tends to be anti authoritarian and it ridicules grandiosity and self indulgence. It exposes hypocrisy and pomposity. It is strongly democratic, stressing the dignity and worth of common folk. Even a cursory read of Scripture demonstrates just how fundamental exposing hypocrisy and ridiculing grandiosity, pomposity and indulgence was to the prophets and sages of old, or how important the dignity and worth of common folk is in the Torah. And as far as challenging authority is concerned, here too we come to one of the unique features of the Torah in my view, especially in relation to other religious traditions and texts. But first, a joke. A, uh, Jewish grandmother is walking on the beach with her grandson.
Suddenly a huge wave comes out of nowhere and sweeps the grandson out to sea. Distraught, the grandmother looks to the sky and says, God, I have always been righteous. I have been true and faithful to you. Please bring my grandson back.
With that, another wave comes out of nowhere and deposits the grandson safely on shore. The grandmother looks again to heaven, waves her finger and says, he had a hat.
It would be difficult to imagine members of other religions being able to joke in such a way about their Creator, the way that Jews can and do. Now, this humor is not meant to show disrespect, God forbid, or defiance towards G D. On the contrary, I feel it demonstrates the closeness, the affection of Hashem for his people and the Jewish people for God. There is an intimacy that these jokes and stories portray as far back as Talmudic times, and really biblical times for that matter. Jews saw God in very different ways than did other peoples.
God could be treated, so to speak, as a member of the family, as a parent, to be argued with, to be negotiated with, to be debated with, even to be criticized. And God doesn't mind.
One of the greatest examples are Abraham. Then we get to Moshe as you know, the story from the book of Genesis, text 16, the account describing the lead up to the destruction of Sodom. Here we have debate, negotiation, criticism, the ultimate a human being taking God to task, calling him unjust.
A most vivid Talmudic passage about Moshe recounts what happens when Moshe lobbies God to forgive the Triple Chu people after they sinned with the golden calf. Text 17 I share with you because it is so essential. God tells Moshe, leave me be. Let my wrath let me be enraged against them. I will consume them and make you a new nation, a great, great nation.
Rabbi Abba, who said, and you can hear his hesitation in the following comment. Were the verse not to be written in this way, it would be impossible to say what I'm about to say.
So he's really strongly qualifying what he's about to say. In deference to God. This couldn't be said. But because the verse is written in this way, I will now say it. The phrase leave me be teaches that Moshe, listen to these words, grabbed the Holy One, blessed be he, as a person who grabs his friend by his garment would. And he said before him, master of the universe, I will not leave you until you forgive and pardon them.
Wow, that's dramatic.
That's not modern day literature. That's a midrash. Like I said, non literal. But it's there to give us a certain sensibility.
Incidentally, it's important to note that in other religious traditions, the great biblical hero is Noah, not Abraham, not Moses, because Noah was the epitome of civil obedience. When Hashem says, look, I'm going to bring a flood and destroy the people, but I'm going to save you, he says, tell me where and when and I'll be there.
Abraham.
Well, hell breaks loose. How dare you? He suggests. He counters, he challenges. Indeed, the Zoan has this to say about Noah. It calls the mabul the great Flood, Noah's waters, laying responsibility and blame on Noah for not doing more to save his people. So in our tradition, when you get to the deeper texts, Noah is actually criticized for not doing what, uh, Abraham did, what Moshe did, and what so many of our greatest leaders would do time and again. And here is the real kicker. Not only does God tolerate challenge, as, uh, the following text demonstrates, God enjoys it. He revels in being challenged and even bested by his children. Text 19, one of my all time favorites.
It's a long story. We'll get to the essence. There was a debate between the sages and Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi Eliezer maintained his position. The Sages disagreed. They were the majority. After failing to convince them logically, Rabbi Eliezer draws on the supernatural. He says, if the law is like me, this carob tree will prove it. The carob tree miraculously was uprooted from its place 100 cubits, some say 400. The rabbi said, oh, you cannot prove halacha from a carob tree.
This moves on to multiple other miracles. Fascinating passage. You can read it at your discretion. But here's the, uh, conclusion.
At some point, Rabbi Eliezer draws on God himself.
He says, if the halacha is like me, heaven will prove it. A divine voice emerges from heaven and says, why are you differing with Rabbi Eliezer? As the halacha is in accordance with his opinion, in every place that he expresses an opinion, Rabbi Yahushua, one of the majority sages, stood on his feet and says, it is written that the Torah is not in heaven.
Why are you mixing in? The Gemara says, what is the relevance of this phrase? Rabbi Yirmia says, because the Torah was a rabbi given at Mount Sinai, we do not regard even the voice of God, Abad Kol, as you yourself wrote in Mount Sinai. In the Torah, the ache harabim after majority is the law decided. And since the majority of the rabbis disagree with Rabbizer, the halacha is not ruled in accordance with his opinion. And here is the punchline. The Gemara says, years after, Rabbi Nathan encountered Elijah the prophet, and he says to him, what did the Holy One, blessed be he, do at that time? When Rabbi Yeshua uh, issued his declaration to be a fly on the wall, Elijah was there. Elijah gave the answer. He says, the Holy One, blessed he love, laughed. And he said, my children have triumphed over me. My children have triumphed over me.
This brilliant story solidifies the point we've tried to make today, namely, that Jewish humor, like Jewish values, Jewish ethics and social justice, is not a modern invention, but is deeply rooted in our rich and enriching tradition.
So let me conclude with a final thought.
Talmudic observation.
The next text. Rabbi Elai said, in three matters, a person's true character is ascertained in his cup koso, which means you can tell a lot about someone when they're drunk. In his pocket kiso, which means you can tell a lot about someone in their financial dealings or in their spending habits, and kaaso, when they're angry. And some say a person also reveals his real nature in his laughter.
You can tell so much about someone by what it is that makes them laugh. If this is the case, then we learn so much about God by observing what it is that makes him laugh.
As we've seen, what makes God laugh is being tested and bested in argument by his children. What gives God joy is when his children think for themselves and stand their ground confidently. What gives God pleasure and delight is when his children claim ownership over over their role in applying the wisdom of Torah. Lo Ba Shemayimhi. You gave it to us and we will devote ourselves to it diligently. That's our mission on earth. To cherish, to protect, to internalize, to apply and to share its wisdom. What gives God nachas is when his children take responsibility for this world. Hashemyim Shamayim Lahashem haaret. Uh, but this earth, Natalivne Adam, you have given to us to protect and to better and to perfect the earth you have given to us to refine, to elevate and illuminate. From the stories of Abraham and Moshe, we learn that God wants us to call out injustice wherever we see it, no matter who we perceive as perpetrating it. And yes, even if that includes God Himself.
So, in the spirit of our forefathers friends, let us conclude by challenging our Father in heaven to end this exile once and for all, when to quote the prophets, tears of sorrow will be wiped away from the face of this earth forever.
Let us demand of Avinu Sheba Shamayim that He share with us the punchline of human history and bring about that era when our mouths will be filled with laughter with the coming of Mashiach, uh, speedily in our day.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: That's all for today. Thanks for listening to Inside the Jewish Mind, a JLI podcast. Be sure to join us every week for fresh insights and timeless Jewish ideas.
As always, stay curious, keep learning, and we'll see you next time.
