January 15, 2018
ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE:
Jews and Their Jokes (Joseph Epstein, Jan. 12th, 2018, Weekly Standard)
The Old Testament, to put it gently, is not notable for humor. As Dauber notes, the first of its paucity of laughs is given to Sarah, wife of the 100-year-old Abraham, who informs her she is to have his child. Dauber early considers, and frequently harkens back to, the book of Esther, which he cites as "the first work to feature the joyful celebration and comic pleasure that comes with an anti-Semite's downfall and the frustration of that form of persecutory intent." After a recent rereading, I must report that the book of Esther is less than uproarious. But the book does record a resounding Jewish victory, and such victories, until the advent of the Israel Defense Forces, were only slightly less rare for the Jews than Super Bowl appearances for the Cleveland Browns.Humor has not been without its dreary analysts and theorists. Along with so much else, Freud got the impulse behind comedy wrong, arguing that a joke is chiefly an act of aggression.
The estimable Mr. Epstein is wrong on both counts there: (1) Humor is nearly always an act of aggression, and, (2) the Old Testament is a comedy, beginning at least with Genesis...:
And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
...if not earlier:
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 15, 2018 9:53 AM