“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.” — Dante

As a teacher years ago I would assign Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and every time students would come back and say, “How can this be a comedy? There is nothing remotely funny in it. Not a single joke.” Of course, they were thinking of comedy on Saturday Night Live with Robin Williams or John Belushi. What I had to explain every year was comedy did not mean jokes. For Dante and his peers, comedy meant a story with a bad beginning but a happy ending. It was a descent into Hell followed by an ascent into Paradise. A comedy was not about laughter but a good ending.

In the same way, the book of Esther is a comedy. It is divine and perfect even though there is no mention of divinity, God or anything in the book that would reveal for the reader something new about the nature of God. He is hidden but still present for it is God who created a moral universe that bends toward justice even in the darkest times. “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”

It is a perfect illustration of Jewish humor. It’s not slapstick, cynical or even derisive. It is surgical, ironic and sharpened to a fine point. There are no miracles or supernatural intervention as there might be in a Greek drama – just human ingenuity and wit. It is a comedy but little that would make it Divine.

So, why is the book of Esther a model of Jewish humor – even today? Because it follows a particular pattern that is unique to these peculiar people.

It is almost always about flipping power structures by rewarding the underdog and humbling the proud. Think about Joseph and Potiphar or Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Both of them are at a disadvantage with stronger adversaries. There is the delicious irony and reversal of expectations in each. In the beginning of Esther there are two dominant characters, Xerxes and Haman. Mordecai and Esther are subjects dependent on the favor of each. Both Xerxes and Haman are fearsome, overbearing, arrogant and yet insecure in their roles. Both depend on the counsel of others for what to do and have little confidence in their own choices in spite of their puffed up pride. They are propped up by others with no real substance themselves.

Jewish humor mocks human vanity that masquerades as strength. Haman, the evil character in Esther, is hanged on the same gallows he built for Mordecai but not before he is humiliated by having to honor Mordecai in public. Arrogance and idolatry are always targets and examples of pride that precedes a fall. How does Elijah mock the prophets of Baal when they fail to produce fire? “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”

It is a way of coping with hardship and persecution. Jewish humor has been shaped through living for centuries in ghettos and suffering through pogroms, prejudice and even genocide. It is their alternative to despair and hopelessness. Yes, it is often dark and skeptical. Tevye, in “Fiddler on the Roof” says, “God, I know we are Your chosen people, but couldn’t You choose someone else for a while?” Some call it gallows humor for even in the concentration camps there were moments of humor. “In Auschwitz, there was only one way to get out — through the chimney.” At its core, Jewish humor is about resilience – using laughter to deflate fear and to keep going. It doesn’t deny or ignore suffering but it transforms it into something bearable, even meaningful.

It is always about the superiority of Jewish wit, intelligence, cunning and the ability to deflate the outsized egos and arrogance of those in authority. Often it is used to question rules, highlight inconsistencies, or humanize revered figures. No one is above being brought low – even those who tell the stories.  It is almost never about force but about the subtle use of the enemies own posturing against them to flip the script and watch them fall. It’s about eventual justice through reversals of fortune, position and influence. Not a belly laugh but a smile. Not a broadsword but a scalpel.

When you read the book of Esther you see all these themes from beginning to end. That is why it is always fresh and why Jews across the world remember it today through the celebration of Purim and the noisy rejoicing for justice, against all odds, prevailing.

”The people that can know the full darkness of history and yet rejoice is a people whose spirit no power on earth can ever break.”  — Jonathan Sacks