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The
Ashlandsman Why I'm Not So Funny Anymore This is one of my favorite jokes that I'm telling here for the last time: Meyer, an old Jew, converts to Christianity. On the morning after his conversion, he awakens, puts on tefillin and commences his morning prayers. His wife says, "Meyer, what are you doing? Don't you remember that you converted?" To which Meyer smacks his forehed and says Goyische kop!" Roughly translated the punchline means: "Gentile thinking!" Meyer blames his memory lapse on the fact that he has become Christian and thus stupid. For years I told such jokes and thought them harmless fun. Ethnic humor often employs negative stereotypes (the dumb Pol, the drunken Irishman, the lazy black) for quick, recognizable response. But since I was telling the jokes exclusively in the =company of other liberal-minded Jews, where was the harm? The harm was - and I'm a few decades late in getting this - that a joke that puts down one group while seeming to elevate another not only disparages the former but can also reveal an arrogance and insecurity in the "elevated". And not just in the immediately vicinity. Humore, like gossip, is an arrow that can land anywhere. Especially in this time of the Internet. And, like loshan hara, it's a gift that keeps hurting. Even positive stereotypes can be destructive. In 1890, anti-Semities used the myth that German Jews possessed superior intelligence and were thus over-represented in areas like law and medicine as an argument to revoke professional privileges. Many of us have memories of parents and grandparents who told jokes about "the other" at a time when laughter was their only weapon. Some of that humor still exists today. An old Jewish woman is dying. She says to her son, "Quick, go get a priest. I want to convert." "But why?" says her son. "Better one of them should go," his mother explains," than one of us. Funny, mabe. But hurtful, probably, if you happen to be "one of them". In Jewish Renewal, one of our affirmations is "we will ourselves treat with respect and open-mindedness those who belong to other peoples and walk other paths than our own." In our own havurah, there are members who are not Jewish, others who are converts with loyalty to families and friends who practice other faiths. And, on the level of simple decency, ridiculing another is not a trait we would wish to pass on to our children. Humor that is innocent or self-directed can show humanity and humility. It can reveal one's shining soul. But punchlinessthat are put-downs expose the darker side of a peson and a people. So, when it comes to laughs that wound, my personal promise it let the joke stop here. But did you hear the one about the three non-affiliated squirrels who go into a bar.....? Shalom.
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