Jewish Comedy

Can a Jewish comedian be funny without offending anyone? Only if he tells his jokes where there is plenty of Scotch! Can one use humor for humor's sake without pissing someone off? Creativity and writing is meant to heal the world--I use it to do tikkun olam. To be funny or not to be funny--that is the question! More people prefer watching a Hamlet theatrical play where everyone dies rather than laughing at jokes that ease pain. Is pain preferable to good humor? Good humor and an acceptance of it would put the doctors out of business. Humor heals. There are television programs that use recordings of canned laughter just because if one hears another laughing--s/he will laugh too. If I could have a sound recording of laughter on every blog article to play as the articles are read--everyone would laugh too. It takes a real eye for good humor and an appreciation of satire and sarcasm to turn tears into laughter. There are people who would rather cry. I do not have a joke for this. Crying is healing too. "Have a good cry," is an old saying that makes sense. Happiness has its place too. The Bible says in Isaiah 54:1 "Shout, O barren one, You who bore no child, Shout aloud for joy, You who did not travail!" To choose laughter and happiness and even to laugh when one is alone and is not catching the contagion of someone else laughing to make you laugh is healing too. The Masorti Conservative Jewish religion of which I am a member believes in goodness and making people laugh so they feel better and this relieves tension which is a healing element. We all sing out loud in our religious services and this brings us joy when we rejoice. The Pirkei Avot teaches us to greet everyone with a cheerful countenance. Where there is tension and stress there is hurt and there is illness. If a tree falls in a forest, will anyone know? Yes, if it is published on the Internet in a blog we would know. "Laugh and the world will laugh with you. Cry and you cry alone." But in a minyan of 10 or more Jews, where we as Jews mourn and stand up for Kaddish, we are never crying alone. It is good to feel a full range of emotions: sadness, happiness, and seriousness, etc. All emotions are healing and no emotion should be stifled because of social norms.