No Joke

By Rabbi Joshua (absurdly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

In this week’s parasha, God fulfills his promise to Avraham, and gives a son to Sarah and him. Avraham names his son Yitzchok, as God had told him to do when He appeared to him, and made his promise (Bereishis 17:19). The Yerushalami (Berachos 1:6) points out that of the three patriarchs, the only one whose name was not changed was Yitzchok, because the others were named by their fathers, while Yitzchok was given his name by God. Why was it important for God Himself to be the One who gave Avraham’s son his name? As Rav Yitzchok Hutner famously said, Yitzchok was the first born Jew. As such, he was the progenitor of the Jewish nation, and his name would therefore indicate a message about the nature of the people. What is that message?

The name Yitzchok is derived from the word “tzechok,” laughter. When both Avraham and Sara were told, at separate times, that they would have a son, they reacted by laughing. After Yitzchok was born, and Avraham named him, Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; whoever hears will laugh for me” (Bereishis 21:6). This laughter was evoked by the fact that Avraham was one-hundred years old, and Sarah was ninety, when Yitzchok was born, and they had not, until then, had children together. The essence of humor, explains Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch in parashas Lech Lecha, is incongruity, the confluence of items that do not seem to fit together. It was incongruous, in fact absurd, to think that Avraham and Sarah, at their age, would give birth to their first child together. God, however, specifically wanted the progenitor of the Jewish nation to be born in this way. The occurrence of an event so ostensibly absurd could only be attributed to the one who is above causality, and directs all that happens in this world. The essence of the Jewish people, God’s representatives on this earth, is one of the absurdity of existence, above the laws of causality. The history of the Jewish nation is replete with episodes that defy the guidelines of history, and lead the observer to recognize God’s providence. This is the message that is carried in the name Yitzchok.

My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt”l, explained a midrash in parshas Vaeira on the basis of this characterization of the essence of the Jewish people. The midrash says that God told Moshe, in response to his question of how Pharoah would listen to him when the Jews did not, that he can derive from a kal vachomer from the frogs, who jumped into the ovens of the Egyptians to bring the divine-directed plague on them. Rav Aharon explained that the lesson from the frogs was actually derived from their life cycle, from being a tadpole, and though metamorphosis, to becoming a frog. There is no discernable logical reason for this process to occur, no apparent reason for it. Ostensibly, it is absurd. In the same way, God was telling Moshe, the history of the Jewish nation is ostensibly absurd, but ultimately, testifies to God’s presence in this world.

As Rav Chaim Drukman points out in his work, Ma’asei Avos, we are correctly a further instance of the incongruous nature of the Jewish people. After two thousand years of detachment from their land, the nation began to return to it, and develop it, in a way that no other nation was able to do in all those years. This is a phenomenon unprecedented in history. We pray that ultimately, we will witness the fulfillment of the words of King David, describing the return of the exiles of Tzion, “then our mouths will be filled with laughter.”