God Laughed: Sources of Jewish Humor by Hershey H. Friedman & Linda Weiser Friedman

Author:Hershey H. Friedman & Linda Weiser Friedman [Friedman, Hershey H. & Friedman, Linda Weiser]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Sociology, Humor, Social Science, Jewish Studies, General, Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781412854276
Google: FHplAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2014-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

10

Exaggerated Imagery and Other Hyperbole

More Yiddish Curses

May the dybbuks of all King Solomon’s mothers-in-law settle in your mother-in-law and may they all nag you at the same time.

May you fall into the outhouse just as a regiment of Ukrainians is finishing a prune stew and twelve barrels of beer.1

Exaggeration and hyperbole do not have a big place in Jewish humor today. We don’t have tall stories about, say, a Jewish Paul Bunyan with his blue ox, Babe. There are, however, hyperbolic characters in Jewish humor, for example, the Jewish mother, the snide and arrogant waiter, the self-confident schnorrer, etc. As we will see in this chapter, exaggeration does figure prominently in Talmudic and Midrashic literature.

The Talmud often speaks in exaggerated terms in order to make a point.

The curtain in the Temple was so large that it took three hundred priests to ritually immerse the curtain when it became unclean.2

And, according to the Talmud, there was a golden vine that stood at the Temple’s entrance that was suspended on poles. Whoever donated a branch or cluster of gold would bring it and hang it on the vine. Rabbi Elazar b. Zadok said regarding this vine that it once happened that three hundred priests were assigned to clear it off.3

The number three hundred is again used in the following Talmudic excerpt. Is it an exaggeration? Well, it might help to know that 300 kor of ashes is approximately 2,100 bushels!

There was a place in the middle of the altar where the ashes of the sacrifices piled up. There were times that 300 kor of ashes collected therein. Rava said this is an exaggeration.

The sacrificial animal to be used for the daily burnt-offering was given water to drink in a cup of gold. Rava said this is an exaggeration.

Rabbi Ammi stated: The Torah, the prophets, and the sages use hyperbolic language … The Torah uses hyperbole as it says,4 “the cities are great and fortified up to the heaven.” The prophets speak in hyperbole as it is written5 “and the earth was split by their sound.”6

The point made here is that since the Torah uses hyperbole, it is an acceptable device that may also be used by the sages.

Mar Zutra stated: Between Azel and Azel there are four hundred camel-loads worth of interpretations.7

“Between Azel and Azel” refers to the verses in Chronicles I, beginning with “And Azel had six sons”8 and ending with “these were the sons of Azel.”9 There may, indeed, be many interpretations of these verses, but 400 camel-loads—truckloads, in modern parlance—worth? Between “Azel and Azel” there are only a total of forty-seven verses!

It is written10: “The Lord has swallowed up without pity all the dwellings of Jacob.” When Ravin came he said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that the above verse refers to the 600,000 cities that Yannai the King had on the King’s mountain; each containing a population equal to the number of people leaving Egypt (600,000), except for three which had twice as many … Ulla said I have personally seen that place and it could not hold even 600,000 reeds.

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