They Told Heaven “No.” — And God Laughed

It occurred to me that the ultimate Jewish joke has to be the joke that would make God laugh. This is what we call in 2022 god tear humor. Okay? The joke that would make God laugh. Now, where do we know of a joke that made God laugh? And how do we know that God laughed at it? And by the way, if you would read the story, you wouldn't even think it was a joke. You' be, why is God laughing? But the Talmud says that God laughed that the holy one blessed be he was laughing. What was he laughing at? So I'll tell you the story. There was a dispute. You would not even think this is a joke with this setup. There was a dispute about [snorts] the purity and impurity. We're talking about ritual, not hygiene. ritual purity and impurity status of a particular kind of oven and the kakim that means the majority of sages were ruling one way and rebel alzar who was one of the sages was ruling another way. So they were they came to which is a very common Jewish thing two Jews three opinions right the Jewish talmudic dialectic argumentation um so that's a very common thing but what happened is that felt that even though he was the one he was the the uh minority opinion he was the lone opinion that he was correct so he started trying to prove himself self. So he started to um I guess you would call it work miracles. So he said if I am correct let the carob tree prove it and the carob tree uprooted and moved 100 amise that's like 150 ft some say 400 amise. At any rate the you know trees you know jumping up and and and moving that's that's pretty unusual. And um so the sages led by Rabbi Yeshua said so you know you miss so you made a carob tree jump up doesn't mean anything you don't win the argument. So he says so if I'm right let the river prove it and the river reversed its stream and started going uphill. He says what do you say about that? And they again the sages led by Rabbi Yeshua said the river doesn't prove anything. So he said, "If I'm right, let the walls of the yeshiva of the base medish where we study, let them prove it." And the walls all leaned in at like this freakish angle and just started hanging there. And uh so Yeshua again said, "The walls of the Bish don't prove anything." So at that point, Rabbi [snorts] Eleazar says, "If I'm right, let heaven prove it. And a heavenly voice, a basil, a heavenly voice issued forth and said, "Why are you guys arguing with Rebel Yazar? You know, the the final ruling always follows him." Now, that should be the end of the story. That should be it. And what happens? The sages led by Reb Yeshua, they counter they counter that heavenly voice and they say a verse from the Tory. Incidentally, they they quote scripture and they SAY it's not in heaven. The Tory is not in heaven. Meaning it was given that it came from heaven. But there was matra which means the giving of the at si at sinai god gave us gave us the so it's ours now. So he says SAYS HE SAYS OUT THE ping he screams the the verse he says the scriptural he invokes the scripture HE SAYS IT'S NOT IN HEAVEN. HE'S TELLING what says HE SAYS IS NOT IN HEAVEN. We don't pay attention to heavenly voices. So what he's telling the heavenly voice we don't listen to you is not in heaven we don't listen to heavenly voices very strange statement very strange incident very difficult to make sense of what even transpired over there that Abnson who was one of the sages met Elijah the prophet. Al Elijah the prophet, you know, Elijah, he went to heaven with his body, so he comes and goes a lot, you know, so he has he's privileged to see a lot of that stuff. So asked Elijah the prophet says, "By the way, I always wondered, remember that weird thing that happened? Rebel Yazer and the Kakamim were fighting about this oven about its ritual purity status and this heavenly voice came out and um [snorts] and they rejected it and they said that we're not we're not going to listen to a heavenly voice. What did Hashem do? Like what was Hashem's reaction? And Elijah the prophet says, "Oh, you want to know what Hashem did?" The holy and blessed be he was laughing and he said, "My children have bested me." He said it twice. "My children have bested me." So what made God laugh? What's the joke? See, if I would read that, I wouldn't even know it was funny. >> But it made Hashem laugh. And what does it have in it? So then my computer, my Jewish comedy computer produced the result. And it was that joke. Because what does it have? Okay, it has a religious theme. The whole question of how does Torah law get determined that there's a rabbitic system? It has social critique or punching up or criticizing power structures. In this case, something that seemingly could even be taken as blasphemous, but actually it's not blasphemous at all. It's actually the [clears throat] core of our belief that God gave empowerment to the rabbitical system to determine the truth. So it's got that, you know, fighting what seems like that that protest and that fighting against the power structure, but actually it's not heretical. It's the the opposite of heresy, but it challenges, like I was talking about with my brother, it challenges our notions of what is true belief and what is heretical. It forces us to expand our minds. It's got cleverness. It's very clever because Rabbi Yeshua thought of that retort on the spot. It's got who argues with a heavenly voice coming straight from God. And it's got the flip because he uses Torah against the Torah to say what really is the Torah saying. I it's like and then the biggest slip of all that Hashem is getting pleasure from the fact that his children bested him. So,