Esther: The Divine Comedy

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." — Dante 

Years ago, as a teacher, I would assign Dante’s Divine Comedy and every time students would come back saying, “How can this be a comedy? There’s nothing even remotely funny in it. Not a single joke.” Of course, they were thinking of comedy in the modern sense—like Saturday Night Live, with Robin Williams or John Belushi. I had to explain every year that comedy didn’t originally mean “funny.” For Dante and his peers, a comedy was a story that began in difficulty but ended in joy. It was a descent into Hell followed by an ascent into Paradise—a journey from darkness to light. A comedy was not about laughter, but about a good ending.

In the same way, the Book of Esther is a comedy—not because it is humorous in the conventional sense, but because it follows that same arc: peril followed by redemption. It is divine and, in a way, perfect—even though there is no mention of God, no revelation about His nature, and no overt divine intervention. God is hidden but still present, for it is God who created a moral universe that bends toward justice, even in the darkest times. As the saying goes, “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”

Esther is also a perfect illustration of Jewish humor. Not slapstick, cynical, or derisive, but surgical, ironic, and sharply observant. There are no miracles or supernatural rescues as in a Greek drama—just human ingenuity and wit. It is a comedy in structure, but not one that would be considered “divine” in the classical sense.

So why is the Book of Esther a model of Jewish humor—even today? Because it follows a distinctive pattern rooted in Jewish experience: it flips power structures, rewarding the underdog and humbling the proud. Think of Joseph and Potiphar, or Elijah and the prophets of Baal—figures at a disadvantage who prevail through insight and irony. Each story contains a reversal of expectations, a kind of poetic justice.

At the beginning of Esther, the dominating characters are the pliable Xerxes and ambitious Haman, while Mordecai and Esther are vulnerable, subject to the whims of power. Xerxes and Haman are both fearsome and arrogant, yet insecure in their roles. They constantly seek counsel, lacking confidence despite their inflated pride. They are propped up by others but have no real substance themselves.

Jewish humor exposes human vanity masquerading as strength. Haman, the villain, is hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordecai—but not before he is forced to publicly honor Mordecai. Arrogance and idolatry are always fair game for ridicule in Jewish tradition; they are examples of the pride that comes before a fall. Consider how Elijah mocks the prophets of Baal when their god fails to respond:

“Cry aloud, for he is a god! Perhaps he is musing, or relieving himself, or on a journey, or maybe he is asleep and must be awakened.”

This kind of irony and mockery is not cruelty—it’s a way of coping with hardship and persecution. Jewish humor was forged in the crucible of centuries of suffering: ghettos, pogroms, prejudice, and genocide. It became an alternative to despair. Yes, it can be dark and skeptical. Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof, says: “God, I know we are Your chosen people, but couldn’t You choose someone else for a while?”

Even in concentration camps, there were moments of humor: “In Auschwitz, there was only one way to get out—through the chimney. ”This is gallows humor at its starkest. At its core, Jewish humor is about resilience—the ability to laugh in order to survive, to deflate fear and make suffering bearable.

Jewish humor is also about the superiority of wit over force—using intelligence, cleverness, and irony to undermine inflated egos and challenge authority. It questions rules, exposes contradictions, and humanizes revered figures. No one is exempt from being brought low—not even the storytellers themselves. It’s rarely about brute strength, but about using the enemy’s own posturing against them—flipping the script and watching them fall.

It’s about justice through reversals—of fortune, of power, of perception. Not a belly laugh, but a knowing smile. Not a broadsword, but a scalpel.

When you read the Book of Esther, you see all these themes from beginning to end. That is why it continues to be fresh, and why Jews across the world remember it each year through the celebration of Purim—a joyful, noisy festival that honors the triumph of justice against all odds.

The people that can know the full darkness of history and yet rejoice is a people whose spirit no power on earth can ever break.”  — Jonathan Sacks

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