Who Will Laugh?

Recently I wrote a post on the Bruria story, so I decided to write a post about my favorite example of traditional Jewish humor.  This has been on my toblog list for a while.  Besides, Rosh HaShana is coming.

Where did Yitzhak Avinu (known to some as the Patriarch Isaac) get his name?

This will be no mystery to most of my Dear Readers.  Yitzhak means "he will laugh", and he was called Yitzhak because both his parents laughed at the prophecy of Yitzhak's birth.  Avraham's wife, Sara, was too old to have children, and yet Hashem (known to some as God) told them (individually) that she would have a son.  The reaction of both was laughter.

Avraham and Sara laughed at the prophecy because they couldn't beleive it.  Why do you laugh at something you can't beleive?  You can't believe it, so you assume that the speaker is "pulling your leg", "putting you on" -- that the speaker is joking.

Sara, of course, subsequently had a son, so it was clear to Avraham and Sara that they'd been wrong; Hashem had been serious.  Until, a few years later, a funny thing happened.

"Hey Avraham," Hashem said.  "Remember how I said that Sara was going to have a son?"

"Of course," Avraham said.  "At first I thought You were just joking.  But then she did have a son, and isn't he a sweetheart.  Thanks a million."

"Actually," Hashem said, "I was joking, though maybe not the way you thought at first."

"What do you mean?" Avraham asked.

"Now," Hashem said, "you have to kill him."

If Avraham had been a Shunamite woman, he would have said, "Didn't I tell You not to f*** with me?"  But he was a bit more circumspect, so he did as he was told.  Then, when the knife was at Yitzhak's throat, Hashem said:

"Just kidding!  Ha ha."

And that is how Yitzhak got his name.

Funny, isn't it?