An Introduction To Mesekhet Purim
Introduction
Modern Jews are understood to be quite funny. Surveys have shown that Jews see being funny as being more important to Jewish identity than things such as following the law1. There’s some backing to this view. A 1978 Time study found that Jews make up %80 of working comics2.
There is even an entire genre of “Jewish jokes”, which tend to be short stories that culminate in a punchline3. For example, consider the following Jewish joke, which happens to be one of my favorites, told many times over, but here told by Slavoj Žižek:
“There is an old Jewish joke, loved by Derrida, about a group of Jews in a synagogue publicly admitting their nullity in the eyes of God. First, a rabbi stands up and says: “O God, I know I am worthless. I am nothing!” After he has finished, a rich businessman stands up and says, beating himself on the chest: “O God, I am also worthless, obsessed with material wealth. I am nothing!” After this spectacle, a poor ordinary Jew also stands up and also proclaims: “O God, I am nothing.” The rich businessman kicks the rabbi and whispers in his ear with scorn: “What insolence! Who is that guy who dares to claim that he is nothing too!”\4
Often, Jewish jokes relate to negative stereotypes about Jews, consider the following joke quoted by Irving Howe:
“You tell a joke to a peasant and he laughs three times: when you tell it; when you explain it; and when he understands it.
A landowner laughs only twice: when he hears the joke and when you explain it. For he can never understand it.
An army officer laughs only once: when you tell the joke. He never lets you explain it - and that he is unable to understand it goes without saying.
But when you start telling a joke to another Jew, he interrupts you: ‘Go on! That’s an old one’, and he shows you how much better he can tell it himself.”5
Many psychoanalysts, from Howe himself to Freud have thus interpreted Jewish humor as being in some way masochistic.
That being said, others have argued that the tone of the jokes is meant to act as a way to reclaim such negative stereotypes and express appreciation of Jewish culture6.
This practice of Jews using humor to express a celebration of Jewish culture reaches its height on the Jewish holiday of Purim, which celebrates the events found in the Book of Esther. It is very common for there to be a “Purim Schpiel” (a humorous talk or performance) delivered.
As one can assume based on the structure of many of these articles, this practice is not entirely new. As past articles have shown (Specifically, Four Bits Of Ancient Wordplay for discussion of general humor and Two Bits Of Old Jewish Wordplay and What They Tell Us About Ancient Times for Jewish humor in particular7), the ancient people also were fond of humor. For this reason, we should not be surprised that we see the same in Medieval times, specifically on the holiday of Purim.
This article will look at one such example of a genre known as “Purim Torah” (satirical works written in the style of Jewish religious texts). Specifically, the text in question is Massekhet Purim, a parody of the Talmud, written by the scholar Kalonymus ben Kalonymus of Rome. A copy of a manuscript of the text can be found here.
The Parody Itself
Opening to a page of Massekhet Purim, one who is proficient in the study of the Talmud will find many aspects of the Talmud reflected in Massekhet Purim.
The header of the text is nearly identical to what one may find by opening up any piece of Gemara. It begins with the title of the chapter as derived from the first words. In Purim, it is “On the thirteenth day” and in the real header above from Berakhot, it is “From when”. Next is the number of the chapter, in both cases, this is the first chapter. Finally, the name of the tractate (Purim or Berakhot).
The arrangement of the page of Mesekhet Purim is different from the now-common and iconic Vilnas Shas layout. This likely isn’t due to a flaw in the parody but rather because the Vilnas Shas layout was not standardized when Mesekhet Purim was written.
Mesekhet Purim, although four chapters long, is a pretty short text because each chapter is quite short. The first chapter, for example, is only 4 sides of a page long.
In terms of the jokes, many of them use the Talmudic framework and style to discuss sillier topics (often drunkenness). For example, consider the following piece of our text:
“On the thirteenth day, we pour out the water from the houses and from the courtyards and it is forbidden to drink until the sixteenth day comes and we give flogging to him since all will see from the middle of the day onward”
It follows the same structure and (to an extent) subject matter as a Mishnah found in Tractate Pesachim:
“On the evening of the fourteenth [of Nissan] they search they house for chametz by the light of a lamp. Every place into which chametz is not brought does not require searching, So why did they rule: two rows of the wine cellar [must be searched]? [This is actually] a place into which chametz might be taken. Bet Shammai say: two rows over the front of the whole cellar; But Bet Hillel say: the two outer rows, which are the uppermost.” ( Mishnah Pesachim 1:1)
A similar thing occurs with the Rabbis mentioned. Instead of traditional names (which do show up) the majority of the names relate to silly topics. Reading through Mesekhet Purim one finds more “Rav Jug”s and “Rav Wine Seller”s than Rav Shmuels.
Understanding Mesekhet Purim
Peter J. Haas gives a strong mode of understanding Mesekhet Purim.
First, despite the jokes which we may consider quite lowly, Mesekhet Purim is undeniably a smart text written by a learned man. The parody requires playing with the literary conventions of the Talmud, a difficult work. Further, for the audience to truly understand Mesekhet Purim they would also need to be well learned in the Talmud as well.
Further, Mesekhet Purim must be understood properly, it should be understood as part of a wider genre of religious parodies. During Medieval times, parodies of sermons were extremely common. For example, consider the Sermon on St. Nobody, a parody of hagiographies that uses Bible verses about nobody to create a fictional Saint.
“say first that Nobody was great in origin and lineage and was like Adam, who was not begotten or born but was formed, as the prophet says: Days will be formed and Nobody in them. Furthermore, he was of a warlike origin, hence the apostle says: Nobody fighting for God. Indeed, he was a soldier of renown, who served at his own expense and not others’, hence the following, of the apostle: Nobody serves as a soldier at his own expense.” (Sermon on St. Nobody 2)
The joke here comes from maintaining the structure of a sermon, just as the joke in our parody comes from maintaining the structure of a piece of Talmud. The joke here relies on knowledge of source material, just as the joke in our parody does. It is also worth noting, as Haas does, that sermons are delivered orally, not dissimilar to how the Talmud is a reflection of oral tradition.
Finally, though, Mesekhet Purim should be understood as a text affirming Rabinics. By mirroring the style of the Talmud, it affirms its importance8.
Reception of Mesekhet Purim
One may expect some to take Mesekhet Purim poorly, considering its somewhat profane argument. However, Roni Cohen, using the textual history of Mesekhet Purim argues the opposite. In fact, he argues that our parody was even used as a somewhat canonized text for ritual.
Understanding this requires some context on Jewish textual practice.
Jewish texts that have some canonical status see extra scrutiny for adherence to the original text. For example, the Old Testament has systems of Niqqutot and Cantilationto guide scribes. This wasn’t limited to the Bible. The Talmud has Hagahot, commentaries that attempted to uncover the original text and guide away from errors.
Other literature without canonical status was treated differently. Authors were even willing to change texts they disliked.
Three pieces of Purim Torah, which were often bound together, seemed to have a strong adherence to the original sources as these 14th-century texts were reproduced in later centuries. One of these is our parody, suggesting canonical status within the festivities of Purim.
These Purim parodies certainly were not secular works. They were performed on a specific day within the Jewish liturgical cycle and played a part in fulfilling ritual joy and laughter.
For this reason, it seems that when later scribes copied Mesekhet Purim, they treated it as a canonical text. Words that would not make sense to copyists because of regional variations were kept in the text. Further, the Purim Torahs came with systems to avoid textual variances. Specifically, many copies came with a list of names at the beginning for the purpose of allowing a scribe to check their work.
This shows that our text had a special canonical status one might not expect9.
The Author
The author of Mesekhet Purim is perhaps one of the most interesting figures in Jewish thought. He was a satirist, a philosopher, and a poet. Unfortunately, in part because I am ill, he will have to be discussed in part two, which you will have to subscribe for.
Pew Research Center. “Jewish Identity and Belief.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 11 May 2021, www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-identity-and-belief/.
TIME. “Behavior: Analyzing Jewish Comics.” TIME, nextgen, 2 Oct. 1978, time.com/archive/6881805/behavior-analyzing-jewish-comics/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.
Berger, A.A. (2006). The Genius of the Jewish Joke (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315132211
Slavoj Žižek, and Audun Mortensen. Žižek’s Jokes : (Did You Hear the One about Hegel and Negation?). Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2014.
Howe, Irving. “The Nature of Jewish Laughter by Irving Howe 1951.” Marxists.org, 2025, www.marxists.org/archive/howe/1951/jewish-laughter.htm. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.
Davies, C. (1991). Exploring the thesis of the self-deprecating Jewish sense of humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 4(2), 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1991.4.2.189
I should clarify that this article does not relate to “Jewish jokes” as I’ve outlined the concept earlier. Only the second example can even be considered a Jewish joke.
Haas, Peter J. "Masekhet Purim." Jews and Humor (2011): 55-65.
Cohen, Roni. "From ridicule to ritual: standardization and canonization processes in the transmission of Purim parodic literature." Medioevi 7-2021 (2022).