This will be an odd way to begin something humorous, but bear with me. My brother’s mother in law passed away a few days ago. Her name was Esther, and she celebrated her 99th birthday in March. She came from a long line of rabbis, and since she was the last of her generation for all of our extended family, she became something of a matriarch, and certainly a source of Jewish wisdom, and, to finally get to the point, humor.
Esther was relentless funny. About everything, even up to her last days. If Henny Youngman, the King of the One-Liners, had needed a sidekick, it would have been Esther.
Esther had a large family in Israel, and some came to Baltimore for the funeral. It proceeded as you would expect, part grieving, part celebration of a life well-lived. Shiva, however, was something else entirely. It became a long recapitulation of Esther’s wit, full of laughter, and not bittersweet, but pure. The rabbi who came for the minyan said he had never been to one like it. The family from Israel, including one of Esther’s sons, had arrived burdened both by their immediate loss and the weight of October 7 and the war. They left, I’m certain, quite a bit lighter.
