How God Works Season 10, Episode 7 Ð Humor and 
Judaism: A Conversation with Robby Hoffman
Dave DeSteno, Host
Dave DeSteno
Robby Hoffman
Robby Hoffman, Archival

Archival: "The Lord Jehovah has given unto you these 15... Wait. 10, 10 
Commandments for all to obey."
"When I was born, my mother looked at me, looked at the afterbirth, and screamed, 
"Twins!" I mean, and I was justÐ"
"Will Elizabeth Taylor become Bar Mitzvahed?"
"Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about Dr. Whatley. I have a suspicion that he's 
converted to Judaism purely for the jokes.
And this offends you as a Jewish person?
No, it offends me as a comedian."
"Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good."
"Put on your yarmulke. Here comes Hanukkah. So much fun-ukkah to celebrate 
Hanukkah."
Dave DeSteno, Host: From Gilda Radner to Lenny Bruce, the Marx Brothers to Mel 
Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld to Larry David, Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen, Joan Rivers 
and Sarah Silverman, you get the picture.
Jews in America have come to be associated with being funny. And for about as long 
as that idea has existed, so has this question: Why?
Robby Hoffman: There's a je ne sais quoi to it. There's a special sauce.
Dave DeSteno, Host: That's the 36-year-old comedian, writer, and actor Robby 
Hoffman. And with her sold-out national tour, Netflix special, Emmy award, and 
appearances on the major primetime and late night talk shows, she's the latest in this 
long tradition of highly successful Jewish comedians.
Archival: ÒYou know, RobbyÐÒ
ÒWow ...Ó
ÒI know this is your first time on a late night talk show, but boy, that entrance was as 
if you've done it 1,000 times.Ó
ÒYou know what? It's very natural. I thought, you know what? People ask me, like, 
ÔDid you think you would be here, you'd be doing this?Õ As a matter of fact, I did.Ó
Dave DeSteno, Host: Sigmund Freud, who was also Jewish, albeit not particularly 
very funny, was asking this question as far back as the early 1900s. Today, many 
scholars are still asking it, trying to understand how Jewish people have shaped 
comedy and how comedy has shaped the Jewish people historically, culturally, and 
spiritually.
According to a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, more American Jews cite having 
a sense of humor as important to their Jewish identity than things like keeping 
kosher and studying Torah. To be culturally Jewish tends to separate out culture 
from religion, but can humor bridge that divide, even be a spiritual practice or ritual of 
sorts, something that helps people understand and cope with the challenges of life? 
And as more young people move away from formal religious practice, can humor 
offer a way to reconnect or even redefine what it means to be Jewish today?
I'm Dave DeSteno, and on this episode of How God Works, we'll talk with Robby 
Hoffman about the role humor plays in her life and how it's shaped her spiritual 
identity, why the Bible can actually be pretty funny, and howÑif this comedy thing 
falls throughÑthere's always the backup plan.
Robby Hoffman: I think it'd be really fun if I got together a mega synagogue. I'm the 
rav, I'm the rabbi. And listen, my sermons are a little off-color, okay? But what a 
sermon. What a sermon.
Dave DeSteno, Host: And just a quick warning, we're talking to a comedian, so 
there's gonna be some language. That's this time on How God Works: The Science 
Behind Spirituality.
Robby Hoffman, Archival: People have this misconception of the Jewish mother. I 
think we grew up secular. I think people think a Jewish mother is a very overbearing 
mother, right? What did you eat? Do you have a sweater? Things like that. But I 
grew up with an old-school religious Jewish mother. Very different experience. You 
know, like when I was a kid, my brother found a skateboard and I thought, "Oh, this 
is what I'm gonna be great at"
Eight years old. I never saw a Jew do anything athletic my entire life. I looked at the 
sport, and I thought, "I'm gonna be great at this. This is gonna be my thing." I get up 
there in my jean jumper. I'm going for three seconds before I fly off it. My face hits 
the pavement, I'm gushing blood. You think when I got home my mother kissed it 
better and said, "Everything's gonna be okay"?
No. No. She said, "Look at you! Look what you did. YouÕre gonna need skin grafts. 
YouÕre gonna need skin grafts. Just about to make supper. I needed this like a "loch 
in kop" English translation from Yiddish, Òlike a heavy head."
I don't know in either language why you would ever need or not need a heavy head.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Robby Hoffman grew up very poor and very religious, one of 
10 kids in a Hasidic Jewish family in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
And while she's no longer either of those two things, they're still completely central to 
her identity and her comedy.
Robby Hoffman: I think culturally speaking and religiously speaking, I'm very 
informed by the people that I come from for better or worse.
I was born into a Lubavitch family. My parents radicalized into it. They themselves 
were born more secular Jews, but they, my parents radicalized in their teens. And, 
yeah, it's a little bit like joining ISIS but without the violence I suppose. But still a 
pretty radical, narrow mindset. Narrow in some senses, and then very wide in other 
spiritual senses maybe. And so I was born seventh of 10 children. My mother had us 
by 30.
My mother was very meat and potatoes, you know. She was very no-frills. You know, 
there's no TV, there's books. My mother herself was very into education, and we 
were kind of kids at the library every week, and whatever was free, we had our 
hands on.
I knew kids then who took tennis lessons and lessons. We weren't allowed any sort 
of extracurricular, anything that cost anything. My mother, if you wanted to play 
tennis, "Just go outside, there's a ball," and that was the end of it. But everybody was 
kind of poor. You know, we would yell atÑwe would have fights with the neighbors 
like, "Well, you're on food stamps."
It's like, "Well, you're on welfare." 
Like, just insane. We were all just poor and yelling at each other, you know. So, I 
think being bored, sit outside on the steps and talk, and just look at passersby. That 
was the day. But I remember as a kid, you know, being so poor, and the 
cockroaches, and just the gray bath water because it was always two or three of us 
in a bath.
I remember at seven suggesting to my mother, "Ma, I think it's time I get my own 
bath. I'm at a place in my life, I don't wanna be out of line hereÑbut I am at a place 
in my life where I'm asking for 10 minutes of clean water." That really highlighted 
how poor we were.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Robby later found the humor in these experiences, but the 
reality was they were a family of 10 on food stamps.
Robby Hoffman: I remember as a kid just looking around at the cockroaches and 
going like, "I have nothing. I gotta get out of here. I have nothing. Like, this is hell."
Dave DeSteno, Host: Around that time, Robby's mom divorced her husband, left the 
Crown Heights Hasidic community, and moved herself and her 10 kids up to her 
native Montreal.
Robby Hoffman: She found issues with that very insular and strict form of the 
application of the religion of Judaism, and she decided eventually to move us back to 
Montreal, where she had support of her parents, who were secular Jews, not as 
religious.
By the time I moved to Canada, I was the poor kid in a rich school. But then I 
remember starting to realize maybe, well, it's true, we have nothing, but we don't 
have really nothing. We have almost nothing. You know, I do have me. It's not ideal. 
Listen, Rob, it is not ideal. Obviously, we could do with a lot more on the material 
side. But we don't have nothing.
Maybe I wasn't the house where we had the pool and people came and swam, but I 
brought the hot topics. I brought the hot goss. And so, I started having more value in 
myself.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Before becoming a comedian, Robby was on track to become 
the least funny thing you could imagine: an accountant. But then she started doing 
standup around Montreal, where she was living at the time.
Robby Hoffman: One of my first shows that I started in Montreal way back when, I 
used to do a quarterly show called Comedy in Biblical Proportions. I'm sure posters 
still exist of it somewhere. And I comedically interpreted Bible verses.
Dave DeSteno: Yeah, give me an example.
Robby Hoffman: So, I remember maybe it was a story about, like, Sarah and Ruth. 
You know, Sarah had to move to Bethlehem, and she met Ruth there, whatever, and 
then they lived there, whatever. I don't even remember who it was, but it's like 
nobody just moves to Bethlehem for a friend.
Right? Like, you had to get on your camel. You know what I mean? So, it's like, this 
is the first U-Haul lesbian. Like, we're seeing it in the Bible, but it's like nobody just 
moves for a friend. Why is she moving? And then they just live together, and they 
know the husband's gone. He's dead. You know what I mean?
It's like, okay, and that's that. She's moving in with her. So, there's small things like 
that that I catch. And then I used to go through. So, it was very funny just because 
the Bible's about people, and people tend to be funny.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Comedy scholars have differing opinions on whether you can 
root Jewish humor as far back as the Bible and Talmudic argumentation.
Jennifer Caplan, author of Funny, You Don't Look Funny, agrees that debate is 
hardwired into Jewish theology. Debate even with God is okay and even necessary. 
Over time, it's led to a culture of disagreement and rapid-fire discussion, clever 
response, and constant commentary. But Caplan is cautious about reading humor 
back in history with too broad a brush.
So much is about context and interpretation. Unless a rabbi says explicitly, "This is a 
joke," who's to say what was sarcasm or wit? But there's also a simpler interpretation 
of what makes the Bible, and really anything, funny. Like Robby said, people tend to 
be funny. The skill is the outsider perspective.
Observing and noticing the inherent funniness of people and situations and 
commenting on it in a quick, satirical way is what can turn the mundane into comedy, 
whether or not it's about explicitly Jewish things.
Robby Hoffman, Archival: You ever realize you grow up poor 'cause you like a 
hard towel? Like, I'm starting to be friends with richer people now. I went to 
somebody's house. They have a pool, right? And they gave me a towel. First of all, I 
brought my own towel, and I was likeÐ embarrassed. I was like, "Okay, they got the 
towels." It's poor to bring your own towel. Nobody else but me showed up with a 
fucking towel. I had a whole bag. And she gives me the towel, and it's, like, fluffy.
Right? And I tried to use the towel, and I was like, "I feel like I'm still wet." Am I 
supposed to dry the towel? Is the towel drying me? Like, what's the process on a 
fluffy towel? Like, to me, a towel's like ovaries. Whatever fucking towels you're born 
with is the fucking towels you die with.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Being funny helped Robby deal with being an outsider, 
growing up poor, and later when she came out as gay in her late teens. It wasn't just 
a personality or cultural trait. It was adaptive. But you could also say that a sense of 
humor was her inheritance. In the particular case of Jews, many have argued that 
humor has become one response to a long and very unfunny history of persecution 
and marginalization.
I asked Robby if she agreed with that idea.
Robby Hoffman: Well, 1000%, I do. Yeah. I think that anyone marginalized, 
especially through a long period of time, develops cope or develops skills. You know, 
Jews were poor historically and put upon, and for a very long time, they didn't have a 
lot of things, so they focused on intellect and humor and what they had. I think that's 
where art was created, in suffering. It's like the one silver lining to suffering.
Dave DeSteno: It is, and sometimes there aren't the words to express it, either 
because you can't verbalize it, or you don't feel comfortable with it. But in that art 
form, it can come out.
Robby Hoffman: Yeah, so your dance, your music, comedy.
Robby Hoffman, Archival: Hoffman is a German Jewish last name. I was excited. I 
just got my 23andMe back. You guys do this 23andMe? You do 23andMe? Yeah, 
yeah, yeah. It was real exciting, you know. I got my 23andMe back, opened it up, 
and all it said was, "Oops, looks like they missed a spot in the Holocaust." That can't 
be right. That can't be right at all.
Yeah, but you know, I think Holocaust jokes, by the way, go well everywhere, as you 
can imagine. It's all the clubs want capes for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. "Hey, Robby, can 
you do a tight 10 on the Holocaust?"
"How's an hour? Is an hour good for you?"
Dave DeSteno, Host: But the horrific tragedy of the Holocaust aside, misfortune and 
the struggles of a hardscrabble life have long played a formative role in Jewish 
comedy.
Archival: Born in the wilds of Delancey Street. Home of gefilte fish and kosher meat. 
Handy with a knife, oh, oh her zikh tsi. He flicked him a chicken, when he was only 
three. Dovid, Dovid Crockett. He sat in the sun und gerocket und gebaket. Dovid, 
Dovid Crockett.
Robby Hoffman: Stand-up comedy has its roots fundamentallyÐ I believe the 
Comedy Cellar is called the Comedy Cellar becauseÐ I don't know if it was at the 
turn of the century, I sometimes I like to say turn of the century. I don't even really 
know what that means.
Dave DeSteno: Yeah, there's a more recent turn of the century now, right? That 
used to mean, like, way back. But yeah.
Robby Hoffman: So, you know, I think that from my probably biased historical 
learning, the Jewish people, they worked in factories, they worked in textiles, pretty 
hard labor jobs in New York, along with Italians and Irish people.
And then at night, they all lived in these tenement houses that were, you know, very 
cramped apartments, 10 people to a one-bedroom type of thing. No AC obviously, 
so, the grown-ups would come home from work, and they would put wet washcloths 
on their kids' heads to try and keep them cool in the summer, and then they would go 
down to the cellar in the basement of the building where it was cooler, and they got 
up on a soapbox and just shared their stories about their shitty boss that day, or they 
vented about work, and it became funny. But it didn't start as set up and punch. It 
was just venting. 
Dave DeSteno: So, they kind of had their own little comedy clubs.
Robby Hoffman: So, that's how stand-up comedy started. And that's why it's called 
the Comedy Cellar, which is one of the most famous stand-up clubs, if not the most, 
in New York.
Dave DeSteno: But one thing I want to ask you, 'cause you raised this point, is this 
was happening in cellars in New York, and it's trueÑmy family being Italian, you 
know, they were in Hoboken, which is about as close to New York as you can get 
being in Jersey. But they lived in the same tenements. I don't think they were as 
funny, though. 
But, you know, Mel Brooks had this thing that he liked to say, which was, "That 
comedy you're calling Jewish, it's not really Jewish comedy. It's really New York 
comedy. It's urban comedy. Jewish comedy, that's from Poland." So, do you think 
there's truth to that? Is there something about just being poor in an urban 
environment like New York during those times, or is it something that goes back 
further in your tradition?
Robby Hoffman: I think it goes back because, I mean, I remember going to my 
friend Shanice's house, her grandparents' house, for Shabbat dinner, and her 
grandparents were from Poland or something like that. They were Holocaust 
survivors, and, I mean, her grandmother would just yell at you the wholeÐ like, if you 
weren't eating enough, she'd be like, "Du bist a shtik fleysh mit oygn," which is just, 
"You're just a piece of meat with eyes." Like, mad at you, which is so funny, her 
expressions. But she was never in New York, and why was she so funny? 
Dave DeSteno: How do you think about that identity role in your work?
Robby Hoffman: I think it's really interesting, and I haven't spoken to it. A) I don't 
focus on being Jewish in my work, I just am. It's like, you know, I'm born with the 
name Rivkah Sarah. So obviously when I got into comedy, Rivkah is a very difficult 
name for comedians and people to bring me up. I'm just trying to do open mics.
When I look for a stage name, I didn't wanna change my ÒRÓ initial, and I went with 
Robby. But my mother was horrified, you know. My mother called me, and she goes, 
you know, "It's a beautiful Jewish name Rivkah. I'm not calling you Robby. You 
know, Rivkah's such a beautiful name. What are you, ashamed?"
I said, "Ma, Ma, you think within three seconds of me being on stage, they're like, 'I 
wonder if she's Catholic?'" Like, it's not. It's like, I am, whether I want to or not.
Dave DeSteno: Do you think there's something unique about the Jewish style of 
humor? And the reason I ask that is 'cause a lot of people ask this. Even Sigmund 
Freud asked this, right? He thought there was something that was unique to Jewish 
humor as a form of cultural expression. Do you think so? And if so, how would you 
describe it?
Robby Hoffman: I definitely do. I mean, I would say, just like God or anything, 
there's a je ne sais quoi to it. There's something to it. There's a special sauce.
Dave DeSteno: I've heard you say, for me to complain about something is to enjoy 
it. And so, we're talking a little bit about the role of suffering and humor, but what do 
you mean by that, to complain is to enjoy?
Robby Hoffman: You know, people like to talk about mindfulness. That's my version 
of mindfulness. It means I'm here, I'm present. You know, I could be in a beautiful 
spa, and I could complain that I found the draft when the door opened a little 
offensive at the time. I could be on a yacht and find it a little too shaky.
It doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it. It means I'm present, I'm noticing, and I'm here. 
Whatever I didn't say is great. You know what I mean? It's like everything else; it 
means it's phenomenal. So, these are a few things I'm pointing out because I'm here, 
I'm present. 
Robby Hoffman, Archival: And even this pizza culture, if I can talk about it for half a 
second before we get started here. This pizza culture that's going around amongst 
young people, grown-ups, adults, people in their 20s and 30s glorifying pizza. Again, 
like it's the greatest fucking thing to ever happen. Pizza's the last fucking resort, 
that's what it is. That's what it is. I'll admit, I get hungry. I get hungry. Even tonight on 
the way to the show I thought, "I'm a little hungry."
Robby Hoffman: You know, I get compared all the time to anyone from New York. 
You know, people are always like, "She's like Trump. She's like Judge Judy. She's 
like Larry David. She's like Bernie Sanders." And they're all, like, old. Not only, okay, 
they're all New Yorkers and they're kind of funny. I mean, Trump's notÐ
Dave DeSteno: That's true
Robby Hoffman: objectively a comedian, nor is Bernie Sanders, but they're 
hysterical nonetheless. It's like 60 years and then me, it seems. There's a big gap. 
My people and I, we're separated by 60 years. My wife jokes that I'm not a boomer, 
I'm part of the Greatest Generation. She thinks because I grew up kind of off-grid so 
to speak and archaically. You know, like I entered the secular world with childlike 
curiosity. I always felt like I was either 7 or 73.
Robby Hoffman, Archival: You know, anybody else grow up religious, maybe 
Catholic, something like that? Don't boo Catholicism. They have their own issues, 
believe me.
But I think when you grow up religious, and I'm not anymore, I think you notice 
things. You notice there's a difference, you know, in the secular world. Secular 
people, how most of us live right now, put a lot of emphasis on things that I never 
cared about as a kid, you know? As secular people, for instance, care a lot about 
birth order.
They attribute a lot of characteristics and qualities to a person by their birth order. Do 
we have any firstborns here? Such leaders here in the audience. Thank you. Thank 
you for coming. Yeah, thank you for coming. I feel safer knowing you're here. 
Honestly, I do. Thank you. Such leaders. Yeah. I'm seventh.
I've yet to read of what qualities and characteristics are associated with being 
seventh born. Am I a typical seven? I think so. Are they all this insane? It's very 
possible. You know, I don't get to meet enough sevens. I'm trying to meet as many 
sevens as I can so I can gather the data that I need to know what I can blame my 
shit on too.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Though raised ultra-religious, Robby has long since left 
Orthodox Judaism, but she still considers herself very Jewish and very gay. While 
the two might seem incompatible, her current form of spiritual Judaism 
accommodates both.
Robby Hoffman: I'm extremely spiritual against my will almost. My wife thinks I'm 
the most religious person she's ever met. Obviously, I grew up Jewish, but I feel like I 
do nothing, but she was likeÑyou know, when we moved in, I have a mezuzah on 
the door. I mean, I'm not an animal. You know? I feel I'm already gay. I'm already 
testing the waters. Okay, God, let me do that. Let's try and be good in other areas, 
you know?
I'm extremely spiritual, almost less religiously now and more philosophically. My 
culture is still very much, you know, a part of it, and I'm spiritual. I think it's as 
incredible that we're here on this planet, that I'm not plugged in, I don't wear 
batteries, that there would be an afterlife.
I don't see any difference really. One thing I struggle with, I don't know whether God 
is a one thing or whether it's just this like inadvertent energy or whatever, but there's 
so much we just don't know.
I've watched programming like on Netflix they had Surviving Death. It was a clinical 
look at death, and they had each episode, it was like an anthology series. Each 
episode covered afterlife or near-death experience or reincarnation, and the big 
takeaway from this was that all of these people said, whether religious or 
scientifically, the material world is fleeting.
So, it's important to get your shit in order, know what is important, love and 
relationships and all that because it's fleeting. That's all we know. And I'm like, "If the 
material world is fleeting, let me get shit while I can. I do like things." Like, if I can see 
my late grandfather forever, I can't wait. However, while I can have a car, let me 
have, let me have the shoes. I actually do like things, and I like a tactile world, so I 
think my takeaway wasÑit was the wrong takeaway, but that was my takeawayÑI 
really don't know, but I think everything is possible. I find it hard to believe, you know, 
I think it can all be true and it can allÑI just don't know.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Yeah, I mean, I think that sense of humility is important. I tell 
that to a lot of folks in my business as a scientist. I'm like, "You know there's no test 
for the fingerprint of God?"
People will say, "Well, you know, Dave, I prayed for this, and it didn't come true." 
And I'll say, "Well, maybe God only helps people God likes. Maybe God only helps 
people on every second Thursday. Unless you know the mind of God, you can't run 
an experiment.
Robby Hoffman: That's exactly it. It is insane to me that there's enough anecdotal, 
at least, evidence that demands us to say, why thousands of years ago were all 
these people believing this story? Like, why did so many people... And then there's 
the possibility I start to think of, maybe we're so distracted in this world and that 
world, it is possible 3,000 years ago they had more of a shorthand with some 
spiritualÑmaybe they were more connected to a spiritual side. Maybe spirits did talk 
to them more. Those channels have been clouded, and we've grown disconnected.
Dave DeSteno, Host: While Robby still considers herself very much a part and 
product of Judaism, it turns out she also has some complicated feelings about where 
she came from.
Robby Hoffman: I'm still a Jew because I am what I am, but because of my 
particular upbringing, I also have this weird tension with the Jewish community, 
because this so-called Jewish community left my family poor. I don't know how. We 
had money to eradicate poverty with all Jews, and there are still very poor Jews. And 
not a lot of them, and it's something that could be fixed, yet we haven't done it.
Where I feel more communally attached is to poor people. Because I grew up so 
different than many of my Jewish peers, I look at the world in many ways of the 
haves and the haves nots, and I've been in the have nots. So fun getting to the 
haves now, but I'm still screaming about the have nots. I can't believe it.
Dave DeSteno: Do you ever get pushback from the more kind of conservative 
Jewish community in the sense that, you know, maybe what you're doing is not 
portraying us in the best light? 
Robby Hoffman: I get pushback from everyone, Jews and non-Jews. And I don't 
draw the lines. I think I get pushback from all these communities that claim me, 
whether it's the queer community, which I am a part of, the Jewish community, which 
I am a part of, you know, women.
So, I'm thrilled to be claimed. I like that I'm not, like, picked last on the team, that the 
Jews want me, the gays want me, the women want me. So, I get questions about 
this nowadays about whether I'm speaking up to certain Jewish ÒissuesÓ or not, and 
it's like, I don't know where my allegiance is necessarily. When I'm confronted with 
this, and suddenly I'm supposed to be this big defender of the Jewish community.
Dave DeSteno, Host: Though Robby feels defined by the Jewish community in 
some ways, she also feels a little let down by it. And while she agrees Jews are not a 
monolithÑshe's experienced firsthand the many divisions within JudaismÑthere is a 
connection that transcends religious practice, the shared history, humor, culture, and 
sensibilities that have, over centuries, created a sense of belonging and what Robby 
sees as a kind of mutual accountability.
Jews can make fun of Jews. That's the whole point. But the values, integrity, and 
humility have to underlie the kvetching.
Robby Hoffman: You know, I don't know that the community exists the way it did 
when I grew up, and it's very different morally speaking. When I grew up, there was a 
big emphasis on the community. Secular Jews, many times it's very individualistic. 
When I was a kid, and we found a wallet or a purse on the bus, and we went to go 
return it, my mother insisted that my brother Menachem show his yarmulke. He was 
wearing a kippah, not wear a winter hat over itÑthat he go and show his yarmulke 
so as if to say Jews return lost shit from the bus.
Because my mother was very concerned about how it's gonna look. You know, if one 
Jew return, it reflects on everyone. And so, I just grew up with that value system.
Dave DeSteno, Host: What does it mean to be Jewish in the U.S. today, or part of 
any religion for that matter? As Robby has shown through her comedy and this 
candid conversation, it's complicated.
I kind of got the sense that she's working this all out in real time. The push and pull of 
identification and resentment, solidarity and criticism, is the nature of more and more 
people's relationship to faith. And while discourse about religion and Judaism in 
particular is fraught, there's something heartening about how comedy remains a way 
to speak your mind, to negotiate identity and belief, no matter how unpopular those 
opinions might be.
Comedians like Robby have learned how to address the unaddressable, topics too 
taboo or sad or polarizing in any other context. It's an adaptation honed into a gift 
over centuries. As the religion and comedy scholar Jennifer Caplan has said, "Humor 
is a powerful tool. It can be a form of catharsis, emotional relief, or even a defense 
mechanism. It can also be a form of social positioning, creating a sense of 
separateness or belonging."
All of this prompted me to ask my last question of Robby.
Dave DeSteno: Is humor a way to actuallyÐ this may sound weird, so forgive meÐ
Robby Hoffman: Go ahead
Dave DeSteno: if I sound too fluffy. Can it be a way to kind of touch or experience 
the divine? Can it be a way to kind of open your heart to something that you don't get 
by saying the same prayers over and over again?
Robby Hoffman: Yeah, I think laughter and crying and cumming, I think they're 
unbelievable.
Like, they're involuntary, too. People can't help but laugh. It's not their fault. You're at 
a funeral, you laugh. It's not your fault. Well, we can't hold people accountable for 
this. It's like, "I thought it was funny," "I wish it wasn't." Both are true.
Dave DeSteno: Well, you know, I agree with you. It's in laughing, in those moments 
where we're just being as opposed to trying to think, "Am I doing this right? Am I 
looking okay? What's going on?"
Those are the moments where I think if there is a God, you're gonna experience it.
Robby Hoffman: Yeah.
Dave DeSteno: So, I read in an interview you said that if you weren't a comedian, 
you'd wanna be a rabbi of a mega synagogue. Do you think more people would be 
open to religion or sermons if we added some humor into them as opposed to kind of 
this fire and brimstone?
Robby Hoffman: Yeah, I'll do what the megachurch did with music. They added, 
their big folksy you know and country music. And I'm sure it's extremely inspiring. On 
my end, we're infusing not music: comedy. I think it'd be really fun if I got together a 
mega synagogue or church or whatever we called it. Yeah, there are pyrotechnics 
and everything. They're doing music as a way to reach higher spiritual connection 
and I'm doing comedy. I'm the rav, I'm the rabbi, and listen, my sermons are a little 
off-color. Okay? But what a sermon. What a sermon.
Dave DeSteno: I'll be there if you do it.
Robby Hoffman: Well, if I'm doing it, it means something has gone awry.
Dave DeSteno: All right.
Robby Hoffman: Hopefully I'm not. Hopefully I'm not. God willing, I don't have to do 
that.
Dave DeSteno: But you know it's tax-free if you do.
Robby Hoffman: God willing, I don't have to do that.
Dave DeSteno, Host: While I hope Robby has many years of a comedy career 
ahead of her, that image of her giving a sermon might not be that far-fetched. It's 
through humor that we can often touch some of our deepest pain, yearnings, and 
failings, all the things spirituality itself is meant to do.
And like many spiritual practices, laughter can make us fully present, bond groups, 
and shape identity, not to mention change our physiology for the better by increasing 
dopamine and lowering heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormones. And it's not 
only Judaism that recognizes this. Other faiths do, too.
Take even Buddhism, which from the outside gives the image of stoic monks sitting 
in quiet contemplation. But that's not the full picture. The Dalai Lama, who describes 
himself as a professional laugher, urges people to try to find the funny in life, not 
because he wanted to be a stand-up comic in a previous life, but because he 
realizes it's a way to build connection and deal with negative emotions.
Given the historical difficulties Jews have confronted, honing humor makes perfect 
sense as a way to be resilient. But I think Robby might be onto something else here. 
Maybe it's also a way to find a spiritual connection to each other, or maybe even 
something greater, whatever our beliefs.
Next time on How God Works, we tend to think of practices like astrology and tarot 
as the opposite of science. But for most of human history, the two weren't always so 
far apart.
Archival: In many different societies in the past, divination actually sat more closely 
to a particular society's version of science than their version of religion.
Dave DeSteno, Host: We'll explore the surprising history of divination and why 
some of these ancient practices are finding new life today.
Archival: You can pull the cards, and it doesn't really matter what your own spiritual 
or psychological orientation may or may not be. Those cards, you know, as they 
work together, they create a picture, and they jog your senses.
Dave DeSteno, Host: How God Works is hosted by me, Dave DeSteno. This 
episode was written by Josie Holtzman and me. Our senior producer is Josie 
Holtzman. Our producer is Sophie Isenberg. Our associate producers are Emmanuel 
Desarme and Cleo Levin. Executive producer is Genevieve Sponsler. Our fact-
checker is Natsumi Ajisaka.
Merritt Jacob is our mix engineer and composed our theme, which was arranged by 
Chloe DeSteno. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. 
And special thanks to Jennifer Caplan. You can find links to her work in the show 
notes. Robby recently extended her tour, so if you wanna catch her live, you can find 
tickets on her website, RobbyHoffman.com.
And if you want to listen to more Robby, check out her podcast, Too Far With Robby 
Hoffman. This podcast was made possible with support from the John Templeton 
Foundation. To learn more about the show and access episode transcripts, you can 
find our website at HowGodWorks.org. And for episode shorts, extras, and my 
ruminations on science and spirituality, check us out on Instagram at 
HowGodWorksPod.
And you can also see all of our episodes, along with special bonus show material, on 
our YouTube page at HowGodWorksPod.