D’var Torah: B’shallah 2026/5786 בשלח

Are Dad Jokes “Bad Jokes?”: The Use of Puns in Haftarat B'shallah

Dan Savitt, Grade 7 Jewish Studies, Schechter Parent, Schechter Alumni Parent

“A sense of humor is regarded as a sign of mental health—apart from excessive punning, which is another matter entirely,” wrote Helen Cresswell, a 20th-century English television scriptwriter and author of children’s books (67-8).

My former Hebrew school teacher, Mr. Blackman, of blessed memory, was more influential than any teacher I ever had—especially when it came to telling puns. In reality, it started as a competition: I was trying to out-pun Mr. Blackman. But you can’t compete at wordplay without learning to hear language differently. What began as a back-and-forth became a way of paying attention to how sounds can link words and phrases of unrelated meaning. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on which of my students you ask), that legacy lives on in the seventh grade Jewish Studies classroom.

Dr. Edward Greenstein, Professor Emeritus of Bible at Bar‑Ilan University, writes that wordplay was “an important convention of ancient Hebrew composition. The evidence of plays on personal names is particularly compelling” (968). Dr. Everett Fox reinforces this point, noting that “...[T]he Bible, if not an oral document, is certainly an aural one...many passages and sections are understandable in depth only when they are analyzed as they are heard” (x).

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word aural (pronounced OR-uhl) means received or perceived by the ear. Because Hebrew is rich in words sharing the same root (even with different meanings), and because biblical texts were meant to be heard, this aural character makes the Bible a breeding ground for punning opportunities. The haftarah for Parashat B’shallah (Judges 4:4-5:31) alone contains at least three examples of wordplay involving characters’ personal names.

The phrase “speak (your) song” in Judges 5:12 is the only time in Tanakh that the verb “speak” is paired with the noun “song.” This unusual word choice was intentionally selected because the sound of דַּבְּרִי (dab·b’ri) echoes the name דְּבוֹרָה (Devorah), the prophetess and one of two heroines in the narrative (Rendsburg 398–9).

Sisera was coaxed by Yael to turn aside from his path and make his way to her tent instead. In Judges 4:18, סִיסְרָא (Sisera) was told twice, “Turn aside” סוּרָה (soo·rah), and then we are told וַיָּסַר (vy·ya·sar) that “he turned aside.” Sisera was the one who turned aside. This is an example of a text that “establishes a link between a name and an action performed by its bearer” (Garsiel 220).

When Barak hesitated to go into battle, Devorah said she would accompany him, but that Sisera would be delivered into the hands of a woman and Barak would receive no credit for the victory. Yet even in his absence from the climactic moment when Yael kills Sisera (Judges 4:21, 22), the name בָּרָק (Barak) is evoked each of the two times we hear the word בְּרַקָּתוֹ (b’rak·ka·to) in reference to Yael stabbing Sisera in his throat/temple.

From these examples alone, we can appreciate how much richer our understanding becomes when we hear the text. Jewish tradition teaches that one cannot truly understand the Written Torah without the teachings of the Rabbis. All the more so, one cannot fully appreciate the Written Torah without the Aural Torah.

Works Cited

“Aural.” Oxford English Dictionary, Sept. 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/8231653482.
Cresswell, Helen. Ordinary Jack: Being the First Part of The Bagthorpe Saga. Macmillan, 1977, pp. 67-8.
Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; a New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes. Schocken, 1995, p. x.
Garsiel, Moshe. Biblical Names: A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns. Translated by Phyllis Hackett, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991, p. 220.
Greenstein, Edward L. “Wordplay, Hebrew.” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, vol. 6, Doubleday, 1992, p. 968.
Rendsburg, Gary A. How the Bible Is Written. Hendrickson Publishers, 2019, pp. 398–99.