A Jew is riding on a train in Russia. The man next to him keeps staring at him. The Jews asks him why he is staring at him. The Russian responds, "I want to know why Jews are so smart." The Jew says, "because we eat herring." The Russian says, "you've got to be kidding." The Jew says, "no, it is the truth. I have some I will sell you for ten rubles." The Russian pays him and eats the herring. He says, "I could have gotten that same amount of herring in a store for 5 rubles." The Jew says, "see, it's working."
Another biblical incident that I take as humorous is in Genesis 23 when Abraham is attempting to purchase a cave to bury his wife Sarah. Since Abraham is a foreigner to the area of Hebron, he is not permitted to own land. He is offered a plot to bury Sarah for free, but Abraham is insistent that he own the cave. The negotiation between Abraham and Ephron the Hittite to me are both amusing and indicative of the use of legal fictions, something the rabbis will later use. Here is the negotiation:
10. Ephron was present among the Hittites; so Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, the assembly in his town’s gate, saying,
11. “No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead.”
12. Then Abraham bowed low before the landowning citizens,
13. and spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the landowning citizens, saying, “If only you would hear me out! Let me pay the price of the land; accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.”
14. And Ephron replied to Abraham, saying to him,
15. “My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver—what is that between you and me? Go and bury your dead.”
16. Abraham accepted Ephron’s terms. Abraham paid out to Ephron the money that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites—four hundred shekels of silver at the going merchants’ rate.
Abraham could not buy the cave and Ephron could not sell it to him. Abraham did not want to accept the cave as a gift. God promised the land to Abraham, so it was important to Abraham that he becomes a landowner. Ephron apparently did not like the law that immigrants could not be landowners, so he was willing to break it.
He could not just say to Abraham that he is selling it, so he creates the legal fiction that he is giving Abraham a gift of the cave, and Abraham is giving Ephron a gift of 400 shekels of silver. From Ephron's perspective he obeyed the law by not selling it to Abraham. From Abraham's perspective, he purchased the cave.
As my joke above referenced, using one's wits wins in the end. In the case of Abraham's negotiations, it is humor with a happy ending. Both Abraham and Ephron got what they wanted by using their ability to scheme. Later in Genesis, Jacob, the heel, will do this on many occasions.
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