Mulla nasruddin in a Mental Hospital

Mulla Nasrudin, a mental patient, was speaking with the new superintendent of the mental hospital. ”We like you a lot better than the last doctor,” he said.

The new superintendent was pleased to hear this lovely remark from Mulla and he asked ”Why you feel this liking for me"
"It is all because some how you just seem to be one of us" repiled Nasrudin.

 

Happiness has many expressions, and in Hebrew there is a word for each. The happiness expressed in laughter is called Simcha. Sometimes people laugh. Every once in a while something strikes their funny bone, and they giggle, chuckle or burst out howling. Why? What causes the simcha of laughter?
Rabbi Saadia Gaon offers a novel insight into this phenomenon: When a person suddenly gains a straight perception of reality, the result is laughter. A flash of reality obliterates time-honored falsehoods, and the soul laughs.
This novel idea, the link between truth and laughter, is expressed in Psalms:

"Ohr zarua l'tzadik, ulyishrei lev simcha..."
"Light is sown for the righteous, and for the straight of heart, simcha..."​

Bare to the truth, the 'straight of heart' are ever open to deeper and deeper perceptions of reality. Thus, their heart is sown with 'simcha,' the joy expressed in laughter.

"Pkudei Hashem y'sharim m'samchei lev..."
"Hashem's commandments are 'straight,' they bring simcha to the heart..."​

Hashem's commandments bring simcha because they are 'straight.' Torah study and observance confront a person with hitherto unrealized insight, hence simcha and laughter.
When Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, Rabbi of the Lubavitch Chassidim, was arrested for organizing a network of Torah education in Russia, a KGB officer put a gun to his head and demanded he name his collaborators. The Rabbi laughed.
No believing Jew is afraid to declare, "I believe in the World to Come." But a loaded gun brings the existence of the World to Come into such crisp focus, the alternative is instantly reduced to absurdity.
And so Rabbi Akiva laughed. He laughed because he excelled in the quality of 'straightness of heart.' His keen perception of reality allowed him immediately to glean the kernel of truth from the very event his comrades mourned.

 

Excellent!

 

sufi humor is wonderful. i remember once upon a time having a book of his quotations.