Holy Speech and Humor

In reading Exodus 23:1, "Thou shalt not raise a false report; put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness" (sorry that was the only translation at hand here as I write this) last Shabbat (Mishpatim got read along with Teruma due to schedule re-arrangements), one of our congregants called us out collectively on having made a joke about Rod Blagojevich right after, and thus having violated the spirit of the commandment by speaking ill of someone when they were not there. Another person present made the case that holy speech should include humor and laughter.

I agree that humor must be included in the realm of holy speech, that it is an integral part of the balance we each require in maintaining a healthy emotional and spiritual state for knowing the world. When we cannot laugh at ourselves or at others, we create a situation in which it is much more difficult to overcome the obstacles of tension and fear that stand between us and the world we want to create. Just as there are moments when it is difficult or impossible to explicitly preserve joy or optimism there are times when humor finds itself an unwelcome guest; but we run as much risk to our long-term capabilities for creating transformation in banishing humor as we would for banishing joy or optimism or other indispensable aspects of our communities and ourselves that we must actively maintain in order to persevere effectively.

Besides, if Blaggy wants to contribute positively to the public sphere at this point, his options are pretty much either do it as the butt of some jokes or as a human mop. And I'm guessing he prefers the former.