Jewish comedy can be traced back much further than the Catskills’ Borsht Belt, where many prominent comedians began their careers between the 1920s to the 1970s. In fact, comedy is actually mentioned in the Torah. The Gemara [Ta’anis 22a] refers to two professional jesters who were – they earned the World to Come through comedy. When they saw people who were depressed, they cheered them up, and when they saw two people quarrelling, they tried to make peace between them. Yet rarely do we come across people, especially in our greater Orthodox community, who have made comedy their profession. Luckily for me, however, I happen to know a few of them.

David Rosen’s family room seemed typical. Actually, I discovered, it is a treasure trove containing 47 years of research into Torah sources, research from which he gleans amazing anecdotes and extraordinarily obscure historical facts. As interesting as David’s ongoing endeavor is, it is even more astonishing considering that he has suffered from severe chronic pain, 24/7, for the last 25 years.

David Rosen’s passion for Jewish history began when he was a 16-year-old tenth grader in 1972. It bothered him that he did not know anything about Jewish history – including the churban (destruction) of the first and second Temples, the Rishonim and Achronim, the Geonim, the miracles of Chanukah and Purim, and the kingdoms of Beis Yehuda and Beis Yisrael.

Last February, Malka read a book her mother bought, called Shidduch Secrets. One chapter was about a girl who, turned off by a shadchan’s harsh words, decided to focus on doing chesed and started visiting a nursing home. Malka was inspired by this true story, in which the girl ended up marrying the grandson of a nursing home resident. She pushed herself to make the three-mile roundtrip walk, alone, to Tudor Heights Senior Living, one Shabbos shortly after Pesach, since no friend was available to go with her.

Who doesn’t tremble on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when the chazan chants the somber and fearsome Unesanu Tokef? This year, as we recall the unprecedented number of water tragedies that have occurred this summer, we will surely shudder even more when he comes to the part, “Mi vamayim – Who shall perish by water.”

The swimming season had barely gotten underway, in June, when three children drowned in Israel, leaving them in serious and critical condition; later that month, a man in his 50s fatally drowned in a pool in Tzefas. Closer to home, we are still traumatized by the drowning of Rabbi Reuven Bauman, z”l, who heroically jumped into the ocean to save a student and whose body was found off the coast of North Carolina by a boat of Misaskim of Maryland volunteers from Baltimore.

If your travels to Israel between the 1970s and the early 2000s included a visit to the Kotel, chances are you saw – or at least heard of – the legendary Rabbi Meir Schuster, z”l. He was the tall, lanky, black-hatted bearded fellow in the dark suit, who dedicated himself to frequenting the Kotel, day in and day out, no matter what. A man on a mission, he loved his fellow Jews so much that he wanted to share his enthusiasm for Judaism with them, out of pure compassion. Indeed, he received no monetary compensation for his work.

Arizonan Robin Meyerson jokes that her husband Charles saves bodies while she tries to save souls. He is an electrical engineer who creates pacemakers and other lifesaving medical products. She, the mother of their five children (and a grandmother), is a former corporate marketing whiz and, most recently, a motivational speaker, teacher, and author, who has made raising awareness about Jewish burial her life’s mission. How did she make that drastic leap? Robin shared her inspirational story of Divine Providence when she came to town to be a featured speaker for Project Inspire.