Monty Python's Flying Circus was renowned for its irreverence and its willingness to parody and satirize anything. Suppose, for a moment, that Monty Python had done a sketch satirizing Judaism.
...Well, actually, they sort of already did. Except it wasn't just a sketch, it was an entire movie, The Life of Brian, and it satirized Judaism, Christianity and the Roman Empire with pretty much equal enthusiasm. And then there was the treatment of Catholicism vs. Protestantism in The Meaning of Life. And ...
But that's neither here nor there. Back to our original scenario.
In our hypothetical sketch, the Pythons illustrate how Judaism has adapted to the modern world by showing how the orthodox Jewish establishment responds to a threatened epidemic. The sketch depicts a large group of very traditionally dressed rabbis boarding a modern jet airliner, which then flies around their nation's borders as they chant incantations and prayers and blow ram's-horn shofars to ward off the disease.
What do you suppose the reaction would be? A lot of people would laugh, sure. A lot of people would dismiss it as ridiculous satire, but laugh anyway. The Pythons would probably get the usual mailbag of complaints that it was ridiculing the Jewish faith, that it was disrespectful, that it was offensive to Jews, that it was mocking Jews and making them out to be ignorant and superstitious.
Right? Remember, after all, the hate mail the Pythons got over Every Sperm is Sacred?
There's just one thing about this thought experiment. It's not entirely a thought experiment. You see, it really happened, last year.
No, not the Python sketch. The fifty rabbis circling Israel in an airplane, blowing shofars to ward off swine flu.
Once again, we are reminded that truth can be at least as strange as any fiction.