Rabbi Simcha writes that the dual identity of characters like Superman and Spiderman reflects the longings of children of immigrants who desire to live two lives, "privately as a Jew and publicly as an American." The Old Testament provides creative inspiration in supermen like Samson, who brings down the temple of the Philistines, and David, who destroys Goliath with a slingshot.

After the horror of the Holocaust, comedy became a rationed commodity for many Jews. They agreed with Theodor Adorno, the German philosopher, who wrote that "After Auschwitz it is barbaric to write poetry." The philosopher's point was that only silence could express the magnitude of such human tragedy. Hitler was no laughing matter. But then Mel Brooks, who wrote "The Producers," with its chorus line of big-booted Nazi women crooning "Springtime for Hitler," punctured that taboo, too.

Controversy exploded when the Jewish Museum in New York held an exhibition called "Mirroring Evil," which turned themes of the Holocaust into pop art, including a concentration camp made of LEGO. Other critics identified the show as expressing the irrepressible ability of the Jews to rise from the ashes of Hitler's evil.

Two weeks ago, more than 60 years after the Nazis shut down Germany's only rabbinical school, three rabbis were ordained in Dresden's new synagogue. "After the Holocaust, many people could never have imagined that Jewish life in Germany could blossom again," said German president Horst Koehler. "That is why the first ordination of rabbis in Germany is a very special event indeed."

That's something to blow the shofar about on these High Holy days. Happy New Year to you, too.