The Hebrew word for trickster: רמאי doesn't appear as a noun in Torah. It does appear in early literature including Midrash, Talmud as well as in law codes and commentators like Rashi's writings.
Susan Niditch from Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore
“Underdogs who are also tricksters have a certain bravado. They survive because they have the nerve to use their wits. They appeal also because they are so human in their sneakiness, their trickiness.” p48
“Successful trickery is a form of wisdom,” especially when the trickster lacks power. p105
Trickster: Archetype of Changing Times By Tina Azaria
"Trickster is the character in myths and lore who “stirs the pot,” mixes things up, and brings a bit of chaos to an otherwise placid story. Trickster is often the catalyst that pushes the storyline along by abruptly shifting the direction and because of this, is frequently the cause of distress. Trickster brings the unexpected and introduces the element of doubt into what was once certain. Trickster pokes holes in rigid boundaries and complicates situations with multiple points of view. It is the archetype that pushes us to question norms and move beyond known limits. Trickster is involved any time we find ourselves examining assumptions or stretching ourselves in previously unexplored directions."
Transformations of the Trickster By Helen Lock
"Trickster tales have existed globally since the earliest times, and nearly everyone recognizes a trickster when one is encountered in a story, whether it be the Monkey King stealing the Peaches of Immortality, Hermes making Apollo's cattle walk backwards, or Br'er Rabbit pulling the stunt with the tar baby. It is not hard to account for their appeal—they are fun, for one important thing, in their anarchic assault on the status quo, although their trickery also strikes a deeper human chord. The ubiquity of tricksters in stories generated by disparate cultures emphasizes the centrality of this archetype to the imaginative self-perception of all societies. Their cultural function seems to have been reinvented in successive eras, however, so that while it is easy to recognize them, it is a lot more difficult to find any critical consensus about their essential nature: who or what they are, or can be. Contentious issues include the status of the archaic archetypal tricksters (were they mortal or divine? can a god be a trickster?), the relation of tricksters to gender and to ethnicity, and the vexed question of whether modern tricksters exist at all."
Elliott Rabin, 929:
“Esau fits perfectly into this archetype of the trickster hunter undone by his appetite. As the literary scholar Lewis Hyde (Trickster Makes This World) observes, “[A] trickster is at once culture hero and fool, clever predator and stupid prey. Hungry, [a] trickster sometimes devises stratagems to catch his meal; hungry, he sometimes loses his wits altogether.” The biblical narrator calls Esau “a skillful hunter, a man of the field,” and yet, the moment he returns from the field, Esau feels tired, consumed by hunger: “I am at the point of death, so of what use is my birthright to me?” (Gen. 25:32). Note that the text does not say whether or not Esau succeeds in his hunt. If he is such a great hunter, why does he return so ravenous? Why the dramatic exaggeration, “I am at the point of death”? One possibility is to align Esau with this pattern of tricksters who are depleted by their own appetite. The more he eats—the more there is “game in his mouth”—the more he needs to eat. He will give up anything to supply his craving.”
Naomi Graetz:
The rabbis noted that the word ramai (רמאי) is formed with the same letters as Aramean (ארמי), like an anagram, and they used this arami-ramai pun frequently, especially when interpreting verses that refer to Laban as an Aramean. For example, Genesis 25:20 uses the word Aram three times:
בראשית כה:כ וַיְהִי יִצְחָק בֶּן אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה בְּקַחְתּוֹ אֶת רִבְקָה בַּת בְּתוּאֵל הָאֲרַמִּי מִפַּדַּן אֲרָם אֲחוֹת לָבָן הָאֲרַמִּי לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה.
Gen 25:20 Isaac was forty years old when he took to wife Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean.
Bothered by this three-fold repetition, Genesis Rabbah offers this midrash (Toledot 63, Theodor-Albeck):
אמר ר’ יצחק אם ללמד שהוא מפדן ארם מה תלמוד לומר אחות לבן הארמי, אלא בא ללמדך אביה רמאי ואחיה רמאי ואף אנשי מקומה רמאין והצדקת הזו שיוצאה מבינתיים למה היא דומה לשושנה בין החוחים,
R. Yitzhak said: “If it just wanted to teach us that he was from Padan-Aram, what does ‘Laban the Aramean’ teach us? It comes to teach us that her father was a trickster and her brother was a trickster, and even the people who lived there were tricksters, and that this righteous woman who came from there can be likened to ‘a lily among the thorn-bushes’ (Song 2:2).”
Interpreting arami as ramai, the rabbis read the verse to say that Laban is a cheat from a family of cheats in a town of cheats. But this is the least of the rabbis’ accusations.
https://www.thetorah.com/article/arami-oved-avi-the-demonization-of-laban
תָּעַע (v) heb
- Pilpel
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- mocking (participle)to deceive, misuse to ridicule
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- to be a mocker, mock
- mocker
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