In late antiquity, some Jews began to think of the Torah as a naturallaw — absolute, immutable, and transcending historical time. Other ancient Jews, particularly the Talmudic rabbis, resisted this new way of thinking and elaborated a conception of divine law as a contingent and dynamic phenomenon unfolding in historical time. This lecture applies insights from performance studies, as well as theories of humor and play, to illuminate the rabbis’ counter-cultural construction of a historically embedded divine law.