One morning, a Yiddishe Mameh woke up her young son: “Bubbele, you have to wake up and get ready for school.” A few minutes later, “Ziskeit, go brush your teeth. Sheifaleh, don’t forget your breakfast.” Then, just before the boy left the house, his mother turned to him and said, “Tzaddikl, learn well today.”
The Rogatchover Ga’on was known for his unique sharpness. He never followed the accepted customs of protocol and honor typically observed in the world-at-large. The story goes that once an author of scholarly Torah books came to see the Ga’on in request of a “haskama,” an approbation, to a new sefer he had just written.
How many engineers do you need to change a lightbulb? — Five, one to hold the lightbulb and another four to turn the ladder…
At an anti-war demonstration, protesters waved signs and cried out against government policies. One demonstrator with an especially loud and dominant voice repeatedly screamed at the top of his lungs, “I won’t move from here until the war ends!”
One fine morning, two men came to shul to daven Shacharis. They quickly discovered that there was no minyan. They were the only ones that showed up.
There’s a story about a tzaddik who once stayed as the guest of a sincere and straightforward simple Jewish farmer. In the middle of the night, the farmer was awakened by the sound of uncontrollable sobbing coming from his guest’s room. He entered the tzaddik’s room and asked him in amazement, “Why are you crying? Are you dissatisfied with the room? Do you lack anything? A more comfortable mattress? Another pillow?”
Two families went out on a hiking trip in the Alps – one Jewish and one (l’havdil) Gentile. The Jewish family came fully equipped… Four different kinds of sandwiches for each family member, bags of Bamba, Bissli, and popcorn for the kids, chocolates and nuts for the adults, cartons of vacuum-packed milk, and a wide variety of breakfast cereals, and more and more…
A prominent government official had a costly horse, which he jealously guarded at every opportunity. One day, he rode to another city, and to protect it from theft, he placed the horse in the royal stables with a watchman posted at the gate.
A world-renowned lecturer at a prestigious University, a specialist on the subject of smoking, decided to give a lecture on the dangers of cigarette smoking. He began the talk with a threatening and thunderous voice. “Students, in your opinion, what is the #1 cause of death? What is the most dangerous threat to human life?”
An elderly couple was celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, their 50th. For this occasion, a fancy hall was rented, and the entire extended family was invited. In the middle of the celebration the “bride,” age 76 years old, lifted up a cup of l’chaim for a heartfelt toast.
Stanley, an elderly Jewish fellow, decided in his late 80s to get a driver’s license. Once he passed his driving test, he took his brand new Mercedes on a drive on one of the busy NY freeways.
A Jew who was compelled to convert r”l during the days of the Spanish Inquisition was warned by the authorities that if they caught him eating fish on Friday night, proving that he still observed Jewish rituals, he would face dire consequences.
A rabbi was walking down the street when he saw a member of his congregation going into a treif restaurant and sitting down to eat. The rabbi was shell-shocked but wouldn’t dare go inside. However, when the first opportunity presented itself, he went over to this Jew and bombarded him: “What were you doing inside that non-kosher eatery?”
August 1, 2019