From the Sacred Texts of the Schmelves: Part II
Rabbi Gershon Winkler2011ContestsWinter 2010 ContestHumor
FROM THE WISDOM OF THE SCHMELVES
Rabbi Soandso taught: “Do not do unto others what you would never have done to them.”
Rabbi Gornishtvissen said: “The evil inclination is likened onto a kosher airline dinner. Just as a kosher airline dinner cannot be unwrapped, likewise can the evil inclination not be undone.”
Rabbi So’nu said: “Three things befall a person during the amidah – bird dropping, an evil thought, and the person in front of you when they are done and take three steps back without looking where they’re going.”
Rabbi Nevermeantit said: “Four things prolong a person’s life – prayer, Torah study, charity, and yogurt.”
FROM THE SHULCHAN ARUCH OF THE SCHMELVES
The following are exempt from fasting on Yom Kippur: one whose left leg is shorter than his right leg [others disagree and hold that this refers to one whose right leg is longer than their left]; one who has eaten garlic the night before; and one who has died of natural causes. Pregnant women are exempt only if they haven’t given birth yet. If a pregnant woman has given birth on Yom Kippur, we count three stars and feed them herring. If no stars are found, we count three herrings and give them tchulent.
On the eve of Yom Kippur we ask one another for forgiveness. And if we have not wronged another, we slap the other or kick them until we are accused of having wronged them, and then we ask for forgiveness. And if the other refuses to forgive, we annoy them until they break down and forgive. And then we must ask forgiveness for annoying them. Pregnant women are exempt.
Sneakers must be worn throughout Yom Kippur on both feet. If one has three feet, a rabbi should be consulted. And if one only has one foot, then is one sneaker placed on the foot and the second sneaker on the right hand. Others say the left. Yet others say both hands. One who has only a single sneaker must wear it on their left foot, with their right foot bound securely behind their back so as not to arouse suspicion. Those without sneakers are suspended by pulleys arranged along the ceiling of the shul. Pregnant women are exempt.
One who has broken the fast with French sweet rolls must sleep with their head in the direction of France, and with a rock in their hand. Some say a stone. Some say a boulder. Others say a rock the size of a Roman wicker basket. Yet others say a wicker basket the size of Rome. Others say a pregnant woman who is exempt.
13 Responses
Others say, a wicker basket containing a pregnant woman who is exempt. Still others say a pregnant woman who is exempt that is holding a wicker basket, preferably containing a pregnant woman who is exempt.
SICK
very funny thanks for the laughs Rabbi.. please keep’em coming!! wish I was raised with this types of torah teachings would have been so much more geshmak!!
Ricki, you HAVE been raised with such Torah teachings if your upbringing was ultra orthodox. And sick it is, indeed!
It is claimed that there are ultra-orthodox rabbis who are charged with the task of proclaiming rules for living. The only condition of the charge is that each proclamation must be more impossible to perform than the last.
I think we have finally found one of these rabbis.
“Rabbi Nevermeantit said: “Four things prolong a person’s life – prayer…” Not true. It does not prolong it. It just feels longer.
Rabbi Nevermeantit said: “Four things prolong a person’s life – prayer, Torah study, charity, and yogurt.”
sorry, that’s wrong. It should say garlick instead of yogurt.
And I received from the Master himself as follows: a wicker basket containing a pregnant woman who is exempt and licking garlic dipped in yogurt; as long as she doesn’t swallow two Parsangs @ once, for that’s a sin akin to professing existence of two great celestial luminaries, which may lead to professing fidelity to two deities, which in turn may lead to mixed dancing, which surely shall return the world to TohuBohu.
I just don’t get this at all. The gemorah etc. is in places perfectly silly, contrived, archaic and strange in its own right. It does not have to be parodied like this at all. Sourcing real howlers within our text, now that is at least scholarly…
Jason, for many of us use who grew up with the Gemora and the OCD Mishnah Brurah, and did not see it as silly at the time we were studying it in earnest, these parodies help to spotlight the issue. I haven’t tired of it yet and on the contrary, I think creating parodies in the style of the Gemora and MB highlights, requires a scholarly familiarity with the material.
Rabbi GW, from the depths of my Schmelvian side, thanks again; as our Sepharadi brethren say, “Hazzaq u’barukh!”
Jason, what you propose has already been published by Artscroll, Rabbi Steinzaltz and Feldheim (flirting to a greater or lesser extent with scholarship). One needn’t scour for a “real howler…” Alan Ginsberg and his colleagues are mere caricatures when compared to this opening line, “Whence is the Hear called in the night? In the time that the priests go up to eat of their sup…” Let alone the closing line of the sixth and final “order” {Hm?}, “The holy blessed one has found no vessel to contain blessing for Israel, save for peace…” Now, that’s a punch line; especially for a book basically filled with incorrigibly opinionated mutually illegitimatizing debaters, at times even to the extent of bloodshed.
God’s attribute of humor is as old as the hills, and needs no – indeed cannot be properly enough – parodied; alas, the rabbis practiced imatatio dei!
Shalom for now, I gotta go to Mend the Crack-o-Midnight!
bag-bag; you miss the point. If God was indeed the creator, he must have been on a seven day drunk.
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