Jokes

Crazy for kashrut

After his business goes bust, followed quickly by his wife divorcing him, and then losing his house to her in a messy divorce case, Arnold finally has his mental breakdown. It's a serious one and he has to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

As soon as he arrives, he insists on getting kosher food. After a lot of negotiating, and with much help from Rabbi Landau, the hospital finally agrees to pay for kosher food to be served to Arnold in its cafeteria.

Some weeks later, Rabbi Landau decides to visit Arnold to see how he's getting on. As it's lunch time, Rabbi Landau goes straight to the canteen. He looks around for Arnold and is shocked when he sees him at a corner table with some other patients. Arnold has a smile on his face and has in front of him a large plate of bacon, sausage and eggs, which he's eating with gusto.

"So, Arnold," says Rabbi Landau, "is this how you repay us? I'm very surprised at what I'm seeing. I thought you said you had to eat kosher? We went to a lot of trouble and expense arranging kosher food for you, yet here you are obviously enjoying a non-kosher meal."

"You shouldn't be surprised, rabbi," replies Arnold. "Surely you remember that I'm meshuggah!"

© david minkoff




The favor

Freda meets her friend Betty downtown. "I'm really annoyed with myself, Betty," says Freda. "I spent nearly four hours last weekend helping out my shul, as I always do. And then I made a monumental mistake."

"Nu, so what did you do?" asks Betty.

"Well," replies Freda, "just before I left the shul to go home and have a nap, the rabbi came over to me to thank me for my help. And like a fool, I replied, 'It was no problem, rabbi.'"

"So what was wrong with that?" asks Betty. "I would have said the same thing to him."

"It was wrong," replies Freda, "because the phrase, 'no problem' should never be uttered by Jewish women. Firstly, there no such thing to us as a situation that isn't a problem. And secondly, we should never suggest that we're not doing someone a favor when we definitely are."

© david minkoff