ASCENT JEWISH JOKES ARCHIVE --

5767-5768


To Sit On The Rebbe's Chair

A chasid comes to see his Rebbe: "My Master and Teacher, I had a dream that I was the leader of 300 chasidim. What should I do?"

The Rebbe replies, "When three hundred chasidim have a dream that you are their leader, you can come back and sit on the chair."


Bar Mitzvah Gifts

There was a young man who was known for his lack of religious study. Upon his Bar Mitzvah, he received the usual gifts, including many books for Torah study.

His clever uncle said, "You have received many gifts today, many treasures of Judaism in book form, well worth reading, that will enrich your life and make it holy, in the eyes of G-d. My gift to you is different. I've decide to give you something which, unlike the books that others gave you, I can be sure that you will open.

He then presented him with a gift-wrapped umbrella.


Multiples

Three men are in the maternity waiting room at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel. A doctor comes in and says to the first man, "Mazel Tov! Your wife just gave birth to quadruplets!"

The man replies, "Wow, what a coincidence, I live in Kiryat Arba!" (arba = four)

Another doctor comes in and announces to the second man, "Mazel Tov! Your wife just gave birth to septuplets."

The second man responds, "How amazing - I'm from Be'er Sheva!" (sheva = seven)

Just then, the third man faints and thuds onto the floor.

The two doctors rush over to him, concerned and perplexed. "What happened? What's wrong?"

The two new fathers both smile and call out to the two doctors, "He lives in Me'ah She'arim!" (me'ah = 100)


Virtual Theft

Did you hear about the thieves that broke into the United Jewish Appeal offices?

They got away with over a million dollars in pledges!


The Sincerest Flattery

A Jewish man was in a supermarket in Thornhill, Ontario. He saw a black
woman trying to get her young child to put down a candy bar he had picked
off the shelf.

'Leroy, you put that down! It's not kosher!'

Intrigued, the young man decided to investigate.
'Excuse me, ma'am, are you Jewish?'

'No.'

'So why did you say that?'

'Why? I'll tell you why. Because l see all the Jewish mothers saying that to
their kids -- and it works, so I decided to try it.'

 

[Submitted by David S. Devor, Project Mind Foundation]


The Secret of Passing Over on Passover

(go to Jokes - Holidays)


No Credit in Persia

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The Dot in Dotcom

During a Q&A session at a J-Soc meeting with the campus chaplain an undergraduate asked the Rabbi, "Why does the Jewish religion seem to obsess over insignificant details? For example - how much matza do we have to eat or which spoon did I use for milk and which fork for meat, or what is the correct way to tie my shoelaces? Is this nitpicking what Jews call spirituality?" It seems to me that this misses the bigger picture by focusing on minutiae.

Getting a round of applause for his questions, the student pressed home his attack. "I actually already emailed you this question over a week ago and didn't receive a reply. Could it be that you have finally been asked a question that you can't answer?"

However, the chaplain seemed unfazed by these questions. "I never claimed to have all the answers. There are many questions that are beyond me. But it happens to be that I did answer this question of yours. Indeed, I sent a reply immediately. The fact that you didn't receive it is itself the answer to your question."

The students all looked bewildered, so the Rabbi continued "You see, when I sent you my reply, I wrote your email address leaving out the "dot" before the "com". I figured that you should still receive the email, because after all, it is only one little dot missing. I mean come on, it's not as if I wrote the wrong name or something drastic like that! Why should anyone be so nitpicky as to differentiate between "yahoocom" and "yahoo.com"? Can it be possible that you didn't get my email just because of a little dot? Doesn't that sound a bit ridiculous?

"Now, we all know it is not ridiculous," smiled the Rabbi. "The dot is not just a dot. It has meaning far beyond the pixels on the screen that form it. To me it may seem insignificant, but that is simply due to my ignorance of the technology. All I know is that with the dot, the message gets to the right destination; without it, the message is lost to oblivion.

"Jewish practices have infinite depth. Each nuance and detail contains a world of symbolism. And every dot counts. When they are performed with precision, a spiritual vibration is emailed throughout the universe, all the way to G-d's inbox.

If you want to understand the significance of the dot, study I.T. If you want to understand the meaning of Judaism and its practices, study Torah".

This time it was the young rabbi that received the ovation.

[Based on an excerpt of an article by Aaron Moss on Algemeiner.com, and expanded by Ascent staff.]


Two For The Races

The Rabbi and His Hat at the Racetrack

A Rabbi is walking slowly out of a shul in New York when a gust of wind blows his hat down the street. He's an old man with a cane and can't walk fast enough to catch his hat. Across the street a man sees what has happened and rushes over to grab the hat and returns it to the Rabbi.

"I don't think I would have been able to catch my hat." the Rabbi says. "Thank you very much." The Rabbi places his hand on his rescuer's shoulder and says, May G-d bless and prosper you."

The young man thinks to himself, "I've been blessed by a Rabbi, this must be my lucky day!" So he goes to the racetrack and in the first race he sees there is a horse named Stetson at 20 to 1. He bets $50 and sure enough the horse comes in first. One thousand dollars!

In the second race he sees a horse named Fedora at 30 to 1 so he bets it all and this horse comes in first also. Thirty thousand dollars!

Finally at the end of the day he returns home to his wife who asks him where he's been. He explains how he caught the Rabbi's hat and was blessed by him, and so he went to the track where he started winning on horses that had a hat in their names.

"So where's the money" she says?

"I lost it all in the ninth race. I bet on a horse named Chateau and it lost."

"You ignoramus, Chateau is a house, Chapeau is a hat."

"It doesn't matter," he said, "I would have lost anyway. The winner was some Japanese horse named Yarmulka."

The Rabbi and His Beard at the Racetrack

Josh was a regular visitor at the racetrack. One afternoon he noticed an unusual sight. Right before the first race, a bearded Orthodox Rabbi visited one of the horses in the stable area and gave it a blessing. Josh watched the race very carefully, and sure enough the blessed horse came in first!

Josh followed the Rabbi before the next race, and again he went to the stables and performed a similar procedure. Josh played a hunch and put a couple of dollars on the blessed horse. Sure enough it came in by two lengths and Josh won close to fifty bucks!

The Rabbi continued the same procedure through the next few races and Josh won each time. He was now ahead $1,000, so between races Josh left the track and went to the bank and withdraw his life's savings $20,000.

The biggest race of the day was the last one. Josh followed the Rabbi and watched carefully which horse he blessed. He then went to the betting window and put his whole $21,000 bundle of cash on that horse to win.

Then Josh went out to watch the horses race. Down the stretch they came, and as they crossed the finish line, the horse Josh's fortune was bet on was dead last!

Josh was crushed.

He located the Rabbi and told him that he had been watching him bless the horses all day, and they all became winners, except the last horse on which he had bet his life savings. Josh then asked, "What happened to the last horse which you blessed? Why didn't it win like the others? Why didn't it even come close?"

"That's the trouble with you assimilated Jews," sighed the Rabbi. "You can't tell the difference between a blessing and Kaddish."


FIVE JEWS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

Moses, who said: The Law is Everything.
Jesus, who said: Love is Everything.
Marx, who said: Capital is Everything.
Freud, who said: Sex is Everything.
Einstein, who said: Everything is Relative.


A Proper Zionistic Response

In the years before the Balfour Declaration, a member of the British House of Lords asked a prominent Jewish Zionist, "Why do you Jews insist on Palestine when there are so many undeveloped countries you could settle in more conveniently?"

(This was not the Zionist leader who indeed expressed interest in Uganda.) He replied: "That is like my asking you why you drove twenty miles to visit your mother last Sunday when there are so many old ladies living nearer to you here in London".


Life is but a Narrow Bridge, Right?

It happened one day that as an old lady was crossing an old rickety wooden bridge, it began to break. She was terrified. The creaking grew louder and the trembling of the boards beneath her feet was increasing rapidly.

"Please, G-d" she cried lodly amidst her sobs; "Don't let it fall. I'll… I'll give You $1000 if I get across safely."

The tremors and sounds seemed to let up. She scurried across as quickly as she good.

When she got half way across and realized she was going to make it, she laughed with pleasure. Then, with a determined look, she called out, "$1000 is exaggerated. That's really a lot of money. I'll give $10. Okay?"

All of a sudden the sounds and tremors returned and the bridge began breaking up again. She raises her face to towards the heavens and says, "Oh come on. I make a little joke and you get all upset?"


A Reading Test from Cambridge University

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rgh it pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !

P.S. From webmaster YT: I love this one. I intend to show it to all my students who complain about having to read Hebrew without vowels.


Searching

Boaz is driving in Tel Aviv. He's late for a meeting; he's looking for a parking place, and can't find one. In desperation, he turns towards heaven and says: "G-d, if you find me a parking place, I promise that I'll eat only kosher and keep Shabbat and all the holidays."

Miraculously, a place opens up just in front of him.

He turns his face up to heaven and says, "Never mind, I just found one."


Not Like Tonsils

Two little kids are in a hospital, lying on stretchers next to each other, outside the operating room.

The first kid leans over and asks, 'What are you in here for?'

The second kid says, 'I'm in here to get my tonsils out and I'm a little nervous.'

The first kid says, you've got nothing to worry about. I had that done when I was four. They put you to sleep, and when you wake up they give you lots of Jell-O and ice cream. It's a breeze.'

The second kid then asks, 'What are you here for?'

The first kid says, 'A circumcision.'

The second kid replies, 'Whoa, good luck buddy, I had that done when I was eight days old….
I couldn't walk for a year.'


Shofar Time

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