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I just had a flash back to "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" when Rabbi Tuckman is explaining what a Mohel does.
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Two kids are in a hospital each lying on a stretcher 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 getting my tonsils out. 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 jello and ice cream. It’s a breeze.”
The second kid then asked, “What are you in here for?”
The first kids says, “a circumcision.”
The second kid replies, “Whoa, good luck buddy. I had that done when I was born and I couldn’t walk for a year.”
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A Jewish father was very troubled by the way his son turned out and went to see his rabbi about it.
“Rabbi, I brought him up in the faith, gave him a very expensive Bar Mitzvah and it cost me a fortune to educate him. Then he tells me last week, he’s decided to be a Christian. Rabbi, where did I go wrong?”
The rabbi strokes his beard and says, “Funny you should come to me. I too, brought up my son as a boy of faith, sent him to university and it cost me a fortune and then one day he comes to me and tells me he wants to be a Christian.”
“What did you do?” asked the man of the rabbi.
“I turned to God for the answer,” replied the rabbi.
“What did he say?” asked the man.
He said, “Funny you should come to me...”
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My favourite is this one:
A young man in his mid-twenties knocks on the door of the noted scholar Rabbi Shwartz. “My name is Sean Goldstein,” he says. “I’ve come to you because I wish to study Talmud.”
“Do you know Aramaic?” the rabbi asks.
“No,” replies the young man.
“Hebrew?” asks the Rabbi.
“No,” replies the young man again.
“Have you studied Torah?” asks the Rabbi, growing a bit irritated.
“No, Rabbi. But don’t worry. I graduated Berkeley summa cum laude in philosophy, and just finished my doctoral dissertation at Harvard on Socratic logic. So now, I would just like to round out my education with a little study of the Talmud.”
“I seriously doubt,” the rabbi says, “that you are ready to study Talmud. It is the deepest book of our people. If you wish, however, I am willing to examine you in logic, and if you pass that test I will teach you Talmud.”
The young man agrees.
Rabbi Shwartz holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
The young man stares at the rabbi. “Is that the test in logic?”
The rabbi nods.
”The one with the dirty face washes his face,“ he answers wearily.
“Wrong. The one with the clean face washes his face. Examine the simple logic.The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So the one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Very clever,” Goldstein says. “Give me another test.”
The rabbi again holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“We have already established that. The one with the clean face washes his face.”
“Wrong. Each one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. So the one with the clean face washes his face. When the one with the dirty face sees the one with the clean face wash his face, he also washes his face. So each one washes his face.”
“I didn’t think of that,” says Goldstein. It’s shocking to me that I could make an error in logic. Test me again.”
The rabbi holds up two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“Each one washes his face.”
“Wrong. Neither one washes his face. Examine the simple logic. The one with the dirty face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The one with the clean face looks at the one with the dirty face and thinks his face is dirty. But when the one with the clean face sees the one with the dirty face doesn’t wash his face, he also doesn’t wash his face. So neither one washes his face.”
Goldstein is desperate. “I am qualified to study Talmud. Please give me one more test.”
He groans, though, when the rabbi lifts two fingers. “Two men come down a chimney. One comes out with a clean face, the other comes out with a dirty face. Which one washes his face?”
“Neither one washes his face.”
“Wrong. Do you now see, Sean, why Socratic logic is an insufficient basis for studying Talmud? Tell me, how is it possible for two men to come down the same chimney, and for one to come out with a clean face and the other with a dirty face? Don’t you see? The whole question is "narishkeit", foolishness, and if you spend your whole life trying to answer foolish questions, all your answers will be foolish, too.”
May we all have the wisdom to ask, and answer, the wise questions!
A video version, this one really f-ks with your mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKUYkeb92hkWARNING: AN OLD JEWISH JOKE WRITTEN BEFORE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!
These two Jewish men are sitting in a wonderful deli frequented almost exclusively by Jews in the Jewish section of town. They are talking among themselves in Yiddish. A Chinese waiter comes up and in fluent and impeccable Yiddish asks them if everything is okay, can he get them anything, and so forth. The Jewish men are dumbfounded. "Unbelievable, where did he learn such perfect Yiddish?" they both think. After they pay the bill they ask the manager of the store, an old friend also fluent in Yiddish, "Where did your waiter learn such fabulous Yiddish?" The owner looks around and leans in so no one will hear and says, "Shhhh. He thinks we're teaching him English."
