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A young woman teacher explains to her class of children that she is an atheist. She asks her class if they are atheists too. Not really knowing what atheism is but wanting to be like their teacher, their hands explode into the air like fleshy fireworks.
There is, however, one exception. A girl named Sara has not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different.
"Because I am not an atheist."
"Then," asks the teacher, "what are you?"
"I am Jewish." The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face slightly red. She asks Sara why she is Jewish.
"Well, I was brought up knowing and loving God. My Mom is Jewish, and my dad is Jewish, so I am Jewish."
The teacher is now angry. "That is no reason," she says loudly. "What if your Mom was a moron, and your dad was a moron. What would you be then?"
A pause, and a smile. "Then," says Sara, "I would be an atheist."
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Moishe, a Jewish actor, is so down and out he's ready to take any acting gig that he can find. Finally he gets a lead, a classified ad that says:
"Actor needed to play ape." "I could do that," says Moishe.
To his surprise, the employer turns out to be the local zoo. Owing to mismanagement, the zoo has spent so much money renovating the grounds and improving the habitat that they can no longer afford to import the ape they needed to replace their recently deceased one. So until they can, they'll put an actor in an ape suit.
Out of desperation, Moishe takes the offer. At first, his conscience keeps nagging him that he is being dishonest by fooling the zoo-goers. And Moishe feels undignified in the ape-suit, stared at by crowds who watch his every move. But after a few days on the job he begins to be amused by all the attention and starts to put on a show for the zoo-goers: hanging upside-down from the branches by his legs,
swinging about on the vines, climbing up the cage walls, and roaring with all his might whilst beating his chest. Soon, he's drawing a sizable crowd.
One day, when Moishe is swinging on the vines to show off to a group of school kids his hands slips and he goes flying over the fence into the neighboring cage, the lion's den.
Terrified Moishe backs up as far from the approaching lion as he can,covers his eyes with his paws and prays at the top of his lungs, "Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad!"
The lion opens its powerful jaws and roars, "Baruch Shem K'vod Malchuto L'olam Va'ed!"
From a nearby cage, a panda yells, "Shut up, you shlemiels. You'll get us all fired!!!"
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YESHIVESH LANGUAGE
There are four ikar ta'amim why the yeshivishe oilam speaks davka Yeshivish.
The ershte ta'am is altz specificity. Lemushel, the sentence "He grahde went to the store" doesn't have the zelba mashma'us as "He actually went to the store." There is a lomdishe pshat, too, dehainu that be'etzem the yeshivishe velt would prefer to speak Yiddish like the amolike doiros, but vibalt not all of the haintige oilam knows Yiddish, as a shvache substitute they shtupped a few Yiddish words into English and shtelled it avek as a bazundere language.
For asach guys, however, the ta'am is more poshut. Rov Yeshivishe bochrim try to be shtikky, and to have your eigene language that the rest of the velt doesn't chap is a rietzige shtik. Ubber the emese ta'am is gantz anderesh. If the oilam had to speak a normahle English, they would be mechuyav to speak it ke'debui, with all the richtige dikduk. Mimeila, vibalt the oilam doesn't know English properly, they shaffed a naiyer language so they could speak uhn proper grammar and taina that it's a chelek of the new shprach.
Zot Chanukah
4 months ago
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