A rabbi, a priest and a Baptist minister are talking about who is the best at what they do. Is it the priest, the minister or the rabbi? So, they decide to separately go into the woods and convert a bear. Whoever is the best at converting a bear is the best at what they do. So, a week later they meet and they ask the priest: “How did it go?” and he says: “It was fantastic! I read to him from the Bible, and Sunday morning he was in the front row of the church.” Then they say to the minister: “How did it go for you?” The minister says, “Fantastic! I found the bear in the woods, I gave him one of my sermons, I took him down to the lake and baptized him and Sunday morning he was in the front row of my church!” Then they look at the rabbi and he’s in a body cast from head to toe. So they say, “What happened to you?” He goes, “Well, I shouldn’t have started with circumcision.”
Picture this person in a full body cast.That’s funny in itself. He’s a poor schlep. And then you find out why. A joke is not a joke without a surprise ending.
I see this joke as saying Jews are willing to keep Judaism alive at all costs. For Jews, it’s not just about the words, it’s not just about speaking, it’s about physical action too. Our mitzvahs, for instance. You have to do things: help people, cook for a sick person and don’t forget circumcision!
This is not only a joke, it’s really a short story. Jews don’t just tell jokes. Like Sholem Aleichem or Isaac Bashevis Singer, we are storytellers. As we do with our history and the Oral Law, we pass our stories down through the generations.
Mark Schiff, a stand-up comedian, actor and writer, has had HBO and Showtime specials, appeared onMad About You and written for Roseanne.
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