By Leo Rosten. Find the book.
For twenty years Mr. Sokoloff had been eating at the same restaurant on Second Avenue. On this night, as on every other, Mr. Sokoloff ordered chicken soup. The waiter set it down and started off. Mr. Sokoloff called, “Waiter!”
“Yeah?”
“Please taste the soup.”
The waiter said, “Hanh? Twenty years you’ve been eating the chicken soup here, no? Have you ever had a bad plate—”
“Waiter,” said Sokoloff firmly, “taste the soup.”
“Sokoloff, what’s the matter with you?”
“Taste the soup!”
“All right, all right,” grimaced the waiter. “I’ll taste—where’s the spoon?”
“Aha!” cried Sokoloff.
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 6
Waiter: Tea of coffee, gentlemen? 1st Customer: I’ll have tea. 2nd Customer: Me, too—and be sure the glass is clean!
[Waiter exits, returns]
Waiter: Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 9
A Texan, driving down the great flat desert near Beersheba, in Israel, spied a tiny but balbatish house in the distance, and he drove up and stopped and knocked on the door.
An old Jew came to the door. “Good morning.”
“My throat is so dry it’s on fire,” said the Texan. “I wonder if you would be good enough to give me a glass of water.”
“Certainly; come in, make yourself at home.” The Texan entered and drank the water and thanked his host, then said,
“Do you own this little house?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do way out here?”
“I raise chickens.”
“How large is your property?”
“Well,” said the Jew. “In front, it’s a good sixty feet—and in back, it must be a hundred, a hundred and ten, feet at least.” The Texan smiled. “Back home, on my ranch, I get up and get in my car around 9am and I start to drive, and I drive and drive and drive—and I don’t reach the end of my property until six o’clock that night!”
“Tchk!” sighed the Jew. “I once owned a car like that.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 28–29
A king, visiting a prision, began to interview the inmates. Prisoner after prisoner insisted that he was innocent, that he had been gramed, that a terrible injustice had been done.
The kind asked the last prisoner, “And are you, too, as innocent as a lamb?”
“No, Your Majesty. I’m a thief. I was caught, fairly tried, sentenced.”
“You admit you’re a thief?” asked the king in surprise.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The king said, “Throw this crook out of here!”
The thief was promptly ejected.
The other prisoners raised a fearful clamor. “Your Majesty, how can you do such a thing? How can you free a confessed criminal while we—”
“I was afraid,” the king smiled, “that that wicked scoundrel would corrupt all you innocent souls.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 75
An official broght the chief rabbi of a town before the Court of the
Inquisition and told him, “We will leave the fate of your people to
God. I’m putting two slips of paper in this box. On one is written
Guilty.' On the other is written Innocent.’ Draw.”
Now the inquisitor was known to seek the slaughter of all the Jews, and he had written “Guilty” on both pieces of paper.
The rabbi put his hand inside the box, withdrew a slip of paper—and swallowed it.
“What are you doing?” cried the inquisitor. “How will the court know—”
“That’s simple,” said the rabbi. “Examine the slip that’s in the
box. If it reads Innocent,' then the paper I swallowed obviously must have been Guilty.’ But if the paper in the box reads Guilty,' then the one I swallowed must have read Innocent.’ ”
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 109
Mr. Rubin, who had just returned from his first trip to Europe, was regaling his friends with stories.
“And did you get to Rome?” one asked him.
“Naturally! Who doesn’t go to Rome?”
“How did you like the Colosseum?”
Mr. Rubin made a regal gesture. “Very nice—if you like modern.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 117
“My father was so mad yesterday,” said little Morris, “that five separate times he wanted to give me a frosk.”
“How do you know it was exactly five times?”
“Because I counted.”
“What did you count?”
“The number of times he hit me.”
“I though you said he wanted to hit you.”
“I did. Would he have hit me if he hadn’t wanted to?’
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 121
The famous Duvner maggid, a gaon, was asked by an admiring student: “How is it that you always have the perfect parable for the topic under discussion?”
The gaon smiled. “I’ll answer with a parable.” And he told the following story:
A lieutenant of the Tsar’s cavalry, riding through a small shtetl, drew his horse up in astonishment, for on the side of a barn he saw a hundred chalked circles—and in the center of each was a bullet hole! The lieutenant excitedly stopped the first passerby, crying, “Who is the astonishing marksman in this place? Look at all those bull’s-eyes!”
The passerby sighed. “That’s Shepsel, the shoemaker’s son, who is a little peculiar.”
“I don’t care what he is,” said the lieutenant. “Any man who can shoot that well—”
“Ah,” the pedestrian said, “you don’t understand. You see, first Shepsel shoots—then he draws the circle.”
The gaon smiled. “That’s the way it is with me. I don’t search for a parable to fit the subject. I introduce the subject for which I have a perfect parable.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 126
Little Benny was watching his mother bake cookies. He stood there for a long time, then said, “Mamma, why don’t you ask me something?”
“What should I ask you, in mitske derinnen?”
“You could ask me, `You want a cookie, Benny?’ ”
— The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 158–9
To Mr. Meyers, in the hospital, came Mr. Glotz, secretary of the synagogue, who said: “I bring you the good wishes of our Board of Trustees, that you should get well and live to be a hundred and ten years old! That’s the official resolution, passed by a vote of 14 to 7!”
— The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 186–7
Glickman came to a rabbi to confess his sins, but he was so shame-stricked that he said, “I’m not here for myself, rabbi, but—for a friend.”
“What sins did he commit?”
“Oh, my friend often takes the name of the Lord in vain; and he has cast envying eyes on his neighbor’s wife; and he—”
“Stop,” sighed the rabbi. “Your friend is foolish: Why did he not come here himself? He could have told me that he had come for a friend, and saved you this embarassment.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 309–8
In the Talmud (Tractate of Sanhedrin, Chapter 4) the question is raised: “Why did God create only one Adam? Why did he not create an entire race?”
The discussion reaches several conclusions:
(1) God created only one Adam because He wanted to show men that any one man is an entire world. Therefore, whoever kills one man is as guilty as if he had killed all men. And whoever saves one man’s life is as noble as if he had saved all men’s lives.
(2) God created only one Adam to prevent men from feeling superior to one another, or boasting of their ancestry. For if God had created many Adams, you may be sure some men would say, “My Adam was more distinguished than yours.”
(3) God thought that if He created more than one Adam, pagans ould think there was more than one God. So God created only one man to prove His unity.
(4) And God wanted to show men the beauty of diversity, for even though all men come from one Adam, no two men are ever exactly alike. Therefore, every man must respect his uniqueness and his integrity; and every man must, in effect, say: “The Lord created the world in me and for me; let me not impair my immortality for some trifling reason or foolish passion.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 397–8
“Our tzaddik prayed that the rich should give more to the poor—and already God has answered half the prayer: the poor have agreed to accept.”
— The Joys of Yiddish, p. 420