Jewish Jokes for Parshas Bamidbar

THANK GAD

The primary focus of this week’s Torah portion is a census of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob had twelve sons and they each had millions of descendants, each forming their own shevet, or tribe. Thus, for example, Judah (Yehudah) and Gad, both of whom were Jacob’s sons, were the patriarchs of the tribes of Judah and Gad respectively. I would like to focus on the names of these two tribes.

The Talmud tells us that the Jewish people are collectively referred to as Yehudim (literally, from Yehudah/Judah). The reason for this is that the root of the word Yehudi means gratitude, and gratitude (especially to G-d) is the hallmark of the Jewish people. The fascinating thing is that even today our people are called Jews, a shortened version of the word Judah!

On the subject of thanks, I would like to share with all my readers something that has been bothering me for a long time. When someone offers someone else a favor that he doesn’t want, the typical answer will not be, “no.” The typical answer will be, “No, thank you.”

To illustrate: I’m in South Africa, stopping for two people waiting for a ride at a popular hitchhiking spot. I roll down my window and ask hitchhiker 1, “I am driving to Mozambique. Would you like a ride?”
Hitchhiker 1 replies, “No thank you.” My question is where “thank you” comes into this conversation. This was a yes or no question!
Then the second hitchhiker says, “I am not going to Mozambique but I have to go to Madagascar. It is just 743 miles (and over a sea) out of the way. Would you be able to drop me off on the way?”
I answered, “No, I cannot take you to Madagascar, but I could drop you off in Swaziland if you want. It’s on the way.”
Now, why did I not say, “No, thank you, I cannot take you to Madagascar”? Doesn’t “no” always go together with “thank you”?

By now, anyone who is reading this article is convinced that I am crazy. That brings us to the tribe of Gad. Many crazy people are convinced that they are GAD. Others are sane enough to admit that they are not GAD (or God) but they are convinced that they are the Messiah.

There were once two people together in a psychiatric hospital. The first guy believed that he was the Messiah and the second believed he was the Messiah’s student. This caused the doctor a lot of grief. He was trying to heal these delusional people but they were showing no signs of progress. He had already given up on the guy who claimed to be the Messiah but was still trying to heal the Messiah’s student. In order to accomplish this, he would spend several hours a day in special therapy, trying to convince the “student” that his “teacher” was not the Messiah. This went on for months and months but nothing changed. One day, the doctor was in middle of his therapy and suddenly, the patient yelled out, “Doc! I have had enough of this garbage. My teacher is just crazy! He’s convinced that he’s the Messiah. There is no way in the world that the’s the Messiah!”

The doctor was thrilled! This guy was finally getting better! With great joy, he asked the student, “How do you know that your teacher is not the Messiah?”

The student answered, “Because I am God and I decided who is who!!”

By Yankel Moskovitz

Please follow us and share: