Every month in this space, Joseph Epstein relates a Jewish joke and invites you, the COMMENTARY reader,
to offer an exegesis in 250 words or less. First off, this month’s new joke.
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The Kaddish for Buster Joke
One rainy afternoon, Irving Spielglass enters the rabbi’s study and announces that he has a special request. When the rabbi asks what it is, Mr. Spielglass replies that he would like him to say Kaddish for his recently deceased dog Buster.
“Much as I would like to accommodate you, Mr. Spielglass,” says the rabbi, “I cannot. Jews do not say Kaddish over animals.”
“I don’t think you understand, Rabbi,” says Spielglass. “I have no family, no relatives, no one. I had only Buster, who was everything to me, and now he’s gone, and I don’t want him to depart without proper commemoration.”
“Again, Mr. Spielglass, apologies, but I cannot do it.”
“Look, Rabbi,” says Spielglass, “as a member of the synagogue board I happen to know your special fund for helping inner-city children is currently without funds. Accede to my wish here, and I shall be delighted to contribute $20,000 to it.”
The rabbi pauses in contemplation. “All right,” he says, “I’ll do it. But no one must know. We’ll meet tomorrow in the small chapel at 2:00 p.m. before the children arrive for cheder.”
The next day, at 2:00 p.m., sharp, the rabbi says Kaddish for Buster and speaks about the dog for fully 30 minutes. Mr. Spielglass, alone in the audience, listens intently, tears streaming down his face.
When the rabbi has finished, Spielglass, dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief, hands the rabbi his check for the inner-city fund.
“Rabbi,” says Spielglass in a choked-up voice, “I cannot thank you enough. What you said today meant everything to me. Until this afternoon, Rabbi, I had no idea how much Buster had done for Israel.”
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Now here’s the joke that ran in our May issue.
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The Tomahawk Joke
Not long after the Kishinev pogrom, in 1903, Bentze Birnbaum arranges to buy land in the New World. What he doesn’t know is that the land is in Saskatchewan, in the midst of a tribe of Ojibway Indians. Wishing to assimilate with their neighbors, Bentze and his wife, Sarah, acquire a tepee, wear buckskin, pad around in moccasins, Sarah carries their youngest child in a papoose, the works.
One gray day in November, Sarah says to Bentze that, with winter coming on, he had better go hunting to provide food for the family. So, ever the good husband, Bentze sets out to hunt up provender for Sarah and the children.
Two days later he returns, his scalp bloodied, his left ear hanging loose, claw marks all over his body.
“Nu,” asks his wife, “so what happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” says Bentze. “The first day out, I saw a rabbit, and I used up all my arrows trying to kill it, but with no good result. Farther out, I saw a pack of wolves, who, thanks God, didn’t see me.
“All very discouraging, but then, on my way back home, I notice what looks to me a gentle but very large grizzly bear, fast asleep. Ah, I think, steaks for the whole winter for Sarah and the kinder. I call out, ‘Hey, grizzly, darling.’ He wakes and sees me. He’s 50 or so yards away. He growls. Oy, I begin to think, maybe he’s not so gentle, this bear. He charges toward me. He’s now 40 yards away, now 30, now 20, now 10, when I reach into my belt and pull out—the milchik tomahawk.”
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The Winning Analysis of the Tomahawk Joke. . .
. . . comes from Nicholas Wolfson of Avon, Connecticut. He writes: To begin with, the joke appears on its surface to be an act of aggression against the Jewish requirement of keeping kosher. After all, if Bentze weren’t so rigidly bound by the laws of kashruth, he would not have idiotically put aside his milchik tomahawk as the grizzly bear struck. But is the joke really about the laws of kosher? We read that Bentze and his wife, Sarah, wishing to assimilate with their Indian neighbors, use a tepee and pad around in moccasins. And so, perhaps on a deeper level, this is a lesson on the terrible evils of Jewish assimilation and loss of religious and cultural roots. On the other hand, the joke may merely be an essay on the bumbling nature of Jewish husbands. Surely Sarah, if she went out to hunt, would have brought the proper tomahawk. Perhaps, out of the Tomahawk joke, we could in time spell out the entire drama and philosophy of being Jewish.
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For his exegesis, Mr. Wolfson will receive an inscribed copy of Joseph Epstein’s new book, The Love Song of A. Jerome Minkoff and Other Stories. The rest of you have until August 15 to send in your analysis of
“The Kaddish for Buster Joke” to: [email protected].
And as always, you should only enjoy.
