It’s Easy Being a Rabbi
by Zalman Velvel
Good evening, everyone. We’re here tonight, at this very expensive dinner, to honor Rabbi Minkowicz and his wife, our Rebbetzin Nechamie.
And I’m wondering, are we running out of guest speakers and people to honor?
I mean, it’s easy being a Rabbi. You go to Rabbinical School, get hired by a synagogue, and then you make a good living. Bar mitzvahs and weddings, they’re bonus money. It’s a cushy job.
You’re your own boss, make your own schedule. Some days you work maybe an hour. Some days, ah, you don’t work at all and go fishing. Who’s watching? And every Shabbos is a holiday. When you’re a Rabbi you get over a hundred paid holidays a year. It’s a cushy, cushy life. Have Tfillin Make A Million, that’s the Rabbinical slogan.
I used to believe that … up until Rabbi Minkowicz and I became friends. We have been friends for almost ten years. Now we’re such good friends, I can’t get him on the phone. When we’re supposed to meet, he cancels at the last minute. Why? Because you people are always calling him.
When someone in your family is in the hospital – you call him, he comes running, and he cancels his meeting with me, his friend.
When one of you are having problems – with your children, your marriage, your life, you call him, he comes running. Me, I get, "Hi! You’ve reached the voicemail of Rabbi Minkowicz. Leave you name and …"
When someone close to you dies … now he calls me. Then we both come running, twice a day for seven days to the shiva minyon.
And when someone needs money – he finds someone else to come running … because he doesn’t have any money. This expensive dinner only helps him catch up to money already spent. Next week, he’ll be back out asking for donations for Chabad programs.
For ten years, I have been his friend, and still he continues to astonish me with the miracles he brings about. God is even writing a sequel to the Torah about him. It’s called the Five Books of Itchy. When you open to the book of Numbers, you will find that he brought the following miracles to SW Florida :
Ten men to a daily minyon
Fifty people to a Succah
100 people to a Purim Party
200 people to a Passover Seder
and 10,000 people to a Chanukah celebration!
Okay, 9,000 were doing Xmas Shopping at the Bell Tower Mall, but 1,000 were definitely celebrating Chanukah with donuts and diet coke.
So, after 10 years of watching him, I have 1st hand knowledge of what it’s really like being a Rabbi. And it’s just like I said in the beginning – it’s easy.
You just have to give up most of your waking hours, think only about other people, and perform an occasional miracle.
To be a Rebbetzin is also easy – you just have to be lucky enough to marry someone like that, and raise five young children at the same time.
Now please join me in honoring Rabbi Itchy, and Nechamie, for ten years of giving up most of their waking hours, thinking only about other people, and performing occasional miracles. Bezrat Hashem, they will share with us a 100 more years of their cushy, cushy lives.
THE END
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Copyright 2003 by SSS Publishing.
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