His company was such a hit that the President of the United States called Bernie into his office. "Bernie," the president said, "the President of Israel wants to commission your company to build an advanced jet fighter for his country. You have our approval--go out and design him the best jet fighter ever made." Needless to say, Bernie was tremendously excited at this prospect. The entire resources of his company went into building the most advanced jet fighter in history. Everything looked terrific on paper, but when they held the first test flight of the new jet, disaster struck. The wings couldn't take the strain--they broke clean off of the fuselage! (The test pilot parachuted to safety, thank G-d.) Bernie was devastated; his company redesigned the jet fighter, but the same thing happened at the next test flight--the wings broke off again.

Beside himself with worry, Bernie went to his schul to pray, to ask G-d where he had gone wrong. The rabbi saw Bernie's sadness, and naturally asked him what the matter was. Bernie decided to pour his heart out to the rabbi.  After hearing the problem with the jet fighter, the rabbi put his arm on Bernie's shoulder and told him, "Listen, I know how to solve your problem. All you have to do is drill a row of holes directly above and below where the wing meets the fuselage. If you do this, I absolutely guarantee the wings won't fall off." Bernie just smiled and thanked the rabbi for his advice...but the more he thought about it, the more he realized he had nothing to lose. Maybe the rabbi had some holy insight. So Bernie did exactly what the rabbi told him to do. On the next design of the jet fighter, they drilled a row of holes directly above and below where the wings met the fuselage. And--it worked!! The next test flight went perfectly!

Brimming with joy, Bernie went to the Schul to tell the rabbi that his advice had worked. "Naturally," said the rabbi, "I never doubted it would."  "But Rabbi, how did you know that drilling the holes would prevent the wings from falling off?"

"Bernie," the rabbi intoned, "I'm an old man. I've lived for many, many years and I've celebrated Passover many, many times. And in all those years, not once--NOT ONCE--has the matzah broken on the perforation!"

Make a pyramid with four sides of perfectly symmetrical homentaschen, he said, and you've really got something. Nu, Pharaoh, y'makh shmoy v'zikhroy, decided to experiment with the grand homentasch design and what did he do? No sooner did he have the secret of the homentasch firmly under his belt--it should only have stuck in his craw--than he promptly forgot Joseph and turned on his people, enslaving them and forcing them to build his great four-sided homentaschen, which stand proudly to this day.

Every schoolchild learns the Pythagorean theorem. I wouldn't, kholileh, want to take away from Pythagoras or the Greeks any of the glory they used to have. But we have always believed that the ethical thing to do is to give credit where credit is due. The fact is--I'm not making this up--that Pythagoras studied at the yeshiva of Beys Hillel. Moreover, I have it on good authority that when he was a boy, his father, realizing that he was not getting such a good education from the wandering sophists, who even then were serving as private tutors, since very few of the Greek cities had public schools, decided that a good day school education was what he wanted for his son. There was no better school in those days than the local Hillel Day School.

Since Mr. Pythagoras was a widower, nebekh, he sent the boy to live at the yeshiva. Pythagoras Jr. was a pretty good student, according to fragments of records that were destroyed in the great fire at the Alexandrian library, though he was often guilty of bittul toyreh, since he liked to strum on his harp and dream up theories about musical instruments. But I digress from my story. He used to take his meals at the homes of Mrs. Shapiro, Mrs. Goldberg, Mrs. Melnick, and other kindly Jewish ladies in the neighborhood. Essen teg they called it in those days. Nu, came Purim, and naturally Mrs. Shapiro gave her young guest a few homentaschen.

He inquired of his rebbe the next day about this remarkable delicacy, and the rebbe took him aside (for the arcane secrets of kabbalah are not revealed in public), opened the holy sforim that deal with the homentasch and its great powers, and started the lad on his way to greatness. What is called the Pythagorean theorem is in fact nothing more than a simple formula for squeezing the greatest number of homentaschen onto a single baking pan, which every Jewish housewife had been taught by her bobbeh.

But listen! The kid made a fortune selling pamphlets about the right-angled homentasch and became one of the yeshiva's biggest supporters, serving on the board for many years. You have to have to give him credit, he really knew how to market an idea, and no one had a copyright on it anyway. Incidentally, it was Mrs. Melnick's cholent that Pythagoras ate every Shabbos that convinced him that beans have such serious side effects that he declared them non-kosher when he founded his own yeshiva years later.

If you want to know why the dollar is still the strongest currency in the world, just check it out carefully. On the back side of the greenback you will find the homentasch. When Jefferson designed the great seal of the United States, believe me, he knew what he was doing. There's the four-sided homentasch that the Egyptians learned was the most powerful door to eternity; and above it, winking its eye, is the divine homentasch itself. As long as that homentasch is on the dollar, we're in good shape. By the way, the early geniuses of finance knew precisely what they were doing when they settled on Wall Street as the site of their business, locating it in Tribeca, a homentasch-shaped section of Manhattan, and therefore naturally the most powerful financial district in the world.

When our government needed a powerful, fast, invisible fighter plane, to whom did it turn? To none other than the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zikhrono livrokho, who was not only a great talmid khokhom, but also an engineer who graduated from the Sorbonne. "No problem," said the Rebbe. "You should have asked sooner." And he prepared blueprints of a fighter jet built in the shape of a homentasch. A few little adjustments here and there, and we had the Phantom Jet, which they call "delta wing" because for them, homentasch is a mouthful. Nu, kinderlakh, may we all have a joyous Purim as we spin our dreydlekh, shake our lulavs, hear the shofar, enjoy a latke or two, have a little schnapps . .
. (hic!) Burton (Berel) Leiser

Please hold on while I transfer your call... Hello.  You have reached the Orthodox rabbi.  The answer to your question is that it is forbidden by the Torah.  If you wish to change your affiliation, press 18. (DING) Hello:  You have reached the Conservative rabbi.  The answer to your question is that we have ruled that either answer is acceptable to some of us and neither answer is acceptable to all of us.  We hope this has
been helpful.  If you wish to change your affiliation, press 18. (DING) Hello.  You have reached the Reform rabbi.  The answer to your question is: if you want to, sure, why not?  Who are we to say?  If you wish to change your affiliation, press 18. (DING) Hello.  You have reached the Reconstructionis rabbi.  The answer to your question presumes there is an answer to your question.  However, my role is to empower you to answer your own question.  To answer your own question, please hang up now. (CLICK) 2.  Hello.  You have reached heaven.  All of our angels are currently busy.  If you know your party's extension, please enter it now.  Please press 0 for an employee directory. Thank you for pressing 0 for the employee directory.  If you know the first three letters of the deity you are calling, please enter them now...(click, click, click).  We're sorry, you have entered a non-working name.  Please try again (click, click, click). We're sorry; our system cannot accept G-O-D; please try G-D. (cl-ck, cl-ck, cl-ck). Hello, this is G-D, I am either away from my desk, or temporarily out of heaven.  Your call is important to Me, so at the sound of the harp, please leave your message; I already know your name and number. 3.  Hello. You have reached the offices of the Israeli government. Congratulations on having a telephone.  If you are calling for Likud, press 1-9-7-7; if you are calling for Labor, press 1-9-9-3; if you are calling for one of the religious parties, please remember that they do not answer the phone on the Jewish Sabbath.  If you are in favor of territorial compromise, press 1-9-6-7; if you are in favor of retaining all of the territories, press 1000 B-C-E; if you wish to speak to a civil servant, don't get your hopes up.

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There were only two survivors: the boat's owner Dr. Eskin and its steward Benny.  Both managed to swim to the closest island.  After reaching the deserted strip of land, the steward was crying and very upset that they would never be found. The other man was quite calm, relaxing against a tree. "Dr. Eskin, Dr. Eskin, how can you be so calm?" cried the Benny.
"We're going to die on this lonely island. We'll never be discovered here." "Sit down and listen to what I have to say, Benny," began the confident Dr. Eskin. "Five years ago I gave the United Way $500,000 and another $500,000 to the United Jewish Appeal.  I donated the same amounts four years ago.  And, three years ago, since I did very well in the stock market, I contributed $750,000 to each.  Last year business was good again, so the two charities each got a million dollars." "So what?" shouted Benny.

"Well, it's time for their annual fund drives.  They'll find me," smiled Dr. Eskin.

 The scandal was begun when a 21 year old woman, known only as Mary,  claimed that she had given birth to God's "only son" last week in a barn  in the hamlet of Bethlehem. Sources close to Mary claim that she "had  loved God for a long time," that she was constantly talking about her  relationship with God, and that she was "thrilled to have had his child."  In a press conference this morning, God issued a vehement denial, saying  that "No sexual relationship existed," and that "the facts of this story  will come out in time, verily."  Independent counsel Kenneth Beelzubub immediately filed a brief with the  Justice Department to expand his investigation to cover questions of  whether any commandments may have been broken, and whether God had  illegally funneled laundered money to his illegitimate child through three  foreign operatives known only as the "Wise Men." Beelzubub has issued  subpoenas to several angels who are rumored to have acted as go-betweens  in the affair.

 Critics have pointed out that these allegations have little to do with the  charges that Beelzubub was originally appointed to investigate, that God  had created large-scale flooding in order to cover up evidence of a failed  land deal. In recent months, Beelzubub's investigation has already been  expanded to cover questions surrounding the large number of locusts that  plagued God's political opponents in the last election, as well as to  claims that the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gommorah was to  divert attention away from a scandal involving whether the giveaway of a  parcel of public land in Promised County to a Jewish special interest  group was quid pro quo for political contributions.   If these allegations prove to be true, then this could be a huge blow to  God's career, much of which has been spent crusading for stricter moral  standards and harsher punishments for wrongdoers. Indeed, God recently  outlined a "tough-on-crime" plan consisting of a series of 10  "Commandments," which has been introduced in Congress in a bill by Rep.  Moses. Critics of the bill have pointed out that it lacks any provisions  for the rehabilitation of criminals, and lawyers for the ACLU are planning  to fight the "Name in Vain" Commandment as being an unconstitutional  restriction on free speech.