Stuff Rabbis Say - Quotations From the Pulpit, the Classroom, and the Kiddush Room

Everyone who attends synagogue has encounters with the rabbi, both formal and informal. Rabbis give sermons, treach classes, preside at life cycle events, make small talk with congregants after services, and also socialize with members. Every encounter is unique, but patterns inevitably emerge, Expressions will  be repeated, and sometimes rabbis are pressed to remember personal details about their members that are not at the tip of their tongues, like the names of all of a bar mitzvah's aunts and uncles.

Most rabbis also have a sense of humor that really comes out when they go on retreats with their fellow rabbis. The most common rabbinic expressions were turned into a funny video that was made at the  CLAL Rabbis Without Borders Alumni Retreat Center in late February, led by Michigan Rabbi Jason Miller, who also has credentials as a stand-up comedian. What follows is a succession of 16 rabbis voicing one-liners and partial liners representing things that the rabbis find themselves saying repeatedly, or at least what they think they say.

The video features Rabbi Jason Miller, Rabbi Michael Ross, Rabbi Rachel Kobrin, Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman, Rabbi Michael Bernstein, Rabbi Hillel Norry, Rabbi Tsafi Lev, Rabbi Rachel Brown, Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, Rabbi Tamara Miller, Rabbi Rebecca Ben-Gideon, Rabbi Amy Small, Rabbi Alana Suskin, Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz, Rabbi Heidi Hoover, and Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu. 

It was written by Rabbi Jason Miller, Rabbi Rachel Kobrin, Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman, Rabbi Michael Bernstein, and Rabbi Heidi Hoover, and edited by Rabbi Jason Miller.

If you're in synagogue this Shabbat, see if you can catch some of these phrases and expressions in any encounters you have with your rabbi. Shabbat Shalom.

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)