The Blogs: Sermons of Rebuke: Mishpatim Excerpts

Shabbat Shalom

You shall take responsibility. That sounds like a good idea. Mark Feinerman lost his house in an investment he heard was the greatest of all time…So who lost the money? Was it Mark? Was it his children he hasn’t stopped yelling at? Was it the bookie?

(22:13) You borrow from somebody and the thing gets broken or the animal dies, you have to pay for it…

Who borrowed my goldfish? The thing died right away. Did I see the money? No. Because Mark was borrowing it for good luck, and it did not work for him…

You take a siddur from the shule and it gets lost, you pay for that. That is not even borrowing. Your dues does not allow you to take stuff out of the shule…We noticed that some of the tables from the social hall are missing. If the Goldfines can please bring back their fold-up dining room table…It is the shule’s Barry. It says Beis Tikveh on it…The shule has changed its name since…

There is no hope for normal congregants, so we changed it…

And you can’t take advantage of people. Don’t make them feel bad. (22:20-22) You don’t oppress the stranger, because you were strangers in Egypt. You don’t cause pain to orphans and widows…You take advantage of people who you think are ‘lesser’ than you. And that is why the shule sweatshop has got to stop. It has been a good use of the social hall during the week. And it has been a great fundraiser…We understand that the Bingo crowd stopped coming when the city made us ban smoking. And yes, that also hurt our Shabbat attendance…The members that were smocking in the back were the ones paying the dues Bernie…Yes it was Shabbis Bernie. But that was all part of our Kiruv program. And they were becoming more religious. Bernie. One of them cut down his Shabbis smoking to only four cigarettes, and no weed…

Another announcement. Please stop passing around the snuff during the sermons.

(23:4) Even if you hate somebody, you bring back their donkey…You help them with their load as well…

The principle comes before your selfish feelings. You return the siddur. You help the youth in the sweatshop. Join them in the putting out the Tallaysim faster. You help out when there is a shule event. You don’t take advantage of the poor, unless they are idiots like Mark, who puts half his salary down on a goldfish race, with a goldlfish that died in the middle of the race. You pay your debts. And you pay your dues…If somebody can please go to the Goldfines, to help him bring the table back to the shule. And the chairs too. Mr. Schwartz did not have a chair this past Yom Kippur. Yes Bernie. I saw it in your house. Schwartz was written on the chair.

***These are excerpts from the sermon. For the sermon in its entirety, come see David Kilimnick perform at the Off The Wall Comedy Basement, in downtown Jerusalem.
David also tours as a Maggid with very few stories, if you invite him.
Shabbat Shalom