Welcome to the sixty-ninth Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was selected by Tom of the Footnote Podcast, and it was: Yeshiva.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
SOMETHING NEW
Due to popular demand, I am going to include stories that were sent to me, but without a recording. However, since the midget has left for sunny Coral Gables, Florida, those stories will just be posted in the show notes. You’re more than welcome to vote for them, but they will be ineligible for prizes or topic selection.
I feel that this is a fair balance between the podcast and blog natures of this content.
Feel free to share your thoughts on this decision in the comments, and we might possibly come up with an even better and more fair policy for handling these kinds of situations.
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
WE GOTS PRIZES:
I will be sending the winner a prize… it’s refrigerator magnets for the podcast. Massive amounts of fridge magnets were mailed out in the past week… watch your mail, and let me know if I’ve missed you.
It is your voting that determines who wins. So listen, vote, and tune in next week to find out who won!
CALEB
The Hindu God, Shiva
Went to the Yeshiva
To see what these Jewish dudes do
But he found that the torah
Is kind of a bore
And the baghavad gita is really much sweeter
Then came young Siddartha
Who spoke from the heart and
Said you are all just an illusion
From Hindus to Jews
You play and you loose
And create such a raucous confusion
Jesus and Allah
They fought in some wars
While the Taoists just planted a garden
But the Truth lies you see
Down in the valley
Twixt the rounded hills of Dolly Parton
Shes Big!
ELISSON
Yossel Yourish was one of the brightest minds in the yeshiva.
He was pondering an extremely scholarly matter, one that had been propounded to him by Professor Propis.
He spent days consulting various Learned Texts. The Shulchan Orekh, the Babylonian Talmud, the Torah commentaries of Rashi and the great Rambam: Maimonides himself. Despite all this, he struggled to find an answer.
The question: Was it permissible for a female student to use a bladed instrument to remove superfluous hair from her intimate personal region?
Of course not, decided Yossel at last. You could never shave a beaver at the yeshiva!
TOM
Little Timmy Martin’s parents were at wits end. The contrary child had chewed through every educational environment within a 200 mile radius. Montessori Military school, Court school, Catholic, Lutheran, Muslim.
The Martin’s had one option left Yeshiva. Surprisingly Timmy took to Talmud and Torah like a terrier with a towel in its teeth. His treatise on Cooking Milk in a Meat Pot was the Kobayashi Maru of Halakhah. Professor Zvi Sobolofsky asked Timmy if he might consider a Rabbinical career. And this is how it came to past that Temple Beth Bart Simpson is lead in pray by Rabbi Timmy.
GUY
Yantzel, Yantzel, Yantzel, what are we going to do with you?
You know, there’s a reason this is called a Yeshiva, you see… the word Yeshiva means sitting down… on your ass. You sit and study on the Torah. Quietly. You don’t go around flying paper airplanes on your Yeshiva mates, you don’t go around putting fake plastic members of the reptilian family on the floor and shout “the dinosaurs, they are coming alive”, You don’t put ice in my pants, you don’t go around handing notes to your fellow Yeshiva friends and you certainly don’t play with your yak.
JD WHITE
The muzzle of the steel blue .45 left a small round indention above my temple.
The blackness in my brain was clearing and my eyes again could focus on the stained, gray tile of the bathroom floor.
Blood trickled to the tile as the lump on the back of my head throbbed with each beat of my heart.
At least my heart was still beating, for now.
To my ears came the heavy click of the gun’s hammer, and that gave the answer to my unasked question.
I had come to the yeshiva to learn, and they were teaching me.
LAIEANNA
“See anything yet?”
“No.”
“I’m starving. We have to find something soon.”
“Well if you weren’t so scared to stop and ask, someone might be able to help.”
“I’m not scared! In fact, I’ll ask that guy right there. Excuse me sir, where’s a good place to eat around here?”
“There’s a lovely restaurant three blocks down. See Yeshiva? Just around the corner.”
“Thanks.”
“Did he just call me She-Ra? What was that about?”
“Probably a compliment. Relax.”
“I’m not even blonde!”
“Did you see his cool hat? Wonder if I can get one of those before we leave town.”
CHRIS
Hello Clarice, me again.
I heard you just got digital cable. Tell me, did you consider switching to satellite? Satellite providers offer many programming packages at prices much cheaper than cable. Or did you stay with cable because that was what you’ve always had, what you’re comfortable with, to afraid to consider change? We both know the answer to that one.
I hope you at least sprung for the DVR upgrade. The History Channel is running a documentary on Yeshiva at the same time as America’s Got Talent. You won’t be able to watch both.
Well, gotta run. Ta ta.
ZIGMUD Z. ZOROWSKI
It is my first day in yeshiva.
I come from a long line of Torah scholars of decreasing expertise, and the teachers wonder if I will continue that downward spiral into duncehood.
Sure enough, upon first interpretation, I’m chanting random nonsense that has the whole class laughing and accusing me of blasphemy.
The rabbi stomps to my desk, peers at my family’s cherished and valuable scroll, and gasps with horror.
Through the generations, tiny pinpricks of mold have grown in the writing, adding vowel-dots in random places.
The Pentateuch’s graceful and sagely wisdom, rendered into meaningless, illiterate Hebrew babble.
OTHER CRAP:
Lincoln Freak thinks Caleb’s Lincoln stories are better than mine. Heh. Indeed.
SL Woodstock begins in 6 days. Wow.
Carnal Knowledge is a book by one of my favorite daily podcasters, Charles Hodgson. I owe this podcast’s continues survival to his inspiration, since I often come up with my stories around the words he reviews and tales he spins about their odd origins.
There’s some kind of write-a-review podcast contest out there at Podcast Pickle going on.
Write reviews, win prizes. That sort of thing.
There’s also a way to write reviews for this podcast in iTunes and other directories.
Your Mostly Fearless Leader doesn’t command you to do so, but he is somewhat whinily cajoling and imploring you to do so.
Let a tiny slice of the world know how much you like or don’t like or could care less about this not-quite-so-bold endeavor.
Thank you.