Gabbai humor

[rhu]

This morning at shul, I had the Levi aliyah. After I was called up, the gabbai started reading the mi sheberach for the kohen, but his eyes had alighted on the wrong paragraph and he continued "sheyaalah lehagbahat hatorah" --- he caught himself and started over, but meanwhile the korei muttered sotto voce: "shenolad bemazal tov", which caused all of us on the bimah to lose it.

Comments

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

This sounds like the sort of incident I would be very amused by if I could understand it at all.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I debated explaining, but figured by the time I was done the humor would be gone. But here goes:

The Torah reading on Shabbat is divided into seven aliyot, each of which is given to a different person. The first one is reserved for a kohen, the second for a levi, the remainder for those who are neither a kohen nor a levi. I am a levi. (So far, so good.)

After each aliyah, the next oleh (person given an aliyah) is summoned by the gabbai, and then the gabbai recites a paragraph, known as "mi sheberach", asking God to send blessings to the person who just had an aliyah, "because he has given honor to the Torah and to the Sabbath."

There are other "mi sheberach" texts for other situations. When the Torah reading is completed, someone is called up to raise the scroll for all to see --- and his mi sheberach is "because he has come to raise the Torah". The gabbai's mistake was using this second mi sheberach instead of the one for the oleh.

The third "mi sheberach", which was the joke, is the one said over a newborn baby when the parents bring it to synagogue for the first time. "... who was born at a propitious time ..."

See, really funny in the moment, and loses something in the translation.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

Mad Libs after 4 White Russians.