Purim Shpiels in My Shul That Offended People

by David Kilimnick

It turns out that people sometimes do get mad when you make fun of them. Even when you make fun of them on Purim. Which makes the fun of making fun of them more fun. I thought that talking about the fact that the Pintzkowitz family didn't pay dues would get a big laugh. It got a big laugh and a very angry family, who didn't pay their dues.
My shul was successful at offending people this year. Brilliant Shpiel. Here are some of the Shpiels they did. Maybe you can adapt them to your congregation next year, and make some of your membership cry too.
 
Trying to Get the Minyin
The Shpiel started with going to different places to find people to join the Minyin. It was cute. They went to the JCC, the laundromat, the nursery school. At the nursery school, the kids say, "My dad doesn't go to Minyin." It was perfect. The honesty of the young ones calling their parents heretics was perfect.
Our members are everywhere except Minyin. At the JCC we see one of our members in the sauna, telling the Minyin gatherers that he's meditating in preparation for Minyin that already passed. Then they brought the Minyin to the golf course, where we see five of the members on the twelfth hole, talking about how they're working on themselves spiritually. They pray after each of them scores worse than a double bogey.
We see Shmuli saying that he can’t make it to Minyin because he has prior commitments. They show up to Shmuli’s home and pull him away from his TV. His prior commitment was HGTV's show about millionaires buying homes. This one worked great for our congregation, as Shmuli is very lazy.
They ended up pulling random people from the supermarket, asking if they’re Jewish, because "they will make better members than anybody in our shul."
Then the members of the shul started saying how lazy Shmuli is, and how we don’t get a Minyin because Shmuli is too busy spending time at the casino. And this Shpiel ended Shmuli’s marriage.
 
The Gabai
Not enough people poke fun at this man. It’s his job to organize the shul and make sure services run smoothly, as he also calls people to the Torah.
This was brilliant. His job is to call people to the Torah by name. He just forgets everybody’s name. The Shpiel guy berated the Gabai, “When you don’t know somebody’s father’s name, you call them the son of Avraham.” We then see the Gabai calling everybody to the Torah as the son of Avraham.
It turned out the Gabai was recently diagnosed with dementia. That was not a planned part of the Shpiel.
Lesson: Don’t make fun of somebody till you know their medical diagnosis.
 
Rabbi Shows to Shul Late
There are more ways to make fun of the rabbi that we didn't hit on last week. You never want to miss a chance to make the rabbi look bad. This is what makes Purim so enjoyable for everybody.
The rabbi comes every day, but he sometimes shows up a few minutes after Minyin started, due to Halachik questions about utensils and funerals. So they focused on that one day he wasn’t on time.
The rabbi, who is a kind and honest spiritual man comes to shul thinking he’s sharing with his congregation in praising Gd, after officiating a funeral. That’s not what they focused on. The Shpiel skipped the part of the eulogy at the funeral, which helped the family cope with their daughter's death. They just showed the rabbi coming late to Minyin and the congregants firing him. And as part of the Shpiel, to add life and spunk, they truly fired the rabbi.
Nobody was offended by this, because they were making fun of the rabbi.

The Bar Mitzvah Boy
Is there anything easier to make fun of than a thirteen year old messing up Torah reading? Voice cracking. Just get up there, read anything real bad, with a voice that sounds off.
They made Mendel Hershkovitz cry, mocking his crackling high pitch voice during his Aliyah to the Torah. Mendel started bawling, telling everybody he just went through puberty during his Haftorah. Priceless.
Lesson: Always make sure you know what people are going through before you throw them into the Shpiel. And it turns out, due to Mendel's messed up Torah reading, people took back their gifts.

The Grammen
When you make fun of people in song form, it rubs it in more. And that's what the artists did in our shul's Shpiel. They got everybody involved in the song. And then they made the people cry more, while stringing sentences together about how they are not beneficial to the shul in rhyming form.
The idea of the Grammen is to make fun of the membership, and then to do this “da da da da da da da da, da da da da da da da” that repeats, to give the people a little time to look at themselves and cry a bit more. Some say "na na na na..." as the Nas allow for more of a rubbing it in affect. They may not get the words about how the Bar Mitzvah boy has no friends right away. The "da da da" part of the Grammen allows you time to think of the rhyme and how Mendel lost all of his friends when puberty hit.

Some of the Grammen Rhymes That Hit
The Schwartzs show up late to shul. Dadadadadada. And their youngest son has no friends in school. Dadadadadada. This one worked out great. Though it had nothing to do with not getting a Minyin, because Brian Schwartz is only eight, Brian still cried.
The Gabai messes up everybody's name. Dadadadadada. Him and his wife are extremely lame. Dadadadadada. This one worked out great, as the Gabai's wife can't walk. Nobody did research into the Gabai's family's health history before the Shpiel.
The rabbi of our shul always shows up late. Dadadadadada. And Pinchas never gets a date. Dadadadadada. This was brilliant, as Pinchas is single and a loser.
The Bar Mitzvah boy sounds like a toad. Dadadadadada. His sister is a very wide load. Dadadadadada. This got a perfect response, as his sister started crying too. His sister put on eighty pounds last year.
 
Remember. If you made them cry, you know the jokes truly hit. If you lose the crowd, making fun of the rabbi brings them back on your side.