“What do you THINK happens when you plant an Easter egg?”

“You wished for a rabbi? You simply have to learn to speak more clearly!”

I love vegetables from the Koshery Store.

“Trust me Farmer Gabe, you don’t wanna go down this rabbit hole.”

“Sorry, but what’s up?”

“Now before I make myself at home here, let’s get a couple of things straight. First, you know that you’re not allowed to eat me under the laws of kashrut; and, second, your wife has absolutely no plans to make either herself or you a rabbit fur hat.”

To RJ Wolf: Would you run me out of town on a rail if I suggested tinkering just a little with your caption (which, is, I think, better than all of mine so far) to make it read:

“Sorry, but what’s up, Doc … besides me?”

In addition to the wordplay , you’d have, at the very least, created a descendant of Bugs Bunny.

(I promise from now on not to insert my thoughts into any more of your great submissions.)

“My ancestors inhabited this burrow for 3500 years.”

“Were you expecting maybe the Baal Shem Tov?”

“You’re not thinking of raising the rent on my rent-stabilized rabbit hole, are you?”

“Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail will be up soon. They’re making for you a carrot tzimmes dish to die for.”

If Mel Brooks were riffing on the new cartoon, this might be something he’d write. (I really can’t presume to put words into the mouth of a genius, but it’s too tempting not to try.)

“Whatever you do, stay away from Mr. McGregor. He hates Jews. He’s the biggest anti-Semite there is. Beatrix Potter doesn’t tell the whole story in her book. It isn’t rabbits that he hates. It’s rabbis. He’s just a lousy speller. Another terrible speller was Louis Pasteur. He was really looking for a cure for rabbis,
and by mistake he cured rabies. Think about how many things in history happen for the wrong reason. Anyway, don’t go near that garden if you know what’s good for you. You can thank me later. And enjoy the tzimmes when my sisters bring it up.”

“I already have a mezuzah, thank you.”

To Dinah R: VERY funny caption; the arrow of humor goes straight into the heart before one has a chance to resist, freeing an explosive laugh; such an obvious line yet completely unexpected in this context. You’re GOOD. This should CERTAINLY be a finalist! Thanks for puncturing the balloons of pomposity, including and especially my own. That’s what great humor is supposed to do, and you certainly have succeeded, in spades! Thanks again for the wonderful surprise!

“You’re planting potatoes for my carrot kugel?”

Sorry Rabbi, you can’t use me in your magic tricks, because you have the wrong style hat.

“I came up to ask if you’ll be so kind as to officiate at my wedding. My girlfriend just accepted my proposal, and I presented her with a 14-carrot ring.”

“We’re all outta carrots”

“Could you plant an extra patch of carrots. We’re breeding like rabbits down here.”

You’re not Alice!

I hope those aren’t genetically modified carrot seeds your planting.

“Why not have an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there?”

“How come Old MacDonald never wanted borscht?”

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! … Wait a minute! I’m in the wrong cartoon!”

To Jim Gorman: Thanks for your kind thoughts. Your words are gold and so mean a lot. They always indicate a mind combining warmth and scholarship and a marvelous sense of humor. Playing to me means more than winning, seeing how high our idea balloons can fly before they drift down, as they eventually must, and your conceits make beautiful patterns against the sky. Thanks again.

To Jim Gorman, again: Coincidentally, I’m now reading a biography of Sokei-an Sasaki, one of the first teachers of Japanese Rinzai Zen in America, who is quoted in conversation with a disciple: “Have you read Alice in Wonderland?” he asks. The disciple answers: “It is a delightful children’s book.” Sokei-an then replies: “I do not consider it simply a book for children. The author possesses insight like a real man of Zen … I use it with my students. Some of them are beginning to make real progress.”

“Begin at the beginning,” Lewis Carroll’s King says, “and go on till you come to the end; then stop.” (Sort of reminds one of that other Zen teacher, Yogi Berra, who famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“We’re all mad here,” says the Cheshire cat. “I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” asks Alice. “You must be,” says the cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” Reminding me of a guy who once said to me, very confidently, “I’d never have a wife who cheated on me.” “How could you be so sure?” I asked. “Easy,” he told me. “If she cheated on me, she’d no longer be my wife.” How’s that for a sample of the convoluted logic that’s the property of both sages and madmen? (Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.)

In any case, the poor rabbit in our cartoon koan is clearly out of his element, waiting for us to bail him out. Sorry for this hasty reply, but it gives me the chance to give a really big thank you to Cindy Tebo, whose VERY insightful caption altered the whole path we’re taking. (This site does have a great group of contributors, each one contributing a brick to the house we all try to build every two months.)

“Rabbi?! I was expecting that Alice shiksa.”

“Be fruitful and multiply and all that, but some carrots would be nice right now.”

“I don’t do Easter, really.”

“Rabbit, true, but I’m no chicken.”

“I’m not an ordinary rabbit. My mother was once a Playboy bunny.”

Are you Rabbi McGregor?

Don’t forget to say the Ha’Adama when it’s time to harvest!

Ehhh, what’s up doctrine?

Sometimes I think that we all really live in Alice’s world. What other world could Trump be president of? Yesterday I was listening to some PhD on talk radio railing against the inadequacies of the treatments offered patients by practitioners in the mental health field and was startled to suddenly hear him shout, “Anyone who who goes to a psychiatrist or other therapist today should have his head examined!!”

I could swear that I heard Lewis Carroll laughing.

“Am I too early for the seder?”

“Oops, my mistake. I was looking for someone heimish, not Amish.”

Caption: “Don’t bury me! The Lord said keep animals alive,”

I thought I heard a Nor’Easter.

Lettuce pray.

Why is this night different from all other nights of the year?

“You mean you really don’t care that it’s rabbit season?”

“Rabbi, you ask me whether or not I’m a rabbit. I think I’m a rabbit. I eat all the foods that rabbits eat. I live in a rabbit burrow. And my parents always called me a rabbit. But, you know, I’ve met some confusing people lately who insist that I’m not a rabbit. Don’t you think that they’re just splitting hares?”

“You know, I once was a rabbi just like you, but at her party, Alice transformed me by offering me some “t,” which I promptly put at the end of my title.

You look surprised. What did you expect – carrots?

“The Easter bunny gets all the publicity, but I’ve been around a lot longer than he has–the Pesadicher bunny, at your service.”

“My father made me promise to ask, before I got too comfortable here, whether Elmer Fudd was anywhere in the vicinity.”

“Mr. Landlord, In the apartment we’ve inhabited,
Well, we haven’t been too inhibited,
And the result, to plead our case,
Is that we need much much more space.”

Speaking of rabbits multiplying, has anyone not heard the story of the French rabbit who takes his young son aside, saying, “My boy, your mother and I have decided that you are old enough to learn the facts of life. In front of you in the field is a long line of female rabbits. What you have to remember is to greet each one as you approach her by saying ‘bonjour,’ and then at the end to part with her by saying ‘merci.’ Do you understand?” The boy nods and goes down the line at first slowly and then more and more quickly: “Bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … ohhhhhh … pardon, Papa!!”

To Stephen Nadler: I’m a little surprised that, given the fact that John Updike is one of your favorite writers, with all this talk of rabbits you haven’t yet surrendered to the temptation of submitting a caption referencing arguably the most influential literary rabbit of all, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, featured in at least four of Updike’s acclaimed novels. I wouldn’t know how to do it, but you might very well be able to in a humorous way to make us all smile, as you usually do with all the captions you submit. Best wishes.

“I hope those are organic…”

“I was once a beautiful princess who was transformed into a rabbit by a wicked witch and can only be changed back by a kiss from a handsome prince and, oy, I can see that I’m in a lot of trouble.”

Hey! You just missed me by a hare!

“To me, organic is better than kosher.”

“We don’t need an introduction
If it’s too much of a bother,
But my name is Harry Angstrom
And John Updike is my father.”

(For Stephen Nadler, no cigar, not even close,
but thought I’d give it a try …)

“I just don’t feel as energetic as I normally do.”

“You call it dirt…..I call it “Home Sweet Home”.

This is a community garden, isn’t it?

“Rabbi, there’s no need for you to be wasting your time digging around like that. I’m from TaskRabbit, and our online marketplace can quickly provide Taskers to offer any sort of home assistance to you so that you can more valuably spend your time studying Torah.”

N.B. If anyone bothers to check, you’ll find that there really IS a business called TaskRabbit (www.taskrabbit.com) which connects homeowners and others with qualified Taskers (not real rabbits, though) to help them with almost any task they want done. When I heard about this enterprise, I thought, Why shouldn’t our hardworking cartoon rabbi take advantage of it? Thus the caption.

I do hope that the help he’ll receive will enable him to really devote more time to Torah. Cheers.

No more potatoes. Carrots, just carrots. I’ve put on ten extra pounds already.

[For Gerald Lebowitz:]
“Rabbi Angstrom? Rabbit Angstrom here. I’m afraid neither one of us lives up to John Updike’s conception.”

To SN: Rabbit Angstrom was an Immaculate Conception and worth two Pulitzer Prizes, if my memory serves. Who could live up to that? Updike, by the way, as I’m sure you know, loved art and especially cartooning, and his essays on art are my favorites. When he was an undergraduate at Harvard, he saw art as his future. If he were alive today, I’m sure that he would take an avid interest in all the new forms of graphic storytelling that are appearing, a far cry from the primitive stories in Action Comics #1, which appeared in 1938 and began the Golden Age of Comics.

Thanks for connecting. It’s reassuring to note that you’re out there, observing even when not commenting.

To SN again: I just re-read my previous post to you above and came to the last sentence: “It’s reassuring to note that you’re out there, observing even when not commenting.” Those words could easily express one’s feeling about G-d, couldn’t they? “Observing even when not commenting” also reminds me a little of Stan Lee’s 1960’s Marvel Comics creation The Watcher, a man who was directed to observe everything but was not supposed to interfere, although he often violated that directive to aid the Fantastic Four and other Marvel heroes, just as you descend from time to time to aid us …. 🙂

“Dig, man, dig! Save a hand puppeteer!”

To SN: “Excelsior”? Then you must also have been a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. Do you know what words often dance around my head at the oddest moments? Not from Gilbert and Sullivan or Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin or even Shakespeare or Keats or Shelley or anyone else you might expect. No, it’s

“When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield”

from that small Marvel promotional record that I once listened to, over and over again.

Underneath all our layers of adult sophistication often lie the more meaningful passions of a child, don’t they?

‘Nuff said.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of rabbits pulled out of hats; why then should you be so surprised when one pops out of your garden?”

“Rabbi, I’d like you to share some of your talmudic wisdom with me. How come so many people consider a rabbit’s foot to be a symbol of good luck when it obviously wasn’t good luck to the rabbit it came from?”

“We’ve had seven litters—what we call mitzvahs!”

To SN, your excellent caption made me curious, so I did some checking (that’s one way to learn). It seems that a single female rabbit (a doe) can have one to fourteen babies per litter and can mate and get pregnant again right after giving birth. You do the math: one litter (say, average six babies) a month equals 72 offspring a year for one rabbit! For your Jewish rabbit, the mitzvahs would quickly turn into nightmares–imagine having to plan and cater 72 bar/bat mitzvahs each year! Would your rabbit be able to file for bankruptcy?

Turning a liability into an asset, however, your rabbit would be very good at poker. He’d always have a full house.

(Ouch! I know that’s bad.)

Oh, by the way, the gestation period (the time from conception to delivery) for a female rabbit is only 30 days, more or less, thus the insulting phrase “they breed like rabbits” used by people like Pope Francis against those who are looked at as contributing to the world’s overpopulation when they could instead be civilized and use birth control. In other words, Dr. Nadler’s rabbit would be the subject of scorn from many quarters, even as it went to synagogue and thanked G-d for all the mitzvahs it received.

[For Gerald Lebowitz]
“Here’s my impression of Bugs Bunny reading Rabbit, Run: ‘Eh… What’s Updike?'”

SN: Your masterpiece. Quit now, take the money, and run. You’ll never do better than this.

The money, figuratively speaking of course, is measured by the good will you always share with all of us through your humor. You’re a rich man in many more ways than one.

I’m out of work because the hats are all sold out!”

Perhaps we could have a two garden solution.

I thought it would be safe to steal your carrots on a Saturday. . . I didn’t realize you were Amish.

“Are you a Jewish Uncle Remus?”

“I don’t care how cute your daises would look, Dave. I don’t invade your home”

“Please tell me that story again about Brer Rabbit playing a trick on the Conservative rabbi!”

“How much might it be worth to you if no one were to disturb your crops through, say, Sukkot?”

*Rabbit Noises*

*Rabbit Noises*
*Rabbi Noises*

“It’s Shabbat, I’ll take care of it.”

SN: It almost looks as if you’ve created a backstory for that great animated/live action movie of the 80’s, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” in which the title tune character is accused of murder and fights to be cleared. Now, thanks to you, we learn that he really hadn’t been exactly law-abiding before the murder took place.

A long time ago I took an English course in which I wrote a paper that the professor found all kinds of insights in that I had been unaware of. When I went up to him after class, he said that a writer is allowed to claim credit for anything valuable that a reader finds in his work. So you are entitled to that same credit for your piece on the innocent-looking rabbit engaged in his version of the protection racket that later is somehow linked to the Roger Rabbit movie. (By the way, the teacher of my course was Mark Van Doren, the critic and Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, so his opinion was not just a flash in the pan offered by a teaching assistant.) In any event, I’m confident that your rabbit will beat the rap.

You want me to hide the AFIKOMAN next year?

SN: It wouldn’t be MY way, it would be HIS way, but if you think about it, I’m sure that his remark was given tongue in cheek. After all, if you write something and someone interprets it as a call for violence, for example, are you then to be given credit for the mayhem that follows? Anyway, I’m glad that you were impressed; I just wanted to give you this impression. Thanks for the comment, as always.

To Adrian S (quoted from the book “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution” in a chapter telling how 12-year-old Stephen Sondheim taught Oscar Hammerstein II the game of chess): “Stevie taught Oscar how to play chess, but soon enough the competitive older student beat the young instructor. Sondheim had set a complicated multi-move trap, which Hammerstein eluded at the last moment. “Gosh, you’re getting good,” Sondheim told him. “You saw what I was setting up.”

“No,” Oscar replied. “I heard your heart beating.”

Man phones his doctor. “Doctor, I’m very worried about my wife’s hearing. It’s getting worse. Can I bring her in to see you?” “Not for a while,” the doctor replies, “but why don’t you test her hearing from various distances so that you can determine exactly how bad her condition is?”

Man’s wife is in the kitchen making dinner. Man goes upstairs and yells, “Do you need any help?” No reply. Then he comes down and repeats the question. Still no reply. Then he approaches the kitchen. “Do you need any help?” Still no reply. Then he gets very close to her and yells, “Do you need any help?”

The wife whirls around, furious. “For the fourth time, no!” she screams. 🙂

“If you let me stay with you, I’ll sit on top of your television set and get you the best reception you’ve ever had.”

Adrian S, the above is your idea, so the credit is yours. (Why would someone buy manufactured rabbit ear antennas when the real ones were around?)

“If you take me in, I’ll sit on top of your television set and get you the best reception you’ve ever seen.”

(Credit for the above goes to Adrian S, who fully understands that it would be foolish to buy an artificial rabbit ears antenna if a real rabbit were around to perform the same service.)

One morning an old Chinese farmer awakened to find that his herd of prized horses had escaped from his corral during the night and were all gone. His friends and neighbors gathered around to express their sympathies. “The old farmer said, “We’ll see.” The next morning his horses returned, bringing with them a whole group of beautiful wild horses. “How wonderful!” exclaimed his friends. “We’ll see,” said the old farmer again. The next day the farmer’s son tried to break one of the wild horses, but the horse bolted and the son’s leg was broken. Again the old farmer said “We’ll see” when confronted by the consternation of his friends. The following day the emperor’s soldiers arrived to conscript his son to fight in a coming war but couldn’t take him because of his leg. “How fortunate!” exclaimed one of the friends.

And the farmer smiled once more and said, “We’ll see.”

Shalom.

“Who would have ever thought that they would pick our house in Jerusalem to be the new U.S. Embassy?”

“I can’t believe how much the cost of housing has gone up here in Israel. Even the birdhouses regularly sell for more than 300,000 shekels.”

“I love the new flag. To think, the United States and Israel used to be two separate countries.”

To SN: Congratulations on your winning entry. You came through, as usual. (Personally, I’d prefer that she HAD a headache rather than an outfit like that. 🙂

Down South we call it the Stars and Bar-mitzvahs.

It’s the Star Spangled Bar-mitzvah.

That flag was sewn by none other than Betsy Rothenstein.

It’s the Star of Camp David.

“And YOU thought they would choose the dollar sign!”

“Word is Jared and Ivanka still have some pull.”

“So do you still take off your cap for the national anthem?”

Amazing! No matter how good I think some of my entries are, you guys always put me to shame with the brilliance of your wordplay and fantastic sense of humor. A person truly has to be good to even think of playing in this court.

“Oh, it’s not the quantity, dear.”

“Does IL stand for Illinois or Israel?!”

Humor is a funny thing. I don’t mean that as a pun. I mean funny-strange. It’s funny what we laugh at and what we don’t. For example, I found humor in a story told by Jane Goodall, the primatologist, a story certainly not meant to be funny. Maybe it was just me. The story was that a Yale psychologist saw no reason why chimpanzees and other great apes should not talk. To test out this theory, a baby chimp was placed in the household of another psychologist, Winthrop Kellogg, and his wife, who for several months raised the chimp alongside their own infant son. Soon enough their son was speaking while the chimp, to the Kelloggs’ disappointment, remained mute, although they were convinced that the chimp did understand at least a hundred words. But then–and this is what I found humorous–the experiment was suddenly halted because the Kelloggs’ baby suddenly stopped speaking and began making chimp sounds. I guess it was survival of the fittest, and the chimp had unpredictably turned the tables and imposed his own will on the boy. After all, didn’t Charles Darwin title his book “The DESCENT of Man”?

“Now that we’re old and retired, dear, do you ever think back with longing to the wild days of our youth when we were both Palestinian terrorists?”

(The previous caption came to mind when I wondered how, if he were alive, that wonderfully wicked old cartoonist Charles Addams might have tackled the new cartoon. May he rest in peace.)

“The 51st state…. The Palestinians are the 52nd. That’s MY two-state solution.”

The new American Embassy in Jerusalem

DR: Ingenious and totally original, your caption is a very fresh take on the cartoon, and now you’ve left a high bar for the rest of us to try to clear. What a great competitor! Thanks! (Maybe you’ll even win the Nobel Peace Prize for finally figuring out a way to end the conflict–stranger things HAVE happened.)

“I just don’t know Pa, is it too Jewish?”

“The dog days are here Pa. Do you want a nice cold glass of Manischewitz?”

Davy, nobody gets it. So take it down already!

“What do you think, Menachem? Should we let that artist draw us? He keeps saying that he wants to create a painting called ‘Israeli Gothic’ as the Jewish version of Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic.’ He even said he’d get you your own pitchfork.”

The Compromise: He wanted aliyah, she didn’t

To JZR: I guess then that your couple found THEIR two-state solution after all. Unfortunately, they can’t set a pattern.in today’s Middle East, where BOTH parties made aliyah and now fight over the same territory. Nice job! Thanks!

“The dove of peace that was supposed to fly here … we even built that house for him … has never shown up. Do you think he decided not to make aliyah?”

“So now it goes, ‘Oy, say can you see…?'”

To SN: If Francis Scott Key ever saw the above desecration of our national anthem, he’d turn over in his grave.

(But in spite of your disrespect, your creativity never seems to flag.)

SN: Guilty as charged. I await sentencing (another pun, I fear).

Your great caption, incidentally, made me realize that there are very short expressions in English that turn into their opposites by simply reversing the letters. For instance, wouldn’t you rather be OK’d for a job than KO’d by an illness? And wouldn’t you rather be spirited and optimistic like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky” and say “Yo” than downhearted and depressed and say “Oy”?

Oy, that’s enough for now. Thanks.

The “Yiddish Star & Bars.” This flag signifies the friendship between the United States and Israel. (Es zikh oys dos harts meshugener.)

To Marvin Sager: You’re our resident Yiddish expert with a marvelous sense of humor, so I’m taking the liberty of thinking out loud to you that even though “yo” and “oy” might be conceived as opposites, I don’t suppose there’s any way in which “yo vey” would ever be acceptable as an expression of joy and well being to counter the feeling of despair that oy vey conveys (no pun intended)??

Is there such a thing as Jewish humor? I suppose it’s humor that captures the Jewish way of facing life, that is, with an attitude of skepticism or distrust. There’s an old saying that grim, determined people like to utter as they forge ahead in life: “I never take no for an answer.” Well, the Jew is different. He could easily say, “I never take yes for an answer.” No matter how good things may get, the Jew somehow feels short-changed and looks for imperfections, and Jewish humor reflects this. Consider the classic story of the old lady who takes her einekel (Mr. Sager, grandchild, right?) to the beach for an outing, but not before buying him a sailor suit complete from head to toe. But as the child is playing on the sand, a huge wave suddenly appears and carries him out to sea. The old lady looks up at the heavens, full of desperation. “God, God, please save him! Please save him!” As if in answer, another huge wave appears and safely deposits the boy back on the sand. The old lady takes one look at him, then raises her fist up at the sky: “He had a HAT!” she cries.

Another story concerns a man whose wife is not well. She lies in bed in a darkened room day after day. Finally the doctor tells him, “What your wife needs is a change of attitude. Why not get something to cheer her up?” The husband gets a bright idea and rushes out to the neighborhood pet store and tells the owner the problem and the owner suggests that he buy a canary. The minute the bird is in the wife’s room it bursts into song and sings as if every lovely melody in the world were in its tiny throat. Miraculously, the wife recovers. The first thing she does is open the blinds to let the sun in. It is then that the husband notices that the bird is limping, that it has only one leg. Furiously he darts back to the pet store. “You cheated me!” he yells. “In my haste I never noticed the bird’s limp.” The pet shop owner looks at him calmly. “Listen, mister,” he says, “what did you want, a singer or a dancer?”

And the last story concerns a little old man who is crossing the street when a cab makes an unexpected left turn and knocks him down. The cab driver rolls down his window and yells, “Hey, mister, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” The old man, sitting dazedly in the middle of the street, looks up. “Why?” he asks. “Are you coming back?”

“When,” the Jew asks, “is misfortune going to hit next?” He hopes not today. But to tide him over, he has his amazing humor, which helps him look back and somehow turn the rust to gold.

”Sheldon Adelson paid you HOW MUCH?”

SN: Maybe that IS Sheldon Adelson and his wife after they bought the whole country of Israel and replaced the Knesset with a board of directors. 🙂

The Irving Berlin “God Bless America” flag!

Is it the “God Bless America” flag or Sheldon Adelson’s new corporate logo? (Thanks, Stephen Nadler,, for alerting us to this possibility.)