OK, I laughed.

I found out yesterday there's a Triangle Bloggers Conference this morning at UNC-Chapel Hill. I've never seen a blogcon before, I've never even seen a blogger, and I guess there will be lots of them there, plus donuts, anyway I want to go, and I don't want to be late. So here's a quickie, one of my son's favorites jokes. There's more to it than meets the eye. Shabbat shalom, y'all.

Moishe, a Jewish actor, is so broke he's ready to take any acting gig he can find. Even the one advertised in this classified ad: "Actor needed to play an ape."

"I can do that," says Moishe.

The employer turns out to be the Central Park Zoo. The zoo is so broke it can't afford a real ape to replace the one that died recently. For now, they need an actor in an ape suit. Beggars can't be choosers; Moishe takes the gig.

At first, his conscience nags him about the sleazy deception, and he feels silly in the ape-suit. Still, an actor can't ignore an audience; after a few days on the job Moishe begins to enjoy all the attention. He starts to put on a good show for the kids, hanging upside-down from the branches by his legs, swinging on the vines, climbing the cage walls, roaring and pounding on his chest... Soon, he's drawing a good crowd.

One day while he's happily swinging on the vines he slips and goes flying over the fence into the neighboring cage, the lion's den.

Terrified, Moishe backs up as far from the approaching lion as he can. Instinctively he covers his eyes and begins to chant the Shema at the top of his lungs: "Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad!"

The lion opens its powerful jaws and roars the response: "Baruch shem k’vod malchuto l’olam va-ed."

From a nearby cage, a panda yells: "Shut up, you schmucks. You'll get us all fired!!!"

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