Anxious for his first investigation he was a bit perturbed when he was assigned to audit a Rabbi.
Looking over the books and taxes was pretty straightforward and the Rabbi was clearly very frugal, so he thought he’d make his day interesting by having a little fun with the Rabbi.
“Rabbi,” he said, “I noticed that you buy a lot of candles.” “Yes,” answered the Rabbi.
“Well, Rabbi, what do you do with the candle drippings?” he asked.
“A good question,” noted the Rabbi “We actually save them up, and when we have enough we send them back to the candle maker
And every now and then, they send us a free box of candles.”
“Oh,” replied the auditor, somewhat disappointed that his unusual question actually had a practical answer.
So he thought he’d go on, in the traditional obnoxious way…
“Rabbi, what about all these cookie purchases? What do you do with the crumbs from the cookies?”
“Ah, yes,” replied the Rabbi calmly, “we actually collect up all the crumbs from the cookies and when we have enough we send them in a box back to the manufacturer Every now and then, they send a box of cookies.”
“Oh,” replied the auditor, thinking hard how to fluster the Rabbi.
“Well, Rabbi,” he went on, “what do you do with all the foreskins from the circumcisions?”
“Yes, here too, we do not waste,” answered the Rabbi
“What we do is save up all the foreskins and when we have enough we actually send them to the IRS.”
“The IRS?” asked the auditor in disbelief.
“Ah, yes,” replied the Rabbi, “the IRS And about once a year they send us a little like you.”
