Will never forget being in my Judaism course at university, where the professor brought in a reform rabbi to present to the class. But it was actually himself.
To separate the two spheres of his life- the spiritual and the academic- he would rapidly switch between wearing a kippah and a slap on bow tie.
So it was a three hour lecture of him slapping on a kippah to extrapolate "This is how I as a rabbi instruct my congregation in the mitzvot." Then yipping it off, clipping on the polka dot bow tie and continuing- "So here we can examine reform's approach to the 613 commandments, influenced by Abraham Geiger-"
My Hebrew professor (took Hebrew for my foreign language requirement, because fuck it I already knew the aleph-bet) is a conservative rabbi and a linguist. Class discussions could get intense. Good guy, good rabbi. Love it when rabbis are so scholarly they can't stay out of academia.
I took Hebrew back as a wee undergrad and it was taught by a retired rabbi. First day of class he saw my last name on the roster and there was a very distinct pause as he went “…I know this name… are you related to (my dad’s name)?”
Upon getting confirmation that yes, he did indeed name my father there was another pause and he goes “I used to babysit him… he was such a little shit.”
And then proceeded to go into the syllabus while I laughed my ass off.
