The radio rabbi’s revelation about power of humour

And here’s another one: “Two gay men are walking down Whitechapel High Street, and they see a young woman and her boyfriend having a row. ‘You see,’ says one of the men. ‘That’s what comes from mixed marriage’.” They’re... sort of cuddly jokes, and very Blue without ever being blue.

For 35 years the Rabbi, now 81, has been one of the most popular of BBC Radio 4’s contributors to Thought for the Day, the few short minutes in the Today programme that are given over to spiritual musings.

Blue might take a Mrs Solomon joke and use it to spin out a little homily with universal application and an amusing, wry edge. He’ll find a little moral in some incident that’s befallen him on the bus from Finchley into town. He may be a Jewish rabbi, but his philosophy on life is a reassuringly universal one centred on the thought that we must look for the best in people and be kind and charitable. Kindness will get you into heaven whatever name you give to your God, or even if you don’t have one.

The beaming 81-year-old who was brought up in England’s East End, wasn’t always a performer, although today he makes other radio programmes and tours his one-man-show around the country every couple of years.

“I was a rather grim and anxiety-ridden child,” he says. “I wouldn’t stand on the cracks in the pavement and all that sort of thing. There was lots of anti-semitism about when I was growing up, but I learned that humour does an extraordinary thing. Laughter stimulates the brain to make you feel good, it takes the bitterness out of people, and it makes them more relaxed and open. I learned a lot about humour from barrow boys around the streets where I grew up. They were always so jolly, even when things were very tough and there was no money about. I often think about that time.”

Blue’s father was a master tailor, but the family didn’t have much. Young Lionel went through a Communist phase and later, while a history student at Oxford he struggled with his homosexuality, searched for answers about faith in Christianity, underwent Freudian analysis and after a few adventures living in Amsterdam became a Reform Rabbi and later a broadcaster.

“When I first got the call from a radio producer I thought they’d got the wrong rabbi and really needed another one who was well known at the time, a Rabbi Green.

“But it seems they’d got the colour right. On the way to the studio I was all prepared to talk about ‘the Jewish problem’, but my inner voice told me that I couldn’t possibly inflict that on people over their cornflakes.

“The Almighty said to me that I wouldn’t help people to get out of bed on a cold November morning but would instead make them dive back under the duvet. So instead I decided to give them jokes to cheer them up and prop up their spirituality.”

His simple, warm, engaging views on life and those cuddly jokes have made a stage show that his fans adore him for. Having survived a couple of bouts of cancer, been diagnosed with epilepsy in his 50s and now suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, he makes no concession to age or infirmity.

“At some point I may have to sit down for part of the show, but not yet. And if I occasionally forget the punchline of a joke, my lovely audience is perfectly happy to fill it in and give me a choice of endings.They’re my lovely congregation, as I call them. I have lots of material in my head, but never know what mix of jokes and how much serious stuff to use until I see them and feel what each individual crowd wants.”

In among moments of jollity, the rabbi says he worries that the current economic downturn will mean “that people will turn on each other....it’s terribly important to keep an eye on spirituality and remember our humanity.

“We mustn’t let worry about the future make us stop looking after one another. Dark times can do strange things to people, and you have to guard against this.”

Rabbi Lionel Blue is appearing at Leeds City Varieties on Thursday, October 20. Box office 0113 391 7777. Lionel Blue’s book The Godseeker’s Guide is published by Continuum, £9.99. To order from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop call 0800 0153232 or go to www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk