How do you say “koan” in Yiddish?

A koan is a question designed to have no logical answer, used in Zen training to help the mind escape the trap of words. As far as I know (which is not very far at all), Kabalah, the mystical tradition in Judaism, employs no parallel device.

However …

A young man asks a rabbi to teach him Talmud.

The rabbi replies, “I don’t think you’re ready to study Talmud, but I will give you a question as a test. Two men go down a chimney. One comes out dirty, and the other clean. Which one washes himself?”

The young man says, “Rabbi, ask me a hard one! Clearly, the dirty man washes himself and the clean man does not.”

The rabbi shakes his head and says, “As I suspected, you’re not ready to study Talmud. Your answer is wrong. Two men go down a chimney. One comes out dirty, and the other clean. Which one washes himself?”

The young man thinks, and says, “Aha! I see the trick! The dirty man sees his clean companion, and thinks himself clean, so he doesn’t wash. But the clean man sees how filthy the dirty man is, and assumes that he himself must be equally dirty. So he washes. Therefore the clean man washes himself but the dirty man does not.”

The rabbi shakes his head and says, “As I suspected, you’re not ready to study Talmud. Your answer is wrong. Two men go down a chimney. One comes out dirty, and the other clean. Which one washes himself?”

The young man thinks again, and finally says, “Hmmm … so it must be that the clean man sees the dirty man and washes, and the dirty man, seeing the clean man wash, realizes that he himself is dirty, so he washes too. Therefore both wash. Rabbi, there’s much more to this Talmud stuff than I suspected.”

The rabbi shakes his head and says, “As I suspected, you’re not ready to study Talmud. Your answer is wrong. Two men go down a chimney. One comes out dirty, and the other clean. Which one washes himself?”

Now the young man is thoroughly puzzled, but not discouraged. He thinks for an even longer time, and says, “Oh my! This is really deep isn’t it? The dirty man sees the clean man, and never suspects that he himself might be dirty. The clean man sees the dirty man, goes to wash, but looks in the mirror and sees that he is in fact clean. So neither washes!”

Once more the rabbi shakes his head and says, “As I suspected, you’re not ready to study Talmud. Your answer is wrong. Two men go down a chimney. One comes out dirty, and the other clean. Which one washes himself?”

Now the young man, who hasn’t studied Torah but has studied logic, becomes upset. “But Rabbi! It must be one, or the other, or both, or neither. Those are the only possibilities. How can they all be wrong?”

The rabbi says, “And how is it, my logical young friend, that two men go down a chimney and both don’t wind up covered in soot? When you learn how not to spend your time answering foolish questions, then you will be ready to study Talmud.”