This homiletic tale is from Bob Levi.

In a large Florida city, the local rabbi developed quite a reputation for his sermons; so much so that everyone in the community came every Shabbos.

Unfortunately, one weekend a member had to visit Long Island for his nephew’s Bar Mitzvah, but he didn’t want to miss The Rabbi’s sermon. So he decided to hire a “Shabbos goy” to sit in the congregation and tape the sermon so he could listen to it when he returned.

Other congregants saw what was going on, and they also decided to hire “Shabbos goys” to tape the sermon so they could play golf instead of going to shul. Within a few weeks time there were 500 gentiles sitting in shul taping the Rabbi.

The Rabbi got wise to this. The following Shabbos he, too, hired a Shabbos goy who brought a tape recorder to play his prerecorded sermon.

Witnesses said this marked the first incidence in history of “artificial insermonation.”