Month: December 2022

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #178 (12/31/2022): 2022 Farewell

airs Dec. 31, 2022 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube:  https://youtu.be/iWVL1DmR0rQ

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year 2022.

Although it’s dangerous to generalize — unless you’re a general, in which case it’s even more dangerous — I will generalize and say that overall, this was a better year than the last two… which isn’t saying much, of course. If you have lupus and you get over it, and then you get painful bunions — well, bunions is better. But it doesn’t mean you’re jumping for joy. You can’t jump for joy because your bunions are killing you.

But 2022 wasn’t bad. It was like a painless bunion. It looked worse than it felt. So you went to the gas pump, saw the price, and felt like you were back in 1979, only without the leisure suits. But high as prices got, with COVID and working from home, people still aren’t driving or flying — therefore not using much gasoline anyway. Groceries do cost more, but couldn’t our fat asses could do with less junk food? Heck, by spending more for less, we’re saving money on coronary bypass surgery. 

Not that the health-insurance crisis has been solved. Or the immigration crisis. Or the mentally ill homeless crisis. Or the mentally ill former-president crisis. Or any of the wonderful miseries that governments promise to solve, try to hide, and then make worse. 

2022 was the year that right-wing bible-thumping bastards got their way: they overturned fifty years of settled law and made abortion a state-by-state crapshoot again — because for Republicans, a human being is priceless as soon as it has a heartbeat and worthless as soon as it’s black or hispanic. So the unbiased, non-activist, hundred-percent secular Supreme Court, half-chosen by Donald Trump, suddenly decided to do God’s work and force women to bring their oopsies to term. But wouldn’t you know: voters in nearly every state sided with the women. Why? Because if you’ve ever been on an airplane with a crying infant, all you wanna do is kill that fucking thing. 

And speaking of things that are short-lived: the G.O.P.’s victory lap barely lasted a season. When it came time for the midterm elections, their can’t-miss red wave crested, peaked, and nearly turned blue. Yes, for the next two years, they can make it even harder for President Biden to remember what he was gonna forget anyway. But they also can’t stalemate his every initiative. Thanks to the Republicans’ Handmaids Tale approach to society, Democrats held onto the Senate tighter than Elon Musk clings to a bad idea. 

And speaking of bad ideas, 2022 was the year of the moron — from Kanye West repeating old cliches about Jews and money, to Kyrie Irving becoming the latest sports figure who’s angling for a second career as a black Israelite. As soon as basketball season ends, you’ll see Irving outside a Citibank in a long, colorful robe ,and he’ll be pointing to a drawing of a retarded lion with a mogen David on its ass. 

Of course, not all black people this year were raving anti-Semites. Some were just needlessly violent. Like Will Smith, who hauled off and smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars for making a joke about Jada Pinkett’s haircut. I mean, come on! It’s not like he made fun of her pubes — which, I have on good authority, are actually less stubbly than the chia seeds on her head. 

And before you get the wrong, racist idea, there were plenty of horrible, violent white people this year, too. We call them “Russians.” Before cancer and HaShem knows what else finally send him to that big gulag in the sky, Vladimir Putin wanted to make Russia Russia again. So he invaded Ukraine — which, to be honest, I always thought was Russia — but he invaded the Ukraine territory expecting it would collapse faster than a crypto portfolio. Instead, Ukranians held fast, bolstered by nothing more than heart, guts, faith, and five billion of dollars in American weaponry. I don’t mind because the President of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is not only a former TV comedian, but he’s a Yid! Who else would show up in Congress looking like he’d been jogging in Central Park? What, he couldn’t go to Fishbein’s in Cedarhurst and rent a suit? Two pairs of pants — free hemming! 

Of course, here at home, we still have our own problems with savagery. Some non-binary numbnuts shot up a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. A white supremacist killed 10 blacks in a Buffalo supermarket. A Walmart manager shot down 7 people in a store in Virginia. See? People think America is polarized and racially divided. But we have lunatics of all kinds murdering everybody. That’s democracy!

Still, in a good way, America has proved stubbornly resilient. The perpetrators of the Capitol Riots are having their day in court — and losing. Fringe candidates on both sides of the midterms learned that fringe looks great on talises, not so great on politicians. And when Facebook and Twitter got a little too “nanny state” with their censorship, users rebelled and went looking for new places to post their conspiracy theories, rants, and Sammy-Hagar-concert selfies. Elon Musk bought Twitter, fired half the work force, and quickly realized, “Wow, I could’ve fired two thirds of the workforce. I’m running a glorified blog here.” 

But it would not be fair to close out this “could’ve been worse” year without mentioning some of the worst things that did happen: the passings of notables in 2022. 

We start with the Queen, who died at 96

and Christine McVie, who was so much better than Stevie Nicks

We lost Luis and Bob from Sesame Street

And William Hurt, who hurt the women he beat

Angela Lansbury, our beloved Jessica Fletcher

And Louise Fletcher, whose Nurse Ratched was a kvetcher.

We lost Sidney Poitier, the epitome of class

And Olivia Newton John, that fine piece of talent. 

Goodbye Ronnie Spector, who sang so well

And I sure hope that Meat Loaf is well out of hell.

Bob Saget, and Gallagher are pushing up daisies

As are Gilbert and Louis Anderson. God — stop taking our crazies.

We celebrate these giants, their work and their lives

like Jerry Lee Lewis and his underage wives.

We lost Ray Liotta, goodfella and true

and Cheers’ Kirstie Alley, we’re cheering for you.

Peter Bogdanovich made his last picture show

And poor Aaron Carter’s done his last line of blow.

Ivan Reitman’s directed his very last smash

Farewell Sally Kellerman: who showed her bush in M*A*S*H!

Madeline Albright has, sadly, gone dark

And we won’t hear Vin Scully call games from the park.

And turning to Russia, our hearts are so heavy

Gorbachev: my budu skuchat’ po tebe. 

To these folks and more we bid our adieus

But I wish only happiness for all of youze.

May 2023 delight us and please us

without any wars or infectious diseas-us

And 12 months from now, may all of us say:

“Compared to most years, that one was okay.”

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Happy Jew Year!

(c)2021 David Lefkowitz & Rabbi Sol Solomon