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Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #65 (5/5/2013): Joking Around

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #65 (5/5/2013): Joking Around

Aired May 5, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/Vb03UPLHc2U

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 5th, 2013.

So many of my friends and family and colleagues have been having a difficult year, I thought it would be fun to take a breather and do what I love more than anything. No, not eating herring in wine sauce while watching Jerry Springer. I mean telling jokes. Cracking a couple of funnies, and then analyzing and learning from their wisdom.

A priest and a Rabbi are next-door neighbors, so they decide to buy an automobile together for carpooling to work. They come out of the dealership with a spanking-new Nissan and bring it to the priest’s driveway. The priest goes into his house and comes out with a bowl of water. He begins sprinkling this all over the hood.

“What are you doing?” the Rabbi asks.

“It’s a new car,” says the Priest. “It needs to be blessed and baptized.”

Soon, the priest finishes his blessing, only to see the Rabbi coming out of the garage with a hacksaw.

“What’s that for?” says the priest.

The Rabbi begins sawing two inches off the tailpipe. “You have your rituals; I have mine.”

From this joke, we learn that every religion has its own seemingly archaic and silly practices. We do what we do because our parents did them, and our grandparents did them, and we’d feel a little queasy if we didn’t continue the tradition. Like serving fruitcake at Christmas or raisin kugel on Passover. Nobody wants these things but . . . they have to be done.

What I like about this joke is that it’s also about one-upsmanship. When the Priest does his thing, the Rabbi is forced to be riding in a baptized car. Only fair that the Rebbe gets to say, “This is my vehicle, too. If I have to ride under your holy water, you gotta live with a snipped tip.” I just wonder: if the Nissan lasts for 13 years, will the Rabbi throw it a huge party with long speeches, a lousy deejay, and the car jacked up on a hydraulic lift and carried around the room by drunken mechanics? “Today I am a hybrid.” And years later, when the engine dies, the Priest can hang a cross on the rear-view mirror and read selected passages from the manual, while the Rabbi puts the car in salvage with a closed hood and a tfillin bag in the glove compartment. Again, fair’s fair.

A robber breaks into the house of an Orthodox Jew. No one’s home, but the thief hears a voice say, “Be careful. HaShem is watching you.”

The thief whirls around. “Who said that?”

“Be careful. HaShem is watching you.”

The thief notices a parrot in a cage. He sighs with relief. “Stupid parrot. Tell me, birdie, what’s your name?”

“My name is Moses,” says the parrot.

“Moses?” says the thief. “Who names a parrot `Moses’?”

Says the bird, “Same person who named the rottweiler behind you `HaShem.’”

What we learn from this joke is that wrongdoing has its consequences, even if they are not immediately visible. This criminal chooses a house because he thinks it’s empty; easy to steal from, easy to escape. He is disabused of this notion first by a little birdie and then by a dog that, presumably, will tear him a new one from nose to pupick.

So, the next time you want to do something wrong, and you assume you’ll get away with it because no one’s around or they’re not paying attention or you don’t even care, just remember, there’s a dog named “God” waiting in the yard for ya. He may not maul you immediately, but he remembers your smell. And years later, you’re gonna meet that dog again in a dark alley. You can move toward the light at the end of that alley, but you gotta get past fido first. If you did some small bad things, maybe the dog’ll pish on your leg and let you pass. If you really hurt people, well, there are worse things than having a wild animal rip you open and chew on your intestines. I’m not sure what those worse things would be, but they must be out there.

Last joke: “Mr. Feinbaum,” says the Rabbi. “It’s been years since you’ve come to Saturday services. So nice that you came this morning. To what do I owe?”

“Actually, it’s very shameful,” says Feinbaum. “The only reason I came was: I lost my hat.”

“Your hat?” says the Rabbi. “I don’t understand.”

“Earlier this week, I lost my hat. I thought I would come to shul, look on the coat rack and steal someone else’s. But then I heard your sermon, all about the Ten Commandments, and I immediately changed my mind.”

“That’s wonderful,” says the Rebbe. “See the way HaShem works? But tell me, what part of the sermon got to you? Was it when I was going over `Thou Shalt Not Steal?’”

“Actually, no,” says Mr. Feinbaum. “When you came to, `Thou Shalt Not

Commit Adultery,’ I remembered where I left my hat.”

When I tell this joke, my congregants sometimes ask me, “Rabbi, which is worse? Stealing or committing adultery?” I have to think about this because in many ways, they’re similar. They both involve disruption and deceit. It’s just that in one, you’re taking something away, and in the other, you’re putting something in. With stealing, you remove something valuable and appreciated. With adultery, you take something that’s no longer appreciated and of rapidly diminishing value. Finally, with stealing, you hurry to a pawn shop to get rid of the spoils. With adultery, you hurry to a clinic to get rid of the rash. Not that I would know such things from personal experience, of course. I am, of course, proudly faithful to my dear wife, Miriam Libby, a strong, opinionated Jewish woman. So who needs a Rottweiler?

I’m kidding, honey, I’m kidding! This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28981

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #64 (4/21/2013): The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #64 (4/21/2013): The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word

Aired April 20, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPaOUN4N1Io

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 21st, 2013.

What a sad and tragic week it has been. As we all know, the guy who played Lumpy on Leave it to Beaver has died. But beyond that, welcome to the new world order of bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right of us.

Following the events of the Boston Marracre, everyone’s wringing their hands and their tallises, going “what a sick world this is,” “violence is taking over.” I’m not disagreeing that there are meshuggenah murderers in society, but ask anyone in Europe from the 60s and 70s, what it was like with the Basque Separatists and the IRA and the SLA and the NRBQ – you couldn’t walk by a mailbox for fear of the thing exploding. And, of course, Israel has lived for decades with bombs going off in restaurants and missiles flying in, special delivery, from their neighbors. I dare say, it is almost surprising we haven’t had more terrorist acts in recent times, which is a credit both to vigilant police work and the high price of pressure cookers as Walmart.

It is true that in this age of free information, you can find terrorist cookbooks all over the internet. Take a stick of dynamite, unsalted, add four tablespoons of rusty nails, sprinkle with fertilizer, set timer to 3 minutes, walk away. Serves 180. Caution: served very hot.

Should this kind of information be widely available? Hard to say. You can go on the web, look up how to build and wire a desk lamp, then take the lamp and bash your husband over the head. You can’t necessarily blame the messenger. Then again, all too often, the messenger is Al Qaeda, and unlike a lamp, you can’t use a pipe bomb to read by.

Watching the events in Boston, how careful we all were, all week long, not to use the M word. Not to blame the religion of peace. When the New York Post all but hanged two Saudi nationals who turned out to be 100% innocent, the paper was pilloried, and rightly so. Days later, we find out that the real perpetrators were originally from Russia. Okay, not Iran. Not Pakistan. Reserve the judgment. And they’d been in this country since they were-pre-teens. Bodybuilding, boxing, partying, lying to their relatives – typical American college doofuses.

But over the past two years, the brothers had a religious experience, and discovered what? Judaism, no. Sufism, no. Zoroastrianism? I don’t even know what the hell that is. No, they chose Islam. Surprise!

We tried, didn’t we folks? We made our best efforts not to blame the Arabs, not to pin the tail on the Muslims. We should’ve known better. Mohammedian madness strikes again. What is it about that fakakteh religion? What do these people put in their goat stew that turns young men into homicidal maniacs? Maybe we’ll find out soon from this wounded younger brother; maybe we won’t find out until some fellow prisoner at Sing Sing rapes it out of him.

Really, the best news about both of these animals being caught is that they had not taken credit for the marathon bombs. Usually, the Talibastards are jumping up and down and can’t wait to say, “We did it Western pigs. God is Great; carnage is greater.” But these Chechen chuckleheads merely strolled away. That is undoubtedly because they planned more damage to do; a couple o’ dead joggers was just a trial run. The FBI and the Boston police had to get these guys, and they did, for which America owes them tremendous thanks.

But it’s just a matter of time before the next brainwashed kids, or terror cell, or sand-covered douchebag on a prayer mat tries again. Come to think of it, there’s nothing all that dangerous about a bomb-making cookbook written by some half-brained chemistry student. The hazardous book was written 1400 years ago by a bunch of quarter-brained Caliphates in Persia. It’s brutal, it’s destructive, and it fits all too easily in a knapsack.

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

—> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28985

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63 (4/14/2013): Jew in a Box

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63 (4/14/2013): Jew in a Box

Aired April 14, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/r95LRvs7oUk

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 14th, 2013.

What’s even creepier than a jack-in-the-box? A Jew-in-a-box. What’s creepier than a Jew-in-a-box? A Jew in a box in a museum in Germany. No, they’re not doing a revival of “Man in the Glass Booth” – though they should, because I hear Gilbert Gottfried is available. No, instead, the Jewish Museum in Berlin – I know, Berlin is a Jewish Museum, or is that mausoleum? – anyhow, the Jewish Museum of Berlin has an exhibit about Jews called “The Whole Truth.” And they’ve got funny yarmulkes and displays about Kosher cooking and circumcisions – hopefully not the same display.

But the exhibit garnering the most attention and controversy – to the point that the New York Times featured it last week – was of a live Jewish man sitting in a glass box. This young man sits on a little cushion, takes questions, and is just observed by visitors to the museum. Responses to this bit of performance art ranged from whimsical appreciation to scoffs about bad taste. One woman said her ancestors spent enough time in German boxcars, she didn’t need to see a living Jew in a terrarium.

I am mostly on the side of the museum in this. I’m for anything that rubs the Germans’ faces in Forties. But the exhibit also asks a legitimate question: after the Holocaust and the near-annihilation of every Jew in the region, how does the country respond to a new crop of Yiddlach living and working in their midst?

You might ask: Rabbi, aren’t you shocked by the idea of displaying a middle-class Jew in a Lucite case, or, as one might call it, Peasant Under Glass? The answer is no. Every other city has a Holocaust museum now. Pretty soon they’ll have drive-in McDachaus. So to make an impact, you need to do something startling and transgressive. Let’s not forget, the Shoah began in earnest on Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass. So putting a Jew behind glass has a little bit of the “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, you can’t get me” about it.

More importantly, though, isolating the Jewish person this way makes a statement about how people of any culture view outsiders. Pass by a bum sleeping on the streets of New York; how do you look at him? Kind of like a tarantula in a zoo exhibit. It’s ugly, unsettling, fascinating from a distance, but you wouldn’t want to find it in your bathroom. Go look at the crowds in San Francisco’s Chinatown. If you’re Chinese, they’re kin; if you’re not Chinese, it’s like watching ants. Well, slant ants. And how do WASPs look at Somalian workers in Colorado? The same way Jews look at shiksehs in Loehmann’s. Aliens among us.

Put another way, we’re all living under someone else’s glass box. Say you’re a stranger knocking on my container, and you say, “Hi. Tell me about yourself.” We might start talking and sharing experiences until – gasp, great revelation – you’re just like me, and I’m just like you – well, maybe not exactly like you because I have a foot fungus thing that my dermatologist is checking into, but other than that . . .

I do think the Jewish Museum in Berlin missed an opportunity with “The Whole Truth” if they’re trying to display an average Jew. For sociological purposes, why not put the Hebrew in his natural habitat? Don’t plunk him in a sterile cube, show him in a delicatessen asking for more coleslaw. Show him at an Orioles game deciding whether to go to the bathroom at the bottom of the sixth or wait till the seventh-inning stretch.

Show him at a Young Israel mixer deciding whether the girl with the diet Coke is worth dancing with or should he take a run at the skinnier chick who’ll probably shoot him down but just might be on the rebound and therefore needy. These are the true quandaries facing Jews in the modern age.

Should the museum ever ask me, I would be happy to participate in their exhibit, even in the glass box. Just give me a plate of herring, a Dr. Brown’s cream and a five-ounce nasal spray, and let the young Berliners come. If they ask me, “What is it like being a Jew in today’s Germany?” I would just say, “Wouldn’t your great grandparents like to know.”

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28989

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #62 (4/7/2013): Roger Ebert

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #62 (4/7/2013): Roger Ebert

Aired April 7, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAn_bgyfJ7s

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 7th, 2013.

Hail and farewell to the respected, prolific and popular film critic, Roger Ebert. On Thursday April 4th, two days after saying he wanted to take things a little slower, he instead came to a complete halt, with cancer doing him in at age 70.

Anyone who loves movies is going to miss Roger Ebert, not just because he warned you what was a stinker before you laid down your six dollars. And then $10. And now $19, or 25 if you throw in popcorn. And not just because Roger could talk intelligently without being patronizing – something I haven’t mastered in 53 years. And not just because Roger’s love for good movies came through even when he pooped on bad ones. The biggest legacy of Roger Ebert – and Gene Siskel – was in remaking the idea of “what is a critic?” Admit it. Before those two, you probably thought of a movie or theater critic as this dreary, sepulchral, Ichabod Crane type, with a Bostonian accent, his nose in the air and his pen in someone’s back. He was better than you, and he sure let you know it. Or he talked so far over your head, sparrows would crash into his verbs on their way to Capistrano.

But not Roger and Gene. Of course they were smart, but they were next-door-neighbor smart, not nuclear physicist smart. And when they explained why Blake Edwards was a genius and dead teenager films are a scourge – even if you didn’t agree, you appreciated their conviction and knew they were treating you like a grownup. Roger may have won a Pulitzer, but he never came off like a pudknocker.

Oh sure, Ebert’s weight made him an easy target for many years. At one point, he was so out of shape, it seemed a miracle he could even lift his thumb. And then, he had to give up TV because of the Big C. The first time I saw a picture of him after all those operations, my jaw dropped. Well, not as low as his, but it was still a shock. And yet, he continued to write. A man who came of age in a time of typewriters and telexes kept himself relevant in our age of tweets and tablets. In fact, he posted more movie reviews last year than he did any year before that. If I had to give that many sermons in a year, my brain would turn to gefilte fish.

And if my cranium did become an amalgam of whitefish, pike, sawdust and carp, would I have the guts Roger Ebert had in being so visible? Of going on Oprah with his new voice or on the internet with his fake chin? If I get a pimple on my nose, I hide for three days.

Among the many quotable quotes of Roger Ebert, he once said that “your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.” Well, I may not be able to follow another Charlie Kaufman movie, but I’m sad that we lost Roger Ebert. I think of Gene Siskel in heaven, waiting all these years for the day he could go, “Awright. No cameras. No censors. Rog, let’s really talk about `Cop and a Half’” Go at it guys; no one did it better.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28994

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #61 (3/17/2013): Sugar Sugar

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Aired March 16, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/NUaspXp3-Kw

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 17th, 2013.

How big is too big? This is a question asked by real-estate agents, businesses and gay men since time immemorial. Now the same question is being put to soft drinks – at least in New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or, as I like to call him, Big Brotherberg, wants to make it illegal for restaurants to sell sugary beverages in containers bigger than 16 ounces. Places like McDonald’s and 7/11 and even Starbucks, with their grande-vente-sabado-gigante-ultra-maxi-mocha-poppachinos – would be subject to fines unless they gave customers less goliath-sized portions.

To give Big Brotherberg his due, his motivations are truly admirable. Obesity is a huge problem in this country. Not just that fat people are unpleasant to look at, or sit next to on a bus, or listen to when they’re not being jolly; no, it’s that bad eating sends healthcare costs through the roof. Billions of dollars are funneled into treating heart disease and diabetes and tooth decay, and Ritalin for kids who are so hopped up on sugar, we confuse their natural exuberance for ADHD.

The rationale of a soft drink ban is that if you put less crap in front of people’s mouths, they will pour less garbage into their guts. Psychologically, this is absolutely sound. If we see six pieces of cheese on a plate, we’re probably gonna eat all six even if we stopped being after hungry after four. And have you been to a supermarket lately? Shopping carts are bigger than Buicks. Why? Because the cart looks empty and lonely with only half a dozen items in it. But with 15 items, we consummate our urge to consume.

So the logic is, if you give people 16 ounces of Dr. Pibb with their 8,000 calorie happy meal, they’ll get used to having a little less fructose with their fries. And right there, that’s 200 calories staying in the fountain and out of your colon. It’s a really great idea – if it were voluntary. If chain restaurants and family-style eateries said, “Hey, we’ll charge a little less, and we’ll serve a little less.” Maybe, eventually, people will go back to portion control the way it was before America supersized everything from street pretzels to porn stars’ boobs.

But wait a minute – Americans have already been downsized, and it hasn’t done a damn thing to shrink their waistlines. For years, snack companies have been slicing candy bars just a notch smaller for the same price, hoping we won’t notice. Potato chip makers have kept their bags the same while putting fewer spuds in it. They’re just being health conscious, right? And it’s really made such a difference to people’s buying and eating habits, right?

But more than that, if we’ve learned anything from the failure of prohibition or Nancy Reagan’s war on pot, it’s that banning vices does not work. It just drives the market underground and turns cravings into criminality. And I don’t care how well-meaning his motivations, New York’s mayor is overstepping his bounds. If a mother tells a ten year old, “I’m doing this for your own benefit,” well, sure; she’s a mom and he’s ten. If a government official tells you, “I’m doing this for your own good,” you know it’s only a matter of time before everyone visiting City Hall has to bring frankincense and a sacrificial goat.

I realize my opposition to the soda ban can be viewed as contradictory to my support of reasonable gun control. After all, how can I support 32 ounces in a big gulp if I’m against 32 bullets in a chamber? The answer is, which would you rather come across: a psychopath pointing a semi-automatic at a classroom, or a chubby guy with a Mountain Dew asking you the time because his wristwatch doesn’t fit anymore?

In striking down Mayor Brotherberg’s soda ban last week, Judge Milton Tingling – love that name! – Judge Tingling said the law was arbitrary and capricious and virtually unenforceable. It’s also insulting to grownups who wanna make their own choices. Even worse, it turns presumably smart people into retards. Restaurants are complaining, “Oh, no! We can only serve 16 ounces now, we have to get smaller cups.” News flash: 16 ounces fits even better in a 24-ounce cup than it does in a 16. You can actually walk past the counter without spilling Pepsi on your fingers.

Most aggravating is the unfairness. If you can go in a bodega and buy 20 cartons of cancer-causing cigarettes; if you can pop in a liquor store and buy beer by the keg; if you can visit your local topless bar and get twelve lap-dances (and by the way, I recommend Tina; she does this thing with her kegels), if you can saunter into a supermarket and buy a 2-liter 7-Up for one-fifty – if you can do all of this – why turn fast-food managers into cup cops?

Mayor Brotherberg, if you truly wanna cure obesity, stop this nanny nonsense and make real change. New York City is so crazy expensive, poor and middle-class families can’t afford fresh, organic produce. Try giving people real salaries and livable budgets, and they’ll eat in better restaurants. They’ll save Burger King for a once-in-awhile guilty pleasure instead of eating there three times a week because it’s the only thing a single mother has time, energy or money to manage.

As far as portion control, tell ya what Mayor. Next time you try to get some cash out of your bank account, I want the bank manager to tell you, “No, you don’t need $30,000 at one time. I’m cutting you off at 20; you can come back tomorrow for the rest. I realize it’s your money, but I don’t trust some of the business deals you might make, so . . . I’m doing this for your own good. Have a nice day.” That noise you’ll hear from Bloomberg’s throat will be a very big gulp, indeed.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Supersize Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

—> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28998

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #60 (3/10/2013): Whose Line Returns

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #60 (3/10/2013): Whose Line Returns

Aired March 9, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/Yhyv7lhIT6E

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 10th, 2013.

A bit of happy, wonderful news from the world of television: “Whose Line is it Anyway” is coming back for a summer run. That delightful show, where improvisers take suggestions from people and do crazy things with them – kind of like Congress – it’s been off the air for six years. Even though reruns make it feel like it was just last Wednesday.

Still, the CW Network, which is co-owned by CBS and Warner Brothers – CW – that’s how they got their initials – did you know that? It’s a good thing it wasn’t Fox and Universal. Anyhoo, they’ll be airing the brand-new season of “Whose Line is it Anyway.” And it’ll be just like old times. Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie and Wayne Brady will all be back to do their thing. Which means Ryan will be genius, Colin will be bald, and Brady won’t be that funny but he can sing the phone book and shake his tush for the ladies.

Drew Carey will not be back to host, and let’s face it, that’s a blessing. He meant well, but he was the weak link when he was in scenes. And when he wasn’t, the camera would spend half the program showing him laughing instead of showing us what he was laughing at. If I wanna spend a half hour watching someone giggle like an idiot, I’ll go visit my uncle Brian in the mental home. And the tragic part is he works there in personnel. But I digress.

For all its flaws, “Whose Line is it Anyway” was an oasis of old-fashioned entertainment. And by old-fashioned, I don’t mean like barbershop quartets and public hangings. I mean simple, live-by-your-wits live performance. Look around: all the sitcoms now are shot like movies, all the movies look like video games, and all the video games look like the end of the world. “Whose Line” is just four brave souls and a piano-playing lesbian. How can you beat it?

I admit, I have had my secret dreams of being part of an improv troupe. I’m quick-thinking, I’m funny, I can imitate noises. Here, listen, listen: shhhhhhh – that’s a shower. Shhhhhhhhhh. Not bad, right. Sssssssssssss. That’s a bicycle tire running out of air. Or my Cousin Velvel pishing his pants. See? My talents are protean.

I can also spin comic monologues out of thin air. Here, wait wait. Okay. Hi, my name’s Rabbi Sol. Great to be here. Hey . . . how about those . . . sports teams. You ever notice how they, uh, play sports? One time I met a friend, he was going off to play tennis – no wait, softball. I was like, “Hey, friend. Where you going?” And he’s like, (different voice) “I’m going to play softball.” And I’m, like, (different voice) “Why” – no, wait, that’s his voice. I’m like, “Why?” And he says, (different voice) “Because I like it. Football’s too dangerous.” And then he hurts himself. See? My stories have an arc!

But I know improvisation is really about the other person, working with your partner to create magic. So let’s do this. You say something funny, and I’ll build on it. Go ahead: Uh huh, yes, and . . . Yes, and . . . Yes and . . . And how long have you been a gynecologist? The ostrich farm. Aaaand scene.

Of course, to be on a show like “Whose Line is it Anyway,” you also have to be musical. You have to take a topic and instantly fashion it into a song. I can do that! Here:
Doi doi doi doi-doi-doi-doi-doi-doi-doi.
I went to the synagogue to pray to HaShem.
There were many people there, I said hello to them.
They threw me on the beemah and started feeling up my crotch.
And when it was over I was missing my tallis and my watch.
My tallis, my wallet, and my watch. Yeah!

CW, you have my resume. I’m sure the show will be great as it is, but there’s always room for . . . improv-ment.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. You may now read the Talmud in the style of your own devising.

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #59 (3/3/2013): Disappearing Delis

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #59 (3/3/2013): Disappearing Delis

Aired March 2, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/dXEmeT2NOd8

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 3rd, 2013.

Oh, woe is me. Woe are all of us. There was a story in the Los Angeles Times this week about the decline of the Jewish deli in American life. The story bemoaned the closing of the 50-year-old Junior’s Deli in L.A., and the 75-year-old Stage Deli in New York. There used to be thousands of delicatessens in Manhattan, now there are dozens. And delis are being deleted from other major cities, too.

Why is this? All sorts of reasons. Changing demographics, the generation that grew up feasting on tubes of salami is now eating through a tube, and the younger people have so many choices of where to eat and what to eat. It’s hard to blame them when they don’t go for the old pickles-on-the-table, toothpick-in-the-brisket standbys. Also not helping is our so-called health consciousness, which sees fatty meat and red meat and cured meat and smoked meat as the four horsemeats of the apocalypse. Oh sure, McDonald’s and Burger King aren’t exactly dishing out broccoli quinoa, but you can buy a happy meal for five dollars. Try finding a heaping brisket sandwich for less than a sawbuck.

Deli owners complain they have to increase prices because food costs keep rising, rent goes up, and insurance is through the roof. Which, if you figure every third person in a Jewish deli is a candidate for a bypass or old enough for a plot in Baron Hirsch, you can see why.

Some delicatessens are going with the flow. They’re serving egg-white omelettes, they’re offering Cajun burgers, they’re doing paninis instead of blinis. The co-owner of Canter’s restaurant told the L.A. Times, “You don’t need to just have rye bread and pastrami to have a deli sandwich.” I agree. You also need Russian dressing and potato salad.

Yet we have to endure stories about delis in San Francisco bringing in homemade sodas and drinks – and removing Dr. Browns. A deli without Dr. Brown’s cream or black cherry soda? Is the world truly coming to an end? My God, Dr. Brown’s are the people who made a soda out of celery. The single most useless, hated vegetable on earth, and some genius at Dr. Brown’s made a delicious – well, tolerable – carbonated beverage out of it. And they say deli’s not health food. Pooey!

Look, I understand the need to change with the times, but you don’t fix what isn’t broken, and a good pastrami sandwich, cut thick, on fresh rye, with a shtickel of red pepper, is going to outlast doomsday – let alone garden burgers and tofu chicken. Things are cyclical, and just the way Yiddish has been brought back around by a new generation of Orthodox Jews, and just like record albums are selling again thanks to audiophiles and scary black people, I believe the virtues of an old-fashioned Jewish deli are bound to rebound in the public imagination. Much the way a chopped-liver sandwich ricochets from your stomach to your heart to your throat to your intestines to your eyes. You eat it once, you’re still eating it three days later – that’s value!

So let us not yet say kaddish for kishke and hymns for Hebrew National. Let us hope that owners of Jewish and Kosher delis – which are not the same, by the way. If someone hands you a corned beef on white toast with Swiss cheese over it, you’re probably not in a kosher establishment. If somebody hands you a pastrami with ham over it, you’re probably in hell. But either way, let us hope the deli owners find a way to keep prices down, quality up, hot dogs on the grill, pickles on the dill, kasha and knishes, herring and whitefishes, Cel-Ray in our glasses, and cellulite on our asses.

Anyone who has a belly knows the beauty of a deli.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29226

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #58 (2/24/2013): More Purim Jokes

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #58 (2/24/2013): More Purim Jokes

aired February 23, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/e9ICds0fO8k

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 24th, 2013.

Happy Purim everybody! A wonderful day on the Jewish calendar where we give thanks that we weren’t all killed by Persians a couple of thousand years ago. We celebrate by reading the book of Esther, giving shalach manos – which is a charitable donation of food and snacks to people we care about. We celebrate by putting on costumes, getting drunk, and, in certain areas of the world, watching Nascar.

I like to celebrate by spreading laughter, by telling a joke or two, and then explaining the joke for people who are too shikkered up on Kedem to get the punchlines. Or, more importantly, the moral.

Let’s begin with the tale of three sons, nice grown Jewish boys, all of them successful abroad, all of them forever trying to impress their mama back in Brooklyn.

They meet for lunch in London, and the oldest son, Moishe, says, “I built mama a three-story house near Prospect Park. She just moved in last week.”

The second boy, Yitzchak, says, “Well, I bought mama a brand-new Mercedes with a round-the-clock driver to take her anywhere she wants to go.”

Avi, the youngest son, says, “I’m the only one who’s really thinking of mom’s needs. I bought her a parrot!”

“A parrot?” the other two go. “What are you meshuggeh?”

“Not at all,” says Avi. “Mama’s a widow, she’s lonely. I got her a beautiful parrot that is also brilliant. I spent thousands of dollars getting language teachers to teach the bird English, Hebrew and Yiddish. And then I paid a Rabbi even more money to help the parrot memorize all five books of the Torah, so whenever mama wants, he can recite.”

Just at that moment, Moishe’s cellphone rings, and it’s mama on the phone. He puts her on speaker and says, “Mama we’re all here. How do you like our gifts?”

And the old woman’s voice comes out the phone and says, “Well, to be honest, the house is very nice, Moishe, but it’s so big. I can’t deal with the cleaning, and I get lost from room to room. I think I’ll move back to my apartment.”

Moishe sighs and hands the phone to his brother. “Yitzchack,” the mother says, “I know you mean well, but a German car? And that driver, he never shuts up. Really, I’d rather walk.”

Yitzchak deflates and hands the phone to the third brother. “Avi, my youngest,” the mama says. “Thank you! Thank you! What a perfect gift! The chicken was delicious!”

We have all heard the old adage, “It’s the thought that counts.” It’s not how much money it costs or how puffed up you feel by making an impression. It’s trying to please the person you are gifting. You could buy a $200 pair of Nikes, but if you give them to Oscar Pistorius, what’s the point? Of course, if you gave him a Smith-Wesson, that he might have use for.

A studious but poor young Rebbe would sit in the backyard of his little shul and ponder and ponder and ask questions of God. This went on for months, years, until one day, HaShem decides to make it a conversation.

“I’m here,” He says, “What do you wanna know?”

“Well,” says the Rebbe, “I’ve been thinking about the nature of time. For example, what is a million years to you?”

God says, “You’re a human. A million years to you is just one second to me.”

The Rabbi thinks a little bit and says, “What about money? What is a million dollars to you?”

“Ha!” God laughs, He says, “a million dollars to you is less than a penny to me. It’s a pittance.”

“In that case,” the Rabbi says, “can I have a million dollars?”

“Sure,” says God, “in a second.”

If there’s one thing that Jews seem to know better than almost any other religion is that God, if He exists, follows His own rules and principles. We can assuage him with prayers and good deeds, we can interpret the Torah six ways to Shabbos, but really, HaShem does what He does, and we all follow furtively along. Like storm chasers. Get too near the tornado, you’ve got the Tower of Babel; stray too far from the tornado, and you wander for forty years. So the best bet is to pursue God with a lot of awe, a little fear, and a good pair of binoculars.

Last joke: What’s the difference between an Orthodox Jewish wedding, a Conservative wedding, a Reform wedding and a Reconstructionist wedding?

Simple. In an Orthodox wedding, the bride’s mother is pregnant. In a Conservative wedding, the bride is pregnant. A Reform wedding, the Rabbi is pregnant. And in Reconstructionist, both brides are pregnant.

What I love about this joke is that despite the mockery, it embraces all the different strands of Jewish practice. You don’t have to wear a fur hat and payes – especially if you’re a woman. Or if modern ways are a little too modern, you can create the niche of Jewish custom that works for you. So, if you want to celebrate Purim by going to synagogue and singing and hearing the megillah, great! If you don’t observe Purim at all, but you’re a good person and Jewish in your heart, also great. And if you’re somewhere in the middle, but you wanna send me some shalach manos – prune is my favorite, though the apricot isn’t bad.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29231

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #57 (2/17/2013): Pope Benedict Retires

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #57 (2/17/2013): Pope Benedict Retires

aired February 16th, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/H3KYHpwGAFs

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 17th, 2013.

Big news for goyim this week when Joseph Ratzinger – aka Pope Benedict the 16th – announced that he would be stepping down from his Popery at the end of the month. It’s an unusual step, since most Popes either die in office or quit to take on consulting work in the fashion industry. But Pope Benedict felt that both his mind and body were starting to go, so rather than decline into a senile figurehead, he’s gracefully bowing out so the cardinals can groom someone else for the most important job in all Christendom. Well, apart from being CEO of Hobby Lobby.

In his eight years of Popeing, Benedict has racked up a decidedly mixed record. To be fair, he had a hard act to follow. In 2005, he succeeded Pope John Paul II, who not only traveled extensively but won the Miss Congeniality pageant four out of the seven years he entered. Following Pope JPII is like coming after Jimi Hendrix at Monterey; you can either burn two guitars and play a third with your shmeckel, or you go the other way, hang back, do your thing, and try to make your own little contribution while half the crowd is stumbling to the concession stands.

Let us also not forget that Pope Benedict did not exactly have the saintliest early life. He was a German. In the `30s. So when he was 14 years old, he was forced to join the Hitler Youth. He wasn’t crazy about it, but he didn’t exactly take a martyr’s stand against it, either. Two years later, he was a soldier in the German air force and then the infantry. Again, he wasn’t thrilled to be there, but tell that to any western allies he flew over or shot at. Then, when the war was all but over, he deserts and runs home. Interesting qualifications for being the holiest man in the world and spiritual guide to millions: be part of the most racist, homicidal regime in history, fight and be ready to kill for that country, and when the going gets rough, escape and be a traitor. In the same shoes, would I have had the moral fiber to be any different? Probably not, but I’m not Pope.

Nor am I likely to be. My application for the open position has already been rejected, they say because I don’t have Quark Express, but ehhh… I think it’s anti-Semitism.

Anyhoo, once he became Pope, no question, Benedict had the courage of his convictions. He was a conservative who believed in sticking with time-honored traditions and pulling Catholicism back from what he perceived to be a hastening secularized decay. When a religion is 2000 years old, there’s a comfort in that – hearing the Latin, upholding the old guard, knowing that the geezer charge has more in common with a monk from the 1200s than with a slacker from 2012. I compare it to the ultra-Orthodox Jews you see at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem every day. They’re incredibly insular and right wing, and they believe the bible word for word, and anything new you throw at them is so terrifying, they shrink into their black coats like potato bugs curling up into a ball. But they’re also a link to the past that would be really sad to lose. They’re out there being perfect so the rest of us don’t have to.

Except, nobody’s perfect. And Pope Benedict’s back-to-the-dark-ages position on certain issues isn’t even close. Women priests? No way. Abortion? No, but no surprise there. Same-sex marriage? He likened it to anarchy and called it “contrary to human love.” Because a celibate ex-Nazi is certainly my go-to expert on love and matrimony.

He did better, much better, on Jewish matters, making sure to renounce the whole “Jews killed Jesus” thing and visiting Auschwitz in 2012 – and not just to reminisce with old classmates and relatives. He did restore to the liturgy a Latin prayer that had a part in it about making sure to convert the Jews. But they cut that line years ago. I think they replaced it with some lyrics from Led Zeppelin IV. And when it’s come to Israel and the Arabs, Benedict has tried to be even-handed and a champion of peace, which is exactly what you’d want and expect from the Pope. He also pissed off the Arabs when he audaciously mentioned that Islam doesn’t exactly have a peaceful reputation. That’s about as self-evident as saying Paulie Shore movies don’t reach the level of high art – but when the Pope says it, it’s news.

Did Benedict do too little, too laity about all those pedophile priests? Of course! Heck, as a Cardinal, he was as guilty as anyone of hushing things up and making sure all the horrors stayed inside the church. Heaven forbid they should get in the clutches of such pesky outsiders as police and courts and the public’s right to know. But ultimately, the biggest disappointment about Pope Benedict is the hypocrisy that I’m sure he doesn’t even see. He’s willing to leap into the modern era with a Facebook page and Twitter tweets, and he’s the first Pope in 600 years to step down instead of drop dead. So why is he willing to break those traditions, yet making the church evolve in its stance on women and gays and embryos – that would be heresy.

When all is said and done, the real story of Pope Benedict is that he’s a smart guy whose career was spent either saving his skin or salvaging the status quo. If the Nazis come, salute; if they put you in a uniform, fight; if they lose, run; if your colleagues are shtupping little boys, juggle; if you say something risky, backpedal; but if the world turns forward, stand still.

The Vatican has an opportunity now to turn the corner. They can get a Pope from Africa, or Latin America, or Passaic. They can elect a guy who’ll separate important moral principles from stuff that’s been done just because it’s always been done. I’m not expecting to see Catholicism suddenly embrace pro-choice rallies, lady priests and gay honeymoons – but why not? If a black man can become president, and a Hitler Youth can be Pope, and Honey BooBoo can be a TV star, anything can happen.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Dominus vobiscum, zie gezundt.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29236

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #56 (2/10/2013): Valentine’s Day

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #56 (2/10/2013): Valentine’s Day

aired February 9th, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/yK-2Mmg9-yk

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 10th, 2013.

Would you be my Valentine? Actually, you’re wise if you wouldn’t. St. Valentine, upon whom the Valentine’s Day holiday is kind of, sort of, not exactly really based, was a possibly apocryphal figure – well, all the saints were apocryphal to Yids like me. But if you’re a goy, and you believe in such stories, St. Valentine was one of two things: He was either a composite of a couple of different saints because he was so undistinguished as a saint himself. Or he was a good guy, a hard-working believer – who was clubbed to death and martyred on February 14th. Either way, who the hell wants to be him?

As for Valentine’s Day itself, very likely it was the Catholic Church’s response to a pagan celebration – the feast of Lupercal. Personally, I think Sustacal and Metrecal are more slimming. But the point is, the church couldn’t have some idolatrous holiday interfering with their practice, so like Halloween and Christmas, they morphed the comical into something canonical.

How did hearts and cupids and $180 Zales receipts creep into it? I have no idea, but I’m glad they did, because it makes Valentine’s Day a holiday everyone can celebrate. That human beings need an excuse to express affection is a sad thing. But if one day of the year, you can turn to your partner or spouse or well-paid escort and say, “I love you. Thank you for all you bring to my life. Please pick up some rye bread on the way home.” That’s a beautiful thing.

I realize that for those who are alone and lonely, Valentine’s can be a hollow holiday indeed. Seeing all those Hallmark cards in the Rite Aid, watching couples on the street holding hands, watching couples in porn holding glands, and finding 2-for-1 restaurant coupons in the Sunday paper, then wondering if it’s worth the embarrassment to go solo and put the second entrée in a doggie bag.

My single friends, I feel your pain. It’s just below the ribcage and spasms uncontrollably, but it’s okay, I’m on medication. The solution for everyone is to not look at Valentine’s Day as just for romantic couples. It’s for everyone who has loved you or you have loved in the course of your travels: family, neighbors, pets, inflatable dolls with lifelike genitalia. As Stephen Stills once put it, “Love the one you’re with.” Just make sure you have warm towels and a disinfectant.

And let us not forget that Valentine’s Day now has a whole other context thanks to The Vagina Monologues. Eve Ensler’s play about women and their nether parts became a global phenomenon. And now, February 14th is a day to protest violence and abuse against women, for women themselves to take pride in their achievements, and, of course, for us all to pay tribute to those hairy little pusselehs.

So let this and every Valentine’s Day be not just about $70 restaurants and 7-11 roses, but mutual appreciation. A day of smiles, and hugs, and thank yous and vaginas. If you’re lucky, not necessarily in that order.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29240