RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #145 (3/11/17): Purim Jokes Anew
Aired March 11, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://youtu.be/Zz9D1TbSKVE
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 11, 2017.
Happy Purim, everybody! It’s the one day of the year when the world is actually supposed to be crazy, rather than the accident we live in day to day. As such, it’s something of a tradition on this most happy holiday for me to eschew ranting, bitching, and beating various dead horses, and to just tell a couple of jokes, with a bissel of Talmudic commentary. Well, Talmudic-style commentary, since I’m too busy to actually read the friggin’ Talmud. (pause) Oh, as if you aren’t.
Anyhoo, we begin with a charming joke about infidelity. Murray the accountant has been lusting after his secretary for months. Finally, she gives in, they take the day off, go to a hotel, and spend hours boinking and shtupping, moaning and groaning, coming and going. They’re so exhausted, they even fall asleep. Suddenly, Murray wakes up, it’s 7:30 at night.
They start frantically dressing, and as they get out the door, Murray hands the girl his shoes and says, “Do me a favor. Take my shoes, go to the lawn, and rub them all over the grass and dirt. Do it!” She does. He says, “Great, don’t panic.” Drives her home and makes a beeline for his own house.
In he walks at 8:45, and boy, is his wife waiting for him. “Where have you been?” she screams in his face.
“Honey,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie to you. For the last ten hours, I’ve been in a hotel room with my hot secretary, and we’ve been having wild sex in every possible position. I’m sorry.”
Murray’s wife looks down at his shoes. Stares at them. Says, “You lying son of a bitch; you’ve been playing golf!”
Please note that this joke is not meant to be instructional or tried at home. It does remind us that marriage is a sacred institution, but even more sacred is the need for men to have their own corner of time and space. Doesn’t mean, chas v’chalil, they should be committing adultery—or certainly not childrenry. But an activity that is theirs and theirs alone. And ladies, remember, the good news is that for men of a certain age, golf is a helluva lot more manageable than an affair. For one thing, you can hold your shaft up for three hours without having a heart attack. For another, it’s more fun to pick up your balls from the green than to pick up your balls with tighter underpants. And finally, if you land in the wrong hole, you just get a drink at the bar instead of needing a penicillin shot.
Moving on. So last week, I’m visiting a big synagogue in Manhattan, and I have to use the bathroom. So I go downstairs, big men’s room; I try one stall, the door won’t open. So I try the next one, it’s fine, I go in, sit down.
I’m just getting settled, when a voice comes from the next cubicle. “Shalom! How are you doing?”
“Oy,” I think. But to be polite, I answer, “I’m fine, thank you very much.”
A couple seconds go by, the man says, “Well, what are you doing?”
What am I doing? I tell the guy, “I’m taking a poop! What the hell do you think I’m doing?”
Immediately, I hear the voice say: “Listen, Chaim, lemme call you back. I’ve got this schmuck in the other stall answering everything I say.”
Nu, so what do we learn from this joke? We learn that we can get so wrapped up in our own heads, we automatically assume everything around us revolves around us. The truth is, most of the time, the opposite is true. We are the moons orbiting the sun. The best we can do is not to collide with each other, fall in, and burn up. Put another way—since I mentioned poop—we’re just flies circling the manure. The best we can do is not collide, fall in, and come out smelling like Greeley, Colorado.
Okay, last one. Out of sheer curiosity, because he’s never been, Avi Cohen decides to visit a church. He goes in, unpacks his t’fillin bag, puts on a yarmulke and tallis, and sits. He figures, “I can pray my own prayers; I just like the atmosphere.”
However, when the priest starts the service, he sees Avi, and the first thing he says is, “Would all non-Christians kindly leave?”
Avi hears this, but he’s in the middle of the sh’ma and doesn’t move.
Again, the priest calls out, “I’m asking, please, would all non-Christians leave?”
Avi, in the middle of prayer, doesn’t acknowledge; doesn’t budge.
Finally, turning red, the priest barks out, “Will all Jews please leave my church!”
At this, Avi removes his kippah, his tallis, stuffs them away, leaps out of his chair, and marches towards the exit. On the way, he grabs a statue of Jesus and says, “Come boychick. They don’t want us here anymore.”
This is, of course, a reminder that in an era when Christians and Jews may wind up being pitted against each other over abortion, Palestinians, school prayer, thin-crust pizza vs. Chicago style. It’s good to remember we all need each other. Christians wouldn’t have a religion without us. And we wouldn’t have much traction in our current government if the goyim didn’t believe that Israel was necessary for endtimes. So, Jews, stop panicking. If anti-Semites are knocking over some headstones, if the alt-right is somehow making skinheads feel like they’ve got decent hair—it sucks, but don’t get sucked in. On this Purim holiday of 2017, celebrate what we can, and keep an eye on what we can’t.
Remember, too, that the president has a Jewish son-in-law and a converted Jewish daughter, and that the majority of our countrymen stand with us. Countrywomen, too. After all, what is a pussy hat if not a hamentaschen for the head?
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Purim Sameach!
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