click above to watch episode #941click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 941st episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, April 27, 2024.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews writer-director David Willinger and offers a Rabbinical Reflection Passover Prayer; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Ackmen); Bunion Watch; Dave’s Big Dictionary (assail).
Guest: writer-performer David Willinger
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: no filter, defunct things, films 01:01:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews David Willinger 02:02:00 GREELEY TIMES 02:25:30 BUNION WATCH 02:30:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #184: A Passover Prayer 02:35:30 DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY: assail 02:50:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:59:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Ackmen, CO 03:02:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #183 (4/20/24): PASSOVER 2024
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired April 20, 2024 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol Solomon offers reflections, and a timely poem, to celebrate this year’s particularly potent Passover holiday.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the 2024 Passover holiday.
Yes, my friends, it’s matzoh time again! Time to change the silverware, cover your tables, sell your leavened food and then buy it back when it’s stale — time to welcome a holiday that throws your life into chaos, just for a big meal that’s supposed to be about order. That’s the seder.Seder means order, structure, in Hebrew. So at the seder, we do one activity after another after another, in order, for two hours before we finally get to eat. Then we dine on wonderful things like horse radish and boiled eggs and flat bread that uses cardboard as its flavor profile. Mmm mmm, constipated!
But we do this, of course, to commemorate a miracle. Our Jewish ancestors, who spent decades as slaves to the Pharaohs, high-tailed it out of Egypt, thanks to Moses, his brother Aaron, and a God that actually talked to people back then. Or at least to Moses. They had that kind of relationship.
And so, 3500 years ago, the Jews left Eretz Mitzrayim, crossed the Red Sea — which slowly parted for them like the legs of an arthritic hooker—and wandered the desert for 40 years till all of them were dead. But their children made it to Israel. And that’s where the Jews have stayed until this very day. And, current events notwithstanding, they ain’t goin’ anywhere.
For decades now, I’ve ranted and raved and driven home one idea that even a pinhead like Susan Sarandon should understand: Israel is for Jews. Arabs can live anywhere else. Why don’t they? If all these Muslim countries refuse to make a home for their Palestinian brothers, well, that’s just too bad. There’s no reason the Palis can’t have a couple dozen square miles of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Algeria, Mali, Pakistan,Turkmenistan, or Dearborn, Michigan. Palestinians want a country so bad? Give them one…far away. Suck them out of Gaza and the West Bank so Israelis can be free and safe…surrounded by a dozen countries that despise them.
Yet for all the horrible news and the burgeoning anti-Semitism, we can muster a smile or two this Pesach holiday. On Thursday, the president of Columbia University—an Arab no less—looked at the swarm of hippie hooligans disobeying orders to vacate the college’s lawns and said, finally, “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops.” They stayed, in came the riot squad, and more than a hundred imbeciles were arrested and suspended—not for being anti-Israel (that’s a given for these smelly hermaphrodites) but for trespassing on private property and assuming their bleeding-heart wokeness would be an impermeable escutcheon. Understand that they were non-violent, and so were the cops. Everybody got what they came for: President Shafik got her lawn back (for a day), the cops made their quota without a single speeding ticket, and the brats got on TV crying and laughing and showing every employer in America who not to hire at the next job fair.
On top of this heartening development of cracking down on crackpots—there’s more amazing news. A week ago, Iran sent hundreds of missiles streaming into Israel. I think one of them hit. All the rest were intercepted and bombed out of the sky by the vaunted “iron dome.” Where that dome was on October 7th is another story, but at least this time, it worked like gangbusters. Or bomb-busters. And after that, Israel hit back with a bunch of mini-drones that were mini enough to do minimal damage but scary enough to make the Tehran tyrants think twice about escalation.
So in these anxious and ugly times, when Jews face hatred from stupid goyim, and Israel faces hatred from stupid Jews, we can be thankful for some godly interventions that are at least trying to restore order. Seder.
And for those who still equate Zionism with oppressive colonialism as opposed to…”my house, my rules,” here’s some poetic justice:
“From the river to the sea, Hamas had better flee.
`Cuz way back in `48, the world made Israel a Jewish state.
The Arabs are welcome to work and play, but if you hurt us, we will slay.
We’ll bomb the tunnels Hamas built and turn their houses into silt.
If you prick us, we will bleed, but then we’ll get you, guaranteed.
If you’re a young and left-wing loony spewing your shit at the Ivies and SUNY
Not realizing Al Qaeda, Al Aqsa, Hamas
Are all the same evil, with all the same boss?
Please know that the monsters who caused 9/11
are back as the same butchers of October 7.
Yet millions of Arabs select them as leaders
and pledge their allegiance to these bottom feeders
who’ve vowed to push Israel straight off the map
Which is why we must blot them, like wiping up crap.
If they think they’ll win and cause Israel to vanish
“Joder a sus madres.” Look it up — it’s Spanish.
Israel will fight to the very last Jew — and make no mistake, they’re fighting for you.
`Cause if Muslims win, new maps they will draw that put the whole world under Sharia law.
So Israel will struggle, as lies leave her friendless
And Israel will fight, though the fighting is endless.
And Israel will win because Israel must and grind our foes into cockroach dust.
From Haifa to Tiberius, IDF is dead serious
From Kiryat Shmona all the way to Eilat, the Arabs can lick Golda Meir’s hairy grey twat.
From the sea to the river, we’ll make Hamas quiver.
And for year after year, Israel stays here.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Happy Pesach seder to you — from border to border, we will restore order.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #179 (4/1/2023): Passover Thoughts
airs April 1, 2023 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for this Passover week, 2023.
My friends, we are only days away from Pesach, the Jewish holiday of Passover, when we commemorate escaping from Egypt and making our slow pilgrimage through the desert, into Israel, and later to Miami and Crown Heights. Although we mourn all the Arabs God had to kill to save us, we rejoice in the holiday because it means we are no longer slaves. We get paid for our labor, and we are vassals only to the bank, the mortgage, the car loan, the student debt, and Equifax.
Of course, Passover comes with much labor of its own: you have to clean the house, change out your dishware, cook a big and strange meal, invite people to the Seder, disinvite people to the Seder when one of them is Uncle Yakov, who doesn’t get along with Cousin Malka because of a business deal with her late husband that went south, and now she won’t even be in the same room with Yakov, even though he likes her, in fact, he likes-likes her, which he won’t admit, not even to his therapist, but you can tell.
The cleaning and work of modern-day holidaying remains a chore, but one aspect of Passover has improved significantly over the years. Remember back in the day, when you’d go shopping for Pesadiche food, and the supermarket would allow two shelves for items marked K for P? On the top shelf, you’d see gefilte fish, bullion cubes, and a bag of walnuts. And on the shelf below, dessert! Which meant matzoh smeared with dark chocolate, which is what passed for a snack in 1976; macaroons, which tasted like sponges dipped in coconut and shame; and honey cake, about which the less said, the better.
But that was the selection. You’d head to the checkout, just hoping the gentile ahead of you wasn’t laying a pork roast on the conveyer belt for your box of matzoh to soak in.
Yes, if you wanted Jewish food, you’d fry your own matzoh meal pancakes, you’d roast a roast, you’d shred your knuckles making charoset that everybody else would eat at the seder, so by the time the bowl got back to you, you had one speck not even big enough to stop up a bluebird’s tuchas.
Oh, my chaverim, times were tough. But now? Jewish neighborhoods have entire stores devoted to Passover edibles. You enter surrounded by kashrut. You almost expect them to hand you a tfillin with your shopping cart. And you can barely imagine a food that doesn’t have a Passover hack. Bacon? Fried pastrami. Breakfast cereal? Apple-cinnamon Crispy-Os (that’s a real thing). French toast? Matzoh brei. Shrimp cocktail? Okay, you’re on your own there, but the variety astonishes.
Let’s say, however, that you don’t live in Cedarhurst. Because you have a life. Your neighborhood is so goyish, they put up Christmas trees in October and leave them up until October. And yet, visit the supermarket, and guess what? Even there, an aisle will be set aside for all these Passover foods Jews don’t want to eat but we have to. And if you’re a shut-in, Amazon has an entire online Pesach portion, where you can buy everything from matzoh-ball soup to nut butter. (Those of you who are laughing at “nut butter,” grow up.) You can purchase Exodus-brand, Kosher for Pesach beef jerky! And Amazon will sell you Manischewitz granola and Lieber’s gluten-free elbow macaroni. Is that almost too secular? Don’t worry. You can still find chocolate lollycones, Joyva ring jells, and a good-ol’ bottle of Gold’s horse radish so red, it’s guaranteed to ruin any shirt sleeve you dip into it.
I complain a lot. Because I’m Jewish. And also because many things in life have progressively worsened: air travel, doctor’s appointments, cost of living, insurance, sitting in a theater with a mask on watching plays designed to make me feel guilty for being me. The world is a little crazy right now, and a little crazy always. So it’s a rare pleasure when something gets better and easier. As a child, by the third day of Pesach, I was so bored and constipated, people mistook me for Ben Stein. A Jewish kid growing up right now could eat a week of Passover food and not even realize it’s Passover.
Isn’t that what’s great about America? Assimilate or stay insular, but either way, the culture assimilates you. You can roast your own shankbone — which is painful and not recommended — or visit a community Seder, You can celebrate as much Passover as you can take.
So boil those eggs, gather those haggadahs, and get ready to tell the story one more time of how our ancestors went from enslavement to enfreement. And if the pandemic is still keeping you from spending next year in Jerusalem, load up a virtual background with the Wailing Wall on it, and boom, you’re there. As I said, we can long for yesteryear, but every often, we’re lucky to be living in thisteryear.
Wishing you all a zissen Pesach, this has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Click above to watch the episode.click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 791st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, March 27, 2021. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: restaurateur Rob Clement, theater critic David Sheward
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews deli owner Rob Clement; Today Yesterday trivia quiz (March 27 w/ Rob Clement vs. David Sheward); Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Inside Broadway; My Sick Mind (King Soopers); Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Maybell).
00:00:01 DAVE’S GONE BY w/ Joyce (seder plate, Boulder, bad egg, student transfer) 00:59:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Rob Clement 01:47:30 TODAY/YESTERDAY Trivia Quiz (March 27 w/ Rob Clement vs. David Sheward) 02:41:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 03:06:00 MY SICK MIND (King Soopers) 03:09:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 03:27:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:33:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Maybell, CO) 03:36:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Click above to watch in-studio footage of the entire episode. Click above to listen to the episode.
Here is the 694th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday, April 27, 2019.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
GUESTS: singer Julie Budd, Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with Julie Budd, Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hotchkiss), StoryTime with Rabbi Sol (more Passover rules), Inside Broadway.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (matzoh man, MetroCard madness) 00:26:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Julie Budd 01:27:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:53:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & review (Hadestown) 02:45:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:52:30 STORYTIME: The Laws of Pesach, pt. 2 03:04:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED – Hotchkiss 03:07:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 27, 2019 Playlist: “My Shining Hour” (00:25:00), “All the Way” (01:11:30) & “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” (03:10:00; Julie Budd).
Click above to watch in-studio footage of the entire episode.Click above to listen to the show (audio only).
Here is the 693rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday, April 20, 2019. More info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chauncey Howell, StoryTime with Rabbi Sol (Passover rules), Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hooper).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Seder time) 00:31:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 00:45:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chauncey Howell 01:36:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:18:30 STORYTIME: The Laws of Pesach 02:44:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED – Hooper 02:46:30 Friends of the Daverhood 02:54:30 DAVE GOES OUT
April 20, 2019 Playlist: “Love is Always Lovely in the End” (02:16:00; The Drowsy Chaperone 2006 Broadway cast w/ Georgia Engel). “Song of the Seder Paraders” (02:59:00; Gladys Gewirtz).
Note: Chauncey Howell passed away Sept. 20, 2020 at age 86.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 602nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 15, 2017. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guests: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Kinks guitarist Dave Davies, Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician Dave Davies. Plus: Inside Broadway, Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Saturday Segues (Liz Phair, In the News), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (taxes).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (tax day, Blind Date in Chennai, musical siblings, crash day, seder song) 00:51:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:22:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Liz Phair 01:48:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:19:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Dave Davies 03:11:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (taxes) 03:37:00 Friends 03:51:30 Sponsors 03:54:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 04:41:30 Thanks & Weather 04:45:30 DAVE GOES OUT
April 15, 2017 Playlist: “Samba Snails” (00:59:30; Sexton Ming). “6’1” (01:28:00), “Table for One” (01:34:30) & “Never Said” (01:38:30; Liz Phair). “Friend of Mine” (01:31:00; Juliana Hatfield). “I’m not Bessie” & Give Me a Pigfoot” (Linda Hopkins). “Death of a Clown.” “I’m not Bessie (Intro)/Give me a Pigfoot” (02:16:30; Linda Hopkins). “Death of a Clown” (02:19:00), “Party Line” (02:31:00), “You Really Got Me” (02:37:30), “Two Sisters” (02:44:00), “You Don’t Know My Name” (03:09:00) & “Waterloo Sunset” (04:47:30). “World of Our Own” (02:52:00; Dave Davies). “The Levee’s Gonna Break” (03:14:00), “Copper Kettle” (03:19:30) & “Ballad of a Thin Man” ({live – no direction home} 03:23:30; Bob Dylan). “Old King Donald” (03:38:30; Drew Velting). “Out of Egypt” (03:56:00; Nikki Sudden). “The Airplane Part II” (04:01:30; Uncle Bonsai). “Hum Bomb” (04:06:00; Allen Ginsberg). “I Bombed Korea” (04:09:00; CAKE). “Centerfold” (04:11:00; J. Geils Band). “Before Easter” (04:15:00; Tracy Chapman). (pictured: Dave Davies then & now, Liz Phair, Blind Date)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 24, 2016.
Among the great inventions of mankind are the wheel, the lever, the polio vaccine, and the computer microchip. But let’s not leave out one of my favorite all-time creations. Something so simple yet so perfectly imperfect. Something both great and crummy — pun intended.
You take flour and water, mix them together, roll it flat flat flat—flatter than a ten-year-old’s training bra—poke the dough with tiny holes, and push it into a super-hot, dry oven. After a couple of agonizing minutes, shazam! Matzoh! Somehow, this flour-and-water combo doesn’t turn into pita bread, it doesn’t become olive loaf, it doesn’t blossom into a Pepperidge Farm cookie. It just stays matzoh, and that’s good enough for me. Almost.
See, you can get Streit’s or Horowitz-Margareten or Manischewitz and other commercial brands of matzoh, and they’ll get you through the Passover holiday just fine. You make matzoh brei, where you dip it in egg; you can crumble it and make matzoh-meal pancakes, which iHop would not be remiss in adding to their international breakfasts. Dear God, they make chocolate-covered matzoh, which sounds gross, but hey, if they can do it with crickets and bumble bees, why not the bread of affliction? (Chocolate-covered matzoh is not to be confused, by the way, with chocolate matzoh, which is just a giant chocolate bar made into the shape of a matzoh. In other words, a thousand times better. Chocolate-covered matzoh is to chocolate matzoh as a gold-plated watch is to a Rolex. If you promise your grandchildren chocolate matzoh, but you give them the chocolate covered, don’t expect them to visit you in the nursing home years later.)
But I digress. Matzoh is a tasty, non-nutritional but sustaining food meant to remind us of the bread our ancestors ate when they high-tailed it out of Egypt. `Cuz when you’re leavin’ hasty, you ain’t got time for pastry.
However, my reflection today is not just about matzoh; it’s about a special version of matzoh. The platinum standard, if you will. And I will. When I’m conducting a seder, or kicking back watchin’ baseball during chol hamoed, I want me some shmura matzoh! That’s the stuff! That’s the bread of affection! It’s the same flour and water, the same procedures. But with shmura matzoh, the harvested grain is guarded from the very first second it’s plucked to the moment the Rabbi slides it and its compadres out of the oven.
Shmura matzoh is the ultimate homemade bread. No machines, no slicer cutting the edges into right angles. No opening a box where every piece looks like a ceiling tile in a suburban office. Shmuras are individually mixed, rolled, and baked. And they don’t look beautiful or symmetrical. They’re lumpy, they’re brittle, often overcooked, and the burnt parts are all over the place. In fact, shmura matzohs are so ugly, they could replace Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.
But oy my God, are they delicious! There’s something so real and so pure about them. Everything else you get in the store is machine-pressed, dye-cut, flushed with preservatives, and so far away from actual food, you’re not even sure what the hell you’re eating. With shmura matzoh you taste three things: flour, water, and Rabbi sweat.
Now there’s all sorts of hoo-ha/doo-dah rules about using shmura matzohs. You’re supposed to eat them only at the seder and no other time — not even the rest of the holiday. I’m sorry, but at $17 a box with six pieces of bread in it, I’ll eat it on Christmas if I want to. Also, since the matzoh is utilized during the seder ceremony — including breaking it for the afikomen, the bread has to be complete, unbroken. You think it was tough for the Jews to cross the Nile out of Egypt? Try getting a one-millimeter cracker from a Brooklyn factory to a Staten Island dinner table without having a few oopsies.
Still, it’s worth it because shmura matzohs are the bomb. Yes, they’re impossible to butter, and they don’t actually break in half; they splinter — leaving shards of crumbs everywhere you look. But I don’t care; their deliciousness trumps all. I mean, on Passover, we have to eat raw horseradish, and then we have to take yummy charoset and ruin it by mixing it with horseradish, and then for eight days: no pizza, no pretzels, no ravioli, no danish, no muffins, no waffles, no wafers, no hoagies, no heroes, no oatmeal, no beer. So if I want a piece of homecooked unleavened bread that looks like a manhole cover but tastes like Judaism, I will seek no further than shmura matzohs. Mmm mmm flavorless — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. A zissen Pesach to ya.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #121 (4/5/2015): Passover
(aired April 5, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27305. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/P5iBQJD75tg)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 5, 2015.
Friends, are you constipated? I certainly hope so, because that would mean you are eating your matzah, the traditional food of the Passover holiday, which we are in the midst of celebrating as we speak. Well, as I speak; you’re just listening.
But yes, Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays—certainly the most labor intensive. Other holidays, you cook a meal, you make a blessing, maybe you don’t eat for a day—boom, you’re done. Okay, Sukkos, you have to build a little house, which is a pain in the ass, but you get to use it for a week, and you can make believe it’s a gazebo or a cozy shed. And if you’re too lazy to build, you can always go to the local shul and stay in theirs. Just make sure to use the guest towels.
But Pesach? Oy, what a production. You have to clean the whole house, top to bottom, of every crumb, every last bit of leavened bread. You have to sell everything in your fridge and cupboards to your local Rabbi–because what Rabbi doesn’t want to be responsible for two-week-old meatloaf? You gotta change all your dishes and cutlery, because a fork that touched pizza is somehow satanic for a week. And then, throughout Passover, you can eat only foods that are approved for holiday use. Wheat and beans and whole-grain products are verboten, and everything you reach for has to be certified Kosher L’Pesach. Which means a bottle of ketchup that’s $2 the rest of the year now costs $7.50. Why? Because some mashgiach was there to make sure that no tomato came into contact with a pretzel. HaShem forbid.
It’s a lot of nonsense, of course, but like all religious rituals, the doing of them forces us to remember who we are and the legacy to which we are tied. God doesn’t give a rat’s tushie if we hide the Afikomen or not; but my great, great, great grandfather hid the Afikomen—probably from the Cossacks—and my 21 ½ children will hide the Afikomen from my (god willing) 150 grandchildren. It’s not the activity; it’s the legacy.
Or, on Passover, it’s leprosy. And blood and frogs and boils and murrain and darkness and death of the first born and all the things usually caused by Comcast/Xfinity. We remember the 10 Plagues God visited upon the Egyptians as payback for subjugating the Hebrews. And when Moses visited Pharaoh and told him, “Look, we’re leaving. Can we get a severance check and a few weeks of interim health insurance?”, Pharaoh said no, so God made him suffer. Actually, Pharaoh didn’t say no. I mean, at first he did, when Moses was turning water into blood and making frogs jump out of underwear drawers. Pharaoh saw a bunch of magic tricks and said, “Copperfield does them better.”
But as the plagues turned nastier, Pharaoh was ready to be done with the Jews and let our people go. Until HaShem hardened his heart–I guess with some kind of aortic Viagra–and forced Pharoah to make ruinous choices, essentially robbing the king of Egypt of his free will.
I admit, I’ve always found something unsettling in that story. It’s one thing if Pharaoh is so evil, or so moronic, that he invites torture upon his empire through his own pig-headedness. But the Torah makes it clear that God is pulling the strings. He’s like the schoolyard bully that grabs your fists and makes you sock yourself in the face, all the while saying, “Stop hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?” In the Pesach story, God puts Pharaoh through ten rounds with Mike Tyson, and then a bonus round with Muhammad Ali. The Jews finally hit the road, Pharaoh sends soldiers after them—presumably all second-born sons–and what happens? They all drown. God is nothing if not thorough.
So what do we learn from that gruesome fable? First, that if you mess with the Jews long enough, you get payback of biblical proportions (pun intended). After all, the Hebrews served as Egyptian slaves for generations before the big rescue. Stopping the punishment at flies or even flaming hail just wouldn’t send the same message as mass murder.
The second thing we learn is a rational reason why we spill drops of wine during the Passover seder. The Haggadah explains that even though Pesach is a happy holiday, and we’re delighted to recall the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, we’re not supposed to celebrate a hundred percent. We diminish our wine glass literally and our joy metaphorically, because even though our enemy treated us worse than the worst Jennifer Lopez movie, they are still human beings. They are still God’s children being destroyed.
Personally, I don’t spill a whole lotta wine on Passover—and not just because we have to use the same tablecloth for two nights. I rejoice freely when my enemy falls. When the Navy Seals took out bin Laden, I tore off my clothes and started dancing naked around the house. Which caused some problems because I was outside. But oh boy, did I shake my tailfeather! Miley Cyrus could have studied my tuchas for twerking lessons. And if I’d been alive in 1945 to witness V-E Day, I would have kissed a girl for every German that got a bullet through his eye or a bayonet through his heart. (You could probably call it VD Day…) I still would do this, so if any young girls want to stand in the street and let me kiss them, drop me an email, and I’ll get my sailor suit out of the cleaners.
Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea of being a good sport when my adversary is vanquished, but in reality, the misery and death of my enemies gives me less pause than a skip on my CD player. (For those of you under 30 who don’t know what that is, a CD player is like Spotify on a pancake.)
Anyhoo, my point in all this is however you celebrate Passover—if you follow all the rules, some of the rules, or if you serve bacon croissants during the Seder—and however you feel about Passover—whether you’re there just for family or you’re looking for a greater spiritual purpose in choking to death on horse radish—enjoy the holiday, appreciate the history, and take comfort that you don’t have to fast and no one gets circumcised.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Dai-Dai-enu.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 504th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio April 4, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with life coach Dr. Greg Marcus. Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection on Passover’s Plagues, Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Muddy Waters, in the news), Dylan – Sooner & Later (Nashville Skyline), Wretched Pun of Destiny (chess match), Greeley Crimes & Old Times.
Guest: author Greg Marcus, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (supervisor, critics in NOLA, broken rimshot, psychotic break) 00:27:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:02:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN 01:10:00 Sponsors 01:16:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Muddy Waters 01:39:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:08:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Greg Marcus 02:51:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Nashville Skyline) 03:08:30 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #31 (Chess Match) 03:10:30 Friends 03:25:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINicAL REFLECTION #121 – Passover’s Plagues 03:37:00 Weather 03:38:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 03:56:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 4, 2015 Playlist: “Rollin’ Stone” (01:21:00), “Mannish Boy” (01:24:30), “Walkin’ Thru the Park” (01:27:00) & “The Blues had a Baby and they Named it Rock and Roll” (01:30:30; Muddy Waters). “You Made the Wait Worthwhile” (Honeymoon in Vegas w/ Tony Danza & Brynn O’Malley). “Don’t Talk to Me About Work” (02:48:00; Lou Reed). “Lay Lady Lay” (02:55:00), “Tell Me that it isn’t True” (02:58:00), “I Threw it All Away” ({Alternate Version} 03:00:30) & “One More Night” (03:03:00; Bob Dylan). “Indiana” (03:39:00; Kate Jacobs). “Nuclear” (03:42:30; Ryan Adams). “A Case of You” (03:46:00; Joni Mitchell). “Not Fade Away” (03:50:00; The Rolling Stones). “Seder Dance” (04:09:30; Don Byron).
(pictured: Dave Davies then & now, Liz Phair, Blind Date)
