click above to watch episode #1028click above to listen (audio only)
Here is episode #1028, “Ash Saturday,” of the Dave’s Gone By podcast, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, April 11, 2026.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews playwright S. Asher Gelman; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (College Hills); StoryTime (Potato Pants); Dave’s song “Don’t Bugger Me.”
Guests: playwright and director S. Asher Gelman; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: naughty producers, Art Paul’s paintings, Passover onions 00:49:30 DAVE SAYS BYE: Terry Schreiber, David Gersten 00:59:30 GREELEY TIMES 01:33:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews S. Asher Gelman 02:14:00 STORYTIME: Potato Pants (by Laurie Keller) 02:42:00 MY OLD PHLEGM: Aladdin’s lamp 02:48:30 Friends of the Daverhood 02:59:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: College Hills, CO 03:02:30 DAVE GOES OUT
April 11, 2026 Playlist: “Don’t Bugger Me” (02:38:30; Dave)
S. Asher Gelman
S. Asher Gelman & Rabbi Sol Solomon
Art Paul Schlosser, Painting for Day 348: “When You’re Feeling Blue”
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Rabbi Sol Solomon reads “Jacob and Bunny: The Magic Easter Bunny Comes to Passover Seder” by Leslie Sandler.
This segment aired April 4, 2026 as part of episode #1026 of the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
All content (c)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
click above to watch episode #1027click above to listen (audio only)
Here is episode #1027, “Garr Mitzvah,” of the Dave’s Gone By podcast, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, April 11, 2026.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews producer Steve Garrin, reads “Jacob and Bunny” for StoryTime, and offers a Rabbinical Reflection on the Seder Plate; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Collbran); Dave’s new song “Big Boobs: The Bryon Noem Song.”
Guests: producer Steve Garrin; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: Passover/Easter, yard sale, matzah 00:57:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:22:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Steve Garrin 02:20:30 STORYTIME: Rabbi Sol Solomon reads Leslie Sandler’s “Jacob and Bunny: The Magic Easter Bunny Comes to Passover Seder” 02:51:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:00:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #206 (Passover Today) 03:09:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Collbran, CO) 03:12:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #206 (4/4/2026): PASSOVER TODAY
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired April 4, 2026 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
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.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
TRANSCRIPT: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #206 (4/4/2026): Passover Today
(c)2026 David Lefkowitz. aired April 4, 2026 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch:
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for Passover 2026.
My friends and acolytes, I hope you are savoring a safe and pleasant Pesach: carbing up on matzoh, guzzling down the Manischewitz, feeling gratitude that however cruddy things are for Jews right now, at least we’re not slaves to Pharaoh in Egpyt. We’re wage slaves to one-percent billionaires, but still, an improvement.
If you were at a Seder this year, you saw all the important symbols of Passover – objects on the table, all representing aspects of our exodus. I would like to recap those, but instead of the typical symbolism explained in the Haggadah, I intend to connect the Seder plate items to our modern situation as Jews today. So pay attention, dammit!
We begin, of course, with the matzoh. This is the unleavened bread our forefathers ate when they were scrambling out of Eretz Mitzrayim because there was no time to make baquettes. Matzahs are flat, ugly, and tasteless – like Billie Eilish. We eat matzah to remind us how afflicted we are by pop stars who anoint themselves as political oracles and then bash Israel while defending murderous, backward Arab regimes. Discouraged? Just remember: in the first part of the seder, we pay much attention to matzah. But then we break it up, it crumbles, and soon it’s forgotten. Are you listening, Chappell Roan? Couple months, no one’s listening to you.
Next on the Seder Plate we have a roasted shankbone, which represents sacrifice, the animal sacrifices our ancestors made to HaShem, and also what they had to give up to wander in the desert for 40 years. Please add to that the sacrifices Israelis are making now to rid the world of Iranian nukes and knuckleheads. Also, the tzuris all Jews are enduring because Israel’s very existence is seen as a colonial catastrophe. The z’roah, therefore, symbolizes the boner that liberals get when they can let their pent-up anti-Semitism loose under the guise of anti-Zionism.
Also on the plate: a egg. Hard-boiled, like Bibi Netanyahu. The beitzah makes us think of birth, growth, renewal. We can also equate the egg with speeches of Bernie Sanders because like an egg, they come out of an asshole.
Next, we have bitter herbs – not to confused with bitter guys named Herb who lose everything in a divorce. No, bitter herbs are sour veggies or horseradish meant to evoke tears for our enslaved antecedents. If, at your Seder, you convince a gentile to eat a spoonful of white horseradish that he has mistaken for pudding, that’s a great way of getting revenge for the Inquisitions, one goy at a time.
But don’t put away the vegetables yet. There’s a spot on the Seder plate for other leafy greens. These are to remind us – well, me — that no matter how much this world makes me want to hide in a corner consuming brisket and Joyva ring jells until I reach a food coma, that would merely delay the issues I must confront eventually. Herbs and flora remind us: first the spinach, then the chocolate lollycones. It’s delayed gratification, which is, let’s face it, the whole fucking history of Judaism.
Speaking of gratification, at last we get to something edible – charoset! It’s a kind of chutney made from apples, cinnamon, nuts, and wine. If you balance the ingredients, it’s unbelievably delicious. If you use too much of one item…it’s still frickin’ delicious, it’s charoset! – which represents the sweetness of freedom. Also, it looks like a hybrid of shit and cement. When we persecute immigrants, legal or otherwise, just because they’re foreign, we’re forgetting that this country was built by these people out of shit and cement: plumbing, sewers, agriculture, and the concrete of roads and buildings. By all means, let’s keep tabs on our migrants, but acknowledge they usually make our lives pretty sweet.
Lastly we get to karpas, or parsley, which is another goddamn vegetable, which makes me pine for brisket even more.
There you have the essential items on the Passover seder plate, a mix of bitter and sweet, hard and soft, smooth and crunchy, eggy and whatever the opposite of eggy is. These foods encompass the contradictions of life and the variety of our Judaic experience. They also remind us that while the goyim celebrate Easter with glazed ham, lamb shanks, and roasted potatoes, we’re eating this crap. No wonder Herb is bitter.
Still, I wish you a peaceful Pesach, with next year in Jerusalem or any place in Israel because it’s ours.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. Kol b’seder.
click above to watch episode #1026click above to listen (audio only)
Here is episode #1026 of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, March 28, 2026.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actress Iris Bahr and offers an April Fools Rabbinical Reflection; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Colfax); StoryTime (The Story of Baby Moses).
Guests: writer/performer Iris Bahr; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: balloons, Art Paul’s art, big burps, Hillel Slovak, Trump and Japan, Bin Laden blocked, JBS strike 01:13:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:50:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Iris Bahr 02:22:00 STORYTIME w/ Rabbi Sol Solomon: The Story of Baby Moses (by Alice Joyce Davidson) 02:43:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:52:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #206: April Fooling 03:01:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Colfax 03:03:30 DAVE GOES OUT
click above to watch episode #1025 click above to listen (audio only)
Here is episode #1025 of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, March 21, 2026.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actor Andrew Lloyd Baughman; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Cole); StoryTime (A Purr-fect Passover); Dave Goes Away (Rehoboth Beach).
Guests: writer/performer Andrew Lloyd Baughman; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: meat strike, news radio 00:30:00 DAVE GOES AWAY: Rehoboth Beach, DE 01:28:30 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN: Indian restaurant, groundhog, Ikea 01:47:00 GREELEY TIMES 02:11:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Andrew Lloyd Baughman 02:55:00 STORYTIME w/ Rabbi Sol Solomon: A Purr-fect Passover (by Jenna Waldman) 03:17:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:27:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Cole, CO) 03:32:30 DAVE GOES OUT
click above to watch episode #982click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 982nd episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, April 12, 2025.
Featuring: StoryTime with Rabbi Sol Solomon (“Passover, Here I Come!”); Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Brown’s Corner); Dave Says Bye (Michael Hurley, William Finn); Inside Broadway (Old Friends).
Guest: spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: throwin’ sloths, Passover 00:30:00 DAVE GOES AWAY – NYC and NJ: rest stops 00:50:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:13:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN: poo pants 01:16:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (review: Old Friends) 01:42:00 STORYTIME w/ Rabbi Sol Solomon (“Passover, Here I Come!” by D.J. Steinberg) 02:15:00 DAVE SAYS BYE: Michael Hurley, William Finn 02:29:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:39:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Brown’s Corner, CO 02:42:00 DAVE GOES OUT
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.
