Rabbinical Reflection – Page 4

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #113 (12/21/2014): LITTLE YOMO AND THE CORNED BEEF SANDWICH 

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #113 (12/21/2014): Little Yomo and the Corned Beef Sandwich

aired Dec. 20, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/kCMSKATJsJMs

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 21, 2014.

Happy Chanukah, everybody; happy festival of lights, latkes and love. It’s the next best thing to Christmas, and at least when we go to shul, we don’t have to look at a statue of a guy bleeding to death and ruining our appetite.

Speaking of appetite, in honor of this joyful week, I am going to regale you with a story, a fabulous fable for the holiday. So children, gather `round. Or don’t, I don’t really care. Either way, I am going to relate to you the story of “Little Yomo and the Corned Beef Sandwich.”

The story is called, “Little Yomo and the Corned Beef Sandwich,” copyright 2014 by Rabbi Sol Solomon, all rights reserved. Use of this material in any form, written, digital or audio is prohibited by law and punishable by…I dunno…a year in Gitmo or something.

Little Yomo and the Corned Beef Sandwich.

Once upon a time, there was ten-year-old boy named – you guessed it — Little Yomo. He was a good little boy living in Boston with his mama, his papa, his know-it-all older sister, and the family cat, Noosh-Noosh. Little Yomo loved the Jewish holidays – or certain aspects of them. Finding the Afikomen on Passover, dressing up as a Ninja Turtle on Purim, dancing and gorging himself with candy on Simchas Torah. But most of all, Yomo loved Chanukah. The colorful candles on the menorah, the fun songs to sing, beating his sister seven times out of ten at dreidel and taking all her pocket change.

Little Yomo also loved seeing his family on Chanukah. Cousins and other relatives from miles around would come visit on the first and second nights to partake in the festivities around the front window. They would bring him presents or sweets, and they’d talk with him just like he was a grownup. He loved gramma and grampa, Cousin Ida and her boyfriend, Aunt Evelyn and her twins — who were two years younger than Yomo and great to play hide-and-seek with. Honest to gosh, there was nothing about Chanukah Little Yomo didn’t like . . . except Uncle Victor.

Uncle Victor. Respected in the garment district. Loved by his own grown children. Kindly if noticeably obese, Uncle Victor. Victor would always come both nights on Chanukah, and he always did the same thing to Little Yomo. He’d hold the boy by his shoulders and say, “Ooh, you’re getting so big. Pretty soon you’ll be bigger than me! Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.” So funny.

And then Uncle Victor, reeking of aftershave, would reach into his back pocket and give Little Yomo the special gift that every child loves on Chanukah: gelt. Not real money, that would be amazing. But holiday money made of chocolate. Small gold coins – or, more precisely, golden foil wrappers covering chocolate disks made to look like coinage of old. Few gifts are so perfectly presented. It starts with the visual appeal of the golden-yellow bag of loot. Then, you cut the thin strings and hold your first coin, shiny and delicate yet so solid. And then peeling off the top wrapper, pulling it back to reveal a perfectly round circle of milk chocolate. And the final joy: hooking your fingernail under the lower foil to free the confection from its condom and taste the cocoa-ey bliss within.

Now, you might be asking, why would Little Yomo despise his Uncle Victor if the man was giving him delicious candy money twice a year? The reason was that Uncle Victor, as we’ve said, was a big fat man. A man who drove two hours from Pennsylvania to come visit Yomo’s family. And since Boston is freezing cold in the middle of December, Uncle Victor would roll up the window of his Buick Skylark and put the heat on, full blast, for the entire trip. All of this was fine for Uncle Victor, but by the time he would get in the house and greet little Yomo in his hilarious way, he was a cloud of sweat, body odor and Walgreens aftershave. Worst of all, when he’d reach in his back pocket to produce the Chanukah gelt, what would emerge was a bag of melted, crushed foil, covered with brown goo and smelling like horrible Uncle Victor.

As his mama and papa pointed out again and again, it would be rude of Little Yomo to turn down a gift brought by a family member. So the poor child had to hold out his hand, smile his biggest, toothiest grin, and thank his uncle with a big a hug. And then, to prove how excited he was to receive this thoughtful gift, Yomo had to open the bag and eat three coins, while Uncle Victor beamed and pointed and watched. “Look at him,” Victor would say. “I know it’s spoiling his dinner, but he loves it so much.” Meanwhile, it was all Yomo could do to keep from vomiting against his teeth.

This ritual had gone on for years and years, since Yomo could remember, and probably even before then. Ten-year-old Yomo, however, had endured enough. It was Chanukah time once more, and not-so-little Yomo dreaded encountering Uncle Victor and his smell, his chocolate, his whole nightmarish persona.

So Little Yomo decided to do something about it. “I’m going to beat him at his own game,” the little boy told himself, in the way little boys tell themselves things. Three weeks before Chanukah, Little Yomo started saving up his allowance. He needed fourteen dollars. Oops – plus tax; fifteen, just to be safe. I’ll explain. Little Yomo set aside four dollars a week of his allowance for the Unkie Fund. He needed three more dollars, but it was no problem beating his sister at dreidel and getting the extra dough. Once he had it, the day before the first night of Chanukah, little Yomo took his bundle and walked – almost ran – the four blocks from his apartment to the Kosher delicatessen on Pelham Street.

“Shalom, Little Yomo,” called the owner. “Did your mama send you on a grocery run?”

“No Mr. Hersh,” replied the boy. “This is special. I’m getting a sandwich for my Uncle Victor.”

“Well, I’ve never met your Uncle Victor, but I’m sure he’s a terrific guy, and I’m gonna make him a beautiful sandwich. What would he like?”

“Corned beef,” said Little Yomo. “On rye with two pickles and Russian dressing on the side.”

“Your wish is my command,” laughed Mr. Hersh, impressed with Yomo’s gravitas.

Two minutes later, the deli man was handing Little Yomo a bulging bag and his change. And a free hot dog to go. “Yomo,” he said, “have a great Chanukah!”

“You too,” Little Yomo called back, skipping out of the store and eager to get home and continue his plan.

The corned beef sandwich, fresh and juicy, smelled so good in the brown paper bag, but Yomo resisted having a bite. He was saving every crumb for Unkie Victor. And when the boy got home, he ran to the kitchen, but his mother was there starting to fry that evening’s latkes.

“What’s that?” asked his mama.

“Oh, just something for Chanukah,” said the little man. “It’s for daddy’s brother.”

“Awww…Victor? I swear to HaShem, you are the sweetest boy.” Mrs. Birmbaum hugged and kissed her son, which made the boy blush and grimace at the same time and squirm to get away. “I’m gonna go up and do my homework,” said Yomo slipping out of his mommy’s reach.

“Wait, don’t you wanna put that in the fridge?” his mother called.

“I have to put the card with it first!” Yomo called back as he headed towards the sun room.

But Little Yomo had no Hallmark on his mind. Instead, when he was sure no one was around, and the sound of frying oil would mask the sound of his crinkly paper bag, he took out the corned beef sandwich and held it delicately between his fingers. Carefully, he lifted the slice of rye bread off the top. He then knelt down in front of what the family called Noosh-Noosh corner. That was just a nice way of saying the cat’s litter box. Little Yomo placed the rye slice face down on the litter and the rest of the sandwich in a heap at the corner of the box. He then sprinkled a light layer of clay dust over both and called the cat over from across the room. “Noosh-Noosh! Hey kitty! Come see.”

Noosh-Noosh swished her tail and hesitated, looking disinterested, as cats do, but eventually made her way over to her corner. Sniffing at the litter-littered sandwich, Noosh-Noosh gave a low purr, then lifted her tail, and her leg . . . and did her kitty-cat business. “Good girl, Noosh-Noosh,” exulted Yomo. “Okay, shoo!”

Little Yomo whisked the cat away and then, with the tips of his fingers, lifted the soggy sandwich out of the box with one hand and the top slice with his other. Once the delicacy was put back together, Little Yomo wrapped it, stuffed it back in the paper bag, and deposited said bag in the fridge. Washing his hands thoroughly – which, for a little boy, is about four seconds with an eye-dropper’s worth of soap – Little Yomo ran upstairs to do homework . . . and wait.

The hours crawled until, finally, the sun set, and guests began arriving. There was Aunt Evelyn and her girls. There was Cousin Ida, talking a little weird because she’d had a stroke that August. And the neighbors from down the street. And Mr. Claremont, the token goy, from dad’s office. But no Uncle Victor. Not when Yomo’s sister was going around serving appetizers. Not when the family sat around the big-screen TV watching a rerun of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Not even when the assembled gathered by the living-room window, and said the special prayers. Not even when mama lit the shamash and handed the big candle to Yomo and warned him, as always, “tilt it, so the wax doesn’t drip down your hand.”

Yomo obeyed and began lighting the first candle of Chanukah. Just then everyone heard the squeak and clatter of the screen door. “Did I miss the latkes?” came the familiar voice. “Uncle Victor!” shouted Yomo. And then, Ow!”, for, not paying attention, Yomo held the shamash vertically and let a teardrop of blue wax drizzle down his finger.

With barely contained excitement, Yomo placed the candle back in the menorah and ran to greet his Unkie Victor. “Sorry, everybody! Traffic was insane,” Victor sighed.

“You should’ve taken Horseneck Beach,” cousin Avrum said. “I-91 is a disaster at rush hour.”

“I know, I know,” said Victor, grabbing his beloved Yomo by the shoulders. “How’s my favorite nephew? Ooh, you’re getting so big! Next year, you’ll be bigger than me! Ha ha ha, ha ha ha!” So funny.

“I think you know what I have for you,” grinned Unkie Vic. “Lemme just reach. . .”

“No, wait!” cried Yomo. “Stay right there!”

Uncle Victor made an astonished face and shrugged at the family. “You’re not the only one who can give gifts,” laughed Mrs. Birnbaum. “Yomo has a surprise for you.”

“Ooh, I love surprises!” Victor yelled, loud enough for Yomo to hear.

“Be right there!” Yomo called from the kitchen, where he had opened the refrigerator, dumped out the sandwich, unwrapped it, slapped it with Russian dressing, and shoved it into the microwave for 55 seconds. “Come on, come on!” squealed the boy, hopping back and forth on the balls of his feet.

At last, Yomo heard the familiar ding. He popped the door open and reached for the sandwich, burning his fingers slightly in the process. He placed the corned-beef edible on a plate and scurried back to the living room where the grownups were already talking grown-up stuff.

“Uncle Victor!” shouted Yomo, louder than he wanted to. “Happy Chanukah!”

“Oh, my goodness!” responded the man, feigning amazement but also honestly thrilled to see a corned-beef sandwich presented before him. “Thank you, Yomo! Much as I love your roast turkey, Susan, a corned-beef sandwich is from another planet,” kvelled Uncle Victor.

“Enjoy,” beamed Mrs. Birnbaum. “Yomo was so excited to get it for you.”

Uncle Victor held the plate with the warm sandwich. He sniffed and smiled in ecstasy, smelling only the juicy Kosher beef, sliced thick and liberally drizzled with Russian dressing. Perhaps a thinner man without asthma would have noticed a faint uremic stench to the sandwich, but not Unkie Victor. With his meaty paw, he lifted half the sandwich off the plate and brought it to his wet, porcine lips.

“Don’t you dare!” came the voice. Ah, that voice. The voice of Aunt Dora, Victor’s wife of 38 long, long years. “If it’s a heart attack you want, go ahead, eat the sandwich. But personally, I’d rather see you live a few years longer.”

“But darling,” Uncle Victor sighed. “It’s Chanukah. And the boy — ”

“Yomo is an angel,” Aunt Dora nodded, grinning at the crestfallen child, “but what does he know from cholesterol and prediabetes?”

“But I’ve been so good,” whined Unkie Victor. “What’s half a sandwich? Two bites!”

“You’d better listen to her,” said Mr. Birnbaum. “You know your wife won’t let you live it down till next Shavuos.”

Panicking, Little Yomo piped up, “But it’s just bread and meat. It’s not bad like candy or soda. Can’t Uncle Victor have just a little, pleeeease?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Aunt Dora said, kneeling in front of Yomo. “When you’re older, you’ll understand that I’m doing what’s best for your daddy’s brother. I your Uncle Victor to live a long, long time.”

“Sure, so she can torture me for years to come,” sighed Victor, surrendering the plate to his sister-in-law while looking, with just a hint of affection, at his martinet wife. “But I am so appreciative, Little Yomo, that you thought of me. Ooh, what a beautiful gesture, am I right?” called Uncle Victor, looking around at the assembled.

“I think,” said Mrs. Birnbaum, “that Yomo deserves a reward. A tasty reward.”

“Oh, the gelt, of course,” said Victor, reaching for his back pocket.

“No,” Yomo’s mother responded. “Our Little Yomo loves corned beef almost as much as you do. Let him eat it the sandwich.”

“Don’t you think that’ll ruin his dinner?” asked Aunt Dora, concerned.

“He can have leftovers tomorrow,” laughed Yomo’s father, not noticing the increasingly pale young man to his left. “A hot corned beef sandwich is not to be denied – even for my wife’s turkey.”

“But dad, it’s okay. We can leave it for tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t hear of it,” boomed Uncle Victor. “In fact, I would take it as a personal insult if you didn’t gobble down every morsel of that juicy, spicy, fragrant, magnificent sandwich.”

“Victor, take your pills,” said Dora.

“Go ahead, Yomo,” said Mrs. Birnbaum. “We don’t want to be rude.”

“Yes, mom,” gulped Little Yomo. “Oh boy. Corned beef.”

With trembling hands, Little Yomo approached the plate that his father had put on the coffee table. Holding the sandwich and his breath, Little Yomo took a big bite, and then another, and another. Finishing half a sandwich as quickly as he could.

“Look at him go!” announced Mr. Claremont. “He eats like a big boy.”

With further familial encouragement, Little Yomo wolfed down the remaining section of the corned beef sandwich. His eyes watering, his gag reflex tested to the hilt, Yomo took a bow and made his way to the kitchen, where he poured and emptied three glasses of Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda in quick succession.

The rest of the evening passed without incident as Yomo joined the family in holiday festivities. However, the next morning, poor Yomo was not feeling so well. He felt even worse by the afternoon, and worse still when his mother left the second Chanukah party to rush the boy to urgent care.

Not wanting to admit his deception, Little Yomo left the doctors guessing, which only made his treatment more difficult. The next day he was hospitalized, and on the fourth night of Chanukah, Little Yomo, emaciated, green and septic, slowly closed his deep brown eyes and died.

Two days later, all the family wept at his funeral. The Rabbi spoke and said God has His reasons for pulling little boys up to heaven decades before their time. Uncle Victor began a short speech but found himself too overcome with emotion to continue.

Eventually, the whole mishpocheh braved the frigid winter weather to gather at the cemetery. The Rabbi sang prayers in Hebrew and continued extolling the virtues of this tragic young mensch. When it was time, he handed a heavy steel shovel to Yomo’s father. The distraught Mr. Birnbaum stood for a long minute before willing his wobbly legs to the foot of the grave.

“Wait,” called Uncle Victor, his face blurry with tears. “Ooh, to go with him. Something he always loved.”

The assembled shivered in silence and then shuddered each time at the sound: plink, plink, plink – the sound of rock-hard, frozen chocolate coins hitting the lid of a small pine box. The end.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27472

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 (11/23/2014): Murder in Jerusalem

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #111 (11/23/2014): Murder in Jerusalem

aired Nov. 23, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/Nko93BwJGS0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 23, 2014.

And here I was, all set to do a gentle sermon about Thanksgiving. How grateful we should all be for friends and co-workers and family — well, maybe not family — but for all the loving, helpful people in our lives. How we must be thankful to HaShem if we still have good health, functioning limbs, working brain cells, food on the table, a roof overhead — preferably one with a fiddler on it — a decent job, a couple of hobbies, a warm winter coat and a not-bad summer vacation.

Saying grace after every meal has never been my thing. What, I should sit there thanking God for his bounties, and by the time I’m finished, the food gets cold? No wonder goyim are so skinny; by the time they finish praying, their entrees are back in the microwave. Nevertheless, a couple of times a year, it’s good to remember that everything comes to us by the courtesy of God above and the hard work of our peers and forebears.

How lovely to offer a Rabbinical Reflection on such a spiritual and fraternal topic. However, the news this week forbids me from doing such a gentle, joyful sermon. I am, once again, detoured from being my usual snuggly marshmallow of delight into sounding like a vindictive, vituperative expounder of hate and revenge. Last Tuesday, two Palestinians armed with guns and meat cleavers burst into a Jerusalem synagogue and began firing and chopping. They murdered five people, including a policeman, three American Rabbis and an Orthodox Jewish Brit. For their troubles, the assassins, Ghassan Abu Jamal and his cousin, Oday Abu Jamal, were sent to martyrdom and their 72 ugly-ass virgins in the sky.

As an extra-punitive measure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then ordered that the killers’ houses be demolished. Honestly, I don’t know how upsetting that is to a dead terrorist. What’s he gonna say? “Aww, I was gonna make hummus tonight. No wait, I’m being shoveled into an unmarked grave. Gee, I’m gonna miss the sun room.”

Still, hurrah for any action by the Israeli government that warns Arabs we will not stand for such horrors as violence, murder and television programs featuring Jane Velez Mitchell. Let there be no doubt: bloodthirsty Palestinians may not storm into a temple in Yerushalayim and start executing people. Not unless it’s the high holy days and they bought a ticket.

Seriously, do you know why these terrorists embarked upon their rampage? Was it eye-for-an-eye revenge? Were they mad about Jews who went on a killing spree in the local Falafel Mart? No, because that didn’t happen. The Palestinians were irate because Jews have been visiting a holy site on the Temple Mount that the Arabs think should be off-limits to Hebrews. Doesn’t matter that Arabs in East Jerusalem can go anywhere they damn well please; Jews are forbidden from going where the Arabs don’t want them. Apparently, the penalty for trespassing in the Arab world is being hacked to death. Which makes sense, since the penalty for stealing is cutting off a hand, and the penalty for adultery is, well, let’s just call it extreme circumcision and leave it at that.

Following the synagogue attack, lame-duck President Obama is calling for peace and restraint on both sides, downplaying the savagery of the event and, as usual, doing nothing. Hey Barry! We had three Americans murdered by agents of a foreign regime. Isn’t that like, war, or something? I know the dead Rabbis weren’t black, but you could at least raise an eyebrow.

In the weeks ahead, you can bet your burqa Israel will do a lot more than snivel and call for moderation. There’ll be raids, roundups, demolitions and, alas, probably some vigilantism, too. I won’t deny that there’s a back-and-forth, you-did-this-so-I-do-that element to Israeli/Arab conflagrations. Remember last time? They killed those hitchhikers, so some misguided, hyped-up Israelis murdered some soccer-playing kids. Much as I hate the radical Arabs, killing innocent people is never an answer to anything. In fact, that’s what got us here. If the Palestinians would stop being terrorists, we’d stop being enemies. And if we stop being enemies, they can visit our synagogues, and we can be tourists at their shrines. And we’ll talk, and we’ll laugh, and we’ll bitch about the government, and we’ll share music and art and sports and do business deals, and food! We’ll sit down together with pastrami and goat and borscht and eggplant and kugel and yogurt, and we’ll watch TV, and we’ll fall asleep, and you know what we’ll call it? Thanksgiving.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27484

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #112 (12/7/2014): Cos

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #112 (12/7/2014): Cos

aired Dec. 6, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/MaWHy74ejho

Hey Hey Hey! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 7, 2014.

How much smoke does there have to be before we cannot deny that there is fire? Well, when my wife is cooking, that’s almost every meal. But in the case of crime and accusation, at what point do look at hearsay and more hearsay and still more hearsay, and think, “It would be nice to have proof, but it’s time to presume the guy’s guilty until proven innocent.” Sounds ridiculous, but there is a logic to it. Does anybody in the world believe O.J. Simpson refrained from chopping up his ex-wife and her boyfriend the way Ted Nugent slices a deer? Can you hear the name Michael Jackson and not think, “He was bad. He was bad. Sham-on. You know.”

And now another black celebrity – well, Michael Jackson wasn’t exactly black, but be that as it may – Bill Cosby, beloved comedian Bill Cosby, has gone from “I Started Out as a Child” to finishing up in various teenagers. For years, Cos has been the cause of whispers, accusations, unsavory speculations and sub rosa scuttlebutt. There was even a civil suit – to continue the alliterations — but it was settled out of court, because a man of Cosby’s wealth could pay families off and leave the world guessing at his motives. After all, even if he was 100% innocent – which he may well be – he’d still have to hire a team of lawyers and endure his name being dragged for months through courts and headlines. And if he’s fully exonerated, the muttering won’t stop: “Oh, he probably did it. Those famous people get away with everything.”

At the same time, so many women, so many similar incidents, so many pointing fingers. Or something stubby pointing at their fingers. Janice Dickinson may be out of her mind, but was her night with Fat Albert what drove her there? And what about Judy Huth, the first accuser to actually subpoena his penis? Last week, Huth filed a lawsuit against the “I Spy” guy for drugging and raping her when she was 15. Too many years have passed for a criminal trial, but at least she’ll have her day in court — though it will still be a case of “he said, she said, he said, she said, he said, she couldn’t say because her mouth was full.”

Cosby is counter-suing, possibly because at this point, he realizes that “no comment” and “I didn’t do it…that time, or that time, or that time” won’t be enough to convince a cynical public – or all the movie and TV people he’s trying to make deals with. They’re all pulling out. Okay, you have five seconds to make your own joke about that, but seriously, Bill Cosby obviously had enough cash, power and influence in the last 40 years to make evil deeds go away. But did he? The burden of proof belongs to the accusers. It’s a little too late for DNA, hotel registries and presidential dry-cleaning bills, so their memories of couches, beds, baths and beyonds better be unimpeachable.

And by the way, I’m really not one of those people who blames the victims – or alleged victims – in rape or sexual-assault cases. But this woman who’ll be suing Cosby four decades after the fact… She was 15 years old when she met 40-year-old Cosby in the park. He took her and her friend to a tennis club where he bought them drinks – and I don’t mean Gatorade; more like a Get-`er Aid – and then he asked them back with him to the Playboy Mansion. I don’t care how naïve girls were back then, if you’re a teenager, and a guy your dad’s age asks you back to the Grotto, what the hell do you think is gonna happen? You think he wants to hear how you’re doing on the debate team? Well, in this case, yes! She helped him master-debate. Supposedly against her will. And against his willy.

And people scratch their heads. “If even half the allegations from different women are true,” we think, “how’d he get away with it? How did he get to be Cliff Huxtable instead of Inmate #42837?” But then again, look at Jimmy Savile over in England, and Rolf Harris in Australia. Beloved entertainers who did more – and worse – than Cosby, and didn’t hit the skids until years after their indiscretions. So, alas, there is precedent for extreme crime and delayed punishment.

What a rotten year it has been for comedians. David Brenner dead from cancer. John Pinette dead from weight issues. Joan Rivers killed by minor surgery. Robin Williams going through a period of belt tightening. Carlos Mencia…still not funny. And now, one of the top five greatest comedians of all time, Bill Cosby, not exactly having the last laugh.

I still hope none of this is true, and these are just gold-diggers or mass hysterics or bitter has-beens who never got the ingénue roles and music careers they wanted. But the realist in me realizes that the star of “Mother, Jugs and Speed” was a mugger with drugs and spooge. I know you were in “Let’s Do it Again” – but did you have to do it again and again and again? Oh Bill, how could you disappoint us this way? After all, it takes a special kind of genius to do something even more vile, even more unspeakable and horrible than “Leonard Part 6.” And no, I won’t be giving my children your chocolate pudding pops.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #108 (9/28/2014): Opiyum

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #108 (9/28/2014): Opiyum

aired Sept. 27, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/eEhsyp6F2SQ

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 28, 2014.

You know how you can never eat only one potato chip? Or M&M? Or pound of
brisket? Well, a chef at a Chinese restaurant in China dreamed up a way to keep his customers coming back for more. And more. And more. A fella named Zhang wanted to make sure hungry diners chose his noodle shop over all the others in his province, so he did what any entrepreneurial sociopath would do: he went out and bought several pound of poppy buds. That’s the stuff you make opium with—for those of you who don’t live in California or Colorado.

Anyhoo, he pounded the poppies into a powder and sprinkled it into the flour for his noodle recipe. Since opium has a narcotic, addictive effect, Zhang figured customers would start eating his entrees, develop cravings, and return for more. Considering that Chinese food automatically makes you crave more of it an hour later, Zhang seemed to have a foolproof scheme. That is, until one of his diners decided to drive home. Police made a routine traffic stop, gave the guy a breathalyzer, and lo and behold, he was high, and he be holdin’.

The poor shlub was arrested and held in prison for two weeks. All the while, he protested, “It was the noodles! It was the noodles!” You can imagine how that went over with the warden. But the customer convinced his family to go eat at the noodle shop a couple of times. Police then agreed to test the family, and—you got it—they had more poppies in `em than Dorothy, the Tin Man and all those midget eunuchs combined!

The police—or, sorry, this is China—the po-rice, allested the lestaulaunt owner and put him in jail for two weeks. Now the driver is suing the city for wrongful arrest, and the restaurant owner is saying, hey, poppy seeds were actually common in Chinese cooking before they were banned a few years ago. I guess they were poppy-lar. Heh heh heh dammit.

What I don’t get about this story is two things: aleph: why you would buy a hundred-dollar bag of drugs to sell 24 cents worth of noodles. And beth: why any restaurateur would think you need opiates to get people hooked on noodle soup. Ask any Jewish grandmother. If you’re sick, if you’re under the weather, if you’re just plain ravenous: put a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of you, already you feel better. Just from the smell, let alone the heat, the taste, the slurpy lokshen.

Real Kosher chicken soup is its own addiction, especially with those giant matzoh balls that are heavy but light but heavy but light but heavy but light. And for those who think chicken soup is not a drug, why do you think they call it Jewish Penicillin?

Now, let me be clear: I am against any chef or anybody tampering with food by using harmful ingredients, be it hippies sharing funny brownies at Woodstock or Monsanto shpritzing everything with growth hormones and high-fructose corn syrup. But at the same time, it’s not as if we can cast the first stone. The guy who invented Coca Cola was a morphine addict who was crushing coca leaves into his wine. In the late 1800s, a local prohibition forced him to change his recipe – not to take the cocaine out, just the alcohol. However, on his own volition, he nixed the cocaine and replaced it with syrupy sugar — which, as we know from our children, has no addictive or drug-like properties whatsoever.

Nevertheless: let the story of Zhang be a lesson to anyone who wants to turn chow mein into cow-caine: desist and resist! Or, put another way, you can use your noodle, but don’t turn us into noodle users!

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27556

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #107 (9/21/2014): Gwyneth

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #107 (9/21/2014): Gwyneth

aired Sept. 20, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1GwetYq3E

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 21, 2014.

Over this summer, I had my beefs with celebrities – some Jewish, some not – and their bashing of Israel over the Gaza War. Celebrities who are either misinformed or simply too damn dumb to know who their friends are in this world, versus who the enemies are. Who is creating a climate of death and destruction versus who is just trying to live without being hit by rockets every day? So fie on Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem and Rihanna and that putz from Pink Floyd Roger Waters, and Chuck D, who’s been salting his lyrics with anti-Semitic slurs since day one. You wanna know what a Terrordome is, Chuck? Go live in Israel and be forced to live under an iron terrordome so that Hamas rockets don’t fall on your black ass. Why don’t you do that, Chuck D-spicable?

Meanwhile, other famous folk have been fabulous! Howard Stern, Bill Maher, Joan Rivers – she should rest in peace – Woody Allen, who gave a wonderful, insightful interview about the situation. He was the first one to say that if, back in 1948, the Arabs had treated Israel like a friendly neighbor instead of hornets’ nest, everything would be different. Notice: it’s all the funny people, the comedians, who see through the Palestinian PR poppycock. I guess it takes a humorist to shoot the arrows of logic through balloons filled with hot-air. Or, in the Arabs’ case, airplanes filled with terrorists. Thank God the funny people get it, because all these self-inflated “serious” actors and musical artistes – they look in the mirror and see Felix Frankfurter staring back at them – instead of the hot dogs they really are.

Even so, I come today not to vilify my enemies but to glorify my brethren and, in this case, sistren. In celebrity news last week, it was revealed that the Jewish people will be gaining a notable. The decades since World War II have seen our numbers chopped by the Holocaust, by assimilation, by intermarriage, by – you should pardon the expression – conversion (ptooey!). Now, the Orthodox are doing their best to reverse the trend. They’re shtupping and shtupping and being fruitful and multiplying, which has been heavenly to the cause, even as it’s been hell on the welfare rolls.

But we cannot rely merely on the horniness of our most devout cohorts to bolster our population. It is a delight, therefore, to report that yes, we’re getting one back. Someone who, if nothing else, raises the overall good-looks quotient of our nation by at least a percent or two.

Gwyneth Paltrow, a shikseh goddess if there ever was one – tall, blonde, willowy, pretty as a picture, and pretty in motion pictures – Gwyneth Paltrow is converting to Judaism. Now, to be clear, she’s already halfway there. Her father was television producer Bruce Paltrow, a proud member of the tribe. Her mother, however, is the lovely non-Jewish actress Blythe Danner. She’s the one on TV commercials hawking Prolia, a pharmaceutical that helps weak bones, which is ironic because you don’t get nicer bones than Blythe Danner or her kid.

Little Gwyneth was raised in a home with both religions, which she found very nice. But in recent years, she’s been studying Kabbalah, which is a weird, mystical occult offshoot of Judaism. Kind of liked dungeons and dragons, only the dungeons are synagogues and the dragons have big noses and law degrees.

But Paltrow is not just being swayed by a cultish micro-sect. She’s done her homework. In 2011, she appeared on that TV show that delves into your genealogical history. She went into the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side and looked at pictures of her father’s father’s father – a great Rabbi. And his father, also a Kabbalistic Rebbe of note. With people like that in your lineage, what are you gonna be, a Presbyterian?

And Ms. Paltrow has said that she wants to bring her children up, quote, “in a Jewish environment.” Well, she’s in Hollywood, so she’s already there. But she’s got one kid named Moses – so come on, she might as well have named him Jewy Jewberg – and the other child she famously named Apple. Well, is there a more Jewish fruit? From Eve in the garden to the treat we dip in honey for a sweet New Year, the apple is a treasured food for our people – and it doesn’t clog up your tuchas like matzoh.

And speaking of eating, Paltrow has said that she loves to cook and feed people, making her a Jewish mother, and she has amazing genes, making her a Jewish princess. And hey, considering all the macrobiotic laboratory crap she eats, she’s a Jewish doctor, too!

Now, all of this could just be a star’s fad, or Paltrow trying to find herself after consciously uncoupling from her shaygitz husband of more than a decade. Whatever the reason, I hope it takes. I hope she finds in Judaism a beautiful way of life – not from all the rules, not from the mystical narishkeit, but from fully joining a people that has survived the worst the universe can throw at them and still turn to each other and say, “Really? Those shoes with that shirt?”

Welcome, Golden Gwyneth, to the fold, and when your kids turn 12, look me up. I can have them chanting the Haftorah like Yossele Rosenblatt in three months flat, or your money back. Well, some of your money back.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #106 (9/7/2014): Uzi Does It

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #106 (9/7/2014): Uzi Does It

aired Sept. 6, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9w34BrJf8. AUDIO: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27571

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 7, 2014.

Chuck D once rapped, “My Uzi weighs a ton.” If only Uzi submachine guns did weigh a ton, then children couldn’t pick them up and fire them. But, of course, submachine guns are made purposely to be lightweight and portable yet still cause massive damage in a brief amount of time. Like eating sugar-free Gummi Bears.

Last week near Las Vegas, a nine-year-old girl was practicing on a gun range. As Lewis Black would say, I shall repeat that. There’s an Arizona firing range, about an hour from Sin City, where tourists can go practice their marksmanship under instructional supervision. Among those tourists last week: a nine-year-old child. (Not that there are any nine-year-old grownups – unless you count kids with the aging disease that makes them look like Mr. Magoo.) This little girl was doing so well with regular weapons, that her instructor, Charles Vacca – the late Charles Vacca – said, “Oh, what the hell. Let’s give her a repeating assault weapon, and see how she does.”

She did not do well. I think most parents will tell you that a nine-year-old girl can barely control her bladder, let alone a semi-automatic machine gun. Charles Vacca instructed the precocious tyke to pull the trigger and fire off one round at the target. Which she did. But you know, bullets are like potato chips; you fire one, before you know it, you’ve emptied the whole bag. The difference between a snack food and an Israeli-made weapon of mass destruction is that a can of Pringles doesn’t have a kickback. Well, unless they’re made with Olestra. A machine gun, however, in the hands of someone who weighs fifty pounds, is gonna squeeze off fifty rounds. One of those bullets managed to find its way to the middle of Charles Vacca’s forehead, which is why he had to cancel the rest of his classes through next Thursday. His return after that depends on whether Moshiach comes on Friday and revives him.

Otherwise, you’ve got a dead guy, a child who has to go through life knowing she killed him, and a gun industry saying, “Hey, freak accident. We don’t need minimum age requirements, just height and weight suggestions.” Morons.

But there is some good that can come out of this tragic incident. When this moppet murderess grows up and goes to college, she is the last chick any frat boy is gonna date rape. (“Steer clear, bro. Remember what she did to the last guy who grabbed her arm?”) Also, in the big book of karma, you gotta figure this is payback for every deer that was ever minding its own business, frolicking in the woods and suddenly, BAM!, she’s on the hood of a four-by-four. For once, Bambi’s mother gets to snicker and go, “How’s it feel, asshole?”

Lastly and bestly, this episode does serve to showcase the glorious superiority of Israeli technology. Arabs can fire a thousand rockets out of Gaza, with two or three – almost by accident – hitting targets and causing damage. But the Uzi submachine gun? You pick that up and point, and you’re looking at a Jonestown massacre in seven seconds. That’s craftsmanship!

Anyhoo, the Arizona Last Stop shooting range where all this went down, is still open, still packed with customers, still promoting, quote, “a Desert Storm” atmosphere with a base age requirement of eight. I shall repeat that: eight. Folks, I have an eight-year-old kid, and I won’t even let her use a cheese grater. Yes, I have to tolerate chunky wedges of parmesan on my linguini, but she keeps her fingers, and I keep my sanity. Well, such as it is.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza

aired Aug. 2, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/aNHPRoAQWFc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 3rd, 2014.

If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. If you keep throwing gasoline on that fire, you’re gonna get burned blacker than the New York Knicks in a lunar eclipse. Or, put another way, if you beat up your wife ten times, each time she will forgive you, she’ll wear a band-aid and concealer, and she’ll live in fear until the next flare up. But on the eleventh time, if you haven’t killed her yet, she’s gonna call a friend of a friend named Nunzio, and, for a fee, he will relocate you – to the middle of the East River.

It’s the law of “enough is enough.” If you are the nation of Israel, and surrounding your borders are a people who have sworn to drive you into the sea . . . These people fire rockets, indiscriminately and daily, into your heimat. If you’re Israel, you tolerate a dozen rockets, a hundred rockets, a thousand fakakteh rockets that usually land in the middle of nowhere, thank God. But rocket number 1,001? It’s time to pull your Incredible Hulk costume out of the closet and kick some ass.

Three weeks ago, as I’m sure you recall, three innocent Jewish teenagers were slaughtered when they hitchhiked a little too far into Gaza. This was not just another act of violence – you know, like Saturday night in Chicago – this was a flashpoint. It was the moment the Israeli government could say, “You know what? We give the Palestinians the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace, and they give us our teenagers back in pieces. Enough with their rockets, enough with the terrorism, enough with the bullshit about Hamas being a legitimate political organization; it’s time to open up a can of whoop-tuchas on this enemy that means us only harm and destruction. Bring it.”

In my previous Rabbinical Reflection, which I’m sure you’ve nearly memorized and put on flash cards for easy reference, I urged the IDF to take action in Gaza. To avenge the death of those boys and give the camel jockeys payback for years of tears, fears and jeering Emirs. I am thrilled, therefore, that Benjamin Netanyahu gathered up his army into a white-and-blue fist, and they’ve been pounding the Gaza goons ever since.

Dead civilians? Unfortunate casualties? For sure, and what a shame. It’s called collateral damage, and every war has `em. And the Arab teenager that Israeli extremists abducted and killed in retaliation? No one’s proud of that. I’ll even go as far as saying that Israel hasn’t gone out of its way every single time to make sure they’re only blowing up militants and not bystanders two feet away from militants. But when did the Arabs ever make a distinction between soldiers and regular folk? Bombs on buses? Shrapnel in cafes? Mass murders of Olympic athletes and commercial airplanes slamming into the tallest buildings in New York? It’s a good thing I’m not an army General, because I’d napalm every speck of Gaza with a tent on it.

And where does American stand in all this? It’s honestly hard to tell. Barack Obama and John Kerry are talking the left-wing, liberal talk of “stop the fighting now, it’s a humanitarian crises, Israel and Hamas need to cease fire immediately and sit down at the table because there’s wrongs on both sides” – all the typical crybaby blah-blah that negates the basic fact that Israel tends to be in the right 90 percent of the time.

However, words and actions are entirely different things, especially in diplomacy. And for all the handwringing blather as a sop to the “Democracy Now” crowd, the Obama administration has, until this point, watched from the sidelines and let Israel do what it has to do. Thank you, Mr. President. If our Secretary of State wants to appease the Muslims by making noises about how Israel is being too harsh and causing too much suffering to the poor, innocent Palestinians, no problem. Just give Yisroel time to collapse the tunnels, kill the killers and drag Hamas, begging and desperate, to the outhouse of surrender. By eliminating terrorists and religious fanatics, Israel is doing America favor after favor, and I honestly believe Obama and company realize that – no matter how many times Republican bloggers call him “Hussein” and make him sound like the love child of Josef Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini.

It’s the nature of Israel that whenever we do strike back against those who oppress us, we have to apologize for killing more of them than they of us. When our missiles hit their targets, when 100 Palestinians die for every Israeli soldier, that’s unseemly somehow. It should be more balanced. We should die more just to ratchet up the sympathy vote. Sorry, Charlie. The goal is to weaken Hamas and make Israel safe from attack. If that means bombing Gaza back to the stone age, so be it. Besides, Arab children have proven quite skillful at throwing stones, so it’s right up their alley. Just don’t expect to throw stones at Jews anymore, because we will fire them right back at a hundred times the speed.

Go Israel! Go Bibi! And remember what Abba Eban said, “It is better to be disliked than pitied.” I’m both, but I’m beyond giving a crap.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27580

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/2014): Eventful August

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/14): Eventful August

aired Aug. 30, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJUCZgwGJnI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 31st, 2014.

Well, it’s been an eventful month in World Woebegone. What should have been a nice, relaxing laze through the end of summertime – or for those of you in New Zealand, your last good shot at a snowball fight – instead has been an August fraught with war, tumult and misfortune.

Closest to my own heart, of course, is the battle raging between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza. When last we checked in together, Israel was mourning the loss of three innocent hitchhikers who took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. That was followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel – actually it was preceded by and followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel. Which led to Israel saying “enough’s enough.”

Which led to massive bombings, more rockets, a couple of psychotic Israelis killing Arab children, a few cease fires that lasted long enough for the Arabs to import more rockets, lots of dead Arab terrorists, Hamas militants and semi-innocent-semi-civilians, too many dead IDF soldiers, and a battle that President Obama has been kind enough to let Israel wage without much interference beyond the occasional “naughty-naughty.”

My feelings about the Gaza situation have been spoken so many times, I feel like a “Murder She Wrote” rerun on the Hallmark Channel. Still, I’ll say it again: tiny little Israel shaved off a sliver of itself to give the Arabs in exchange for peace. What do the Palestinians give us in return? Thousands of attempted murders by rocket attacks, punctuated by the occasional real murder, just to break the monotony. How does Hamas expect to give the Palestinians a permanent home if they’re such horrible tenants when they rent?

And to all the left-wing ignoramuses – ignorami? Ignoramians? – okay, morons, who march in Times Square and the garment district with their Arab flags and their Zionism-is-Nazism banners and their screaming about Israeli war crimes, I will say once again: when the Arabs stop terrorizing Jews – and every other culture in the Western World, we’ll stop killing Arabs back. And if they don’t like living in or near Israel, there’s plenty of Arab land in the Middle East where they can worship Islam, stone their women and cut off each other’s hands for picking their noses.

Oh, and for all those “Democracy Now” types bashing Israel for killing Arabs, guess how many Arabs were killed by Arabs in Syria? 191,000, give or take. Meanwhile, Iraq is falling apart, so we have to go back there because of militant Mohammedans, and in response, a Syrian terrorist cut off the head of an American journalist and put it on youtube to see how many likes he could get. Some say the video is a fake, but even if it is, somebody got his head handed to him.

And speaking of violence: it just wouldn’t be a summer in the American south without racial tension, would it? So a black guy shoplifts from a convenience store, roughs up the owner a little bit when he tries to resist, gets stopped by a cop for reasons that have nothing to do with the crime, starts charging at the officer – or surrendering – depending on whose story you believe, and gets a half a dozen bullets in his head for his troubles.

Are the blacks upset? You bet. The guy had no knife, no gun, no nothing. Instead of his deadliest weapon, the cop coulda reached for a taser, or his nightstick. Then again, Michael Brown coulda reached for his wallet instead of stealing those cigars. He’s lucky the store owner didn’t blow his head off before the po-po did.

Obviously, police have a trigger-finger problem, especially when it comes to foreigners or people whose skin is darker than your average manila file folder. So if this whole Ferguson, Missouri calamity leads to better policing, I’m all for it. But when I see protestors willing to believe everything bad about American cops and everything angelic and wonderful about Michael Brown, my eyebrow rises. And when I see other protestors somehow equating Israel’s retaliation against Hamas with the death of this teenager, my gorge rises. And when I see actress Penelope Cruz denouncing Israel for committing genocide, my dick rises. I can’t help it, it’s Penelope Cruz. But the bitch really needs to show more tits and less mouth. I hope she chokes on her Nescafe.

Speaking of choking, a fond farewell to Robin Williams, actor, comedian and apparently all-around good guy. He really wasn’t that funny, but he made such a constant effort to be funny that you had to give him props and marvel at his gusto. I liked him in “Mork and Mindy,” I loved him in “Awakenings,” and I’ll miss his risk-taking performances as much as his more patented standup. Yes, he suffered from depression, but if you made “Patch Adams,” you’d be depressed, too.

We also had a suicide by Nascar, with Kevin Ward, Jr., stepping out of his vehicle to confront driver Tony Stewart for sending him into a spin. Okay, here’s a math problem everyone: If you stand in front of a car going 250 miles an hour, what are the odds of getting hit by a car going 250 miles an hour? I’d say 100 percent, Alex. Maybe Kevin Ward was too angry to think straight, but he was certainly too dumb to live.

Then again, the state of our government could make anyone suicidal. The Republicans keep vowing to impeach the president for being Karl Marx, while 2016 GOP front runner Rick Perry gets indicted for being Machiavelli.

We lost a nice Jewish girl named Betty Jane Persky who grew up to be Lauren Bacall, and the month of August also gave us a 6.0 earthquake in Northern California, causing millions of dollars of damage to vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Valley. Great, just when we need to get rip-roaring drunk to forget all the crap that’s happening, God smashes the bottles.

So where will we be a month from now? Will Russia invade the Ukraine? Will September 11th come and go without ISIS offering us an anniversary gift? Will Malaysia start making airplanes out of rubber, just in case they have to bounce? Hang on, my friends, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27576

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (7/6/2014): Brothers’ Keepers

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (7/6/2014): Brothers’ Keepers

aired July 5, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/fS3rlY_ICn0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 6th, 2014.

This is for all the Israel bashers, Palestinian apologists, Muslim excuse makers, and other misinformed idiots of the world: Israel is mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. Nor should they. You wanna talk peace? You wanna talk statehood? You wanna talk dismantling settlements? Go ahead. Press your lips to your asshole, and talk all you want.

Meanwhile, Israel is going to open a can of whoop-ass on Hamas, and it’s lonnnnnnng overdue. What’s the latest abomination? Three teenagers, 19, 16 and 16, were hitchhiking in Israel. They were kidnapped, they were brought to the West Bank – which, I remind everyone – is also a part of Israel. At some point over the last two weeks, they were murdered there, in cold blood, and the bodies were found on Monday in a shallow grave. These young people were not spies, they were not terrorists, they were not rabble rousers, and judging by their outcome, they were not great judges of character, either.

Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the so-called Islamic Brotherhood. Their goal was to push Israel into the sea. Not just take over the West Bank and Gaza, but the whole country, that Palestinians could then turn back into a pre-historic sandpile. For awhile, Hamas made believe it was interested in negotiating. Maybe there could be a two-state solution. Maybe Israel could push back to its pre-1967 borders, and tolerate the occasional scud missile and exploding restaurant, just for old times’ sake. But just this year, Abu Marzouk, the deputy chairman of Hamas told an Arab newspaper, quote, “Hamas will not recognize Israel. This is a red line that cannot be crossed,” unquote. That’s okay, Abu baby, Israel recognizes you, and your cohorts. And when they see you, they’ll put a bullet in your head.

How many times, how many years have I spent saying that radical Islam is a scourge, that these Arab countries cannot be trusted, and that Israel has a right to defend itself by any and all means possible – including tickle torture and episodes of “Teen Mom.” If the Palestinians want to live somewhere, let them knock on the doors of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait – we’ll see how welcoming their Arab neighbors are to these tired, huddled masses, yearning to move out of democracy and into Sharia law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas will pay for its killing. These boys, he said, “were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by animals” – that’s his word, not mine. Well… and mine – animals! And may the punishment not only fit the crime but outscale the crime by 3000 to 1; a thousand times the pain for each of the three innocents murdered by people who use Mohammed as a weapon and Allah as an excuse. Meanwhile, Israel needs to build more settlements in the territories – not take them down, build more. Because we won that land, rightfully and righteously, in wars brought upon us by the children of Hagar. And I don’t mean Hagar the Horrible; he’s a Viking and really not that horrible. His wife’s a little unpleasant, but even she and he together are not comparable to the lawless, soulless, terrorist slime that squats on 98 percent of the Middle East.

But I will say this for the other two percent. It’s been reported that some Palestinians, and even the Palestinian Authority, helped out during the two weeks of searching for these missing boys. There was actual cooperation during the rather beautifully named “Operation Brother’s Keeper.” Certainly, gratitude and good wishes go to everyone, whatever their background, who tried to lend a hand. But, of course, Arabs being Arabs, after a few days of house-to-house searches and bad traffic and inconvenience, the rank and file turned to rebellion and violence and wishing the Israelis dead.

Well, back atcha, towelheads. Let the rockets fly, let the round-ups begin, let the falafel balls fall where they may. In the Book of Deuteronomy, God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Get ready, Hamas, `cause payback’s a bitch.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27586

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #102 (6/8/2014): The 2014 Tony Awards

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #102 (6/8/2014): The 2014 Tony Awards

aired June 7, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/AKwmkJ31YnM.
https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27591

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 8th, 2014.

Well, it’s time for the Tonys, ladies and gentlemen. The moment when Broadway goes into a tizzy honoring and celebrating itself, while the rest of the world pretty much watches basketball. But I love the theater, and for all its eccentricities and unfairness and shows about men who dress up as women – because that’s the only thing Broadway seems to be about these days – I wouldn’t trade a night at the theater for ten nights under an olive tree with Mayim Bialik. Eleven even.

Broadway was a busy street this season, with more than 40 new productions. I haven’t seen that many openings since my proctologist made a time-lapse documentary. But you know, my interest in the Tonys is more religious than aesthetic; I want to know where the Jews are, and how did my beloved people fare in the season and in the voting.

For example, two of the five Best Play nominees were written by Jews. James Lapine wrote Act One, which has two acts (try figuring that shit out). The play concerns two other Jews – the great comedy-writing team of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. You can tell they were Jews because they wrote You Can’t Take it With You, which is just the kind of negative thinking that drives Jews to alka seltzer. Also, that iconic faigele Harvey Fierstein returned to Broadway with his first new play in 25 years. Casa Valentina is about group of married heterosexual men who take two weeks off each year to cross-dress and live like women. Why anybody would want to spend a vacation being bitchy and unreasonable while fighting off periods, headaches and sagging tits is beyond me, but that’s the magic of theater.

Broadway musicals have been a traditional Jewish stomping ground, from Fanny Brice to Lonny Price, from Harold Clurman to Ethel Merman, from Jerome Robbins backstage to Baskin-Robbins at the concession stand. And it’s still true; this year’s musicals have enough Jews to start their own ghetto! After Midnight – yes, it’s crawling with schvartzes, but it was conceived by Jack Viertel. Aladdin, by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman – one’s alive, one’s dead, both were circumcised. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Not just Carole King but Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Don Kirshner, Neil Sedaka. If you threw in Phil Spector, you’d have a minyan. And a bloodbath, but still…

The most nominated show of all, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, was co-written by Jews, and a show that didn’t even get nominated, Bullets Over Broadway, was scripted by Woody Allen. The show got a Best Book Tony nomination, but don’t expect him to show up for the ceremony because he can’t find a babysitter. . . to rape.

It does pain me to say that other categories for this year’s Tony Awards are rather chary with their chosen choices. Samuel Barnett, who was in Twelfth Night, is half-Jewish, half-Quaker, which means he takes messages from the bible and turns them into whiny complaints. But I complain that none of the other Best Actor candidates is Jewish. There’s two Irishmen, a Brit and an Arab. (The Arab is Tony Shalhoub, so we won’t hold that against him.) Except for Idina Menzel, who’s so Jewish John Travolta tried to pronounce her name in Hebrew, all the best actresses are shikses and schvartzes. You have to go all the way down to Best Featured Actor to find a few landtsman. Danny Burstein playing an old Jewish man in Cabaret. He’s a little young for the part, so I’ve been coaching him with phlegm-hocking lessons on his day off. You’ve also got Jarrod Spector in Beautiful. Now, he committed the biggest sin a Jewish boychik can commit – he left college in his junior year to pursue the acting. He said in an interview, quote, “It wasn’t easy to tell my parents that I was leaving Princeton” – Princeton, Gottenyu! An economics major! Why not put a stake in their hearts? And a lambchop, too?” “But my parents,” Spector said, “were phenomenally understanding.” Sure they were, Jarrod – because their oven was big enough to fit two heads!

But seriously, the kid made good. He played Frankie Valli on Broadway in Jersey Boys more than 1500 times. Spector said, quote, “There’s an Italian/Jewish closeness I think I have.” Which means, he can make you an offer you can’t stop debating.

On the whole, this was not the most Judeo-friendly year on Broadway. Yes, you had Billy Crystal in 700 Sundays, but you also had Soul Doctor, about smooth-singing, hippie-grooving, teenager-touching Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. The musical sold so few tickets, they held kaddish at the box office. Harold Pinter had two plays revived – both of which were hits, neither of which were nominated. There was a play called The Velocity of Autumn, about a spunky old lady in a Brooklyn Brownstone and her gay son; both of them should have been Jewish but weren’t. That show went down faster than Malaysian Flight 370.

Meanwhile, off-Broadway, they did have one show of interest. What was it called? “Bad Jews!” Playing at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center, no less. It was all about Young-Israel types fighting over their dead grandfather’s chai necklace. Well, it ain’t Sholom Aleichem but hey, I’m not Myron Cohen, either.

So I wish mazel and congratulations on a job well done to all the Tony candidates, Jewish and otherwise, for creating live entertainment in a world where “fun” increasingly means pushing a button, sliding a mouse and staring at a screen for eight hours. I think there’s more to life than that. Anyway, if you enjoyed this Rabbinical Reflection, remember you can watch it again on youtube by pressing the URL button, sliding your mouse to the video, and watching the screen.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27591