Rabbinical Reflection – Page 7

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #32 (12/11/2011): Post Office (lefkowitz)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #32 (12/11/2011): Post Office

Aired Dec. 10, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: Post Office

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 11th, 2011.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor gloom of night, nor budget cuts will stay these couriers from the swift completion of – oh, wait, the budget-cut part. Yeah, that’ll keep them from their appointed rounds.

Starting in 2012, the United States post office will continue doing what every other company in America is doing – charging more and giving less. First, they’re gonna raise the price of a stamp from 44 cents to 45 cents. A penny for your thoughts? Oh, I think they know what we’re thinking.

But okay, it’s only a cent, and it’s easier to make change with 45 than 44 anyway. But wait, there’s more. They’re also going to close processing centers and fire workers, meaning that delivery of first-class mail will slow down by a day or two. Just what customers in a society that demands everything yesterday want. No wonder people are P.O.’d at the P.O.

But, let’s be honest. Does anybody really send a first-class letter expecting it to be there the next day? If it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, you empty your wallet and you give it to FedEx. Or a courier service. Or a really stocky carrier pigeon.

Honestly, this whole business of first-class mail not getting first-class service – we’re used to that. If you still pay bills the old-fashioned way, write the checks a day or two earlier, just to be on the safe side. And if you’re expecting pharmaceuticals in the mail, well, you can suffer a few hours of pain and distress. It’ll just make you appreciate the medicine more when it finally arrives.

But it won’t arrive on a Saturday. That’s right, Uncle Sam will also do away with all weekend delivery. While it’s nice that they want to take Shabbos off, does it occur to you like it does to me that the post office is making cuts that will only result in people using them less? It’s a vicious cycle: revenues are down, so prices go up and services get cut, leading customers use more email, fax and Skype. This brings revenues further down. Prices go even higher, more services get cut, customers start using snail mail only for emergencies. Which makes revenues go down, prices go – all right, you get what I’m saying.

How about a new model? The post office is almost bankrupt anyway, so why not try something radical? Five cents to mail a postcard. Ten cents for a letter, $3 to mail a Christmas gift. Already, overnight mail is half the price of UPS and FedEx, but add guaranteed delivery and tracking. Make the USPS the first choice rather than the last resort. Give people a reason to run to the Post Office – “Ooh, I can send my uncle a birthday card for a dime.” “Wow, I can send my kid a care package for camp and have money left over to throw in two more candy bars.” “Hey, if I send an envelope filled with anthrax to a politician, I know it’ll be there in time for me to alert the media.”

I realize the postal service is in terrible, $14 billion debt, and that mail carriers would rather face a backyard full of Dobermans than the digital revolution. But you have two options in this world. Either you adapt and change. Or you keep doing what you’ve always done at your highest standard – and somehow find ways to make that as appealing as it used to be. Think about it. People either want a brand new Honda Civic with heated seats, satellite radio, anti-lock brakes, or they want a 1958 Plymouth Fury, painted, restored and polished to a T. What they don’t want is a 1972 Ford Pinto with a broken aerial and just enough horsepower to get you to the Safeway in one piece.

I just hope the post office brings its jalopy to the shop before it crashes on the information super highway. And when those 28,000 workers get laid off next year, well, the post office can save about 13 grand if they send the pink slips via email. Just a thought.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29464

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #31 (12/4/2011): Coca Cola

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #31 (12/4/2011): Coca Cola

Aired Dec. 3, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: Coca Cola

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 4th, 2011.

You know what the easiest job in the world is? No, not ranting on the radio, I don’t get paid for that. The easiest job in the world is selling Coca Cola. It’s been around for a hundred years, everybody drinks it, every grocery stocks it… You go into a shack in Malawi and say, “Barack Obama,” they look at you like you’re from another planet, but you say “Coca Cola” – oh, they start dancing around, they’re laughing, they want you to marry their cousin.

Selling Coca Cola is as easy as saying, “Hi, you wanna buy some Coca Cola?” Yes, you have Pepsi as a competitor, and those 99-cent, two-liter generic brands that SAY they’re cola, but we all know, it’s just Rustoleum with corn syrup. Financially, Coke might have a great year, or it might have an almost-great year, but really, it’s like asking the Sultan of Brunei at his roulette game, “Did you lose $3,000 or $30,000?” Either way, he’s not losing any sleep. Unless he drinks Coca Cola, in which case the caffeine will keep him up if the harem girls won’t.

So okay. Here is how you sell Coca Cola. You concoct it, you mix it, you put it in the bottle, you ship it from the factory, and you cash the checks. The beverage itself may have a secret formula, but everybody knows Coke’s formula for success – Step One: give people what they want and what they have always wanted. Step Two: Repeat step one.

Now, we all remember years ago when the marketing geniuses at Coke felt they had to justify their inflated salaries by doing something new. To be fair, it can’t be much fun promoting an item when you know deep down the marketing strategy you’ve used for the past ten years you could really use for the next fifty. And in the advertising and PR world, nobody gets a bonus for thinking inside the box. Unfortunately, in the real world, you know who thinks outside the box? Homeless people. They sleep in a box, then they go outside it to think. And you know what some of them are thinking? They’re thinking, “Shit, I used to be an executive at Coca Cola, until I invented New Coke.”

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? It’s one of the oldest sayings in the world, and if you think you know better, if you think you’re gonna prove the world wrong, get ready if you fail to fall on your tush into a cardboard box. Twenty-six years ago New Coke hit the market like a bottle of cancer, and it’s been an industry laughing stock – and object lesson – ever since.

So you’d figure the Coke folks would learn from their mistake. Red label, white letters, brown fizz, rule the world. But no, in the news this week was a story about Coca Cola using a special design for the holidays. Instead of a red background, they went with a white background and red letters, plus those cute little polar bears. All well and good, except the public took one look and said, “Wait a minute… is this regular Coke or Diet Coke?” Somehow the scientific gurus in the Coca Cola utility research kitchen missed the fact that white cans equals low-calorie equals tastes like battery acid. So people started bitching and writing to the company and returning the cans demanding the old stuff.

Weirder still – even people who were not confusing the regular with the diet, even when they knew it was the same stuff, some of them complained the cola tastes different in the silver can. Don’t ask me if it’s psychological or maybe the old red cans still have traces of cocaine in them, all I know is that it’s been another PR nightmare for Coke. They’ve had to go back and reinstate the red cans, and somebody in R&D is getting a lump of coal for their Christmas bonus.

Now, I don’t have a problem with innovation, but it seems all the innovations these days are negative ones. Ooh, let’s take a ten-ounce bag of potato chips and put only eight ounces of chips in it while charging the same price. American ingenuity at its finest. Or all these HDTV 3D television sets. You can watch a Pixar movie; it looks like you’ve jumped into their universe. However, almost everything else you watch is in one-D, low definition, so your fifty-inch Samsung has all the visual beauty of a hallway security monitor. And don’t get me started on airplanes charging you extra for a sandwich, more inches of legroom and a place to stow your luggage. America is innovating us out of house and home.

Again, it’s not as if the Coca Cola people started sneaking Ex-Lax into the formula. They wouldn’t have to, but even so. And it’s not as if they did something racist or dangerous or mean-spirited. They just wanted Coke to be part of the seasonal onslaught of merry merchandising. Skeptical people might say they had nothing to lose from the design disaster. If it worked, if it worked. When it didn’t, look at all the free, and not especially damaging, publicity they got. Maybe it was all part of some master plan to keep Coke in the news.

I’m not that cynical, I’ll grant them an honest mistake, but either way, if they want to sell their product, save money and have the simplest marketing plan imaginable, all they have to do is hire me. I work cheap and I work smart. I will sit there at my desk and ask the different departments the only questions that matter: “Does Coca Cola still taste disgustingly sweet yet refreshingly corrosive?” “On Thanksgiving, can you fry a turkey or a moose in it?” “Is it still a dentist’s best friend?” “Can it still remove the paint from a 1987 Ford Taurus?” Yes? Great – sign my paycheck, we’re good for a decade. Oh, and pour me another Dr. Brown’s Crème Soda – regular, not diet, extra foam, and don’t be Jewish with the ice cubes.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

—> https://youtu.be/WCiD285AVRE

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29469

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #23 (9/17/2011): Ten Years

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #23 (9/17/2011): Ten Years

aired Sept. 17, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koxCrkPZuM8

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 11th, 2011.

Boy, just hearing that date gets you in the kishkes, doesn’t it? September 11th 2011. Somehow that just sounds more meaningful than September 11th 2009 or September 11th 2003 – even though more time has passed. I suppose a ten-year anniversary makes you realize that, no matter what, life goes on, years pass; while at the same time, you recall how much younger you were a decade ago, and what an impact the event had on your life.

Ten years ago, Wall Street was destroyed, not by corruption from within – that came later – but by evil from without. Arabs, in airplanes, with box-cutters. How these scumpuppets were able to circumvent the FAA, the Air Force, the civil defense and any air-traffic controller with eyes remains a mystery greater than how Drakes gets that crème filling into Yodels. I mean, it’s all rolled up; how the hell do they do that?

Anyway, this week we’re hearing a lot of talk about closure. Ten years – it’s almost another generation. The world moves forward, the dead are not coming back, and, of course, we got Bin Laden. When the bullet sailed through his forehead, it made a satisfying parallel to those planes pushing through the buildings. As I mentioned in a previous Reflection, Osama’s death was a wonderful thing, but killing him kills him, not Jihad, not terrorism, not the memories.

As we all know, grief does not follow a time-table. Time heals wounds, but you never know when a scab will come off and start bleeding again. Looking at downtown Manhattan, remembering the 3000 victims, watching any movie that opens with a shot of that old New York City skyline – it all kicks up a sandstorm of memories.

And much as we all want mental therapy and ways to feel better about 9/11, let’s not go overboard making believe something good came out of the attacks. Nothing good came out of that. It was a nightmare; we suffered emotionally, financially, physically. Don’t be looking for feel-good post-mortems because how could there be a silver lining from such a thing? Well, maybe if one of those airplanes had the Kardashian family on it, but it would have to be the whole family, including Bruce Jenner, you know what I’m saying?

Seriously, though, at least there has finally been some progress rebuilding Ground Zero, and it is already possible to foresee a time when our children will think of 9/11 as “mom and dad’s Pearl Harbor Day,” rather than that day. Whether or not we fudged the endgame in Afghanistan, I’m glad we killed a lot of people there. Iraq may have been a blunder, but I’m glad we killed a lot of people there, too. God, I sound like a homicidal Andy Rooney.

On the other hand, they’re saying pretty soon we can once again go through airports keeping the shoes on our feet. Why? Because those feet kicked some ass.

Somewhere, in hell, there’s a dozen Arabs being mocked and brutalized by 72 appallingly ugly virgins, all of them holding box cutters in one hand and Moslem shmeckels in the other. Happy goddamn anniversary.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=30015

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #20 (7/3/2011): July 4th

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #20 (7/3/2011): July 4th

(aired July 2, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: Jhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVfXgUoNdyQ)

Yankee Doodle Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 3rd, 2011.

Yes, we are approaching the 235th birthday of the United States of America, the worst, most corrupt country in the world – except for every other country in the world. Don’t listen to polls that show that country has a better standard of living, that country has better healthcare, that country takes care of its poor, that country has cleaner beaches – all these things may be true in dribs and drabs, but there is still no country greater than the good, not-so-old USA.

When my great grandparents had to get the hell out of Russia, this is where they came. When my grandparents had to get the hell out of Germany, this is where they came. When my parents had to get the hell out of Saint Croix – because they were on vacation and mom got a sunburn and the souvenir shop was out of aloe vera and the hospital there was a shack with an aspirin bottle – this is where they came – and couldn’t wait to come back to.

Are these ideal days for the American people? No, tough times. We are still suffering from a recession George Bush built and Barack Obama can’t tear down. We have crime and drugs and pollution and overcrowding and the Game Show network. We have young people dying and killing in a sandpile called Arabia.

We have cameras at every stoplight, and we have super-computers that know the size and shape of every poop we take before we even eat the food that’s gonna turn into poop.

Worst of all, we have the first – or maybe it’s already the second generation of Americans – that isn’t doing as well as the one before. Even in the darkest jungles of Africa, the son of a chief can tell his father, “Dad, thanks, but I don’t need your shrunken heads. With my new position, I should be getting five, six decapitations a month, and if I make my quota, the wives and I get a ceremonial drum. I know dad, I know. When you were my age you had to castrate a rhinoceros for fuel, but times have changed. And with that new medicine man and his herbal remedies, who knows? I might even outlive you and make it to 40!”

But seriously, so America is in a rough patch. Meanwhile, we have cars that can tell us directions so we don’t get lost. We have ipods that put more music on a chip than a man 100 years ago would have heard in a hundred years. Just a week ago, we passed a law in New York where two people of the same sex can finally marry each other – instead of getting stoned by a mob. And pretty soon in Colorado, it’ll be legal to get stoned in a mob.

Not everything gets better, but before you go all nostalgic for the America of yesteryear, answer me this: Which would you rather have? God forbid you need heart surgery, would you rather have it now, or 1950? It’s a heat wave, and you’re trying to get some sleep in your bedroom. Would you prefer 2011, or 1911? Maybe you work in a factory, or an assembly line. Now…then? Or maybe you came in late and missed your favorite show on TV. Instant gratification on your cable box…or 1970? You’re trying to sell your house – today…or last year?

So you see, even in the worst of times, we usually have the best of times. Think of that as we head into – God help us – election season. Out will come all sorts of garbage, back and forth, right and left, all of it boiling down to one side saying, “We’re doing our best and hope to do better,” and the other side saying, “Your best isn’t good enough, and it couldn’t be worse.” As the mud is being flung and the bull is being shoveled, just remember that two-and-a-half centuries ago we belonged to another country. We bowed to a king, and we paid taxes to a government building roads and schools 3000 miles away. Well, we’re doing that now in Iraq, but still…

On this Independence Day, let us honor this republic, this democracy, this place that still takes immigrants – legally or otherwise – and gives them a shot…that isn’t from firing squad.

On this July 4th, as I stand at my barbecue and press my Hebrew Nationals into the Happy Hot Dog Man, I look over one backyard fence, and there’s the O’Malleys, drunk; over the other fence, the Tortorellis, stupid; down the street, the Gonzalezes – cheap bastards, but friendly – and two blocks down, not on this block, thank God, the Roosevelts. All good people of different backgrounds just trying to get by. One nation, under you-know-who, indivisible, with at least an impossible dream of liberty and justice for all.

Oh say can you see… my Ketchup Critter? Because I put it down, and now I can’t find it, dammit.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

→ https://wp.me/p1ixhV-2Z

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=30270

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #16 (5/14/2011): Israel’s Birthday

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #16 (5/14/2011): Israel’s Birthday

(Aired May 14, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8SWeaSKKVY)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 14th, 2011.

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday dear Israel –

You adorable 63-year-old country, you –

You-bastion-of-democracy-in-the-middle-of-Muslim-lunatics, you –

You military marvel even though you’re surrounded by enemies always attacking you, you –

Happy birthday to you!

This past Tuesday, May 10th, marked the Israeli holiday of Yom Ha’atzma’ut – Independence Day! The day back in 1948 that Israel told the United Kingdom, “Thanks for looking after the place for a few years. But, really, it’s time for you to go. We’re a big little country; we can take care of ourselves.”

And do that they have. From the minute Israel booted out the English protectorate, the Arabs attacked. They attacked in 1948, they attacked in 1956, they attacked in 1967, they attacked in 1973 – on Yom Kippur, yet. In 1978, PLO terrorists kept attacking, so in 1982, we attacked. Was nice for a change.

Each time, with the admitted help of American money and missiles, Israel kicked tuchas. All the while, we built schools, farms, hotels, theaters, falafel stands, high-class brothels – don’t ask me how I know about that last one.

Despite having to dump six percent of its gross national product into the military every year, Israel thrives. Despite Jihad rockets launched into Gaza, and threats from charming neighbors like Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Iran, Israel thrives. Despite occasional rotten oranges, like that former Israeli president who raped a girl – (please, Israeli women are loose enough, you don’t have to go raping them. Don’t ask me how I know about that) – despite all that, Israel thrives.

So now we hear that Hamas, the Palestinian party that governs the Gaza strip, has made peace with its old enemy, Fatah, the reincarnated version of the PLO. What kind of names are those anyway? Sounds like you’re coughing up phlegm: Chhhhamas.. F’tah!

For years, these two organizations did what most Arabs have tended to do: hate and kill each other. Ahh, the good old days! But now they’ve made peace…not with Israel, but among themselves, so they can gang up in Israel. Isn’t diplomacy wonderful?

In fact, it works so well that America’s chief envoy to the middle east just resigned. He gave up. After two years of begging for a two-state solution, from a two-terrorist problem. Now, since the death of Yasser Arafat – who should rot in gehenna with scorpions laying eggs in his anus – Fatah has appeared more moderate. Leader Mahmoud Abbas gave indications he might actually work with Israel and the United States to make something decent happen.

But now he’s joined forces with Hamas, aka the Islamic Resistance Movement, aka the kinds of people who think 9/11 was a lucky number. These are the Jihadists, the suicide bombers, the type of folks who could watch an entire episode of Family Guy without one giggle. In other words, terrorist scum.

But hey, Israel has negotiated with bloodthirsty mongrels before. We just wear gloves.

All it would take this time is for Hamas to say two little words: Israel Exists. That’s it. Acknowledge to the world that Israel is a sovereign country that has a right to be exactly where it is. You wanna have a laugh? Go look on google for maps of the Middle East. Do it. I’ll wait.

Okay, if you get a regular website run by normal people, you see little Israel and the rest of the Arab world. Now check ANY Arab-run website. The same map will not even have the name “Israel” on it. It’s either blank or called Palestine. It’s not Palestine, you Bedouin schmucks, it’s Israel – live with it. So we can finally live with you.

You know, I hate Germany. Germany turned a bunch of my ancestors into fertilizer. But I don’t look at a map of Western Europe and go, “Hey, what’s that blue thing between Poland and Belgium? Maybe if I close my eyes, it will go away. Ohhp, no.. still there.”

Israel will talk about two states, the west bank, the Golan Heights – all the land we won fair and square in the Six Day War. We will even listen to ideas about carving up Jerusalem – we’ll listen, doesn’t mean we’ll do it.

But nothing happens – just as it hasn’t happened in 63 years – nothing happens until all the Arabs admit that we are here and here to stay.

Happy Birthday, Israel! Yes, we’re going to a party-party. Just not the Hamas-Fatah party.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #11 (4/3/2011): Circumcisions

click above to listen (audio file)

Shalom Dammit, this is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 3, 2011.

Japan, Libya, Syria, Gaza – all this going on, so what makes headlines? A guy in San Francisco who wants to ban circumcisions. Lloyd Schofield is trying to collect seven thousand signatures to put the issue up for a vote in November. If it passes, people will have to drive all the way to Orange County to get their bananas peeled.

Mr. Schofield claims he opposes circumcision on human-rights grounds, and that cutting off the foreskin is a cruel and pointless mutilation – especially when you’re doing it to babies who have no say in the matter.

I do not disagree with any of this. If I woke up one day to find a Rabbi hoisting me in his arms and giving me two drops of wine while his pen-knife does a rotato on my shmeckel, I’d be screaming, too.

Both sides of the issue claim health benefits. The anti-bris contingent says it’s traumatizing and causes nerve damage, and that at best, it’s cosmetic, elective surgery. And let’s face it – Jewish men are not black men; we need all the inches we can get. If I were a talking baby, I’d say, “Leave the penis, take the nose!”

The pro-circumcision group say that doing a cockwork orange is more sanitary, more aesthetically appealing, and has a lower risk of HIV, Chlamydia and penile cancer. Those findings are in dispute, but I have to say the idea of standing in the shower doing a smegma check every week is not my idea of a good time. Of course, if it’s a 22-year-old blonde doing the checking, I could be persuaded.

But if we take health off the table, we’re left with a brief but painful process that is done in the name of tradition. Like having relatives over on the holidays.

Can we replace the circumcision, a covenant stretching back millennia, with a new, harmless ceremony? After all, so much of what we do in Judaism is metaphorical. When we spill wine on Passover, this represents the ten plagues and the blood that was spilled when we vamoosed from Egypt. It’s not like we have to go out every Pesach and kill an Arab. Although with the missiles coming from Gaza right now, sometimes I’m tempted…

On Chanukah we light the menorah to symbolize the drop of oil that burned for eight days in the great temple. So why can’t we take a baby, have him wear a little condom, and then the mohel yanks off the Trojan and says, “Ut! This is to commemorate what we used to do to baloney ponies for 5,000 years.”

As you can see, I sympathize with Lloyd Schofield’s argument. When we hear about African tribes slicing their women’s privates like mango chunks, we react with horror. And I’ll be honest, if a grown man came to me and said, “Rabbi, I wanna convert. I’ll do the Bar Mitzvah, and I’m willing to skin the flute,” my first response would be, “Are you suuuuuure? I mean really sure? `Cause if you think peeling an onion makes you cry…”

And yet, for all the reasonable challenges to circumcision, I can’t throw the baby out with the pee-water. Maybe there was something our forefathers knew that we don’t; maybe there is a real covenant between us and God that has to be symbolized by a painful whack to the wang; maybe we have no business messing with a tradition that someone found valuable because hospitals do it automatically no matter what religion you are?

I say, until you can categorically prove that circumcisions are unhealthy, leave `em alone. Give parents the right to choose as they wish for their children, and for their children’s yogurt hoses. Or, as Dooley Wilson would sing:

You must remember this:
A bris is still a bris
A baby’s gonna cry
So what if there’s some blood upon his thigh?
We don’t ask why.

And though some skin he’ll miss
He still can take a piss
And let the semen fly
So take a tip…from this Rabbi
And just comply.

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

So if you have a boy
And if he’s not a goy
Then kiss his flap goodbye
At least he keeps his pink whale eye
And stays a guy.

Aaaaaand…cut.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=30807