NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #178 (12/31/2022): 2022 FAREWELL

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #178 (12/31/2022): 2022 Farewell

airs Dec. 31, 2022 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch: davesgoneby.net/?p=31428. 

Watch on youtube:  https://youtu.be/iWVL1DmR0rQ. 

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year 2022.

Although it’s dangerous to generalize — unless you’re a general, in which case it’s even more dangerous — I will generalize and say that overall, this was a better year than the last two… which isn’t saying much, of course. If you have lupus and you get over it, and then you get painful bunions — well, bunions is better. But it doesn’t mean you’re jumping for joy. You can’t jump for joy because your bunions are killing you.

But 2022 wasn’t bad. It was like a painless bunion. It looked worse than it felt. So you went to the gas pump, saw the price, and felt like you were back in 1979, only without the leisure suits. But high as prices got, with COVID and working from home, people still aren’t driving or flying — therefore not using much gasoline anyway. Groceries do cost more, but couldn’t our fat asses could do with less junk food? Heck, by spending more for less, we’re saving money on coronary bypass surgery. 

Not that the health-insurance crisis has been solved. Or the immigration crisis. Or the mentally ill homeless crisis. Or the mentally ill former-president crisis. Or any of the wonderful miseries that governments promise to solve, try to hide, and then make worse. 

2022 was the year that right-wing bible-thumping bastards got their way: they overturned fifty years of settled law and made abortion a state-by-state crapshoot again — because for Republicans, a human being is priceless as soon as it has a heartbeat and worthless as soon as it’s black or hispanic. So the unbiased, non-activist, hundred-percent secular Supreme Court, half-chosen by Donald Trump, suddenly decided to do God’s work and force women to bring their oopsies to term. But wouldn’t you know: voters in nearly every state sided with the women. Why? Because if you’ve ever been on an airplane with a crying infant, all you wanna do is kill that fucking thing. 

And speaking of things that are short-lived: the G.O.P.’s victory lap barely lasted a season. When it came time for the midterm elections, their can’t-miss red wave crested, peaked, and nearly turned blue. Yes, for the next two years, they can make it even harder for President Biden to remember what he was gonna forget anyway. But they also can’t stalemate his every initiative. Thanks to the Republicans’ Handmaids Tale approach to society, Democrats held onto the Senate tighter than Elon Musk clings to a bad idea. 

And speaking of bad ideas, 2022 was the year of the moron — from Kanye West repeating old cliches about Jews and money, to Kyrie Irving becoming the latest sports figure who’s angling for a second career as a black Israelite. As soon as basketball season ends, you’ll see Irving outside a Citibank in a long, colorful robe ,and he’ll be pointing to a drawing of a retarded lion with a mogen David on its ass. 

Of course, not all black people this year were raving anti-Semites. Some were just needlessly violent. Like Will Smith, who hauled off and smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars for making a joke about Jada Pinkett’s haircut. I mean, come on! It’s not like he made fun of her pubes — which, I have on good authority, are actually less stubbly than the chia seeds on her head. 

And before you get the wrong, racist idea, there were plenty of horrible, violent white people this year, too. We call them “Russians.” Before cancer and HaShem knows what else finally send him to that big gulag in the sky, Vladimir Putin wanted to make Russia Russia again. So he invaded Ukraine — which, to be honest, I always thought was Russia — but he invaded the Ukraine territory expecting it would collapse faster than a crypto portfolio. Instead, Ukranians held fast, bolstered by nothing more than heart, guts, faith, and five billion of dollars in American weaponry. I don’t mind because the President of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is not only a former TV comedian, but he’s a Yid! Who else would show up in Congress looking like he’d been jogging in Central Park? What, he couldn’t go to Fishbein’s in Cedarhurst and rent a suit? Two pairs of pants — free hemming! 

Of course, here at home, we still have our own problems with savagery. Some non-binary numbnuts shot up a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs. A white supremacist killed 10 blacks in a Buffalo supermarket. A Walmart manager shot down 7 people in a store in Virginia. See? People think America is polarized and racially divided. But we have lunatics of all kinds murdering everybody. That’s democracy!

Still, in a good way, America has proved stubbornly resilient. The perpetrators of the Capitol Riots are having their day in court — and losing. Fringe candidates on both sides of the midterms learned that fringe looks great on talises, not so great on politicians. And when Facebook and Twitter got a little too “nanny state” with their censorship, users rebelled and went looking for new places to post their conspiracy theories, rants, and Sammy-Hagar-concert selfies. Elon Musk bought Twitter, fired half the work force, and quickly realized, “Wow, I could’ve fired two thirds of the workforce. I’m running a glorified blog here.” 

But it would not be fair to close out this “could’ve been worse” year without mentioning some of the worst things that did happen: the passings of notables in 2022. 

We start with the Queen, who died at 96

and Christine McVie, who was so much better than Stevie Nicks

We lost Luis and Bob from Sesame Street

And William Hurt, who hurt the women he beat

Angela Lansbury, our beloved Jessica Fletcher

And Louise Fletcher, whose Nurse Ratched was a kvetcher.

We lost Sidney Poitier, the epitome of class

And Olivia Newton John, that fine piece of talent. 

Goodbye Ronnie Spector, who sang so well

And I sure hope that Meat Loaf is well out of hell.

Bob Saget, and Gallagher are pushing up daisies

As are Gilbert and Louis Anderson. God — stop taking our crazies.

We celebrate these giants, their work and their lives

like Jerry Lee Lewis and his underage wives.

We lost Ray Liotta, goodfella and true

and Cheers’ Kirstie Alley, we’re cheering for you.

Peter Bogdanovich made his last picture show

And poor Aaron Carter’s done his last line of blow.

Ivan Reitman’s directed his very last smash

Farewell Sally Kellerman: who showed her bush in M*A*S*H!

Madeline Albright has, sadly, gone dark

And we won’t hear Vin Scully call games from the park.

And turning to Russia, our hearts are so heavy

Gorbachev: my budu skuchat’ po tebe. 

To these folks and more we bid our adieus

But I wish only happiness for all of youze.

May 2023 delight us and please us

without any wars or infectious diseas-us

And 12 months from now, may all of us say:

“Compared to most years, that one was okay.”

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

(c)2021 David Lefkowitz & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #177 (10/6/2022): DAVE’S GONE BY 20th ANNIVERSARY

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #177 (10/6/2022): Dave’s Gone By 20th Anniversary

aired Oct. 6, 2022 on Dave’s Gone By.  Watch here: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=31114

Shalom Dammit, this is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for October 6, 2022 — 20 years to the day that Dave Lefkowitz, the producer of this program, started to produce this program. 

I was there that fateful night when we got off the train in the most romantic, exciting town in the world, Merrick, Long Island, to begin the two-decade odyssey that would become Dave’s Gone By. Reading mostly from notes and holding onto his wife for support — or possibly grabbing her tuchas, I couldn’t see that well — Dave took to the microphone like I take to a brisket. And for 57 glorious minutes, Dave gave us comedy, a little social commentary, a bissel music, and something truly different on the radio. Like static but a good static. 

Most importantly, Dave brought me onto the program as his very first guest. He didn’t interview me or anything — no, that he saves for big hoo-hahs like Carol Channing and Charlotte Rae and Charles Grodin and other people who are dead — but he did give me a chance to talk aboutthe holiday of Simchas Torah, the first chapter of the Old Testament, Genesis,and women’s boobs. Yes, this was an informational segment tied to breast-cancer awareness month, but honestly, I just like to talk about women’s boobs. 

But from that very first episode — October 6th, 2002 — I have been proud to be a part of the Daverhood. In my interviews, I have chatted with the high and the mighty and the low and the lowly. I’m working on the mid and the middly. Also, I have now recorded 177 of these Rabbinical Reflections, my mini-sermons on life, current events, Judaism, ethics, and women’s boobs — or, as I like to call them, “tits.”

Dave has seen me through many life events these twenty years. He directed my TV show, Shalom Dammit! Rabbi Sol Solomon Peace, Love, and Acid-Reflux Hour, episodes of which are completely unknown to the Paley Center. Dave co-wrote and directed my one-man off-off-Broadway show, Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Me, which was received rapturously on two coasts. Well, Colorado isn’t a coast, but what, you’re gonna quibble with me over semantics? Go to hell! 

But Dave will always be heavenly in my book for being my friend, my editor, my collaborator, my poison-tester (because, you know, I get hate mail). If anybody deserves to be broadcasting twenty more years, it’s Dave. 

Be nice if he was paid. Be even nicer if he paid me. But I’m not one to complain. I am here merely to say Mazel Tov, Dave Lefkowitz, on your longevity, your comedy, your show. This is your holiday: Simchas Duvid. 

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

(c)2022 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #176 (6/11/2022): 2022 TONY AWARDS

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #176 (6/11/2022): 2022 Tony Awards 2022 

(©2022 David Lefkowitz. Airs June 11, 2022 on Dave’s Gone By.) 

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for Tony Award season 2022.

Hard as it is to believe, horrible as it was to conceive, New York went without live theater for a year and a half. From March 2020 through August of last year, shows were shut while Manhattanites were shut in. Waves of pandemics came and went. We watched COVID go from a death sentence to a bad flu to a nasty ah-choo, with the level of illness and contagion changing faster than Jessica Simpson’s weight.

Eventually, Broadway’s rewards outweighed the risks — at least to desperate producers and out-of-work actors — and theaters reopened their doors. Not that they made it easy. Between long lines, bag searches, will-call windows, pissy ushers, and flash mobs to reach the toilets, getting into a show made you long for the grace and delight of airport security checks. On top of that, before even reaching the lobby, you have to stand outside holding your bag, your ticket, your Proof of Vaccination, and your legal I.D. — simultaneously. Even an octopus would think, “How many friggin’ arms am I supposed to have?”  Compounding this annoyance is having to wear a KN-95 through the entire theater experience. If I wanted to live life with a mask on to avoid breathing in, I’d move to Staten Island. 

Now, I get it: Broadway producers hope to minimize the risk of transmission, so they compel you to wear your mask every second you’re in the theater. Unless, of course, you bought a $15 dollar drink at the bar, in which case the COVID germs are magically vaporized by the alcohol. And what better way to enjoy a drink, or a selfie, or a sneeze than with a Nazi usher yelling at you to pull your mask up the millisecond you’re done? It’s enough to drive the most dedicated theater geeks from the Nederlander to Netflix, from the Shuberts to Showtime, and from Jujamcyn to “Jersey Shore.” Patti LuPone can hissy fit all she wants; a bunch of rich, unmasked actors telling the people who pay them, “do as I say, not as I do,” is just a bissel tone-deaf. And speaking of deaf, my ears are still ringing from MJ, the Michael Jackson musical. I guess that’s to drown out the cries of the audience going, “Good show, but you might have mentioned the underage sodomy!” 

Seriously, though, for all my own kvetching, it is a blessing and a minor miracle that Broadway came back after Covid. And not crawling back but roaring — with 34 new shows, and 56 productions in all. Fabulous invalid, indeed! It’s like a guy with no legs getting out of a wheelchair and running a 5K. It’s like Garth Drabinsky going to prison for investor fraud and then being allowed to capitalize a new Broadway show. Oh wait, that actually happened.

The buzzword for the 2021-22 season was “diversity,” with black, hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, transgender people — all getting more opportunities and visibility than ever in Broadway history. Of course, I’m old, white, and Jewish, so I don’t care about that. What I care about is my people — the traditional Broadway creators and audience. With all those old secruchenes dying of coronavirus in 2020, would there be enough geezers to fill seats the way did have for a hundred years?

So far, so normal. Some shows are big hits for no reason, some flop for the same no reason. Trying to predict what will click and what will clunk is like guessing the weather in Pittsburgh on March 9th, 2024. I’m thinking “cloudy,” but who knows?

I’m glad to say that onstage, even with all the BIPOCking, there was still room for Jewing. Perhaps first and foremost, you have Best Play nominee The Lehman Trilogy, staged by half-jewish, all-brilliant Sam Mendes. The play is about three brothers from the old country who become textile middlemen while trying to remain Orthodox. Eventually they build a financial empire — and then it crumbles when investors realize they’re not actually investing in anything. Can someone say NFT’s? Meanwhile, the Lehman Brothers’ offspring assimilate to the point that they’re indistinguishable from goyim. And the point of the play? America is a seductive country that can make your dreams come true but also force you to make choices that aren’t exactly kosher. 

We find another Jewish-American success story in Funny Girl, the tale of Fanny Brice who brought Jewish humor to the Ziegfeld Follies and gay-icon status to Barbra Streisand. The new revival of Funny Girl has an even Jewier Jewess: Beanie Feldstein. Here’s a big shock: Beanie is not Barbra. Okay, you over it? Reports say Beanie, who did not get a Tony nomination, is very funny and appealing, and if her voice isn’t the greatest star, her shortcomings still don’t rain on her parade. Now, it would be nice if she showed up eight times a week instead of making the audience play Guess Who’s Onstage Tonight?” But Julie Benko, the shikseh understudy, is no slouch, and you hear more Yiddish words in Funny Girl than you do anywhere outside Boro Park.

Now, how about some other categories with Jews in them? Stephen Sondheim co-wrote Company, of course — a classic look at marriage that this time changes the lead character from a boy into a girl. Hey, as long as she isn’t doing university swim competitions, that’s fine with me. And there’s a scene where a shaygitz groom, about to marry his longtime boyfriend, kvells over having his very own Jew. AS WELL HE SHOULD!

The Jews in Caroline, or Change aren’t quite so ideal. Leave it to Tony Kushner to treat lantsmen seriously while also making them racist, microaggressive, hypocritical, and obsessed with money. Awright, I guess they are Jewish. And I sure wish I could pay a black maid twenty bucks a week.

But be that as it may, another flawed but sympathetic Jewish character is Buddy Young, Jr., aka Mr. Saturday Night, the — you should pardon the expression — titular protagonist of Billy Crystal’s new musical based on his old flop movie. It’s about a Borscht-Belt comic turned TV comedy icon turned frustrated has-been — basically the Al Franken story. I will say Mr. Saturday Night the musical works better than Mr. Saturday Night the movie because Crystal really is 74 years old, so now when his character coughs up phlegm, you can see the green in the handkerchief. 

And speaking of Jewsicals, the goyische Girl from the North Country reappropriates classic songs by Bob Dylan, fka Robert Zimmerman. Yes, I know Dylan dabbled in Christianity for a while. But hey, I played poker last week; that doesn’t make me Nicky Arnstein.

In terms of Tony-nominated actors, well, most of them are people of color — and I don’t mean the pale sickly color of Chassids. Jewish nominees are few and far between, but we do have Rachel Dratch in the door-slamming farce, POTUS. Dratch spends half the play wandering around in a stupor — and she’s hysterical doing it. I only wish my Cousin Ida was half as funny meandering around the nursing home. But  we do have another Jewess nominee — Mare Winningham. Before you spit up your borscht, yes, she was raised Roman Catholic. But she rejected you-know-who in her teens, and in her forties took an Introduction-to-Judaism class that set her on the path of righteousness and rugelach. She even put out an album of Jewish-style country music! I guess instead of a truck driver guzzling whiskey in his four-wheeler, she has a lawyer sipping Manischewitz in his Prius. But Winningham is the real deal! She told Jewish Weekly in 2004 that although her children aren’t Jewish, they do help her rate brisket recipes…close enough!  

Anyway, mazel tov to all the Tony nominees, Jewish and non, the unfairly overlooked, and everyone who did their best to make sure 42nd Street once again had dancing feet. If Broadway grosses haven’t climbed back to where they were in 2019, and if Broadway producers are struggling to make shows naturally inclusive rather than pandering to a woke mob that doesn’t even go to the theater, and if Broadway audiences can put up with wearing face condoms a few more weeks or months, and if we can get over mourning that Gilbert Gottfried will never get to play Lear, we might just have an even better season ahead in 2022-23. We can only hope and pray.

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

© 2022 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #175 (3/17/2022): JAMES JOYCE

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #175 (3/17/2022): James Joyce

((©2022 David Lefkowitz. Aired as part of the March 19, 2022 episode of Dave’s Gone By.) 

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for Gingold Theatrical Group’s 2022 St. Patrick’s Day Irish Poetry Slam. 

As the saying goes, everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day! Italians, Hispanics, African-Americans are Irish. Well, Black Irish. Jews, too, identify with our Celtic brethren, because we suffered oppression, we love literature, and just as the Irish swallow their ale, Jews wallow in our ailments. 

I can think of no better way to celebrate Irishness than sharing poetry by James Joyce, who is, notwithstanding Agatha Christie and George R.R. Martin, the most important writer to have two first names. Here’s a little verse from 1904 called “Silently She’s Combing.”

Silently she’s combing, combing her long hair
Silently and graciously with many a pretty air.
The sun is in the willow leaves and on the dappled grass
and still she’s combing her long hair that goes down past her ass.

No, I’m kidding — it’s before the looking glass. 

I pray you, cease to comb out, comb out your long hair.
All you’re doing is getting lice everywhere.

No, kidding again. I’ll spare you the rest of the poem; it’s just a guy worried that his girl is a skank.

Let’s try another verse, this one with a Jewish cadence: “All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters.”

All day I hear the noise of waters
making moan.
Sad as the seabird is when, going forth alone
He hears the winds cry to the water’s monotone.

The grey winds, the cold winds —

See? This is why Jews move to Florida. 

I hear the noise of many waters far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing to and fro.

Basically, the guy needs a space heater and some Prozac. But James Joyce is clearly using nature to reflect the psychology of his characters. Much as Yiddish-Irish poet Shmuel O’Malleystein did when he wrote, “Toilet’s backed up again. Ruining the floors. Guess we go back to pooping outdoors.” 

Let me close my scholarly examination of James Joyce with this passage from Finnegan’s Wake, which I think is the key to his work, if not all literature:

The spoil of hesitants. The spell of hesitency. His atake — is it ashe, tittery-taw tattery-tail, Hasitense hump-on-a-dimply, heyhey-heyhey a winceywencky.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Slainte’ (slant-cha) and L’Chaim!

© 2022 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #174 (2/14/2022): POEMS FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #174 – Poems for Valentine’s Day

(aired live Feb. 14, 2022 as part of Gingold Theatrical Group’s 2022 virtual Valentine’s Day slam. video: https://youtu.be/TUraqzkcAqg. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=25407)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a special poetical Rabbinical Reflection for Gingold Theater Group’s Virtual Open Mic Night on this Valentine’s Day, 2022.

You know, poetry is central to the Jewish people, from the biblical psalms to Leonard Nimoy’s “Warmed by Love.” Poetry can be the best way to express love, so I wish to share with you some classic Jewish poems of romance and arousal. For example, Rabbi Tseitlin of Detroit gave us this most appetizing sonnet:

Shall I compare thee to a hot knish?
Thou art more tasty and much cuter
With boobs as plump as gefilte fish
And scrumptious nipples on each hooter.

A knish is square, but thou do curve
With far more spice than hot pastrami
Thy sexiness makes me a perv
When thou dost swallow my salami

Thou art chicken soup for my soul
and matzoh farfel for my heart
Your kugel makes me lose control
In a good way — not like when I shart

So long as Jews can shlep and kvetch and daven
I eat you up and give you all my lovin’.

Is it any wonder Rabbi Tseitlin has restraining orders in twelve different Michigan counties?

Let us consider this poem from the great Rabbi Vogel of Omsk:

Roses are red, violets are thrilling me
I love you so much,
but my prostate is killing me.

Inspired by Rabbi Vogel, I, too, have written short verse, many in the haiku form. For example, this one that I penned on Chanukah:

Dreidels made of clay.
When they’re dry, it’s time to play.
Women? The reverse.

Of course, not all poems about love are so refined. For an earthier exploration of desire, we turn to Rebbetzin Meyrowitz, widow of the great Estonian Rabbi, Leroy. Here’s a gem from her shocking blue period, shocking because it was her first period since her thirties.

There was a young girl from Tiberias
whose horniness made her delirious
They found her in Gaza
Undressed in a plaza
Her pregnancy ain’t that mysterious

In her latter years, Rebbetzin Meyrowitz became more audacious, disgusting even, as when she wrote:

In order to brighten his sukkas
Reb Mendelsson hired three hookas
They pulled on his payess
and sat on his fayess
and jammed an etrog in his tukas.

My friends, somewhere in the Torah — I’m not sure where — it says “Love Thy Neighbor.” My neighbor fixes car parts on his lawn — it’s not possible. But we can still aspire to love, if only as a poetic ideal.

My hope for all of you during these times is that you receive love. And when you do, may you have enough money to pay the girl and her pimp.

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

(c)2022 TotalTheater
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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #173 (12/25/2021): 2021 FAREWELL

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #173 (12/25/2021): 2021 Farewell

aired Dec. 25, 2021 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/FnMeyeZ9K3Q

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year 2021 AD — After Delta. 

Well, we’re not really “after delta,” of course. We’re just discussing it less because another variant of the coronavirus came along to goose up the news cycle. Honestly, I think the whole Omicron thing was started by Hilaria Baldwin just to get her husband’s name off the front page. 

But my friends, it’s certainly been a year. Again. You know, there’s something to be said for pessimism; at least you’re not disappointed when everything goes to shit. So in 2020, we made it through the first wave of the pandemic: the triage tents, the refrigerator trucks, the zoom fatigue, the hidden charges for InstaCart deliveries. And with 2020 hindsight, the vaccines came — hallelujah! The government went to Big Pharma with a blank check and said, “Do something.” And they did! By new year’s, all these old people who were dying of Covid in nursing homes could get vaxxed and go back to dying of the flu. 

We all breathed a sigh of relief when, only months after the explosion of COVID, Pfizer, Moderna, and one-shot/blood-clot Johnson & Johnson proved that modern medicine could change the game. Unfortunately, viruses are like robocallers. If you block your number in the morning, they just find another sequence of digits to call you again at dinner. So Covid morphed into Delta, which spun into the more contagious but milder Omicron. By the time we get to Upsilon, everyone will have it, but it’ll just be constipation and hangnail.

Still, we must be careful — no matter how careful we are! Double-masked, tripled-vaxxed, quadruple-sanitized — the CDC messaging is still: go on with your normal life, but don’t do anything normal. As we end the annum, Broadway shows are closing, sports are canceling, hospitals are filling… The Rockettes even postponed their Christmas show till after Christmas. Now it’ll be the Lent Spectacular. 

So 2021 was really the year to get our hopes down. In New York we looked to the Cuomo Brothers for inspirational pep talks, which was like asking the New York Jets for tips on scoring touchdowns. We looked to reunions of Friends and Sex and the City for nostalgia, only to realize that women who are no longer cute are immediately irritating, and that “just like that,” Chris Noth is a rapist. 

We heard right-wing Republicans decrying vaccine mandates because the government has no right to tell them what medicine to put in their bodies. Sounds reasonable…until you remember these same people want to tell women what to do with their bodies. And now with the homemaker harpy, the college rapist, and the pubic-hair schvartze leading the Supreme Court, they may get their chance.

Not that America needs even more polarization. On January 6th, we realized half the country still believes Donald Trump won the election, that COVID is just the flu, and that country music is listenable. As scary as it was to see white people rioting, it was even creepier to see a guy painted blue and wearing a viking helmet storming the halls of Congress. Doesn’t he know the clowns in Congress don’t need makeup? 

So we distracted ourselves from the yecch of the year by watching unbelievably rich entrepreneurs…and William Shatner…go into space. They didn’t visit the moon or anything, they just went up in the air. Big whoop. That’s like going to a multiplex and telling the ticket guy, “No, thanks. I’m just here to enjoy the lobby.” 

At least people started going to the movies again — well, superhero movies; the rest they’re watching on TV because that’s the only pastime people can afford.  Between health insurance and home prices, you either have to sell an organ to buy a house or sell a house to buy an organ. And then you have to rent the organ out just to buy groceries.

But at least 2021 was instructional; we learned something. We learned that just because you get rid of a bad president doesn’t mean the next president will be good. Joe Biden, who always looks one step away from competence and two steps away from assisted living, has a knack for finding the failure in success. He pulls us out of Afghanistan — and we look like the Keystone Kops in the process. Biden signs a trillion-dollar bill to revamp America’s infrastructure, but his two-trillion-dollar domestic bill gets torpedoed by one centrist Democrat. Biden tries to reverse Trump’s anti-immigration policies, and so — big shock — thousands of illegals we can’t handle swarm to the border. 

President Biden did keep the economy going during COVID with numbers for both Wall Street and unemployment remarkably good. But that’s because people are working to shell out four dollars for gas and ten dollars for bread. And that’s if the bread makes it to the supermarket in the first place. Turns out a supply chain is only as good as its weakest link, and this year that link was the Suez Canal, where the good ship Ever Given got stuck like an impacted bowel movement. 

The whole year 2021 felt like the Ever Given; each time we’d pivot with hope to a different direction, we’d hit another sandbar. Tokyo held an Olympics…that nobody went to, apart from a couple of US athletes who got the twisties and tanked. Radical Democrats called for defunding the police — and then backtracked when rampant crime made their cities more dangerous than a Travis Scott concert. R. Kelly went to prison, presumably filling the space just vacated by Bill Cosby. Britney Spears finally became a legal adult — just in time to join AARP. 

And then race. You had black people getting angry because the jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty — for killing two white guys. And when policeman Derek Chauvin was found guilty for suffocating George Floyd, all America heaved a sigh of relief. They even put up a statue of Floyd in a Manhattan Park, and it was quickly defaced by an unemployed actor. Sorry, that was redundant; an actor. But how dare he? After all, if we’re pulling down monuments of Civil War Generals and Founding-Father slaveholders, why not replace them with a counterfeiting drug addict whose biggest life accomplishment was holding a pistol to a woman’s stomach during a home invasion? Then again, when you come right down to it: whether the statue in the park is of Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee, it’s still just a pigeon toilet.

But before we flush this year down the crapper, we should take a moment to remember some of the people we wish were still afloat in 2022:

Farewell Willard Scott — whose hundredth won’t be sponsored by Smuckers

And bell hooks and Anne Rice, you fine literary motherfuckers

We’ll miss Charlie Watts and his incredible drumming

Mort Sahl and Norm Macdonald, who kept the comedy coming

Goodbye Cicely Tyson, God finally took her

And old Cloris Leachman — you know: Frau Blucher.

We lost Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind

And also Don Everly, who never left his brother’s behind

Melvin Van Peebles made films that were funky

Mike Nesmith brought street cred to being a Monkee

Leon Spinks and Marvin Hagler, who never took a dive

And broadcaster Larry King — Not Live 

Farewell Roger Mudd, and thanks for the news

And Shalom, Ed Asner — you were good for the Jews

We lost Mod Squad’s Link, and that’s a stone bummer

And God roto-rooted old Christopher Plummer

Farewell Nanci Griffith who sang with her soul

And two decent statesmen, Mondale and Dole

Shalom, Jackie Mason, and thanks for the funny

Bye bye Bernie Madoff: shtup you and your money

Phil Spector’s bad deeds are interred with his bones

And Tawny Kitaen — I wish she had clones

We lost Ned Beatty, who, like a pig, did squeal

And how about a Mister Mic-drop for Ron Popeil?

And last but not least, Stephen Sondheim made his mark

with Gypsy and Sweeney and Sunday in the Park  

But just when these deaths make it seem dark as night

Remember with joy: there’s still Betty White!

And so my friends, my enemies, as we shuffle off the mortal coil of Covicious 2021 into Omicrazy 2022, I can only wish you all healthier, happier times; hope when things seem hopeless, and hot pastrami because…well, it’s hot pastrami.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Shana Tovah, be glad this one’s ovah.

(c)2021 David Lefkowitz & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #172 (10/22/2021): Brown Sugar

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #172 (10/22/2021): Brown Sugar

(airs Oct. 23, 2021 on Dave’s Gone By: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27410)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-October 2021. 

It has been a sad and surreal year for fans of a little music group called The Rolling Stones. You may have heard of them. They began as a blues-rock band in the mid-60s and then, for several years, made the most compelling rock and roll in the history of ever. Then Mick Taylor quit and they vacillated between still kinda-great and name one decent album in the last 40 years. 

But through it all, they were the Stones — the swagger, the sound, the mix of energy and grit — and not the kind you get from a Larabar. When Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and — oh, okay, we’ll include Ronnie Wood — when they locked in together, you knew they were still the greatest band in the world who weren’t the Beatles. 

And then this August, cancer took Charlie. We all felt like we’d been kick-drummed in the stomach. But Ronnie, Mick, and Keef had already decided the show must go on. They survived Brian Jones doing the backstroke, they endured when Bill Wyman quit to concentrate on divorcing his 10-year-old wife. Jagger’s open-heart surgery? Richards’ urban-legend bloodstream? Bumps in the road; the Stones roll on, touring as we speak.

So why am I complaining? Well, because I’m Jewish. But also because Mick and Keith recently made a decision about one of their classic songs: “Brown Sugar.” What is “Brown Sugar” about? Nobody knows. Mick Jagger doesn’t know, and he wrote it. He just threw some ideas on paper about white men shtupping the hell out of black women — not an uncommon theme for the guy who wrote “Sweet Black Angel” and “Some Girls.” But because of these woke times, and because the lyrics reference slavery in a jaw-droppingly tasteless way, “Brown Sugar” is now officially retired from the Stones catalogue. 

Since its 1971 debut on Sticky Fingers, “Brown Sugar” has been a radio staple and concert favorite. Fans, black and white, boogied to it, and, guess what? They did not spontaneously combust or weep indignantly at the lyrics. Granted, it’s impossible to understand the lyrics burbling out of Mick Jagger: “Old boy stagecoach hypocotyl beans” – what? But even if you have the lyric sheet, you don’t hear the song and think, “Ooh, this makes me want to take a riding crop to Harriet Tubman.” Not to mention, the narrator of “Brown Sugar” is complimenting black women on their pleasant vaginal flavor. Hey, I’ve eaten some Jewish women, and it’s like having an anchovy throw up on your teeth.

No question, “Brown Sugar” is all kinds of politically incorrect, but so are a million rap numbers that do a lot worse things to black women than tasting them. Still, what scares me about the decision by Jagger and Richards — who, as authors and performers, have every right to do as they please with their work — what scares me is precedent. If you self-censor one particularly egregious tune, how long before other Stones masterpieces fall under the same scrutiny and become cancel-culture casualties?

Feminists give “Under My Thumb” the middle finger, your local PTA is sure to ban “Little T&A,” and born-again Christians raise hell against “Sympathy for the Devil.” But sometimes the offense is more subtle. What if Al Sharpton comes out against “Paint it Black” for its negativity about that color? What if “19th Nervous Breakdown” starts giving mentally ill people their 20th? What if third-grade English teachers — already despairing over teaching this generation anything that isn’t a digital game — what if they hear “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and get pushed over the edge by the double negative? (So he can get satisfaction?) What if animal-rights activists protest “Beast of Burden” and transgender woman feel bad about “Rocks Off”? What if the makers of tampons and maxipads lobby to ban “Let it Bleed?” What if the makers of Imodium want to censor “Let it Loose?” What if deaf people say “no” to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” blind people have a problem with “Far Away Eyes,” and hemophiliacs cringe at “Too Much Blood”? What if Catholics try to block “No Expectations” because that conflicts with their idea of the afterlife, or if Rabbis urge congregants to delete the song “Happy” because they know it’s something Jews will never be? 

Instead of cancel, cancel, cancel, we need context, context, context. Whether it’s Birth of a Nation, a Statue of Thomas Jefferson, Mickey Rooney in yellowface, or Wagner at the Israel Philharmonic — explain it, debate it, keep it. At some point, we have to tell all the woke whiners, “You can’t always get what you want. Go ahead and vent at what vexes you. Give a speech before the movie, put a sign near the statue, have the deejay say, `This next song is `Brown Sugar.’ It might be about slavery, or drugs, or dessert. Either way, don’t try this at home.” 

Asked about “Brown Sugar,” Jagger once said, “I would never write that now; I’d probably censor myself. I can’t just write raw like that.” That was in 1995. And Jagger had long stopped writing raw like that. You tell me if that’s a good thing.

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

(c)2021 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #171 (9/14/2021): HOW TO FAST ON YOM KIPPUR

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #171 (9/14/2021): How to Fast on Yom Kippur

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running podcast Dave’s Gone By. youtube: https://youtu.be/ZGFcUunDz38)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for Yom Kippur, 2021. 

Even non-observant Jews, who wouldn’t know a Torah from a tuba, remember that they’re Jewish on Yom Kippur. It’s the one holiday on the Hebrew calendar where everyone agrees to be depressed. We think about our sins, we promise to do better, and we hope God doesn’t hold us to that promise because, let’s face it, we’re human.

So people ask me, “Rabbi, how do I get through the day? How do I observe the Yom Kippur fast?” 

Okay, so on Erev Yom Kippur, you have dinner in the evening. And when the sun goes down, you stop eating. Then, an hour later, keep not eating. 

By nine, ten o’clock, when you usually have a snack. Don’t.

Sixty to 120 more minutes will pass. During those minutes, do not eat. 

Then, time to go to sleep. Unless you’re narcoleptic elephant, you don’t eat when you sleep, so you’re fine. If you get up in the middle of the night to pee, don’t pee-eat. Save that for Shavuis. Go back to sleep.

Wake up in the morning. Pee again. Brush your teeth. This is great because if you’re thirsty, you get a little water, a minty bissel flavor — but it doesn’t count as food because it’s a health thing. You can even gargle, but no fair gargling with a Starbucks latte. 

Now, the fun thing about Yom Kippur is you can’t work. So lie on the couch, read a book, make up a song. And continue not eating.

Eventually, noon will roll around, and you’ll think it’s time to eat. Guess what? It’s not. Keep reading and singing. 

Now it’s early afternoon and you’re getting hungry. Too bad. Don’t eat.

By three o’clock you should have a minor but persistent headache. This is all a natural part of Jewish suffering. However, it’s also a fantastic opportunity because you can take a Tylenol — and have more water. That’s two food-groups with one ailment.

Now it’s 3:30 and you’re exhausted. Go back to sleep. Try not to dream about food. Or naked women. Or anything else you’d want to eat. 

After your nap, dusk should be approaching — homestretch! Just another hour, and you can stuff your face. But not yet; a little more torture never hurt anyone.

I will say, the most messed-up thing about Yom Kippur in America is that it doesn’t go 24 hours; it goes 25! The chassids invented this custom to make up for the inexactitude of when the sun officially rises and sets. They add an extra hour to be safe.

Good for them. The rest of us can look at a Timex. When you hit 24 hours and one second, the bagel can go here (points to his mouth). 

Please note that if you are pregnant, or sick, or sick of being pregnant — do not fast. That’s just common sense — which you don’t find often in religion. But Rabbis agree: if you’re feeling crummy, don’t be a dummy: feed your tummy! 

However, if you’re okay, you’re in the mood to detoxify, and you want to jump on the scale and see how much weight you lost just before you gain it all back, this is your chance.

It is recommended that you break the fast gently. Don’t be eating a chopped liver with sour pickles and a corned-beef chaser. Have a little soup, juice, vegetables, noodle pudding, clams casino – just kidding. Pace yourself; portion control. After a fast, your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Which will scare the hell out of your optometrist. 

To sum up, if you’re fasting on Yom Kippur, the important thing is: don’t eat. You might want to write that down if starvation makes you forgetful.

Otherwise, have a meaningful Yom Kippur and a fast fast.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York, giving you plenty of food . . . for thought. 

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #170 (7/24/2021): BEN & JERRY’S

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #170 (7/24/2021): Ben & Jerry’s

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running podcast Dave’s Gone By.)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for July 24, 2021. 

I scream, you scream, we all scream — at Ben and Jerry’s!

Back in the late 1970s, a couple of underachieving Jewish slobs, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, raised $12,000 to open an ice-cream store. Combining their very different skills and sensibilities — did you know Ben Cohen has no sense of smell? Finally, someone who can sit next to old men at the synagogue on Yom Kippur. But in a couple of years, Ben & Jerry’s became a serious brand and, eventually, a world-famous hoo-ha.

To their credit, these nice boychiks always tried to be socially conscious. They donated to oodles of charities and non-profits. They made their packaging more eco-friendly and objected to using growth hormones in their cows. For a while they had a policy that nobody at their company could make more than five times what the lowest-paid worker made. That didn’t last. But Ben & Jerry’s stood as a model for visionary capitalists who could create something people want, be funny and hip about it, improve the world, and still make a bundle. The most conservative, right-wing neo-fascist could sneer at Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey — but they still ate it and had to marvel at the company’s success.

Now, Messrs. Cohen and Greenfield sold Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever two decades ago. it is said that they have no connection to the company beyond their first names still being on the buckets. So the horrible things I’m about to say are, I assume, not directed at them. But they certainly are to current CEO, Matthew McCarthy. Well, he can kiss the blarney stone’s tuchas for his leftist, radical, stupid decision-making. He wants gender equity in the workplace? Fantastic. He wants to give black people reparations for slavery? He’s welcome to write a check. But his decision to stop selling ice cream in East Jerusalem and the settlements in the West Bank is more “half-baked” than their most popular flavor.

In a statement last week, Ben & Jerry’s said that selling their product in the “occupied” West Bank was, quote, “inconsistent with our values.” So boycotting a country that annexed land it won in a war against perpetual enemies and then building citizens’ houses on that land, is inconsistent with the values of making people obese and giving them heart disease?  

In response to Ben & Jerry’s BDS bullshit, the Israeli government is very likely to do what all Jewish people do when threatened — call their lawyers. They did it three years ago when airbnb, the company for people who don’t think they’re good enough to stay in hotels, airbnb banned listing properties in the territories. Benjy Netanyahu got on the phone to Moskowitz, Moskowitz, Moskowitz, and Flywheel. They put up a flurry of lawsuits, and airbnb reversed its policy. To save face — well, one of their faces — airbnb promised to take any money coming in from those properties and funnel it to humanitarian aid. I just hope the CEO of airbnb gets AIDS.

But I digress. In current times, when even ice cream is politicized, Ben & Jerry’s is facing a backlash over its anti-Zionist actions. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called them “the anti-Israel ice cream.” South Florida politician Lavern Spicer tweeted, “I will never buy Ben & Jerry’s again. They might as well change their name to Hamas and Adolf’s.” A little hyperbolic Lavern, but appreciated nonetheless. 

The BabylonBee satire magazine created a new Ben & Jerry’s flavor: Push the Jewish into the Sea Salt and Caramel. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has as much reason to eat his feelings as anyone, says he’s reluctantly giving up Cherry Garcia. And right here on Long Island, Town of Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin bashed Unilever in a speech. He vowed to remove every Lipton teabag and Hellman’s mayonnaise jar from government offices. And let’s not forget Breyer’s ice cream, which is for people who don’t think they’re good enough to eat Super Fudge Chunk. 

Uniloser has opened up a pint of worms with its decision to punish Israel simply for treating land in Israel like Israeli land. It’s time for Unilever, airbnb, and all these suddenly “woke” enterprises, that have no trouble doing business in China, Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia; it’s time for them to think real hard about who the good guys and the bad guys really are in this world. Until then, it’s up to us reasonable people to boycott them. Ben & Jerry’s go peddle your lumpy shit-cream elsewhere. We won’t buy it, we won’t eat it, and we’ll make sure your economic future hits a very rocky road.

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

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #169 (4/30/2021): MERON

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #169 – MERON

(watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/JANamY6kZZs)

RABBINICAL REFLECTION #169 – Meron

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for April 30, 2021. 

Happy Lag B’Omer everybody! And if you’ve ever had your Omer logged, you know just how delightful that can be. 

Lag B’Omer is a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, but our people appreciate it because it is a happy one. Well, not completely happy. God won’t let a Jewish holiday be completely happy. And this festival, in particular, is about putting a bookend on a time of gloom.

Some say Lag B’Omer is celebrated because that day marked the end of a terrible plague in the Jewish community. No, not bad drivers. Rabbi Akiva, who was a great sage — and a mediocre parsley — had a lot of disciples who started dropping dead between Passover and Shavuoth. Somehow, on this date, they stopped dying. Maybe it was Pfizer, maybe Moderna — whatever. Suddenly it was time to rejoice. 

Now, a completely different explanation for Lag B’Omer involves one of Ravi Akiva’s disciples, Shimon bar Yochai. Lag B’Omer is the day he kicked the b’ucket. So who celebrates a death? Well, this Yochai guy was something of a mystic. By writing the Zohar, he started the Kabbalah ball rolling. He told his followers, now that I’m leaving my body, all my teachings and good deeds belong to the universe. So don’t mourn; go have a wedding, do a dance, get a fun haircut, light a bonfire because of all the light I’ve brought into the world. And marshmallows.

So that’s what Jews have been doing — taking a break during a somber time on the calendar, when everyone’s worried about the harvest, and having a party. And if you happen to be in Israel, you can go visit the tomb of Shimon bar Yochai, which happens to be in a town called Meron. I think you know where I’m going with this. 

Year after year, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews make a pilgrimage to Meron for feasting and fun. It’s like Woodstock — only Jews don’t take acid; we get acid reflux. The Yidlach gather for this festival — sometimes 400,000 people show up for this Lag B’orgy.

April 2021, because of COVID, only 100,000 came. Easy-peasy, right? Except, a few people slipped, folks behind them couldn’t go backwards — voila! Stampede. 45 people crushed to death like grapes in a Manischewitz pulper. 150 more wounded. It’s the worst peacetime disaster in the history of Eretz Yisroel. I know you’re waiting for a joke but no…that’s the emmes. 

Who’s to blame? Everybody, of course. First of all, you have the insular Orthodox, who don’t think the greater community’s rules apply to them. We saw this with the Haredis in Brooklyn, who were holding massive, unmasked weddings and funerals when the governor was begging everyone: don’t even hold small unmasked weddings and funerals. Were Cuomo’s restrictions draconian? Did the Orthodox exacerbate a health crisis? Or vice versa: by disregarding protocols, did they prove that, at least for people under 60, we’ve all been going overboard with a punishment that’s worse than the disease?

Even if that were true, and Governor Cuomo was erring on the side of caution — well, not with his schmeckel but with everything else — what the Haredi were doing was unbelievably selfish and thoughtless. “We follow American laws to the letter…up until the moment we don’t happen to agree with them. Who needs police? We police ourselves.” So elected officials who crave the Orthodox vote look the other way when rules are bent. 

Sometimes that’s fine — sometimes it enables catastrophe. Wifebeaters and child molesters keep on beating wifes and molesting childs while the Rabbis try to fix things behind the scenes. Ask the Catholic church how well that works. And it’s this entitled arrogance of the Haredi attitude that tells Bibi Netanyahu, “We’re gonna put a hundred thousand people on a road meant for 30,000. HaShem will be our crowd control.” But they forget: God likes crushing things. Look what He did to Samson.

Jews have good reason for being wary of outsiders. From Roman soldiers to Spanish inquisitors to Cossacks — if a goy was on your doorstep, he wasn’t holding a check from Publishers Clearing House. However, when it comes to legitimate concerns about public safety — whether you’re spitting corona droplets on your cousin or getting pushed so close to a stranger your quarter shoes land on his forehead — it would be nice if my brethren would show a little consideration for the bigger picture.

Besides, what’s so wrong with a few more weeks of distancing? We’re Jewish. We shouldn’t be going to mass.

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

Meron, April 29, 2021. Photo by David Cohen/Flash90

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