Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #001 (1/16/11): MLK

aired January 15, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By.  Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H28EMHz_9k

Shalom, Dammit!  This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 16th, 2011.

As you may have heard in the news, a radio host in Colorado has gone on the air trashing Martin Luther King, Jr.  Actually, the host is reading a letter about King, written by someone else.  But he’s reading it over and over and over for weeks leading up to Martin Luther King Day.

The letter calls the slain civil rights leader a plastic god, a Communist, and a sexual degenerate.

Well, who of us isn’t?

I have a plastic hip, I wish we all had better healthcare, and there are things I would do to Natalie Portman that should be illegal in 37 states.  In fact, they already are illegal in the other 12.  Wait, hold it… (pause)  13, sorry.

Anyhoo, this broadcaster on something called “Pirate Radio,” a.k.a. the KKK, says MLK had feet of clay.  In other words, why do we revere and respect this man if he was such a shady character in his private life?

To this I say again: name a leader who isn’t?

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the slave owners?  FDR, who had a mistress behind – and in front of – Eleanor’s back?  Golda Meir, the slut? God bless her.  George W. Bush, whose college years made “Animal House” look like the Sistine Chapel?  Ronald Reagan, who sold secret weapons to the nice people who became Al Qaeda?

And what of our entertainers?  The people we look to for joy and spiritual pleasure?  Mel Gibson, whose bloodstream could intoxicate Ireland?  David Letterman, who calls his assistants interns because he knows them internally?  Rush Limbaugh – whose medicine cabinet could cure Gabrielle Giffords?

Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Jack Nicholson, Richard Burton, Steve McQueen, Cary Grant, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Woody Allen, Donald Trump – all cheated on their little hausfraus at home.

Nobody’s a saint in this world – not even the saints.

So let’s go back to this numbskull at the radio station, trying to say how we shouldn’t honor the achievements of Martin Luther King… because he was a bad guy.

Go look on the website of the Pirate Radio station, and see the artists they play.

They play oldies, nostalgia, music you hear in bad barbershops.  Great.  And they’re proud of it.  Their heroes… like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Judy Garland, Tony Bennett, Glen Campbell, Waylon Jennings, Sammy Davis Jr., Hank Williams.  Drugs?  You could run a hospital for a year on what these people had for breakfast!  Rosemary Clooney was out of her mind; Bing Crosby was smacking his kids…

But I don’t hear these people being run down.  I don’t hear that radio station saying, “We’re gonna play a song by Frank Sinatra.  He was an insulting, abusive bully who owed his career to the Mafia.  And now, let’s hear “Young at Heart.”

My dear listeners, nobody is perfect. Especially, not you.  And if we look at Martin Luther King, we should see the good, the bad, the ugly and the magnificent.

To push an agenda that urinates on this man’s legacy, under the guise of telling some kind of whole truth, is a shameless - and shameful - obfuscation.  And I don’t even know what obfuscation means, but it really sounds good, doesn’t it?

So think what you want about Martin Luther King the man, but honor Martin Luther King the poetic visionary, and most importantly – Enjoy Martin Luther King Day the holiday! It’s a day off work! What the hell are you trying to rock the boat for?  Morons!

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection by Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.  Shalom from every one of me to every one of you.

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