2/3/99

The comic rabbi of Holy-wood

    You have to go to haredi Har Nof to catch the best show in town. It's free, there's no minimum, and no cover (except for the one you have to put on your head).
    It's Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky's shiur (lecture), and it's Torah talk with a twist: it's the best stand-up comedy east of the Borscht Belt.
    "You ever see the typical rabbi?" Orlofsky says in an impromptu interview. He affixes a puckish expression and intones monotonously: "I'd like to begiiiiiin. With a humorous storrrrry. I'm sure everybody will enjoooooy. There was a ma--" he snaps back to Orlofskiness: "Sometimes I'll do a really, really funny shiur, people will be on the floor, and they'll say to me later, 'what a powerful message.' And I'll say, I didn't think anyone got it."
    He's a brilliant performer: the timing, the body language, the facial expressions, the pregnant pauses, the stage presence -- not to mention great material: the Torah...
    "Moshe Rabbenu, from the time he's born until Parshas Tetzaveh (last week's Torah portion), is in every single parsha, with one exception -- Tetzaveh. What happened to him? Why is he left out?"
    And so Moshe tries to strongarm God. "If you don't forgive the Jewish people, erase me from the Book, I'm not going to be part of it. And God says, OK. You got it. I'll erase you from the book.
    "At that moment it was decided that Moshe is going to be left out of one portion of the Bible. But if you had to pick one parsha to be left out of, you'd also pick Tetzaveh.
    "God speaks to him, and he says Moshe, I want you to go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. So he says fine, I'm going. But -- I have a few questions. And he argues, and discusses, for a week! For a week Moshe Rabbenu is arguing with God. If God told you to go down to Egypt, would you argue?
    "So Moshe is finishing up the Torah, and he comes to Tetzaveh, and he realizes, hey, I'm left out. My name's not here. He's forgotten. But we all remember ... that he's forgotten."
    Orlofsky is wending towards the subject of his shiur. He weaves through a cascading litany of wit and wisdom from the Torah and everyday life. Saturday night, this included the Torah portion, a comparison of the kohen and the Catholic priest ("He acts as a buffer between people and God. It's not very different from your average Israeli bureaucrat"), anecdotes of bureaucratic insanity, the challenges of aliya ("You're called an oleh because the ola was the only sacrifice that was completely consumed -- the burnt offering"), the darndest things his kids say, and of course Purim.
     And somehow, he links it all together into one riveting message as advertised on neighborhood posters, the subject of his shiur: "The Legacy of Al Flosso."
    Al Flosso?
    "When my father passed away, I had to decide what to put on the gravestone. I was taking a very long time. Y'know I always say, if I make a mistake, it doesn't matter, it's not etched in stone, but <IT> this <RO> is etched in stone. And they said, how long does it take to write a gravestone? I said it takes a long time. What's his legacy?
    "That brings me to Al Flosso.
    "I have to admit, I don't think a shiur ever had a title that elicited the reaction of 'The Legacy of Al Flosso.' People have stopped me in the street all Shabbos. They don't say 'Good Shabbos,' but that's normal. They just come to me and say, who's Al Flosso?
    "Al Flosso was a vaudeville magician. When I was a kid, my father took me to his store. And Al Flosso wanted me to know he was very important. He showed me a trick. One of the things he used to do was produce a feather bouquet [from his sleeve.] He says: that's my move. Blackstone took that move from me. That's MY move. I invented that move! I want you to remember, he says to me, kid -- that's my move.
    "A few years later he passed away and I read his obituary in the paper. And no one mentioned ..." Orlofsky's crowd bursts into laughter. "And I'm sure he was looking down saying, you left out my move!
    "Now, he was a Jewish man. I don't know if he left behind anyone to say kaddish for him. I don't know if he gave to charity. But perhaps I should mention in public, that it was really Al Flosso who invented the backhanded feather bouquet move." He looks heavenward. "I remember, Al." Grins and chuckles. "That was Al's move. And that is Al Flosso's legacy.
     "What's going to be our legacy, what are they going to write on our gravestone? Will we be remembered as the king of scrap iron? I saw that once in an obituary. 'The king of scrap iron.' I don't remember his name, forgive me (he glances heavenward). What a legacy. And that's what we all read in shul this morning. Three psukim [verses]."
    "There's going to come a time when Amalek will be forgotten, when Moshiach comes. They will be less remembered ... than Al Flosso."

ORLOFSKY GIVES his age as "F-f-f-forty," and shakes his head. "It's frightening. I used to picture 43 as being as old as I could possibly be." He says he's from "Lon gIsland, the Catholic part." He's been in Israel 11 years and "I can just make myself understood in Hebrew, y'know, by yelling." He's big and beefy, suggesting that perhaps there's more than borscht behind is belt.
    He's been "playing" Zichron Yosef Synagogue for three years, and word has gotten around. On Saturday, there were about 70 men -- almost all of them young, American, with black velvet kipot -- and 40 women in the back rows. But this, I am assured, is a quiet night. Sometimes, his fans tell me, it's hard to get a seat in the 700-seat shul.
    Orlofsky teaches, lectures worldwide, does a Friday morning shtik (he mumbles furtively) "on a pirate radio station," Kol Simcha, 103.5. And he sells tapes of his lectures at NIS 12 each.
    There's definitely method to his madness, and you can tell by the way people enter the shul: even before Orlofsky makes his appearance, already they're smiling, glittery-eyed, anticipating a memorable hour. Afterwards, his listeners -- groupies, perhaps -- detain him with questions, knowing he'll give them answers with a comic spin. Orlofsky never misses a cue.
    "I've got it easy by now. All I have to do is say  'good evening' and people are laughing already.
    "Somebody told me once, 'I went home and I told the whole shiur to my husband.' So I said, how did you remember it? She said, 'I remembered the jokes.' If you remember the jokes, you can put the shiur back together. So I use the jokes as a technique to make the point."
    Standing at the pulpit in front of the Torah scrolls, it goes without saying his routine is clean: no smut, no dirty words. But he can poke fun at even the biggest, holiest names: "There's an edict: For the first time in history every last Jew in the entire world will be destroyed, but Mordechai says, 'y'know, I'm inclined to think ... this might be the reason you (Esther) became the queen. Whaddaya think? I dunno ... takkeh (come to think of it)." Gales of laughter. "I dunno, maybe there's a bigger plan. Oil reserves."
    You could say he chose the Holy City over Hollywood. "I was in Los Angeles, teaching. The father of one of the kids was an agent, and he offered me a job writing for television. Of course I phantasized about doing stand-up. But I figure, you die, you go up to heaven, and God says, OK, y'know, I gave you talents, what did you do with them? I say what, you never saw my show? He says that's it? I gave you this ability to touch people's lives and instead you decide to distract them?"
    He may only reach hundreds at a time, instead of millions, but Dovid Orlofsky is content. This is his legacy.