NEW YORK, NY — Due to overwhelming pressure, the National Football League announced that it had canceled plans for rapper Bad Bunny to perform at the Super Bowl LX halftime show and instead offered the coveted spot to psychologist and author Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.
"It was never our intention to alienate our entire fanbase by organizing a Super Bowl halftime show featuring a performer whom all our fans hate," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "Rest assured, the NFL takes our fans' feedback very seriously. Therefore, we are scrapping the planned show with Bad Bunny and will be replacing him with Jordan Peterson."
Peterson will reportedly deliver a 20-minute lecture on how football produces order from chaos and how it relates to lobster hierarchies and his ongoing research in spirituality from an elaborate stage outfitted with fireworks and confetti cannons.
"Football players are exactly like lobsters. They're just fighting over a ball," Peterson said. "So, of course, I had to accept. It's an honor to speak to a huge crowd in attendance to watch what are basically uniformed lobsters."
A brief excerpt from his lecture leaked online, of which a portion is printed here:
When you advance the ball ten yards, everything gets reset, just like if you apologize to someone you've wronged. Football is forgiveness in motion. Which reminds me of another thing about lobsters...
At publishing time, it had been announced that joining Dr. Peterson would be Rabbi YY Jacobson. He explained that he intends to share stories of the Baal Shem Tov including the following:
The Baal Shem Tov once visited a town in which the people complained that their cantor behaved strangely. It seems that on Yom Kippur, he would chant the Al Chet, confession of sins, in a merry melody, rather than in a more appropriately somber tune. When questioned by the Baal Shem Tov, the cantor explained:
"Rebbe, a king has many servants who serve him. Some of them prepare the royal meals, others serve the food, while others place the royal crown on the king’s head, and yet others are in charge of running the affairs of the country, etc. Each of them rejoices in his work and the privilege he has to serve and to be so close to the king.
"Now the palace also has a janitor, charged with the duty of removing the rubbish and filth from the palace. The janitor looks and deals with filth all day. He approaches it, gathers it, and removes it. Do you think that he should be depressed because he is looking at dirt all day? No! He is happy because he is also serving the king. He is removing the dirt from the king’s palace, ensuring that the palace is beautiful! It is not the dirt he is focused on, it is on the King’s palace and its beauty that he is occupied with."
"When a Jew sins, he amasses some dirt on his soul. When he is confessing his sins, it is not the sins, the guilt, the darkness, and the negativity, that he is focused on; it is the holiness and beauty of his soul that he is focused on. He is removing the layers of dirt that are eclipsing the soul; he is allowing his inner light to shine in its full glory. Is that not a reason to sing and rejoice?"
The Baal Shem Tov was deeply moved by this response because it captures one of his essential ideas. While other approaches in Jewish ethics focused often on the negativity of sin and its dire consequences in this world and even more in the next world, the Baal Shem Tov and the teachings of Chassidus focus primarily on the infinite holiness of every soul and heart.
"Just as when you look at the earth you can never estimate how many treasures are hidden beneath its crust, so when you look at a Jew you can never estimate how many treasures lie beneath his or her crust," the Baal Shem Tov once said.
Rabbi YY concluded "It is an honor and a privilege to appear at the halftime show with Dr. Peterson. All he has to do is be more careful about keeping the seven universal laws of the Noahide covenant and he will be assured life in the hereafter."
