Today, in a display of just how awesome the Internet can be sometimes, I stumbled upon a site named “thxthxthx“.

Leah Dieterich, the author, sets out on an exercise in thankfulness – to write one thank-you note a day. Sometimes tongue-in-cheek (“Dear Meeting, thank you so so so so much for being over“), sometimes funny (“Dear Spring, thank you for making boys want to eat salad“) and often disarmingly sincere (“Dear orange tree, thanks for convincing anyone that LA is a magical place.“), her blog posts stopped me in my tracks.

How often can we see past our own immediate circumstances to find and be thankful for what each moment has to offer?

How often do we take the chance to actually thank someone in a thoughtful and mindful way – not just “thanks a lot”, but actual acknowledgement for what that person has done (beyond what they have done for us) in that moment?

How often do we stop ourselves on purpose, to proactively find something to be thankful for?

If I were being trite, I would thank everyone who took the time to read this post.

If I were in a suck-uppy kind of mood I would thank Leah for her blog, or Seth Godin for once again finding useful nuggets of Internet goodness.

Instead, I’m going to take a longer long view, and thank everything that caused the Internet (yes, the whole thing) to come into being and in a form where it feeds me music and inspires me from so many unexpected sources, allowing me to write this blog post and still keep up with all the other work I need to accomplish before I can thankfully fall into a soft bed and sleep uninterrupted for a few hours.

Originally posted on The Edible Torah

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And Ima on (and off) the Bima has once again posted not one but 3 amazing Thanksgiving “seders” for you to use before, during or after carving the bird. Your time would be well-spent to check them out.

However, here at EdibleTorah HQ I believe that irreverence is a skill best learned early and practiced often. So I was excited to find excerpts from Andrew Silow Carroll’s never-to-be-published opus: Company’s Coming: A Thanksgiving Haggadah for Non-Jews and Other Gentiles.

I have reprinted it here, for your enjoyment:

Every year around this time, the American Jewish Committee sponsors interfaith events, based on their 2001 publication America’s Table: A Thanksgiving Haggadah. The contents are modeled on the Passover Seder, with prayers, readings and rituals.

The problem is that while these events promote fellowship and tolerance, they don’t fully convey the Seder experience for a non-Jewish audience.

That’s why I’ve written Company’s Coming: A Thanksgiving Haggada for Non-Jews and Other Gentiles. Some excerpts:

The table: The Thanksgiving table is set with traditional ritual objects, including your best china, a paper turkey made by one of the children, and an animal-shaped soup tureen. According to tradition, the tureen is hideously ugly and is being brought out on this day because the aunt who gave it to you is invited to dinner.

Welcoming the guests: As the guests gather in the front hall, the youngest child no longer in diapers is asked to take their coats and put them in an upstairs bedroom. Parents are to recite the age-old admonition, “And place them nicely – don’t just throw them.”

The Blessing: Before the meal, two toasts are recited: The first, by the teenagers, is mocking and inappropriate; the second, thanking God, is self-conscious and slightly uncomfortable for everyone at the table. (This is in contrast to the closing blessing, said with deep feeling by the host and hostess: “Thank God we don’t have to do this again for another year.”)

The Bitter Herb: No one knows the origins of this ancient custom, but it involves keeping the liquor away from your angriest guest. In some families he is named “Herb”; in others it is Morris or Aunt Faye.

The Four Questions:

No Thanksgiving Seder is complete without these timeless queries:

1. Why is my plate different from everyone else’s plate?
2. Is there gluten in the stuffing?
3. What’s the score?
4. What were you thinking when you invited Aunt Faye?

The four answers:

The adults answer the questions, for as the Talmud says, “Who is the wise person? The one who speaks louder than everyone else.”

1. “I ran out of the good china. Your turkey will taste the same on a paper plate. Yes it will. Oh for God’s sake – Sari, will you change with Daniel?”
2. “The casserole and the green beans don’t have any nuts. There may be soy in the salad dressing. The kugel has eggs – can you eat eggs?”
3. “Since Mr. Prince Charming would rather watch a football game than have dinner with his family once a year, let’s ask him. Herb, what’s the score?”
4. “She joking, Aunt Faye. You know Ruth, always a joker.”

The Thanksgiving Story: The guests take turns reciting the tale of the first Thanksgiving. Since no one actually remembers the story, guests are encouraged to contribute whatever hazy memories they may have from elementary school, touching on the following points:

The Pilgrims left England on the Mayflower so they could worship freely in America. Some of the famous passengers included Miles Standish, Priscilla Mullins, Margaret Thatcher and Ichabod Crane. They landed at Plymouth Rock. It was a bitter cold winter. They met a kind Indian – Squanto, or maybe Pocahontas. One of those. The Indian helped them plant their first corn crop using fish. Then they had a big feast to thank the Indians.

No, I don’t know if the corn tasted like fish. I don’t know why people need belt buckles on their hats. Yes, I’m pretty sure about Ichabod Crane. We’re getting off the point here. The point is we have a feast to remember the brave Pilgrims who settled Plymouth.

The Rebuttal: At this point, it is customary for someone to rebut the Thanksgiving story. Perhaps it is Cousin Leora, home from Brandeis, who reminds the guests that Thanksgiving actually commemorates the genocide of the Indians. Or maybe Uncle Stan will describe the Pilgrims as “anti-Semitten.” Either rebuttal is acceptable.

The Meal: Before the eating of the festive meal comes the carving of the oversized turkey. Like Thanksgiving itself, this is an act begun in a spirit of great enthusiasm but, after 30 minutes or so with a dull knife and confusion about the turkey’s anatomy, ends with muttered curses and a platter of torn and mangled bird flesh. Bon appetit!

Light and Dark: Our monotheistic tradition is one of separation: day from night, kosher from non-kosher, Lewis from Martin. So it is with the white meat from the dark. Whosoever shall choose the dark meat shall choose the dark meat, and whosoever shall choose the white meat will probably need extra gravy. Ken y’

hi ratzon

.

Dessert: Unusual for a carefully structured seder, the Thanksgiving dessert has no formal ritual requirements. In some homes, however, the men shall recline to one side, loosen their belt buckles, and groan. Others groan first, then loosen their belt buckles. Consult your local rabbi.

The Conclusion: The guests recite, “The Thanksgiving Seder is concluded, according to each detail with all its laws and customs. As we have been privileged to celebrate this seder, so may we face minimal traffic on the Hudson River crossings. And we say together: Next year at someone else’s house!”

Andrew Silow-Carroll is Editor in Chief of the New Jersey Jewish News. Originally posted on The Edible Torah

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Way back in the day, you know the late 90s early 00s. I was one of those guys who only liked obscure hardcore punk bands who sounded like they time traveled from pre-1986 Washington DC, New York City, or the sun bleached beaches of SoCal.  Not a lot has changed for me music wise since then.  Sure, I’m “respectable” I pay my taxes, vote, and even have a desk job,  but one thing remains the same I have never stopped being a Hardcore Kid. So what does this have to with PunkTorah and Judaism as a whole?  The answer is simple New York’s best kept secret Moshiach Oi!

This World is Nothing is the second release from the Na Nach Nachma Nachman MeUman chant infused hardcore band Moshiach Oi!  While still keeping it musically fast and lyrically simple (face it when your circle pitting its best to keep the sing alongs simple) T.W.I.N. is slightly more polished and musically diverse than their debut Better Get Ready.

Where Better Get Ready shuckles more towards the early Washington D.C. sound This World is Nothing tips the Kippah more to the Cali sound of the early 80s. Despite being a “Punk Buffet” of style and influence T.W.I.N. has the perfect balance between fast thrash riffs, Oi, and a dash of Reggae and Ska splashed in here and there.

Curious for more check them out below.

Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/moshiachoi613)

Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/#!/MoshiachOi)

Video for Got Nothing on Me (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVlCahhogv8)

by  Jeremiah Satterfield

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It’s a Saturday morning in March, 2011.

I’m standing outside my new home – where lights had been carefully set the night before and will remain unchanged all day -  while my wife locks the door before we enjoy the short (1 block) walk to synagogue. Being able to walk to shul is one of the main reasons for moving here.

“Is this really us?” I ask her. “How did we get here? This wasn’t anywhere I imagined us being in our life.”

It’s 1978.

I’m 11 years old,  sitting in the pew-like seats in the “chapel” of Brith Emeth, a reform synagogue in suburban Cleveland. I’m listening to a grownup – an adult but even at 11 I can tell he’s kind of youngish and probably “hip” (except, to an obnoxious, know-it-all 11 year old) – talk about his Jewish choices. I’m completely falling apart – turning red, laughing, rolling my eyes. Not that he’s particularly trying to be funny. But he just said,

“So one night,” he was saying “my wife and I were lying in bed and…”

(Alarm bells are now going off in my brain. I’m barely able to keep from either laughing, hyperventilating or barfing – maybe all three. I’m sure he’s about to tell us about his sex life.)

“…lying in bed and I said to her ‘maybe we should start keeping kosher’ “

The incongruity silences the 120 decibel laugh-track playing in my head. I feel cheated. Any sentence that begins with “lying in bed with my wife” should not end with something as stupid and utterly useless as keeping kosher. The Rabbi notices the snot bubble I’ve blown from my convulsive snort-laughing, and I’m excused from the rest of the talk.

It’s just over a year ago.

My wife and I were (I apologize to any 11 year olds who are reading this) lying in bed. We’re talking about keeping kosher. The irony is not lost on me. My boys have been going to a Jewish day school for the better part of a year and they are asking if the food in our house is kosher (“Well, buddy, it is because it has a heksher. But it’s sort of not because none of our plates or pots or pans are kosher.”). Which of brought on the question of when (not if) all our stuff will be “really kosher”.

At the time of this pillow-talk conversation, the family had been experimenting for a few weeks – not eating meat and milk together, waiting an hour after eating a meat meal before eating dairy, etc. We decide, that night as we lie there, to start the process of kashering the kitchen. We have a lot of questions, I have a few misgivings, and my wife has a lot of conviction.

It’s a dark winter night in 2007.

We’re driving home after a Shabbat visit (including sleepover) at an observant family with whom we were friends before they became orthdox. Very orthodox, from my perspective. Maybe not shtreimeland gartel orthodox (not that I knew those words at the time) but definitely black-hat. I’m telling my family about Saturday night services, where I felt like I was a visitor on an alien planet: Everyone seemed calm, kind and easygoing. But things were so foreign that I couldn’t be sure that laser pistols wouldn’t suddenly be drawn and the natives announce this was the part where they ate my brains. My wife assured me that wouldn’t have happened. Lasers aren’t Shabbosdic and human brains aren’t kosher. Her words do surprisingly little to comfort me.

I state that the whole things was way too over-the-top for me, and that I don’t need to go back to that shul ever again.

It’s August, 2011

I’m talking with my 16 year old daughter, who (duh!) knows everything but is decent enough not to rub my face in it too often. I am in the middle of saying

“He asked me where we were at, Jewishly. I told him that since we’re ba’alei teshuvah, we…”

When she cuts me off. “Dad!” she interrupts. “We are so totally not ba’alei t’shuvah!”

“Uh, darling…” I respond. “We go to a synagogue where we “daven” instead of pray, read the full Torah portion every week, and do a full Musaf service; we keep kosher; we’re moving to a house that is 1/3 smaller than this one because it’s in a neighborhood where we can walk to shul. What, exactly, would you call us?”

She (grudgingly) concedes the point.

It’s 11:30pm on the second night of Passover, 1990.

My wife and I are walking home from a (far) more observant family, who graciously invited us over to share the experience. We walk – not because we usually walk on holidays, but out of respect for this family and because our house is exactly 3 blocks away.

At this hour of the night, after the longest seder of our lives, we feel like strung out, shell shocked, matzah-stuffed zombies. We re-assure each other that, while this was an interesting experience to have once, it’s not the way we imagine our Passovers will ever be when we are running them.

It’s 3:00am on the second night of Passover 2011.

My wife and I, along with our four children, are walking home from the second seder. The night before ended just as late. We have to keep reminding the kids not to sing so loud because some people are actually asleep at this hour.

We are all energized, feeling more engaged to each other and our Judaism than we can recall feeling in a great while.

I respectfully submit the idea that you are on a journey, even if you don’t perceive your own movement. Depending on how you want to figure it, even sitting in a chair, you are still traveling at a speed of 800, 67,000, 447,000 or even 1,342,000 miles per hour (don’ believe me? Read this.)

Intergalactic calculations aside, you are still on a journey. As we respond to the world around us, we automatically adjust our understanding and therefore our behavior.

From a Jewish perspective, even if you think you are doing nothing you are probably wrong. Because just like the illusion of not moving while you sit in a chair, there is an illusion of not moving along a spiritual path even if you haven’t passed anything (yet) that would indicate your movement.

My advice is to stop looking around you for a mile marker. There is (as I’ve mentioned before) no line that you cross and suddely POOF, you are conservative, or reform, or reconstructionist. Close your eyes and look inward. That’s where you will see the movement.

And remember: “never” is a very long time.

Originally posted on EdibleTorah. Photo from ABeautifulRippleEffect

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The elegant poetry of this design choice was immediately apparent and delightful in a way that brightened the rest of my day.

It isn’t often that the tools we use to find out way both physically and spiritually are so nicely juxtaposed. Such a siddur ensures that we are facing Jerusalem literally and figuratively. It expresses the idea that we need tools to ensure we don’t lose our way. It admits to the reality that navigating a particular path can be a challenge. It also suggests that the owner is willing – if not to lead – then to help chart a course.

Very few items combine elements of the physical and of faith like this, and I have deep respect to the person who first thought of it.

Cross posted at EdibleTorah.

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Bamidbar

Naso

Beha’alotecha

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10. Cheesecake Brownies. It’s like shooting heroine and cocaine at the same time..only a lot healthier and legal. Dairy and Shavuot go hand-in-hand, and since I seldom eat meat this holiday glorifies everything I love that makes me fat.

9. You get to remember who Ruth is. Ruth is the national symbol of Jewish feminists. I kinda wish we read her megillah instead of Esther’s: instead of booing Hamen, we’d be applauding the Moabite.

8. Everyone stays up late studying Torah. Or just rockin’ the kiddush. If you’re an early to bed, early to rise type, just read our backlog of Shavuot articles.

7. Converts get some respect…for about six hours. On Shavuot, you’re the most Jewish person in the room…even if you were born with the name Christopher Jesusman. And converts are generally the only people who know what Shavuot is in liberal circles, so you get to feel like some kind of tzadik for your intense knowledge.

6. Work restriction. This year is the best because it falls middle of the week, then it’s over, then it’s Shabbat. It’s like taking a week off, since you mentally check out from work a day before any holiday anyway.

5. It has that kinda made-up feeling. Shavuot is a fairly minhag heavy holiday, in the sense that Ruth, studying and milchig is pretty much all there is to it and the rest is just customs to fill in the time. I like that because you never have to worry about doing the wrong thing on Shavuot. Hanukkah is like that, too.

4. Weird conversations. I like Shavuot chavrutah with eccentric people, because the combo of staying up late and heavy religious discussion always goes in strange directions: people passing out, talking in their sleep, stoner-like debates about whether or not Boaz’s foot was actually a foot or a euphemism for…ya know…the male part.

3. Energy drinks. When I was in the rockabilly punk band The Love Drunks, I used to slam energy drinks laced with vodka. I found the combination helped me stay up really late, and mellow out at the same time. I’m not into that kinda thing anymore, but Shavuot is my one time a year where I gorge myself on Red Bull.

2. The diversity of Jewish events. If you really want to pull an all day and all nighter, find a small child and force them to chaperone you to a Chabad family event. The ice cream sundaes are always incredible. In the afternoons you can generally find some JCC-type of place doing a late afternoon event catching after school/before dinner crowd, and then you can party with the grown ups all night.

1. The Torah!!!!!!!!!!! Come on, forget all that cultural junk. It’s all about the Torah, people.

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Until I realized that we were flying in on Rosh Hashanah, sitting on a tourist bus on Yom Kippur and flying home on Sukkot. What the heck was I going to do? How can I practice the holiest days of the Jewish calendar while taking goofy photos of myself with my camera phone eating fish and chips? I felt like a loser, secular sell out. Just give me a plate of bacon and call me Man vs. Food.

I casually mentioned to my wife that we would be in Scotland for the High Holidays, waiting to see her reaction, which I assumed would be, “Oh, G-d, are you seriously going to cancel our vacation?” To my surprise, she immediately replied, “wow, that’s great! We can celebrate there. I’m sure there’s a cool synagogue in London, right? Don’t you know people there? I bet you could film people for The G-d Project.”

I was about to let Judaism get in the way of my personal happiness. I was going to let my faith turn me into a bitter, angry, defeated person. I will never say that I can speak directly with G-d. But I do think that G-d had some part in my wife’s near immediate way of taking something Jewish and easily fusing it into our daily life.

So what am I going to do? I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do! I’m going to celebrate the Jewish New Year. I’m going to fast on Yom Kippur. I’m going to dwell in the sukkah on Sukkot. How I am going to accomplish all this as a tourist will be interesting. And I will let you know right now that there are certain things I will not be able to accomplish, things I will do wrong, and some general rule bending that will inevitably take place. And I will blog every single one of them. If worse case, I break every mitzvah there is, then at least my life will serve as a lesson to others on what not to do Jewishly.

And for the haters that will say I am violating derech torah, I will only say this: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22. I guess I’ll obey the best I can. Maybe Nessie will want to party on Shabbat.

Photo stolen from here.

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From the author…

Steampunk is part Victorian novel, part science fiction or fantasy. It takes place in an alternate sort of world, where things developed a different way after the Industrial Revolution. Victorian sensibilities were preserved, and steam power still reigns. Survival depends on extreme innovation, but in this alternate version of history, many things we would call “old-fashioned” still hold sway.

Sound familiar yet?

With Steampunk Torah, I’m going to take midrashic explorations of each Torah portion (what happens in the “white spaces.” for instance: what did Moses say to his sons? How do you explain all these rules? what the heck are the rules for, anyway?) I’ll distill a lesson or metaphoric journey from it, and I’ll explore it in a steampunk setting. In being not-completely-Victorian, but adapting the past to suit her needs for survival in the present, my protagonist is representing the struggle Judaism is fighting in order to define what we are NOW. The tension between the past and the present is fascinating and rich with possibility.

Each week, we will be posting an excerpt from the series, as well as download links to each chapter. We’re kicking off this series with three chapters today: Parshat Emor, Behar and this week’s parshah, Bechukotai.

Chapter One: Parshat Emor

When Mari met the Great Archivist for the first time, she was simply trying to

preserve her life. Her entire being had condensed down to a simple animal awareness.

She was sensation only.  She could hear her breath rushing in her ears, and her heart

pounding; she was aware only of trying to be as small as possible, protect herself as

best she could with her arms, and draw another breath…and another. Each breath she

took in made her aware of the precious gift that is the ability to breathe the sweet air, the

knowledge that right now she was alive. The certainty that she might die in the next few

moments ran through her body in an almost audible shock: a thrum of awareness that

took away her usual quick-thinking and quick-acting presence, and made her into a

small animal, just trying to hold off the attack…

Click here to download this chapter.

Chapter Two: Parshat Behar

Mari scrambled to catch up with Ismael, so many questions racing around her

head that she remained silent; one hand clamped her kippah firmly on her head, and in

the other she clutched a great handful of her skirts so she wouldnʼt trip over her hem on

the uneven cobblestone street. The road they were walking up was the broadest road

on the Mountain; it wound its way up, curving back on itself, making its way eventually

to the building at the top which housed the Archives.  Mari had only heard of this place;

she had never thought she would see it, let alone be on her way up there with the

Archivist himself.

Click here to download this chapter.

Chapter Three: Parshat Bechukotai

Ever afterward, when Mari tried to recall her first feelings upon seeing her new

home, all she could bring to mind was the memory of deep shock, followed quickly by

disappointment.

Ever since she had left home, all the time she spent scrambling to acclimatize

herself to the Mountain society, attempting to “fit in” and not seem too foreign quickly

giving way to a more focused determination simply to survive, she had not been aware

of forming a mental image of what the Archives would be. Nonetheless, there it was; in

every whispered exchange she caught the end of, in every rumor and half-heard tale,

she formed another piece of a collage in her imagination.  The Archives. In her mind it

was palatial, perhaps of marble; elegant, towering, breathtaking as befit a building

housing the precious manuscripts that somehow made travel possible, made change

possible, made building and shaping society possible.

Click here to download this chapter.

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NewKosher is all about making delicious food for you, your friends and your family. We fully back the idea that anything can be kosher if you put the thought and creativity into it! We offer many vegetarian, vegan and healthy options.

At NewKosher we promise:

• All of our recipes are pork, shellfish and other non-kosher animal free
• No recipes or menus will mix meat and milk
• All of our recipes are tried and tested
• That when the ingredients of certain products (fish sauce, baked beans, etc.) are potentially not kosher, we will suggest a known kosher-certified brand.
• To post any and every (kosher) recipe you send in!

We have two different parts of the website. The first is full menus for events, parties and everyday meals. The second is our Recipe Box, which is an archive of all the recipes on NewKosher. We have different bloggers who contribute to NewKosher on a regular basis and we also encourage you to submit your own recipes and menus. We provide recipe cards for all set menus and also include a printable shopping list.

Additionally, we feature Jewish parties and events. Do you and your friends throw amazing Shabbat dinner parties? Let us know! Do you and your parents make a special meal for a certain holiday? Send it in! Throwing a party for a holiday, bridal shower or birthday? Check out NewKosher for special menus, party themes, and custom invitations. For more information, click on the Host a Party tab.

We hope you use NewKosher as the resource for all your kosher cooking!

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But if the Tribe is going to survive, we need to learn to adapt. Judaism came from a pre-modern era. Now, more than ever, we need to find creative ways to use technology to bring the Tribe into the 21st Century…kicking and screaming if we have to.

So here are five technological innovations, which I feel will greatly improve Jewish life and further the Jewish People.

Twitter Minyans: It makes no sense to me that technology and prayer have not been fused together. Most of the prayers are short enough that they will work in Twitter, and we can shorten the other ones to fit in the 150 character box.

Digital Shabbos Candles: There’s nothing that requires a Shabbos candle be a physical candle (haters beware, I did look in Code of Jewish Law for this), so we can assume that a candle screen saver would work just as well for Friday night. If you want something a little more low-tech, a simple flashlight would work just as well. But remember that if you do that, you have to let the battery run out, as switching the light off is “work.”

Robot Shabbos Goys: Need a Shabbos goy but don’t want to bother the nice Christian family next door? In the future, we’ll have robots to do that for us. Even today, modern conveniences like the Roomba by iRobot take away any pressure to work on Shabbat.

Kosher iPhone: The future is here and it’s called the iPhone. iBlessing and ParveOMeter are two amazing iPhone/iTouch apps to appease the yiddishkeit desire to introduce efficiency into the Jewish lifestyle. Future apps that I would like to see include the Modeh Ani alarm clock and a call-your-mother app that sends pre-recorded voicemails to your mom, letting her know you haven’t dropped out of med school (yet)!

Insta-Conversion: Utilizing the power of the Internet, we can completely re-think how new Jews are brought into the Tribe. The general requirements are a pre-interview, some kind of Judaism 101 class, Bet Din, bris, mikvah and a public ceremony. If we break this down, we find that most of this can be done quickly and efficiently, utilizing e-technology. Pre-conversion interviews between rabbi and convert can easily be done via IM or Skype. Classes can be modeled after distance learning with e-books to read and online exams. The Bet Din can be turned into a teleconference, or again, another Skype adventure. The bris (for men) and mikvah would need to be in person, but as far as I’m concerned a public ceremony could be a mass update on your Facebook/Myspace/Twitter. We could also use webcams to broadcast this event.

Stay tuned; I am sure I’ll come up with more.

Originally posted on Jewcy.com and photo stolen from Scienceandhalacha.org

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We’re looking for informal opportunities to meet different types of Jewish people to interview. Ideas include a morning minyan, lunch break, coffee, a Torah study group, basketball at the JCC…whatever! We’re coming to you!

Here’s our current schedule (always being updated):

Tuesday May 10th

7PM with GAN Project

Wedmesday May 11th

7PM with TBD Minyan & Leah Jones

Check out our Facebook event for more information. Make sure to email patrick@punktorah.org if you have any Chicago event ideas!

Originally posted on TheG-dProject.org

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Experience the thrill of learning to play a loud instrument, forming your own band, writing your own music and lyrics, and performing in a live rock concert!

Girls Rock Camp ATL
For girls ages 10 – 16 (at the time of camp)
Monday, July 11 – Friday, July 15, 9:00a – 5:30p at Atlanta Charter Middle School
Saturday, July 16 Camper Showcase, time and location TBD

Campers choose to study guitar, bass, drums, or keyboards at camp, plus other performance, creative, empowerment, image, and identity workshops will be offered.

A girl does not have to have any prior musical experience, nor does she have to have her own instrument…if she doesn’t have her own instrument the camp will loan her one to use for the week.

Send us an email to patrick@punktorah.org with a message about why your daughter/granddaughter/niece/neighbor/whatever should get a chance to go to Girls Rock Camp! Some things to think about…

Does the girl demonstrate need, financial and/or otherwise?
Would the girl enjoy the experience?  Not sure, ask her.
Girls Rock Camp ATL prioritizes empowerment and collaboration, has she shown she respects others?
Will transportation to and from our locations be a problem?
Lunch is pack your own but we may provide for girls in need, keep in mind we’re not a kosher camp.
Will our camp days and hours conflict with her religious and other commitments?
Will rock and roll, self/creative expression, and inclusion themes threaten/interfere with her comfort?

The final entry will be chosen at random on Monday, May 9th at 2PM EST.

ENTRIES MUST BE SUBMITTED BY MONDAY, MAY 9TH AT 1PM EST.

This contest is open to any self-identifying Jewish girl in the metro Atlanta area regardless of synagogue membership, Jewish background or history, etc. Relatives of PunkTorah employees or board members may not enter.

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Below are just a few ideas to get you started. You can submit the original Orthodox Hebrew prayer (transliterated), your own prayer in any language, a poem, a meditation…whatever your heart moves you to. Don’t be afraid to be original (blessing of the pets? blessing for checking your email?) and feel free to submit as many pieces as you would like. Just email patrick@punktorah.org to sign up. Hurry! People have already started signing up.

Morning Brachot – Gabe M.

Morning Service

• Meditations Before Prayer
• Morning Blessings
• P’sukei d’Zimra (with Psalms)
• Shema and it’s blessings and related passages
• Shemoneh Esrei
• Hallel
• Torah reading (Mondays, Thursdays, Shabbat and holidays)
• Aleinu, Ashrei (Psalm 145), and other closing prayers, Psalms and hymns

Additional Service (Musaf)

• Shemoneh Esrei
• Aleinu and other closing prayers, Psalms and hymns

Afternoon Mincha Service

• Ashrei (Psalm 145)
• Shemoneh Esrei
• Aleinu

Evening Service (Ma’ariv)

• Shema and it’s blessings and related passages
• Shemoneh Esrei
• Aleinu
• Bedtime Shema

Kabbalat Shabbat and Maariv Evening Service

• Shabbat Candle Lighting
• Psalm 95, 86, 97, 98, 99
• Lecha Dodi
• Greeting Mourners
• Psalm 92
• Psalm 93
• Mourners Kaddish
• Rabbis Kaddish
• Barchu
• Maariv Aravim
• Mi Shebeirach
• Ahavat Olam
• Shema
• Hashkiveinu
• V’shamru
• Amidah
• Yidal
• Adon Olam

Shabbat Home

• Shalom Aleichem
• Kiddush – Patrick Aleph
• Woman of valor/Man of valor/Person of valor
• Blessing of children – Shaun Sarvis
• Mnucha v’simcha
• Birkat Hamazon – NewKosher.org

Shabbat Morning Service

• Morning Meditations
• Psalm 30
• 1 Chronicles 16:8-38
• Psalm 19
• Psalm 33
• Psalm 34
• Psalm 91
• Psalm 98, 121, 122, 123, 124
• Psalm 135, 136
• Psalm 92
• Psalm 93
• Ashrei and Psalm 145
• Psalm 146, 147, 148, 149, 150,
• 1 Chronices 29:10-13
• Nehemiah  9:6-11
• Exodus 14:30-1
• The Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)
• Nishmat
• Sho-chein Ad
• Yish Tabach
• Shacharit Shema
• Shacharit Amida
• Shacharit Closing
• Shabbat Musaf
• Havdalah

Holidays and Simcha

• Rosh HaShanah
• Yom Kippur
• Simchat Torah
• Hanukkah
• Tu B’Shevat
• Purim
• Passover
• Counting The Omer
• Lag B’Omer
• Shavuot
• Sukkot
• Tish B’Av
• Tu B’Av
• Kapparot

Additional Brachot

• Ritual Hand Washing
• Mikvah
• Mezuzah
• Shehecheyanu – Patrick Aleph
• On hearing good news
• On hearing bad news
• For witnessing phenomena
• Separating challah
• Immersing utensils in mikvah
• Travelers prayer -Shaun Sarvis
• Prayer for rain/nature
• Consecration of a house

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Early arrival at Jewlicious with a Saturday night concert only ticket means no entrance until the start of the show promptly at 9:30pm. Boo! What will you get for being half an hour early? An amazing conversation (free of charge) with a security guard who likes to ramble about how much the Jewish folk keep feeding him (well what did you expect, Sir? You should come over for Shabbos dinner sometime). For good measure, and just to make sure we were clear on how well he was being fed, he threw in a tidbit about all the food his Hispanic lady was also feeding him. We decided to leave and come back, all the while pondering if by his Hispanic lady he meant his girlfriend/cleaning lady/personal chef???

That left us to our own devices. Getting ice cream seemed like a logical choice for kicking off a night of good, Jewish fun. So off to Baskin Robbins we went.

Dear Long Beach, Los Coyotes Diag is a confusing street with an even more confusing and strange name. Some diag you got there! Whatever that means. So clearly from there we needed to unscramble our minds and let loose for all the dancing that would shortly ensue. Pre-show partying continued next door at the local supermarket where we found ourselves some mini bottles of Gallo cabernet. If only Manishevitz made small bottles of wine! Dear Manishevitz, get on it!

Back to the show we went, now a little late, we caught the tail end of Kosha Dillz’s set. He definitely knew how to get the small, but enthusiastic, crowd going, jumping up and down and stirring up energy with a lot of call and response. (When I say Kosha, you say Dillz!) However, I probably could’ve done without the sweatpants song. I like sweatpants. I like songs. I don’t like sweatpants songs. Rappers have been wearing baggy clothes, sweatpants included, for a long time, old news. A couple Jewlicious festivals ago he donned a sequin hat with elephants on it. Now that’s an article of clothing I wanna hear about.

Soul Farm was a welcome addition to the lineup. The dancing progressed in intensity as these guys brought out the most eclectic sounds of the night; influences from rock to bluegrass, vocals in Hebrew and English, and instruments from hand drums to mandolin, really made Soul Farm a special treat. I looked back later to find a note I had typed up on my phone ‘Soul Farm sounds like bluegrass Smashing Pumpkins with Pete Seeger covers, heavy hand drums and celtic mandolin. More mando(lin)! (The wine may have also begun kicking in more right around this time). This was country fried, kick your shoes off, get down music.

The expected highlight of the evening was Jewlicious newcomers, Fool’s Gold. I was particularly excited about seeing them since I had missed their previous show with Local Natives. Indie music scenesters had finally made their way to Jewlicious! Rabbi Yonah gave a special introduction and without further ado, they went to town with their special worldy, rhythm driven, dance worthy, chant-with-the-tribe lyrics, musical blend. Now Stop for a minute. Open up a new tab or window on your computer. Go to Youtube and listen to a few songs by Fool’s Gold, if you haven’t already. Try ‘Poseidon’, ‘Nadine’, and ‘Surprise Hotel’. It’s good right. Your head is bopping along, your hands are drumming on your desk, you can dig it. Now here’s a question, do you have any urge, whatsoever, to do the electric slide??? Because for some reason, unbeknownst to me, the Jewlicious crowd seemed to think this was a good idea. Did 1993 call? Because it would like the electric slide back, thanks!

I’m all about having a good time and dancing it up but this was beyond my inner music snob’s comprehension. Shout out to singer Luke Top for kicking it back to 1993 in a different way, by throwing in the old school kid’s song ‘Ha Kova Sheli’! Seemed like not much of the crowd, except me, remember the musical glory days of Hebrew school though, as much as Luke and I; they watched on in slight confusion as he sang it, until finally he exclaimed, “C’mon I thought you guys were Jewish.” In the end, Fools Gold finished out their set with percussion instruments in one hand and with their other arms around each other in a semi circle. That brotherly/sisterly tribal vibe emanated from between the musicians and onto the crowd, resulting in a feeling of unity—which is ultimately Jewlicious’ goal—to connect and bring together all different types of Jews.

The hippie vibes continued with Acharit Hayamim closing out the show. Our ‘Gallo’ haze and dancing had left us happy but weathered already and we left as the crowd danced it off into the wee hours. All in all, the Jewlicious concert left us with good vibes and worn out feet as any good concert should. Little tweaks, such as entrance times and ‘no electric slide’ warning signs, would be useful but there’s always next year. L’shana ha’ba’ah b’Jewlicious Festival!

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If I were a real Jew, I’d be a Crustie.

Crusties are a subculture of urban nomads with ties to the gutter punk and hippie movements. The actual term “Crustie” comes from the crust that develops on your newly pierced body, though Crusties are known more for being dirty, smelly, hungry and perpetually homeless. Many have quasi-anarchist political leanings that are anti-capitalist and anti-conformity.

While true Crusties in the 80′s and 90′s sense don’t exist like they used to, homeless Travel Kids who adopt the nomadic lifestyle are in full force. I’ve known a few and they have a pretty interesting perspective on life.

The Jewish People have been crusty Travel Kids for generations. Only now have we truly settled down in the Western World and made a mainstream name for ourselves.

Part of me regrets that. I sometimes wish the Jews were still wandering. I wish we weren’t so settled.

For a long time, Michael and I have been talking about getting a van and traveling around America, helping small Jewish communities have services and Torah study. While we are both married, and he has a kid and is attending school, that aching part of yourself that wants to get rid of the apartment, sell your stuff, and live like a bohemian never goes away.

Shlomo Carlebach had it right: go forth and be blameless, just like our father Abraham. Be a nomad. Go where the people need you. Be a Crustie Travel Kid, for HaShem. They’ll call you a hippie, a loser, a rebel, an anti-social misfit. But G-d smiles and that’s what’s important.

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PunkTorah is working on an awesome project called Etz Chaim: Jewish Guided Meditations. This calming yet powerful world music album will feature ten tracks of guided meditations based on the sephirot of Kabbalah.

In order to make this happen, we need to spend $150.00* on new audio software for Garageband as well as the fees to put the audio tracks up on iTunes.

If you’re interested in getting a copy of the album, please pre-purchase for $11.99 on Paypal. You’ll receive the tracks along with having your name in the liner notes and a thank you video on YouTube courtesy of PunkTorah TV.

Not a fan of Paypal? Send a check to:

PunkTorah
Attn: Jewish Meditation
872 Baltimore PL SW
Marietta, GA 30064

*If we receive over $150, the additional funds raised will go into the PunkTorah General Fund. To request that your donation be used solely for the above project, please specify so with your donation.

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In the last installment, I said:

“Taking that a step further: if there is such variety and it doesn’t matter, why bother changing what I do? Why make myself crazy doing a little bit more when the distance to “good enough” (we won’t even bring “perfect” into this conversation) is so far away and there is no end in sight?

The whole thought makes the mitzvot into a daunting task (for me, at least), and makes those who work so hard to perform them with diligence and devotion appear to be misguided at best.”

That’s a question that has been dogging me for a while. As my family and I delve deeper into our traditions and discover the honest-to-goodness joys of Judaism, I keep wondering (not to mention being asked by well-meaning but dubious friends and relatives) where it’s all going to end.

Why are we doing this? Sure it’s fun. And it’s more satisfying than taking up golf, and it’s safer than skydiving (except maybe the part about kashering your kitchen). But why the constant push to take on another mitzvah? Who was I trying to impress?

Then I found it – a coherent answer framed in a way that actually makes sense:

Blu Greenberg wrote “How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household“. In that book she gives a lot of solid, common-sense information about everything from when (and how) to light Shabbat candles to  the vagaries of modest dress; from the sublime joy of Shabbat naps to getting kosher meat delivered (and what state it will be in when it arrives).

But along the way she gives some insight into why anyone would want to do all this stuff:

“What Judaism says in effect is this: Yes, commemorating a unique event in history is a holy experience, but so is the experience of waking up alive each morning, or eating to nourish the body, or having sex with one’s mate; so is the act of establishing clear demarcations between work and rest or investing everyday speech and dress with a measure of sanctity. Judaism takes the physical realities of life and imposes on them a set of rules or rituals. By doing so, it transforms this reality or that basic necessity oflife into something beyond itself. That is the heart of the Jewish Way.”

In the moment I read that small paragraph, I stopped feeling like I was in some race where the other runners were not only beating me to the finish line, but circling the track and passing me again and again.

Those guys walking around in peyot and grizzly adams beards; the ones who rush before and after work to daven 3 times a day as if their life depended on it; the ones who practically interrupt their own thoughts so they can say a blessing over one little thing or another: those guys are not jockeying for points, or trying to out-do the person next to them.

They are doing it because each extra little nuance turns what was a typical, normal, forgettable moment into a holy moment; each meaningless disposable item into a holy item with a divine purpose.

Why would I keep going, keep taking on new mitzvot or deepening my observance of commandments I already observe? I would do so when it would make the experience that much more wondrous and sacred.

Where, then will I draw the line? Where is the “there” I’ve been seeking in this essay? When taking on or extending a mitzvah would honestly bring no further sense of sanctity; when it would only represent one more chore I’d be loath to do. Then that’s my que to hold in place, to look around, to celebrate the holiness in the world.

And to be open to the moment when it’s time to move forward again.

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PunkTorah Radio: White Stripes and Martian Bread

Subscribe on iTunes here! And if you love us, please write a review!

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I don’t believe any real journey is not a straight-line progression from point A to B. It’s more like a meandering tour of a foreign landscape, learning the terrain and then determining how to navigate it – sometimes taking the well worn paths and other times creating new trails for yourself.

This is what my Jewish Journey has been like: Not a single trip through the territory or even a series of switch-backs as I progress to a goal, but an almost constant retracing of steps to map out the lay of the land, discovering new things each time revisited a place I thought was familiar.

In the process I have found bright and inviting aspects to Judaism. But there are also parts that seem dark and ominous and threatening to me. As I wrote about in the first part of this piece, the apparent lack of limits to observance is one such area. The idea that there are so many ways to be Jewish – so many levels to take even the simplest mitzvah – is overwhelming to me. There is a part of me that wants to know there’s a destination, a “there” to which I can journey.

That’s the point I was building up to – as someone who is exploring their Jewish observance, do I interpret the wide variety of ways any given mitzvah is performed as “levels” (indicating some people are doing kashrut 101 and others are performing the honors-level AP version), or merely as different and mutually valid traditions?

Taking that a step further: if there is such variety and it doesn’t matter, why bother changing what I do? Why make myself crazy doing a little bit more when the distance to “good enough” (we won’t even bring “perfect” into this conversation) is so far away and there is no end in sight?

The whole thought makes the mitzvot into a daunting task (for me, at least), and makes those who work so hard to perform them with diligence and devotion appear to be misguided at best.

More to come on why I think that’s not actually true, though.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAwHiQ8D4tk

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As the intelligent Sue Fishkoff asks, in an article on jweekly.com, “What’s the largest kosher restaurant chain?”. Her answer is interestingly Subway. Subway plans to have 11 kosher stores by the end of 2010. The five branches of Dougie’s barbecue in Brooklyn are also kosher. Even though Subway will only have 11 kosher stores out of 22,000 subways in the U.S. They are the number one Nationwide kosher group of restaurants. I hope that this is a trend that will continue in the U.S. and spread further abroad. According to findmekosher.com KFC in Israel is going kosher by using soy products. This is both bad and good. Many people want soy because it is a useful alternative to dairy. Some people do not enjoy this as soy is a highly estrogenic product. Completely replacing dairy or meat with soy can cause other dietary issues too. What I can’t wait for is a kosher doughnut shop in my city. There is a kosher Krispy Kream in Virginia and a Dunkin’ Doughnuts in Detroit. How jealous I am.

Why is this issue so important? I believe that this trend can only lead to good things. Knowing that a restaurant has a kosher certification makes me feel more secure that I am purchasing a quality product. I do have to admit the fact that a certification alone does not guarantee the restaurant follows all the rules. This does mean that they are more likely to be in tune with the trend, especially amongst the 20 to 30 some things, to follow ideas like ego-hashrut, vegetarianism, and vegan diets. Although this seems like a very small win, these restaurants signal that the larger population is beginning to understand and cater to alternative groups. I hope this idea will spread into other areas of life.

I find more and more the foods I would choose to buy anyway in a store now carry kosher symbols. We here at Mulberry Manor have made a pledge to make our house kosher. We already are mostly vegetarians and many of our guests are vegan so, we are very conscious of our foods. Now we can buy items in bulk and ensure that we are eating kosher food. Our mantra is “Kosher as F***!”. This may sound crude and a bit radical but a diverse and quite public house is apt to act in such a manner. In short I hope that alternative movements or the punk movement if you will can continue to make strides to normalize diversity, coexistence, and acceptance.

Rivka

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PunkTorah Radio: Jewish Meditation, A Cookbook, And Kurt Cobain

And subscribe here on iTunes!

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I love the idea of group spaces in houses. I live in what is called a shotgun house. It is so called, supposedly, because if you shot a shotgun though the front door, it would come out the back door. Our house has two side rooms added, but they are small. The point of explaining this is that four of us live in a house with only one real bedroom and a finished attic room. One of us live in the laundry room. One of us live in a “pod”, which is a short of loft room in the room that is on the way to the bathroom. These “house” sort of situations are occurring more and more, I think in my generation. I believe this because of the people I interact with. Patrick was right when he said, “this [“house” movement is a] need for counter cultures to have “houses” of their own”.

I find it most interesting that many of these “houses” have names. It feels like are real community when this happens. My house is called Mulberry Manor. We, I feel, are counter culture in that we are creating a family unit to replace our dysfunctional relationships with our blood families. Our house is where people come to think and feel better. I think this is partly because our mantra is, “Mulberry Manor Loves You!”. We work to build a place that is really a family home and safe space. We also now have many young groups moving into our small in-city neighborhood which by default makes us into an interesting community.

You may ask how this relates to PunkTorah. What could this possibly have to do with the internet user, the blog readers? These ideas are a real reflection of what PunkTorah and OneShul are trying to create, a community of support. All those who participate are part of our community and we want them to feel part of a group and benefit from all the content and programs. Patrick pointed out that Moishe Houses are a physical reflection of many of the ideas of young, Jewish groups (for those who don’t know, Moishe House “supports and sponsors young Jewish leaders as they create vibrant home-based communities for their peers”). Patrick said that, “because Jewish college students are creating these unique houses, that shows that being Jewish today is, in a sense, counter cultural.” This belief is based on the idea that these houses are cropping up because these movements are rooted in this “house” concept.

I feel these new “house” movements are the next step in making our future one in which we all fit. I have found that the PunkTorah family of works have created a community, a home I can always come to. It is my virtual “house”. I can learn, express myself, and be involved in something on the front-line of change. What a wonderful world we might have if we can move these ideas forward.

Rivka

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The blues-rock band that defined my life in 2002 has called it quits. Like any breakup, it was a long time coming but still hurts badly.

photo Patrick Pantono

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We’re gathering your favorite Jewish cocktail recipes for a new project appropriately titled PunkTorah’s Kosher Cocktail Party, a free e-book from PunkTorah.

So if you have a favorite recipe that you would like to submit, just send it to patrick@punktorah.org. If you submit, you get an advance copy!

Meantime, check out two recipes from the collection…

The Christmakah

Like it or not, intermarriage is a reality. This drink is inspired by wassail, an English drink I learned about in fifth grade, which seems sketchier than it actually was.

2 quarts apple cider

1 1/2 cups port, sherry, or omit for something the whole family can enjoy

2 cups orange juice

1/2 cup lemon juice

8 whole cloves

4 cardamom pods

4 cinnamon sticks

dash of pumpkin pie spice mix

whole apple, sliced thin for garnish

Pour it all together in a slow cooker and serve just in time for guests.

Yiddish Beach Party

rum

coconut milk

Dr. Brown’s cream soda to fill

splash of pineapple juice

Mix coconut milk and rum to taste. Add cream soda to fill and a splash of pineapple juice. Serve with a cherry and some kind of umbrella.

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Here’s a highlighted example of this tension, circa 2004:

Less than a semester into my new life as a Freshman at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a queer-friendly college town with only a small, somewhat insular Jewish community, I decided to go home to Milwaukee, WI to spend the high holidays at my home congregation – this was an important part of my annual ritual of connecting with my Jewish identity and community. My parents reserved tickets at our huge Reform congregation in the suburbs. To make sure that we’d get seats near the choir and the bimah, it was my job to rush to the front of the rope-barricaded mass of Jews waiting for the early service to let out.

As I moved to the front of the line, I recognized some of the parents of kids I’d grown up with and Hebrew School teachers who were friends of my parents. But as I turned to meet their eyes and wish them a happy new year, I realized that many of them didn’t recognize me. I had recently cut my hair in a masculine style (it was one of the first things I did after leaving home to go to school). I was also dressed in slacks and a sweater vest with a collared shirt. I was expecting to connect with my community, but instead, I developed a ton of anxiety over the idea that I would have to “out” myself in order to connect with people. Instead, I put my head down and waited for my parents to join me in line.

Of course, when they arrived, my parents had to “catch up” with everyone else in line. The first time my mom turned to an old family friend and re-introduced me as her daughter, I slumped my shoulders in to hide my chest and swept my bangs into my eyes in my embarrassment. This happened repeatedly. To my relief, some recognized me and welcomed me back home with a hug. Others asked me if I was a freshman in high school (since we all knew I looked like a nice, Jewish pre-pubescent boy). I always wondered if they would try to set me up with their nice, Jewish grand-daughters, but my mom was always quick to clarify that I was a girl and that I was in college. The rest of the pre-service schmoozing seemed to revolve around upcoming marriages, those who were having babies, and who was entering into law/medical school – these were expected rights of passage in our community. Although I was en route to getting my bachelor’s degree, I felt like I was masquerading as being part of the community.

I understand that many of us have felt tension between the way we see ourselves, the way we want to live and being validated members of our communities and families. So when our Jewish Organizing Initiative Fellowship class was trained on the concept of holding tension in one of our latest sessions, I had no trouble finding significance in this theoretical discussion that focused on how/why we stay engaged with our somewhat contradictory truths and values. There’s a reason why I continue to seek out spaces that are both familiar and rooted in the things I’ve come to appreciate and love. But until moving across country and building networks, I had neither access to these communities nor the knowledge that they even existed.

Because of this, it’s been really hard to feel included in Jewish spaces (especially those with more rigid gender roles and expectations). Many Jewish communities have been wonderful in reaching out to Jewish gays and lesbians by including more gender neutral language and by officiating same-sex marriages. But where do queer, bisexual, and transgender members or others who may not be interested in marriage or nuclear families fit into these Jewish communities?

Likewise, in GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) spaces, I continue to advocate for the visibility and inclusion of gender non-conforming voices and perspectives. As important as it is to push for GLBT rights in a broad sense, it’s always been difficult for me to feel included with GLBT communities that continue to understand sex, gender, and sexuality as dichotomies: Am I male/female or gay/straight? What about the options, “none of the above” or “a mixture of the listed identities?” As someone who identifies as gender queer and queer, advocating for the inclusion of dichotomous, GLBT identities in non-GLBT communities has never really cut it for me. So how am I able to work within communities in which I continue to be a minority voice among marginalized identities?

One thing that has really helped me is finding other folks who are visible and are creating more space for others who don’t always have a space. For me, one pivotal person was Katz, a trans and queer spoken word artist, of Athens Boys Choir. I’ve also connected with a network of gender queer advocates who have helped frame discussions of gender variance beyond male/female and broader ideas on queering gender performance/perception/visibility. My friend, Jac, continues to do amazing advocacy through midwest genderqueer. Keshet and Trans Torah have also helped me find adapted queer, Jewish community and practices while also revealing the more subtle queerness within Judaism.

While I’ve found much of what I’ve been looking for in Boston, my goal is to make these resources, ideas, and communities even more readily available and present nationwide. Other Midwestern, Queer, gender-variant Jewish folks shouldn’t have to move across the country to be part of communities where they can bring their whole selves.

Pen Bruskin is a Jewish Organizing Initiative Fellow working at Keshet and living in Jamaica Plain, MA. He is fierce, queer, and gender-fabulous!

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PunkTorah Radio: Torah Together, Atheist Judaism, and PunkTorah the Movie!

And subscribe here on iTunes!

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THE BEST PART: PunkTorah is going to match $1 for every $1 that you give. SWEET!

So sponsor a PunkTorah/OneShul video. Here’s what you get…

$18 Donation

-Your name, picture, voice, music, band, and/or writing will be the feature of your own PunkTorah Jewish educational video. If you live in the Atlanta area, you can even be in the video!

-You pick the topic of the video (sample topics include: how to become a rabbi, Judaism and transgender issues, Jewish skate boarding stars, whatever).

-”thank you” intro and ending credits with our undying love for you.

$36 Donation

- You will be immortalized in PunkTorah history!

- In addition to having TWO videos with all the perks listed above, you’ll also receive an honorarium on all four PunkTorah sites: PunkTorah.org, NewKosher.org, 3xDaily.org and OneShul.org for two weeks.

- Last but not least, you will also receive a free advance e-copy of The PunkTorah Jewish Cocktail Book, coming out in a few months

Remember, since our funds will be matched dollar for dollar, donating $36 is like donating $72! But we can’t do this without you…

WE DID IT! Thank you to everyone who made this project happen! Although we have fundraised fully for this project, we are still taking donations for the PunkTorah General Fund. Please consider donating to keep PunkTorah alive.

Donate via paypal or by sending a check to:

PunkTorah
Attn: Fundraising
872 Baltimore PL SW
Marietta, GA 30064

*Any amount over $688 that we receive from this drive will go to the PunkTorah general fund.

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This week we try something a little different…again.

Patrick takes over the podcast with his favorite Jewish hip hop, Euro pop and of course, a healthy dose of punk rock. Happy Valentine’s Day!

PunkTorah Radio: Why Did We Let Patrick Aleph Do This?

Playlist:

1. Baruch HaShem (Moshiach Oi)

2. Secrets/You’re Always Watching (Girls In Trouble)

3. Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (The Ramones)

4. Be My Maccabee (The Bachelorettes)

5. Change (Y-Love feat. DeScribe)

6. Us (Regina Spektor)

7. Radiant Faces (Stereo Sinai)

8. Black Rainbow (Can!!Can)

9. Dodi Li (Congregation Bet Haverim)

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It’s cool to imagine the Torah as water. But as a modern reader, I have a really hard time making this poem relevant to my life.

Those who thirst may go to water, but they aren’t going to the tiny drops of streams and rivers. They’re going to the faucet. And if they don’t have a faucet, they are going to a murky puddle poisoned by a chemical waste dump. And of course, this all assumes they can afford it. The writer makes the not-so-timeless assumption that water is free to all. And although water is not kept in silver or gold, it is kept in plastic bottles, a process which is not simple at all.

So what are we supposed to do with this text? I’d love to know your thoughts.

Photo credit to NYTimes.com

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For days and days of work of the last two weeks I have be compelled to listen to a music project called Pomplamoose. Nataly Dawn is the singer, and I decided to go to her YouTube page. There I think the song Dying to Live found me. It is simple and clear questioning. This song is brilliant in that it is a social commentary and a quiet call to arms. The poetry of it resonates with me just as a psalm would. It starts:

We don’t always see eye to eye
But we see how the time’s flying by
And we live with a daunting suspicion
That it might not go into remission

This stanza points out so many frames of mind that the world is in. In becoming a more tolerant society we must agree that we don’t always agree, and that is ok. This is the human condition and we must work to create peace with in its turmoil. She most defiantly queries the great struggle of life. She sings, “We’re dying to live/Cause there’s so much to live for”, I feel that speaks to the lethargy this generation has for change compared to many of our ancestors. We see the rewards of life but are stuck in the struggle of an individual in society.

Miracles don’t seem all that fair
If I were G-d I would know who to scare

I think this is a state many of us are stuck in. We are dealing with everyday struggles and can only do so from a human perspective. She posits a great idea in looking to the reaction a deity would have. If you were an all powerful, all knowing being, would you know who to scare? Would your message be heard? Would you have Joan of Arc cry your name in battle or would you seek a passive way to get your message across? Maybe a prophet?

Angels always get the best lines
Fear not must have worked back in biblical times

The Angels do get the best lines. There is one in particular that had a most important line. He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have commanding power with [an angel of] God and with men, and you have prevailed.” (Gen 32:29) This is the conclusion of one of the most important events in the bible. The moment that affirms ones right to wrestle with Hashem. Though the words of texts may be out of date, if we looked closer we might find many unimagined things. Looking back may help us find our “fear not”.

But we’re full of the facts it’s the cross on our backs
When we pray are we just closing our eyes

Knowing all the facts we do, knowing that if we do not change our ways the earth cannot continue. We must look to acting ethically, practicing eco-kashrut, or whatever act we can do to slow this train before we jump the track. Are we praying with intent? Even if we are does it help the world? Have we closed our eyes in frustration? It all comes down to the repeating call:

We’re dying to live
Cause there’s so much to live for

What are you living for?

Rivka

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But I realized recently that the Baal Teshuva movement (a semi-organized effort to help secular or progressive Jews become Orthodox) may have a weird unintended consequence: it can turn you into a gigantic poser.

Far be it from me to call anyone, Jewish or not, a poser. I know myself. I’m lame. I’ve had it pointed out to me by the authority on contemporary Jewish life (aka FrumSatire) that I am, in fact, a hipster. I bemoan that title, while accepting my lot in life.

But I have noticed something about the mini tribes of Baal Teshuva 20-somethings that flock around dynamic Modern-ish Orthodox rabbis: they all start to look alike, after a while. I don’t mean this in a Black Hat way. No, I mean that in addition to following the derech (path) of the Lord, you also weirdly end up following the path of your new Frum Family. You switch your Bob Marley tee shirt for a Moshav Band shirt. Your skinny jeans turn into not-so-skinny pants. You find yourself buying one of each knock off vintage hat from Target. Throw in the tzitzits, beard, etc. and you just…well…kinda end up looking like everyone else.

It reminds me of being in high school in the south. Over the summer, a few kids I knew started going to the “youth church” where they skateboarded and listened to Christian emo and read Bibles with titles like, “Jesus Freak Manual” and “EXTREME Faith!!!!!” You kinda knew it was dorky, but at the same time, isn’t it nice to belong to something?

Looks aren’t everything. I remember a Chabad that I went to, where the rabbi said (and I’m loosely paraphrasing), “go to Crown Heights and you’ll see the entire Chabad Lubavitch community dressed exactly the same. Some people think that means that you’re not being yourself. But what does it mean to be you? Does wearing a pink shirt make up who you are? No! It’s who you are on the inside. Your personality. Who cares about what’s on the outside?”

I wonder, though, at what point in a person’s quest to find the knowledge of the Torah and embrace Orthodoxy, that it doesn’t turn into Hebrew Fashion Week. Or, put another way, is there vanity in collective modesty?

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Yoko Ono had a famous performance artwork called ‘Cut Piece’. Sitting on a bare stage, she placed a pair of scissors before her audience and instructed them that they were to come forward and cut at her clothes.

Some were gentle and tentative, but others took the scissors to Ono’s garments in ways that were starkly violent. And through it all she sat, maintaining her invitation to an arena in which social manners and conventions were themselves cut away, revealing the currents of light and darkness beneath.

The genius of ‘Cut Piece’ is that it provoked a suspension of normal social relations, allowing the audience to step outside of themselves. The results were disturbing – disorienting. They hinted at darkness and horror.

But I want to suggest that Ono’s social-suspension technique shared much with another, different set of techniques, designed to produce a far more positive and joyous insight – the demands and prohibitions of halacha.

Performance art and religious ritual are birds of a feather. They share a concern with rendering the familiar unfamiliar, stimulating a more careful consideration of how and why we do what we do.

Both create space – both physical and psychological. Both poke holes in everyday life and allow something ineffable to shine through. They are disruptions, that take you outside of yourself, emphasise connection through disconnection, and force a discomfort that hints at transcendence.

At the heart of halacha is the notion of separation. The division between what is allowed and disallowed, sanctity and profanity. The separation of food, of individuals, of time.

Shabbat is a work of performance art. It comes with instructions – strict rules that create a disruption in quotidian reality, bringing holiness and reflection and respite.

To put on tefillin is to clear a mental space through physical distinction. To observe kashrut is to force difference and consideration – of origins, of causality.

Through following Ono’s guidelines, the audience created a space through which currents of communication could run, guided by her intentions, channeling unpredictable, unarticulated forces through a relationship that revealed to them something beyond anything they could expect.

How much more must this be so, with rules of a far more sacred kind?

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I am just starting to get the hang of reading science fiction. I like to live a very fact based life and find that only some of this genre is appealing. I can not quite grasp the world of fantasy. I bring this up because of two reasons. First Patrick and Michael are awful keen on Star Wars. Second they off handily joked about needing to find or write the great Jewish science fiction book. Thus I sought more information. In this quest of sorts, I found this as my first story, “The Last Demon” by Isaac Bashevis Singer. He was a Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1978.

Let me tell you a bit about the situation the main character, a Demon, ends up in. He was summoned from a larger town to the smallest of villages. His job was to propagate sin. Here is my favorite aspect of this work, Singer begins playing with conventions of language. The Demon says, “Don’t ask me how I managed to get to this smallest letter in the smallest of all prayer books.” This excites me as I often study philosophy of and meaning of word usage. This is an all important part of what makes Judaism a lasting religion, it has become, open to all sorts of new ideas, and a remained a remembrance of the past.

The Demon works on the most pious men in the village to no avail. His imp cohort tries to explain the situation of the change in world order that has occurred thru behavior. The Demon only comes up with questions, “What’s happened? The Holy Spirit grows stronger?” He says in order to make a long story short he has failed his mission and must remain in this tiny pious village. He describes his fate, that he must remain, calling it an “Eternity plus a Wednesday.” What a way to order words to grapple the thought of something more vast then even the imagined, beyond forever.

As The Demon sits, the last of the demons, he reads a Yiddish storybook he found. He says its style is our manner, “blasphemy rolled in piety.” Never the less he says the letters are Jewish, the alphabet they “could not squander”, and he sucks and feeds on each letter. He counts the words. He makes rhymes. And he is tortured in his need to “interpret and reinterpret each dot”. In clinging to meaning, to ever nuance, he is sustained. He is keenly aware of the power of expression. Thus I agree with his emotions when he says, “when the last letter is no more, I’d rather not bring to my lips”.

“The Last Demon” in The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer can be found:

Here and Here

Rivka

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It’s here! It’s here!

This week we try something a little different! The podcast is a half-hour glimpse into the musical habits of the PunkTorah World Headquarters. A solid thirty, uh, something, minutes of cool Jewish music that we listen to, some you’ve probably never heard before! So get ready to take a musical journey!

PunkTorah Radio: RADIO!

Also, subscribe on iTunes!

Play List:

1. Rav Avraham Kook (by White Shabbos- Shabbos Holy Shabbos)

2. Mezuzah (by The Macaroons- Let’s Go Coconuts!)

3. Shalom Aleichem (by Tzipia- Tzipia)

4. I Love Torah (by Moshiach Oi!- Better Get Ready)

5. The Binding of Isaac (The Silence) (by Matt Bar- Bible Raps)

6. Ballad of the Exiled Prince (by The Mongrel Jews- Songs For A Minor)

7. Kahn (by CAN!!CAN- Monster and Healers)

8. Big Water (by  Shalom Feivel & Rocky Mountain Jewgrass- Live At Swallow Hill)

9. It’s All G!D (by Eprhyme- WAYWORDWONDERWILL)

10. The World Turns ON A Dime (by Clare Burson- Silver and Ash)

11. Let There Be Peace (by Trudy Kisser, Bobby Wolf, Herbert Novacek & Shlomo Carlebach- Shlomo Carlebach Live)

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I’ve never liked indie record stores.

I’ve never really liked synagogue.

But Patrick, you say, how can you not like the independent music shop or the house of worship? You’re Mr. Punk Torah guy! Isn’t this your area of expertise? Yes. And no.

I’ve never liked indie record stores, because with only two exceptions (Wuxtry in Decatur and a small shop in Bloomington, Indiana) I’ve never had positive experiences there. I guess I’m not cool enough, or maybe I don’t care enough, or maybe I’m too critical…but the attitude of the indie record store has always seemed so trite and arrogant. I get it: asking if you have some Yeah Yeah Yeahs CD from 2001 makes me sadly out of date. Fine. Whatever. I don’t consider it part of my duty as an American citizen to read NME.

And as for synagogue, amazingly, it’s a similar attitude. There’s an outsiderness that “the group” maintains at the expense of the individual. Now, I don’t need a Moses-parting-the-Sea-of-Reeds type of event when I walk into shul, but you’d be amazed how many synagogues I’ve bounced around the past five years can’t get the basics right: say hi to everyone, make people feel welcome, offer to help them with anything that they need, and invite them to come back often. I will say that I have had several positive synagogue experiences, but most of the time the shuls just completely miss the mark.

What does all this mean? Customer service.

Synagogues and indie record stores are in business. It doesn’t matter what you sell, whether it’s HaShem or Deerhunter on vinyl, limited edition. You’re not in the product business or the religion business. You are in the people business. You are in business to serve the needs of others. And if you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t be in business to begin with.

So I started buying my music at concerts or online. And I started attending services at OneShul. And I’ve never been happier.

Image taken from nydailynews.com.

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With his bald plate, ominous double labret vertical chin piercings and chic, black, embroidered T-shirt and pants, David Draiman doesn’t look like anyone else in the David Citadel Hotel business lounge. Not that the 37- year-old native of Chicago looks much like anyone you might see anywhere else in Jerusalem either. Let’s just say, he’s got a style all his own that sets him apart from the normal street scenery of the Holy City.

But one of the many ironies surrounding Draiman is that he can move around Israel in relative anonymity.

People look at him and can’t help but immediately comprehend that he must be someone famous. But unless they’re under 25 or a fan of American hard rock bands, they won’t pick up on the fact that the muscular, confident tourist is the vocalist for Disturbed, a heavy metal band that has sold over 11 million albums world-wide since its 2000 debut. Each of their subsequent four albums has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 list, a testament to the rabidity of Disturbed’s fans and the apparent chemistry its explosive music creates.

Another irony surrounding Draiman is that when he wants to jump off the album/rehearsal/tour merry-go-round – or recuperate from the rigors of rock & roll life which include a throat infection which caused part of a tour to be canceled – he doesn’t opt for a secluded Caribbean beach or a French Riviera resort. He returns to Israel.

“I love it here! I come every year or two,” said Draiman last week. He claims to have close to 200 relatives in the country, including his brother Ben, also a musician, and his grandmother. However, that isn’t what keeps him coming back repeatedly since he made his first trip with his parents when he was six years old. It’s because Israel and Judaism are part of his being, and though they aren’t as dominant in his life as they were, Draiman remains one of the few high-profile hard rock singers who are defiantly Jewish – imagine a young Ozzy Osbourne as the spokesman for the Jewish Defense League.

And in what is perhaps the greatest irony in the Draiman saga, the same voice heard belting out the angst-ridden, menacing vocals that characterize Disturbed’s music used to regularly inspire teenage yeshiva students as the shaliach tzibur for Shaharit, Maariv and High Holy Day services. In fact, the young Draiman was well on his way to achieving smicha (ordination as a rabbi) when secular music changed his destiny.

Hours before taking off to Eilat for a New Year’s weekend of scuba diving with his stunning girlfriend – model and former pro wrestler Lena Yada – Draiman loquaciously discussed his transformation from brilliant but rebellious Jewish day school student to heavy metal hero.

When did your relationship with Israel start?

I came here many times as a kid with my family. I think the first time I was six. I used to come here for summer camp a couple times in my childhood, and I spent the year after high school here studying at Neve Zion yeshiva [in Telz Stone]. I was one of those guys you used to see getting into trouble or hanging out on Kikar Zion in Jerusalem.

You attended your brother’s show last night in Jerusalem (at the Off the Wall Comedy Club). Did you get up and perform with him?

No, no, no! I didn’t get up and perform. You know, the last time I went to see him, he called me up and I told him then to never do that to me again. I don’t mind being put on the spot, but I’m coming there for my brother and it shouldn’t be about me. I didn’t wear these [pointing to his oversized chin piercings], I went to watch his show, I’m off the clock.

It also makes me feel uncomfortable if I think that he feels any residual feelings over attention being given to me – I want it to be all about him and to honor him.

When did you first become enamored with music?

With me it was ever since I was a little boy. The first record I ever bought was Kiss’s Destroyer. And those classic bands like Black Sabbath were my first loves. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I was split in two directions.

On the one hand, I focused on the seminal metal bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Pantera and Queensryche.

There were two different cliques in my school – those that liked glam rock, the teased hair, the Cinderella bands and all that, and the others that liked what we called “real rock.”

But I could also appreciate the hair metal bands – When you hear Whitesnake, you can’t deny their greatness. Then I went in the direction of punk and new wave, groups like the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Misfits and later The Smiths and The Cure – that’s was my ’80s.

And then when the grunge revolution happened, it was like a wakeup call. I’ll never forget getting my first Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chain records, and hearing that wonderful, beautiful darkness. And the rhythmic intensity, that’s what attracted me more than anything else.

I formed my first band when I was going to Valley Torah High School in Los Angeles.

What was your Jewish upbringing like?

I attended five different Jewish day schools as a teenager. I mean, I was trained as a hazan! I led High Holy Day services a number of years in Chicago. If I did a little refresher I could still do it, but I don’t think I’d be a really good representative before God for anybody these days.

My freshman year of high school was at WITS, the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study in Milwaukee. And I got asked to leave after my first year there. It wasn’t because of my studies – they were always way past the norm, I graduated with a 3.75 GPA and scored just under 1400 on my SATS. Academics were never the issue. The issue was suppression of normalcy. I couldn’t really stomach the rigorous religious requirements of the life, I just wanted to be a normal teenage kid, and here I was being shipped of to a yeshiva.

In an environment where you’re not allowed to watch television, you can’t read magazines or go to the movies, you can’t fraternize with the opposite sex whatsoever, you have to wear the uniform every day of tzitzit, the button- down the shirts, the dress slacks, the shoes, you have to make sure you’re not even wearing a kippa sruga, it was just stifling. So what did that end up turning into? I’d set my friends up on dates with girls that I knew, in defiance of the school. So I became the “pimp” of the school even though no such thing was happening Or I’d smoke a little bit of weed here and there, I‘d get my buddies high, so I was the drug dealer on campus even though that’s not what I was doing. I just rebelled against the conformity – the gag reflex worked.

When I got sent to Los Angeles, it wasn’t any better – it was easier to get away with it because I wasn’t in a dorm and living at the rabbi’s house. Unfortunately, during Pessah cleaning, the rabbi was searching for hametz in the drawers and he found a half empty box of condoms and a half empty bag of weed, and that was the end of my living in the rabbi’s house. I actually ended up graduating high school from the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago, which was the school I wanted to go to in the beginning.

Were you resentful of your parents for shipping you off to these schools?

Yes, I was a bit resentful, because like I said, I just wanted to be a normal kid. But I was the one who introduced religious observance to my family. They weren’t dati to begin with, and I’d go to spend Shabbat with school friends and I fell in love with the whole experience and the warm feeling of family and togetherness.

And my father would go to work every Saturday. I said to my parents, “Why aren’t we keeping Shabbat?” So my father said, “If you won’t watch TV and play video games I won’t go to work.”

So we started down the path, only my father went further than I did. And today they’re still modern Orthodox.

Did you go on to college?

I attended Loyola and worked at many jobs – as a bank teller and in phone sales for Granger Parts Supply. I got a degree in pre-law but once I took my LSATS and I had been accepted to good law schools, I didn’t have the heart to pursue it. The only law that interested me was criminal defense law and I couldn’t really look at myself in the mirror and say I’m going to lie for a living and protect criminals. A colleague of mine told me about an administrative assistant position available at a health care facility, and since one of my degrees was in business I applied and beat out 30 other applicants.

I learned the business and within a year’s time I had my own administrators license and a year after that I was running my own facility. I was health care administrator for five years prior to leaving my job for Disturbed once we got signed.

How did you end up in Disturbed?

I was in seven bands through high school and college before joining Disturbed. But it was first hard rock/ heavy metal band I was ever associated with. The first band were more punk rock and the couple after that were more in the vein of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More with a rock funk vibe. That’s where I started forming a lot of my rhythmic sensibilities.

I was managing the health care facility and saw an ad for a singer in a local Chicago music publication. It was a band called Brawl and the singer they had was much more abrasive than me. The ad had these exaggerations like “on the cusp of being signed” but what piqued my interest was their list of influences.

My roommate at the time was a friend named Jordan, and he was a big fan of the new wave of metal – Korn, Tool, The Deftone – and he turned me onto them. And the ad listed similar influences and that’s what made me respond. I had been to about 30 auditions in the last couple months since I decided to find a band to sing with.

I had a good conversation with Dan [Donegan, the band’s guitarist] and when I went in to audition, they said, “Ok, do you know any covers?” I said that I knew lots of covers but to be honest, I didn’t come to sing covers, let’s do some of your originals. That surprised them since I had never heard their music and it didn’t have words, but I just said, “Give me the mike and let’s see what I can do. I should be able to come up with something.”

So they started playing this riff, and I listened for a couple minutes and starting singing this melody over it with lyrics I had written for another song. That song became “Want” from our debut album Sickness, so right away, there was energy and vibe and magic between us.

I was still very intimidated – I had never sung to anything that aggressive before and I wasn’t confident that my vocals would be able to accentuate the ferocity of their sound. But Jordan, my roommate, who had heard the audition, convinced me to call them back and pursue it. They were being evasive, although they couldn’t hide the sh**-eating grins on their faces, and it took a week or so for them to say, “Ok, you’re the guy.”

Were your parents supportive of your decision to join Disturbed?

Initially, no, they were not at all. I was leaving a career as a successful health care administrator making over six figures and with a chance to own a piece of the business in order to try and be a rock star.

It’s amazing how success seems to justify things over the course of time – they ended up becoming very supportive of my decision. It took them two record cycles to come to a show, and my mother said after seeing us for the first time, “Even though I may not agree with your decision to do what you’re doing, after seeing you I cannot deny that you were born to do this.”

Playing heavy metal, you must run into fans occasionally who espouse anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi sentiments.

How do you deal with it?

I’m incredibly defiant against neo-Nazis and skinheads.

In fact, here’s a true story that occurred in the band’s infancy when we were playing Southside Chicago clubs.

One of the guys who would come to see us was a skinhead, he had a swastika tattoo, the whole nine yards.

After he became a die-hard fan, the band was sitting down having drinks after a show and he comes in and starts going on about [African Americans] and Jews, and I interrupted him and said, “Dude, I don’t know if you realize this but I’m Jewish.”

He responded, “You’re Jewish! This completely changes my whole idea of what a Jew is supposed to be.” And soon after that, he had his swastika removed, and denounced the skinhead culture.

I’ve always been very proud of my heritage and where I come from, and I’ve defended it to the extent of being bloodied on many occasions. In fact, most of the fights I’ve been in my life – and there have been many – have been because I was defending my family or my faith. And I don’t apologize for it.

There’s still anti-Semitism everywhere, and unfortunately, what has happened with our people no longer being the underdogs in this region, peoples’ perception of Israel has changed dramatically. I find myself more and more having to defend us, and I will continue to do so.

I wrote a song on our latest album Asylum called “Never Again” about the Holocaust and the people who deny it, like Ahmadinejad, that piece of sh**. And part of our live show includes a video presentation depicting him as the new Hitler. Believe you me, I’ve always been direct about hits, I never pull any punches and I will never apologize for who I am or where I come from.

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Warning: this album review contains a lot of kvetching and self-serving cross posting. Just sayin’.

After listening to fifteen seconds of the opening track to the new Monotonix album Not Yet (Drag City), I already knew what I wanted to write:

Why am I not on tour with this band?

I could end the review with just that. But our Creative Director told me that I’d look lame for doing that. So I’ll keep going.

Given my musical interests, you’d think that I’d be the horse and pony show opener on Monotonix USA tour. Not so much.

It’s not just the fact that they are from Tel Aviv. It’s not just the fact that they sound like MC5, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Black Sabbath, Iggy Pop or every other cool band that I idol worship. And it’s not just the fact that they have the same loud-fast-furious recording style as, ahem, this band I’m in. No…the real reason I want to be on tour with Monotonix is the fact that they have the greatest live show of any band I’ve ever seen. And I hate their guts for it.

People don’t go to live shows anymore. We’re in a Guitar Hero, Autotune the News, did-you-see-the-last-episode-of-Glee culture of eating potato chips and never leaving the house. Many, many bands that I know are giving up touring all together. Why play a show in front of thirty people when you can release a video on YouTube, link it to iTunes, and have two hundred people download the song? But not Monotonix. Their recent show at 529 in Atlanta sold out in an instant: skinny hipsters packed Sonic Youth t-shirt to Sonic Youth t-shirt against each other, as Monotonix cut through them like a hot knife through cold butter.

Not Yet really showcases that live feel. While Where Were You When It Happened? had its cool moments, the weirdly Southern Fried vibe to it (probably due to its recording in New Orleans) took away from the face-against-the-wall-dirt-bag energy that Not Yet proudly brandishes. I can smell Israeli sweat in this album. And it smells pretty tasty.

So while I’m not expecting to get a phone call from the management of Monotonix soon begging me to open their next tour, I can at least run around in my underpants Risky Business-style, listening to this record, and pretending that I am there.

Not Yet will be released January 25th on Drag City. Above image courtesy of Drag City.

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By Gefiltepunker Emily Saex

Drop that Starbucks like its hot! And pick this up instead! ‘Livin’ on the Grind’, the new single by Describe comes out today. The Shemspeed reggae hip hop musical juggernaut has in a multi-faceted collaboration w/Rohan Marley (yes, son of Bob) brought us a song that is more than just a punny play on words. Brewed from a chance meeting on the street, there was an instant connection between Rohan and Describe. Before you could say orange-mocha-frappuccino, ‘Livin on the Grind’ was in the works. Inspiration from the legendary Bob (note the lyrical influence of Bob’s ‘One Cup of Coffee’), the eco and social justice missions (ie stopping use of harmful pesticides and promoting responsible farming practices) of Marley Coffee and da riddims of Describe all came together to make this jam. Get your click on!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2w39OtHgXM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkUyr5CEWkM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzMAJ9V0WYE

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Anna plays a Wii game called Animal Crossing. Think Second Life meets Sims, but with cute animals in a weird psychedelic forest. The object of the game? Well…there isn’t one. You simply  live in a town full of animals, doing mundane activities like paying your bills, getting your hair done, celebrating holidays and going to museums.

In order to do anything fun in the game, you need to have money…or in this case, “bells”. You can earn bells by working a job, collecting fruit from the trees, fishing, or in my wife’s case, selling turnips.

But Anna is a little devious, and with the help of a friend, found a way to scam Animal Crossing by committing “turnip fraud”.

The Stalk Market is the marketplace for turnips, and it follows the same rule as the real stock market: buy low, sell high. But Anna found a way to play the market to her advantage, and that’s where turnip fraud comes into play.

The Stalk Market happens every Sunday. You buy turnips and wait until Wednesday or Thursday when the market hits its peak, then sell. Here’s where the scam comes in: Anna and a friend talk to each other to see who has the city with the highest turnip values. The friend with the lower value market then “time travels” in their city back to Sunday at the opening of the market, and buys lots of turnips. She then travels to her friend’s city (which is still in the present) and sell the turnips at a huge markup. According to Anna, this scam has netted her around two million bells at a time.

On one hand, Anna is cheating the game. But since she’s not competing against anyone, there is no winner or loser. Anna’s also gambling, which the written Torah doesn’t forbid outright but later rabbis had some problems with (Rosh Ha-Shanah I: 8 and Sanhedrin 3: 3). And if you ask Chabad, they will straight up tell you that gambling is wrong, because “it’s a bit like stealing”.

So Anna asked if what she was doing was ethical. I’d like to know what you think.

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Check it out!

PunkTorah Radio: Reb Shlomo, Disney World, And Rabbinical School

Also, subscribe using iTunes here!

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So here is our roundup of Jewish themed Christmas articles, each asking a different question related to Jewish identity, spirituality, and the White Bearded Man in the Big Red Suit (and I’m not talking about your sleezy uncle Morty).

In Defense of the Hanukkah Bush By Chava Barner

A D’var Torah For Christmas (originally posted on Jewcy.com) By Patrick Aleph

A Rabbinical Student’s Christmas Story By Jean Meltzer-Maskuli

PunkTorah Radio: XMas Jews (Featuring Michael Sabani and Patrick Aleph)

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This post by Reina Kutner comes from our newest project, NewKosher.org. Reina’s bi-weekly blog on NewKosher highlights the best of indie Jewish life and awesome recipes from her personal blog, Young, Broke & Kosher.

After Jewlicious this weekend, I have come to the conclusion that I am a strange anomaly in the Jewish community. I’m kosher, but not completely – I will eat hot dairy when I go out. I wear long skirts and sleeves… occasionally, and depending on my mood. I consider Friday night possibly the most sacred time of the week, but am not Shomer Shabbat in any way, shape or form

So here I am, a Jew in Long Beach, filled with unusual contradictions and odd ways of looking at my faith. You could say I’m conservative, and I do associate myself with the conservative movement in Judaism. But for me, I guess I would consider myself a Punk Jew – right down to my red-and-black checkered Vans, also known as the Anarchy Shoes, 2.0.

Now, I don’t look punk in any way, shape or form – unless you counted the times I dyed my hair red.  But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to my Judaism, I have a nonconformist and rebellious point of view when it comes to faith. Sure, I’m traditional, but you don’t see me covering my hair (and if I was, I’d be wearing a bright purple wig) or completely covered from head to toe. I also support things – such as gay marriage or sitting with your family during services – that would have some Orthodox Jews freaking out.

At the same time, I don’t associate myself completely with the reform movement. I like using Hebrew when I pray, separating myself from my normal world. I don’t feel like Shabbat services should be quiet with the strumming of guitars – instead, I want the power of loud and powerful voices filled with joy dancing me into Friday night, no instruments required. I am of the belief that the best thing you can do in Judaism is sit down on Friday night to a Shabbat dinner with friends and, if you have them close by, family.

I reject the fact that I have to be told by the rabbis what to do or how to live my life. I am a Jew, and I feel that I have the free will to do what I want with it. I’m no less of a Jew because I don’t observe the way you do, and I am no more of a Jew because I may observe more than you do.

When it came to kashrut, I dedicated myself to this practice because I wanted to. It was something that was important to me, that made me aware every day that I was Jewish, and therefore I was special. I felt that it was the right decision for me. But I don’t push others to do it.

I may not be an anarchist, but the fact is that I don’t need authority to tell me who I am, or what I can and can’t be. I don’t need people telling me that I’m not Sephardic because either my skin is too light or the fact that my father isn’t. I don’t need people telling me I’m not good enough to be a certain type of Jew. I’m proud to be Jewish and somewhat traditional, yet I am proud to be progressive and accept those who may not have a place in Judaism and welcome them to my movement of being a Punk Jew, and not being in just one place.

The Booksteins taught me that any way that you can be Jewish, you should – and it doesn’t matter if you are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist. You should embrace everyone and let them become close, and encourage love. I guess I am a Punk Jew in that way: I believe more in love than anything else in my faith. I believe in basic human values – not embarrassing people, respecting those around you, loving openly, being honest, understanding, kind and giving.

I believe these values come before anything that is written in the Torah – and trust me, I love my Holy Book. But these values come before any laws, rules and regulations. So, in this way, if being a Punk Jew means loving with a full heart, I don’t mind it in the slightest.

In honor of anarchy and going against the grain, I give you Pollock Salad – named after the famous painter Jackson Pollock.  Every time I think of him, I think about an incident when I was in Israel. I was in a drama class, and my friends had a conversation about Jackson Pollock splattering paint all over a toilet seat and selling it for gobs of money. But if the guy had to make a salad, I bet he would do it this way.

POLLOCK SALAD

1 bag salad greens

1 large carrot

1 yellow squash

2 zucchini

2-3 scallions

5-6 radishes

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons garlic powder

Salt and pepper

Pour the bag of salad greens into a bowl. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skins off of the zucchini, yellow squash and carrot and discard them. Then, using the peeler, slice the vegetables over the salad greens until you reach the centers and are unable to peel. Discard the insides.

Meanwhile, chop the scallions into ¼ inch pieces and top the salad. Slice the radishes into small pieces, like matchsticks. Top the salad.

Meanwhile, whisk the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic powder and salt and pepper together. Once ready to serve, pour over the salad and mix.

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Today on PunkTorah Radio we talk about Jewish Bluegrass, NewKosher.org, and the Xmas Situation!

Listen up!

XMas_Jews!

Or subscribe on iTunes here!

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Brain Fog – Or, Why We Still Count

words –

used to come

so easily.

like floods

of rain

that appear

unexpectedly

then disperse

to reveal

a dove.

now

these words

come slowly

limping

like Jacob

in the desert

after battle

with a stranger.

or Isaac

blind who

cannot see

the son

that stands

before him.

me -

i stutter

my tongue

can’t capture

the language

of my soul

i want to sing

with words unbroken

and a chorus of angels

at the foot of Sinai.

am I apart of your history?

if you find me -

in these stories

in these words

Uplift Them

they are the truth of a nation broken into stone

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Show Review: Hank and Cupcakes @ Drunken Unicorn, Atlanta (Nov. 19, 2010)

There’s something special about a deep bond between a man and a woman.* Whether it is through marriage (congrats to Patrick A. of Punk Torah and his new wife Anna!!) communal kinship or shared musical expression, two becoming one is a sacred experience. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of witnessing such a strong connection when Hank and Cupcakes took the stage at the Drunken Unicorn.

At first glance, Hank and Cupcakes resemble the White Stripes. They’re a minimalist, high energy pop duo. She’s behind the drum kit, he’s slapping strings… their relationship is not directly addressed. But that’s where the comparisons end.

When the set begins, you realize Cupcakes (AKA Sagit Shir) is leading this party. She’s the group’s vocalist while controlling the tempo with a strong bass drum foot and a steady snare. It’s odd to see someone play a drum kit while standing (she loses speed and precision) but I can’t envision any stool containing Cupcakes’ energy.

Hank (AKA Ariel Scherbacovsky) matches her vigorous performance in an almost hypnotic trance. He rarely talks (only to Cupcakes) and spends a large part of the set looking down and stomping on a wide array of peddles, switches and other bass effects. Their connection is tight if not visible.

Hank and Cupcakes were about halfway through their East Coast tour when they stopped through Atlanta and already have plans to repeat some stops on this tour next February. They have passion and are unique. They have played larger venues in other cities and should return to a bigger space next year.

I missed out on a chance to interview Hank and Cupcakes as they were stuck in Atlanta traffic. If you want to know more about Ariel and Sagit and their influences, check out Star Child’s interview from earlier this year.

* I’m not implicitly commenting about the specialness (or perceived lack thereof) for a same sex couple. Myself and AJMF are open minded and tolerant.

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By Pamela Alexander

On my way to the cafe for OneShul services, I passed by a large black dog, old and obviously well-fed, walking aimlessly down the sidewalk of a busy four-lane road. I was frightened for him as he seemed oblivious to the proximate danger at the curb, and my heart broke with each meandering step he took. Where were his owners? Did they know he was missing? How could they allow him to get away?

Certainly this was not the dog’s first walk around the neighborhood, absent both his leash and a human companion; I’m sure he has found his way home alone on several occasions. As I drove away, I asked G-d to continue His protection of the old dog. I know that it was HaShem He who had saved this beautiful animal from being hit by a car, for to believe otherwise is to give credit to chance or luck. I prefer to give it to G-d.

Dogs love us unconditionally and ask for little in return; this is in sharp contrast to humans who are naturally self-serving. Take our lost dog: he protects his owners without hesitation and yet his owners endangered him! Of course, we humans have the capacity to love others in a selfless manner, but to do so requires the study of Torah, prayer, a commitment to put others’ needs ahead of our own and considerable practice.

What is in the canine brain or heart that makes them love us so deeply? Is it instinctual owing to an evolutionary imperative because pack animals stood a greater chance of survival than those that roamed alone? Whatever the case, a dog’s love allows us to be vulnerable: we can cry without shame or fear of rejection. In our human relationships, we are burdened with the ever-present knowledge that we must change, at least in some small way, to be fully accepted. Dogs accept us just as G-d made us. Imagine that!

We may believe that the love we give (and receive) is selfless and free from expectations, but how quickly that hope is dashed when life goes wrong. In that moment we have two choices: extend more grace and kindness to our spouse or friend, or because we are hurt or angry, fight for our “right” to be loved and understood at any cost (as if G-d ever promised us an easy life). How easy it is to love without strings when we are first so loved. How difficult when we are not.

Why are relationships so difficult, marriage near impossible at times? Have we grown tired, jaded or just older? Or, is it because human nature is essentially narcissistic? We are selfish and stubborn, critical and contrary, jealous and judgmental. We must be taught benevolence and empathy. We must learn to accept and forgive others. And we must practice, practice, practice. Opposable thumbs or not, we have to learn what comes naturally to dogs.

I believe, ironically perhaps, that learning to live unselfishly is the way to true happiness and fulfillment. It is the only way we can bring real meaning into our otherwise self-absorbed lives. But, even as we know how content we will be when we will have learned to love others unconditionally, we also know how difficult change can be. Best to take it slowly, day by day, for becoming better Jews does not happen overnight.

All this got me thinking: what can I learn from my dogs? They walk me to the door when I leave, and greet me when I return. Do I do that for my husband, or do I call out to him from across the house? The latter. Dogs read our moods; they know when we are glad, mad or sad. Still, they choose to be with us. Do I want to be in the same room with my husband if he is angry, or in a mood that will try my human patience or peace of mind? Not really. Dogs are exceedingly patient. Do I show my husband the same patience and respect as I do my Brittanies? Hmmm.

I have no doubt that G-d worked overtime designing and creating our dogs. Although I have been a dog-owner for many years, I am still amazed at their intelligence, compassion and loyalty. Their unconditional love makes us feel accepted. They have a unique ability to teach us how to be better humans. I just hope that I can become the kind of friend to my human friends, to my husband, as my dogs Jazzy and Otto are to me.

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The miracle of Hanukkah, I think, is the fact that we turned a civil war between fundamentalists and moderates into a celebration of potatoes and jelly doughnuts. Let me explain.

While it is true that the Hanukkah narrative involves the rededication of the Temple ransacked by the Syrians, the actual conflict leading up to the temple desecration was a cultural move away from what at the time would be considered traditional Jewish practice, to a hybrid of Jewish law, in the context of Greek culture. The Hellenistic Jews, it seems, were assimilated Jews who wanted to combine the best-of-both-worlds into one practice. And this really made the orthodox Jews angry. War erupted, with the traditionalist Maccabees winning against the Hellenists. Then comes the oil miracle, and now we play religiously sanctioned gambling with chocolate.

“If the Maccabbes were still around, we’d be dead” said Michael, our Alterna-Rebbe. And I agreed. In 2004, a group of rabbis tried to revive the Sanhedrin in Israel, a move that did absolutely nothing but make Westernized Jewry laugh. But I do wonder, could a time ever come where a court of Jewish law will slaughter anyone that doesn’t fit into the religious mold that the traditionalists set, as we are told to do in Exodus 22:17, Leviticus 20:27, Exodus 22:19, Deuteronomy 13:13-19 and Deuteronomy 13:7-12?

The miracle of Hanukkah, it seems, is that we’ve taken a holiday that, when experienced historically would have been the downfall for many cultural Jews, and turned it into a holiday that celebrates the triumph of the human spirit over oppressive forces. So put that in your jelly doughnut!

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Growing up is a terrible thing, because the nostalgia of your childhood gets replaced by the “enlightenment” of getting older. When you’re young, Christopher Columbus is an amazing adventurer, your parents are the smartest people you know, and G-d is in heaven smiling down on you and making sure you’re OK. Then your teen years happen and you become cynical, giving up on the genocidal Spaniard, you realize your parents are clueless and sure enough, G-d is make believe.

But education doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t need to “grow up” out of everything. There are certain truths to life that transcend the intellectual and should never be taken away from us. Thanksgiving, I believe, is one of them. Yes, native people were massacred. But giving up on turkey and mashed potatoes doesn’t make that go away. Bobby Hill learned that, and I think we should, too.

And how about G-d? Does the fact that no one has recently split the ocean or stopped the sun or made a snake or a donkey talk really going to persuade you to stop believing in the Higher Power? It’s true, and I’ll be the one to say it: we have no historical proof that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs existed, or that Moses and the Exodus were real, or that any of the miracles really happened. But in giving up the fairy tales, are you really going to be ego-centric enough to say that there is no Creator? And even if you struggle with the “facts” of the Bible, will that be enough to keep you from a Shabbat table?

I’m happy with Thanksgiving, even if the Puritans were dubious people and that native people got a raw deal (and frankly, still do). And I’m OK with the fact that the history of the Bible is not terribly accurate. It won’t keep me from celebrating my own humanity, which is what I believe holidays like Thanksgiving and Shabbat have in common.

So enjoy your dressing and candied yams. They aren’t at the expense of native people. And enjoy your G-d, too! Don’t let your intelligence take away from the joy of a good life.

By the way, I lucked out on this whole Thanksgiving thing — my mom’s family intermarried with the Cherokee when they got off the boat from the Old Country. It’s nice to know that your guilt only has to go so far.

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POINT: By Leon Adato

I had the good luck to grow up with Lee Unkrich, who’s been at Pixar since (just about) the beginning. He and I have talked about how the “traditional animation studios” complain that nobody wants to see regular old animated movies any more, they all want CGI.  Lee argues (and I agree) that this is utter hogwash. Movie-goers just want a good story. It can be hand-drawn, CGI, mixed media, live action, or sock-puppets. Give people an engaging narrative, Lee assured me, and they will come to the theater.

Why am I telling you this? Because synagogues may be making the same mistake.

Recently, the URJ advertised a course (an online “webinar”, no less) on how to build a youth-friendly congregation” (“What Does a Youth-Friendly Congregation Look Like?“).

I’m skeptical, because I’ve heard and read a lot about this subject in the last few years (being an IT professional AND fairly active with a few synagogues in my area). The discussion takes many forms, from how to make a service more “hip” or “relevant” to ways to use “social media” (which is really just code for “How to get people to click “like” on your Facebook fan page”).

I think these efforts are not only doomed to failure, and not only a waste of effort and resources, but also are completely missing the point. Just as in Lee Unkrich’s comment about movies, people are simply looking for a good story. In the case of a congregation, they are looking for a compelling narrative – a narrative where they can envision themselves as playing a part.

You don’t make a congregation more “youth friendly” by running down a list of check boxes, any more than you can make a movie worth watching that way (“Hero viewers can identify with?” check. “Heart-stopping action sequence?” check. “Wholesome yet enticing love interest?” check….).

You don’t create a compelling Jewish community by building a website that auto-syncs the shul calendar to the visitor’s iPhone.

My real beef with this thinking is that it’s disingenuous from the very start. There is a huge gap between wanting a congregation which is just plain welcoming to everyone who comes through the doors and one which says “OK, let’s go after THAT demographic!”

As my friend Doug says: “It’s like the old quote by Jean Giraudoux. ‘The secret of success is sincerity.  Once you can fake that you’ve got it made’. All of the techniques to build a youth-friendly congregation are actually just ways to fake that you want a ‘youth friendly congregation’ – because otherwise you would already have it!”

Doug highlighted another flaw in the logic: “Do you REALLY want a youth friendly congregation?  Be prepared to be less comfortable yourself, particularly if you need to resort to webinars to figure out how to do that, because you are, obviously, not part of the youth culture yourself and, if you succeed, will create a community where they will be comfortable and you will not.”

Changing your congregation – or even building a programming track for a sub-community – that is specifically for one demographic has the built-in pitfall of being, almost by it’s definition, NOT appropriate for other sub-groups within your organization. Sometimes this is normal, natural and organic. Your “Tot-Shabbat” program is pretty much self-explanatory and doesn’t include the “hip single 20-somethings”; and even a group as all-encompassing as a Temple Sisterhood has easily recognizable and logical limits (ie: no guys). But beyond those examples, why build boundaries where there don’t need to be any?

“Making your congregation more youth-friendly” falls into the trap identified by Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman in his book Rethinking Synagogues , where he says

“I charge synagogues with being a market, not a sacred community; hewing to an ethnic and corporate model that was outmoded twenty years ago; and pursuing an atomistic existence (as if they need not collaborate with each other or with other Jewish organizations).”

What I’m getting at is this: I don’t want to see synagogues waste precious time and resources building a “youth-friendly” environment. Or a “singles-friendly” environment. Or an “old-fart-friendly” environment. I am also not advocating being “friendly to all” because – while it’s a good goal – it’s far too vague to be acted upon and, as Rabbi Hoffman points out,

“…despite the claims of the regulars, synagogues are by and large neither welcoming nor warm;…”

Instead, I would like to see congregations put effort into removing elements that make them youth-hostile (or singles-un-friendly, or old-fart-exclusionist). That’s not the same thing as being friendly to a specific group, either. In removing un-friendly barriers, you haven’t STOPPED doing what was good and successful for the core existing group (unless part of that success was in excluding other folks, in which case we need to have a talk.). And once the barriers are removed, you can use some means (yes, that can include whiz-bang internet tools like niTwit and MyFace) to let youth know that they are, at least, not unwelcome…in fact, would be welcomed into the community…on their own terms, as a human who has to bend a little to the others in the community, but not be broken in the process. Just as the OTHER members of the community are going to have to bend (enough with the complaining about the kids with piercings already, Mildred!) but without being forced to break.

As The Rebbetzin says, “Offering people a way to participate that is meaningful to them is the key to building membership. Then use social media to keep them connected.”

So my advice? Skip the webinar and just take a walk around your organization (whether that’s a building, a website, a mission statement, or a weekly service). Look at it like you really mean it; look at it like you want to see what it REALLY is, rather than just what you remember it was or wish it was or believe it is in your heart if only other people could see it the way you do.

Instead, YOU see it the way THEY do.

And then be prepared to start breaking down a few walls.

COUNTERPOINT: By Rabbi Susan Stone

Let me start off by saying that I really like kids.  A lot.  I especially like them when they are running through the halls at temple or boarding buses at 5:00 a.m. on their way to youth group events in distant cities.

More about them in a minute.

So, here I am in mid October.  I am sitting at my desk after a morning of hospital visitation and lunch with an old friend.  (He’s less impressed with my being a rabbi than those in the congregation I serve. It is a good thing.)  I’m typing this while waiting for a conference call to begin.  The bat mitzvah family just changed their 6:45 pm appointment to 5:00.  It means that my son and I can grab dinner before the 7:30 mikveh association meeting.

It’s a good thing that our Executive Director and office manager have been in the building to get the letter from the chair of the Women’s Committee that I need to edit to go with the baskets they send to our newest members on Chanukah.

But back to the conference call – it is my second one this week.  The first was a study of texts from the Qu’ran.  This one is a gathering of rabbis who are working in interim situations.  We are meeting with a coach from the Interim Ministers Network – a minister with extensive experience in what is an emerging field in Jewish life.

Elsewhere in the building, the Educator is following up on children who haven’t shown up for Sunday School yet this year.  The Family Educator is working on logistics for the 8th grade Shul-In (overnight program) with her counterpart from another congregation down the street.  They both need to remind the students that there will be no class on October 31st so the teachers can attend an in-service program they designed.

The custodian is occupied with the landscapers, trying to get ready for winter and installing the new plantings donated by congregants in memory of a beloved parent. We really want to get those in the ground before winter – they hide the gas well which was drilled last year.  The Board negotiated that contract and we hope it will provide the Temple with some income.  One of the groups which rent space from us during the day is packing up; my guess is that they’ll be back next week.

Now that I’ve laid out all of that, I’ll get back to the issue at hand: why I think it is great – and not insincere or disingenuous – that congregations build youth-friendly environments.

We need youth-friendly environments because my son will only watch Dancing With the Stars when Kurt Warner is on.  We need a youth-friendly environment because teenage girls won’t shop in the same stores as their mothers. And I will go a step further – I think it is great that there is a seminar of building a youth-friendly environment in a congregation BUT it doesn’t go far enough.  I want a youth-friendly department because teenagers do get obnoxious and other people’s adorable children mispronouncing the Sh’ma while trying to lead services is only cute the first twenty three times.

But that is not all.  Leon claims he’s skeptical.  He should be.  And it is true that,

“You don’t make a congregation more “youth friendly” by running down a list of check boxes, any more than you can make a movie worth watching that way (“Hero viewers can identify with?” check. “Heart-stopping action sequence?” check. “Wholesome yet enticing love interest?” check….).”

But he misses the point.  Sometimes it has to be about checklists and clumsy use of social media – and artificiality and even insincerity.  And yes, it is going to make people uncomfortable.

Actually, I hope people are made incredibly uncomfortable.  I want our longest time members to wonder what is becoming of “their” congregation. I want them to complain a lot and then I want them to stop and watch what is happening and I want them to be glad.  And then I want them to still attend those functions and services and activities that they have loved for the last 50 years (and 50 more, please God).

And then I want them to realize that being youth-friendly isn’t as good as just being friendly.

Do I wish we didn’t have to do this?  I do – I wish we could build Leon’s utopia.  But plants need to be planted and conference calls endured and visits made and programs planned.  So much of the business of running a congregation is business.  I acknowledge that people needing to be met where they are is more important that gas wells (unless you want to pay the bills on time). I also acknowledge that we live in a world that is trending toward increasingly personal attentions being paid in group settings.  Yes, we should work against it but while we are doing that we cannot ignore the trend either.   Our congregations need to be contemporary (while upholding ancient values of course). So, once again, we are called upon not to chose either/or but to do both/and: to serve our constituents and then make them uncomfortable about being so well served.  Then we can plant the bulbs, pray that the roof holds for another winter and mail the publicity.  Yes, we have to take temporizing measures and live in the real world – and also work and hope for better.

And I will still read the latest research and try new things and dream of bottom-up rebuilding.

Do I wish we were more perfect?  Of course I do.  I wish we could be holistic and inclusive and seamless and always engaging.  But our synagogues have been the homes for our souls and the one and only symbol of our endurance for many a century.  Let’s make them better – of course!  But let’s also celebrate the beauty that radiates from their imperfections every day of the year.

Rabbi Susan Stone leads Suburban Temple – Kol Ami in Cleveland Ohio. She has been a congregational Rabbi for over 25 years (having been ordained at the age of seven, of course). In her practically non-existent spare time she worries about her two sons. She also loves long walks on the beach, which are sadly in short supply in Cleveland.

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In case you didn’t see us there, here’s a recap of our fun at the GA, include interviews with David Abitbol of Jewlicious, Sarah Lefton of G-dcast and Dan Sieradski of WeRepair. And of course, the infamous video of us dancing our butts off in front of 400 people.

PunkTorah’s Presentation: There Is No Jewish Future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdfO8uRR5gs

Jewlicious Takes on the Federation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K7xPt_lWpI

Sarah Lefton From G-dcast Gives Us Maaaad Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyER0z3ur-Y

Patrick Interviews Dan Sieradski

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVO2RMgs7qQ

Outtakes From the Trip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w48UI8wmoyA

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Marvin Moskowitz is a third generation Jewish tattoo artist. That statement alone makes this interview cool.

His grandfather was a Russian immigrant who owned a barber shop. After befriending local tattoo artist Charlie Wagner, Marvin’s grandfather realized that he’d rather get fifty cents for a tattoo than twenty five cents for a haircut. What started as a financial need grew into a family business with Marvin’s father and uncle taking on the trade.

Today’s tattoo artist wannabes go through a lengthy process of apprenticeship (aka “shop bitch”) to learn the craft. For Marvin, it involved sitting down and “just tattooing”. But despite that, Marvin says, “in my day, you had to make your own needles, tool your own machines up…its a lot easier for people who tattoo today.” Unlike a few “old-timer” tattoo artists I’ve spoken with, Marvin insists that today’s artists are a lot better than the ones from his childhood in the family shop.  “Until the mid 1980′s, you did whatever the stencil was…you didn’t have to be Michaelangelo or Van Gough. I just do the traditional stuff and that’s good enough for me and my customers. Today, you got real trained artists.”

The legacy of Jewish tattoo artists stops at Marvin. While his uncle Stanley still “goes on the convention circuit”, Marvin feels good that his family has professional jobs. “You tell people you’re a tattoo artist, they look at you like, ‘oh, you’re one of those.” The industry has also gotten a lot safer, according to Marvin. “In my fathers day, they used to get in three…four…five fights a day. Guys from the fifties…they were scumbags!”

Marvin defends the Jew Tattoo trend saying that tattoos have existed “throughout history”. Marvin recalled a time when a girl came in with a group of friends but said she couldn’t get a tattoo because she is Jewish. “Even people today people have misconceptions about what Jews are and are supposed to be.” And how can he be a Jew with tattoos?  “I consider myself a Reform Jew….[but] I never gave it a second thought. That’s how I grew up. I grew up in that shop. I grew up without prejudices.” Marvin has a star of David tattoo, and I asked him about what kinds of tattoos Jewish people get. “You’ll get some Jewish people getting tattoos to show that they’re Jewish, but for the most part [people] always get the same things. Jewish girls will get tattoos that have a Jewish meanings. The guys, not so much.”

I asked Marvin for some advice on anything, life, tattoos, whatever he wanted to share. This was the smartest question I could have asked. “Don’t take anyone’s word as an absolute. Open up your own mind. You’ll find that the people you listen to are prejudice. As a Jew, you should be more open.”

Amen, Rebbe Marvin!

Check out Marvin’s work on Facebook and visit him at Top Hat Tattoo in Rocky Point, NY.

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to be when I grow up. I’m in a program called “dual enrollment” which is basically where I’m enrolled in high school and college at the same time. I go to a local community college and I take all of my classes there, which earns me high school and college credit at the same time. I’m hoping to have my A.A. by the time I graduate high school, and that means I kind of need to have a little bit of an idea of what I’d like to do with my life. I started to do a bit of soul searching (but isn’t that what your teens through early 20′s is all about?) and I’ve come to a few conclusions about myself, one of which is that out of the three things that I can see myself doing (psychologist, english professor, or rabbi), a rabbi seems to stick out the most.

I say this because since I’ve started my “Jewish Journey”, my life has become all about my faith and finding myself within it. I’ve read all the books I’ve come across, started a Jewish blog on here and on my own site, I’ve gone to many different shul’s and I’ve met many different awesome Jews. I’ve joined BBYO, I’m starting to help set up programs within my BBYO chapter such as Israeli Advocacy, and I’ve taken to praying every single day. I’m trying to work on doing a new mitzvot every time I get comfortable doing the one before. I’ve talked to many people about there faith and it’s made me start asking myself what brings me so close to mine. I’ve started questioning what makes me a Jew and what I do to define myself as one.

I have this yearning to make Judaism apart of everything I do. Maybe it’s because of my own personal mantra-”Every moment you live is a moment in G-d’s name” that makes me feel this way. And it’s true, Hashem has blessed me with life, the greatest gift of all, and then to make the gift even sweeter, he’s blessed me with so many  (good and bad, but the bad only makes the good that much sweeter) opportunities, people, and memories. I want to spend every second living my life in his name, and what better way to do that then to be a rabbi? And I know what you’re thinking, “well, Kristin, you can live your life in his name but still have a different job!” but it’s so much more than that. If I were a rabbi, I would get to spend my life sharing the joy of Hashem with other people. I would get to spend a lot of time in one of my favorite places, shul, reading what I love to read, his word and the prayers that praise Hashem and his Yisrael. I could help people find their Jewish path, like so many people have helped me, and I could spend so much time with others reveling in the Torah and what, exactly, did “this” or “that” scripture mean? It would be about getting to wake up in the morning, thinking about what the message I’d like to bring to shul that week so that others could connect the prayers and weekly torah portion to their daily life. It would be all those impromptu visits and phone calls others would make to me so that I could help them or guide them or simply just listening to their problems. It would be all the lives I would be involved in, all the services I would get to lead (along with the cantor of course), and that undeniable, amazing feeling that comes with being a person of G-d. And of course, it would be a time-consuming decision, one that would be filled with possibly just as much bad as good, but the good and the bad are what makes everything worth doing!

I feel so strongly about it, that this is truly what I was meant to do with my life. I’ve walked through life this long feeling empty and without meaning, but that I was here to fulfill a purpose, then here it is, the reason I feel is for my being, and I’m wondering why I didn’t see it here all along.

But like the saying goes, we make plans and G-d laughs. May Hashem bless me and all of you and guide us on the path that he feels is right. May he bless us with good times to revel in, and bad so that we may learn to appreciate the good. May he give us his guiding hand so as to lead us on the path that will bring us closer to him. And may he reside within our hearts and souls always, so that we need to look no further than the inside of ourselves to find him.

Baruch shem kavod malchuto le’olam va’ed! (Blessed be his glorious Name whose Kingdom is forever and ever)

Ahavah Olam (Eternal Love),

Kristin the Jewbie

PS From Patrick Aleph: the first woman to be ordained in Germany since WWII!

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Immediately, I got this reply:

“I disagree with what you said about believing something in order to be Jewish. Being Jewish isn’t about what you believe. It’s about what you do.”

My secular friends all agree with this statement. Doing Jewish is more important than Believing Jewish. But I wonder if that actually makes sense. Judaism, it seems, is the only religion in the world that says you can disbelieve in every tenent of the faith, yet still be a member. It’s like saying, “I don’t believe in Allah or Mohammed. The Koran is made up and eating bacon and drinking whiskey is awesome. But I’m a Muslim and you can’t take that away from me!”

I do believe that actions matter. But intent matters, too. Remember the old saying, “it’s possible to do the right thing, for the wrong reason, and the wrong thing for the right reason.”

At what point, though, does it matter that you believe in what you are doing, beyond making yourself happy that you continued on an ethnic tradition?

Please discuss. I’d really like to know.

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(By our friend Leon Adato of EdibleTorah. Originally posted here.)

When I find I’m in a competition with someone who is dead-set on winning, I will often play to lose just to get things over with and not see the other person hurt; When I come up against a challenge that seems insurmountable, I look for ways around under or over the problem rather than barreling straight through. As an IT professional, I ascribe to the ideal of Larry Wall (inventor of the Perl programming language): that the three great virtues of a programmer are impatience, hubris and laziness.

So you can imagine my dismay when I realized that davening is hard. What’s more, the entire world seems to be fighting against my best efforts to makeit part of my day.

When I decided to try my hand at daily prayer rather than limiting it to a once-a-week experience, I expected to face internal challenges – not feeling confident or competent with the material, overcoming feelings of awkwardness,  making prayer an experience which is not just personally engaging but also links me into the inherent meanings which exist whether I recognize and appreciate them or not. (David Wilensky of “The Reform Shuckle“  does a fantastic job explaining that idea here.)

And yet, most mornings, it is NOT these things which hold me back. Most mornings it is the phone call, the important email, the essay I left last night but is now calling to be finished, the choice between taking personal time and spending another few minutes at the breakfast table with the family before everyone runs in separate directions.

It is heartbreaking to walk past my tallit and tefillin, knowing that I must move on to my next task; that my chance to develop this new habit – not to mention take a moment for myself and God – has passed by yet another morning. I know that there Judaism affords me opportunities for structured prayer two more times each day, and that unstructured moments abound, and that tomorrow is another day, but I regret that yet another today has passed. I am afraid that when I look back, I won’t like the trail I’ve left.

Which is why I deeply appreciated a piece of wisdom I received when in Israel (a reasonable hope, if not a downright expectation), from the Ori, owner of the hip and trendy t-shirt and apparel store “Shkalim” (an unexpected place for such wisdom, although not unreasonable once you get to know him).

“I decided to take a Talmud class, which met Mondays at 6pm,” he told me, “It’s not normally a busy night so I figured I could close early. My  father warned me, ‘You know that every week there will be a reason you can’t go. Business will be booming, something will require your attention. Wait and see’.”

“Of course he was right,” Ori continued, “and I mentioned it to the Rabbi teaching class. What he told me was that, if it was hard, it meant I was on the right track. Only for true tzaddikim are new mitzvot easy. For the rest of us, the way that we know we are on to something important is by how difficult it is.”

“It’s like riding your bike uphill – it’s difficult, but you know that you will be stronger when you reach the top.” Then he laughed, “You may be exhausted and collapse on the ground, but you will also be stronger.”

Recently, at 7am on the morning of a day that started at 3 and wouldn’t end until 10pm that night, I walked past the tallit and tefillin sitting on the table. Instead of hiking upstairs toward the bed calling my name, I continued my journey uphill.

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PunkTorah won the Jewish Futures Competition and will be speaking at the Jewish Futures Forum at the General Assembly, the big love-in festival of the Jewish Federations of North America on November 7th and 8th in New Orleans!

Patrick, Michael and possibly our friend Steven will be all over the place, attending the Covenant Foundation dinner, making videos, partying at Rubyfruit Jungle (hopefully) and…of course…doing a multimedia presentation titled, “What Is The Future of Jewish Life and Learning?”

In the words of Jewish fundraising giant Elton J. Kerness, “when the GA will feature “PunkTorah” you know that we are in real trouble.” (You can read his and Howard Rieger’s scathing article here).

Come hang out with us! We’ll be flying in Sunday, November 7th and leaving Monday afternoon. The schedule can be found here.

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Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. And although I stopped dressing up (and for the most part, going out) on Halloween, I still get a thrill out of carving a pumpkin and laughing at the ridiculous oversexed costumes that are on the market these days.

So what does Halloween have to do with Judaism? Simple: Purim.

Purim and Halloween have more than the obvious dressing-up-and-acting-out shtick in common. The real common denominator of the two holidays is that they came from somewhere else and were turned into something completely different than what they started as.

Halloween find its roots in the Celtic holiday Samhain, remixed with All Souls Day from the Roman Catholic world. Purim, some scholars believe, is actually a Babylonian holiday based around the stories of Ishtar and Marduk. Ishtar became Esther, Marduk became Mordechai and there you have it.

I like how Judaism is able to take what’s outside of itself and bring it in. That’s a good skill to have: it means survival, flexibility, openness. It also means that Judaism can have an impact on broader culture. Jewish people have taken part in the labor movement, feminism, civil and immigrant rights, environmentalism, and many other great movements in this country. Why? Because it’s tikkun olam…it’s part of our culture, whatever that word even means these days. Culture swapping is good, not because it means that we get to have more food filled holidays, but because we, the Jewish people, can export our goodness, our godliness, into the world, and make the world a better place.

So here’s my idea for Jew-ing up Halloween. Before you take your kids Trick or Treating, buy a bag of candy and some costumes and take it down to the local women and children shelter. Give them a little bit of fun. And then go Trick or Treating. It’s a mitzvah, so if you’re the type to worry about chillul HaShem because you are celebrating a goy holiday, at least you’ve canceled your sins out a little bit.

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In case you’re wondering, the answer is “community”.  Community is the one word that best represents what happens when Jews get together and interact with one another. Think about it, how many times have you been in a room full of Jews, most of whom you hardly know, and you just felt at home? Plenty, right?

I went to a BBG meeting the other day (the girls division of the Jewish Youth Group BBYO), and there must have been 15+ girls there (and that wasn’t even the entire chapter. Some didn’t even come). They all greeted me warmly and spent the time trying to get to know me, and they all genuinely acted like they wanted to be my friend. In fact, they acted like we had already all been friends since forever. It was pretty awesome (and I say that because girls are usually catty and don’t get along well with the “new girl to the group”), and this whole experience got me thinking about all of the other times that I had felt at home with other Jewish people. There was the time I attended a new synagogue (actually, a few new ones, with all of the same results) and everyone greeted me with “Shabbat Shalom” and took the time to get to know me and how I had ended up at their shul, or the time I went to New York and ended up chatting up a fellow Jew about religion, etc.

It’s such an awesome thing to be a part of a community that actually acts like just that-a community. No matter where I’ve ended up in these past few months on my path of The Jewish Journey Less Taken I’ve always felt like old pals with other Jews that I have met. And that is such a great thing, isn’t it, to be a part of such a loving community when the rest of the word can feel so full of hate sometimes? And I must admit, not every religion (and yes, I realize this is generalizing) offers a feeling such as this. I was raised in a predominantly Christian household, and going to church or attending Christian youth groups (and trust me, I went to plenty of each) never felt quite as inviting as it does within the Jewish world.

My assignment for you is to go try out a new Jewish Group (such as something at the JCC, etc.) or go to a new shul and test this out. I can almost guarantee you that you’ll feel welcomed and loved, and you’ll walk out with a feeling of togetherness.

With so much love and adoration,

Kristin the Jewbie

(I would just like to add: Baruch Hashem that we are able to experience such a feeling of community among other Jewish people, because the absolute, pure awesomeness of it is truly beyond words.)

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Let’s think of things in this week’s Parshah that start with C. Cookie starts with C. But we need to think about Parshat Vayeira.

Circumcision starts with the letter C. Abraham circumsized himself at age 99. Ouch that must have really hurt!

City, that starts with the letter C. Abraham plead with G-d to spare the wicked city of Sodom. Two angels came to his nephew Lot’s house and an angry mob tried to hurt them. Lot protected the angels and the angels protected him.

Cave, that starts with the letter C. After fleeing the city, Lot and his two daughters took shelter in a cave. They thought they were the only people left in the world…so they slept with their father and got pregnant. Gross.

Conceive, that starts with the letter C. G-d remembered his promise to Sarah and she gives birth to her son Issac.

Crying, that starts with the letter C. Sarah banishes her slave who’s also the mother of Ishmael, Abraham’s other son. Ishmael is dying the in desert and cries. Sooo sad. And G-d saves his life.

Commandment, that starts with the letter C.  G-d commands Abraham to sacrifice Issac. But before he can do it, G-d stops him and replaces Isaac with a ram.

Just looking for the letter C in this week’s Torah portion helped me find many important lessons. You should look through the Torah and find your lesson! But be careful…it’ll make you hungry for more coookies!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pAtUazC-Vo

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My dog is crate trained, meaning that when I am out of the house or sleeping, she sleeps in a metal crate with her bed, food, water and toys. Seems to keep her out of trouble. It also teaches her to go to the bathroom when we let her out: an almost impossible task for some rescue animals who have a hard time adjusting to a schedule.

Today I felt like a bad Pug Dad. I had been out of the house all day for meetings, going to the bank, grocery shopping, etc. So I thought, “heck, why not let her run around the house. What’s the worst that can happen?”

The worst did happen.

I came home, and my dog was chewing my tefillin. The entire front of the shel rosh (the head piece) had been chewed to the point that it looked like pale chewing gum. I yelled, “Potato! No! Bad dog!” She looked at me with fear in her eyes, slightly peed on the couch, and ran away as I leaped toward my mangled Judaica.

But I have to say, the dog taught me a few wonderful Torah lessons:

Guard the Mitzvah. That’s where Shomer (honor/defend) the Shabbat comes in. It’s important to really remember what Shabbat is. It’s not just Friday night, folks. In the same light, I should have guarded my tefillin and not left them sitting out on the coffee table.

Be Good to Animals. Human beings have dominion over the earth (Parshat Bereshit). And the second portion of Bereshit (Genesis), Noah cared for the animals on the ark.

Chill Out. In another nod to Noah, the tefillin is a box holding prayer. The ark was a box, too, holding the prayer that life at it’s worse will still survive and carry on. Too, my inner voice was saying, “dude, calm down. It’s not the end of the world. The waters will subside, eventually.”

But in case you want to see the damage, watch this fun and informative video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7esD_DAx5I

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While we already know what the physical design will look like (thank you Alterna-Rebbe for designing it!), we still haven’t picked out the language we want. Ketubah websites woefully niche their language into Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Humanist and Interfaith boxes. And frankly, we just don’t fit any of those little categories. We’re unique…just like everyone else.

So I’m soliciting some help from the PunkTorah/OneShul/3xDaily family to help us write our ketubah. It’s like Mad Libs meets Jewish wedding. Here’s the order of the contract. Now, you make it poetic. Bonus points if you can do this in Aramaic. Some of these details have been fudged for privacy sake, so don’t try crashing the wedding!

Date and Place of Wedding: 14 Kislev 5771, Atlanta, Georgia

Groom and Bride: Adam ben Avraham v’Sarah, Chana bat Avraham v’Sarah

Proposal: “Be thou my wife according to the law of Moses and Israel.” Doesn’t really do the whole thing justice, though I do like the Moses/Israel part.

Groom’s Duties: this is the part where you tell my fiancee what I’m going to do for her (keep it clean, kids, this is a family shul). In some cases, more comes later in the ketubah, such as clothing, sex, food. But I’m open to how this should flow, artistically.

Alimony Deal: the ketubah is really about protecting the woman in case the guy messes up and there’s divorce. I feel a little strange about having a prenuptial agreement in the ketubah…but why should I? That’s what it is!

Bride Accepts: luckily.

Dowery: to my knowledge, the soon-to-be-Mrs. does not have a dowery. But this could be an interesting area to pull from.

Groom Accepts: thus ends the ketubah

There you have it! Write my Marriage Contract! There’s no prize for best ideas, though this will hang on my wall the rest of my life, so there’s something to be said for that.

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Tznius is a part of Halacha (Jewish Law) that incorporates how one (whether male or female) should dress and act. Though it can be defined as “modesty”, I prefer to refer to it as “being respectable”, because to me this sounds more enticing.

I’ve heard some people talk about it in the way that HaShem is King, and we are all  his children, and we would not want to be presented in front of the King in anything less then the best, and we would not want to act in a way that is disgraceful to him. I’ve also heard that, “all of the best things come covered, such as diamonds in dirt or pearls in seashells”. I love both of those analogies, because they are both very true and put Tzniut and why we honor it in a realistic and understandable view.

But try telling any of that to my fellow peers. No, I’m not talking down about them and their attitudes or clothes (and lack thereof), because I find myself in the same boat. From Goyim to Jewish teen, we all have our problems with how we are viewed, and dressing “modestly” doesn’t boost our popularity status up to the level we would all like it to be at.

In today’s society, we value ideals, and the ideal woman does not go around hiding all of her assets, and the ideal man is free to look at women as sexually as he wants. But is this always right? Should we value external beauty more than internal beauty? Unfortunately, that is exactly what we’re doing by showing “just a little more skin”, without looking at how it makes others perceive us (including Hashem).

I’ve recently had my own struggles with being Tznius. At first, I loved the idea, and I was very excited to start dressing more conservatively. I ran to the store and bought a few shells (shirts that are either long sleeve or sleeveless but have a high neckline and are used under everyday shirts to cover up more than regular clothes might) as well as a few knee-length skirts. I explained to my closest friends that my more “modest” style of dress was due to my beliefs, and for a while, I felt content. But then, I started to feel resentment. I hated the high necklines and hot long sleeves. I hated that I could no longer wear my “cute clothes” and that I could no longer look “fashionable” (my clothing is something I pride myself on). I felt self-conscious, like everyone was constantly examining and judging me and thinking that I was, oh, dare I say it, lame.  It was horrible, so I stopped. I pushed my shells to the back of the closet, and my long skirts only saw the light of day occasionally. Well, until yesterday…

Yesterday, I put on my long black skirt (I’ve never worn it before due to my brain telling me I’ll die of embarrassment as soon as I walked outside) and a nice shirt, and I felt beautiful. I felt more beautiful than I had in a very long time, and apparently it showed, as I got a few compliments. So I did the same thing today, dressing conservatively, hoping the experiment would get the same results, and it did. It felt amazing and empowering and, for once, people were paying attention to the things about me that really were beautiful instead of the parts of me that society deemed “beautiful”.

I know that no where in there did I talk about how I started acting more conservatively, but that’s just because that part was simple. I no longer cuss (at least, I’ve brought it down to an absolute bare minimum, and I only will do it if no one’s around and I get hurt really bad), I don’t talk about topics that some of my fellow peers would deem acceptable (such as talking about one’s…er…assets) and I try to act more mature. I won’t go to the parties that “everyone” is going to (you know, the typical high school “cheap alcohol/unsafe sex-fest”), and I also don’t act in a way that would be deemed as degrading or disgusting.

But I digress. Tzniut has changed my perception about things a little bit. I feel closer to Hashem, I feel more spiritually connected to the world around me, and I feel, well, I feel more beautiful. I feel like I no longer need to go out of my way to impress anyone besides myself and Hashem, and that sometimes, fashion isn’t everything (even though you can find a TON of cute clothes that are perfectly modest).

To me,Tzniut is about self-worth. Our bodies are G-d’s gift to us, and by dressing and acting more modestly, we are in turn doing our best to take care of that present. You wouldn’t smash a gift someone gave you just because everyone else is doing it, right? So why would you degrade the one that the greatest person (for lack of better term) of all gave to you?

Appreciate and love yourself like Hashem does, and in turn, others will learn to do the same for you.

With so much love and respect,

Kristin the Jewbie

(P.S. I just want to touch on something real quick, only because I know many girls feel like there is a “double standard”: men have to follow Tzniut just as much as woman do, we just don’t notice it as much because there’s is more internal, then external.)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m225MF1r8k

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Young Jewish Professional: anyone who has a worthy job in the Jewish community, ages 21-35. You’re out of college (or about to be) and you work a job that requires you to wear a suit and tie. Your Blackberry (or iPhone if you’re in an “edgy” career like advertising or marketing) is filled with last names that end with -stein, -berg, -man or -feld, all of whom are ready to give you a great deal on whatever it is that you want. You volunteer for at least two Jewish non-profits, which includes at least one Young Jewish Professionals Group such as Birthright Israel Next or something at the JCC or a synagogue.

“The Young Jewish Professionals group of Congregations Beth Israel will be meeting at TGI Fridays the first Thursday of the month to discuss networking opportunities in the Jewish community.”

Networking Events: any excuse to eat, drink, meet people and sell something (including yourself). The domain of Young Jewish Professionals, networking events are usually sponsored by Jewish organizations, with the idea that by facilitating something, they’ll attract attention to their organization (read: get you to give them money or volunteer) but also look good in the community. It’s a great place to hook up, but it’s a bad place to promote anything because at the end of the night you can never remember anyone fully or what it is that they wanted. You also come home with a billion business cards for organizations and services you really don’t care about at all. Networking events also have a guest speaker, who is usually someone Jewish (in last name only) but has some level of financial success and gives a half-way decent Tony Robbins-style motivational speech.

“Federation will be sponsoring a Networking Event on Tuesday. Guests are encouraged to dress their best as they sample the finest treats from Nancy’s Noshes. Our guest speaker with be Adam Klein, CEO of Insert-Important-Sounding-Company to talk about ‘Following Your Dreams of Success In the Age of the Internet’”.

Marketing Director: the person who makes lame things sound more fun. Usually a hot girl (Sephardic girls are great at this) or a guy who knows how to DJ. This person pretends that their job isn’t fundraising, but it really is…plainly due to the fact that they are always trying to get you to “sponsor” something. They have more Facebook friends than Steve Jobs and Tweet every second of their lives (checking in at nightclubs via Foursquare is the new thing), and they also travel a lot for “meetings” that no one can ever explain. They also like to use the word “exposure” and the phrase “get your name out there” a lot.

“Yo, this is Kevin, the marketing director at Insert-Hip-Sounding-Jewish-Organization. Hey dawg, I just wanted to get you in on this mad cool party we’re hosting. I’m gonna DJ some hot tracks I heard when I was in Tel Aviv last month and the local Hillel is sponsoring a latke eating contest. You’ll really get a lot of exposure and get your name out there if you become a sponsor. It’s only $2000, which isn’t much since 100 people will be there.”

Matisyahu: G-d. Matisyahu is non-profit G-d. If you can get Matisyahu to come to your event, it’s like you have some kind of iPhone that can call HaShem directly. Also, everyone claims they’ve “done some stuff” with Matisyahu, but it’s probably a lie because he seems really shy and reserved.

“Yeah Matisyahu is gonna be at the Young-Jewish-Professionals-Event. You know I hung out with him once for like, a whole weekend…we’ve done some stuff…a few projects. There’s a picture of us together on Facebook. OK, not really…I just saw him at Jewlicious that one time. But he did nod at me when I went ‘woohoo’ at him on Shabbos.”

Adult Learning: usually involves a rabbi that wants to pimp his/her non-profit or synagogue to some new people, but needs an avenue to do it that isn’t too obvious. It’s also a great tool for fund raising. If the teacher isn’t a rabbi or some kind of important sounding person, it usually shocks people because, as we all know, Judaism is a meritocracy.

“We’re doing some great Adult Learning Programs at Temple Blah-Blah-Blah including a class on making challah that’s taught by a five star chef who was on Food Network once.”

Kosher: something that annoys Jewish non-profits. Most Jews don’t keep kosher, but feel this obligation to have food brought in from kosher caterers just-in-the-off-chance that someone complains. Ironically, most of the JCCs that you go to do not have kosher kitchens, which defies logic or financial sense, considering that catering costs major bucks but throwing your pots and pans in the mikvah is only about $75 (Atlanta pricing). Also, no one has any idea what the term “glatt” means, but it sounds important so meat is always glatt.

“All of the food at the Young Jewish Professionals Networking Event is catered by Kornblatt’s kosher glatt deli. The guest speaker is Rabbi Yehuda Feldman who will be speaking on Jewish Business Ethics and the marketing director, Kevin Scherr, who just got off tour with Matisyahu is going to be DJing the event all night long…or at least until everyone has to go to bed.”

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Jewish Communal Professional: anyone who works for a Jewish non-profit that is specifically Jewish in nature (example: Jewish National Fund, Birthright Israel, PunkTorah). Note that this does not apply to owners of Jewish for-profit businesses, even if they give more tzedekah than the non-profits do.

“Joshua just got a job at Hazon as Director of Youth Projects. We’re so excited to have another Jewish Communal Professional in the family. Too bad he wasn’t a doctor like Gerald.”

Engagement: getting Jews in a room to do something, no matter what it is, and taking credit for it. Ideally, this activity would have some kind of Jewy-ness to it, but even that is open for debate.

“Here at the local JCC we are actively involved in engagement, which is why we host a kosher pizza party once a month in the lobby. And it only takes us three months to plan it, which is great turn around time given all the meetings we have to have.”

Community Building: also called Community Development, this involves getting people to know about what your organization does and getting them to become involved.

“XYZ Jewish Organization is committed to community building, bridging the gap between the people who care about what we’re doing, and the people who could care less.”

Doing Jewish: a term coined by college Hillel (also called Hill-Hell by people who have interned there in their youth), “doing Jewish” is similar to engagement in that it gets Jews doing something Jewish together. The difference is that engagement is more formal, while doing Jewish is more relaxed. It can also mean that you are doing something Jewish right now, and are unavailable to do something else.

“Steven can’t go to the movies tonight. He’s doing Jewish over at the Hillel House on campus. Something about Israel…I don’t remember. I think some Israeli guy is telling everyone about the Floatilla thing that happened three months ago.”

Jewish Leadership Training: no different that any other kind of leadership training, except that there’s a bunch of Jewish folks doing it. The training is usually in the form of an institute, a weekend retreat with something called “breakout sessions” and kosher food despite the fact that no one keeps kosher.

“Adam just got home from Jewish Leadership training in Teaneck. I think it will really help him as the new Director of Engagement.”

Immersion: taking someone and making them “do Jewish” for an extended period of time or with some kind of intensity. Like engagement, but on steroids and more expensive.

“This two year immersion program brings post-college Jews to neighborhoods in Israel to learn language, culture, and build relations between the US and Israel. It’s like Birthright, but for a really, really long time.”

Donor Development: fundraising from people

Strategic Development: fundraising from organizations

Long Term Financial Planning: thinking about fundraising from people and organizations

“Whether you call it donor development, strategic development or long term financial planning, we’re still trying to get people to give us their money. The older folks are the easiest ones.”

Team Building: some kind of pre-meeting activity that reminds you of summer camp or elementary school, is supposed to connect you with your spirit (see Oprah) and get people to learn more about you. Usually very childish, but we put up with it because there’s that one person who will complain if we don’t do it and make our lives really painful until the next meeting.

“Before our meeting of the Temple Sisterhood, I’d like to do a team building activity where we each go around the room and say our name, where we are from, and the name of a fruit that describes us best.”

Communications Management: the process of any large Jewish organization saying something. It usually takes several weeks and involves multiple meetings. The steps are as follows: 1) something happens (see Floatilla). 2) Jewish organization sits around for a while and talks about it. Possibly some team building taking place. 3) Multiple meetings of higher-ups who relay the message to the people lower-on-the-totem-pole. 4) PR person writes an email. It goes to the head honcho who approves it. 5) Email goes out. No one cares.

“We’re really glad that we have a new communications management specialist here at XYZ Organization. She has a masters degree from Brown and knows how to set up Microsoft Outlook. By the way, did anyone hear about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon? Crazy, huh? I just read about it in the Middle Market Jewish Times next to Sheila Rosenbloom’s kugel recipe.”

Jewish Community: three possible definitions for this. 1) The number of Jews in a city (how this is determined is still unknown). 2) The number of people in a given city that are involved with Jewish organizations (also called the Active Jewish Community). This number is usually 25% of the bigger number. 3) The number of Active Jewish Community people who go to events regularly and take on some role of prominence. This number is about 1% of the active Jewish Community.

So to recap: there are 100,000 Jews in Atlanta. 25,000 are active. 250 are really active. So how big is the community? We’re still not sure. But darn it if we’re not gonna get them active!

“He’s really active in building the Jewish community. Thirty people came to that JCC kosher pizza party. It was incredible. David Kleinbloom was there talking about Jewish immersion programs. Lots of engagement. Really great. I bet they got a lot of development out of it. But really, it’s about getting the Jewish communal professionals together to discuss communications management and community building. It’s a real exercise for the JCC, too. Good thing they all went to Jewish Leadership training.”

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Originally posted on Jewcy.

Once upon a time, a group of people decided to start an online synagogue called OneShul. This independent minyan consisted of two buddies in Atlanta (a graphic designer and his weirdly Type-A musician friend) and all their friends that they met online who loved Judaism and were a little different in their own, unique ways.

In a chat room attached to their temporary cyber sanctuary the friends talked about what they wanted the synagogue to look like, feel like, and how they wanted to be represented as a community. They knew they wanted, more than anything, for the world to know that you can have a Jewish community on the internet that is just as good as any JCC or million-dollar synagogue down the street.

So they did what any reasonable group would do: they started an IndieGoGo page to raise money to make their shul happen.

Stay tuned for details as they happen…

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Previously posted on TampaBay.com

For every old Yenta who yells at me for having tattoos, I’d like to introduce you to my new home girl Mimi Rosenthal, who at the age of 101 got her second tattoo.

No matter how you feel about tattoos and Judaism, I think we can all say that a woman who has survived two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and every little skirmish in between while being a world traveler, has four great-grandchildren and plans on getting her next tattoo on her butt is someone who deserves to do whatever she wants.

And did I mention she’s 101!!!!!!!

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Jewniks of the 21st Century

by YentaPunker

This publication was inspired by one of my professors, Dr. Ball, and written in honor of Patrick Aleph.

In the 1950s Jack Kerouac, alongside many of his dubbed “Beatnik” friends, wrote a novel in three weeks called “On The Road”. It took Mr. Kerouac 7 years to travel the county and continually do some soul searching. A man growing up with the social repercussions in America of The Great Depression, World War II, and The Cold War, needed a place to avoid conformity.

It is within his subculture, the Beats, that he found refuge. The Beats avoided the “Corporation Man” and refused to end up like their fathers. They looked for deeper, transcendent meaning in their quest for a new tomorrow.  They gave new definitions and context to words used within the culture, providing meaning that redefined their acceptable behaviors. These Beats valued poetry, books, Bebop, and were compelled to find the authentic in their everyday lives.

With all youth subcultures comes backlash by those who fear change or have different values systems. The Beats were called “Beatniks” in a satirical reference to Sputnik, the satellite. Their dark clothing and hair styles were criticized, as though their parents had not been an active participant in the Flapper era. If their parents were more accustomed to the Victorian way of life, it was even more horrendous on the family.

So why would PunkTorah even come close to this movement we see as a joke within movies like “So I Married an Axe Murderer”? It’s an easy grab. PunkTorah was created for those of us who are looking to redefine Judaism. It does not mean we want to start a new sect, but merely to identify that we as Jews are on the preverbal search that Kerouac so graciously and vigorously wrote about.

PunkTorah’s overall goal is to transcend from classification and create the authentic embodiment of Judaism at its core. These Jews too value books and poetry. Some of these books are valued cross sects of the religion, but others may be less accepted in other communities.  We cannot be defined by labels! Clearly the genre of Punk is rebellious in nature. It redefines how Punk may use the connotation of rules and order, but defies what our larger community expects from us; we desire individuality. This is not our parent’s Judaism. This sense of the nishama seeps from the very embodiment of the way we davven, dress, speak, and carry about in our temporal lives.

Kerouac had no intention of being connected to Judaism, but he captures what Jews in their teens, 20’s, 30’s (and even those above) are reaching for. He writes of the holy when things cannot get any worse. He sets his characters up for failure, but they do not lose hope or insight to themselves. They separate themselves from the collective whole in hopes that they too will understand themselves in the context of the temporal world. Their rebellion is not one in hopes of destruction, but that based on progressive change. This is PunkTorah’s take on Judaism. We are the change that’s in the world. Our hearts pray they way they know how and our actions follow. We have redefined words, but not taken meaning from them. Continually on the road, we struggle with our journey of life. We are the Jewniks your Jewish mothers warned you about.  Are we perfect? No, we simply are the authentic form of G-d’s creation, human.

Be True to the Streets-

Yentapunker

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School started today for many kids across the country. The lucky few of us are still enjoying our summer vacation.

Judaism puts a strong emphasis on education, and it seems appropriate to ask, “can the Torah teach us anything about secular education?”

I’m not an education expert, and I will not claim I am. Nor am I a particularly political person. But I will say that I believe Judaism does have a lot of values that the non-Jewish, secular education community should adopt…not because they are good “Jewish” values, but because they are good values to begin with.

Keep the Material Meaningful and Relevant - the phrase “d’var Torah” means “teaching on the Torah”. A d’var doesn’t involve just telling a story, but giving it a modern understanding that is applicable to our daily lives. So often, teachers teach in a way that does not relate their material to anything that I would consider to be part of normal life. We end up valuing the teacher who can relate geometry to Rock Band or Charles Dickens to the newest Will Ferrell movie because it takes the boring, the irrational, the complex and the confusing and puts it into a context that makes complete sense. I doubt that Amelek would have much meaning today if it weren’t for those teachers of Torah who find a way to make it meaningful.

Scholarly Debate – I’ve gotten into a lot of arguments with teachers. Half the time I was right, the other half I was wrong. The teachers who mean the most to me, looking back, are the ones who allowed me to argue with them. They weren’t afraid of the challenge and more importantly, they knew that by exercising my mind (even when I was dead wrong), they were setting me down the path to being a smarter adult. Jews believe in this intellectual back-and-forth, the most notable hallmark being the Talmud, which is nothing but a bunch of dead rabbis arguing about the finer points of Judaism.

Be Flexible to the Needs and Skills of Others – Each tribe had their own skill set, from being the ritual priests to the construction of the Mishkan to fighting in battle. At no time in the Torah does Moses say, “OK Levites, you’re doing great with the whole Priestly Class thing, but we really need to focus more on your basket making and pottery.” So much of education is about teaching something new and outside of someone’s boundaries, that we forget the importance of helping people excel at what they are already inclined toward. As an adult, I spend absolutely no time voluntarily doing things I don’t want to do. So why is that the bed rock of education as we know it?

I hope everyone enjoys their first day of school. Kul Tuv!

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Dear Besherit-

Thanks for not showing up again. Oh, wait… I should start this out a little nicer. Do you remember when I was a teenager and I thought I would have found you by the time I was 25 so by 27 I could be married. I am totally okay with not being married, but let me tell you these first dates are starting to really suck ass. I meet men who say I am “too Jewish” or “not Jewish enough”. My mother is starting to tense up every time I commit to another failed (again) relationship. I have decided you’re probably sitting in a coffee house or a pub right now with friends wondering why I am no where in sight. Maybe we even know one another, however, I doubt it because I am sure my instincts would have told me so.

Let me catch you up a bit. I work as an English teacher for 11^th graders in Orange County. I have found it’s pretty cool to play Dr. Dre or some Israeli rap while the kiddos do their vocabulary. I know, you’re stuck doing some horrible nonprofit work (sense the sarcasm) or sitting at a desk making the world a better place. I just hate that you and I enjoy work so much that we might not have met. What the heck?

Now how dare you possibly have passed by me at some random Jewish function in Los Angeles, Long Beach, or Orange County. I know you didn’t mean to, but I was surrounded by so many people. I get it, you played coy. That’s cool… but I am pretty dense, you’ll have to be more upfront with me.

I would have made you a CD of all the dance music my students gave me. I have been jamming on it in the car and cutting a rug with friends every so often at Woody’s on the Warf of Newport Beach. I know you like to dance. I get it. Bar Mitzvas are where you can try out all your craziness.

Speaking of which my dress was not creased or wrinkled! I washed it and use this anti wrinkle spray on it. I am clearly wearing flats to that evening you need me to attend for your work. I don’t want to fall like the time I did on 2^nd street (totally sober mind you) and broke my wrist, all because I wore a small heal. I am a klutz! I cant help it! And for your information I didn’t spend ANYTHING on the sweater, I sewed the flowers on an old one because I was bored. So there! J

In Los Angeles, there is this awesome Carlebach minyon that I like to daven at on Pico. Naw, I know you and I aren’t frum, but I am really glad that you understand I like to tap into my spiritual side and it’s cool that you support me in my religious zealousness every now and again. By the way, I appreciate you cooking vegetarian for me because your kitchen isn’t kosher and mine is. I am really excited that you don’t give a shit that I separate my milk from my meat. It was cute how you sang the song from NOFX as you stepped into my kitchen. Ha! And yes, I would like to go to the music festival with you.

You love Star Wars and a Bronx Tale too? Holy crap! Maybe we can have a marathon on a rainy day and then make fun of one another as my dog and cat make plans to escape from my condo because you and I are just so damn weird together. I have decided before I meet you under the chuppah I want the “dum dum” sound from Law and Order to play. I know, you wake up to me watching it at odd hours of the night and you find it charming. I like that you smile at my weird idiosyncrasies. Can you pass the frozen yogurt since you’re getting up to grab the newspaper anyway? You know I am more up on my politics than you are… don’t try and act like you know something before me. Silly!

Oh, you moved my bookmarker you stinker. I was reading _________________ in the bathroom, but apparently you also took a liking to it. Get another bookmarker and I can share it with you. For goodness sakes, put the seat down though! I almost fell in and Phoebe likes to drink from the bowl. Gross!

Last weekend I forgot to tell you thanks for coming to my softball game. The Matzo Ballers have gotten so much better since we have two non Jews on the team. Go figure right? J I wrote about it on my blog and somehow ended up sending some rant to PunkTorah as well. That site is really taking off and I am proud to have a small hand in it. Michael seems to put up with me, but Patrick is really the catalyst for all my nonsense.

My mother called three times yesterday asking when you are going to join my parents on the boat. I told them you’re excited, but I wanted to take you on the kayak with me and Willow, my pup, before you commit to a day of Jewish parents on the open seas. Nothing says rockier than Jewish parents and 10 foot swells.

I should get to bed so I can wake up early and see the new exhibit at LACMA or the Getty. I know, how many museums can I visit in a year? I don’t mean to be a geek, but I ran out of acrylic paints and my sewing is really coming together and I want new inspirations. Yes, you’re a muse, but I really love Van Gogh’s painting style. Either you can come with and we can nosh on some yummy Asian fooders or you can hang with the boys and see me tomorrow night if you like. The day after I’m headed to a “Handmade” fair again. I know, more art…! When you get time we’ll take a weekend to drive up the coast or to go to Napa or something as we discussed. I like weekends with you. Stop pretending like you’re the funny one. Okay, you do make me laugh so hard I am sure I’m going to explode, but you think I am pretty goofy too AND YOU LOVE IT!

Okay Mr. go getter punk rock briefcase using contradiction of a Jewish man (aka my besherit), we’ll talk tomorrow.

XOXO and be true to the streets-

Yentapunker

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I had a friendly debate with a gentlemen I was meeting about what it means to be Jewish. He challenged my opinions, but I did not feel like he was being rude or even trying to convince me another way. This friendly exchange is rare, so I took to him pretty quickly.

As it turns out he asked me questions about my faith that I did not have concrete answers for. I mean, what seems like truth to me, does not always seem that way for someone else. I always feel Hashem, but I do not always have “proof” of Him. It makes it complicated when discussing with someone who has a different perspective, but again… I did like this conversation so I continued to entertain different thoughts.

Finally, it came down to this one conclusion I had. If someone does not like our faith they’re not “Jewing it right”. He was a bit perplexed when I said it so I explained:

To “Jew it right” you must do something that seems fulfilling to you in the realm of religion. Try and learn something for a Rabbi or a friend; join an organization or a temple or an organization within a temple! You must take that energy that comes from within and apply it spiritually and culturally. Once you are firm in your beliefs and practices (whatever they might be and from whatever sect you belong to *or don’t belong to*) then you will find inner peace and happiness with your relationship to Hashem. This concept is “Jewing it right”. The affirmation that there is 1 soul creator that wants praise and acknowledgment that steams from joy and fulfillment from His creations.

Overall the conversation went well, but I was also excited to see that within the dialogue I had really verbalized how being Jewish is not only something I am committed to, but something that really speaks to my nishama.

Be true to the streets-

Yentapunker

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“A lot can get done with a dance party. If you watch movies from the 80s, how did everyone save the community center? With a dance party!”

DJ Lil Ray is the bat mitzvah DJ you wish you’d had. She’s cool, young, and she knows what you want to hear…and plays it. Top 40 and obscure stuff that NME doesn’t even know about “weaving in and out”, according to Lil Ray, in ways that keep the party moving. “I like electro and hip hop and those things have been intertwined,” says Lil Ray, citing that “there’s no hip hop without Kraftwerk.” I highly doubt that there are serious bat mitzvah DJs that would throw down about German experimental music, and for that, DJ Lil Ray wins the award for coolest DJ ever.

Lil Ray had previously been in Atlanta, where she cut her teeth as a DJ with the Astoria group and a regular Saturday night spot at The Highland Inn Ballroom. But the move from Atlanta’s small party scene to the hub of culture had more to do with career than with art. With a masters degree in Social Work from Georgia State, Lil Ray planned on moving to New York to work in the non-profit sector. Turns out, no one needed her, even “for the lowest entry level job.”

So Lil Ray broke the mold and did something few creative people ever do: she “fell back” on her artistic ambitions. And now, after just a few months of living in NY, Lil Ray has positioned herself as an up-and-coming player in the local dance party scene.

This includes her incredible niche market: DJing bat mitzvahs. It doesn’t seem like a trendy DJ like Lil Ray would want to even go there, but for Lil Ray, DJing to twelve and thirteen year old girls is…well…a mitzvah in and of itself.

“It was a dream come true. I played Top 40 female vocal hits and they were screaming. They were the roudiest crowd I have DJ’d in a long time.”

DJ Lil Ray is proud of her bat mitzvah work. On her website, Lil Ray talks about growing up in “Ft. Lauderdale bat mitzvah scene” and told me that, through her DJing, she hopes that she has a “meaningful impact” or her teen audience, that they, too “can be a DJ or anything that they want to be.”

I asked Lil Ray what, if any, role being Jewish has in her work. Normally Jewish musicians have nothing to say about this, citing that music is universal and that tribalism is meaningless. Lil Ray shocked me with this answer:

“Growing up in an enclave, the value of joy…is always there and important to celebrate. So after all of these years of being an activist, landing on: being a good person…really goes a long away. Religion and culture can give a framework for being a good person.”

In a way, DJ Lil Ray fulfills two amazing spiritual values in Judaism. Through her work as an activist, she has shown an incredible commitment to tikkun olam (repairing the world). And through her hip shaking record spinning, Lil Ray is shaking the branches on the Tree of Life with the mitzvah of simcha, of bringing joy to others through her music.”

You can catch Lil Ray in action at Enid’s in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Saturday, July 24 for Hot & Sticky, a totally free Hip Hop dance party.

What’s Lil’ Ray listening to? Check out her hot picks…

Aloe Blacc – I Need a Dollar (Pristine Blusters and DJ Mulher ‘Millionaire’ Remix)

Brazillian DJs get all Baltimore on an instant neo-soul classic.

Round Table Knights – Calypso

This song is magic because most people don’t know it but it gets them going anyway.

Get Em Mamis – Shake It All Night

I love sassy lady MCs spitting on throwback club tracks.  I not so secretly dream about doing a show with them.  If Kid Sister was there, I would probably plotz.

Sensato Ft. Black Point – Watagataputisberry

If you like jumping up and down and shouting and having fun, you like this song.

A-Trak – Trizzy Turnt Up

A-Trak, a fellow Jew, is a big inspiration.  His free Dirty South Dance mixtapes are genius.

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They will be held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at around 2PM Eastern time. To watch, go here or here! We look forward to seeing you all there!

-Michael and Patrick

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We know they suck, but what can you do?

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OK…what’s NOT Jewish about this? Four ways that True Blood is using images from the Torah to sell you vampire sex.

(1) They’re in the Garden of Eden. But obviously, if you look around, there’s some crazy stuff going down. The idea that human beings (I use the term ‘human’ loosely for some of the characters) can be in a state of perfection, and somehow screw it up, is about as Biblical as it gets. Humanity’s failure to be in co-existence with malevolent peace is a constant theme in the Hebrew Bible, whether you’re talking Adam and Eve, or even the Exodus, where G-d throws down miracle after miracle, but the Hebrews still won’t stop complaining.

(2) There’s a freakin’ snake. Enough said.

(3) The snake’s head is near Anna Paquin, who represents purity (hence the white dress). She’s in danger from all this, and is being sacrificed, hence the altar-like broken tree. But the snake’s tail is between the legs of Jessica Hamby/Deborah Ann Woll. This falls in line with “blame the victim”, that although the serpent is the tempter, the woman is the one that ate of the tree and is really the one to be at fault. The snake coming from her body shows that she, not the serpent, is at fault. Also, Anna Camp (Sara Newlin) is wearing red, like Woll. The two faces of the feminine are shown here. The woman who commits the sin (Eve) is shown in the submissive form (aka ‘spread eagle’), reflecting the idea that her curse is the pain of child birth. The woman with power, however, stands upright (Sara Newlin) and is the feminine power of Lilith, the woman who does not have pain because she did not submit in the first place.

(4) Two white characters, and two black characters. Notice the two guys standing together. Their legs are in the exact same position, one knee sticking out. But the legs are opposite: like the contrast of the color of their skin. The couple in the background are looking in the same direction, but their legs and arms are going in opposite ways. This is duality: another common theme in the Bible. Good versus evil, right versus wrong, G-d and Mankind, tree of knowledge and tree of life, the natural world and the supernatural world. Through their skin tones, the artist is making a nod to this overwhelmingly large issue.

Or maybe I’m over thinking this…

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Less talk, more rock. Watch this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYUkJ8CqSfU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1RcaOqcjwc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu-WR03hHJ0

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“If you have a good gut on something, go for it. You’re probably right.”

Sarah Lefton is the creator of G-dcast, a site that teaches me more about Judaism than any other resource I have ever found.

The “guts” of the site is the weekly Torah portion, taught through animated cartoons. “Jewlebrities” as far reaching as Hesta Prynn (from Northern State), actor and yogi Marcus Freed, controversial Rabbi Steven Greenberg and…ahem…myself, contribute d’vrei Torah that are insightful, musical, and frankly, hilarious.

Sarah and I have three big things in common. First, our mutual friendship with Matthue Roth, second our love of Judaism, and third…well…our love of cussing.

“I basically grew up with crap for Jewish education…there was one synagogue when i was growing up…this whole project, honest to G-d…is an honest attempt to educate myself.”

Honest to G-d is right. And honest to the Jewish people as well. G-dcast staff do not have a hidden agenda to promote any special version of Judaism. They are reform, orthodox, secular, and everywhere in between.

Why G-dcast? “A spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down,” replied Lefton. I started hearing Mary Poppins in my head when she said, “this is a fresh idea for people…that Jewish learning can be fun.”

Lefton, like most cool Jews, came from outside the system. Growing up in the south, her town had one synagogue and no Jewish educational resources available.

So when Lefton started college, she jumped right into Judaism, head first. “I did crazy things that no 21 year old would do, like joining a synagogue.”

This immersion into the Jewish world, coupled with her background in digital media and advertising came full circle when Lefton asked herself one basic question, “how come Jewish education sucks so badly?”

“I more than anyone can use a Jewish literacy. For me, this is what it has always been about,” said Lefton.

This runs contrary to the popular opinion of most Jews in the non-profit sector, who focus on community and identity. Lefton fights back with this bold statement:

“The Jewish community has done a damn good job in talking about identity and about people-hood, community, continuity, pride. But we’ve done a lousy job with literacy. Ask any American teenager is who Captain Ahab is and they’ll have a great answer…they may not like it, but they know who these people are. Smart Jewish kids…don’t know who Joshua, Miriam and Ruth are. Literacy, not pride, holds people together.”

Preach it, sister! www.g-dcast.com

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Come taste what’s been improving for over five thousand years…

PunkTorah invites you to Nibble and NoshFest at Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, GA, Sunday, May 30th and Monday May 31st.

Local restaurants will be serving amazing tapas style snacks ranging from $1.00 – $3.00 including your favorite Middle Eastern and Jewish deli treats. And we’re thrilled to hear that HeBrew Beer will have some liquid courage on-tap.

There’s also going to be a ton of great vendors selling Jewish themed gifts and art, some awesome music including local celebs Shabbat Rocks and an open-mic for anyone who wants to show off their talent.

The great thing about this event (other than the awesome PunkTorah booth) is the spirit. This isn’t just a “Jewish” event…it’s a community event. As our friend Lesley Litt (the fundraising VP for Temple Kol Emeth told us), “This event will put Judaism out there [into the community]. We sent out letters to all the churches in Cobb county with a letter from our rabbi saying ‘Hello, we want you to be our guest…and to experience our culture.’”

For more info check out www.noshfest.com

Located in the Temple Kol Emeth parking lot at the corner of Old Canton and Sewell Mill Rd. Marietta, GA 30062

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A Jewish family moves to a new town. Wanting to put their son in the best school possible, they enroll him in a Catholic prep school down the street.

One day the child comes home from school and says, “Dad, today I learned something really amazing in school. There’s three Gods. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

The angry Jewish father yells, “Don’t believe that lie son! We’re Jewish! There’s only ONE God, and we don’t believe in Him!”

I love this joke because it’s really true. 52% of Jews do not believe in G-d.

As a peddler of religion, I think a lot about this trend. Jews simply don’t believe in theism. This, and a lack of good spiritual engagement (which is different that religion, ritual, history and culture), is why we’re in a spiritual recession.

It was a conversation with an atheist friend of mine who turned me on to learning more about the growing Humanist Jewish community. Taking the mysticism out of Judaism and making it people-centered, this Judaism should be the biggest thing since sliced challah (pun intended).

My first stop was OurJewishCommunity.org. Founded by the rabbinical staff of Congregation Beth Adam (a humanistic synagogue in Ohio), OurJewishCommunity is doing a lot to engage non-theistic Jews in the Jewish tradition. My favorite part of the site is the streaming Shabbat videos, which I have watched many times over a glass of wine.

While over half of Jewish America does not believe in a Creator, humanist congregations are tiny compared to organizations like Chabad. I asked Rabbi Laura Baum of OurJewishCommunity.org and Beth Adam about this disconnect, and she replied:

“Some folks affiliate with the congregation or movement in which they grew up as a child – even if they no longer believe the core tenets. There are those for whom congregational affiliation is simply a matter of finding the most convenient congregation [geographically]… rather than making sure the…belief system of the congregation aligns with their own thinking.”

My next stop on my G-dless Jewish Adventure was a conversation with my mother. Discussing this issue, my Mom replied, “I dated a man who was a Jewish atheist when I was in my twenties. He didn’t believe in Judaism, but he was very strong in his Jewish identity.”

I found myself at the Southeast Limmud Festival (a weekend Jewish conference) living this issue. A woman was complaining about the lack of non-religious programming at the festival. She’s here to celebrate Judaism, but damn it, there better not be any religion involved! I joked with a friend, “it’s like signing up for a Christian fellowship retreat and complaining that there was too much Jesus and not enough Frisbee.”

That’s the way all my friends are. My circle of close friends is about 30% Jewish. And of those people, I only know a handful of Jews who have expressed overtly theistic feelings. The rest are culturally Jewish, but extremely proud of that and willing to give their blood for the cause of the Jewish People.

It didn’t completely hit me until I did a fundraiser for PunkTorah where we gave away copies of our Indie Yeshiva Pocket Siddur. The response from my friends was great! So many people donated to PunkTorah, but several replied, “oh, that’s OK…I don’t need a siddur. That’s not my thing.”

My head swarmed with questions. Can the Jewish people exist without the central figure of Judaism? Does Judaism need G-d, anyway? Maybe none of this ultimately matters.

I found my answer after going out on a date with a Jewish girl who was also non-spiritual. She told me that she does not believe in Judaism religiously, but has a deep connection to the ritual and community. She went on to talk about the Jewish summer camps she has worked at, the alternative spring break trips to poor countries, the tikkun olam projects she has been involved with and her leadership among Jewish youth. She had this glowing look in her eyes as she spoke so fondly about her work in the community.

And then it hit me. The Chasidim teach that there is a spark of the divine in everything. So maybe, there is a spark of the divine in atheism? And it inspired by own midrash:

“Once upon a time, G-d gave the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. All the G-d fearing people stood at the base of the mountain, trembling in awe as the cloud of G-d’s eternal Being covered the mountain top and thundered down with a mighty roar.

As Moses descended the mountain, he saw the Hebrews scurrying around their tents, discussing the awesomeness of G-d, their new responsibilities toward each other and the future of their tribe. And Moses was delighted.

But off in the distance Moses saw something strange. There were Hebrews who were not celebrating G-d. They were not talking about the new holy laws that were before them. They did not care about the thunder and smoke.

Moses got angry and approached this group. “How dare you not accept G-d’s law?”

One of the group stood up and said, “Moses, everyone was at the base of Sinai and left the sick, the hungry and the dead behind. We stayed here to care for them. We don’t know who or what G-d was, and we do not know what Torah is. But we do know that our people needed us, and we were there for them when no one else was.”

Moses smiled in relief and replied, “Thank G-d you were here with the people who needed you and not the G-d that wanted you.”

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OK fine, I broke Shabbat to go see robots sing cover songs by Journey and Rick James. Got a problem with that?

For what it’s worth, I also davened (prayed) with the Atlanta Chevre Minyan, a pretty cool group of independent people doing a mixed Orthodox/Progressive service and one of the best oneg pot lucks I have ever seen.

At the Earl, I met up with my friend The Other Jeff Clark (also known as Jeff from Channel Zero, an Atlanta music scene icon). As I got out of my car, I remembered that I was still wearing my egalitarian kippah from the PunkTorah shop and thought, “mmmm, gee, better put on a hat instead.” So I threw on a hat over my yarmulke and ran in, just in time to catch the last few songs by The Falcon Lords, a band best described as superhero minimalist dance rock. Think Batman Forever chase scene music with the bravado of The Tick and a drum machine.

OK, on to Captured By Robots.

All I can say: coolest. thing. ever. And it helps that the singer Jay Vance (JBOT) is Jewish, and probably a genius.

The “group”, for lack of a better word, features one human (Jay), and a series of robots including DRMBOT 0110 (the drummer), GTRBOT666 (the guitar/bass player) and some stuffed apes that look like the demented cousins of the characters from Chuck-E-Cheese. Each robot actually plays an instrument, with Jay providing vocals and additional guitar.

What makes the show amazing is how Jay interacts with the robots, mostly DRMBOT and GTRBOT insulting him, the audience, and making sick, lewd jokes. I loved it. The on-stage conversations were seamless, and actually made you feel like these robots were alive (or maybe they were?)

Jay started off the set by asking if there were any Jews in the audience. Immediately my friend Jeff pulled my hat off, exposing my yarmulke. Jay got a kick out of it, and this “outing” gave me a chance, after the show, to talk to him.

I asked Jay about why, after thirteen years of Captured By Robots, he still does his act. “Because I believe in it,” he said, citing his work on a TV show featuring the band and the fact that he no longer needs a day job (Jay tours once a year with the group).

In 2005, Captured By Robots put out a CD based on the 1950′s film, “The Ten Commandments”. I asked Jay about it, and he said that the Exodus is the “greatest story ever told” (pun intended). He has been “watching the movie since [he] was a kid” and for him, “Heston is Moses.”

I asked Jay about his Jewish background and he replied, “I don’t go to seders or temple. When they [the Jews in my family] died, [my Judaism] was buried with them.” But for Jay, connecting his on-stage act with the Jewish people is about “heritage” and belonging to the culture. This included songs about the last plague of Egypt and a sex-romp about Nefretiri. I would make the argument that JBOT was a rabbi that night, not only connecting me with my Jewishness, but also creating an interfaith dialogue through metal-goes-dance-pop-rock. For a moment, we were a two person havurah (community).

Less talk, more rock. Check out Captured By Robots!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSZV1BAGUbQ

(image courtesy of Captured By Robots)

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Earth Day is a Jewish holiday!

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There are plenty of rabbis and Jewish mothers that would cringe and make “Oy vey” commentary, but how could one resist to blog about the truth? The truth of the matter is that I was schlept to Thunder from Down Under in Vegas last week for a bachelorette party. Now, lets paint the full picture for you:

In line were women of every size imaginable, Hashem created or store bought. My favorite had to be the grandma with the walker and the oxygen tank. I knew there was something terribly lucid about this woman when she was trying to move faster as she realized the better seats were taken. The only thing I could think of was how unsanitary the thoughts and words of these women were. A newly 18 year old girl with piercings and a Rastafarian hat stood behind me with her mother. He mother expressed joy and stated this was not her first show. Of course when I asked where they were from they responded with Reno. Of COURSE you are! How silly am I? I couldn’t believe a girl would want to see something so sexual with her mother. I realized my mom would have been okay to come with me, but I would have been adamantly against such things.

I was amazed… See we learn a few things when being in multiple Jewish communities. In the more observant sects of Judaism, we understand that men’s thoughts and motives can be changed by sights and introductions to avayrot (sins for a lack of better translation). Men are visual creatures that do not operate solely on visions, but do get caught up in them. Women are not as instructed to be mindful. Women are taught to be coy and realize they are vulnerable creatures that are moved by emotional connections. In the reform household my mother raised me in, I was taught that women are sexual creatures that need and desire both types of love, physical and emotional… both before marriage.

One shabbos in Los Angeles there was a rabbi who mentioned a poem called To My Coy Mistress. The premise of the poem was that a man wanted to have sex with a woman he just met. She clearly wanted to be courted, but the man was very carpe diem about his libido and basically states “Baby, I don’t have all night”. I found this to be the VERY feeling of the show. These Australians were going to show their “underoos” as soon as possible, before one of these women popped an artery because “baby, these ladies don’t have all night!” So the show begins!

At first I was sure all these men were Jewish. The dancing was horrible and the choreography looked like something out of Fiddler on the Roof. (I am so sorry Grandma!) As it continued and the pants came off, I realized that this was the most unkosher venue I have ever attended. Now, don’t get me wrong, people are entitled. However, I was more than surprised as to see women of all ages touch the tushies of men they don’t know, or worse, the man’s unit! I was absolutely dumbfounded when a mother-in-law of the bride to be (not my bride thank goodness) was tossed on stage and made out with and fondled. The man pinched her nipples as she touched him in places that are making this YentaPunker blush like it’s going out of style. No one should ever see a 60 year old gray haired Bubie on stage!

I was really surprised when we left. I felt like I needed some mikvah action. Like something needed to be washed away quickly! My eyes had been scared! Then it dawned on me. I used to ask why the heck someone who was in the orthodox world wouldn’t see a porn or maybe even just watch TV. That the beaches could be difficult if you’re teaching your child to be snius (modest) and clubbing could be wicked. Then I realized what I had just left was 1 call short of a donkey show. It took watching an old lady being happily molested on stage for me to realize that I might have been desensitized by my experiences in the world. Now, I am not saying that I agree with completely shutting experiences out due to fear or emotional trauma, but I do see why one would limit their experiences.

I feel like my punk rock–ness went down a little in Vegas. Like me being Jewish let me be a little less “hardcore”. That somehow To My Coy Mistress only served a purpose for double mitzvas on shabbos when the kids go to sleep. That knowing someone might actually be better than paying to see something you cant have. Later realizing, that someone cannot even respect what they could have with a significant other. That love and lust can be mutual or mutually exclusive. It made me question what these women might be missing from their husbands or boyfriends. It made me wonder how many of these women connect to Hashem on a level that’s so meaningful, that cheap penis cannot compare.

Ultimately, I learned that my Judaism follows me from shul, home, and to the depths of the Las Vegas strip and that even when I think I might have a moment to break free from what might bind me, I’m still bound. I think I have seen enough “thunder” for one lifetime. It’s not to say that women shouldn’t enjoy breaking lose, but above all I will NEVER say that men are worse than women after what I have experienced. And as I drove home from Vegas, the idea that someone needed to take off their clothing for money only made me sad inside.

As always, be true to the streets (and yourselves)

YentaPunker

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Originally Posted at FrumSatire

Traif is a new restaurant that says it is going to celebrate pork and shellfish and I find it really funny, some of you may find it sad that a Jewish guy is opening up a restaurant devoted to his favorite foods which happen to be the farthest from kosher you can possibly get, but I just find it hilarious and anyone who eats vegetarian out can’t go there and try some of that left wing modern orthodox funny stuff because everything is Traif @ Traif.

Thanks to the first commenter I decided to add what I would do if I were to open a mamish Traif restaurant.

Heshy Fried has decided to open the worlds first all Traif Restaurant:

Featuring favorites such as non-bodek lettuce, unchecked strawberries in a non-mevushel vinaigrette.

We even have cholov yisroel hard cheese made from rennet.

Be sure to check out the weekly mothers milk specials – including kid goat cooked in mothers milk and roast brisket of beef cooked like bubbe used to make it with the added flavor of cholov yisroel milk.

We have pas yisroel and yoshon flour, don’t worry someone took challah but it was baked on shabbos by Jews.

Our Salad bar features many choices of unchecked leafy greens that are sure to add crunch with all those invisible bugs that we didn’t wash off.

Our water is unfiltered even though we are located in Brooklyn where the infestation happened.

Those blood spots in your omelet add a real flavor.

We bet you never had glatt kosher pork before, all the mooms and chalev has been removed.

Chassidishe shechita filet minion.

A full desert menu featuring triangle-K favorites such as little debbie cakes, wonder bread french toast and motts applesauce.

All of our wine is non-mevushal and we make sure to have idol worshipers open the bottles and look at the wine before it’s served.

A mashgiach temidi is on hand to make sure our products are as traif as possible – he is a certified apikorus, kofer and one of the last remaining believers of Shabetai Tzvi.

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For some, April 15th is a scary day: tax day in the USA.

This year, I owed nearly $1,700 to the Federal and State government. I had been self-employed in the previous year, and self-employed people get a “double tax” hit  from paying their share and “employers” share of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

I have to admit that I was pretty angry to have to pay that much to the IRS and I posted a comment about it on Facebook. Nothing political, just simply the message, “Dear President Obama, please spend my $1,700 wisely. I know I could have.”

What happened after that was a flood of Jews discussing Jewish law and taxation. My “liberal” friends noting that the Torah says sacrifices should be based on what one can afford (justification for an Income Tax), while my more conservative and libertarian friends made the argument for a National Sales Tax based on the idea that wealthy people spend more, and thus would pay more into the system.

I’m not interested in talking about politics. Sure, we could bat the ol’ Talmud ball back and forth on everything from school vouchers to zoning laws. What I’m more interested in is the fact that I posted a completely non-Jewish comment, and immediately what came to mind was the Torah.

Regardless of how one feels about any political issue, it is amazing that we can immediately look to Judaism for the answer. We’ll never agree on certain things (in fact, most of the Talmud is a big disagreement), but at least we’re all looking at the same source for the answer. -Patrick Aleph

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Judaism is filled with “breaks”. The holiest day in the Jewish calendar is Shabbat, and that is a day entirely dedicated to doing nothing. So do we need more breaks?

If you ask many Jewish people, what they really want is a break from Judaism.

Last month, I attended the first national conference of Birthright Israel Next. An extension of the famous (some would say infamous) organization that funds trips for Jewish college students to Israel. The goal of Next: to help young Jews expand their connection to Israel, deepen their commitment to Jewish life and to form a Jewish community.

In a gorgeous hotel in New Orleans, I hung out with Jewish activists from around the country. These are people who spend every day of their life working on making Jewish life relevant to their peers. And what I learned, more than anything from these people, is that Judaism can be really tiresome.

“By the time Shabbat arrives, I don’t want to do anything Jewish”, said one woman. She spends all day in a JCC office. Her break: hanging out with her non-Jewish friends. “Doing Jewish” every day just sucks the energy right out of her.

If anyone would want a secular holiday from the Jewish tradition, it would be this group. But when I asked most of these people what they were doing for Spring Break, many said they were going on “service work” and “alternative break” trips: giving up Spring Break to go to places like Haiti and Africa to help build communities. Others were just planning on going home, to visit family.

It seems this is the power of Judaism: to take something like Spring Break, the ultimate excuse to destroy your spirit (neshama) through drugs, booze and promiscuity, and turn it into an opportunity for havurah (community) and repairing the world (tikkun olam).

To this I say, “Am Yisroel Chai”: long live the Jewish people!

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There’s speculation that it came from calendar changes: a “fool” being someone who kept the previous culture’s calendar instead of adopting the new one. There’s also a theory that April Fools Day is a rite of spring, a renewal holiday where people delight in all the behavior that they normally cannot indulge in during the rest of the year, like Mardi Gras, for example.

Nevertheless, April Fools Day persists without serving any real purpose. No one “needs” April Fools Day. I know I can go without a day of watching my back as my “friends” find many, varied and unusual ways of torturing me.

April Fools Day is a meme: a cultural idea passed on because it sticks to us so well. April Fools Day is fun, creative and silly. And I love it.

There are a lot of things in Judaism that spark the same “W-T-F” nerve in my brain as April Fools Day. First, tefillin. These weird black boxes and leather straps look like a Chassidic S&M tools. I understand the expression “bind as a sign” on your arm and between your eyes, but you would think the rabbis of the Talmud would have come up with something a lot less dirty looking!

How about the Sukkot etrog? Here’s a weird idea: let’s create a Thanksgiving holiday where a random piece of lemon-esque fruit has to hang in a hut for a week. It’s another one of those Jewish “what were they thinking” moments that I revel in.

When I think about all the silly traditions that I live by, I pause and wonder how I can look at myself in the mirror and say, “now there’s a rational human being”. But you know what? I don’t care how strange any of this seems to anyone. I like all the pointless, meaningless rituals in my life, because that’s what is great about being human. While the rest of the animal kingdom is simply trying to “get by”, our brains and abundance allow us the time to “piddle around” and do strange things like wrap ourselves in leather straps or gaze lovingly at the “fruit of the beautiful tree.”

So go ahead and enjoy April Fools Day. It’s another one of these silly things that makes you remember why it’s awesome to be alive. And when you remember why it’s fun to be alive, you might think about who gave you life, and what you should do with it.

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By Heshy Fried

I absolutely love long Jewish holidays like Pesach. I know that many folks can’t wait for it to be over, whenever someone says that on shabbos I want to smack them, you can’t talk about such holiness like shabbos and say that you want it over with already – why are you keeping shabbos if you hate it and don’t believe in it’s healing properties? But Pesach heartache is understandable, people just can’t go that long without pizza, can they? I surely can (I haven’t had milchigs in 2 months, I miss it dearly), yes it’s a royal pain to eat overpriced chocolate bars for energy on long distant hikes and bike rides, but I deal and I love Pesach in all of its 8 days of glory. I also work for a company that gave me off for all of Pesach, I could understand the pain that people have when they have to use up all of their vacation days for Jewish holidays, although they might want to have the thought that they wouldn’t have that job unless God wanted them to and therefore God knew they would have to give up their vacation days willingly to please him.

I used to hate the seder, I think it could be better, probably because most people don’t really do the seder right, they tell technical divrei torah which have nothing to do with telling the story of leaving Egypt and then they sing traditional songs while the people who can read super fast go about it on their own. I guess I wish sedarim were a bit more interactive and actually did make children ask question – because I have seen that maybe twice, it seems that children only ask questions because in yeshiva they tell you that children are supposed to ask questions.

Think about it, the story of the Jews leaving Egypt is probably the most kick-ass story in biblical Judaism, Chanukah, Shavuos and Purim don’t come close to Pesach, they don’t have as much action going down. I like to think that the story of the Jews leaving Egypt starts with the story of Yosef and his brothers, which could be made into a movie, simply amazing the drama of that story. Then the pharaoh getting all hard on the Jews, flip flopping his political views kind of like Obama on Israel and then we build the pyramids which are super cool, although using babies as stones isn’t cool. The plagues, holy crap people, I can’t believe that during the seder, the attention of the plagues is lost on a little dabbing of wine and proclaiming the plagues – we should talk about this stuff, it’s super cool and everyone out of yeshiva doesn’t talk about it for 2 months leading up to Pesach.

What I really want to know is what other plagues were there? I always hear about these midrashim that say there were a slew of plagues besides for the ten biggies. Did everyone’s clothing burn up in the middle of the marketplace forcing everyone to walk back home naked? Did the camels start eating people? Maybe they ran out of parking spots and everyone had to circle their camels for days just to find one.

“Let My People Go” is probably the most bad-ass line in the whole torah, it’s not even made up, it’s right there in the scripture, not some Charleton Heston line. Did you ever think about the fact that pretty much everyone was black in Egypt, wasn’t Moshe Rabeinu black, that means everyone was way cooler than we can even imagine.

The splitting of the sea, that alone is enough to excite any scientist into explaining the prevailing winds and how they must have blown hard enough to split the sea. I do love how non-believing scientists have tried to explain how splitting of the sea were possible in a book they view as mythological, do their endowments and grants fund mythological explorations? I remember sitting in ninth grade learning about how any Jew could reach into the water and pull out whatever they wanted, I was sitting in class daydreaming about walking on the sea bed, chugging a mountain dew that I had just pulled out of the wall of water and thinking about which Ben and Jerrys flavor I wanted to pull out next, as I was day dreaming I was wondering if the ground was muddy and if the Jews were all wearing Tevas or Birkenstock sandals.

I also look forward to Peach because to me it’s like having a bunch of shabbosim in a row. I know a lot of people don’t like the whole shabbos chol hamoid thing because they want to be able to hit p as many Boro Park carnivals, Lipa Schmeltzer shows and kosher circuses as possible. I wonder if the “things to do on pesach sections” in those free community advertisement books they have in heimishe establishments are cut down this year, although they usually include the same things every year. I can sum it up for you, you can go to the Liberty Science Center, Ellis Island, The Tenement Museum, The Museum of Natural History and Uncle Moishes Carnival on 13^th avenue and 44^th street.

Pesach has a shorter less physically intensive davening than succos, although I still love succos and it’s my favorite holiday for obvious reasons (outdoors nut and honey on challah lover here) I still like Pesach for its length, one of the reasons I dislike shavuos and Rosh Hashanah are their lack of length, the first day is always warm up and by the time you’re in spiritual high mode everyone’s making havdalah, I know that both Shavuos and Rosh Hashanah have the days leading up to them that are supposed to put us in that frame of mind – but I need a little more starting time. Of course Pesach has starting time because of shabbos hagadol (where I was this shabbos doesn’t even have shul on shabbos afternoon) and cleaning my car and apartment for chometz got me in the Pesach frame of mind hey isn’t that a Billy Joel song?

I am not one for spending holidays with family, mostly because my family lives in a place I find kills my spiritual state and makes me hate being religious, except before my dad got remarried and I would take him with me to my friends houses. Actually one of the things I dread about marriage is falling in love with a girl from a place that I don’t care for. The last two years I did Pesach with one of my best buds in Denver, he would set up all the meals so that we could get the best food and company at the same time – I am the same way with meal settings, there is a lot of detail that goes into spending shabbos or a holiday somewhere, it’s never simple. This year I am staying in Northern California and looking forward to my first two days in San Francisco, and the last two days in the Sierra Nevada near Tahoe where I plan to try out my hand at gold panning.

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I’m sitting in the Green Sage Coffee House & Cafe in Asheville, NC. Staring at me, on a plate next to some sweet potato French fries, is the future of Judaism.

I’m talking about the tempeh reuben.

Like the sandwich that came before, the tempeh reuben is two pieces of grilled rye bread, delicately holding a symphony of sauerkraut, thousand island dressing and Swiss cheese. The twist: instead of a pile of corned beef, this sandwich is filled with tempeh, an earthy, Indonesian export brought to us by the hippies.

The reuben, like many Jewish icons, is not exactly Jewish. Some sources say it came from Omaha, the least Jewish place in the world, and others claim proudly that it was a New York creation. Either way, the sandwich that would become a staple in “kosher style” delis is not even kosher. Meat and milk, simple as that. Yet, to many people, the reuben is a Jewish icon.

This is the first truly kosher reuben I have ever seen. No meat/milk issues here. Just some sliced, grilled, fermented soy goodness piled high with all the trimmings. And I realize, in a moment before my bracha (prayer) over my meal, that this culinary masterpiece is an edible example of what Judaism will be for my generation.

When the cooks made this sandwich, they weren’t interested in my level of kosher or my Jewish identity. They were interested in taking something that they liked (the reuben) and making it work in their vegetarian diet. But by accident, they took an unkosher symbol of the Jewish tradition, and they made it kosher. By looking forward into the future, they managed to connect me with the most traditional form of Jewish expression.

This, to me, is how Judaism will work in the future. Taking what you love, and spinning it in a way that may not seem Jewish, but actually turns out to be more Jewish than you can imagine. What is Jewish about tempeh? Everything! The Jewish connection to the Earth, to treating animals fairly, to innovation, to blessing our food and to the tradition of kashrut.

My argument is simple: these vegetarian, hippie, Buddha worshiping, coffee shop people got me to connect with a religious tradition that is older and farther removed from the lives of my generation that they can ever imagine. Who cares how they did it? At this moment, looking at this dripping sandwich, I have had a Jewish “a-ha!” moment that rivals anything I have had in most synagogues I have visited.

So thank you to the fine cooks, servers and baristas at Green Sage for making me feel more Jewish by screwing up a sandwich!

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Patrick from PunkTorah tries his best. Scroll to the bottom and see…

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