pargolettasworld - Tumblr blog

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b97QY1l_aWA

Judaism is much more closely connected with land and climate and ecology than many people might realize.  It is, of course, very strongly connected with the climate and ecology of one particular parcel of land, and it has had that strong connection for thousands of years -- there are millennia-old weekly Shabbat prayers, seasonal prayer variations, and whole holidays devoted to the agriculture and sustainable climate and ecology of Eretz Yisrael -- but even beyond that, Judaism maintains a reverence for the care of this world.  We are not really about the World to Come, so we like to focus on caring for the one we’ve got right now.  So it’s only natural that someone like Cantor Lisa Levine might take inspiration from the Prophet Isaiah for a song celebrating Earth Day.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhULgmjzr4

Just because a piece is old and sung by a hazzan wearing an old-fashioned mitre and an unfortunate mustache doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun.  This is one of the classic Passover piyyutim, which my family’s haggadah translates as “To Him it is fitting, to Him it is due.”  It’s one of those piyyutim that don’t have a narrative as such -- the text is largely iterations of reasons why the Divine is pretty gosh-darn great.  These aren’t texts trying to make a complex point, and as such they are perfect for exciting tunes, semi-tipsy group singing, and all-around enjoyment of a family religious ceremony/dinner party.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_1wvxs0EOI

Hey, remember that first year of having to move your Seder onto Zoom during the pandemic?  It was weird and scary (and maybe a chance to get a little creative), and there was a sense of danger hanging over Passover . . . as there is now, though for a very different reason.  And, perhaps, as there should be.  Passover is a story fraught with danger and uncertainty.  We know the story has a happy ending, but most of the people in it don’t know that.  And for quite a lot of Egyptians, the story in fact does not have a happy ending.

Six13 is singing this text with cheer and optimism, but it is one of the darker bits of the Haggadah.  In every generation, some enemy will rise up and try to destroy us.  We’ve made it through all of them thus far, which is good for us, but still.  Passover is a fun holiday with dense food, a storytelling dinner party, pranks, and prizes, but at the heart of it is slavery, persecution, and an escape seemingly as terrifying as the life the Israelites leave behind in their transformation into the Jewish people.

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Ok, so, as most know hobbits LOVE mushrooms, but what if they love ALL mushrooms, even the poisonous ones. What if a hobbit’s body is able to handle more of the poison and it doesn’t affect them at all. And they love it!

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queen of the world to me

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF8CyHsm9Wc

Believe it or not, this is a song about death.  Specifically, it’s a discussion of the Jewish concept of the afterlife.  Judaism does have a concept of an afterlife -- haOlam haBa, the World to Come.  The thing is, we’re not terribly clear on the details, and we don’t spend nearly as much time contemplating it as some other monotheistic religions do.  But that doesn’t mean we ignore it completely.  We like to debate its existence, in this case using the example of twins just before birth as a metaphor for what the difference between this world and the next could be like.

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKsVwlLvnIM

This is a common, beloved setting of the prayer to be able to pray.  It’s one that about half of my online Hebrew students know and adore.  This synagogue went hard with it, though, turning it into about a minute and a half of klezmer, and I am loving it!  You got yourself a short, overly-familiar melody?  Do something unexpected with it, and turn it into a Thing.

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"It is true that most anti-Israel protesters do not engage in antisemitic harassment. It is also true that the formal demands associated with anti-Israel protests are legitimate (if not policies I’d endorse) and do not require the collective punishment of American Jews. But the reason incidents like these occur over and over is that they are part of the ideological character of the movements that give rise to them. Dismissing this pattern as the actions of “inflammatory individuals” is to evade the question of who is inflaming them.

"The anti-Israel movement exists in the United States as a result of a decades-long conflict in the Middle East, the cause of which is complex and has faults on many sides. It was both inevitable and necessary for the United States to have a pro-Palestinian movement. The makeup of that movement is the contingent, tragic factor that has made its activities so ugly and routinely bigoted."

Couldn’t have put it better myself

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People sometimes ask me why I make That Face when they bring up Rabbi Sacks. And it's because of things like this, along with his giant hateboner for the Movement for Reform Judaism. The man was a brilliant writer and a thoughtful theologian, but he was also Like This.

You may know, if you’ve ever seen a Jewish house before Passover, it’s hard work. It really is. I try and be away from home when it’s happening. You have to clear the house of all products that contain leaven, you’ve got to clean everything, you’ve got to take out a new set of utensils and cutlery and crockery, and it is really hard work. I got somebody in England to design a special apron for Passover cleaning that read, “For this, we left Egypt?”

I used to wonder, why make Passover such hard work? And now I know: because freedom is hard work. And it has to be fought for in every generation. We have to tell and re-tell the story. We have to remind ourselves what it feels like each year to eat the bread of affliction and taste the bitter herbs of slavery.

...

Freedom is hard to attain, but it is very easy to lose. And that’s why it has to be fought for in every generation.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"tl, "In Defence of Religious Liberty," the acceptance speech at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty award ceremony

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what's the opposite of feeling sand slip through your fingers because I feel this poem more and more as time passes

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndY5-R1PlU0

Often, I will mention the Amidah, the Standing Prayer, the set of blessings that are at the heart of a Jewish worship service.  Mostly, I do this in the context of explaining a setting of one or another of these texts.  But what, exactly, is the Amidah?  What’s it all about?

This piece is not a setting of the Amidah -- in whole or in part.  Instead, it is a ten-minute liturgical lesson in song.  Rabbi Shawn Zevit takes you on the journey through the Amidah, explaining what each blessing is about -- each of the seven “gates” of reflection and prayer that you can go through on your own as you progress through the silent Amidah, or that a congregation can travel together during the hazzan’s repetition.  I love the way Rabbi Zevit positions each of these stages, offering questions and gentle guidance about how you might approach these ancient texts and bring them into yourself.

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i’m willing to believe some people are genuinely idiots who don’t know that 90%+ of polish jews were killed in the holocaust (and made up half of all poles killed in wwii), but. it’s almost like this shit helps nothing and no one

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Kitniyot or no kitniyot, this stuff is delicious: https://www.thejc.com/lets-eat/recipe/recipe-home-made-matzah-granola-e3pvtem5

Hey there Jumblr, I've got a question for you again.

What do you do to make your matzah taste good? Like I know the classic matzah pizza, matzah brie, matzah bourekas, etc, but I need some quick and easy ideas.

So far I've just made a sandwich with some eggplant pepper spread and feta but I can't be eating this all week! I need ideas!!

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRV4N5xPUY4

What happens when a guy with a heavy-metal personality gets an extremely thorough Jewish education growing up -- to the point of having been trained as a hazzan in high school?  You get David Draiman, lead vocalist of the band Disturbed since 1996.

This song, from 2010, addresses the Holocaust on two fronts.  One is sort of the expected way that post-Holocaust songs about the Holocaust tend to go, explaining what happened and mourning Jewish loss of life and humanity.  But the second verse goes a step further, taking aim at Holocaust denial.  “You dare to tell me that there never was a Holocaust / You think that history will leave the memory lost.”

As someone who writes about the music of Holocaust memory and the distinction between history and memory, I find this song absolutely fascinating.  It’s kind of a natural pairing with Wu-Tang Clan’s 1998 song “Never Again,” also by a Jewish popular musician (Remedy) about the Holocaust.  These two songs will probably find their way into some writing or teaching pretty soon.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECu1ErcCXWU

Nava Tehila is a prayer/song/liturgical music collective based in Israel.  Their focus is on a Renewal-style approach to prayer, one that’s diverse, inclusive, and heavily based in music.  Their melodies are interesting and accessible, but not boring.  You can sing along -- and you will probably find yourself singing along -- but there’s just enough challenge there to really get your brain focused on the act of prayer.

This is their melody for “Adir Hu,” a song about all of the many, many, alphabetized ways in which the Divine is great . . . so we hope that the Divine will get it together, hurry up, and rebuild the Temple SOON!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNXDjdL-K4

The one thing we were all sure of on October 7 was that antisemitism and Islamophobia would skyrocket, and that they have done.  In the end, no one is going to win this conflict, and Jews and Muslims all over the world will pay for it.  All of the mixed feelings that go with that inspired Sue Radner Horowitz to compose this song, recently released.