Shabbat is the day of rest, and according to traditional Jewish law, you shouldn’t listen to music then. But what about the intensity of preparing for Shabbat? Start a one-person mosh pit in your kitchen while making challah!

Here’s a Shabbat punk playlist featuring punk rock versions of liturgical songs, originals about Shabbat, and a cover of the “King of Jewish Music.” The songs might be loud and fast, but they’re still holy—for the most part.

Di Nigunim: L’Cha Dodi

A cornerstone of the Kabbalat Shabbat service, “L’Cha Dodi” welcomes the Sabbath bride. The 13-member band Di Nigunim put their wild “anarcho-klezmer punk” stamp on the beautiful melody. Front man Ben Nigunim explained that he “filled it up with all the pent-up angst of the week, like ‘Fuck yeah! Let’s let loose now!’” He removed references to God, which, he said, “the religious cats probably wouldn’t dig too much.”

Moshiach Oi!: Shabbos

Moshiach Oi! singer/guitarist Yishai Romanoff celebrates that Shabbos is “Hashem’s holy day.” It’s a day when he doesn’t drive, go far, worry, or rush. That’s all there is lyrically, but with screaming and repetition, it’s all emphasized so that you can appreciate how holy the Sabbath is. An early demo of “Shabbos” included guest back-up vocals that sounded “like a demon from hell,” the band’s other guitarist fondly recalled.

The Groggers: Friday Night Lights

Plenty of pop-punk songs are about craving sex. In the Groggers’ version, the narrator yearns to have sex with his wife on “mitzvah night.” Despite having Shabbat guests at the table, he was “playing footsies during ‘Mizmor Shir’” and “waiting for this since HaMotzi.” Spoiler alert: His wife falls asleep before the couple can “feel the Shabbos spirit” together.

Yidcore: Just One Shabbos

Yidcore covered this song by Mordechai Ben David on their debut album in 2000. The lyrics are quite moving, albeit difficult to understand at times. They tell the story of a Jew who didn’t observe Shabbat and connects with Judaism upon visiting the Western Wall on a Friday night. Transformed, the man continues observing Shabbat and spreads the joy to others.

White Shabbos: Shabbos Holy Shabbos

The band name and the song/album title are takeoffs on the legendary metal band Black Sabbath and their song/album “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.” The folk-punk band White Shabbos is decidedly more pious. “Shabbos Bloody Shabbos” praises the holiness of the Sabbath in both Hebrew and English. The lyrics describe Shabbos as “a taste of the world to come.” They encourage listeners to keep the Sabbath in order to help bring the Messiah.

The Schleps: Adon Olam

One of the most fun prayers to learn as a kid is “Adon Olam” because it can be sung to almost any melody. The Schleps chose one of the most common “Adon Olam” tunes for a brutal metalcore rendition. It isn’t like any of the options you heard in Hebrew school. (If you’re looking for a pop-punk alternative, you can sing “Adon Olam” to Green Day’s “Minority” instead.)

Learn more about all of these Jewish punk bands in Michael Croland’s book, Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk.

Photo album cover for White Shabbos.

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The first poem here emerged from a practice I’ve adopted over the past few years of combining close study of Jewish texts with creative-writing prompts. I was introduced to this sort of work through classes offered by Amy Gottlieb at the Drisha Institute in New York; after those courses ended, a few of us decided to continue meeting on our own. “Birthright” stems from study of Parashat Toldot—which is to be read in 2017/5778 on November 18.

Birthright

Eyesight dimmed, aged Isaac

could nonetheless discern

the sound of one twin’s voice

from the other’s

and detect the scent

of each from his garments;

alas, how the story

might have shifted

could he have distinguished

Esau’s skin from a goat’s.

For this next poem: I struggle somewhat with my level of Shabbat observance. And I also struggle with my addiction to my iPhone and various social-media platforms. About a year ago, following the rush of online reactions in the aftermath of the presidential election, I began trying to disengage for one day each week: Shabbat. And that’s the impetus for “Sabbath Rest 2.0.” 

Sabbath Rest 2.0

About that Fourth Commandment:

I’ve always remembered the Sabbath day;

I just haven’t kept it holy.

But these days, I do keep it

free from Facebook and Twitter.

And when the sun sinks and sets

and the three stars appear,

I’m renewed and refreshed

and ready, once again,

to face all that awaits.

Erika Dreifus writes poetry and prose in New York. She can be found online at http://www.ErikaDreifus.com and on Twitter @ErikaDreifus, where she tweets “on matters bookish and/or Jewish.”

Photo by slgckgc, via Flickr.

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I was recently invited to a friend’s for a potluck Shabbat dinner, and decided to bring homemade challah. As I was shaping my loaf, I was thinking about how beautiful it would be to have a rainbow challah. Growing up, my mother would occasionally dye the braids different colors to celebrate different holidays (Halloween was orange and black; Memorial Day and July 4 were red, white, and blue; Valentine’s Day was red, pink, and white in a heart shape) or big sport weekends (maize and blue for Thanksgiving Shabbos, orange and blue for Tigers opening day, red and white when the Wings made the playoffs, etcetera). But I thought of the color scheme too late to dye the sections.

I then thought I could dye sesame seeds and put them in a stripe pattern, inspired by the seeded challahs at Breads Bakery and My Most Favorite Food. But I didn’t have enough food coloring, so I had to do something else. Fortunately, I was struck with a great idea: make a stenciled message! So lo and behold, I made a Hebrew stencil.

You can use most any challah recipe you’d like for the dough (though check out the award-winning one from my family below), and then follow the instructions below to step up your challah game.

Some inspiration for messages include Shabbat Shalom (this one says so, in Hebrew) or Good Shabbos in Yiddish/English, heart shapes or peace signs, the name of the weekly parsha, an edible wedding proposal, or simple stripes of seeds. Do whatever you feel comfortable with, and it will be great.

1. Prepare a stencil (cut the letters out of wax paper with a utility knife).
2. Brush braided and risen challah with egg wash. Then lay the stencil on the challah.
   
3. Carefully pour/place seeds over stencil.
4. Blow or shake off extra seeds. Careful— they may go onto uncovered sections of your challah.
   
5. Remove stencil (gently!). Disclaimer about using a lot of small seeds: you will need to sweep.
6. If desired, carefully fill the void around stenciled design. This is unnecessary and purely aesthetic, but the black-on-white looks good.
7. Sweep up or vacuum the floor, which may by now be covered in seeds.

You can use any recipe, but I have been using my mother’s for as long as I could make a braid, and you’re welcome to it, too.

It has never lost a challah competition (but it has tied for first in a handful)!

Davida Robinson’s Challah recipe

• 2 packages of dry yeast (4.5 tsp)
• 3/4 cup + 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups hot water + ¼ cup
• 3 eggs
• 7 – 8 cups flour (can split it whole wheat and white, but all white works too)
• 1 tablespoon honey

1. Dissolve yeast with one teaspoon of sugar in warm water.  Let stand 10 minutes to “proof.” (It will bubble up.)
2. Mix sugar, and oil in hot water.  Beat in 2 eggs, and then add proofed yeast mixture.
3. Gradually add flour and knead until smooth (not sticky).
4. Place dough in greased bowl, cover, and let rise for about one hour.
5. Divide dough in half to make two challot. At this point you can braid, wrap or knot your dough into whatever shape you wish and let rise on cookie sheet with parchment paper for another hour.
6. Brush with egg yolk and honey mixture and bake in oven at 350F for 30 minutes.  If you push in the top and it springs back it is done.

Feel free to share pictures of your decorated Challah! Tweet @JewcyMag, or tell us about it in the comments below.

Avery Robinson is a culinary historian from Detroit. He limits his baking during the summer to special occasions and when his roommate is not home.

Images courtesy of Avery Robinson

The post Not Your Bubbe’s Challah: Poppy Seed Writing appeared first on Jewcy.

This Saturday, June 18th, marks the first meeting of the Brooklyn Women’s Chavurah. In the United States, it’s certainly not unusual to see women included in religious ritual, and there are lots of compromises along a spectrum of observances. But a service where only women lead, and the men sit behind a mechitza, a divider: This may be a first.

This marks the end of an intense week in Israel in the struggle for egalitarian prayer spaces; liberal Jewish movements organized a mixed-gender service at the Western Wall in protest of the stalling in accommodating them, including the recent collapse of a plan to recognize Robinson’s Arch as an egalitarian part of the Wall.  While New York has a wealth of religious Jewish congregations, all obviously independent of government interference, Nechama Levy saw a gap in her options.

Levy, who was raised chasiddish, is currently traditionally observant, but also committed to women’s official involvement in services, and nothing she had found fully satisfied both at once.

“It’s impossible for me to daven [pray] with kavana in a space where I don’t count and where my tefila [prayer] has no communal meaning,” she tells Jewcy. However, “I’m most comfortable davening in a space that has the same standards for shabbos and kashrus as I do at home.” Levy also noted liturgical differences between even more traditional liberal Jewish movements and Orthodoxy, such as leftist groups taking out many references to messianic faith or temple sacrifices. She also sees the value in dividing services by gender, since many women who have been raised Orthodox may not be comfortable in mixed company. There are local Orthodox “partnership minyanim,” (some even require ten men and ten women to hold full services, as opposed to the traditional ten men or liberal ten Jews regardless of gender,) though they don’t let women lead all parts of the ritual.

So this new Chavurah is a chance for women-led Orthodoxy, and only by women. Men are welcome to attend, but they cannot lead or count towards the minyan. Women are at the figuratively and literally at the forefront, they can be loud, and expressive, and dictate the energy of too-often male-dominated services.

“There is a great difference,” says Levy of men’s relegation to a more passive role, “Both morally and socially, between a marginalized group being exclusionary and a dominant group being exclusionary.”

If all goes well (“Im Yirtzeh Hashem,” says Levy), the Chavurah will henceforth meet the third Saturday of each month (the second one will be July 16th).

If you know a Brooklynite who’d be interested, they can come this Shabbat (Facebook event here) to Repair the World, 808 Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, starting at 9:30 a.m. Communal kiddush to follow (of course).

You can also email the minyan (they consistently need volunteers of all kinds: organizers, those who can lead services, and anyone who can contribute funds) at info@womendaven.org.

Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Women’s Chavura Facebook page

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The game is perfect for big groups (you need a minimum of 4 to play, but the more people, the better; aim for about ten), and great for Shabbat, because it takes no equipment at all.  Try it to defuse the next big dinner when talk turns to the election.

The Rules:

1. Assemble your players. Send two people up to the front of the room: One is first names, and the other is surnames.

2. Ask the first player to secretly pick a common Jewish first name, and the second to secretly pick a common Jewish last name.

3. When they’re ready, have the room count to three. On three, First and then last name both reveal their picks together, so that a full name is formed (E.g., “Deborah! Gordon!”)

(Don’t be afraid to stray from Ashkenazi names; let’s get a Sassoon or Cordova in there!)

4. Ask for a show of hands from the group for anyone who actually knows a person by that name. Whoever does (honors system, folks), gets one point (the namers are also eligible).

5. Rotate out the namers for two other people in the game, and repeat.

6. The first person in the room to get to five points is the winner!  They either know a whole lot of Jews, or need to break out of their bubble and start meeting other people!

If anyone knows the origin of this game, feel free to hit us up on Twitter.

Image Source: Wet Hot American Summer

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Texting on the Sabbath? There’s an app for that.

The appropriately named “Shabbos App”—which is in development right now—will hit the market in 2015, allowing users to text on Shabbat within the confines of halacha (Jewish law). This is no cynical, gimmicky ploy: the developers (themselves observant Jews) have outlined all of the potential problems with texting on Shabbat, and explained how each one is circumvented by the app. For example, the app prevents the phone screen from turning off, skirting the prohibition against turning electrical items on and off.

The app has already stirred up debate over whether this would violate the spirit of the Shabbat, even if it is technically permissible. Rabbi Moshe Elefant of the Orthodox Union told Vos Is Neias that “it is very distasteful and not permissible on Shabbos.” Others were unconvinced: the concept struck Rabbi Yaakov Menken as so implausible that he described it as a “farce.”

But The Shabbos App is indeed real. One of the developers, Yossi Goldstein, sees it as the next step in what has been a long tradition of adapting technology around halachic restrictions. In a phone conversation, he compared the app to other items that have been permitted and accepted by the Orthodox community over the years, even if they were at first regarded as controversial. “Look at the Shabbat-mode ovens that are becoming popular, or Shabbat-clocks. Rav Moshe Feinstein [an influential 20th century Orthodox rabbi] prohibited Shabbat clocks. Yet many many people use them today.”

This is Goldstein’s first time developing an app and the only one that he and his team, which includes programmers, marketers and rabbis, are working on. A Kickstarter campaign to raise money and gauge interest went live before Sukkot, and will conclude on December 5. (To date they’ve raised $2,000 of their $30,000 goal.) Come February, the Shabbos App will be on the market for iPhone and Android users for a cool $49.99.

So far, reactions in the press and on social media have been mixed, varying from outrage to delight. There’s even a Facebook page called “Ban the Shabbos App.” (Ironically, the URL ends in “banshabbos”.)

Most responses seem to take issue with how this will impact the tone and feel Shabbat, which many Jews—Orthodox and otherwise—cherish as a day of rest from screen time. Goldstein recognizes that this is something that people will feel “won’t be in the spirit of Shabbos,” although that’s “the only” issue he sees as a possible problem. One commenter by the name of Yoni, wrote that “one of the things I love about Shabbos is that it forces us to disconnect from the outside world so that we can focus on Hashem and the holiness of the day.” Kate Barnes, who does not “keep Shabbat in an Orthodox fashion,” believes it is an “improbable excuse to try to technicality your way out of observing Shabbat properly.”

Writing in The Forward, Julie Sugar framed the Shabbos app as a tool that may draw people closer to Shabbat observance: “we’re making a grave mistake when we judge someone who is already struggling with Shabbos and is seeking a kosher balance.”

Goldstein, who plans to use the app, argues that not only should it be permitted by the rabbinical authorities, it should be openly embraced. He makes a strong case, pointing out the fact that many Shabbat-observant teens are already using their phones on Shabbat anyway. “People realize today most teens are already texting on Shabbat,” he said, “so how do we create something that allows them to do so in a halachic way?”

There’s room yet for consensus. Exceptions to halacha are routinely made for life-saving situations and medical emergencies. Tiffanie Yael Maoz, another commenter, wondered if this “would this allow parents of special needs kids to set up a geo-fence to notify them if their kid wanders too far?”

Goldstein believes that most of the controversy surrounding the creation of the app is a classic case of the “old guard” taking a stand against something new. He encourages people to keep an open mind about the app and see how it can enhance the Shabbat experience, instead of detract from it. “The real question is,” he said “do we embrace change or do we fight it?”

We should know by December 5.

Related: Shabbat Is a Day of Rest—But Does That Mean I Can’t Text My Friends?

(Image via Shabbos App/Facebook)

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