Entries tagged with season

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Yeyn Malchut Rav

Just in time for Purim, a chant from the Scroll of Esther, and a midrash (interpretation). The Book of Esther begins with the King, a bit of a buffoon, throwing a huge drunken party for everyone, and this sets the tone for everything that follows.

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Umi Yode'a Im L'et Kazot

Just in time for Purim, a classic verse from the Scroll of Esther: "Who knows, maybe it was for just such a time as this that you came to royalty?" The Hebrew word "malchut" means royalty, sovereignty, kingdom, but also (as a kabbalistic term) physical reality. Each of us has a role to play in standing against evil in our time — who knows, maybe it was for just such a time as this that you arrived in the world?

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וּמִ֣י יוֹדֵ֔עַ אִם־לְעֵ֣ת כָּזֹ֔את הִגַּ֖עַתְּ לַמַּלְכֽוּת׃

Umi yode'a im l'et kazot higa'at lamalchut?

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The May Tricks

What if May Day, but more cyberpunk? Pun very much intended.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Merry May Folk" by Arthur Hinds

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Song for the Rededication of the Altar

Chanukah celebrates the rededication of the Temple, and because of the miracle of the oil we celebrate with fried food. When circumstances permit, I like to invite friends over for a deep-fried party. I also take the opportunity to rededicate the vessels of the altar with oil, that is, to season my wok, so here is a wok-seasoning song based on the traditional (and problematically triumphalist) Chanukah classic "Ma'oz Tzur".

lyrics by Benjamin Newman, after "Ma'oz Tzur", trad. Hebrew

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Starlight Through Woven Branches

In J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century, Tom Shippey highlights the opposition of stars, representing the eternal, and trees, representing the temporal, as a central theme of Elvish poetry. This resonates as well with the themes of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, when we live in booths thatched with branches or leaves through which we can see the stars.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Singing Up the Sun

A song for the Winter Solstice

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Shechinah

A song to welcome Shabbat. The Shechinah is G!d's indwelling presence — the mystics, without exactly acknowledging a "Goddess" distinct from the One G!d, conceived of Her as feminine, as being with us in our exile, and as visiting on (or even being identical with) the Sabbath.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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The Secret of the Festival of Sandcastles

The hidden, strangely recursive mythology behind the Festival of Sandcastles

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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The Real Story of Chanukah

Chanukah is complicated. The real political history behind the holiday is problematic, and the miracle of the oil is a later rabbinic insertion, but in the end, we're still here and we get to eat fried food, so I guess it's all good.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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P'ri Etz Hadar

This song was written for my synagogue's Tu BiShvat seder, a ceremony in celebration of the New Year of Trees, where we eat our way through four worlds of fruit and mystical insight. The fourth world, in which everything is seen as a direct emanation of divine energy, or as the fruit of One cosmic Tree, is called atzilut.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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The Priestess of Chocolate

Based on the film Chocolat

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Masquerade

A song for Esther, heroine of the Jewish holiday of Purim.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Love Letter

A song for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (which celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai and also the full flower of Spring), retelling the Exodus narrative by way of a more Song-of-Songs-ish metaphor, and finally a very Reconstructionist twist.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Jingle Bell Roc

Writing this was the only way to get the source song out of my head.

lyrics by Benjamin Newman

ttto: "Jingle Bell Rock" by by Joseph Carleton Beal and James Ross Boothe

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Hymn for a Festival of Sandcastles

Inspired by witnessing the creation and destruction of a traditional Tibetan sand painting, the Festival of Sandcastles is a fictional holiday that combines sand-castle building with the contemplation of time, change, and the impermanence of all things. We build our castles, then watch thoughtfully as the tide washes them away.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is an American folk-tradition which is a worn-down remnant of an older European tradition which, while not directly related, occupies the same slot in the year-wheel as the Celtic Imbolc. It's also a surreal movie in which Bill Murray plays a disaffected weatherman who must live the same day over and over. This song pulls the concept of the movie together with the themes of Imbolc — the turning of winter towards spring, the stirring of the frozen heart towards hope.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Dedication

A song that uses the story of Chanukah (which means "dedication") as a metaphor for any struggle to maintain one's sense of self and self-worth.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Cracked

A song about the lore of The Dark Crystal that reaches out to reference the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which is commemorated on Tisha B'Av. In Jewish mythology, the loss of the Temple represents the same kind of primordial cosmic catastrophe as the cracking of the Crystal — our holy place is cracked, the world is cracked, and so are we.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Circle Story

A loooooong pagan ballad telling a myth of the Wheel of the Year that ends where it begins.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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