bn_songbook | Entries tagged with season

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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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 dandelion is sacred to Brigid, the Irish goddess of, well, a lot of things — home and hearth, fire and forge, meal and milk, bread and butter, spring and sprout, pool and poetry, well and wisdom and wit and words.

Some time ago I developed a dandelion blessing ritual in Her honor — an anointing ritual even, for it involves physically smushing a dandelion blossom onto one's forehead and hands, which leaves (on my skin, at least) a quite conspicuous yellow mark. Much later I would weave the text of that ritual into the form of a song.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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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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A song in praise of the Holy Spirit, Who I always feel is especially present when the apples are blooming.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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Based on the film Chocolat

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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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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A communion hymn in honor of Persephone, to be offered with a cup of pomegranate juice.

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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A suggestive love song from a flower to her pollinator, or (as we say) "the birds and the bees".

lyrics and music by Benjamin Newman

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lyrics and music by Ben Newman

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Ben's Songs

Entries tagged with season_spring

Yeyn Malchut Rav

Umi Yode'a Im L'et Kazot

Dandelion Blessing

The May Tricks

The Wind That Shakes the Apple Blossoms

The Priestess of Chocolate

Masquerade

Love Letter

In This Cup

Honeybird

Garden

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