Flowers, birds, and butterflies
Puffball clouds in robin’s-egg skies
Wind rustling through tall green trees
Silver reflection of the sun on the sea
Was this all created
So I can just Sit And Learn all day?
I refuse to believe it.
Roaring waves and salt-air smell
Miles of sand and surf and shells
The deep orange red of the rising moon
The notes on the scale and a catchy tune
Was this all created
So I can lock myself away?
I refuse to believe it.
I refuse to believe in a system that holds
That there’s only one way to nurture your soul
That there’s only one way to be spiritual
And that’s performing all the prescribed rituals
I refuse to believe it
And I refuse to believe in it.
The dogs, the cats, the ducks, the squirrels
A beautiful smile on a pretty girl
The cicadas’ buzz, the fireflies’ flash
The fresh-fallen rain, the distant thunder crash
Was all this created
For me to wear a black hat?
I refuse to believe it.
The colors in the spectrum or in a brilliant sunrise
The look of love in a little child’s eyes
Rivers, mountains, waterfalls
Frogs’ and crickets’ chirps and calls
Was all this created
So I can be a theocrat?
I refuse to believe it.
I refuse to believe that the world was created
So the beauty within it should be denigrated
So that the ultimate thing to which we all should aspire
Is to sit and study until the day we expire
I refuse to believe it
And I refuse to believe in it.
The gifts of writing and use of words
That are formed into lyrics that leave the soul stirred
Of music composed and meant to be heard
That reach for the heart and touch raw nerves
Were all these given to me
So I can ignore them?
I refuse to believe it.
A musician’s ear and an artist’s eye
Imagination in abundant supply
A photographic memory for numbers
Sharpened senses of aesthetics and wonder
Were all these given to me
So others can deplore them?
I refuse to believe it.
I refuse to believe that the whole world exists
Just for me to become an accomplished talmudist
Or that one way is for me and the rest is for others
Just how many like me has this system smothered
Well I won’t be demeaned and I won’t be guilted
Into swallowing this line that is at best stilted
I won’t accept the creative paraplegia
Imposed on me by those who run the yeshivas
I refuse to believe it
And I refuse to believe in it.
Oh yes I refuse to believe it
And I will never believe in it.
©2024 The Hesh Inc.
This song is my flip-off to the entire yeshiva establishment, which takes people with creative minds that think outside the box and does its best to mash them into a narrow little container, from which the only view out is in black and white. They tried doing that to me. Thank G-d, they failed. I am not like that, I never was like that, and so help me I never will be.
Mind you, this is not about the Torah or the learning thereof. I have utmost respect for those who genuinely study Torah of their own volition and desire—they help uphold the spiritual welfare of the Jewish people. It is just about the conformist society that was artificially constructed around such learning, which denigrates anything and everything outside of its own bubble.
I wrote the lyrics in the early 2000s while living at the Jersey Shore. There was no specific incident or news item that triggered it; only a look back at my own experiences in that world. No music yet.