Mitzvah dance, with Moishe Kapoyer
Did the patchke kazatzke and glitched across the room
The Yiddish got skittish and sneezed their way to tshuva
And yutzmach shvitzachs all the way to shul
The Daven Haven has got a band playing
The guitar goes greng, the drums go zetz
All the local yokels are inside farbrenging
To the sounds of Nisht Geferlach and his clarinets
So Yanki the Flanki is telling his gelechter
While Yossel the Muscle is showing off his strength
Shaya the Flyer flaunts his money to the rebbetzin
And Moishe Kapoyer gets the floor the clap at length
All the assorted tipshim make the scene by just a tenth.
The one-way sign outside the shul points up to shamayim
And the sign outside the Haven seems to point somewhere else
The yeshivish get peevish and pasken everything assur
But the bochurs can’t resist and go see it for themselves
The rosh yeshiva makes his brief announcements after shachris
“If I hear of anyone going there it’s a broch and uchen vay!”
But come motzei Shabbos they line up for bitulmania
Though they know full well they’ll be arois the next day
They’re looking for escape and they’ve finally found a way.
Well, Nisht Geferlach is wailing out his klezmer
While Simmy Shmendrix is fardreying his guitar
The trombeiniks and the poikers are klopping out a tummul
Moishe says “whoever doesn’t like this is a shoiteh and a naar!”
And all the kalte Litvaks have got no rhythm
But the Hungarian Barbarians dance the csardas in the hall
The foolhardy Sephardi calls this all majnouni
And the Ashkenazi paparazzi make sure to catch it all
All the assorted mishagoyim hit the bar for last call.
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
Scenes from a Hasidic roadhouse in Yiddish/Hebrew/English/Arabic macaronic verse, this is a Yiddish/yeshivish version of Bruce Springsteen's "Bishop Danced," written while that song was still only available as a bootleg. I wrote this on the boardwalk in Long Branch in 1990, right about the time my first marriage went belly up and I moved to the Jersey Shore for the first time. The world I left behind in Boston—that of a straitlaced Orthodox synagogue-going family man—was getting mishkebobbled up with the Jersey Shore rocker I was aiming to become. (The scene portraying the rabbinical objection to the party described in the second verse is based on an actual event—the New Year's Eve gig I played on December 31, 1983.) Never recorded or performed.
GLOSSARY
arois=out of here
assur=prohibited, forbidden
bitul=wasted time, usu. at the expense of Torah learning
bochurs=male yeshiva students
broch=disaster
farbrenging=enjoying themselves
fardreying=noodling
gelechter=guffaw-inducing jokes
glitch=slip, slide
greng=power chord
kalte Litvaks=cold (i.e., tone-deaf and emotionless) Lithuanians
kazatzke=Russian dance
klopping=banging around
majnouni=insane
mishagoyim=crazies
moishe kapoyer=someone who does everything backwards
motzei Shabbos=Saturday night
naar=fool
nisht geferlach=no problem, no worries
pasken=to make a legal decision according to Jewish law
patchke=mess around
poiker=drummer, banger
rebbetzin=female significant other (lit. rabbi's wife)
rosh yeshiva=dean of a religious school, chief authority figure
shachris=morning prayer
shamayim=heaven
shoiteh=idiot
shul=synagogue
shvitzachs=sweat
tipshim=dolts
trombeinik=someone who blows his own horn
tshuva=repentance (sounds like a sneeze when spoken quickly)
tummul=tumult
uchen vay=unenviable position
yeshivish=fervently-orthodox Jews of the Lithuanian academic persuasion
yutzmach=bonehead
zetz=drum hit; see klopping