Birkat Hachamah: The Untold Dangers and Sinister Pratfalls

On Tuesday, April 8, we celebrate Birkat Hahama, the Blessing over the Sun. It's observed once every 28 years, when the sun reaches the exact location that it did when it was created.

Jews actually also recite a Blessing over the Moon, too. This occurs at night, of course, and it happens once every month -- and, for that reason, is not nearly as interesting and obscure and cool-sounding.

There might be another reason that we only celebrate Birkat Hahama once a generation, however. Check out the beginning of this article, wherein one rabbi is arrested by brave Policeman Foley -- in Tompkins Square Park, one of New York's punk-rock meccas, no less! -- and another, that tricky Rabbi Klein, flees the scene.

Candy gets covered

The open mic last night was insanely, smashably hit. The place was packed, both with performers and audience -- and we even had an open mic virgin come up at the end and ask if he could perform a song, which is how you know you're being inspiring. Danny Raphael, who's usually an M.C. of the highest order, was like "there's no mic? I don't mind" and blasted into an a capella set, over the course of which I didn't even miss the music. And then these wacky un-yeshiva boys came with their guitars and made a little soundtrack of their own. Yeah -- it was a good night. And I could actually eat the food, since it was kosher (and vegan!), which is always a nice change.

And I got an amazing note from Adam Luckwaldt, significant beau of last month's feature, who's wringing his own inner muse by the neck and making a comic a day. He'd read Candy in Action, listened to the soundtrack, and covered one of the songs (the one by Postal, Odin Smith, and me -- literally turned it into a comic.

Yay art. Yay collaboration. And yay -- continually -- Maurice Sendak.