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# Talmud
- URL: https://www.jewsrock.org/talmud/
- Published: 2005-08-25T00:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2005-08-25T00:00:00.000Z
- Author: JewsRock
- Tags: Words, #Import 2026-08-16 01:56, Essays

*By Mark Caro*

(Reprinted with permission from Passing Stone magazine)

It’s Saturday night at the packed Mogen David Center, and the Havdalah candles are swaying in the air.

"Tal-Mud! Tal-Mud! Tal-Mud!"

The faithful are chanting requests over the din:

"Tallit Like It Is!"

"Dock of the Bagels!"

"Kabbala-la-Love You!"

"We 'Kabbala-la-Love You,’ too!" Rabbi Eleazar Preslamowitz calls back from the stage, flicking his upper lip into his trademark sneer and wiping his sweaty brow with a rhinestone-studded yarmulke. He flings the yarmulke into the female half of the audience, where it’s devoured like the last latke at a Hanukkah party for chozzers.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Moishe Springstein whirls toward his bandmates, waves his mezuzah-shaped guitar pick in the air and counts it off: "Echad, schteim…echad, schteim, shalosh, arbah!"—and immediately the band, the crowd and the room itself are davening as one as Preslamowitz croons, "That’s All Right, Matzah!"

Yes, Talmud is in da house.

Who’d have thunk this scholarly minyan of rockin’ rabbis would still be around after so long? Then again, who would’ve ever doubted them?

Let’s face it: Talmud has been with us forever.

So it was, at long last, that yours truly, a longtime Talmudic scholar, got to meet the objects of his devotion as they sat backstage before the show, chillin’ and kvellin’, while waiting for the sun to set. The dozen current bandmates were munching little bitty squares of lox on little bitty bagels, as their contract required the auditorium to provide, though Rabbi Nigel Gelfilte, one of the relatively newer members, garrumphed, "You never can get the lox to fit perfectly on the bagels. You have to keep folding it."

Still, the members were in a reflective mood, willing and eager to delve into their endless history, even at the risk of becoming lost in the arcania that is…Talmud.

Passing Stone: So when did it all begin?

Rabbi Moishe Springstein: Oysh, who can really say?

Rabbi Chaim Yorman: That’s a big question.

Rabbi Menachem Jagger: It’s like asking, "When did the sun first come up, and before it came up where was it?"

Rabbi Shlomo Diddley: And what was it doing?

Rabbi Buddy Challah: But I think most people became familiar with us after the single "Shma Sharona."

Rabbi Eleazar Preslamowitz: Yeah, when people think of the birth of Talmudic rockers, they think of the 5710s.

PS: Of course, that’s when you had your legendary appearance on "The Ed Culligan Show."

(The Talmud members nod their heads together, going, "Mmmm.")

Diddley: My man Eleazar here was davening so rhythmically to "Don't Be Verklempt," they only showed him from the waist down.

Preslamowitz: Still, they had us back often enough. What else did we do on there?

Yorman: "Brisket on Home to Me."

Springstein: "One Last Knish."

Jagger: "Latke Largo."

PS: Then there was the incredibly successful album and stage show West Bank Story, a musical tale of forbidden love. I still think one of your most haunting tunes is "The World Is a Shtetl."

Challah: That album gave us a bunch of instant standards: "Stand By Your Manischevitz," "Kipah Pa Don’t Preach"…

Yorman: And don’t forget "Bertha Kibbutz Boogie."

Challah: How could anyone ever forget "Bertha Kibbutz Boogie"?

(Everyone laughs.)

PS: But "Bertha Kibbutz Boogie" raises a serious point: Talmud has always boasted an incredible amount of range. Who else could go from the bubblegum of "Meshuga Shuga" to a 25-minute epic like "In-Haggadah-Da-Vida"?

Rabbi Nigel Gelfilte: Oh, I love the 6-minute Jew’s harp solo on that one.

PS: And after a catchy ditty like "Kishke on the Bus," you come back with an ornate, thematically ambitious concept album like Oz Moses.

Springstein: Look, we’ve got a lot of rabbis and a lot of ways to rock, nu?

Rabbi Immanuel Cantor: I particularly consider Oz Moses to be a high water mark, with its powerful narrative about the title character’s Exodus to a strange land, where he celebrates "Mishnah at the Oasis."

Diddley: I never understood that bit about the wizard, though.

Preslamowitz: Me neither.

Challah: But don’t forget, that album launched rock's Oy! movement.

Jagger: Oh, sure. That’s where band Midnight Mohel came from.

Preslamowitz: Self-righteous Aussie bastards.

(The bandmates laugh and slap each other high fives.)

Jagger: My favorite song from that period was "Puttin’ on the Mitzvah." Probably because it was a smash.

Springstein: You always kept one eye on the charts.

Jagger: Someone had to.

PS: Of course, then came the epic Ark of a Davener album, which included the pleading "Tell Her, Noah" and the climactic "It's Raining Menorahs!"

Challah, Jagger and Preslamowitz (in unison): "Hallelujah!"

(They dissolve in giggles.)

Diddley: Wasn’t "Midrash Train to Georgia" on that one, too?

Cantor: No, that was Shabbat out of Hell.

Diddley: Oh, Christ, of course.

PS: May I just say that I’ve studied Shabbat out of Hell perhaps most of all? I find that album’s centerpiece, "Paradise by the Eternal Light," to be transcendent.

Springstein: Oh, yeah, that was a good 'un.

Challah: You know who did the play-by-play on that one, the part where they’re "going all the way" to nirvana?

PS: Who?

Challah: Al Sharpton.

PS: You’re yankin’ my T’fillin!

Challah: Swear to Adonai. He was a closet Talmud fan.

PS: But I’d like to get back to the question about your stylistic range. You cranked up the power riffs on "Friday Night’s Alright for Shabbat" and "Highway to Hillel," and then you went through that dance phase.

Jagger: Are you referring to "The Macaroona"?

Cantor: That and "Hora with No Name," I bet.

Springstein: I’d throw "Ballroom Blintz" in there, too.

Gefilte (singing to himself): "Are you ready Moishe? Uh-huh. Shlomo? Yeah. Menachem? OK. All right fellas. Let’s gooooooooo!"

PS: And you really got your groove on with "Kosher Thing (Do Whatcha Gotta Do)."

Preslamowitz: Look, we like to study. We like to get down. It’s as simple as that.

PS: We haven’t talked about your most uncharacteristic album: Talmud Flaps.

(There’s much muttering among the bandmates.)

Diddley: The less said about Talmud Flaps, the better – know what I’m sayin’?

Yorman: Next question.

PS: OK. You have thrived in all sorts of times: repressive, permissive, war time, peace time. How do you explain your longevity?

Springstein: The times change, but the basic lessons, the basic stories remain the same, and the more you go back to them, the more you can get out of them. Whether you’re rolling in the riches or getting beaten like bitches, you’ll always get something out of a cautionary tale like "Change the Lox," a lament like "Torah Hole (in My Heart)" or the simple confessional "You Make Me Shiva."

(At this point Talmud’s road manager, a 6-foot-5, 320-lb. gentleman named Phat Schmaltz, enters the green room.)

Phat: Hey, fellas, that third star is up in the sky. Time to get those candles lit and those tocheses moving.

A candle-lighting, a splash of wine (the finest kosher Pinot Noir I’ve ever tasted) and a few playful tallit whips to the tushie later, I’m back in the auditorium, a fan and worshipper once again, as Talmud continues to turn live rock into a religious experience.

Evidence of the band’s never-abating powers can be heard everywhere, from the way Diddley’s spiky guitar leads add teeth to Springstein’s biting delivery of "You Don’t Seder," to the fist-pumping anthemic finale "Shul’s Out." They perform their two "Shalom" songs: the wistful "Shalom Again (Naturally)" and playful "Shalom Shalom" ("You say 'Shalom,’ and I say 'Shalom’/Shalom Shalom/I don’t know why you say 'Shalom,’ I say 'Shalom’").

When Talmud returns for its final encore, everyone knows what song is coming, yet we still feel its force anew. We lock arms around shoulders and raise our voices together as only the righteous can do, projecting our song from the Mogen David Center to the heavens: "Na na na na-na-na-na/Na-na-na-na/Hey Jew."

---

*Mark Caro is an author and host of the Caropop podcast, and a former Chicago Tribune reporter. This essay originally ran under the joke byline “Ben Fong-Torahs.”*