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Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner
is the executive director
of Birthright Israel NEXT.
What is a blech? A blech is a device that looks Shabbat prohibitions in the face, smiles in a
sinister fashion, turns its back, and flips up a golf
shirt collar. It happens to be the one
word that will end a first date. True fact:
“Do you own a blech?” was mistakenly
asked by a young man in Columbus,
Ohio, to a newly observant young
woman, and she went off and married
one of the Gutbaum twins. Although
few rabbis are aware of this usage,
“blech” is often used as a safe word in S
& M dungeons. (Please don’t ask how I
know this.) Although sages have never agreed on a
single issue in Jewish life, they unanimously stated
in the Shulchan Hacham, “Who cares about the
word ‘blech’ If the thing keeps my kugel warm, I
don’t care what it is called.” But seriously, the blechs
of the Talmud were simply sheets of tin layered over
hot rocks kept burning by tiny lizards
running on treadmills. Today’s electric
blechs, like the Blechinator 4000, or the
digital masterpiece that is the Blech-o-
tron IV eschew lizards.
But honestly, the preferred blech of
the havurah movement is a layer of recycled Guatemalan license plates heated underneath by hash resin, chicken fat, and
oil from the back acne of a Jewish federation executive. Blechs are symbolic of the warmth of
traditional ritual and the fires of resentment that burn
underneath the yoke of halakhic observance. ■
Lost Sections of The Jewish Catalog
DANIEL S. BRENNER
Blechnology
Esther: Seymour, you’re
so hot for me tonight.
Seymour: How so?
Esther: Your shmekle
and tuchas feel so warm.
Seymour: It’s not your
new nightgown, Esther;
I accidentally sat on
the blech.”
How to: Create Your Own Denomination
ESTHER D. KUSTANOWITZ
Esther D. Kustanowitz
lives in Los Angeles, where
she might (or might not)
be involved in Stage #2.
She blogs at
MyUrbanKvetch.com,
JDatersAnonymous.com,
and Beliefnet, among
other places.
Outside Orthodoxy? Contra-Conservative? Reform- resistant? Revolting against Reconstructionism?
Congratulations: You’re engaging in a classic Jewish
struggle — the desire to define your Jewish identity
outside of denominational boxes.
There are four essential stages to creating your
own denomination.
1. Alienation: Extreme dissatisfaction with the
available denominations. Reading this? You’re sufficiently alienated to proceed to Stage #2.
2. Content and Consideration: How is your new denomination different from other denominations? What
will you call it? Consider adding a catchy prefix to previously existing streams of Judaism (“Neoformative”), or
scientific prefixes for geological street cred (“
Paleo-Or-thodox”). Or take something everyone likes (music) or a
culturally resonant concept (innovation) and meld it
onto an established denomination (“Musical Judaism,”
“Innovorthodoxy”). Feeling rebellious? Try insinuating
that your denomination has something the other denominations lack (“Ethical Judaism”). Your denomination’s name should be catchy and just radical enough to...
3. Inspire Fear: This is the easiest part, as Jews
traditionally fear everything new and suspect that it’s
here to destroy the Jewish people. Has your movement
been labeled a threat to Jewish continuity, or called a
“tool of assimilation”? Has another Jewish organiza-
tion sent out a fund-raising solicitation letter that de-
scribes your movement as “the largest challenge to
Jewish peoplehood since the Holocaust”? Good work;
you’re really onto something there.
