Monsa Monster

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue," the Proverb teaches. In this midrash-inspired monsa, the parts of the body are caught in a power struggle to determine where real human power lies.

The great Chaver Paver created the king of all underdogs — Labzik — in 1935. Here, Chance Bone reads a new translation of this classic Yiddish story accompanied by his own original music.

In our second tale by Y. L. Peretz, Chaim, a hardworking street porter, may not know much about the holy books but he is eager to take comfort in the hope of heavenly reward. But is the promise of divine bliss all that it can be?

A super sanctimonious cat tries to find the best way to deliver the sinful canaries of the world from evil — with murderous results. A Y. L. Peretz classic, written in 1893.

In a classic tale from Poland, Rachel, a young woman of profound intelligence, solves a series of riddles that take her far beyond her humble origins and into the ranks of nobility... with some puzzling results.

When Morris the fishmonger and Minnie the hat seller fall in love, Morris comes up with a wedding plan designed to deliver the very best for his beloved bride-to-be . . . with unexpected consequences.

Sholem Aleichem's young hero Motl gets involved in a get-rich-quick scheme that leaves the neighborhood in an uproar. From Aliza Shevrin's translation of Motl the Cantor's Son, by Sholem Aleichem. Read by Hershey Felder.

The famed wise men of Chelm enter the world of commerce and learn the truth behind Emily Dickinson's poem: “Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul/ And sings the tune without the words/ And never stops at all.”