The Shelayma Project presents · spring 2027 · a lake upstate
The Shelayma
Music Festival
Every night we have ever run, folded into one long weekend — in through a fire circle on Thursday night, out through a dawn on Sunday, with a full Shabbos and a stage show in between. Whole, from ember to amplifier to alos.
begin thursday nightMovement I · Thursday night · by the water
The Fire Circle
The festival opens the way the whole project did: one fire in a clearing by the lake, log seats in a ring, and the nigunim that only come out after dark. No stage, no schedule past this — the wood decides when Thursday ends. Sleep is Friday morning's problem; the lake forgives late risers.
Phones went into the basket at check-in. They come back Sunday. By the second niggun you'll have forgotten which pocket.
- 7:00Buses from Brooklyn · check-in · soup on arrival
- 9:30Hadlakah · the fire is lit, the circle finds its voice
- LateGechalim · embers, one voice, the walk back in the dark
Movement II · Friday · golden hour
The Spiritual Set
On the lawn, facing the water, while the light is still gold: the softest set of the weekend. Acoustic, wordless, unhurried — the nigunim that know where the sun is going. Your phone went into the basket at check-in; you're already lighter than you were on the thruway.
The set must end eighteen minutes before sunset. It always does — the last chord and the first candle share a minute.
- 3:00Check-in · phones to the basket · the lake is yours
- 5:40The Spiritual Set, on the lawn
- 7:13Candle-lighting · the amps go to sleep
Movement III · twenty-five hours
Shabbos itself
No instruments. Not less music — more. A tish that runs past midnight on voices alone, seudos that sing themselves, the deep hour Friday night when three hundred people find the same slow niggun without anyone starting it. Shalosh seudos in the last grey light, quieter than anything we could ever ticket.
Nothing on this screen moves through this stretch either. Even the page keeps Shabbos.
- NightTish till whenever · voices only
- DayDaven · eat · the lake again · sleep like you mean it
- LateShalosh seudos · the softest hour of the year
Three stars.
It's over. It isn't.
Movement IV · motzaei · the answer
THE SHOW
Havdalah on the main stage, house lights off, three hundred people holding one flame. The bracha ends, the flame hits the wick of the pilot light — and the wall of amps that kept Shabbos with us wakes up all at once. Full band. Horn section. Every niggun from the weekend, electrified into next week.
And when it's spent itself — one guitar, one slow niggun, three hundred hoarse voices. That's how all our nights end. That's the name on the door.
- 9:14Three stars · havdalah on stage
- 9:20First chord · earplugs were in your welcome bag
- 1:40Unplugged · the whole point, whispered
Movement V · 2 am · for whoever is still standing
Ad Alos
The amps cool. Most of the room floats off to bed, and the rest of us move to the small hall with the harmonium, the violin, and the slow rounds — music until the windows turn grey, the way our longest nights have always ended. Nobody leads. Nobody has to.
The festival has no closing ceremony. It has a sunrise.
- 2:00The small hall · harmonium, strings, the last nigunim
- 4:58Alos hashachar over the lake · coffee on the dock
- Sun.Breakfast · buses home · the week, but different
Spring 2027 · the list hears first
No tickets yet.
Just the list.
Three hundred places, one lake, and every night we've run until then is a rehearsal. When dates and the hotel are set, the list gets first right of refusal — same as always.
One email when it's real. Nothing else, ever.