Lipa jumps the fence, hijacks the mics, and turns the Super Bowl into a beis medrash

Client: Yeshiva Aderes Hatorah

Objective: Create a music video for their annual Super Seder campaign

Film locations: Yerushalayim and New Jersey

Project Deadline: Mid-January

The Kickoff

Eighteen years ago, it struck Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter of Yeshiva Aderes Hatorah, a yeshivah in Yerushalayim for post-high school bochurim, that the Super Bowl was a real distraction for his talmidim. Aside from the distraction of America’s annual pro-football championship game, there was the timing: the game started after 1 a.m. in Israel, and boys were up the whole night watching it, which affected the next day’s learning.

Rabbi Senter initiated what is now called Super Seder, an all-night, all-out learning seder with food and dancing, culminating in a pre-dawn walk to the Kosel for k’vasikin. The initiative saw great success, revolutionizing the night — and not just for Rabbi Senter’s talmidim. Hundreds of outsiders began to attend, and soon other places started their own similar programs. Meanwhile, Aderes Hatorah began running an annual campaign around the Seder. Five years ago, they asked us to make a video promoting the campaign, and we’ve been making Super Seder videos ever since.

Pregame

Yossie Friedman of Project Inspire is a good friend of the yeshivah, and in the summer he reached out on their behalf about this year’s project. He told us they want to use “Ani Kavati,” Aharon Razel’s song about how his role is just to stay in the beis medrash.

“Lipa Schmeltzer agreed to be part of a music video for the campaign,” Yossie continued. “He’ll be in Yerushalayim for Succos, and it’s an opportunity to get footage of him dancing with the bochurim. What do we need to have in place before you can come film?”

“We can discuss shot lists, but for a music video the most important thing will be the lip sync of the singer — a basic music track that we can play during the filming,” I told him. “When can you have that recorded?”

They were still working on the lyrics, Yossie said, so we made up to touch base once the song was finalized.