Breaking Badatz: A Pesach Parody
Yishai, we have to bake!
Bonus post, in honor of Pesach. A gut yontif and a gut muyid!1
Outline
Outline
Premise
Main Characters
Episodes
Recurring Gags
Opening Credits (Voiceover, slow desert pan over Yerushalmi hills)
Episode 3: “Knead for Speed” — Scene Excerpt
TRAILER VOICEOVER
Episode 3 Continued – Scene 2
[Ad Break – Grainy VHS filter, upbeat klezmer music]
“PREVIOUSLY ON BREAKING BADATZ”
NEXT TIME ON BREAKING BADATZ — “The Seder Setup”
Season 2 Title
Tagline
Overview
New Characters
Plot Beats
Season 2 – Episode Titles
Promotional Poster Tagline
Season 3 Title
Tagline
Premise
Highlights
Premise
A formerly upstanding Badatz mashgiach named Velvel Weiss turns to underground shmura matza production to provide for his family after he’s blacklisted from the mainstream hashgacha cartel.
With the help of his wayward ex-student Yishai “Pinkas” Pinkowitz, they build an illicit matza empire in Meah Shearim.
Main Characters
Velvel Weiss (a.k.a. Eisenberg) – Formerly a respected dayan, now dons a black Borsalino and a blacker conscience. Specializes in 18-minute runs.
Yishai Pinkowitz (Pinkas) – Dropped out of Lakewood, knows his way around a wood-fired oven and a shtiebel.
Chaim "Cholent" Schraga – The muscle. Uses kugel bribery and knish threats to keep competition in check.
Reb Henoch Shreiber – Velvel’s shvoger, works for the Rabbanut kashrus enforcement agency. Getting suspicious.
Shaindy – Velvel’s long-suffering rebbetzin who just wants to sell tichels on Instagram.
“Gavri’el the Gabbai” – Handles the money laundering through synagogue aliyah auctions.
Episodes
Pilot – Velvel finds out his hashgacha is being downgraded. Begins underground shmura production with a torch, a roller, and a stopwatch.
“Chametz Bust” – Henoch raids a Pesach pop-up bakery, but Velvel narrowly escapes thanks to a decoy batch of 19-minute matzos.
“Knead for Speed” – They build an industrial matza oven in a mikveh basement. Mishaps ensue.
“The Mishna Trap” – Velvel uses obscure halachot from Pesachim to knock out the competition.
“Breaking the Zman” – A late bake threatens to ruin everything; Pinkas suggests fudging the zman by using Zmanim.com with a lenient zip code.
Recurring Gags
Velvel screaming “We’re fleishig now, Yishai!”
Disguises involving massive fake payos
Debates over machine vs hand matza turn violent
Every episode ends with “Baruch Dayan HaEmes” in slow fade-out
Opening Credits (Voiceover, slow desert pan over Yerushalmi hills)
Velvel Weiss (V.O., gruff, intense):
“Eighteen minutes. That’s all we get. After that… it’s chametz. That’s the rule. That’s the law. But what if we broke it? Not the halacha. Just... the system.”
[Cue dramatic oud music remix of “Dayeinu.” Smoke rises from a brick oven. Flash to black hat floating in a puddle of grape juice.]
ON SCREEN TEXT
Breaking
Badatz
Episode 3: “Knead for Speed” — Scene Excerpt
[INT. ABANDONED YESHIVA BASEMENT – NIGHT]
Velvel Weiss (covered in flour, sweating)
Yishai, how long has it been?!
YISHAI PINKOWITZ (checking a potato-clock)
Sixteen minutes twenty-eight seconds!
Velvel
That's too close. We need a faster shmira team. Where’s Shloimy?
YISHAI
He ran off! Said he has a chasuna in Har Nof!
Velvel (grabbing a rolling pin like a weapon)
We’re not making matza. We're making a statement.
YISHAI
What kind of statement?
Velvel (eyes blazing)
The Badatz cartel doesn’t own Pesach. We do. Now throw in another batch. L’shem matzas mitzvah.
TRAILER VOICEOVER
(deep, gravelly voice over ominous violin and siren mashup)
This Pesach...
One man will rise…
Against the hashgacha-industrial complex.They said he was pasul...
But he’s about to go mehadrin.From the creators of “Tevye: Origins” and “CSI: Beis Din”...
Comes the story of a Rav...
Who chose to ferment… chaos.Breaking Badatz.
Rated P for Pas Yisrael violence and graphic chumros.
Episode 3 Continued – Scene 2
[INT. YESHIVA BASEMENT – MOMENTS LATER]
[A KID bursts in panting, holding a big cardboard box.]
SHLOIMY
I got it! Twelve pounds of kemach yashan and a backup shmurah roller from Bnei Brak.
Velvel
What’s the hechsher?
SHLOIMY
Um… Machpoud?
[Everyone goes silent.]
Velvel (cold)
That’s not badatz. That’s barely rabbanut. You trying to get us shut down?
YISHAI (whispers)
He’s tweaking, man. He hasn’t slept since Shabbos afternoon.
[Velvel slams his hand down on a metal tray.]
Velvel
No more shortcuts. No more kulos. We bake clean. We bake strict.
[Smash cut to slow-mo montage: team kneading, rolling, shouting “לשם מצת מצוה!”, timer beeping. Then: oven door slams shut.]
[Title card: 00:17:59]
Velvel (whispers)
Just made it.
[Ad Break – Grainy VHS filter, upbeat klezmer music]
NARRATOR (cheerful, nasal voice):
“This episode of Breaking Badatz is brought to you by…”
KEMACH YASHAN™
Because waiting for next year’s wheat is this year’s mitzvah.
[Cut to smiling Litvish family eating dry matza in silence.]
MOTHER:
I used to use kemach chadash.
(canned gasp)
But then my mechutan found out.
FATHER:
Now it’s only Yashan. Like it says in the pasuk... somewhere.
NARRATOR:
Available in 50-lb sacks from your nearest Pesach panic bunker.
Kemach Yashan™—so old, it’s practically pre-Sinaitic.
“PREVIOUSLY ON BREAKING BADATZ”
(Over a thumping niggun beat and flashing images:)
Velvel Weiss (voice echoing): “Eighteen minutes. No more. No less.”
YISHAI: “These shmura guys are union. They won’t roll without double pay and cholent.”
Henoch (the Rabbanut agent): “We’ve got reports of unauthorized matza burns in Geula. Bring me everything with a hechsher.”
Shaindy (yelling): “I found flour in the urn, Velvel. Are we chametz now? Are we chametz?!”
[Cut to slow-motion matza being pulled from an oven. Someone whispers, “L’shem matzas mitzvah…”]
NEXT TIME ON BREAKING BADATZ — “The Seder Setup”
[INT. Velvel’S BASEMENT HQ — DARK, LOW LIGHTING]
YISHAI:
“Velvel… there’s a new Rov in town. And he’s selling ‘gluten-free’ shmurah. With a TikTok page.”Velvel:
“That’s not just chametz. That’s kefira.”[INT. RABBANUT ENFORCEMENT OFFICE – Henoch slams a box of matzos on a desk.]
HANK:
“These weren’t baked. They were cooked… in a pizza oven.”*[INT. MATZA TENT IN HAR NOF – masked bochurim roll dough like a cartel lab. A timer beeps.]
RANDOM YESHIVA GUY:
“We’ve got 30 seconds to flip these or they turn… Reform.”
Breaking Badatz: Season 1 – “Chametz Happens”
"Bishul Yisroel"
Velvel loses his hashgacha. Yishai introduces him to the matza underworld."The Eighteen Minute Rule"
They run their first bake in a mikveh basement. Someone forgets to make the beracha."Knead for Speed"
A batch runs late. Velvel builds a timer from a digital watch and a havdalah candle."Chametz Lab"
They convert an old tzimmer into a rolling station. An explosion ruins a kugel."Zman is Money"
A rival matza gang manipulates zmanim using a controversial GPS location."Lashon Hara"
Rumors spread. Velvel delivers a fiery drasha that doubles as a threat."Matza Mafia"
Velvel meets the Sephardi kingpin of soft matza. The crust wars begin."The Chametz Sting"
Henoch sets a trap at a fake Pesach fair. Shloimy goes missing in Bnei Brak."Bedikat Mayhem"
The team scrambles to clear evidence. Velvel does bedikas chametz with a flamethrower."Seder Finale"
Everything explodes—metaphorically and literally—just as the first cup is poured.
Season 2 Title
“Yontif. Hard Time.”
Tagline
He baked for redemption. Now he’s praying for parole.
Overview
After the catastrophic Seder-night raid, Velvel Weiss is arrested and held in solitary—allowed only Shnayim Mikra and no kugel. Meanwhile, Yishai Pinkowitz tries to rebuild the empire with a rogue Yemenite shmura crew in Bat Yam, while dodging both the Rabbanut and a new player: an ultra-modern Orthodox startup making 3D-printed matza with AI-generated halachic rulings.
As Pesach Sheni looms, Velvel plots his comeback—with a revolutionary plan: gebrochts-free sourdough. But the system is watching. And this time, the zman might really run out.
New Characters
Rav Tzadok “the Zohar” Ben-Chorin – A kabbalist/psychopath with a monopoly on shmurah water drawn at midnight from Ein Gedi.
Avital the Algorithm – CTO of Koshr.AI, an app threatening to automate all kashrus supervision.
Judge Bruria Mizrahi – No-nonsense court judge with a dark past involving kitniyot.
Shaindy “the Schnitzel” Weiss – Shaindy’s cousin. Runs a pesachdik MLM empire out of Tzfat.
Plot Beats
Velvel gives a shiur in jail that becomes a viral TorahPod hit.
A prison riot breaks out after a debate on quinoa.
Pinkowitz stages a flash bake in Dizengoff Square.
Someone sells out to the OU.
The final episode ends with Velvel staring at a single piece of chametz… and smiling.
Season 2 – Episode Titles
"Chametz & Punishment"
Velvel adjusts to prison life. Teaches maseches Pesachim in exchange for favors."Kosher.n0"
Koshr.AI is launched. Yishai suspects it’s run by non-Jews. Or worse—Modern Orthodox."Gebrochts Warfare"
A prison gang bakes kneidlach on Erev Shabbos. Velvel retaliates."Pesach Sheni"
Pinkowitz tries a comeback with matza labeled "Second Chance Series™"."Zohar Protocol"
Velvel gets into kabbalah. Starts referring to baking steps as "sefiros""Beyt Din or Bust"
Velvel pleads his case to a beis din. They care more about his beard length."The Hechsher Deal"
OU offers to buy Velvel out. In exchange, he must sell to Costco."Seder Behind Bars"
Velvel organizes a full Seder in prison. It ends in a mass escape."Afikoman Wars"
Pinkowitz’s and Rav Zohar’s followers clash over whose matza is more redemptive."Ma Nishtana Forever"
Final showdown at dawn. Velvel faces his greatest enemy: his own son, now a Chabad shaliach.
Promotional Poster Tagline
“This year, freedom isn’t just from Egypt.”
(Image: Velvel in tzitzit and orange jumpsuit, holding a matza like a ninja star.)
Season 3 Title
“Counting the Omer: Days of Leaven and Fire”
Tagline
Every day counts. Every mistake rises.
Premise
Post-escape, Velvel Weiss is on the run—wandering from Tzfas to Teaneck, avoiding Rabbanut bounty hunters and Omer calendar snitches. As he lays low with fringe Karaites in Qumran, he begins to plot his most ambitious project yet: a line of leavened matzot for Shavuot, claiming to fulfill the mysterious shtei halechem offering—rebranded as Artisan Omer Loaves™.
Meanwhile, Yishai is back in Yerushalayim, now a semi-legit mashgiach with PTSD and a food truck. But he’s drawn back in when a rogue cult—The Yeast Ascendants—begins targeting major kashrus agencies with sourdough bombs.
And counting the omer? It’s not just a mitzvah anymore. It’s a ticking clock.
Highlights
Episode 3: Velvel undergoes a 49-day spiritual purification regimen. Day 32 breaks him.
Episode 5: The Beit Din declares Velvel chashud al hachametz. He declares halachic bankruptcy.
Episode 7: Rav Zohar opens an illegal flour mill in the Temple Mount tunnels.
Finale: The Omer ends. Velvel reappears on Har HaBayit in all-white, claiming to be ready for Bikurim.
Outro
This piece is a Breaking Bad parody. Composed with hashba’as kolmus, siyata d’shemaya, and ChatGPT.
The initial version was shared in the private Facebook group “Yeshivish Satire” (original post here).
In my view, ChatGPT-4 has become remarkably skilled at satire. This parody is essentially drawn directly from its output, with only minimal edits on my part—mainly adjusting names, tweaking transliteration conventions, and refining formatting.
For context, see my earlier piece:
“Melitza in the Digital Age: Experiments in Generating a Pastiche Mixing Zoharic Aramaic, Rabbinic Hebrew, and Modern Hebrew, with Artificial Intelligence”, which includes additional bibliography on my work with parody and pastiche.
As a side note: Claude AI continues to outperform other AI chatbots in generating melitza-style text. I first noted this a year ago in “Claude 3 vs. ChatGPT-4: A Comparative Review”, and that assessment still holds.
The image was created using ChatGPT-4’s latest text-to-image model, with only minimal post-processing. This latest text-to-image model is very capable. You can view the original image and prompt here.