By Toby Klein Greenwald
EFRAT, Israel — Raise Your Spirits Theatre, a multi-generational women’s theater company in Gush Etzion, an area that has suffered many terror attacks in recent weeks, is now in production on its 9th biblical musical, SISTERS! The Daughters of Tzelofchad, based on the story in Numbers, Chapter 27.
The story of the daughters of Tzelofchad is a powerful tale of five courageous sisters, whose father dies in the desert, and who come before Moses, and ask that they be given their father’s portion in the land of Israel, as there are no sons to inherit it. They ask, “Why should our father’s name be eliminated from his family because he had no son? Give us a portion along with our father’s brothers.”
It is about preserving their father’s name — his memory — and it is about loving the land of Israel. The Midrash says these women were righteous, smart and that they knew how to find and explain hidden meanings in the Torah.
Moshe refers the case to G-d Himself, who answers, “Ken Bnot Tzlofchad dovrot” – “the daughters of Tzelofchad speak correctly.” There is a remarkable dove-tailing here of G-d’s intention and the request of the five daughters, who are credited with having the law written via their request.
There are commentators who explain that the Hebrew word “vatikravna” – “they drew close,” to ask the question, also means they drew close to each other. So it is truly a story of sisterhood, which is also the story of Raise Your Spirits.
There is also a San Diego connection. One of the biblical scholars who the author (this writer) consulted and studied with during the writing of the show was Erella Yedgar, who taught Jewish Studies in San Diego during the years 1979-81.
In 2001, amidst an atmosphere of grief and terror, a group of women in Efrat, Gush Etzion, joined together to raise the spirits of their community and all of Israel. Rather than succumb to the depression caused by daily terror attacks, we decided to start a project that would give ourselves and our audiences a positive outlet and something wonderful to look forward to.
We began with the beloved Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Since then all our productions – on Esther, Noah, Ruth, Deborah and Avraham — have been original. We’ve performed for tens of thousands in Israel, and our shows been licensed by schools, camps and synagogues, mostly in North America, but one was performed in Mumbai, by a Christian man who does biblical street theater with impoverished children. Our shows were the first to give women and girls a platform for performance on a large scale, and many have gone on to direct, choreograph, sing, act and dance in other frameworks.
Raise Your Spirits receives almost no funding from government offices. For the first time, it is running a crowd-funding campaign this year to enable the company to produce a show of the high quality audiences have come to expect. All the music is the original work of Mitch Clyman, an Efrat resident whose clients include international media and entertainment companies, in addition to high end Israeli clients.
Now, more than ever, we are determined to fight terror with strength and courage, and to not let our enemies destroy our love of the land and our love of each other.
For more information, go to www.raiseyourspirits.org. Crowd-funding campaign at: http://jewcer.com/project/raise-spirits-across-israel-in-the-face-of-terror
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The author is editor-in-chief of WholeFamily.com, the artistic director of Raise Your Spirits Theatre and the author and director of SISTERS! The Daughters of Tzelofchad. She is the recipient of the Ministry of Education’s Egerest Award for Jewish Culture and Education.