At the end of my second and final year at a well-known musical theatre conservatory in midtown Manhattan, our program held what people in the theatre business call “an industry night.” One by one, in front of an audience of casting directors, agents, managers and talent scouts, my classmates and I performed a short selection from a musical – either by ourselves or with a partner and, as is usually the case with these kinds of events, not much else. There was a piano, of course, but no scenery – maybe a suggestion of costume, or lighting – but the large Broadway stage on which we performed was intimidatingly empty. Like a company of actors waiting for the reviews to slowly dribble in following opening night, we waited, in between classes of course, for our cell phones to ring the following day. The invited industry professionals mostly likely knew within seconds of our appearance on stage whether they were interested in one of us as a client, or to fill a role in an upcoming show, but it took almost twenty four painstakingly slow hours for many of them to pick up a phone and let us in on the secret. The power was in their hands, the choice was theirs and since many industry professionals are former actors, though they rarely admit it, they had once been in our shoes, no doubt enjoyed the role reversal and took a great deal of pleasure in provoking some anxiety amongst a group of green and alright, desperate acting students. (For those of you out there wondering how an actor could possibly drop showbiz dreams and decide to pursue a career as a Rabbi, there’s your answer. I’m sure I can’t imagine any power play or anxiety provoking scenarios in my chosen career.)
As it turned out, that day, I left my cell phone at home. I don’t remember doing it consciously. Maybe the insecure part of me wasn’t counting on a phone call. More likely part of me was terrified of the reality awaiting me in the professional world and was trying to postpone the inevitably harsh realities of the acting business for a few more hours. While my friends chatted excitedly over lunch about calls from Fox Television, MTV or Disney casting, or the Actors Theatre of Bismarck, North Dakota (maybe not so excitedly in the last case), I tried my best to get through the day and not to think about what may or may not await me later that evening. I enjoyed school tremendously and classes proved an excellent distraction. I went home.
I had two voice mails. One came from a rather shady and notoriously overcrowded agency – a friend of a friend of a friend, actually and no great surprise; the other from an assistant at one of the few casting agencies that cast Broadway musicals. My interest piqued and my heart pounding, I returned the phone call. “There’s this new show headed for Broadway after an out-of-town tryout in San Francisco,” the casting assistant told me, “based on a movie, based on a novel (aren’t they all these days) called The Mambo Kings, the story of two brothers who leave Cuba for America in the 1950s, hoping to hit the top of the Latin music scene and there’s a role open that’s just perfect for you.”
“You must be joking”, I said. I didn’t want to press my luck, but the image of me in a sombrero playing the maracas wasn’t exactly the Broadway dream I had in mind.
“No, really”, she insisted, “along the way they meet this adorably dorky Jewish kid who plays a mean drum set and he ends up playing in their band.” Now this was more like it.
“Great,” I said. “There’s only one problem. I don’t really dance.” Now, you should know that this was a particularly risky move on my part and in truth one my greatest anxieties about entering the world of musical theatre was my lack of ability in jazz shoes. Though character actors can sometimes get work on Broadway without a dance background, and let’s be honest – Motel the Tailor was a more realistic goal for me than Billy Bigelow or Tony in West Side Story, a triple threat usually beats a double threat even in a non-dancing role.
“No problem,” she answered, “not a dancing role.”
The following week I found myself singing 16 measures of an old favorite of mine from “She Loves Me,” in front of one of the most widely regarded and influential casting directors in the business. My conservatory program would not even end for another three months. Perhaps, because I believed I had nothing to lose, perhaps because the intimidating reality of the business hadn’t really gotten to me, or maybe because it was simply meant to be, the reaction was so positive that this time I only had to wait an hour for the next phone call. Plans were set in motion, meetings were set up with a potential agent, and I was given a copy of the script to study. After another audition with the director, musical director and associate producer, it became clear to me that the role was mine to lose – in other words, they were considering no one else, and as long as I could replicate my audition once more for the producers there would be no job applications submitted to local bars and restaurants for me. At least, not for a while.
I read the script. The casting assistant’s depiction of the role proved pretty accurate, but there were some omissions. During the course of the show the character sparks a romantic relationship with a Cuban immigrant. I didn’t bother to ask if she was Jewish or if the character’s mother had any reservations about her son dating outside the faith. There were a few Jewish jokes. Nothing surprising. When the band members gather for the first time and discover their potential they set a rehearsal schedule and agree on a date for their debut at a local club. They just happen to settle on Friday night. “But it’s the Shabbos,” protests the loveable dorky Jew. The group glares back at him. “OK! OK!” he concedes. On the surface – a harmless rehash of Jewish stereotypes. What did I expect?
What ultimately becomes apparent, however, is that the character, whose name escapes me, faces a very difficult choice over the course of the piece. Since no possibility existed of maintaining his Jewish identity or of integrating his observance and his secular musical dreams, remember – this is a man who not only portrays certain aspects of the culture of Yidishkite but also commits himself to a certain level of religious observance, he slowly abandons his Judaism in order to fit in with his friends. While he moves out of his mother’s house, gets a new hair cut, and runs off to “join the circus” so to speak, his identity crisis is neither acknowledged nor addressed at any point during the show. It is simply taken as a matter of fact – in order for him to be successful, in order for the band to be successful, in order to fit in with the cool kids he admires and longs to be, he must give up his Jewish identity. He has no choice.
A few days later, the casting director called and informed me that my final audition would contain an additional element. The show’s choreographer, concerned that I may not have the skills to participate in full cast musical numbers, needs to get a feel of how I move on stage. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how the end of the story played out. Unfortunately for me, it involved a thirty minute dance audition with a five piece band that the choreographer brought in specifically for me (as if the ten people watching me weren’t enough to throw me off). Needless to say, the power dynamics shifted again, the choice to struggle with the difficult implications of accepting the role were taken out of my hands (I could just imagine the conversation with my Rabbi – I grew up in a very strong Conservative Jewish community and was still very close to him. As a matter of fact, theatre was a passion we shared). The promises of signing with an agent, of readings, exclusive invitations to future auditions never materialized. As quickly as they fell in love with me, they forgot me. That’s just show business I guess. However, I can never forget the seemingly ignored inner struggle of that loveable Jewish drummer.
Let me be perfectly clear. Even though as a Rabbinical student, I belong to a relatively self-selecting, observant, and at times, I admit, idealistic Jewish community, I have no illusions about the challenges of maintaining a Jewish identity and especially a Jewish religious practice in present-day America. The Jewish people have been struggling with such issues since the Greeks conquered the land of Israel more than two thousand years ago.
Today is no different. What endears us to our society and to our country is the same promise of success, the same uniquely American dream that inspired two Cuban Brothers to come to America in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos. And of course, what we treasure most about this country is our freedom to choose. What started out as a promise of freedom to chose our religion, to elect our own representation to government, and the economic freedom and social freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness has evolved sometimes rapidly, and sometimes all too slowly over the last century or so. Though we debate over the extent of our freedom to choose, and who in our society has the freedom to chose certain things, the events and images broadcast from our nation’s capital over the last few months and, in particular, from a large mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue, remind how far we have come in ensuring that the freedom of choice and of what or whom to chose is a universal right. As we watch history unfold, we remind our children, and ourselves of those prophetic words “Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
I must confess however, that an equally powerful journey to freedom has captured my attention over the last few weeks. שלח את עמי ויעבדני, Send forth my nation so that they may worship me, said our ancestor Moshe Rabeinu, and with a familiar promise of freedom, the newly formed nation of Israel marched out of Egypt on their way to Sinai. But the freedom to worship God secured thousands of years ago came with a promise on our part – so that they may worship me, God tells Moses who in turn informs Pharaoh. As we read in this morning’s Torah portion, the burdens of freedom can be costly. The gold and silver salary paid retroactively to the slaves of Israel by their Egyptian neighbors as they hurried toward the exit signs and onto the desert highway soon changed owners again as the people donated their newly claimed riches to build the Tabernacle.
So it is with own worship today. Our Judaism calls on us constantly to sacrifice a little of the riches we have earned, both riches of time and of resources, and we worry – is our commitment to Judaism infringing on those cherished values, that sacred freedom to chose that binds us together as Americans?
Right or wrong, for today’s young Jews and, I suspect, even more so for the next generation, it is no longer enough to inherit your Jewish identity. Tradition must compete with an overwhelming marketplace of stimulants and yes, of choices, in our hyperactive digitally centered world. We have been taught the value of exercising our free will at a moment’s notice, whether we are accessing a particular song from the entire music library that fits in our pockets or, where to spend our Friday night or Saturday morning or who to surround ourselves with socially. If our particular brand of Judaism will endure, it will endure because we have empowered Jews to choose Judaism as the lens through which we examine this increasingly complicated world. They will choose it not only because it defines who we are and where we come from but also because living a life of Torah speaks precisely to the challenges of living in a free society. It cherishes the idea of freedom but provides a responsible framework that commits us to a moral and ethical life. A life of slavery not only denied our ancestors in Egypt the freedom to chose, but it also denied us them the basic building blocks of a just society. God granted us freedom, but also gave us the Torah to as a potent antidote to the cruel and perverted social and legal structures of Pharaoh and his taskmasters.
Thank God we no longer live marginalized in ghettos. We live in relative peace with our neighbors at home, and are given ample opportunities to participate in the great project of this country as equals. Thank God for the promise of living in freedom, for a diverse culture of music, and literature, for the wealth of faith communities around us that also live by the words, love you neighbor as yourself. And thank God too for the convenience of iPhones, personal computers, shopping malls and megaplex movie theatres that grant us the freedom to chose at a moments notice where we go and what we do next.
But let us also not become slaves of instant gratification. Let us not forget the wonders of creation, the obligations we have to the poor and the sick, to our families and to our heritage. Let us not become slaves to our culture, but instead let us be guided by the wisdom of our Torah and the warmth and loving embrace of God’s love for his people.
Dr. Arnold Eisen, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary writes in his book, Taking Hold of Torah, “[t]he question is how many Jews can be persuaded to take advantage of what America has put on offer: a synthesis of spirit as rich as the world has known, a commitment treasured all the more because Jews have chosen it of their own free will.” It is no accident that the Board of Directors at JTS selected not a Rabbi but a Professor of Sociology to lead our movement through this critical period in our history. I chose JTS and Conservative Judaism precisely because I believe that the answer lies not in ignoring the world around us, but in acknowledging it, embracing it, engaging with it, and reframing how our Jewish identities can live alongside our secular American ideals. Many times these value systems agree, but often they conflict. As a future Rabbi, I look forward to conversations about the former and the latter. I welcome the challenge of helping Jews define themselves in both worlds and recognize that ignoring one in favor of the other will only perpetuate the mistakes that have caused many Jews to leave our faith altogether.
The Mambo Kings opened to mostly negative reviews in San Francisco and ultimately, the Broadway production was postponed and later cancelled. In his review of the out-of-town tryout, the AP theatre critic pointed out that while the songs were disappointing, the most troublesome aspect of the show was the script. In particular, he wrote, the secondary love story between a Jewish member of the band and a beautiful and sweet local Cuban immigrant proved distracting. Finally, he noted, the portrayal of the young Jewish drummer was so stereotypical and so shallow it bordered on anti-Semitism. Not having seen the show, I cannot say for sure whether his comments were justified. Perhaps, what made this particular subplot of the show so troubling was not the ill-fated attempts at humor (and indeed, these characters, absent from book or movie were clearly added for comic effect), but the fact despite the humor, a real struggle was taking place for this young musician, a struggle that merits serious attention. Of course, maybe all he needed was a good Rabbi.
Shabbat Shalom.