“Mendel’s Messiah” (previously entitled, “Rabboni”) opens with Mendel Moskowitz, our Jewish “Everyman,” alone in his apartment in Brooklyn. He prays to God, “If You’ll show me the road to follow, I will shoulder the load for You. I will shoulder the load when I’m weary. It will cheer me to follow You.”
Not getting an immediate answer to his prayers, he sits in his easy chair and falls asleep. What then unfolds is a fantastical journey! He is transported in dreams back in time to Ancient Jerusalem where he meets Yeshua and the Disciples, as well as the buffoonish Beelzebub and the Demons.
A dramatic, sometimes hilarious battle between good and evil ensues not only for Mendel but also between Yeshua and Beelzebub. Yeshua is triumphant over Beelzebub, death and hell, and Mendel triumphs over the darkness of unbelief.
In the process, like “The Screwtape Letters,” with the epic quality of a “Fiddler On The Roof” or a “Les Miserables” and with exquisite music comparable to a Gershwin or Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, we present in “Mendel’s Messiah” the Gospel story magnificently alive on stage: the Life, Death and Resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah! And now, the show must go on!