Last night I went to a play at the נא לגעת (English: Nalaga’at, Lit: Please Touch) center in Tel Aviv. The play was entitled “Not by Bread Alone”, it started out in a bakery and showed people baking bread, then they put the bread into the oven and while the bread is baking we see the dreams of each of the characters acted out in turn and at the end of the play the audience was invited to go on stage and eat the bread that was baking the whole play and to talk to the actors. It was a very moving play.
The thing that made it so moving was that most of the actors were blind and deaf (3 of them were only deaf). They acted out what it is like to be deaf and blind, there were many moving moments for me. One of them was during one of the character’s dreams. He dreamed about being out in the rain alone, and then the lights were turned off in the theater (it was pitch black), and there was a thunder sound effect, however this was a special effect, because it was playing at the same time as other noises, so instead of hearing the thunder through my ears, I felt the thunder through my senses. The other moving moment was when I was on stage after the play and I was talking to one of the blind deaf actors (she had an interpreter) and after I told her that I was from Los Angeles she taught me the sign for Los Angles.
It was very meaningful evening. Something that made it even more special for me was the fact that it took place in Israel and that Israel is the only place in the world with organizations like Nalaga’at.
(Side note: it was also Lag Ba’Omer night when we went to the play, so we were not able to make a bonfire. We did see some on the side of the road though.)