Amazing Success for Darchai Menachem’s First Musical Production!

At 8:00pm on Motzoai Shabbos, the Rosa Hall in Bais Rivka Campus Chomesh began filling up with families eagerly anticipating the upcoming show. The first of its kind for Darchai Menachem was this musical, entitled: The Change In Time, which depicts the story of a modern-day teenager going back in time for an eye opening adventure.

The evening began with an introduction/performance from Mendy Pellin, host of the widely popular new weekly news cast. Amid a few jokes and a crowed rolling in laughter, Mendy spoke about how necessary it is for schools to recognize and fill the need of creative outlets for their students. He emphasized how the night’s performance was one of those ways.

A full article accompanied by over 60 pictures and a video clip in the Extended Article!

Mendy also related a story of a young boy in fourth grade who was known as the ‘class joker’ and was always involved in little mischief and getting in trouble. His teacher recognized the need for this young child to have his ‘outlet’ for all the pent up creative energy he had. The teacher introduced a weekly class play, with this child in charge. The child’s grades got better and he later grew up to be ‘the Mendy Pellin that’s addressing the crowd now’. The crowd applauded and cheered.

The stage was then cleared and the music began and the crowed was treated to the story of ‘Benji’ a young Jewish boy who had little feeling for his Jewish heritage. One day while playing in the yard with some friends, he runs into a peculiar fellow who calls him by his full Hebrew name, Binyomin; to which he responds that it isn’t the name he goes by, this fellow then offered to take ‘Benji’ back in time, Benji answered ‘yeh, whatever’.

Our character then found himself in a cellar full of Jews, Marranos, back in the time of the Spanish inquisition, which he is inspired by. A group of inquisitors then catch the Marranos and sentence them to death by hanging. One of the guards is then recognized by one of the Marranos and pleads with him to remember his Jewish heritage and save his fellow brothers, which he does. This makes a profound impression on our ‘Benji’.

‘Benji’ then runs into the man that took him back in time and tells him about the whole ordeal he had just gone through, to which he responded that their journey is not yet over. ‘Benji’ then found himself on a street with peasants, all speaking in a language he did not understand, he finally finds someone who speak English and he tells him he’s in Russia, and all the peasants react in a very weird way each time he mentions the name Stalin.

Everyone then gets arrested by the KGB for not respecting him properly and our ‘Benji’ gets to be in the interrogation room when the Frierdiker Rebbe was interrogated for crimes of spreading Judaism. When the interrogator pulled out a gun and said ‘this toy has made many people talk’ the Rebbe responded that ‘that toy can only scare one who has more then one G-d and more then one belief, I have only one G-d and one belief and that toy does not scare me’. ‘Benji’ is then brought back to current times and meets the man who took him back in time once again. He tells him of his experience, to which the man replied, he hopes he learned something from his trip.

Binyomin, as he began calling himself, returned to the playground where his friend were getting worried he disappeared to, they asked where he was, and he said you’ll laugh if I tell you, and he went on resolved to be stronger in his Jewish heritage.

The End!

After the conclusion of the show the Sparks Boys Choir performed a few songs for the crowd, under the directorship of R. Danny Finkelman. In an interview to CrownHeights.info he said that the name Sparks was chosen for the reason that a child’s voice has a certain ‘spark’ to it. One that can awaken much deeper feelings. “My goal is to bring to the public a Chassidic and authentic alternative that was formerly unavailable”, said R. Finkelman

R. Chaim Perel told CrownHeights.info that they had initially anticipated only 200 people to attend. They were stunned, after counting the tickets, to find that well over 600 tickets had been sold. Many additional rows of seats had to be added in order to accommodate the large crowd!

27 Comments

  • Josh Friedman

    This is great! It’s about time that ‘educators’ wake up and realize our statice qoue school system is NOT working. It’s a breath of fresh air to see this type of loving individualized education that gives ALL genders outlets for their creativity. This is truly “Chanoch Linar Al Pi Darko”. The sooner ALL schools get on the bandwagon with such proactive behavior the less reactive damage controll will be necesary when our children are teens

    Keep it up!
    A

  • Sara

    It was SUCH a BEAUTIFUL performance!!!!
    May you, Rabbi Benzion, continue to inspire ‘your’ children with creative outlets such as this. What a wonderful evening it was!!!

  • A Neighbor

    Hi Katz’s! Sorry we missed it, but the preview at Leib’s Bar Mitzvah was amazing.

  • Wish I could have gone

    I’m so upset that I missed this. My kids reminded me at 9:00 and it would have taken me too long to get ready and go. I hope they make something like this again. Maybe an encore performance? I heard that you guys were wonderful. Yasher koach Darchei Menachem

  • Heard it was great

    By! the way When Mnedy wrote about his 4th grade Rebbe it was Rabbi Halon!!!!

  • chabadtube fan

    The funniest part was wen they weren’t ready.. so Mendy had to continue speaking for a few minutes.. when he got the que to continue going.. he leaned in and said.. now im going to speak about 5th grade… he did this hilarias routine of how he had so much time in the halls that he learned to beat the motion detector LOL.. ok maybe you had to be there… but that was def. my fav. part of the nite!!

  • Zalman

    Yishar Koach “Darchei Menachem”!

    Will the choir continue?
    Crown Hights can sure use such talents as your boys and D. Finkellman!

  • Fans of M & M

    Mendel and Meir – You make us proud!!
    WE LOVE YOU!!

    Yasher Koach to the entire staff at Darchei Menachem!!

  • viewer

    the clip sounded great – too bad it was so short! i would’ve loved to see some of the acting as well.
    keep up the great work!

  • wow

    the acting was great who is this main actor?(benji)?can anyone tell me he is
    wonderfull

  • floofky doo

    to wow:
    the main actor was Yisroel Zalmanov- I thought he was AMAZING and so were the other actors

  • zalmanov fan

    Benji is Yisroel Zalmanov, who is also a star actor in the Macabi show, Yisroel is the one who intriduced the princPAL

  • Bat Sheva

    WE WANT ANOTHER PLAY!! Does any one know if Darchei Menachem is planning another play soon???

  • me

    Missed it. Didn’t hear about the performance till the day after.

    Darchei Menachem is wonderful!!!Yasher Koach!!! Keep up the amazing work!!!

  • proud community member

    I’m very happy to see that Darchi Menachem and R. Danny Finkelman are picking up where the JCM After School Program left off. Our kids need this type of extra-curricular activities desperately. Keep up the good work!

  • was there want to come back

    encore encore we want an encore great acting, great performance great choir and most of all the greatest yeshiva .keep up the great work.

    yasher koach Danny Finkelman

    :)

  • mendy

    i was in the play its awsome you guys have to join our school dont miss it darchei menachem is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!