The Gyor National Ballet Theater of Hungary production of Purim: The Casting of Fate, presented at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan, is a powerful retelling of Megillas Esther transformed into dance. This modern ballet, fueled by a musical score by Ferenc Javori, the founder of the Budapest Klezmer Band, pulsates with energy and joy. It is a successful combination of vibrant klezmer music, striking set and lighting design, evocative costumes and sensitive choreography. The staging artfully combines abstract dance idioms and more concrete devices of props and pantomime.

We live in an age of longing. An age of intense longing one thousand nine hundred and twenty nine years old. We get up from Tisha b’Av not consoled, but resigned to a harsh exile of longing, no matter how comfortable we may be personally. And yet there is hope. Not only the hope that we constantly place in the ribbono shel olam, but the hope that we actually experience. At special large gatherings of Jews we can taste the joy of the ingathering from the four corners of the earth to rejoice in a rebuilt Temple.