Yentl Soundtrack (1983)

Synopsis

1904. Teenage Yentl lives in an Eastern European village with her widowed father, Reb Mendel. Rather than become a devoted wife to whoever her husband to be - her obligation under Jewish custom - Yentl would like to study the Talmud, a right reserved solely for men.

She has no intention ever to be that subservient wife to any man. Her understanding father does oblige her wish to study the Talmud under his tutelage, but with the stipulation that it be done in secret so as not to raise the ire of the community in general.

But when Reb Mendel passes away, Yentl, having had a taste of that knowledge, decides to leave her hometown so that she can don a disguise as a man - she calling herself Anschel - to continue her study of the Talmud.

She is initially able to do so meeting and infiltrating a group of scholarly young men who are studying the Talmud under the direction of Reb Alter Vishkower. Beyond needing to avoid situations where her true identity as a female would be discovered, Yentl finds her life unexpectedly more complicated when she falls in love with one of her colleagues, Avigdor, who, in turn is already engaged to that devoted woman, Hadass.

Through her friendship with Avigdor and by association Hadass, Yentl begins to understand something that she has been taught under the Talmud, that the Talmud is not an end unto itself, but rather a means to another end, namely life, as Yentl can see the love that exists between Avigdor and Hadass, and like Hadass would do anything for Avigdor, even what may seem the impossible, such as a request Avigdor asks of his male friend, Anschel.

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