[In The Gates are Closing,] a drama of great religious insight and nuance, Feld introduces us to a minyan of Jews on erev Yontif, from the assimilated to the rebbetzin, from a teenager to an Israeli yored, and explores their meshuggas, dreams and yearnings. By the play's end we realize we have been introduced to dimensions not only of our community but of ourselves. [The play reading] instigated probably the most thoughtfully lively High Holyday preparation we've ever had. The preparation involved a few rehearsals...the impact on all of us lasted well through Yom Kippur.
-Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

The Gates are Closing, which was performed in full before Slichot services, and in excerpted portions during adult ed workshops on Yom Kippur afternoon, was some of the most meaningful spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days that my congregation has experienced. I received only compliments from my congregants, who resonated with many of the themes raised by the play, were grateful to hear their own feelings validated through the diverse cast of characters, and entered Yom Kippur with a broader sense of how to open their hearts before God. Because the play is so well-written and because Merle herself is accessible for any questions, there wasn't much I had to do as the rabbi….
- Rabbi Beth Kalisch, Beth David Reform Congregation, Philadelphia, PA

Merle, I wish you could have been with us. The actors were truly amazing, every one of them. The audience was bowled over at the end, unable to say anything more than Wow… Thank you so much for offering this to us. Personally, it was a powerful window into people's souls during those long hours of prayer. You have so much insight into the human heart.
- Rabbi Barbara Penzner, Boston, MA

We offered the reading last night to high acclaim. The readers especially felt the impact of the themes. And the discussion following the reading was lively, compelling, and illuminating. The issues you raise are so real for most of us – unresolved issues with those in our present and in our past – including God, a desire to make ritual more meaningful but perhaps lacking the tools to do so, the brutal honesty of really being able to forgive, and the underlying preoccupation with a reach for closeness – with God, with each other, and with ourselves. I cannot imagine a more meaningful, real preparation for the High Holidays than performing your play. Thank you so much for sharing it with us."
- Rabbi Michael Whitman, The Adath, Hampstead, Quebec

One of the most effective High Holidays events I have arranged for my congregants was a staged reading of Merle Feld's play, The Gates are Closing. With a talented director (a congregant) and a cast of volunteers from the congregation, and with only two full read-through rehearsals between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, our troupe [presented the play] as a prelude to minha and ne'ilah on Yom Kippur. Refracted through the lives and problems of the play's characters, the discourse of repentance, reconciliation, and forgiveness suddenly took on personal meanings. Our own longings and hurts, our own hopes and fears, were seen and felt through their lives. Our experience of Yom Kippur was deepened…"
- Rabbi Peretz Rodman, Kehillat Beijing, China

[In The Gates are Closing,] Feld tells the stories of 10 people meeting to pray on Yom Kippur and facing themselves. It is a play full of tough and liberating honesty. Feld has hold of a vital feeling too few people try to invoke: the feeling of telling something you have carried alone. The weight lifts, and you are sad and tired and released and reminded that things can make sense again, as Feld says. And you are left with the rebuilding… ‘So long as Adam [in the Garden of Eden having eaten the forbidden fruit] pretends that hiding is possible, he cannot begin to find his way,' Feld’s Rabbi tells his people. 'God asks ‘where are you?’ to awaken Adam, to bring him out of hiding. Today is the day for you and me ... to come out of hiding.'"
- Kate Abbott, The Berkshire Eagle, Pittsfield MA

Last year, the sense of panic was huge as we faced zoom services for the High Holidays, but sourcing Merle Feld's new play, Returning, solved our problems for Selichot. The play was amazing! As we watched the characters face their personal dilemmas and difficulties, magnified by the pandemic and lockdowns, we too were led to face our fears, our failures, and our challenges in this new era. It had people glued to their screens. And it was so easy to present on zoom – with one rehearsal we had a gripping drama that opened our season of teshuvah with panache and really set the spiritual tone for yom tov. A wonderful resource for the season of renewal.
- Rabbi Jackie Tabick, West Central Liberal Synagogue, London

Thank you, Merle, for creating a pandemic-ready Selichot program… and for your formidable gifts to capture the human soul through describing human experience! In the midst of such a difficult month of Elul last year, our congregational Zoom presentation of Returning was a balm for all of our souls. The thought-provoking, heart-opening stories held something for everyone who watched. And as for the actors, we engaged congregants from age 9 to 79!
- Rabbi Paula Mack Drill, Orangetown Jewish Center

The play was extraordinary, it was just what I needed and didn't know it, welcoming me into a reflective High Holiday mood. It seemed entirely different from The Gates Are Closing, although of course both are about the High Holidays and self-exploration. Those voices, those people, were authentic and deep. I felt the struggles of the characters – Murray the hazzan, Alicia – I felt tied up in their lives.
- John J. Clayton, author of Parkinson’s Blues, Many Seconds into the Future, Mitzvah Man, Wrestling with Angels

I think I cried from the bat mitzvah girl to the end of the play… I am still processing…
- Rabbi Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser