Tony award-winning actor and singer Idina Menzel is now starring in what may be the most positive Jewish play on Broadway in decades. In the musical Redwood, Menzel plays Jesse, a New York City art gallery owner and bereaved Jewish mother.

Unable to cope with the approaching anniversary of the death of her son from a drug overdose, Jesse, who is gay, leaves her wife and job and travels across the country to Eureka, Calif. There she meets Becca, a researcher studying the redwood forest canopy, who helps her appreciate the peace of the trees and her Jewish heritage.

“Lo tashchit,” Becca tells Jesse before her first climb up a tree, using a term that means do not waste and refers to a Jewish ethical principle about preserving nature and avoiding needless destruction. Becca, who is Black and Jewish, tells Jesse that the concept is also about caring for oneself—one’s neshama, or soul. Such moments of Jewish connection and healing are embedded throughout the musical.

In an interview, Menzel, 53, spoke about her Jewish identity, her new role and why she makes cantors uncomfortable when she goes to services. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you craft the character of Jesse along with playwright and lyricist Tina Landau?

Tina tells this story herself, so I’m not giving too much away. While working on Redwood, her sister’s 23-year-old son passed away from a fentanyl overdose. She said she had to disappear for a while. She called me six months later and said, “I think I now understand Jesse.” We were never sure why this woman would go as far away from her world as possible. She goes east to west, drives as far as she can go. The only thing left is that she can go up into the canopy of her redwood. And that adventure, we like to say, transforms her.

At what point did Landau and you decide that Jesse should be Jewish?

Jesse is like me. She’s always been Jewish. She’s a bad Jew, which I think I am as well. I’m not very religious, but I’m very connected to my culture and tradition and have great pride in being Jewish. But I didn’t go to synagogue all the time growing up and I’m not great with all the holidays.

What Jewish education did you have growing up on Long Island, N.Y.?

I went to Hebrew school for two years before I quit. I remember saying to the teacher, “Why would God allow all of this [Holocaust] pain.” She got kind of annoyed with me for the question. I was disturbed by that and lost interest. I was a huge disappointment to my extended Jewish family, because they all thought if I had a bat mitzvah that my haftorah would be beautiful because I was a good singer.

It’s never too late to celebrate a bat mitzvah.

Now I’m thinking maybe I’ll do it. The funny thing is, every time I go to temple for, say, one of my son’s friends’ bar mitzvahs, the cantors spot me in the congregation and get nervous. After the service I’ll go up and say it was so beautiful, and they’ll reply something like, “Oh, well, my falsetto was a little weak because I’ve been getting over a cold.”

You had an early indication that the stars were aligned for Redwood. Tell us about it.

Our opening night was Tu B’Shevat [the New Year for Trees]. It was just a coincidence. We didn’t realize it until a couple of days before, but I thought that was a great sign for us.

Did your work on Redwood awaken a deeper sense of your own Judaism?

Definitely. Hearing the teachings of tikkun olam and lo tashchit, I think about that every night. It makes me want to do more, to give back to society and also be more forgiving of myself and other people. I love Judaism’s nonjudgmental way to talk about healing and the way we deal with loss in our life. 

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Curt Schleier, a freelance writer, teaches business writing to corporate executives.