converting jews to judaism
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CONVERTNGJEWSTOJUDASM
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Valley the day he was offered a job — a mission, really—
to open a new Jewish center in Sirnsbuty. Not any kind of
center though.Samuels, an observant Jew from Chabad-Lubavitch, a
Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Orthodox sect of Hasidic Jewry, hadknown from at least his teenage years that one day he would be arabbi. But he never imaged his o r synagogue, would attract Jews
scattered throughout nine or ten rural and semi-suburban townswho, like most of their Christian and otherwise secular neighbors,
were more ensconced in everyday society. They valued good jobs,quality public schools, nice houses, Western culture and con-
sumerism. Most were uninterested in a style of strictly observant Ju-daism that focused on God, studying Torah, daily prayer and livingaccording to halacha, or all of Jewish law.
Samuels was 28 when he arrived in Simsbury in February 1998. Acurly red beard framed his face. He wore a long black coat, black
slacks, white shirt and tie. A wide-brimmed black hat almost alwaystopped his head. Like many young Hasidic Jews, he was already mar-ried and the father of three children, all boys. He had no funding sup-
port from headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and no list ofJews clamoring for his new center/synagogue. All he had was a mes-
sage from a 50-something man named Mitchell Glick of Burlington,who was divorced and mostly living alone. He had never had a bar
mitzvah, but was interested in attending a Jewish class or program if •one were offered in the Farmington Valley.
Samuels called Glick and invited him to his house the next Fridaynight for Shabbos dinner. When Glick arrived, Samuels asked him if
he'd join in Sabbath evening prayers before dinner. Glick consentedand Samuels led him to his basement, where a makeshift synagogue,
complete with a mechitza, or divider separating men from womenduring worship, was set up. Glick wondered who else was coming.
'They're coming," Samuels insisted. "Soon they'll come. Not yet."
For 20 minutes, Samuels prayed, chanting in a full, deep voice when
appropriate, silently davening in Hebrew at other times, Glick hisonly congregant. Afterward, they climbed the stairs. Samuels' wife,
Blumie, had a traditional dinner ready: gefilte fish, freshly bakedchallah, roast chicken, chicken soup. Glick left that night stuffed,
Rabbi Mendel Samuels, spiritual leader of Chabad of the Valley In
Simsbury, sits beneath a portrait of the late Rabbi Menachem
Mendel Schneerson of Brooklyn, N.Y., founder of the Chabad
movement. The late and revered Rabbi Schneerson is often
referred to as the Rebbe. Samuels holds his14-mont h-old son,
Schneur. Above, Samuels is assisted by his father-in-law, Rabbi
Moshe Smith of Brooklyn, left, during Purim services In March in
the Hopmeadow Street synagogue.
COVER STORY I LEONARD FI LSON
PHOTOGRAPHS 1 STEP HEN DUNN
but not before Samuels asked, "Mitchell, I don't like to eat alone.
Would you come for Shabbos lunch tomorrow?""What time should I come?" said Glick.
"About 10 a.m.," Samuels said. Glick came. Samuels did the Sat-urday morning service with Glick and then they ate lunch.
To find more Clicks, Samuels turned to the nevtspaper's weeklylisting of home sales, scanning for Jewish names, sending them
welcome packages. He scoured the telephone directory like a de-tective and made calls. Once, unaware, he contacted, the president
of the only other synagogue in Simsbury, a Reform temple, and
word spread for a time that the new Chabad rabbi was stealingmembers.
Slowly, over weeks and months, couples and their kids beganhanging out at the Samuels' house Friday nights and Saturdayafternoons, adults schmoozing one moment, engaged in challeng-
ing spiritual discussions the next, children running about. A He-brew school for children was started, with Samuels and Blumie
teaching. Samuels offered Jewish education classes, led services4-
N OR TH EA S T M A G A Z I N E 7 . 3 1 . 2 0 0 5 -
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Rabbi Samuels, center, prepares to read from the Torah during a Purim service in March. Joining him, from left, are Bruce Friedland of Simsbury, Rabbi Moshe Smith, Samuel?
father-in-law, and Rick Blum of Burlington. They wear talit, or prayer shawls, and tefilin, a leather pouch bound to their heads and arms, containing scrolls of Torah passages.
4-3 CONV ER TI NG JEWS TO JUDAISM
and counseled couples going through mar-ital difficulties, other adults coping with the
loss of parents or jobs. He met with teenag-ers grappling with drug problems.
In sheer numbers, Chabad of the Valleywas never going to be confused with the
phenomenon of megachurches or even thedraw of the few large Reform and Conserva-
tive synagogues in nearby West Hartford,each with more than 1,000 families as mem-
bers. But gradually, first to the 20 or so regu-lars and now the 100 or so, the Hasidic rabbi
and his brand of Judaism was becoming asubtle force in the lives of Jews who never
would have dreamed they'd be going to aChabad House. (The word is a Hebrew
acronym for wisdom, comprehension and
knowledge.)
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Chabads presence was not new.The state's first Chabad House
The rabbi hosts "Talmud and Pastrami," a night of food, fellowship and teaching. Joining him from left
are George Haas, Dr. Brad Newman, Dan Novarr and Andy Lieberman.
opened in West Hartford in 1977, whenRabbi Joseph Gopin (always dressed in
wide-rimmed black hat, black suit and longbeard) and his wife, Miriam, rented an
apartment off Farmington Avertue. RabbiGopin used his kitchen as his office. Three
years later, Gopin bought a small house onFarmington Avenue as his shit& and eight
years later he raised enough money, largelythrough the donations of affluent local Jew-
ish businessmen, to build a synagogue on
Albany Avenue.In 1995, a satellite Chabad center was
launched in New London. Two years lateranother opened in Litchfield; two years
after that, Samuels arrived in the Farming-
ton Valley, then another opened in Glaston-bury. Last winter, the latest Chabad Houseopened at the University of Connecticut inStorrs. 'there are more than a dozen Chabad
houses in the state, according to the Chabad
website. In Jewish religious circles, it be-came a phenomenon not unlike Starbucks.
7 3 1 . 2 0 0 5 N O R T H E A S T M A G A Z I N E
Instead of coffee and pastry, they served ka-&intik, or Jewish mysticism and Talmud andHebrew classes, all under the rubric of a
fundamental Judaism that existed in Russia
and Eastern Europe 250 years ago. (Luba-vitch is the name of a Russian town where
the movement was based for more than a
century.)Chabad today is international in scope
with outposts dotting the world map fromIsrael to Russia, the U.S. to Katmandu, theresult of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel
Schneerson (often referred t o as "theRebbe"), who, in the wake of the Holocaustand what he saw as a threat from secular so-
ciety, began sending emissaries, or shliehitn,to rekindle the spark of Jewish life. At lastcount, more than 4,000 shtichint were run-
ning 3,300 Chabad centers around theworld, and its website, www.chabad.org, isoften considered the most comprehensive
among all Jewish movements Though root-ed in Orthodox Judaism, Chabad's mission
is outreach, and so, like Chabad of the Val-
ley, many of its followers are far from observ-ant. I f they're thinking about becoming
more religious, they often remain skeptical,bouncing between two worlds.
Chabad of the Valley's opening was signif-
icant. The Farmington Valley had becomethe fastest-growing region of Greater Hart-
ford's Jewish community, climbing from 10percent to 17 percent of the Jewish popula-
tion between 1982 and 2000, according to a
2000 study. (Jewish residents compriseabout 4 percent of Hartford County's popu-lation, or about 32,000 people.) Gopin'sChabad House in West Hartford, the heart
of the region's Jewish life, made sense. But
starting a Chabad House in Simsbury —"Who would come?: several members ofChabacfs West Hartford board of directors
argued.'The Jews living in Simsbury are living
there to escape from Yiddisitheit," Alec Bo-brow, a West Hartford resident and former
Chabad board member told Gopin, usingthe Yiddish term to connote an emotional
attachment to the Jewish lifestyle. These
were mostly successful, assimilated, secularJews, said Bobrow.
Gopin, knowing what the Rebbe, whodied in 1994, would say, shot back: "That's
exactly why we need Chabad there, to wakethem up."
Initially, Samuels had arrived from Brook-lyn as a new rabbi for Gopin, whose center
was offering classes and prayer services, lec-tures and dinners — something virtuallyevery day and night of the week. But Samu-els couldn't find an affordable house to rent
within walking distance of Chabad a keyrequirement for observant Jews who neverdrive on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays.
'What about Simsbury?" Gopin said to,Samuels.
'What, are you kidding?" replied Samuels,whose cadence and wit is like comedian
Jackie Mason without the insults. Gopin
persisted. Samuels looked for houses to rentand found one, which included a basement
he could use as a synagogue. A new ChabadHouse was born.
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Chabad headquarters at 770 EasternParkway, Samuels' family moved when
he was barely a toddler to Miami, then to Se-attle and later to N Illwatikee, all because his
parents were Chabad emissaries. When hewas 9, a few years ahead of schedule, his
parents sent him to begin serious study ofthe Torah and the Talmud at a yeshiva, oracademy in Detroit. At 16, also a lit tle aheadof schedule, he went to the Rabbinical Col-
lege of America in Morristown, NJ., where
his grandfather, like his father, also was arabbi, and was dean of the school. By the
time Samuels arrived in Simsbury, he hadspent two years in Caracas, Venezuela, in
effect as a rabbinic intern, then sold goodsin Manhattan for almost seven years be-
cause he wanted to make some money be-fore working as a rabbi. He found littlemeaning in the work, never made the kind of
money he had hoped for and finally realizedthe time had come to fulfill his destiny.
A month after Samuels moved to Sims-
bury, he began planning his first big event— a Purim party, commemorating a mirac-
ulous turn of events in ancient Persia (mod-
em-day Iraq) that saved the Jews from anni-hilation. In Chabad circles, it is one of the
rowdiest holidays, with vodka and otherdrinks flowing freely. Samuels was sure hisBob White Way house would be too small,so he rented the cafeteria at Henry James
School. Five people showed up, two ofwhom were his in-laws.
Samuels didn't despair about the future of
his mission, even as most of the people hemet explained that they were not religious,
and, with all due respect, Chabad was prob-ably the last place they would go for religion.It was too strict for their lifestyles, all this
keeping kosher, not driving on the Sabbath,too fanatical. I t treated women as second-
class citizens. Its Hebrew prayer services
were too confusing. In short, it was out oftouch with the modern world.
Yet gradually those who came discoveredquite the opposite. Although women, many
from high-powered corporate settings, mayhave initially questioned what at best looked
like "separate-but-equal" status, most whostayed bought into the 'whole package. I fthey lived a good part of their lives in a post-
feminist world where virtually limitless pos-sibilities were open to them, they came toterms with the idea that other mind-sets, at
least in their newly adopted religious world,might also be valid.
Like other women, Rita Brownstein, a for-
mer magazine art director, for instance,came to appreciate teachings from Samuelswho maintained that, according to Torah,
women were actually on a higher spiritualplane than men. They found comfort in sit-
ting among other women during services,the better, another woman said, to focus on
why they were there: to pray to God. Andthey began to drop feelings of being slightedwhen Samuels would not shake their hands
after he explained that it was out of respect."It's for the same reason I wouldn't shake
the Queens hand or why I never shook the
Lubavitcher Rebbe's hand," says Samuels.
In fact, he says, 'We believe that women areat the very epicenter of Judaism."
Samuels soon grew ensconced in the
Farmington Valley. Everywhere he went,and he was hard to miss wearing his wide-brimmed black hat and black suit, Samuels'
charm, wit, intellect and nonjudgmental
style disarmed Jewish residents.
0 ne Sunday, Sarnuels awoke with pain inhis gums; he had not seen a dentist in
20 years. He had been referred toBruce Komarow, an Avon dentist, but Ko-
marow was playing golf. "I prayed to God,"recalled Samuels, "and I don't know what,
but it started to rain," which forced Koma-
row home, where he got the rabbis messageand saw him that day. Komarow wasshocked at the condition of Samuels' teeth
and gums, but, more to the point, Samuels
exacted a deal: He promised to see the den-tist regularly, and Komarow would visit shutmore than once every 20 years.
By autumn 1998, 80 people attendedRosh Hashana services for the Jewish New
Year, held at the same elementary schoolwhere only five people had shown up for thePurim party. Some came because, unlike
most synagogues that require paid-up an-nual membership dues to attend Rosh Ha-shana services, Chabad's services are free.
Others came because through the grapevine
they'd heard about Samuels, "a real charac-ter," and yes, it I'as Chabad, but there wassomething about the rabbi and the atmos-
phere that made it, well, "different." Therewas at once an air of informality and serious-
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ncss about his services. Congregants wouldraise their hands when confused, shouting
out, "Rabbi, I don't understand this prayer."And Samuels would stop and explain, extra-polating from ancient Jewish texts until his
•unlikely flock got it. I le would joke duringservices and, the way PBS announces its
sponsors, he wouldn't hesitate to urge con-gregants to support each other's businesses.
"Remember," he says often in the middle ofservices, referring to Andy Lieberman, a 43-
year-old marketing director for the autoservice company, Valvoline Inc., "they putthe tube in Lubavitch."
By the end of his first year in town, it wasclear the 20 or so families regularly attend-
ing were outgrowing the rabbis basement.Even the pitchitza, separating men fromwomen during worship services, symbol-
ically cried low-rent. Instead of a nicely de-
signed wood panel extending the length ofthe room, they used a shower curtain. ToValley Jews, who believed they knew how to
spot success, the basement synagogue justwasn't cutting it. "People weren't comingback," said one member.
Then, as Samuels and even some of his
most ardent skeptics tell it, a miracle oc-curred.
Samuels had been eyeing a building on
Hopmeadow Street not far from Route 44, amain artery in the Farmington Valley, but it
was too expensive. One day Samuels heardthat the building had suddenly become
available and at a much lower price. Samu-els and Gopin scurried to raise enough
money from donors for a down payment.But on the day of the closing, March 31,1999, Samuels was still $20,000 short. Bymid-day, he was $10,000 short. He and Go-
pin worked the phones frantically; if they
could not raise the balance by the end of thebusiness day, they would lose the building.Their lawyer, Jeff Tager, a member of the
congregation, was dumbfounded as he
watched the day unfold, reach a fever pitchand end in a schnapps toast in his office.
The following Shabbos, Tager, a burly' manwho has long described himself as "barely
Jewish," walked into his new synagoguewith tears in his eyes.
6 I
t's an amazing place," says Orit Tager,
45, an MCI marketing manager whowas named for the Hebrew word
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during Hanukkah. The daughter of a Holo-caust survivor, she was raised in Miami
Beach and attended an Orthodox Jewish
day school. Yet except fo r the kosherkitchen Orit maintains (a link to her mother,
she says), she stopped living her life accord-
ing to traditional Jewish practices years ago.That is gradually changing.
"If you had said we'd be going to shui and
the rabbis house every Friday night for din-ner, I'd say you'd be nuts," she said over cof-
fee in her kitchen one night. Indeed, manyof her friends are learning that she won't goto a restaurant or to the movies on Friday
nights anymore. The same holds for theTagers' 16-year-old son, Adam, a sopho-
more at Simsbury High School, who takes itfor granted that he won't make plans with
his mostly non-Jewish friends on Fridaynights. And Orit, who routinely used her
Saturdays as catch-up days for laundry, er-rands and shopping, now avoids such"work," choosing to follow the mitzvah, or
commandment, to set aside the day to rest.Instead, she'll often spend the afternoon atthe rabbi'Shouse, schmoozing with him,Blumie and other Chabad friends.
Friends like the Brownsteins, who lived on
the Upper East Side of Manhattan untilthey had kids and moved to Connecticut.
'They were proud of being Jewish, but they
were far from practicing Jews. Rita, 52, theformer magazine art director, and Michael,
57, a physical therapist who grew up inHartford, used to love Yom Kippur, the mostsolemn day of the Jewish year, because it
was the day they could get on the tenniscourts. Now Michael won't drive on Shah-has. He also won't eat out unless the restau-
rant is kosher, a rarity around Simsbury. He
wears tzizit, or fringes, at the bottom cornersof his shirts as a reminder of the Torah'scommandments. "Our social life took a
huge hit," observes Rita, who's not nearly asobservant and has taken to meeting herfriends for lunch to fill her need to dine out.
The Brownsteins' neighbor Beth Salzberg,49, like Michael, also has become shomer
Shabbos, meaning she observes the Sabbathlaws, and will only walk, not drive, when at-
tending services* (Other Chabad members,like Rick Blum of Burlington and PamelaNewman of Avon, live too far to walk, so
they either miss services or arrange to stayclose to Chabad over the Sabbath.)
Like many of Samuels' followers who havebecome more observant, Salzbergs journeywas gradual. A Brooklyn, N.Y., native and
former non-practicing Jew, Beth had en-rolled in an adult bat mitzvah class at the lo-
cal Reform synagogue (Farmington ValleyJewish Congregation-Emek Shalom) whereher family belonged, a few years beforeSamuels had arrived. About the same time,
she met with seven or eight women everyother Thursday night at Rita Brownstein'shome, where a Chabad rabbi from West
Hartford was teaching them about tradi-
tional and mystical Judaism.'Thursday nights would blow me away,"
said Salzberg, who found she was spiritually
moving from liberal or Reform Judaism. "Itcompletely spoke to me. I walked on air. Iwould come home to my husband excitedabout what I'd learned."
Adults weren't the only ones affected by
Chabads move into the Farmington Valley.Newmans daughter, Allison, a student at
Avon High School, transferred last year toBeis Chana Academy, an all-girl's Luba-vitch school in New Haven. Sam Lieber-
man, 9, pushed his parents, Lauren and An-dy, to start keeping kosher.
It started last summer when the Lieber-
mans enrolled Sam in a regional Chabad-
run summer day camp at Camp Can IsraelOne day Sam asked: "Can we keep kosher?"Lauren, who grew up a Reform Jew in %Vest
Lke many baby boomers, particularly those who had tastedalevel of professona success, they had dscovered that somethngwasmssng from their lives. And when they realized that, their
sous, although they may not have articulated it that way early on,beganto respond to what Samueswas teachng.
Hartford, couldn't think of a reason to sayno. After all, she reasoned, there were worse
things a kid could ask for and the nearby Big
Y supermarket in Avon now stocked koshermeats and lots of other kosher products,thanks in part to Samuels. The next day, she
emptied her refrigerator and cupboards of
all non-kosher foods and began for the firsttime in her life the process of following Jew-ish dietary laws.
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these lifestyle and belief-system shifts,the question for friends of the Lieber-
mans and Salzbergs and Tagers and Brown-
steins, their Christian friends and especiallytheir Jewish friends, was what gives? What
was attracting these otherwise secular Jewsto a life shaped increasingly by observance
to a system of rules they had never acceptedbefore?
The short answer is that a mix of factors
were at play: Like many baby boomers, par-ticularly those who had tasted a level of pro-
fessional success, they had discovered thatsomething was missing from their lives. Andwhen they realized that, their souls, al-
though they may not have articulated it thatway early on, began to respond to what
Samuels was teaching. But it was more thanthat.
Some actually belonged to synagogues,Reform and Conservative, but somehow
that brand of mainstream Judaism hadn't
fulfilled them spiritually. ("It was like the
synagogue was where you went for religion,compartmentalized from the rest of your
life," said Salzberg.) What was attractingthem to Chabad was the idea that religiouspractice could actually be meaningful, and
that it could infuse every moment of theirlives. The rabbi himself would say he wasavailable 24/7, his cellphone with him al-
ways, except for Shabbos and other Jewishholidays when its use was prohibited.
Equally important, many found a sense ofcommunity within Chabad that had eluded
them when they moved to the FarmingtonValley. ("You'll never confuse this streetwith a neighborhood," Andy Lieberman said
one Sunday afternoon on his backyard patio.You could hear a brook gurgling and see the
evergreen trees separating their yard from
that of neighbors they had yet to meet.) Butwithin Chabad of the Valley, families cookmeals and look in on each other when some-
one has surgery, and teenagers babysit foryounger kids. "It's like 'A Prairie HomeCompanion'," said Andy.
There is yet another, equally abstract butvital element that may be at work. "It's a kind
of belief that these folks are doing the realthing and that this is a kind of authentic Ju-daism that will last," said Mark Silk, director
of Trinity College's Center for the Study of
Religion in Public Life. As a result, he said,Chabad has people who support the organi-
zation with money who don't actually attendservices or programs, but rather do so be-cause they believe in the project of Jewish
continuity.Chabad also draws because it is often seen
as different from any of the other move-ments of Judaism, exotic even, observed
Richard Freund, director of the Center for
Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford.'The goals are always to lead people to prac-
tice more and more religiously," saidFreund, who teaches about Chabad andHasidism in his lectures on Jewish mysti-
cism and modern popular religious move-ments. "Since this work is so personalized,
often unaffiliated Jews respond in ways thattraditional modem Reform-Conservative-
Orthodox synagogues with more formalstructures cannot respond adequately to."
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Simsbury would seem a contradiction,
until you realize that Chabad's missionis to attract the disaffected, non-practicingor less observant Jews and show them how
much their religion has to offer.Samuels offers classes for women and an-
other for men, every Tuesday night, called
Talmud and Pastrami. "It's like a pokergame without the cards," one frequentmember explained. The rabbi supplies aplatter of kosher deli meats, rolls, chips and
soda for the 6:30 p.m. start. The men —often a dozen or so, sometimes fewer
banter with the rabbi about current events.
54
As leader of Chabad of the Valley, Rabbi Samuels regularly visits area nursing homes. In March he was joined by his son, Srull,11, at Arden Courts of Avon, an Alzheimer's assisted-living facility, where
Samuels entertained residents with a funny story. Outreach is part of the Chabad mission.
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*-5 CO NV ERTI NG JEWS TO JUDAISM
Tiger Woods winning the Masters oneweek, Tern Schiavo, Michael Jackson,basketball. Then for 30 or 40 minutes, it's
the rabbis turn, as he pulls lessons from theTalmud or from the Rebbe. One night the
topic is about when it's permissible underJewish law to lie: often to avoid hurtingsomeones feelings or to preserve peacewithin your household. But, Samuels points
out, it's a slippery slope.
To follow Samuels for a day is to observethe often-subtle ways he touches people'slives. On this day in late March, it is Purim,
his eighth in Simsbury. Last night's partydrew 80 people. (Last year's Rosh Hashana
service drew nearly 200 people) This morn-ing's Purim service on a Friday at 6:30 only'attracts 16, including five teenagers. By8:30, he is in his car, a worn 1997 Taurus se-
dan, stopping at the Big Y to shop for hiswife and their five children — two more,
also boys, were born since they moved totown a n d the unknown number of guests
they will host over Shabbos. His cellphone
rings regularly. The first call is from MarkButler, a US Airways pilot, and congregant.
"So what's going on? Are we going to see
you on Shabbos, God willing?" Samuelssays. Butler tells him how he's standing hisground at the airline. They want him to fly
on Saturday, but he's told them he will notwork o r fly — on the Sabbath.
"God bless you," Samuels says. "I'm proudof you, Mark."
Back home to deliver the groceries, the
house is a hubbub of activity. Blumie istwisting bread dough for challah with the
speed of a pizza maker. The rabbi eats aquick bite of scrambled eggs Blumie has
whipped up, before which he quickly pourswater over his hands and says a prayer, afterwhich he recites another set of prayers of
gratitude for the sustenance.Blumie is up at 7, bathing and dressing her
boys and driving all but her toddler to He-brew Academy, an Orthodox school inBloomfield. If shes not running errands for
her household or for Chabad, shes cleaningor preparing for the next meal, and not al-ways for her family. When other families inthe Chabad community face a death or cele-
brate a birth, Blumie cooks or arranges forfood to be supplied to those families for theweek. She teaches Hebrew at Chabad
Tuesday afternoons and Sundays. ByWednesday night she's already baking for
Shahhos •Her major shopping is Thursdaybefore she begins cooking enough for allwho will descend on her household Friday
evening and all day Saturday. She laughs at
the suggestion that she might feel isolated inthe suburbs, largely because she and herhusband have surrounded themselves with
new friends in the community they've cre-ated.
Rabbi Samuels explains
to his disappointed
5-year-old. Levi, why he
cannot join him for
Sabbath services and
must stay home with his
mother.
7 . 3 1 . 2 0 0 5 N O R T H E A S T M A G A Z I N E
."A quiet Shabbos, if no one came, would
be boring," she said. Although Blumie hard-ly rests on the Sabbath, an ironic fact of lifefor a rabbi and his spouse, she holds dear
one moment every week as her own. It'swhen she lights the Shabbos candles before
sunset each Friday, when, according to tra-dition, the heavens open up to women."That's my time with Ha-Shetn," she said,
using a Hebrew euphemism for God [it lit-erally means the Namel. In those quiet mo-
ments, her eyes closed, candles shimmer-ing, she asks that her family remain healthy,that those she knows who are il l recover
speedily and then she reflects on her week.For her, for those few moments, time is sus-
pended.Back in her kitchen that Purim day, Blu-
mie's husband dashes back to his car after
eating. At a nursing home, he tells 24 Alz-heimer patients about Purim and sings a few
songs. Told later that only three of the pa-tients are Jewish, he says he knew that, butit doesn't matter. "For one, I would come,"he said.
Back in his car, he talks about his chal-
lenges. "Religion is a scary thing, especiallyif it means changing [your] lifestyle. At the
holiday season, I get calls from Jewish par-ents alarmed that their kids had to sing 'Jin-gle Bells' in school. In all my years, no one
left Judaism because they sing 'Jingle Bells,'but thousands leave Judaism because the
parents don't give their kids a Jewish educa-tion or provide a Jewish lifestyle, a Jewishidentity."
At Yachad, a Greater Hartford Jewish
community high school, where teens go one
night a week for about two hours of Judaicstudies, Samuels teaches a class. He begins
each year by making a deal with his stu-dents. If they can answer two questions cor-rectly, he'll suspend serious study for the se-mester and devote the class to fun and
games. The teenagers are all for it.
"Who can tell me who Jesus' mother was?"he asks. The question is too easy. They arehalfway toward coasting through the semes-
ter. Ninety-nine percent of the studentsknow the answer is Mary, and they're feelinggood about their chances of acing the next
question:"Now, who can tell me who Moses'
mother was?" Usually, said Samuels, no onecan answer him, and these are all students
who went through Hebrew school, some ofwhom studied at Solomon Schechter DaySchool, a Conservative movement-led
school, which offers a dual curriculum of Ju-
daic and general studies. "It's shocking," he
said of the ignorance.
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dispelling myths about the Judaism hepractices and reigniting the religion
among non-practicing Jews, his other, like
that of many spiritual leaders, is financial.
Because paying dues could deter some fromjoining Chabad, rabbis must ask for dona-tions. "I'm not a good fundraiser. That's not
who I am. My personality is that of a veryAmerican polite boy," he says. Which has
meant that, despite spiritual success stories,raising the nearly $200,000 annual budget
to run Chabad of the Valley remains a strug-gle even in a region flush with wealth.Checks have bounced and many times, util-
ity companies have turned of f Chabad'slights, heat and telephone service. Even at
Samuels' home, his lights have gone off andthe oil tank has run dry.
Despite his often-desperate state of fund-
raising, Samuels believes a larger buildingmay ultimately provide a solution to thosewoes. It would allow him to open a Jewish
child-care center, something he claims theFarmington Valley would easily support andwhich would go a long way toward funding
Chabads programs and operating costs.Then, he said, he could concentrate on the
job he was meant to do, the job he says the
Rebbe taught him and all the other emissar-ies around the world to do: "going out and
helping other Jews come closer to God."In an age where anything goes and every-
thing is possible, where a growing number ofmodern Jews along with their Christian. Is-lamic and even secular brethren are reactingto what Indian novelist Arundhati Roy calls
"the Styrofoamization of civilization," Cha-
Blumie Samuels, the
rabbi's wife, holds her
youngest son as she
prepares her table in March
for the weekly Sabbath
dinner.
bad represents a value system that is not
ethically relative and that attempts to ad-dress a need for some sort of connection to
the sacred. And yet, judging by those walk-
ing through Rabbi Samuels' doors in Sims-bury, this is not a Jewish version of Christian
fundamentalism, even though Chabad be-gins with the premise that the Torah came
from Mount Sinai, that everything flowsfrom that point and that the laws receivedtherein are commanded by God. Rather it
says, come at whatever rung on the spiritualladder you are, do what you can.
5 oon, Samuels said, his oldest son, Sruli,now II, will leave home and begin yesh-iva study in New York. Samuels, now
34, and Bionic, celebrated their 13th anni-
versary in June. At home late at night, sur-rounded by bookshelves full of texts mostly
in I lebrew or Yiddish, and paintings of thelast Rebbe, Samuels collapses anytime be-
tween I I p.m. and I a.m. He usually wakesabout 2 in the morning and reads until hefalls asleep again about 4. He's up for good
by 5:30 because, as he begins a new day inhis new homeland, "There's always some-
thing to do." D
Leonard Felson, a former Courant reporter,is a Hartford-basedfeelanc e writer. Hiswork has appeared in The New York Times,The Boston Globe and The Jerusalem Reportmagazine.