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March 3, 2000/26 Adar 1, 5760, Vol. 52, No.26
Rebbetzin offers Old World advice to today's lovelorn
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis |
A line from the popular country and western song - "Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places" -sums up the advice of a 64-year-old Orthodox rebbetzin (rabbi's wife) to today's lonely singles or disillusioned young marrieds.
Want to meet "the one" or reinvigorate a tired relationship? Stop looking for Mr. or Ms. Right to provide you happiness. Instead, look at yourself.
Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis speaks by telephone from the New York offices of Hineni (Hebrew for "here I am"), an outreach movement she founded in 1973 to help Jews return to their roots. Her voice blends the Old World inflections of a European-born bubbe (grandmother) with the savvy straight talk of a New York Jewish mother.
She peppers her call for a return to traditional Torah values of kindness, generosity and compassion, with searing observations about contemporary life parsed in language today's young people can understand.
"Gimme, gimme, gimme," is today's mantra, says Jungreis, indicting the gross materialism of society and its emphasis on getting ahead. It's created a generation of "angry takers" who have difficulty finding love and even more trouble committing to marriage, she says.
"Once they are takers they are never satisfied. They are always expecting something, always wondering if this guy (or girl) will give me enough."
That's antithetical to the Jewish definition of love, she says. "Did you know that the Hebrew word for love is 'to give?' " she asks. "But in our society it has come to mean 'to take.' "
Jungreis says Jewish learning can renew traditional values and help today's young people refocus their lives. Her weekly Torah classes at Hineni attract thousands, and the rebbetzin, as she is known, lectures worldwide to capacity crowds.
In addition, she writes a weekly column for The Jewish Press, a New York Jewish weekly newspaper, and teaches Bible on the Hineni television show reaching an increasing number of young people with her firebrand oratorical style and compelling words.
She operates out of the Hineni Heritage Center in New York, opened in 1989, and has written two books, "The Jewish Soul of Fire" and "The Committed Life," the latter published in 1998 and now in its seventh printing.
Jungreis will bring her message to Phoenix, Thursday, March 9.
Born in Hungary and descended from a rabbinic dynasty that traces its lineage back to King David, Jungreis and her two brothers were raised in a traditional Jewish home. She describes her family's commitment to a Torah lifestyle less in terms of ritual practice and more as an all-encompassing way of life.
"It's not about sitting and praying," she says. "It's about going and doing."
During the Nazi occupation, before her family was sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, she often accompanied her father to visit prisoners in a nearby labor camp, carrying medications sewn in the lining of her coat.
"The medicines were forbidden, so we smuggled them in," she says matter-of-factly. "You do what you have to do."
That attitude helped sustain her immediate family, who survived Bergen-Belsen and emigrated to the United States in 1947. (Her grandparents and other extended family members perished at Auschwitz.) Jungreis arrived in her new country at age 12, speaking no English and carrying little more than the clothes on her back.
At age 20 she married Rabbi Meshulem HaLevi Jungreis, a distant cousin who shared her distinguished rabbinic background and surname. He died four years ago of cancer, leaving behind four married children, several grandchildren and a wife dedicated to her mission of reinvigorating Jewish life.
The rebbetzin is committed to reversing what she calls today's "spiritual holocaust" - a lack of Jewish learning which she sees sapping today's younger generation of direction and purpose. She sees them devoid of Jewish knowledge and therefore lost, and unable to chart their lives.
"You have to have a road map," she says simply. "To get home, you have to find your way."
Jungreis believes that the Torah is that "word of life" and rediscovering its wisdom will lead this generation home."
Do you see people smiling, happy?" she asks. "There is a whole generation that is cracking. We have a map - we just have to learn to read it."
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