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May 23, 2003/Iyar 21 5763, Vol. 55, No. 39
Books help make the omer count
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
The inexorable cycle of the Jewish year takes us from Pesach to Shavuot, from redemption to revelation. The inherent sweetness of liberation is countered by the sobering realization that with freedom comes responsibility, crystallized with the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. So the seven-week per-iod between the two holidays, the counting of the omer, is often a period of intense study and reflection. What better time to delve into a new book that may serve to illuminate - or even motivate? Following are three choices.
Sue Fishkoff's "The Rebbe's Army, Inside the World of Chabad Luba-vitch" (Pantheon Books, $26.95 hardcover) takes the image of the march to Sinai and imbues it with modern-day relevancy. She matches a reporter's incisiveness with her own obvious curiosity about what is often viewed as a closed world to write a compelling expose on the 250-year-old Brooklyn-based Hasidic movement. Fishkoff, a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, Jerusalem Post and Moment, among other publications, spent more than a year traveling around the country meeting with Chabad leaders. She visited communities as far removed as Bing-hampton, N.Y.; Northfield, Minn.; and Salt Lake City; and as much in the Jewish main- stream as Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the center of the Lubavitch movement, and Bal Harbour, Fla., where Cha-bad recently dedicated at $10 million center. She tells of the move-ment's incredible commitment to outreach, to the tune of some $800 million a year, not including construction costs for new buildings throughout the country, and its obvious appeal even to those Jews who do not profess to be Orthodox nor who are ready or willing to embrace the Hasidic lifestyle.
"Chabad's goal is to reach every Jew in the world," she writes, and details the growth of its shlichim, missionary, movement which sends committed young couples to communities across the nation. Between 1994 and 2002, she reports, more than 610 new emissary couples were assigned to new cities and more than 705 new Chabad institutions were opened. It was the movement's late charismatic leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away in 1994, who envisioned this corps of religious foot soldiers marching across the world with Chabad's message. And it was the Rebbe who understood the need to distill the message down to basics - give tzedakah, light Shabbos candles, lay tefillin - and make it readily accessible to the non-observant masses - that continues to power the movement. "Chabad's outreach approach is colored by one central maxim," writes Fishkoff. "Make it as easy as possible for a Jew to live more Jewishly." And so there are the mitzvah mobiles that troll the streets, the com-munitywide holiday celebrations and the multitude of opportunities to learn and study, from the shul to the corporate suite.
Fishkoff deals intelligently with the issues of succession after the Rebbe's death in 1994 and the speculation by many of his followers that his passing would usher in the messianic age. No new leader has emerged to take Schneerson's place, yet the movement has continued to grow exponentially and its followers remain dedicated to the Rebbe's memory.
Fishkoff admits early on that the book is not about what is wrong with Chabad, but an attempt to describe its outreach efforts. She delves into the movement's amazing propensity for raising funds, for engaging those with little or no Jewish background, its work on college campuses, its profile in Washington, D.C., its foray into the high-tech world of mass marketing, computerized databases and Web sites. She reports that last year, Chabad.org received more than 17,000 hits a day. Visitors can sign up for teachings from Maimonides, weekly mailings of the Torah portion, Hasidic stories and a raft of other offerings. She also touches on the move-ment's detractors, those in the mainstream Jewish world who are envious or suspicious of the movement's reach or offended by what is perceived as its holier-than-thou stance.
But her reporting of facts and figures and anecdotal vignettes are buoyed by accounts of her firsthand experiences traveling across the country and her growing appreciation of the Hasidic Torah lifestyle. She relates in the book's prologue that she does not keep kosher, but is now more conscious of what she chooses to eat. And she puts a few coins in a tzedakah box each day because one of the Lubavitchers gave her one and explained that giving tzedakah is a daily mitzvah.
"I have been touched by how Lubavitchers incorporate into their daily lives the Jewish values most of us give little more than lip service. They visit the sick. They comfort the grieving. They take care to avoid embarrassing others. Whenever I visit a Lubavitcher home, I am urged to stay for dinner, if not for the entire weekend."
Fishkoff provides an enlightening look into how one sect maintains its ties to Sinai and seeks to lead the rest of us there.
Also of note, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman's "The Journey Home, Discovering the Deep Spiritual Wisdom of the Jewish Tradition" (Beacon Press, $25 hardcover) is an in-depth introduction to Judaism and Jewish spirituality. "Spirituality is...the sense of connectedness by which we make sense of our lives..." he writes. The book is focused specifically on those who are coming back to Judaism in the middle of their lives. It deals with the importance of blessings and prayer, the meaning of study in Jewish life, the centrality of place and other issues such as how Judaism speaks to suffering. Hoffman, a professor of liturgy at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, is a prolific writer and teacher. His gift for honing in on today's spiritual conundrums and illuminating them with accessible language imbued with relevant meaning is evident yet again in this newest offering.
"God in Our Relationships, Spirituality between People from the Teachings of Martin Buber," (Jewish Lights, $16.95 paperback) is another worthy choice for holiday reading. Rabbi Dennis S. Ross draws on multiple sources to illuminate the sacredness of relationships and apply Buber's ideas to our lives. Buber theorized more than 80 years ago in his work, "I and Thou," that there are holy possibilities present whenever people interact. Ross takes Buber's classic and infuses it with contemporary sensibility, weaving together his own life experience with quotations and insights gleaned from Buber's often difficult obscure writing.
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