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 -



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-



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.

N O R T H E A ST M A G A Z I N E 7 . 3 1 . 2 0 0 5 E l



*-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.

Converting Jews to Judaism

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