Baltimore Jewish Times- "A College Park Shabbat"

A major feature of the Orthodox Union’s Heshe and Harriet Seif Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus program—which is found on 15 major campuses in the United States and Canada, including the University of Maryland in College Park—is Friday night Shabbos dinner, in which the young rabbi and his wife who run the program (the Torah Educators, as they are known), invite students to share their table and Shabbat joy with them. This happens week after week, throughout the academic year. At Maryland, Rabbi Eli and Naomi Kohl open their doors to their students. In the following report, Naomi explains how it is done – and what the benefits are, to the students and to the Kohl family.

To make a great Shabbos meal you need three cups of energy, a spoonful of spirit, and a teaspoon of love. Monday morning in the Hillel dining hall is when we begin our weekly preparations. Between a chavrusa (a one-on-one student session) and a casual shmooze with a student, I keep a watchful eye as I mentally prepare an invitation list. If I don’t strike quickly an upperclassmen may extend an invitation and it may be months before that particular student may grace our Shabbat table. The University of Maryland is home to more than 400 Orthodox students and we try to have them all over for a meal, at some point during their college experience.

Friday is when the games begin. I hustle twenty minutes to Silver Spring, drop my two-year-old son, Yisrael, off at school and then proceed to the kosher establishments in town, to procure my ingredients. After purchasing these goodies I hurry back to College Park to begin cooking. My husband watches our six-month-old baby girl, Shira, while I slice, dice and mash the ingredients, occasionally with the assistance of a helpful student. Many Fridays it seems like I won’t beat the clock, but I always end up finishing just before the buzzer sounds. I breathe a sigh a of relief when I light the Shabbos candles, as my husband goes off to shul for four hours for davening, learning and the famed Hillel social hour.

The Magic Number:

Eli returns home with 12-15 students, the magic number. This ensures that our group is small enough to fit around our table and that we can all participate in one conversation. There are always one or two more students than originally expected, due to my husband’s over-inviting disorder, which Hakodosh Baruch Hu (the Holy One, Blessed Be He) matched nicely, with my over-cooking disorder. The avirah (atmosphere) is a very homey experience—that is what the students smell, taste and feel when they come over.

They are greeted from outside by our son, who is patiently waiting by the window for his “friends” to come over. Many students are looking for a home away from home and we feel privileged to help provide that during their college years. During these years students are making many crucial life decisions. They are asking themselves, “Who will I marry and how will that shape my future; what will my home look like; what will my Shabbat and religious experiences be when I am an adult?” Perhaps this is why we view the Shabbat experience with students as the most important interaction we will have with them.

By modeling a Jewish home that has a mezuzah, Shabbos candles and Jewish books, filling our Shabbos table with song, soup, and spirituality, we hope to inspire students to continue to strive towards a lifestyle infused with Torah values and meanings. We feel responsible to model a Jewish family for students, as we may be a reference point for future relationships they may have. To foster a sense of family we invite groups of students who are friendly with each other. If they are comfortable with each other, they will feel more at ease in our home. As friends they may already know each other well, yet we feel it is important to have our trademark parsha-themed ice breakers. They serve as a way of infusing the table with Torah, in a non- threatening way, and give the students an opportunity to say what’s on their minds.

Students are always afraid that when they go to their “rabbi’s house” they will be grilled on the parsha and their lives. Our approach is a way to break down those barriers and to connect the Torah to their lives. For example: on Parshat Miketz with Yosef’s dreams, we would ask, what’s a crazy dream you once had, or what are your dreams and aspirations; on Lech Lecha, their trials and tribulations.

While fish, soup and salad satiate some, there is not a hungry soul at the table when the meat, chicken and deli roll are done. The conversations vary as do the crowds—some want to talk about pop culture, social networks, high school stories or Israel adventures; others like to hear the rabbi’s philosophical views on a slew of geopolitical issues and old war stories from his childhood in Brooklyn; while others like to read our children their favorite stories on the couch. Many students offer their help to serve the food; what I most enjoy is the opportunity it provides to have one-on-one conversations with students I rarely have the time for during the week.

It’s Oneg Time!

As the meal seems to be winding down, we hear a knock at the door and are greeted with a burst of energy. Once a month, 60 or more additional students battle the elements to get a taste of our Friday night cholent and desserts as well as an unbeatable dose of spirituality which carries into the week. Students come from all across the country to be a part of the incredible community that exists at Maryland. Many are from Baltimore and Silver Spring but just as many come from New York, New Jersey, Florida, Chicago, California, Atlanta and more. Our onegs often begin as hip hop music is blaring from the fraternity house next door. As many as 100 Jewish souls may combat those tunes with niggunim of our own, and the fragrant scent of Oneg Shabbos suppresses the aromatic fragrances that are often found on a college campus.

For many students, we are able to provide this oasis that they crave and reawaken a slumbering spirit that may have become stagnant from the mounds of school work. Our onegs are sprinkled with inspiring stories and thoughts as many of our students are eager to share their thoughts with each other, and to encourage their peers to continue striving towards goals they may have set for themselves as they were leaving for their year in Israel. We try to pause these moments to remind ourselves why exactly we moved to the middle of a college campus, but as we embrace the last of our students close to 1:00 am and receive our final thank you, we are sure there is no place we would rather be than at the University of Maryland!

Morainu VeRabaynu HaRebbe Reb Itch'le Kadoozy

It that time of the year again fellas...get on line at the permit office, order your exploding dreidels, and get into a sufganiyah eating contest...the annual watching of the Itche Kadoozy Chanukah Series.

We need to start boycotting Chabad to get them back...maybe even start a RRRR version? Episode 1 may need to involve a rubber chicken...

http://www.chabad.org/kids/article_cdo/aid/448135/jewish/Chanukah-Mini-Series-Part-I.htm

4th Anniversary of the Victory Niggun

New Rebbe Theme Song?

Chushim Ben Dan "The Bear Jew"

They say that if you put a frog into a beaker of boiling hot water it will jump right out but if you place it in a Luke warm one and gradually raise the temperature it will boil to death. Ah the ability to adapt! We Jews have always had this koach to cope with the temperature as it begins to rise. Upon hearing esav's objection to them laying their father to rest in his ancestral burial plot, the tribes gradually got used to the idea of their father yackov's body laying out in the open sun to rot. Enter the bear Jew, chushim ben dan and he won't have it. He is deaf perhaps his battery died or he just didn't want to hear it, wasn't ready to get used to the idea of being a victim and he changed the course of history with one swing of the bat! Any tough Jew who has walked the streets of the world has him to thank. Chushim said yes as Jews we have this strength to be able to endure and adapt to any situation but were not gonna take it anymore! And when a Jew anywhere finds himself adapting to the culture around him, philosophizing away his birthright, or selling out, he must call on the bear Jew within him to awaken, cast off the shackles and slug out the demons inside who urge complacency. A Gutten Chodesh

Reb Shlomo Yahrzeit with Rebbe!

MONDAY NIGHT

RUBIN SHUL

8PM till the Morning Comes...

BYOK (Bring your own Musical Kelim)

Naamah Chana Weiss!

Mazal Tov to the Minister of Agriculture and his pioneering family on the birth of the newest Daughter of the Revolution!!!

May Naamah grow proud and strong, and learn to wield the Sword of the Revolution!

"If we can't get them out, we'll breed them out..."

Rebbe on Hoshana Raba

As a field commander placed deep behind enemy lines I have grown weary. How I long to return to HQ sip some warm porridge and allow my frost bitten toes to thaw. I have entrenched myself and placed fortifications around me placed land mines that have been the poor fortune of wandering elk and often feel as if I require immediate extraction. But to where can I return? The young bucks have filled the ranks and my ax has Dulled. I can no longer contend with the fresh legs and feeble minds of the revolution. And so I hunker down for the impending spiritual frost that is sure to engulf me. To whom can I turn for solice? The candle of darkness has shown brighter then ever before and I fear that my wounds will be gangrenous by winters end. But wait.... I hear my comrades voices from their foxholes! Can it be that another poor soul with whom I shared a niggun and a banana with has found themselves a similar destination? ...............
ed. note this post was not drug induced

Early RR Release Found in Japanese Used Record Shop

A rare look at one of our early, early LP's. This album can only be found in obscure, dusty, Tokyo back-alleys, where apparently, the Ruach Revival Band was once an international sensation, even breaking into the Tokyo Top Ten with the accordian-heavy hit, Rebbe's Everywhere, off the "Rolls Along" album, pictured below.

Victory at EnRebbe

Apparently Rebbe used a certain tune while leading Neilah in the Beis Midrash. Er...

Near Michael an Arab was sleeping… He leaned forward to contemplate the sleeper: so comfortable, so peaceful, nodding. Michael’s thoughts spoke to him: you are happy, servant of Allah. You’re probably illiterate; you’ve never heard of nuclear fission or Heinrich von Kleist. The problem of the immortality of the soul leaves you indifferent; knowing whether Hegel was profoundly religious or profoundly atheistic dos not trouble your mind. You’re happy. Allah is great, and if what he accomplishes is not, that’s his affair and not yours. You just sleep. One day is like another, one dream is like another, men repeat the same stories always, the rivers flow to the sea: why torture yourself? Why covet what your life lacks? Why run off to distant places if Allah is great everywhere, in sleep as in happiness, in joy as in forgetfulness? Right, you are right, sleep. Peace be with you, faithful servant of Allah. Tomorrow you will welcome a new day no different from yesterday. You’ll marvel at the timeless bravura of the snake charmer, you’ll come back to smoke your hookah, you’ll stare into empty space, and night will find you here again: nothing will have changed. Happy those who close their eyes: for them nothing changes.

Elie Wiesel, The Town Beyond the Wall, 104

To all who were unable to come to the Revolution planning meeting.

Gathering.

Tuesday night. 8:30. My cave, er house.
Teaneck. Get there. 5 minute walk from Sherut.
It's not the same address. Email me.

“In Shir HaShirim, we find: “My Beloved is knocking.” God knocks on one’s door: one must get up and open the door. And the person thinks to himself: Now, when I’m lying in a warm bed, I have to get up? I have taken off my coat; how can I put it back on? I have washed my feet; how can I get them dirty?

A person has a choice in this situation: sometimes he gets up, sometimes not. But the next verse relates: “My beloved put his hand on the latch” – God has reached out His hand; He is coming into view! My heart thrills for Him” and immediately, “I rose up.” The individual gets up by himself; he jumps out of bed without worrying whether he washed his feet or took off his coat. There are times when a person knows that He exists, and he will make his own calculations, with arguments one way or the other. But at the moment of firsthand experience, the revelation of this One, all his personal considerations evaporate. He jumps out of bed and runs to serve God, with no patience for any inner debates.

Rav Adin Steinsaltz, Learning from the Tanya, 69

Are there some questions you feared asking as a youth?

Our recent trip to Sesame Place reminded me of some of the questions I was always afraid to ask the rabbeim of my youth and never found the proper setting to ask Rebbe. Some help from the chevrah please. "Ein habayshon Lamed" so if you have some questions of your own now is the time.

1) Can Elmo be Mitztaref to A minyan?

2) Is Oscar the grouch A misnagid?

Today I will begin to put the dread of you and the fear of you upon the nations that are under the entire heaven, who will hear reports of you and shake and be in trepidation because of you.(Devarim 2:25)

May we be zoche, this week!

No Patience

The most obvious difference between the two traditions [of the Jewish and American peoples] is that of national origins. The beginnings of Judaism are as old as history itself, whereas the sum total of American history reaches 190 odd years, a total which in Jewish history amountsto only a page and which to the Jewish consciousness is absurdly small. While it is true that America’s roots antedate 1776 and can be found in Greece and Rome, it is equally true that in conduct, thought and character, America is distinctive and unique. For despite the variegated roots of American civilization, a homogeneous national character has emerged which is peculiarly a product of the New World. And the beginnings of this national character are quite recent….

This contrasting length of the two histories accounts in part for their disparate time-view. A civilization whose past is measurable has a more restricted view of time than one whose traditions reach into pre-history. For Judaism, the future follows the way of the past, distant and infinite. In America, too, future is like past: brief, measurable and immediate. Thus we find America operating on a short, hurried time scale. It is more concerned with the here and now than the hereafter, both in the practical and the teleological sense. There is no patience for eternity. By contrast, the Jewish time scale is long and far reaching. The Jew has time. This has been celebrated in our folk lore, our humor, and even in the classic Tiddish aphorism, A Yid hat zeit. He is patient, as one who ahs come from the dawn of history and now waits for the Messiah must be patient. The objects of his authentic ambition are sacred rather than secular, and he does not think only in terms of the immediately attainable. Time is not a commodity which must be used. God himself is mekadesh Yisrael ve’ha-zemanim – He who sanctifies Israel and the seasons. Time is holy. Speed in understanding all things, rapidity of movement for its own sake, short courses in learning and scholarship – these are foreign to the Jewish tradition.

The Jew has time, and his Book is constantly expanded: Bible to Talmud to commentaries to super-commentaries ad infinitum. The American book is quickened, shortened: novels to pocket editions to abridgements to condensations. Characteristically, the Jew has carried his Book on his shoulders: Ol Torah , the yoke of the Torah. The American carries his book in his hip pocket.

Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, The American and the Jew: Equation or Encounter? (Tradition, Fall 1960)

The Spread

A group of hikers on their way to rock climbing sing the rebbe's niggun! The revolution is spreading! May it continue until we scale all walls!!!

Not so easy to be a Working Jew...

It is told of the Vilna Gaon that he was very fond of the Maggid of Dubno and would invite him to visit from time to time.

On one occasion, he told him: "you give mussar everywhere you go; why don’t you give me mussar as well?" The Maggid became instantly ill at ease. How could he rebuke someone as revered as the Gaon? But the Gaon was insistent.

Finally, the Maggid spoke: “Rabbi, you sit at home with the shutters so tightly closed that not even sunlight can enter. Is it any wonder, then, that you are a tzaddik. Perhaps if you wandered around the marketplace all day you wouldn’t be so righteous. "

And the Gaon took his words to heart.