Christmas trees and Torah study

God is cool again: Part 2

The trend to connect to Judaism is especially strong in Tel Aviv, the secular stronghold. On Ba’alei Melacha Street, behind Sheinken Gardens, is the office of Rabbi Yosef Garlitzky.

From an impressive room laden with alcohol, Garlitzky, a Chabad emissary, runs an empire dedicated to helping people connect. He also runs the “Pikuach Nefesh” (saving lives) organization of rabbis who bitterly oppose evacuation of territory.

At the entrance you receive

a brochure for “Club 13” – no, not a new club on trendy Allenby Street, but Garlitzky’s Bar Mitzvah project that promises to help the uninitiated “truly understand what a Bar Mitzvah is, how to read the haftorah, how to put on tefillin, and to get to know the foundations of Jewish heritage from up close. Club 13: An experience you will never forget.”

Garlitzky, in the classic Chabad method, doesn’t push. He only wants to ignite the spark, and it works. On Simchat Torah his synagogue hosted more than 1000 people. Here in his office I met some classic Tel Aviv types, including actor Gili Shushan and director Omri Raphael Pe’eri. Here they feel at home.

After a round of hugs and cigarettes, they start to study. “I am already strong. Meaning I was so weak that I feel redeemed from my weakness”, explains Shushan. “Of course I am not saying that I can’t get any stronger.”

What does it mean to be weak?

“You are a broken vessel, a dried leaf, afraid of yourself and the world. I experienced weakness, being cut off from your true self. They say I am a great actor, so I played it cool and everything, but inside I had no confidence. And today, thanks to the secrets of the Torah, due to Jewish thought, I have been redeemed. I know who I truly am.”

Shushan comes from the heart of secular Zionism. His family was part of the Bilu immigrant group and founded the city of Gadera. There is even a street named after his grandmother. He grew up in a secular home, and although his father “doesn’t go to synagogue, he is more righteous than most people I know."

He began to study Judaism in the past few years. "Growing up,” he says, "I was taught that in life, one only needs to achieve power and wealth. At an early age I saw the lie in that. No one from secular society speaks about the spiritual, only about the physical."

Do you keep the Mitzvoth-commandments?

"I keep Shabbat, put on Tefillin, try to keep Kashrut and to “do unto others as you would like others to do unto you”, which in my eyes is the basis of everything. I learnt that the word 'mitzvot' comes not only from the word 'commandment,' but also from

the Hebrew word for 'company,' or connection to identity. Connection to the hidden truth that exists in every thing.”

Three years ago, Shushan dragged along to meet Rabbi Garlitzky.

“In our sophisticated and intelligent generation, delving into the depths is a requirement. The moment you take something like secular Zionism and search for its foundation - you don’t find it. You see that there are no roots. I searched in many different places, and in Judaism I found it all. With Rabbi Garlitzky I was exposed to answers," he says.

Shushan says his interest in God and Judaism has nothing to do with being religious.

“I see this trend as a process of social healing. People lack happiness, wealth, truth and identity. It's not connected to being secular or religious. Whoever fills this void will be healthy, and one can find this in the internalization of the Torah. Judaism is an entity with best survival tips.

"Where is Greece today? In a museum. Where is Rome? In a museum. Judaism is alive and kicking. It has something that works. It is an endless source of spiritual and physical healing.”

Lithuanian (non-Chassidic ultra-Orthodox) Jews look down on your connection to Judaism. For them it's all or nothing.

“The light that comes out of darkness is much brighter that the light that comes out of the flame. The secular are more spiritual than the religious," says Shushan. All the great rabbis spoke about the “middle way,” that everything happens slowly. Those people forgot that.

"There are other rabbis that will tell you that if you go out to a club on Shabbat and smoke in the car, if you smoke one less cigarette, the Angels will sing in the heavens.”

Spark for every Jew

The message of connecting has even reached the fortresses of secular life - the kibbutzim. Every ultra-orthodox child "knows" that “kibbutzniks eat ham on Yom Kippur."

But it turns out that even these walls can be breached. Maybe it’s the privatization, or the breakdown of the traditional framework, but today one can see Shabbat candles in the dining rooms. The members of Kibbutz Mizra, in the north, for example, spend the week creating the finest pork sausages. On Friday nights, they gather to sing the “Lecha Dodi” prayer, make Kiddush, the traditionally blessing over wine and review the weekly Torah portion together.

The pastoral town of Tsoran, in the eastern Sharon region, is populated by 1,500 families looking for quiet and quality of life. Only a half a percent of the population is Orthodox. In 1988 the community launched a struggle to prevent Shas from opening a Talmud Torah elementary school.

But the fear of religion has subsided, and in the past year-and-a-half a wave of religious inspiration has been washing over the town. The latest joke goes, “There used to be a Sephardic synagogue and an Ashkenazi synagogue. Now, there's also a secular synagogue.”

The person responsible for the transformation is Meir Cohen, a Chabad emissary that moved into town a year and a half ago.

Cohen, just 26, is meticulously dressed with a shy smile on his face. After learning Torahin the morning he spends his day engaged in activities to benefit the community. He earns NIS 3,200 (USD 690) a month; the rest of his activities are funded through donations.

Last Yom Kippur, Cohen organized prayer services attended by “400 people that had never set foot inside a synagogue before. We explained each prayer. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant. This was lacking here. Following Yom Kippur many people wanted more.”

Following that success Cohen began raising funds to build a synagogue. He rented two stores in the shopping center, broke down the wall between them, found a donor for seats, and borrowed a Torah scroll from a community in nearby Arad. The grand opening took place this Rosh Hashanah - a secular synagogue that is only open on Shabbat. Approximately 70 people attend Friday night, 30-or-so on Shabbat morning.

Cohen does everything: he explains each prayer, leads the prayers and reads the weekly Torah portion.

“People want this. They come and enjoy the tunes. Last week I made a Bar Mitzvah here with more than 100 guests. We didn't have enough room.” On Yom Kippur Cohen arranged for prayers to be held in the largest hall of the community center.

Cohen also organizes weekly activities for children to teach them the weekly Torah portion, and twice a month Rabbi Yechezkel Sofer visits to discuss current affairs and how they are related to the Torah portion. In addition there is a Bar Mitzvah preparation program utilizing the most up to date multimedia software and a women-only party for Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the Jewish month.

“I am not trying to make people religious” says Cohen. “I am an address for Jewish issues. People come to get a taste of Jewish tradition. Every Jew has a spark inside and by nature wants to hear more. Everyone is welcome.”

Christmas trees and Torah study

Keren, 36, Cohen’s neighbor and a stay-at-home mother of three is one of Cohen’s success stories. Originally from a secular home in Beit Herut that only celebrated the holidays. She moved to Tsoran with her musician husband who “never even had a Bar Mitzvah." Keren sits in the Rabbi’s living room and makes sure to get in a few good swear words to prove to that she is not - God forbid - religious. She says she is looking for a “specific place to belong.”

“I told Meir when his family moved in that we are not going to change our secular lifestyle,” she says. “When he arrived we believed the preconception that 'religious people want to make everyone else religious.' But it isn’t like that. I speak to him like a regular person. I don't dress more modestly because of him. I go to his Torah classes because I want to hear. I am connecting to the Jewish tradition.”

“On Christmas, for example, I like to have a tree, for the kitsch - I don’t even know why they have trees. But with Judaism it is something deeper. My husband and I were at a class about ‘Who is a Jew’. It really spoke to me, I felt like I belonged to it.”

Do you attend the secular synagogue?

“I once went to on Rosh Hashanah. It wasn’t like in Mea Shearim where you can’t see and can’t breathe. Synagogue for me is a place for the holidays. For me it is about atmosphere, I don’t really connect to what is being said.”

Cohen: “Just don’t write that she is becoming Religious.”

Keren: “F--k you if you write that”

The Rabbi giggles in shame.