"Mormon Chabad"

Shabbos

At class in San Diego, Rabbi Wohlgelernter explained a verse in Parsha Vaeschanan, which commands us to work hard for 6 days and rest on Shabbos. We moved our focus from his eyes to his left ear and then after a while, to the right ear. Were we embarrassed? We wondered. ‘What about hiking and climbing?’ Is that indeed work? The Rabbi commented that work could be studying in the halls or involvement in the fields. Hmm! We think we could fall within the ambit of fields so we relaxed and looked back at the Rabbi with relief. The point of the mitzvah is that there should be a contrast between the workweek and the holy Shabbos. In order to make Shabbos special, one must extend oneself during the week. We believe this might be true in our case. Without feeling too smug, we relaxed further during the class. Thank goodness for our editor. She nudged us just in time. We became so relaxed, it could have been construed as sleep.

A number of people expressed interest in our Shabbos at the “’Mormon’ Chabad”, asking for details. At the outset, let us write that it was a wonderful experience. Chabad is consistent in that it is warm and welcoming. The level of decorum was outstanding-it was very quiet. So much so that we had to change seats five or six times to find someone willing to talk with us. We have visited their shuls in many locales both in and outside of America and it’s clear they all follow the ‘manual’—and they stick to it.

We were a little disappointed with the woman’s section, though. We expected it to be at least 6 or 7 times larger than that of the men’s. Our editor pointed out that ‘when in Rome do as…’ does not necessarily apply to the Jewish way of life. She threatened that there should not be any more comments about the ratio of husbands to wives in future. “You need to get over your fixation with polygamy,” she said in a stern manner. We had no idea what she meant in using such a big word but we were much too intimidated to pursue the conversation. ‘Besides, it is only the fundamentalists that follow the practice,’ she concluded. We thought to our self, ‘Are we a fundamentalist deep down?’

The Rabbi gave a talk on his visits to the Youth Detention Center in Provo. It is an awakening to hear of wayward Jewish boys to this degree. One story he related to us was of a boy of fifteen or so who finds himself in the lock-down facility. His mother and grandfather are both rabbis in the Reform movement. After three weeks in the center and engaging with Rabbi Zippel twice, the boy sent for his Tefillin, much to the consternation of his mother. He also asked, when the two family rabbis visited him (mom and her father), that the grandfather put on Tefillin with him. The grandfather reluctantly did. It was sobering listening to his talk, to say the least. My Tefillin felt even more comforting on Sunday morning.

The shul is .7 of a mile from the hotel. Our walk over the last three years has been three times the distance so we had to slow down even before we reached our cruising speed (big deal). The building is very attractive. There are other businesses around but Chabad stands proud as the anchor, for want of a better term. It includes a mikvah and pre-school.

Visitors from Los Angeles, New York, Israel and New Jersey including a few young men from Lakewood Yeshiva filled the shul. At a sit-down Kiddush in a separate room, the Rabbi invited the visitors to share a talk, a song or anything of interest. We spoke a little on the ‘light mitzvah’ concept as well as why we were visiting Utah. Our editor gave warning to stay focused and not to mention any embarrassing stories. She made certain of this by keeping her foot strategically positioned on ‘my left foot’. Any deviation and she would communicate via the feet, and not with the subtle touch, either.

We returned at 7pm for study, mincha was at 8 followed by the third meal, maariv and havdalah. We arrived back at the hotel by 10:20pm. Briefly, with Rosh Hashana approaching, the Rabbi reviewed the concepts of T’shuvah, Tefillah and Tzedakah. He explained the popular misconceptions. T’shuvah is not repentance but really, returning to the correct path; Tefillah is not prayer but re-connection with Hashem; and Tzedakah is not charity but chesed--kindness, righteousness. This is of course, a sound bite. Please forgive any errors I have made.

A most interesting thing then occurred. I was talking with Rabbi Yaakov from Brooklyn. When he mentioned his last name, my mind focused directly on my Siddur. He is the son of the sponsors of the Artscroll Siddur. His parents are Josef and Leah Berliner. They dedicated the project to their parents. We found that to be a stunning conclusion to the Shabbos. In fact, he invited us to spend Shabbos with his family when we are on the east coast. We are now looking for a new black hat to replace our stylish but perhaps inappropriate hiking sunshade. Any suggestions?

Shavua Tov.