Manhattan, NY – A Synagogue, A ‘Spiritual Starbucks’

    16

    The prayer room in the basement of the Community Synagogue on East Sixth Street fills up when Rabbi Simon Jacobson gives his weekly class.Manhattan, NY – To find the 10th man for a minyan, some rabbis on the Lower East Side have been known in recent years to step into the street and stop passers-by. Are you Jewish? they ask.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    It is a troubling notion for the remaining Jewish population of a neighborhood that in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the American portal for Jewish immigrants – hundreds of synagogues once thrived there – and where now a few dozen synagogues struggle in a place jammed with Indian and Thai restaurants and secular-minded young people.

    So if there is trepidation among the older members of the weather-worn Community Synagogue on East Sixth Street about the changes coming with the start of the High Holy Days this week, it is leavened with a sense of forbearance in the absence of alternatives.

    Starting this evening with Rosh Hashana services, Rabbi Simon Jacobson, a Lubavitcher rabbi from Crown Heights and founder of the Meaningful Life Center – a project known for blending religious teaching with tai chi, introductory kabbalah and Hasidic rap – will become a kind of Jewish mystic-in-residence at the traditional, Orthodox Community Synagogue.

    Inspired by the movement known as Chabad, Rabbi Jacobson said he would offer his programs – which until now has he operated on an itinerant basis around the city – at the Sixth Street synagogue in hopes of creating “a spiritual Starbucks.”

    The plan is to attract people, regardless of their faith, from all over the city, he said. But the goal is to restore Jewish identity to those estranged from Judaism and, if possible, to add them to the membership rolls of Community Synagogue.

    Like many Lubavitchers, Rabbi Jacobson embodies a paradoxical mix of strictly conservative theology and a freewheeling, nonjudgmental hipster style. He is partial to drum circles. He is friendly with the Hasidic reggae-rap-klezmer artist known as Matisyahu.

    Of course, this is not everyone’s cup of tea.
    “Is there tension because we love things the way they are and he wants to make everything completely different?” asked Ruth Greenberg, 90, a member of the congregation, which had about 250 members when she joined in 1950 and now counts not quite 100. “Not at all, not at all. We may not like each other, but that doesn’t mean there’s tension.”

    Aside from the higher religious imperative of sustaining the faith, the collaboration with the Meaningful Life Center represents a new source of income for the synagogue.

    In lieu of rent, receipts from all the classes and events that Rabbi Jacobson arranges – including workshops on relationships, mysticism, reincarnation and one he calls “the kabbalah of cooking” – will be split between the center and the temple.

    “We want to keep this congregation alive,” said Brenda Pace, a former president of the synagogue, who is in her late 60s. “If we need the help of outsiders to do that, so be it.”

    Community’s full-time rabbi, Charlie Buckholtz, will continue to lead the congregation. He has never had to struggle to make a minyan.
    Most Saturdays in the sanctuary, which holds up to 700 people, there are at least 20 or 30 men and about the same number of women, divided by a decorative partition.

    But he describes the charismatic Rabbi Jacobson as a perfect fit for a neighborhood that has evolved from Jewish to Beat to Flower Child to Loisaida Squatter to a mix of all of the above, plus an influx of young professionals, including many who are secular Jews.

    “This area used to be a place with a deli or a shul on every corner,” he said. “There are lots of young, unaffiliated Jews living here. They just do not go to synagogue.” In terms of Jewish practice, he added, “It is a kind of tundra, and we are trying to figure out how to resettle it.”

    The partnership of the Lubavitchers’ outreach tradition with more conventional synagogues like Community has invigorated several declining congregations around the country, said Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.

    Gary A. Tobin, director of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco, said such partnerships marked “the convergence of the two major trends in Jewish life: the expansion of the most successful movement in world Jewry, which is Chabad, and the undeniable fact that Jews are becoming birds of passage like everyone else, less likely to belong to a synagogue but still searching for the authentic religious fundamentals.”

    But Samuel Heilman, chairman of the Jewish studies department at Queens College, said there was a theological catch that people attracted to programs like Meaningful Life should be aware of.
    “While the outreach tends to be very open and ‘feng shui,’ ” he said, “the more they absorb you, the more Orthodox everything gets. It is nice they are going to the Lower East Side. But people should know that in Chabad there is no tolerance for gay marriage, or even people living together before marriage.”

    When asked about that, Rabbi Jacobson said it was basically true, but somewhat irrelevant to his mission. “We are not here to change anybody,” he said. “Some of my students will become radically religious, some will continue to lead secular lives. All we want is to help people live more deeply and spiritually.”

    He described one former student, who announced after many years of attending his classes, “Rabbi, you have given me the courage to discover my true identity, and after 27 years of marriage I have decided to leave my wife and move in with my boyfriend.”

    At Community Synagogue, the pending arrival of Rabbi Jacobson has prompted a subtle shift of focus in that one preoccupation of all religious traditions, worrying.

    Last week, people were talking about a different problem: whether there would there be room enough inside if both Matisyahu, the reggae rapper, and Sway Machinery, a cantorial blues band, performed before the midnight Selichot prayer service.

    Rabbi Jacobson, who would be helping Rabbi Buckholtz lead the service, had invited both.
    In the end, about 250 showed up. Everyone got in. “It was fantastic,” Rabbi Jacobson said afterward. “Spiritually elevating. A transportation for the soul.”

    The question of the minyan never came up.


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    16 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    For Rabbi Jacobson to be proud of the fact that one of his students after many years attending his lectures and 27 yrs of marriage left his wife for a boyfriend is very disturbing .

    mg
    mg
    15 years ago

    #1 : I suggest you read the post again.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    R’ Jacobson rocks. There aren’t many people that can speak like he can except for maybe his brother. Lubavitch after Gimmel Tammuz will not be the same without its leadership, until moshiach comes, but R’ Jacobson is very possibly the closest thing.

    Skeptic
    Skeptic
    15 years ago

    It sounds almost like the way conservative or reform etc. conduct their services, having rap and a blues band. kind of like do your own thing prayer service.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Chabad is the only sereious chasisdus in our days.

    anonymous
    anonymous
    15 years ago

    to anon #1 , the article actually doesn’t say anything at all about r’jacobson’s feelings on the matter.

    Yaakov
    Yaakov
    15 years ago

    I think it’s amazing that the NY Times said quoted someone saying “the most successful movement in world Jewry, which is Chabad.” That is really cool!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    Anon 12:33
    It’s erev Rosh Hashana; please don’t get started on this issue.

    Adam Holland
    Adam Holland
    15 years ago

    Why does the Times persist in referring to all shuls as “temples”? Is this some sort of antiquated Reform bias against other Jews?

    Considering how much stock the Times puts in being the paper of record and having high, consistent and sometimes stodgy editorial standards, somethings gotta change.

    If you agree, write to their Ombudsman!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    15 years ago

    This is not the lower east side.
    This is the east village.
    The lower east side has plenty of people and while some of the smaller shtieblach sometimes have a hard time getting a minyan the big shuls B’H have plenty of people.

    anon
    anon
    15 years ago

    ive davend at that shul a few times, very interesting place, one of the few shuls still around the lower east side so it caters to all the jews there, the shul itself is orthodox but many of the people that daven there range from orthodox to reform. hopefully itll pick up some steam since R’ Jacobson is the man

    yoel
    yoel
    15 years ago

    who used that shul every thursday night before rabbi jacobson took over?

    Mordy
    Mordy
    15 years ago

    Obviously, Rabbi Jacobson is doing something wrong if a student can tell him that because of Rabbi Jacobson, he is leaving his wife after 20 years to be with his boyfriend! Rabbi Jacobson says “the plan is attract people regardless their faith.” That’s the problem with Rabbi Jacobson. He should stick to bringing yiddishkeit to Jews. This is the new-age “Kabbalah” result! How sad!