Ormond Beach, FL – During Volusia County pilgrimages to auto races, bike rallies and beach retreats, most everyone, it seems, checks out everyone else’s wheels.
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If they haven’t noticed already, they’ll soon start seeing something resembling a new city bus, bathed in bright blues, purple and orange, with slick slogans and images that could just as easily be advertising a law firm or pest-control service.
But telltale sayings — such as “We Want Moshiach (the messiah) Now!” — reveal this 34-foot-long Coachmen Mirada 310ds Class A motor home as something completely different. The RV is a Mitzvah Tank, an outreach to Jews.
This is the way Rabbi Pinchas Ezagui rolls.
The 43-year-old head of Esfmores Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Center of Greater Daytona Beach, an orthodox Ormond Beach synagogue, said the Mitzvah Tank is a way to reconnect with the flock. If Ezagui runs into a man, he might offer a chance to pray while wearing tefillin, an arm wrap. Or he might offer a woman a candle. In essence, it provides him a mobile living room to welcome people to the faith a couple of times a week.
“We give people the feeling they are a part of the community,” he said. “Regardless of whether they live in Edgewater or Palm Coast or DeLand or DeBary or Deltona, they are at home. . . . There’s no such thing as a lost Jew. You’re always part of the family.”
Mitzvah in Hebrew essentially means good deeds in God’s name.
Ezagui, who arrived in Daytona Beach 17 years ago, had long talked of his camper calling. Last year, one of his synagogue members, Yehuda Morali, an Israeli immigrant, brought him to an RV dealership and instructed Ezagui to pick something out. Something new. Something big.
Morali and his business partner, Nissim Shoaff, shared in the expenses, Ezagui said.
Ezagui is only aware of one other Chabad in Florida with a Mitzvah Tank. And he doubts there’s another in the country that can compare to his — which includes a $15,000 graphics job.
“To have this luxury, to have a traveling Jewish Center, to us this is an unbelievable miracle,” he said.
It’s understandable that Ezagui — who built the Ormond Chabad from scratch — might wish to kvell a bit about the Mitzvah Tank, but to author and journalist Lisa Alcalay Klug, a trend has emerged in this age of multicultural America.
She calls it Hebesterism. Other examples: In San Francisco, the Chabad temple has a Mitzvah Cable Car and the rabbi rides a Mitzvah Bike. People are wearing T-shirts celebrating their Jewishness with phrases such as “Grateful Yid” and “Drink He’Brew: The Chosen Beer.” And Hollywood is producing films like “Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” in which an Israeli counterterrorism hero fakes his own death to pursue a career as a New York hairstylist.
In her recent book “Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe,” Klug — the daughter of a Holocaust survivor — describes a wider expression of Jewish identity, an embrace of kitsch and what she terms a “reverent irreverence.”
“It’s a freer way of celebrating (Judaism), based on a love of Jewish community and culture,” she said. “Jewish people around the world are enjoying that in a way that is unprecedented.”
Even in the land of NASCAR, Bike Week and Spring Break.
That is awesome
great design, who did it?
Rabbi Ezagui does amazing work! He toils day and night doing the Rebbe’s Shlichus – I’ve seen it first hand.
I always note that the message of Chabadniks is to never give up on Yidden and to reach out to everyone in the most unlikeliest of places. This is another side of Florida where I have heard the Israelis have cornered the T Shirt and tourist beach market. Only Chabad would come to Daytona Beach and build a Kehillah there !!! I can only say Yashar Koach ! Just yet another interesting Chabad story in America ….
Rabbi Pinchas Ezagui rocks! If you want to see a Jewish community that was transformed by one family, the Ezaguis, come to Daytona Beach and check it out, They’re AMAZING!!!!!!!
And their magnificent Chabad Center, we’ll let you be surprised.. one of the nicest in the world, no exxageration.
Go Rabbi Pinchas & Chani, you make every Jew in our town so proud to be a Jew. We love you!
Go to it, Rabbi!
B’hatzlacha!
these mashgium are the ones that are extending our bitter gulus with they’re goyisha ways and calling it Judaism let them all learn tanya better and to tushva
What a waste of money
#7 ..please point out which part is ‘the goyishe way’ ?
What a chilul hashem and a waste
I see no better way to spend ones money – you know the money YOU use for vacations, cars and the latest electronics THIS RABBI instead uses it to spread Yiddishkiet and bring yidden closer to Torah. Yashar Koach Rabbi!! the ppl who are sitting on their expensive leather couches critiquing…really mean to THANK YOU !!
To all those bitter naysayers: What is the chilul Hashem?What is the waste? Care to elaborate?
Is it the enthusiasm and love with which the rabbi obviously greets each person on his mitzvah mobile? Is it the time spent on reaching out to every last Jew? What about this clean, neat, friendly center is a waste? Absolutely what is a chilul hashem?!?! He isn’t doing anything even remotely out of the spirit of the law! The idea of “mitzvah tanks” was pioneered by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, so I think he has “broad shoulders” to depend on here!
What is REALLY bothering you? Good luck working on your ahavas hashem, ahavas hatorah and ahavas yisroel.
perhaps we the litvish world should look to bring a kolell to town it seems chabad has already prepared all we need kosher food, mikvah ,school and shul now lets teach them some real torah before its too late and they start growing beards wearing a gartel and talking about moshiach
the rabbi wasting money. someone with money and a care for yiddishkeit and a big hart gave HIS money to do just that so why is it a waste?