It’s been a rough month. While Jews around the world have been hearing the call of the shofar during Elul and joyfully preparing for the approach of the High Holiday season, those in some parts of the United States continue to struggle every day with devastating losses.
In Texas, Florida and in the Caribbean, Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have taken a toll on local residents, many who remain without power, and many who have lost homes or access to them. To make matters worse, a third hurricane, Maria, is barreling through the Caribbean, taking aim at already decimated communities, like the one on St. Thomas, and those in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in these areas, and across the country and the world, have been doing their part to help: first offering shelter to people from the storms and then feeding those in need, working to get food and supplies to them, assisting in the cleanup, and now, doing whatever they can to offer community members meals and prayer services for Rosh Hashanah, which begins on the evening of Sept. 20 and lasts until after nightfall on Sept. 22.
Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff, co-director of Chabad of Uptown in Houston with his wife, Chanie, and program director of Chabad Lubavitch Center Regional Headquarters, has been working around the clock since Harvey poured down rain, measuring in feet as opposed to inches, on the metropolitan area nearly a month ago.
Instead of getting an early start on Rosh Hashanah preparations, they have been focused on rescues of people and property, and delivering meals and finding temporary housing for dislocated members of the Jewish community. They’ve been bringing people dinner, arranging for emergency kosher provisions, volunteering to help clean out houses and offering other kinds of necessary support, in addition to a shoulder to lean on and an ear to talk to. Like many other Chabad couples across the affected region, they are working to open their doors to their communities as they look not only towards recovery, but also to the start of the year 5778 on the Jewish calendar.
Although they suffered some damage and are in need of repairs, Chabad’s 11 centers in Houston are on track to be operational for the Tishrei holidays, reports Lazaroff. “Leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the focus is on how we can help the community heal, help them recover spiritually and emotionally, to be able to get past this devastating event and emerge even stronger than before,” he tells Chabad.org.
They’re letting residents impacted by Harvey know that there’s a seat for them at Chabad-run services, and that for those who will be spending the holidays in other neighborhoods, there is a local Chabad House they can go to there as well. Houston Chabad centers are also offering lunches and dinners free of charge for anyone in need of festive meals.
Some 1,000 Jewish homes in the area are estimated to be affected by Harvey, says the rabbi, which during the holiday season means more than just damage to homes. “These are extended families who often gather together,” notes Lazaroff. “For those who have been impacted directly, it’s much more devastating, but it’s really the entire community that is in recovery mode.”
‘Brings Out the Inner Soul’
In Florida, Rabbi Yankie and Chana Denburg, co-directors of Chabad Jewish Center in Coral Springs, received a case of chicken on Sunday to cook up for the holiday. With power out until last Friday at their usual supplier—and their reserves running low after a week-and-a-half of making meals for those impacted by Hurricane Irma, which came on the heels of Harvey—the couple wasn’t sure until the last minute exactly what they would be serving. Combined efforts from across the North American Jewish community brought refrigerated trucks carrying kosher meat, staples and more to the area, a welcome relief that will allow the next cooking frenzy to begin (they have fed hundreds of people since the storm hit, says the rabbi).
Meanwhile, they are expecting a larger crowd than usual for Wednesday-night dinner on Rosh Hashanah eve. “People are inspired, and people are searching,” says Denburg. “They went through a very trying time, and that always brings out the inner soul, the inner Jew.”
The holiday offers a chance to carry forth the sense of unity people felt these past few weeks, as friends and strangers banded together to support one another during a difficult situation. “There was a beautiful sense of community,” he continues. “People connected to that, and people want to remain connected.”
At a time when the Jewish community stands before G‑d as one, this kind of fellowship is especially important, stresses Denburg: “The amount of love and care and concern that I’ve seen people have for each other . . . it’s been unprecedented. I know G‑d is going to look at us with a proud eye, seeing how we all pulled together to help each other in a tough time.”
Across Florida, rabbis in Chabad centers large and small, and on various college campuses, became harbors in the storm, housing people, calling and checking up on them, and then launching immediately into feeding residents and students—anyone who needed food—before leading cleanup efforts. Now they’re trying to help residents prepare for the High Holidays.
Hot, catered kosher meals will be provided on Wednesday night for dinner, and for Friday and Shabbat lunches, for Jewish individuals and families with nowhere to go. Free kosher holiday meals will continue through Sukkot and Simchat Torah. (To RSVP, call Chabad of South Broward, 954-458-1877. For anyone in an affected hurricane zone, contact the nearest Chabad center.)
And while the rush to get everything done ahead of the holidays is foremost in the rabbi’s mind, so are the lessons that came out of Irma. “I think rabbis and community members are really overwhelmed by the sense of unity that emerged from this,” says Denburg. “There was the sense of ‘everybody’s in it together, and everybody’s sharing and caring and helping one another, even people they didn’t know, and really giving all of themselves to help another Jew who may be hundreds of miles away. That is really powerful.”
‘Increase in Observance, One Small Step’
Elsewhere in the country and around the world, Chabad Houses are getting ready for the High Holidays, a time to join together as a community in prayer and celebration. They’re organizing programs for adults and children from Connecticut to California and beyond, the rabbis say, as a year ends that saw terror attacks in places like Barcelona, Spain, and Manchester and London, England. (Not to mention continued attacks on Jewish soldiers and citizens in Israel.) They’re turning their focus to the renewal of relationships—with G‑d, Torah and the Jewish people.
In California, Chabad of the Conejo is revving up for its annual Rosh Hashanah retreat. The services, accommodations and kosher holiday meals will draw more than 300 to a local hotel for Rosh Hashanah and more than 400 for Yom Kippur, plus another few hundred who will attend the services, bringing the crowd to 1,000-plus over the course of the holidays. It’s all part of a broader system of services the California-based Chabad will run, which will bring some 3,000 people to eight locations around the Conejo Valley, where about 25,000 Jews reside.
For Rabbi Moshe Bryski, who has been running the retreats for more than two decades, the holidays are a chance to share a sense of belonging and community. “We want all of our participants to look at Chabad as their home, not just for the holidays but throughout the year,” he says. “We strive to inspire every participant to increase, even if it’s just one small step, in observance in the coming year.”
That goal—in California, Florida, Texas, and everywhere else, for that matter—focuses on the entirety of the Jewish people, a single nation, connected around the globe.
“The most beautiful aspect of services is not the rabbi or the cantor or the sermon or the spirit,” states Bryski. “It is the people. It’s the mix of Jews from the most secular to the strictly observant, from the very young to the very old, and from the affiliated to the non-affiliated. They all join together and experience the true oneness and unity of our people as we pray, sing and celebrate together.”
Start a Discussion