From the Archives: For them, it's wholly unholy

For them, it's wholly unholy
Christmas Eve is one of the few occasions when Hasidim refrain from Torah study, do not conduct weddings or go to the mikveh. But they do play chess and work on their bills
By Shahar Ilan

On Christmas Eve, known in Jewish circles as Nitel Night, the klipot (shells) are in total control. The klipot are parasitical evil forces that attach themselves to the forces of good. According to kabbala (Jewish mysticism), on the night on which "that man" - a Jewish euphemism for Jesus - was born, not even a trace of holiness is present and the klipot exploit every act of holiness for their own purposes.

For this reason, Nitel Night, from nightfall to midnight, is one of the few occasions when Hasidim refrain from Torah study. On this horrific night, they neither conduct weddings nor do they go to the mikveh (ritual bath). An entire folkloric literature has developed around the unusual recreational activities of Nitel Night. The customs, it should be emphasized, are practiced only by Hasidim. Lithuanian and Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Jews do not suspend their regular Torah study on Christmas Eve.

Chess and cards

The classic pastime on Nitel Night is chess. There is the famous photograph of the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, apparently playing chess with his father on Nitel Night, although calendar calculations by Lubavitcher Hasidim rule out the idea that the photograph was taken on Nitel. Some prefer cards, such as Uka, a Galician Jewish version of poker, or 21. Some argue that each card has its own klipa (shell) and thus card-playing on Nitel Night is a particularly serious sin.

Kabbalistic toilet paper

The Knesset correspondent of the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia, Zvi Rosen, relates that celebrated Hasidic admorim (sect leaders) would cut a year's supply of toilet paper for Sabbath use (to avoid tearing toilet paper on Sabbath) on this night. Actually, this disrespectful act has profound kabbalistic significance, because kabbalistic literature extensively discusses Christianity as waste material excreted from the body of the Jewish people. Today, precut toilet paper for Sabbath use is available on the market; thus, the custom's relevance has diminished.

Another custom of Hasidic admorim is to make calculations on Nitel for the entire year, such as the amount they must set aside to observe the commandment of tithe-giving. Rabbi Hannah of Kalschitz reportedly would study geography on Nitel. The journalist Rosen spends Nitel night arranging his archive, peeling oranges and making marmalade. The Lubavitcher (Chabad) movement's spokesman, Menachem Brod, arranges his pile of bills.

Abstaining from procreation

As was the case in 2000, Christmas Eve or Nitel Night this year falls on Friday night, and this fact has several significant ramifications. Because of this, certain acts that are desecrations of the Sabbath cannot be performed, such as cutting toilet paper or straightening out paperwork. Nor can one sleep throughout the entire Christmas Eve because of the obligation of eating the Friday night meal, although it is customary not to talk about sacred matters at the table when Christmas Eve falls on Friday night.

However, the biggest paradox concerns the procreation mitzvah (commandment). It is recommended that the commandment be observed on Friday night, which is a holy time. Yet on Nitel Night, which has no holiness, it is customary to refrain from observing the commandment, because of the fear that a Jewish child conceived on Jesus' birthday could become an apostate.

A whispered prayer

Abraham Isaac Sperling's "Reasons for Jewish Customs and Traditions (Bloch Publishing Company, 1968) explains that one chief reason for the development of Nitel customs was practical: Anti-Semites would ambush Jews and savagely beat them, sometimes even killing them, in the streets on Christmas Eve. Thus, the rabbis decreed that Jews should remain at home that night and not wander in the streets.

Over the years, abstention from Torah study on Christmas Eve became a custom that, of course, was observed clandestinely. There are tales, however, that describe cases where gentiles, discovering that Jews were playing games instead of studying Torah that night, would burst into Jewish homes, only to discover the young students engaged in the discussion of Jewish law over open books.

One Nitel custom in the Diaspora was to recite the entire "Aleinu Leshabe'ah" prayer out loud. The prayer includes the phrase "those who bow down before vapor and emptiness," customarily uttered in a whisper throughout the year, so that gentiles would not hear the words. On Nitel Night, it was customary, after it had been ascertained that no non-Jews were around, to loudly utter the forbidden phrase.

Ban on Torah study

The source of the name "Nitel" is unknown. The most successful, although perhaps not the most convincing, explanation is that Nitel is an acronym for the Yiddish words "nischt yidden tarren lernen": "It is forbidden for Jews to study." Another explanation is that the term is a corruption of the Latin word for birthday, natalis.

How many Nitels?

Over the years, a collection of Nitel jokes has developed. For example, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi was once asked to eulogize Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism and a secular Jew. After a few moments, he came up with three positive traits: Herzl had never spoken while putting on his phylacteries, had never thought about Torah matters in unclean places and had never studied Torah on Nitel. Or, for example, a young Jewish boy was found studying Torah on Nitel. Asked why he was not observing the ban on such study on Nitel, he replied that he observed the ban on the Armenian Christmas Eve.

The second joke points to a real problem. Roman Catholics and Protestants celebrate Christmas Eve on the night of December 24. Christmas on the Greek and Russian Orthodox calendars falls on January 6. On which day should Torah study be prohibited? The late Lubavitcher Rebbe proposed that Nitel be observed on the Christmas Eve celebrated by the majority of Christians in that particular country. In the United States, he ruled that Torah study should be banned on the night of December 24, when most Christian Americans celebrate Christmas Eve. Some Hasidic sect leaders and members have refrained from Torah study on both Christmas Eves, and the most meticulous of them even suspended Torah study on New Year's Eve as well.

Slumber of the righteous

One of the early Lubavitcher leaders told his disciples that he disliked those scholars who argued that they could not suspend Torah study for even a few hours and that they therefore had to study Torah even on Christmas Eve. The Saintly Genius of Liska reportedly wanted to study Torah on a Nitel night. However, he fell into a deep sleep and his candle went out. When he awoke, he realized that divine intervention had kept him from carrying out his original purpose.

In an article on Nitel published in the Torah monthly, Moriah, Rabbi Yosef Lieberman offers a solution to circumvent the ban on Torah study: go to bed at nightfall and get up at midnight to study Torah, when such study becomes permissible. An expert on Hasidism, Rabbi Benzion Grossman relates that in the yeshivas of the Vishnitz Hasidim, the students would go to sleep in the afternoon prior to Christmas Eve and would get up at night to make up for the study hours they had missed. However, the Saintly Genius Rabbi Shalom of Kaminka would refrain from sleeping on Nitel, arguing that he always dreamed about Torah matters.

The Holy Land's sacredness

Some people maintain that the Nitel customs need not be observed in Israel, because of the Holy Land's sacredness. Rabbi Mordechai of Slonim ruled that, in the Holy Land, the klipot had no power - not even in Jerusalem, the site of many synagogues. Nonetheless, Hasidic sect leaders who came to the Holy Land continued the Nitel custom, and their disciples followed their example. In contrast, Lithuanian and Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Jews do not observe Nitel at all. "The Hasidim will look for any excuse not to study Torah," quipped one Lithuanian Jewish cynic.

Torah on Mount Sinai is celebrated at the Chabad Center

Published: Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:42 AM EDT

ROCKAWAY TWP. - An all-night study session took place at the Chabad Center of Northwest New Jersey starting at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 8, to commemorate 3320 years since the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. The all-night study session included a host of topics, ranging from history to philosophy to Kabbalistic and Talmudic thought. The program is open to the entire community and refreshments will be served throughout the night.

The Biblical holiday commemorating the Torah’s giving is called Shavuot. It started at sundown of June 8 and continues through nightfall of June 10. It is customary for Jewish people to remain awake in study during the first night of Shavuot. The Chabad Center is located at One Torah Way in Rockaway Township.

On Monday morning, June 9, a synagogue service, was highlighted by the reading of the Ten Commandments from a kosher Torah Scroll The synagogue service was followed by an elaborate dairy luncheon and an ice cream party geared especially for children.

“The all night study session is always a highlight of the year. Each person decides their own level of participation. Some will stay only for a short while and some will stay until 4 am, but the cohesiveness and inspirational atmosphere affects everyone who attended,” said Rabbi Asher Herson, Chabad’s Regional Director.

“The reason for the dairy meal goes back to the circumstances that existed when the Torah was first given. One of the Torah’s Commandments is the laws of kosher. Kosher preparation of meat, and meat utensils, is more involved than preparing kosher dairy. For the first duration of time after receiving the Torah, until they had time to prepare kosher meat, the Jewish people ate only dairy in observance of the Torah’s kosher laws,” said Herson.

“A beautiful aspect of the Shavuot holiday is the emphasis placed on children”, continued Rabbi Herson. “When the Al-mighty asked what guarantee the Jewish people would offer to assure the perpetuity of the Torah’s study and observance they responded ‘our children will be our guarantors’. It is therefore a time honored custom to bring even infants to share in the special reading of the Ten Commandments.”

The ice cream party that follows wa held in their honor.

This emphasis also reminds us as to the importance of educating our children with extensive Torah knowledge and values which will carry on for many generations to come”.

For further information or to learn more about Chabad, call 973-625-1525 x227 or visit OneTorahWay.org.




Copyright © 2008 - Recorder Community Newspapers

Rabbi seeks Jews who have fallen away

Mission is to show them the road back

By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer

For a man who is constantly busy, Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel doesn't seem in much of a hurry.

Sitting at a table near the ark that houses the Torah scrolls in the Beit Tefilah synagogue on a recent Friday, Tiechtel holds a yad, or Torah pointer, in one hand as he talks. In the other hand, his BlackBerry chimes almost constantly.

In the background, Lee Becker, a volunteer, carries in brownies and helps set up for a dinner and Shabbat service. Once the setup is complete and his morning meetings are done, Tiechtel will leave the Bellevue office complex that's home to the synagogue and head downtown. An acquaintance has asked him to hang mezuzah, small bits of parchment with Torah verses inscribed on them, on the doorpost of the office.

It's all in a day's work for Tiechtel, a foot soldier in the Rebbe's Army.

He's one of more than 3,000 sluchim, or emissaries, sent out by Chabad (www.chabad.org), a worldwide Jewish group with headquarts in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Followers of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, the fellow sluchim are an unusual kind of missionaries. Unlike Christian missionaries, who seek new converts, Chabad sluchim hope to persuade secular Jews to return to the fold.

There's been a Chabad presence in Nashville since the 1950s, when Rabbi Zalman Posner and his wife, Risya, arrived from Crown Heights as emissaries. The Posners became pillars of the Jewish community. They started the Akiva Academy Hebrew Day School, and Posner, a scholar and author, led Congregation Sherith Israel until retiring in 2002.

Tiechtel arrived nine years ago to become headmaster of the Akiva School. Not long after arriving, he left Akiva to start the Chabad Center for Jewish Awareness (www.nashvillejewish.org). The center runs classes and a summer camp, puts out an annual calendar and lights menorahs in public spaces during Hanukkah.

The group is also raising funds to build a permanent home in Bellevue, which will include a kosher Internet cafe, a synagogue and a mikvah, or ritual bath.

Being an emissary runs in Tiechtel's family. The oldest of 10 children has six siblings who serve as sluchim in Berlin, Germany; Illinois; and Arizona.

All were inspired by their grandmother, an immigrant from Russia whose father was arrested and killed by the Soviet government for running a cheder, or Hebrew school, in Leningrad.

"I'm just carrying on the work my great-grandfather started," he said.

Tiechtel compares his mission to that of a lamplighter. "There's a light in every person that comes from God," he said, "but someone has to light the wick for that light to shine."

Missions are different

Rabbi Mark Shiftan of the Temple said that the local Chabad Center has a very different focus than synagogues. The Temple, like other congregations, serves those in the mainstream of Jewish life. Chabad, on the other hand, exists to reach those who have fallen off the radar screen.

"Most synagogues are engaging in outreach to try and find new and innovative ways to reach out to Jews who are on the outskirts of Jewish life," Shiftan said.

"They (Chabad) do have a long track record of very actively reaching out to Jews who no longer even know the road back into the community."

Becker, who relocated to Nashville about 10 years, ago, says she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in New York City.

When their children were young, Becker said, she and her husband took them to their synagogue.

Once the kids were grown, however, the Beckers dropped out of synagogue life.

They come to services at Beit Tefilah weekly, and say they enjoy Tiecthel's down-to-earth sermons.

"He really explains the Torah reading," she said. "It's like a family. We just enjoy coming. Our Jewish heritage has become more important to us now than it was in New York."

Joe Freedman, a Nashville businessman, also says he has reconnected with his faith after meeting Tiechtel. Freedman grew up as a Reform Jew in New Orleans, where he played baseball for a Catholic high school, and says he never considered himself religious.

"I am one of the most assimilated people you will ever find," he said.

For the past six years, Freedman said, he has met monthly with Tiechtel to study the Torah. The two also pray together.

Having faith: Ranch's Rabbi Mendy Bukiet lends a hand to others

Ryan T. Boyd

Nov. 20--EAST MANATEE

Rabbi Mendy Bukiet has spent all of his 30 years helping Jews. That's what his father and grandfather, who were also rabbis, taught him.
Whether that entails going to their hospital bedsides or providing food to the needy or strengthening their spirits through the religion, that has been Mendy's mission.
This type of thinking was instilled in him during his younger days in the Jewish community in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, and still dwells in him as rabbi of the Chabad of Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch.
Rabbi Mendy and his wife, Chana, moved to the area three years ago to reach out to the Jewish community of East Manatee after an uncle's urging.
He never thought he would have to reach out even more to his family.
Five years ago, the Bukiets oldest son, Chaim Meir, 5, was born a healthy child. Two years later, the family's second son, Mordechaie, 3, was born.
But it was when the couple's third son, Zalman, 2, was born with Down syndrome that Mendy gained even more knowledge of his religion.
"Jewish religion brings out the concept that special needs children are just not unique," Mendy said, "but they are extremely special. It means that most times they have a closer connection with Godliness. A special needs child can actually strengthen a person's belief in Godliness, and everything else, especially, when you see how much faith they have.
"Children with Down syndrome they have a lot of faith with the parents," he added. "They have a lot of love and a lot of happiness. Even at times of hardship they are able to smile and they really enjoy life. We can learn a lot from these type of children."
Normally, a baby inherits 46 chromosomes: 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. In cases of Down syndrome, a child gets an extra chromosome, and the extra gene causes physical and mental disabilities.
The disease affects one in every 800 babies born.
The first leader of the rabbi movement was named Zalman and it means to bring light. That's how Mendy has interpreted Zalman's arrival.
"We take it as a blessing, and as a gift," he said. "We hope that we can do good with him, and give him the best life he can have. Ultimately, this just brought into focus everything in life. Everything that we have in our lives is a gift from God."
East county synagogue
The Bukiets started the first synagogue in their house, then moved to a school, then to a rental building.
Now the synagogue is on the first floor of the First Priority Bank building, off Palmbrush Trail in Lakewood Ranch.
The Bukiets moved here knowing only five people and the congregation has grown to about 350 families that attend the Chabad at various times of the year. The Chabad offers a weekly service along with various classes for men, women and children throughout the week.
"We grow with the community," Rabbi Mendy said.
Marianne Zoll has grown with the Bukiets and the Chabad as a regular goer of the Chabad for the past 18 months.
Zoll said she's enjoyed Rabbi Mendy's common-man approach to the congregation, and he's made a powerful rapport with his congregation
"He's invited me to his house for Shabbat," Zoll said. "That's not something a rabbi normally does. He's like a regular person. I have his cell phone number, and I know he's not my family, but I know he'll be here if I need him. I believe if he gets 1,000 people in his congregation he'll still be the same way. He is just very honest and very giving, and so is his wife."
Rabbi Mendy spends a lot hours at the synagogue, but he still finds time to transport his oldest two children back and forth to a Jewish day school in Tampa five days a week, make his calls or visit people who are sick or people in need of a spiritual uplift, and open the synagogue in the evenings. Through all of the running, Mendy still makes time to have Zalman to his doctors appointments when scheduled.
Recently, Rabbi Mendy spent most of the day at a hospital in Tampa as Zalman had tubes inserted into his ears to improve his hearing.
"It has been difficult with running a Chabad center," Rabbi Mendy said, "and doing everything he needs to give him the best life he can have. It has been a little bit trying at times, but life is trying, and that is our goal to overcome them, and to make the best out of it. I don't look at the Chabad center as my job. It's my life. My family is not my job. It's my life. There for when there is something special in your life you have the energy to make it work. You have the energy make it be the best it can be."
Others in his congregation has noticed Rabbi Mendy's dedication.
"It's his knowledge, and he's inspiring and he makes you feel good," said Ricki Rubin. "He makes you feel good about being alive, and understand how to live the right way."
Zalman's situation only inspired the Bukiets to produce another gift. About nine weeks ago, Chana gave birth to the couple's fourth child, a healthy boy named, Shaya. Deficiencies or not, to the Bukiets the only thing that matters is that all four of their children are full of energy and having fun.
"Family comes first always," Rabbi Mendy said. "There's a balance that has to be kept so my wife don't suffer and my kids don't suffer. And we do our best to keep that balance."
Mendy Bukiet
Age: 30
Local residence: Lakewood Ranch
Occupation: rabbi of the Chabad of Bradenton and Lakewood Ranch
Birthplace: Miami
Family: wife, Chana; Chaim Meir, 5; Mordechaie, 3; Zalman, 2; and newborn Shaya
Jana Morreale sections editor
P.O. Box 921
Bradenton, FL. 34206
ATTN: MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR
You can also e-mail the information to jmorreale@ bradenton.com, or fax it to her attention at 745-7097.
Rabbi Mendy Bukiet balances family and faith
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Limmud Diary Part 1: Jews reconnect to heritage at Russian Limmud parley

Limmud FSU 2007 is winding down into its final day. It's been an exhilarating ride so far: three days of what the experts call "informal education" - classes, discussions, interactive art - all centering on Jewish issues and identity.

Limmud isn't exactly about making more Jews, or more Orthodox Jews, or more Jewish marriages. The agenda is hard to formulate because it is a method, not an ideology. Young secular Russians rub elbows with (and even dance alongside) Chabad hassidim, local Jewish intellectuals and Israeli educators in a four-day creative free-for-all of Jewish learning.

Limmud is also frustrating. For almost four full days, as many as 10 sessions can take place simultaneously each hour, reaching upwards of 40 a day. The most dedicated participant can only experience perhaps one-sixth of a Limmud.

Disappointing, but strangely exhilarating.

You walk out of a laughter-filled session on the educational wisdom of the Talmudic sages with the charismatic Avraham Infeld, and you're wondering what other gems you missed. The better the session, the more you wish you could see the others.

This is my first Limmud and my reaction is no different from what I've heard from other participants in other countries. Local Limmud conferences are now held around the globe, including in Canada, Turkey, South Africa, Germany, France, the US, Israel and of course England, where the first one was held in 1981.

But a Russian Limmud, which has successfully attracted 700 participants and fielded 100 volunteers, is something else altogether.

The devastated former Soviet Union Jewish communities, religiously choked under Soviet rule and emptied of most of its population and all its activists when the Iron Curtain collapsed, should not be making a comeback.

Yet young Jews across Russia and Eastern Europe have slowly, tentatively - but with growing gusto and richness - begun to explore the meaning of their Jewish past, often a past that is even for their parents a distant memory.

While Eastern European Jewish billionaire "oligarchs" and American Jewish organizations and philanthropists are part of this phenomenon, supporting educational initiatives, organizations and institutions from Warsaw to Tashkent, they have been responding to the bottom-up awakening that has spread in the FSU in the past few years, unexpectedly taking root like a delicate green growth after desert floods.

The image is not overly lyrical. Russia, and the FSU more generally, is still essentially a spiritual wasteland. Jewish identity here has been defined ethnically rather than religiously even more strongly than in Israel, and most of the young activists at Moscow this weekend were adamant that their newfound excitement with Judaism is "cultural, of course not religious."

The cultural awakening, however, isn't without a religious dimension and the tension inherent in growing religious awareness.

"These days, secular Jewish identity here is in crisis," says educator and presenter Moti Chlenov. "We don't know what to fill it with. In the early 1990s, expressing yourself as a Jew meant going to Israel. Judaism is central to Jewish identity, but still most Russian Jews are secular and really like it."

For Chlenov, Limmud, a British creation that has shown tremendous traction in widely disparate Jewish communities, is just what Russian Jewry needs to work through some of this tension. "Limmud is an attempt to create a meaningful mark on Jewish life that isn't secular, but is outside a religious context."

He corrects himself: "Limmud is even smarter than that," he adds as a pair of elderly Orthodox men walk by. "Religious people have a place here."

Chabad House takes yeshiva on the road

Volunteers bring lessons to students

BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

School may be out for the summer, but not at Toledo’s Chabad House-Lubavitch.The Jewish outreach center is offering free classes on Jewish studies taught by six students from yeshivas, or Jewish educational institutions, around the country.And if it is inconvenient to come to Chabad House for classes, then Chabad House will come to you with its “Summer Yeshiva on Wheels” program.Andy Golding signed up for classes at his Sylvania home because he wanted his children to see that studying the Torah, Talmud, and other Jewish texts is important.“I want them to have a sense of Jewish identity, and I think identity is created in the home,” said Mr. Golding, a member of the Temple-Congregation Shomer Emunim in Sylvania. “Having a rabinnical student come to the house is another layer of that identity.”He and his wife, Cami, have four children — Joey, 6; Benny, 5; and twins Sammy and Sophie, 2.“My kids are young. I think the important thing for the kids is that they see their father studying Jewish things,” Mr. Golding said. “And studying Jewish things is a mitzvah, a good deed. This is an easy one.”Mrs. Golding said she has the highest regard for the programs offered by Chabad House, which is part of the worldwide Jewish organization that carries on the teachings of the late Rebbe Menachem Schneerson.“They have such passion. They are the most extreme in being observant [of Jewish traditions], and yet they are the most liberal in how they love and accept people.”Henoch Rosenfeld, a Pittsburgh native studying at a Detroit yeshiva, came to the Goldings’ home this week to teach a class on Jewish ethics.Wearing a black suit, white shirt, and wide-brim black hat, Mr. Rosenfeld brought three books written in both Hebrew and English.As Joey sat on Mr. Golding’s lap, both of them wearing kippahs, or head coverings, Mr. Rosenfeld spoke of how Moses received the Torah from God on Mount Sinai and passed it down from generation to generation.“Listen up,” Mr. Golding told his son. “This is very important!”Benny joined them briefly, then wandered off. Same with Sophie.Mr. Rosenfeld jokingly told Joey to pay attention because he had to teach the lesson to his younger brother. “You repeat this to Benny. I’ll give you a test,” Mr. Rosenfeld said with a grin.Joey just smiled shyly.Mr. Golding read two sentences and Mr. Rosenfeld launched into an enthusiastic lecture, for more than half an hour, about the need to be patient in judgment, and to raise up disciples. “Wow. That’s a lot,” Mr. Golding said with a laugh. “And it’s only been two sentences!”Rabbi Yossi Shemtov of Chabad House, said the Summer Yeshiva program started July 25 and continues through Aug. 15, with classes available almost any time of day or night, at Chabad or in an individual’s home.The program is made possible because the yeshiva students are willing to give up vacation time to teach others, the rabbi said.“Instead of jet-skiing, they graciously offer to come and teach and we are truly grateful,” Rabbi Shemtov said.More information on Summer Yeshiva and Summer Yeshiva on Wheels is available by calling Chabad House-Lubavitch at 419-843-9393. Toledo’s Chabad House is at 4020 Nantucket Dr., off Sylvania Avenue in West Toledo.