That reason is Sarah Palin. She reminds one of about a thousand different Chabad shluchot (the Rebbe's women representatives). She is friendly, with that magnetism, optimism, and accessibility that has made Chabad successful in 5,000 different locales, even though they are considerably more right-wing -- religiously and politically -- than their congregants and supporters.
Reform, Conservative and other Orthodox Jews don't get it. How is Chabad is so successful in places where there are no Chasidim? Why do liberal Jews on the Upper West Side want to send their kids to Chabad pre-schools? Why do many hundreds of non-Chasidic, non-Orthodox students at Harvard and SUNY want to spend Friday night meals with these Chabad Sarah Palins rather than the more mainstream, liberal Jews down the road? It makes no sense.
Would you rather have a cup of coffee on a bungalow porch, a cup that can turn into a three-hour conversation, with Sarah Palin or Nancy Pelosi?
Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton come across like the Queen of Spades of a nanny state; school marms of a school you don't want to go to. Pelosi seems like one of those Sisterhood program chairs from a suburban temple whose calls you don't want to answer.
Sarah Palin seems like one of those Chabad women who don't have enough chairs at her table for all the non-Chabad women who'd take a plane or a subway to attend the next shluchot convention in Crown Heights.
Something's happening and they don't know what it is.
And another thing: There are plenty of logical, rational reasons to abort America's relationship with Israel, the far left tells us, but Chabad doesn't abort and evangelicals (such as Palin) don't either.
Rabbis who can't stop quoting Heschel or Soloveitchik don't get it.
Americans and Jews don't need another genius. We don't need another Herr Rabbi Doctor. We have enough "scholars," believe it or not.
We don't have enough human beings who'd rather rock a Down Syndrome baby to sleep than abort it; human beings who can relate to a flunking child or the stuffiness of the sophisticates, parents who don't give a damn who's in the top shiur or who made law review.
We have too many of the best and the brightest, the wise and the brilliant, who can't communicate (and who may be aren't really the best or all that brilliant.)
The genius of Chabad is delivering their message in a down-home way, much as Sarah Palin did at the convention.
Some others outside of Chabad know how to do it, too. Blu Greenberg, for one, the godmother of Orthodox feminism, is smart and wise, but like a Chabad woman she doesn't enter a room like she wants you to know what she got on her SATs (or BJEs). Her voice and manner are gentle, her visions for Judaism are prophetic and compelling, her Judaism is poetic (she's a published poet), not like Judaism's angry left whose religion has all the appeal of a term paper, all about "J," "P," Deutero-Isaiah; the kind who can't look at any biblical verse with being "troubled" by it.
Chabad women know what really troubles people, and it ain't Deutero-Isaiah.
In 1950, all American Jews heard of liberal Judaism (that's Conservatives, too) but no one heard of Chabad. Chabad seemed a relic of history. Liberal Judaism was ascendent, inevitable. The Rebbe's Chabad was as fringe religiously as Sarah Palin's conservative ancestors were then on the fringe politically.
Who would have figured that in 2008, liberal pews in most of America would be empty while everyone has now heard of Chabad? Chabad is all over the continent, all over the planet, raising fortunes (without charging shul membership fees), getting men to put on tefillin, getting women to go to mikvah -- men and women who, if not for Chabad, wouldn't. It makes no sense.
Chabad women, like Palin, don't look at Judaism, or the United States, and then look at the world to worry "why do they hate us?" They don't blame Judaism or America first. They are happy warriors. They don't think "bitterness" is what motivates religious people, as Obama said with condescension. You come away feeling that these kind of women understand religion, they love America and religion like they love their kids, troubles and all, feeling blessed every step of the way.
The great scholars of the other denominations are very good at conducting studies, going on high-priced retreats, developing goalposts that can be moved to allow past failures to score.
Chabad women don't conduct studies. They cook a chicken (or, Sarah Palin, a moose) and invite you over on Friday night. And college students, middle-class families, international businessmen want to be there.
At the beginning of these successful relationships between Chabad and their guests, theology and politics having little or nothing to do with it. A lot of Palin's appeal has nothing to do with her theology or politics either.
The other party and denominations are trying to figure it out. Maybe if they could get a grant. Maybe if they could find someone with whom they can dialogue.
Chabad women and Sarah Palin don't dialogue. They talk. And they don't talk down.
They win. Makes no sense!
1 comment:
Nice post. And I agree with you too!
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