REFLECTIONS ON SHABBAT
AT CHABAD ON CAMPUS

ACCEPTANCE:

At Chabad, every student is accepted as they are; personal Jewish observance and practice are not critiqued. We encourage everybody to Zachor (remember) the Shabbat, in celebration as a community, without judging how they might Shamor (guard) and keep the laws of Shabbat.

Since the Jewish student population is quite diverse, we seek to build community that is broadly inclusive. Students who are more involved — let’s call them “Shabbat natives” — have the opportunity to take ownership of the Shabbat experience by taking on responsibilities such as preparing, inviting friends, welcoming guests, serving the meals and sticking around after dinner to create an atmosphere of Oneg Shabbat. This might include playing board games, singing nigunim and Z’mirot or merely chatting — just as they might in their own homes. The secret is to create a cultural environment that is both meaningful for the students who observe Shabbat in a rich manner, while also welcoming and accessible to students who might be at their first Shabbat dinner ever.

BEING, NOT DOING:

Shabbat serves as a break from all the work and pressures of college. It is a time to rejuvenate. An implicit message of Shabbat is that what matters most is a person’s essence, not their actions. This runs counter to the archetype of the high-achieving college student who is, by nature or nurture, deadline-driven and goal-oriented. Refraining from melacha, or certain types of work prohibited on Shabbat, is a celebration of covenant, not one’s deeds. This healthy message empowers college students with a vital sense of perspective. As one sophomore told us, “Shabbat provides an outlet through which outside noise can be silenced.”

COMMUNITY:

The need to create a sense of “manageable community” is a driving force in the lives of college students. Manageable community helps to provide context in a large and impersonal class of students. Chabad serves as a comfortable environment in which to meet new friends and form community. Students eat together, talk together, share in the rituals of the Shabbat meal and create life-long bonds. For them, the social aspects of Shabbat at Chabad are paramount.

The Jewish context of hospitality is critical. At Shabbat at Chabad, students have the opportunity to meet professors, visiting parents, businesspeople in town for conferences, Israeli politicians, Israeli backpackers, philanthropists and individuals visiting the area for medical treatment. It’s a diverse and eclectic crowd that gathers around our Shabbat table.

DONORS AND DEDICATION:

We are blessed with a diverse array of donors, typically alumni of the universities that we serve and the parents of current students, along with faculty and other friends, who place great value in the service we provide. Beyond providing generous support, they also offer encouragement and guidance to the local Chabad family. This effusive support, broadly defined, cannot be overstated.

EDUCATION:

We want students to discover the beauty and warmth of a traditional Shabbat and ultimately to choose to incorporate it into their lives. We do this by using a multidimensional tool of experiential education: Shabbat dinner. Shabbat dinner is a hands-on learning tool that impacts via affect, behavior and cognition. Dr. Leonard Saxe calls this trifecta the “Kishkes, Cortex, and Kinesthetics Principle.” When the educator deploys all these aspects, the combined result is a powerful and rounded pedagogical experience.

Formal education occurs as well. During the meal, typically the rabbi will share a Dvar Torah. This teaching must be meaningful yet brief, broadly relevant to contemporary students, yet Jewish and Chasidic at its core. Ultimately, we want people to consider Chabad a location where they will appreciate powerful Jewish ideas and ideals.

FAMILY:

Young adults feel the connection to a home environment and want to be welcomed by one. Yet, Chabad is far more than an experience in “radical hospitality,” to borrow Dr. Ron Wolfson’s phrase from Relational Judaism (Jewish Lights, 2013). While we do serve as a Jewish communal institution, at our core we are a family. Each Chabad on Campus is headed up by a husband and wife team, typically aided by some wonderful children. Shabbat is what we do with our family every Friday evening, and we invite students to celebrate Shabbat as part of our family. Our staff doesn’t take turns being “on call” for Shabbat dinners, nor do we cancel Shabbat dinners during school breaks. If it’s Friday night, we are going to be celebrating with our family, and we naturally invite students to join us. New York Times columnist David Brooks called this “haimish.”

GLOBAL:

There are many challenges facing the Jewish People today. For example, many young Jews are Jewishly-illiterate, cut off from the core ideas and practices of Judaism. Some analysts argue that young Jewish Americans are distancing themselves from Israel. Within Israel, there appear to be deep divisions, particularly along the secular/religious axis. It is therefore appropriate to highlight a positive global trend. Parallel to the Chabad on Campus network, there is another Chabad network serving a significant population of young Jews: Israelis who have just completed military service. This population often departs Israel for a period of travel, trekking in such places as Thailand, Nepal, India, Cambodia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Australia, New Zealand and, yes, even in New York. To reach them, the Chabad movement has opened Chabad Houses in each of these places. To our knowledge, there is no other Jewish organization that operates on this scale, with professional staff at virtually every significant location where young Jews are to be found. Common throughout this system is the Shabbat at Chabad experience. By binding a diverse set of young people with a common social platform and shared religious language, perhaps this program can help connect Jews with their heritage and bridge divides within the Jewish People.

Rabbi Yossy Gordon, Executive Vice President of the Chabad on Campus Int’l Foundation, summed it up for us nicely. “Students are smart. They perceive the genuine Ahavas Yisroel [love of the Jewish People], as well as the dedication to serving Am Yisroel [the People of Israel], that motivates the Chabad family to set up shop on a college campus and open their home to all.”

And students get it. ■

Chana R. Novack and Rabbi Hershey Novack are the founding directors of Chabad on Campus — Rohr Center for Jewish Life at Washington University in St. Louis, where they are beginning their twelfth year.