eJewish Philanthropy

Your Jewish Philanthropy Resource

You are here: Home / The Blog / What Can We Really Learn From Chabad: A Conservative Perspective

What Can We Really Learn From Chabad: A Conservative Perspective

By

by Paul Steinberg

“Excuse me, are you Jewish? Have you put on tefillin today?” Many of us recognize this signature introduction to our Chabad Lubavitch brothers. I certainly do. Actually, I should disclose that I have personal history with Chabad, having attended a Chabad day school and Camp Gan Israel, and, for several years, my family went to a Chabad house every week for Shabbat and holidays.

I am no chabadnik now and, in fact, I feel very much at home in the pluralistic, historical, and multi-faceted ideology of Conservative Judaism. Still, as a Conservative rabbi, Chabad has an impact on me, especially in the form of friends and congregants who eagerly tell of the warmth, personal appeal, and authenticity they feel at Chabad houses. I understand the attraction, for I knew my Chabad rabbis well. I also appreciate identifying the striking contrasts between what happens at Chabad houses and relatively large Conservative congregations like my own. I also absolutely agree with Professor Steven Windmueller’s recent article identifying what he considers to be Chabad’s success, when he suggests that we should learn from what Chabad does that works. Yet, when I hear the accounts and read the articles that compare our congregations with Chabad, I am not always convinced of an honest and fair accounting of our differences whereby we both define what we mean by Jewish organizational success and candidly acknowledge the reality of American Jewish sociology.

In order to make any comparison with Chabad and identify their success, we must first understand Chabad. Chabad is a movement that started in the territories of modern day Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Poland. It is a Chasidic movement that is most famous for its emissaries, known as shluchim. These shluchim, numbering over 4000, go all over the world (and there don’t need to be too many Jews for them to go there) from Congo to Columbus, Ohio. With these dedicated shluchim, Chabad has managed to place itself not only on the national Jewish agenda, but also the international Jewish agenda.

One of the extraordinary things about Chabad is that, although it is a Chasidic movement, most of its followers are not Chasidic, nor are they even Orthodox, nor are they likely to become so. Indeed, Chabad houses offer a warm and accepting environment where there are no strings attached at all. In this regard, Chabad’s model of communal engagement is actually the opposite model found in most of the Jewish world. For most congregations, the basic model goes something like this: you become a member, and then you receive services and become a friend. The Chabad model reverses it: they provide services and become your friend, and later you’ll want to pay them something because of everything they do for you. They never expect anyone to become a member; there is no explicit expectation or demand for financial, communal, or even Jewish commitment.

So then, what is Chabad’s goal? What do they want? They nobly want us to do mitzvot or mitzvos (fulfill Jewish commandments). And why do they want us to do mitzvos? Because of messianism. That is to say, doing mitzvos – “changing the world one mitzvah at a time” – helps to bring about the messiah. Messianism is the belief that there is a messiah (the mashiach) and that he is coming (they are sure it’s a “he”), and, for some in Chabad, he has already been here (we’ll discuss below). Messianism has been at the heart of the mission of Chabad for at least the past hundred years, and they believe that it is their job is to hasten the coming of the messiah by encouraging mitzvos, specific ritual acts. Chabad has their own version of a top ten list of mitzvos, and the performance of those mitzvos has cosmic significance, potentially tipping the spiritual balance toward the messiah’s arrival. In other words, putting on tefillin in the street, eating a kosher meal, or spending a Shabbat at a Chabad house just one time and never doing it again is an act that has the power to tip the celestial scales. Therefore, the role of the shluchim is to encourage mitzvos in order to accelerate the coming of the messiah.

Over the past 50 years, Chabad has taken this message and skillfully packaged it into media and slogans – slogans that are particularly catchy in America, such as, “We want mashiach now!” Wanting something and wanting it now, after all, is about as American as apple pie. However, what is fascinating about this religious ideology is that it doesn’t take much to motivate the mashiach and get him here now. It doesn’t require keeping 613 commandments, it doesn’t require a lifetime of service, and it doesn’t even require a sustained commitment to the Jewish community. They claim that for mashiach to be here, it requires us to “just add goodness and kindness,” something of which no one could possibly be opposed.

What most people notice about Chabad though, is how it has proudly promoted traditional Jewish culture in the public square. Many are familiar with their telethon dancing rabbis and street-tefillin shluchim. And don’t forget the gigantic Hanukkah menorah that Chabad introduced to the world, as shluchim are raised on forklifts in public malls and plazas to light the lights. Chabad’s presence is prominent at the Kotel in Jerusalem, in the cyber world of the Internet and even at the White House in Washington. Furthermore, their marketing products such as publications and magazines, as well as collective distribution are the envy of many in the Jewish organizational world.

Finally, what we also associate with Chabad is the image of the Rebbe himself as the centralizing source of inspiration. No other Jewish leader in modernity has achieved his status of popularity. One only needs to see his face to know what he represents – and what he represents is not without controversy. To this day, banners donning his photo, mounted at storefronts and at the entrance of the Chabad Lubavitch Yeshivah on Eastern Parkway read, Yechi Melekh Ha-Mashiach (“Long Live the King Messiah”) and “MESSIAH IS HERE: Add just goodness and kindness.” These markers leave little doubt as to who they believe is the messiah. However, since the Rebbe’s passing in 1994, Chabad has worked very hard to shift its messaging regarding the Rebbe as the messiah, but still has not changed the banners.

So, now that we have a context for Chabad, we can better assess the question of its success. Professor Windmueller and others pronounce Chabad’s great organizational success, corroborating the claim that Chabad is possibly the most successful Jewish outreach organization in the world. Maybe they are. But that would only be success according to their own goals of bringing the sum number of mitzvot performed into the world for the hastening of the messiah. These, however, are not our goals at all.

Frankly, it is unwise and misleading to contrast the totality of Chabad’s successes with our own because we are working toward two totally different sets of goals. Such comparisons often result in more confusion and doubt about who we are than inspiration and solidarity in our own vision of Jewish life. And there are good reasons why we are who we are and not who we are not. For example, the fact that Chabad is able to get someone to put on tefillin in the street once so as to tip the balance in favor of a messiah is irrelevant for Conservative Judaism. Our goal is to help Jews live an integrated, whole life of mitzvot, so that each of us contributes to an ongoing and evolving world of goodness. We measure ourselves by different goals and ask ourselves different questions:

  • Are we helping Jews to live an embodied and rich life of mitzvot?
  • Are we heightening and expanding Jewish life both locally and nationally throughout America?
  • Are we building a stronger feeling toward the State of Israel and an expansion of a robust Jewish life there?
  • Are we helping to bring Jews of different streams and ideologies together to work in a pluralistic and respectful manner toward common aims?
  • Are we providing ample opportunities for more Jews in America live a life of Jewish learning?
  • Are we contributing to the advancement of scholarship and research in Jewish studies?
  • Are we working to improve relations between Jews and non-Jews?
  • Are we engaging Jews in honest and mature conversations about God?
  • Are we helping Jews enroll their children in a Jewish educational programs, Jewish summer camps, and Jewish youth groups?
  • Are we guiding Jews toward a rich inner spiritual life, including prayer?
  • Are we advancing Jewish civics and actively applying Jewish values toward worldly ethical problems?

These are the kinds of questions that we ask of Conservative Judaism. I don’t think we ask these questions of Chabad and I’m not certain it would do any good because they are not the questions they ask of themselves. Plus, if we did, I’m not too sure they would fare very well on the affirmative side.

There is no denying that our Conservative institutions need fixing in many ways, especially now, as we find ourselves in what seems to be a very unstable time. That being said, we are supremely aware of our own deficiencies and peccadilloes because we are experts at stacking up the self-criticism, jumping at every complaint, and overreacting to any demographic downturn. It’s good to remember that inspiring Jews toward authentic, serious Jewish living has been a challenge since the time of the Torah. Why should it be different today? Of course, complacency and hubris would be foolish and we should continuously seek out best practices. Yet as we look to those virtues of success (as identified in the questions above), let us neither overstate others’ nor deny our own.

Lastly, if there is anything we can learn it is to be resolute in our ideology and our message of relationships and connectedness. For us, it’s about connecting the wisdom of the past with the advances and insights of the present – connecting Jewish thought with Jewish practice; Jewish law (Halakhah) with ethics; Jews with other Jews of all varying denominations and perspectives; Jews with non-Jews, Jews with the State of Israel, and Jews with God. We believe in a world that moves toward more connectivity in all its glorious Jewish diversity, and bound by the unifying force of the oneness of God. It is from this place of authentic, religious vision that we are compelled to set our benchmarks and measure successes.

Rabbi Paul Steinberg is the Senior Educator at Valley Beth Shalom in Los Angeles, CA and is the author of the award-winning series, Celebrating the Jewish Year (JPS, 2009). He also teaches at the Graduate School of Education at American Jewish University and is working on his doctoral dissertation on the Bar Mitzvah at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Click here to Email This Post Email This Post to friends or colleagues!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Interesting article. I would maintain that one of the differences between Conservative Judaism and other “sects” of Judaism is that the other organizations including Chabad know who their target members are and how they will attract them and keep them. They have a well defined ideology. Conservative Judaism suffers from trying to be everything to everyone and at least lately has not been much of anything to anyone especially in many of the smaller congregations like my own who really have lost direction. Of 5 conservative congregations in a 10 mile radius 10 years ago ours is the only one still paying dues to USCJ and that may not last much longer. Perhaps what we can say the real difference is that Chabad is relevant to the people it attracts. Conservative Judaism increasingly is not relevant to anyone at least in my little next of the woods.

    BTW my wife Deborah Reiss Pransky’s grandfather was Ben Riemer.

  2. At the very core of Chabad thinking is the principle of Ahavat Yisroel, the love, and responsibility for ones fellow Jew. This is manifest by providing Torah education and opportunities to connect with one’s heritage through the observance of Mitzvos. And each Mitzva can lead to another, serving as a stepping-stone path towards one’s own spiritual development. This idea is suggested in Avot, Mitzvah Goreres Mitzvah (one mitzvah spawns another mitzvah). Here Chabad may differ with other Orthodox groups who may be reluctant to value the individual accomplishments and progress towards Jewish observance. Chassidic philosophy, based on the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov (whose birthday, incidentally, will be marked on the 18th of Elul) always took the path seeing the glass half-full rather than half-empty.

    The belief and yearning for Moshaich has been a timeless Jewish value. It is listed by Maimonides as one of the thirteen Principles of Belief,. Unfortunately in modern times the liberal movements have moved away from many of the classical principles of Jewish belief, including this one.

    One point of information, sadly the signs are still up in the Chabad synagogue in New York supporting a theology, that many in Chabad do not share, about the identity of Moshiach. However the central organizations of Chabad, Agudas Chassidie Chabad and Merkos L’inyonie Chinuch are in litigation to remove those banners and restore the synagogue to its appearance and glory of years past. Use of these signs as proof that this theology dominates the movement is disingenuous.

  3. I’m glad to be a part of a small but sufficient chevra of people that have moved away from the local Conservative world and have spent more time in the Chabad and Orthodox sphere. In most of the questions attached to your bullet points I am comfortable stating that the Chabad and Orthodox world do answer those questions better when compared to the Conservative kehila that is actually really being eaten up by the Reform here in Pittsburgh.

  4. Rabbi Steinberg has brilliantly encapsulated the imperative of Judaism. He has differentiated between the notion of simply observing rituals and that of acting on the meaning of Mitzvot. Conservative Judaism is authentic and recognizes that we are a Chosen People in order to be a light unto other Nations, that we believe that each Jew is responsible for each other Jew and that we live lives of meaning and purpose. Unfortunately, our message has been lost as too many Jews have become untethered from the notion of Community and have substituted it with idolatrous worship of materialism and/or rituals. What Chabad has successfully done is to bring passion and engagement along with a welcoming message to all Jews. It is time that Conservative Judaism do the same by transforming our institutions into purposeful communities.

  5. Rabbi Steinberg nailed it in his second paragraph: “…Chabad has an impact on me, especially in the form of friends and congregants who eagerly tell of the warmth, personal appeal, and authenticity they feel at Chabad houses… I also appreciate identifying the striking contrasts between what happens at Chabad houses and relatively large Conservative congregations like my own.”

    Unfortunately, instead of truly developing those points in the context of what can be learned from Chabad, he chooses to provide a capsule history of the Chasidic movement and its dual emphasis on mizvot and bring mashiach. His last paragraphs provide a mostly intellectual contrast between Chabad and the Conservative Movement and its synagogues. In my opinion, Rabbi Steinberg may have created a gap between his opening and his conclusion that could well be at best too challenging to bridge, and at worst, impossible to do so.

    With few exceptions, the nature of the contemporary synagogue, no matter the movement, is that it services its membership, primarily and understandably so. The Chabad house involves itself in individual and family outreach through “warmth, personal appeal, and authenticity”; membership if any is secondary.

    Steinberg says that he “absolutely agrees” with Steven Windmueller’s excellent article earlier this month “Unpacking Chabad”, although he immediately qualifies that statement by acknowledging that that Chabad and Conservative Judaism have different definitions of organizational success.

    But if Conservative Judaism and its synagogues are to grow and achieve heightened success to the benefit of both the movement and Am Yisrael, then perhaps its leadership ought to take note especially of the first three of Windmueller’s ten core elements of the Chabad approach: (1) Begin with One Jew at a Time, (2) Meet Clients Where They Are, and (3) Construct and Sustain an Image of Tradition and Authority.

    Can the Conservative, Modern Orthodox, Reconstructionist, or Reform synagogue of today truly function in such fashion across its respective movement? That’s the challenge.

    An additional critical factor is reflected in Windmueller’s element (8): Build a Supportive and Embracing Infrastructure: Chabad’s strengths are represented through its campus services, camps, schools, drug rehabilitation programs, and the myriad of other activities that meet vital service programs and touch the lives of Jews and non-Jews in need of connection, community and care.

    Jack Wertheimer’s research has shown that serious fragmentation exists in American Jewish life, including within the movements themselves, his work particularly having focused on the Conservative Movement. Can that fragmentation be overcome so that an effective and efficient system ultimately will benefit primarily an individual Jewish life as opposed to a given institution?

    In his comment to Windmueller’s article, Jordan Goodman brings forward a well known and perceptive quote from the late Peter Drucker: “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

    That is something else to be learned from Chabad. Our religious movements should be spending more time on first and foremost redefining and refining their culture of “warmth, personal appeal, and authenticity”, then implementing their respective strategic plans. Chabad seems to simultaneously understand and incorporate both culture and strategy exceedingly well.

  6. Thank you for a thought provoking article. i also really liked the conversations it generated. I will say thought that for me each of these approaches and how Jews affiliate themselves with various movements leaves two important differences: My experiences with Chabad and its double digit growth in the NY area where I live ( and a decline in Conservative Judaism affiliation) is that when I ask people why they like Chabad so much and are leaving their Conservative synagogues to “join” Chabad the number one answer is always about the authenticity and the lack of spirituality of the Rabbi. As one friend said to me ” it feels like a life-long calling for the Chabad Rabbi… conversely for my ex-rabbi it seems to be a profession…. and it carries through to their behaviors and their spirituality across every imaginable dimension. For me, personally, the second element that is constantly raised as to why people can’t bring themselves to “join” chabad and prefer Conservative Judaism is the treatment of women. It is the core strength of the Conservative movement. We should all ask why more women are not at the top of the house in real leadership positions at Conservative institutions. As an active Jewish woman as much as I like my local Chabad Rabbi I cannot come to terms with the lack of focus on Women. I can assure you that no Chabadnik ever came up to me and asked me…. “Excuse me, are you Jewish? Have you put on tefillin today?”

  7. “Our goal is to help Jews live an integrated, whole life of mitzvot, so that each of us contributes to an ongoing and evolving world of goodness. We measure ourselves by different goals and ask ourselves different questions”
    How is this and the questions posed unique to conservative judaism? It would seem to me that this could equally apply to both much of liberal orthodoxy at one end of the spectrum and to reform and reconstructionism at the other.

  8. Thank you for raising some serious points to think about and perhaps comment on 🙂
    It seems to me that most non-practicing Jews who affiliate with or support Chabad do so at least initially because of a personal touch they experienced from a Chabad rabbi or rebbitzen.
    That personal touch however just opens a door for a conversation. Usually, over a Shabbat dinner or some time spent in serious Torah study from primary Jewish sources, that Jew finds out things about his or her religion they may never have known. Abraham and Sarah were not mythical figures, they really existed. G-d really did speak to Moses and cares about the details of the mitzvot. Until then it was, “Pay dues because it’s your obligation, don’t intermarry because that’s what Judaism needs for you to continue the tradition etc.” But guess what: neither of these statements resonate with most Jews today. Jews today, and I suspect always, ask questions. They want to know – what’s in it for me? Well guess what, if you take away a belief in the afterlife, a connection that a mitzvah observed (although difficult) forges with G-d, and replace that with do it because the world needs you, well then you may as well be a humanist without the weighty “burden” of millenia of being an outsider.
    The question is therefore, what is the real need that Jews have and what will give them the self-motivation to keep coming back? Chabad finds the answer in classical Torah sources. Jews need the belief system of our prophets and sages as expressed in our primary sources, the great men and women who refused to assimilate although it was so much easier in the short term to have done so. Jews need more, not less or trimmed down, mitzvot. Jews need more, not less or watered down, Torah study. The liberal movements answer the same question by taking a vote and ultimately weeding out any practice or philosophy not deemed popular at the moment. If parents raise their children based on what the kids want in any given year of their adolescence, or if teachers taught without demanding more of their students, one can imagine how the next generation ends up. It is instructive that the liberal congregations that add service times, increase tefillin donning, enforce some level of kosher and the like, generally are doing much better than those who are not.
    Its seems to me therefore that the “Chabad take-away” is firstly for the conservative rabbis to live a personally committed Halachic life. Second, slowly introduce more mitzvah observance in your communities. Third, explain each mitzvah as it is being introduced, so that the congregation appreciates its importance, nuances, and spiritual value. Fourth, spend personal time with as many of your congregants as possible, meeting them in their offices and inviting them to your home for dinner so they can see firsthand how Jewish life can be lived and enjoyed in 2012. And if that sounds too much like the local Chabad house, well maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.

  9. Halachic reasons aside, I have the same problem with Chabad as I have with Conservative Judaism.

    Let me start with Chabad. I really don’t think that there is a need for a Chabad synagogue outside of perhaps Crown Heights. Why can’t a Chabad synagogue just be an Orthodox synagogue with a rabbi who likes Chabad Chassidut? Having “warmth, personal appeal, and authenticity” is nice and I think all Orthodox synagogues should be that way. But I don’t think that Chabad is doing its congregants any favors by creating a new division in Klal Yisroel.

    In a certain way, I see a similar problem in the Conservative movement. The Conservative movement got its strength first by having sermons in English, appealing to the second generation immigrants and secondly by allowing lenience on Shabbat which appealed to the move to the suburbs. Today, I would say that most Conservative Jews could either find a place in the liberal orthodox world or in the Reform movement. Is there really a need for a third movement or such size?

    So my suggestion would be for the Conservative movement to scale down, sending most of its membership either to Orthodox or Reform congregations. Similarly, I would suggest that Chabad congregations merge with Orthodox congregations whenever possible geographically and when not, to play down the Chabad chassidut and play up normative halachic Judaism.

    I think that two tents are big enough for 95% of North American Jewry.

  10. Mendel Bogomilsky, I would like to thank you for a beautiful comment. While I thoroughly enjoyed the Rabbi’s article, your comment was the piece that really “nailed” it for me. (On a personal note, I grew up fairly secular, found Chabad as a young father and am now a committed member of a Modern Orthodox congregation. I truly grew up with Chabad.)

  11. Chabad is not a simplistic sect, which childishly believes that getting non-religious Jews to perform a few unrelated mitzvot will somehow magically bring Moshiach (Messiah), with no real, sustained input into Jewish life. Chabad’s activities are not limited to randomly accosting Jews on the street and asking them to put on tefillin. Obviously, as this article states at the beginning, they develop the infrastructure to allow Jews to live full Jewish lives and to grow in their observance: shuls, mikvahs, schools, summer camps, community classes, libraries, newspapers, websites, etc.

    I grew up in the Conservative movement, and never found any passion or even basic belief there. The biggest difference between the Conservative and Chabad movements is that the Chabadniks actually have a faith. They don’t waffle and they don’t apologize. It’s not only Chabad: I became Modern Orthodox as an adult, and am thrilled to be sending my kdis to Jewish day schools where they learn that the Torah was given by G-d, that it’s not changeable, that we have an obligation to follow Jewish law. This is the big difference I see between Conservative and Orthodox: I never felt the Conservative movement believed in anything – everything was wishy-washy, everything was equivocal – and I was searching for truth. I craved something to firm to believe in.

    Finally, I was disturbed by this article’s attempt to paint Chabad as wierd. There was a huge amount of shock when the Rebbe died, and it sank in that he wasn’t the Messiah. It’s true there are still pockets of Jews who refuse to believe it, though these are not representative of mainstream Chabad thougth. The movement also is not as motivated as this article implies by the promise of Moshiach. While Chabad Jews (like all Orthodox Jews) do regard the coming of the Messiah as central to Jewish history, they also emphasize the importance of living a life of Torah today. Which – in my experience growing up in Conservative synagogues and NCSY – is totally foreign to the Conservative way of life.

Trackbacks