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| ‘God’s Salesman’ Fights for a Foothold on Pluralistic Campus |
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| Written by Emily Seife | |||||
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Chabad Establishes Presence at Wesleyan University Every Thursday afternoon, Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky enters a Wesleyan University classroom with a stack of Tanachs under one arm, a wiry reddish beard dangling from his chin, and a wide brimmed black hat on his head. A Chabad rabbi, Wolvovsky serves as executive director of Chabad East of the River, a Chabad house in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Once a week, he ventures twenty miles up I-91 to Wesleyan’s Middletown campus, where he hosts a lunchtime ‘Torah Buffet’ for Wesleyan students. As a Chabad emissary, Wolvovsky’s ultimate goal is to convince Jews to practice Judaism in the manner prescribed by the Chabad movement. And yet, within Wesleyan’s organized Jewish community, the concept of pluralism, the idea that each individual’s manner of being Jewish is equally valid, is held as sacred. One might think that a missionary would be completely out of place in such an environment. And yet, so far, things seem to be going remarkably well for Rabbi Wolvovsky. A Hasidic sect with roots in Eastern Europe, Chabad Lubavitch is best known among American Jews for its employment of ‘Mitzvah Tanks’ in its efforts to hasten the arrival of the Messiah. Young male Lubavitchers, as they are called, troll the streets of Jewish areas in cars and trucks of various descriptions, looking for unobservant Jews to assist in fulfilling such commandments as the donning of Tefillin and the shaking of the lulav on Sukkot. According to Chabad.org, the movement currently has over 4,000 ‘emissary families’ stationed in communities around the world. On a recent Thursday, Rabbi Wolvosky sat at the head of a table piled high with bagels, lox, hummus, and soda, and expounded on ‘Lech Lecha,’ the week’s Torah portion. “The good that I did is good enough for yesterday,” Wolvovsky taught, “but I should move forward from yesterday’s achievement and today do more good.” Wesleyan’s Jewish Chaplain, Rabbi David Leipziger, welcomed Rabbi Wolvovsky to campus, although he is not involved in organizing the visits. “We are committed to pluralism,” Rabbi Leipziger said. “I’m enthusiastic that there is an Orthodox Rabbi with different goals and different viewpoints.” While Leipziger may see Wolvovsky’s presence as a sign of a pluralistic campus atmosphere, Wolvovsky, in his role as an emissary for Chabad, rejects the concept of pluralism. “We’re not really comfortable identifying Jews by denomination,” Wolvovky says. “We should strive towards unity and common ground, and not put up any kind of barriers. All Jews are equally Jewish.” In other words, there is only one valid form of Judaism: his. Last fall, Wesleyan history professor Vera Schwarcz developed the ‘Torah Buffet’ program in tandem with Rabbi Wolvovsky. She says she was struck by how the Wesleyan Jewish community seemed to be involved in everything but Torah study. As a practicing Jew, Schwarcz said that in her life, “everything comes back to Torah. Yet, at a school where life is centered on text, the text was strangely absent.” Chloe Safier, a Wesleyan senior, is a regular at Rabbi Wolvovsky’s weekly sessions. “I like that I have the opportunity to learn a little bit of Torah at Wesleyan,” she said. “It's so easy to get distracted by all the fleeting things around you, and I think it's important, for me at least, to take an hour out of the week and concentrate on the 'bigger-picture' issues that learning Torah makes me think about.” Rabbi Wolvovsky would be proud. “There are people who become ‘God’s policemen,’” he said. “I, and Chabad generally, believe that we shouldn’t be holier than the Torah itself. Still, we are careful not to move from our principles. We are more like ‘God’s salespeople.’”
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