Sante Fe, New Mexico
The Spark of Jewish Souls
Published in The New Mexican Sunday, February 16, 1997
By Sharyn Obsatz
Russian communists murdered Rabbi Berel Levertov's grandfather - his namesake - in 1947 because the elderly rabbi would not renounce his Jewish faith, refrain from Jewish studies or stop performing ceremonial circumcisions.
The young Rabbi Levertov, 27, said that thoughts of his grandfather dying for the right to be a Jew have led him to dedicate his life to strengthening the Jewish faith and appealing to Jews who have been lax in practicing their religion.
"These days, people respect you when you show you're religious," Levertov said during a recent interview at his Santa Fe home. "Here we have it so easy to do it. Why don't we do it?"
Three months ago, the worldwide Lubavitch headquarters in New York City dispatched Levertov and his wife, Devorah, 23, to Santa Fe to set up Santa Fe's first Chabad Jewish Center at the Levertovs' home on Don Gaspar Avenue.
The fundamentalist Lubavitch movement has 2,200 centers worldwide, including one in Albuquerque, which garnered enough members in four years to build its own Chabad center and synagogue.
The Levertovs said that they are working to build interest in the Santa Fe Jewish center. Ultimately they hope it includes a synagogue, gymnasium, kosher food shop and a school.
The couple's arrival has been met with mixed views on whether their style of Judaism will attract followers in Santa Fe.
Levertov believes that many Jews in this New Age mecca are searching for religion. "Every person has an instinctive religious flame," he said. "When you lose all the meaning, people get frustrated. As liberal as they'd like to be, they need something to give their life meaning."
Levertov said he believes many Jews are accustomed to dry institutionalized Judaism - doing things because they have to. "We're trying to make people excited about it," he said.
INSERT: Strict adherance to Jewish laws
The Levertovs held a celebration last month at Wild Oats for the Jewish New Year for Trees. About 25 participants fashioned fruit baskets while the rabbi talked about religious lessons people can learn from trees - keeping their roots strong and constantly growing. The Lubavitch headquarters estimates 3,000 to 5,000 Jews live in Santa Fe, but only about 550 families are affiliated with local congregations. A local Lubavitcher, Chana Katz, said she asked the organization to send representatives here. "In this town, there are a lot of souls waiting to be sparked, wanting to be sparked," Katz said.
The Levertovs received a $25,000 grant from the local Levinson Foundation to get them started. "In any religion there are hypocrites and there's the real thing - he's the real thing," said Charlotte Talberth, a member of the Levinson family who runs the foundation. Linda Paul Greenberg, president of the local Orthodox Jewish congregation called Pardes Israel, said bringing Jews back to the fold is wonderful - returning Jews and a high Orthodox Jewish birth rate keep the faith from disappearing. But she doubts the Lubavitch tradition will appeal to Santa Fe women. "Chabad definitely has its place with young, lost people. It gives them direction in their lives," Greenberg said. But in Santa Fe, she said, many Jewish women are older, divorced. "They're very unaffiliated, they're very opinionated in what they want in their lives."
Under the Lubavitch tradition, women are in charge of the home and men are in charge of work outside the home. But Levertov said that this is changing; some of today's Lubavitch women have jobs. Women wear skirts. Married women wear wigs, hats or scarfs(MD77)cq , allowing only their husbands to see their real hair. Lubavitch Jews believe the Torah obligates married couples to sleep in separate beds when the wife menstruates, and she must und ergo a cleansing ceremony before the couple can sleep together again. Men must pray three times a day and walk to the synagogue on the Sabbath. Levertov said that he does not recognize the distinction between the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism. "Our philosophy is it's the same Torah for everybody," he said. The rabbi said that he is not trying to make everyone a Lubavitcher - just to give them the opportunity to fulfill their obligations as Jews. If a Jew lights the Friday evening Sabbath candles once, it is a mitzvah, a fulfillment of a religious obligation, even if that person had not lit the candles before or does not plan to do it again, he said.
Every single mitzvah is important, Levertov said, and they add up to making the world better. Both Berel and Devorah Levertov grew up in Crown Heights, a Brooklyn neighborhood where the Lubavitch headquarters is located. They met through Devorah's uncle, who worked with Berel. Both have worked at Jewish centers in Russia. Berel received his ordination as a rabbi in 1990 after studying at the United Lubavitch Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Devorah earned a teaching degree at Beth Rivkah in Crown Heights. Both Levertovs have many relatives leading and teaching at Chabad Jewish centers in other states and countries.
The rabbi wears a black felt hat and a yarmulke to remind him of God above and the two levels of the human soul: life and unity with God. He usually dresses in suits, in black on the Sabbath. Lubavitch men never cut their beards, and the rabbi's beard is several inches long. During the interview, Devorah Levertov wore a skirt that covered her knees and a white sweater that covered her elbows. In public, she wears a brown wig, made of real hair, shaped in a bob. The Levertovs have a 2-year-old daughter, Mussi, and a 7-month-old son, Mendel, named after the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the Lubavitch for decades before he died June 12, 1994. The Levertovs have hung a portrait of the Rebb e above the table in their greeting room and said they think often about how he would advise them on day-to-day issues.
"His picture is up to remind us why we're here," Berel said. "He's like a constant reminder of goodness, reaching out to Jewish people and doing it in the right way." Martin Rutte, whose parents raised him in the Conservative branch of Judaism, said the new rabbi has made him more enthusiastic about his faith. "He's learned. He's a good guy. You can laugh with him. He tells jokes. He's also serious," Rutte said. "When you ask a question about Judaism, he knows the answer. He's not aloof."
Rutte, a management consultant who grew up in Canada, said he enjoys listening to Rabbi Levertov's melodious Torah readings during services. "He's rekindling my pleasure in the religion," Rutte said.
Santa Fe's Jewish community also is served by Temple Beth Shalom on Barcelona Road, which offers classes and services for Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews, and the Reform congregation Beit Tikva, which holds services at the Lutheran Church of the S ervant on Rodeo Road. Santa Fe's Orthodox Jewish community, which includes several members who are Lubavitchers, now has 60 adherents. But it has struggled through the years. Katz said that in 1985, a group of five families studied together over the phone with a Lubavitcher r abbi in Crown Heights. Other members said that in 1991, a rabbi proclaimed that the city - without readily accessible kosher foods and established Orthodox schools - was not viable for Orthodox life. A few families kept the organization going.
Some Orthodox Jews in Santa Fe fear that the local Lubavitch movement could weaken or destroy the existing group by taking away some of its participants, the grants and the membership tithes it receives. Rabbi Levertov said he tries to stay away from such controversies. He said he did not come to Santa Fe to serve any particular group - he prays at the synagogue with both Lubavitch and other Orthodox Jews. He said that he does not intend to take over the synagogue. The Orthodox community is so small, Levertov said, brea king it up would only undermine his purpose.
Some critics said they have trouble cheering an increased Lubavitch presence in Santa Fe given the group's fight against the current Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Lubavitch oppose Israel giving up land in exchange for peace. "I won't believe they're trying to heal this world. They're doing just the opposite," said Joseph Kohon, a Jewish supporter of the peace negotiations. Kohon, who lives in Santa Fe and previously studied with a Lubavitch group in Chicago, argued the group has a cult-like devotion to its mortal Rebbe and his words. "The closer you get, the more they push . . . to get you to believe that their way is the right way," he said. "It creates a mentality of such following-ness."
Lubavitchers and their votes play a key role in Israeli politics. In 1990, an Israeli religious deputy refused to resign from parliament after consulting with Rebbe Schneerson. News reports said the deputy's refusal was a further blow to attempts to form a government supportive of peace talks with the Palestinians. Levertov said that Lubavitchers oppose the Middle East peace process because they do not believe that giving up the occupied territories will result in peace. And Levertov said he does not intend to force people to change and take on his beliefs. He said the Torah has specific guidelines about some things, but he does not intend to force rules on anyone and, in fact, recommends people who want to become more r eligiously observant take it very slowly.
Phil LeCuyer, an orthodox Jew and a tutor at St. John's College who remembers when Santa Fe's Orthodox community was struggling to survive, hopes the new rabbi will help both the Lubavitch and mainstream Orthodox groups flourish. "He's encouraging people to connect with their Judaism," LeCuyer said.
