Visiting the LubavitcherORebbe: The Ohel

After visiting 770, I took a trip to visit the Ohel, "The Tent," where the Lubavitcher Rebbe is buried next to the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, his father in law.

A Chabad-run bus stops in front of 770 and delivers Hassidim to the Ohel, with a screen playing videos of the Rebbe giving his sermons on the way over.

The bus from 770 to the Ohel

Visiting the Ohel

Chabad purchased a house abutting the cemetery.

Lubavitchers milling about at the entrance to the Ohel

When the Rebbe was alive, it was customary to write him for advice or guidance on personal matters. Upon his passing, the custom continued.  Letters are written in the house and then brought out his grave site.

Writing Letters to the Rebbe

One of the ways I studied Hebrew was by reading middle school-level books about the Rebbe.  From these books, I got to know the names of many of the people surrounding the Rebbe, so it's fascinating to walk through the cemetary and see many of the graves of those about whom I read.

Rabbi Chodakov, the Rebbe's Secretary

The Grave of Chayya Mushke, the Rebbe's Wife

When I entered the Ohel, many people were deep in prayer, and I decided that it would be inappropriate to start snapping photographs and possibly disrupt their concentration.  After all, a cemetery isn't a tourist site.

The Ohel is the stone structure up ahead

770: A Visit to Chabad's Headquarters

In August of 2008, I took a trip to New York on my way to the west coast, and stopped over at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, a sort of headquarters of Chabad Lubavitch. I was taken on a tour by Rabbi Dov Ber Berkowitz, a Chabadnik friend of mine from my pre-aliyah days, and now the rabbi at Chabad of the Delta (back in California.)

770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad's Nerve Center

770 started out life as just another building.  Purchased by the Lubavitch (Chabad) Hassidim, it became the residence of the Rebbe, a synagogue, and eventually, the geographical center of Lubavitch's outreach movement.  Who would have thought that this insignificant-looking building would be the center for thousands of outreach centers worldwide.



At the time of my visit, it was the three weeks (a period of mourning for the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem) when we don't shave.  By the time I landed in New York, I was sporting a full beard.

Donning tefillin in 770

The basement of 770 has been completely excavated.  Later, Chabad purchased the adjascent buildings and  merged all of their basements into one giant underground synagogue.

The Beit Midrash at 770

Later, when the Rebbe passed on, the Mishichists (those who believe that the Rebbe is still alive and is the Moshiach) took over the Beit Midrash and decorated it to taste, while the above-ground portions remained under non-Mishichist auspices.

Mishichist Decorations and Declarations in 770

Immediately after the Shoah (Holocaust,) as the survivors of Europe's brutality straggled into the United States, Lubavitcher Hassidim began to regroup.  Originally, all of them could daven in this small Beit Midrash, not to be confused with the enormous Beit Midrash in the basement.

The Original Beit Midrash

It's hard to believe that the Chabad of today, with its tens of thousands of followers, could have started from such modest beginnings.

Outside of the Beit Midrash is a small plaza where weddings are held.

A Plaza at 770 where Lubavitch weddings are held

And across the street is the newly opened Chabad Children's Museum.

The Chabad Children's Museum

Entrance to the Chabad Children's Museum

This being Chabad, you can always find hard liquor, even at 9 o'clock in the morning.

Birkat HaChama

Here are some photos of Birkat HaChama (the blessing of the sun) which I took back in April of 2009.  The next one isn't for a couple of decades.

In Judaism, there are some mitzvot you do three times a day, like tefillah (prayer.) Some come once a week, like shabbat (sabbath,) some once a month, like Birkat Levanah (the blessing of the new moon) some once a year, like the fast on Yom Kippur (the day of atonement.) Some come once in a lifetime, like a wedding (well, hopefully only once.) And some come once in history, like Hashem's directive to the Jewish slaves in Egypt that they slaughter a lamb on the eve of Pesach.

At Chabad of Baka, getting ready for Birkat HaChama

One of the rarer mitzvot is Birkat HaChama (The blessing of the sun.) Once every twenty eight years, the planets and sun are aligned exactly as they were at the instant of the creation of the sun, at least according to the biblical narrative. At the sight of this unusual and wondrous occurrence, one is to recite Birkat Chama. Birkat HaChama happened to fall on Erev Pesach (Passover Eve) this year, so in addition to all the other holiday preparations, tens of thousands flocked to the Old City of Jerusalem to perform the mitzvah.

Yours truly, dragged out of bed for Birkat Chama

Reading the bracha sheet.

The sun is in position.  It's go time!

Back at Blogging

I don't know if any of my old readers still come to this website, as it's been quite some time since I posted regularly, but I'm thinking it's time to dust off the 'ol website and add some material.  Since I've been living outside of Israel, there is really nothing spectacular to write about.  But this blog, which I built with my own ten fingers over the last decade, seems to have become something of an internet resource for those interested in Land of Israel related information.  Often, friends who are searching for information about The Battle of Givon or the Temple Mount end up on this blog after a google search and are surprised to find a picture of me right there looking back at them. In fact, it gets something like 60 hits a day right now.

Well, I still have huge backlogs of photographs from tiyulim I went on which I never had the time to publish. My memory is probalby a little rusty from a couple of years ago, but I can still throw together some additional posts with my backlog of material.

I will also be visiting Israel in a month, so I'm looking forward to perhaps even adding some new material.

I also have an ulterior motive.  Those who read my posts may remember that I had started learning to paint. Back then, I only made a few paintings but it stuck in my head as something I would like to work on more some day.  A few months ago, I decided that "some day," would never come on its own, so if I wanted to start painting, I had better get going, so I did!  And what better subject could there be for painting than the Land of Israel and its people.  I started a separate website for my Paintings of Israel.  Right now, it is still in "testing" phase.  I plan to begin uploading actual posts of my artwork in January.  But I would like to update this blog with as many posts as possible, and use these posts as references for the places I paint for those who want more information.  So off we go!  Stay tuned.

Response to Comment

One of the joys of having put together the body of work "Planet Israel" is that, even though I am not posting very frequently, I still get about 30-60 hits a day.  That's more than I got even when I was regularly posting!  People searching for information on this settlement or that biblical site, are directed by Google to the blog.  I'm glad to know I've been able to make some positive effect, however small.

And then there's people like Khalid:

KHALID AWRTA has left a new comment on your post "Shomron Trip IV: Itamar": 

On the past and for the futuer this land will be for us 
sons of AWARTA 
WE NEVER FORGET OUR HOME 
YOU CAME TO OUR LAND YOU DESTROY OR HOME YOU KILLS OURE SONS YOU MAKE US refugee
BUT WE WILL BUCK TO OUR COUNTRY PALESTINE 
FREE DOMME FO PALESTNE 

Hmmmm.  Interesting.  You speak a language (Arabic) which is native not to the Levant.  Your ancestors colonized this land after invading from the Arabian Peninsula.  Assuming that you are not one of the few remaining Christians not driven into exile by the Palestinian Authority, you face Mecca, a city hundreds of miles from here, when you pray.  Even in the very post you commented on, there are photographs of rock-solid archaeological proof of a Jewish presence on this land thousands of years before your ancestors arrived.  Do you really think you are going to convince anyone by shouting?  The past and the future of this land is Jewish.  Deal with it or go home.

Full Speed Ahead

It’s not that I have nothing to say, merely that I haven’t the time to say it. In the last two years, I’ve been laid off, tried to start a company, got hired, met my wife, proposed to my wife, planned a wedding, got laid off again, got married, moved countries, and drove 3,000 miles to a new city. I’ve held four different jobs in the last two years, and my wife and I explored fourteen cities in fifteen states and once Canadian province over a period of two months.

After rolling into Houston, a city of friendly Jews, a low cost of living, and even a few jobs, we decided to weigh anchor. We rented an apartment on a month-to-month basis, furnished down to the beds and linens, which was perfect since all we had was the clothing, laptops, and cup o’ noodles we could fit into our car. After dropping $170 at the dollar store on bowls, an ironing board, paper towels, and all the other necessities of apartment living, it was time to hit the job market.

Economists tell us we’re in the worst recession since the sixth day of creation, so it’s no longer good enough to just post a resume here and there and expect a job to magically come and find you. I started pounding the ground, shaking every hand and meeting everyone who would sit down with me for a conversation. I probably spent eight or nine hours a day visiting job fairs, making cold calls to potential contacts, meeting in networking groups, visiting professional organization gatherings, and practicing my elevator pitch. Eventually, it paid off, and I managed to get the job I was looking for. I’m now working for an environmental-oriented ESCO (energy services company.) We work on energy generation and conservation, as well as green technology projects. We show large municipalities and companies how to retrofit their existing facilities to save power, or generate power locally and sell it back to the grid, or any other number of engineering projects that come through the door. On the down side, the salary is low and I'm working 10-hour days, and a few hours on Sundays too. On the plus side, it’s a small firm with only four engineers, but it has great potential, and I’m gaining experience in all sorts of new fields of engineering that are expecting rapid growth over the coming years. The company is very growth-oriented (the CEO is an Enron survivor and has managed multimillion dollar projects in the past) and if the growth curve for energy conservation and renewable technology continues as it has over the last five years, it's a good thing to be getting in on the ground floor.

Meanwhile, my wife continued searching, and found her dream job working in Kiruv, Jewish outreach, a couple of weeks ago. She's still learning the ropes there, but we hope to be able to take everything we learned in Jerusalem and spread the knowledge here where it's most needed.

If I could sum up my feelings about life in Israel toward the last few months I was there, I'd say I felt like I had reached a personal dead end. Not that the spiritual magnetism or the feeling of living with purpose had gone away, but I had a sense I personally wasn't having an effect. The settlements and hilltops are turning people away, the army didn’t want anyone over twenty five, and all of Israel’s green technology firms, despairing of working with the Israeli government, found themselves building projects abroad. I had the feeling of having, through great effort and sacrifice, transformed myself into a cog in a machine that had already been retired. The lack of ability to get out of my one-bedroom closet-sized apartment, or even pay the rent without digging into savings, was the clincher.

I still have that flame in me though. I miss learning Tanach while standing on the spot where it happened, I miss seeing that same soul in a million faces of every color, and most of all I miss my friends and family. My aliyah engine may be on idle but the pilot light is still lit, and I’ve got enough fuel to make the long haul back one more time. I have big plans and great ambition, and I’m looking forward to what the future has to bring, and what I can bring to the future.

At the seashore in Kemah, Texas

Planet Israel Sells Out to Cash In

It's been a while since I blogged, and probably almost a year since I was writing my daily posts.  And yet I've posted such a body of work that I still get 60 or 70 hits a day, more than I used to get even when I was writing daily.  People scouring Google for information on El Jib, or the Jordan Valley, or any of the other myriad of places I've been, still find themselves wandering in to Planet Israel due to the vast amount of writing and pictures I've posted.  I've been unemployed long enough that I've started to search for new sources of income, so I've decided to sell out to google and start posting google ads on my site. Maybe my labors will get me enough cash for another tank of gas.

In my personal life, I've descended from the holy land for the time being, but I'm still having adventures and I still want to write about them.  Since I'm no longer in Israel, I think that posting to a blog called "Planet Israel" would probably be a bit of a misnomer.  So I'm starting a new blog called "Adventures in Exile."  It's still in the preliminary stages, but we plan on driving cross-country and posting from our pit-stops and layovers while we travel from place to place and seek adventure and employment.  And I still have gigabytes worth of photographs from my Israeli travels, tours which I just never had the time to post.  Maybe if someday I find a cushy government job with loads of free time, or if we can find a kosher soup kitchen with wi-fi, I'll finally have the time to post the Planet Israel archives.  Until then, tune in to Adventures in Exile, and keep an eye on Planet Israel!