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!

Climbing El Cap'

The day after our wedding, the phonecalls stopped. No more hectic caterers, confused florists, irate wedding planners, sobbing relatives, or lost guests. Just the two of us in marital bliss. After weeks of sleeping past noon, we got on a normal schedule and began sorting through the heaps of wedding presents, plus all her stuff, plus all my stuff. Trying to cram it all into our tiny rental apartment has forced me to purge my wardrobe of all articles of clothing over seven years of age, begin selling some of my five computer systems, and haul out bag after bag of miscellaneous junk to the trash. It’s hard to believe I landed in this country three years ago with just two suitcases.

Leaving America with all my belongings.

Purging my possessions has caused me to try to organize myself mentally as well. What are my new life goals now that the big one, marriage, is squared away? Rambam (the 11^th century Jewish sage Maimonades) lists the proper order of one’s life goals as: Parnassah (income,) Bayit (home,) Ishah (wife.) In plainer talk, get yourself a job and a roof over your head before you think about getting married. In my 31 years on this planet, I have never actually owned my Bayit, always rented. In Israel, I have been homeless several times, living off the hide-a-beds and eating out of the fridges of friends and relatives for a month or more until I could find a new apartment. While vagrancy is tolerable for a rough-and-ready single, it would be a nightmare to drag my family through that. I need to own an apartment.

A compensating factor for the diminished personal wealth of life here is the feeling of total ownership. In Israel, even the sky is Jewish. I don’t need a castle with a five acre lawn because all the hills, streets, and trees around me are already mine. Still, I would like to have four walls and a roof of my own, to have my life beyond the whims of my landlord.

Personal finance in Israel, at least for most people, involves finding some way to scrape by. It is possible to pay the rent and bills, but it’s unusual to be able to get ahead. The cost of living for basic items (milk, eggs, busfare, etc.) is approximately the same as in the United States. Any luxury items, such as quality shoes, deodorant, a computer, or my car (which I have now sold,) are typically double to triple their cost in the United States. Meanwhile, my salary here is half to a third of what it was in the United States. A low-cost apartment in the settlements goes for at least $200,000, and a place in the outskirts of Jerusalem goes for a minimum of $300,000, and since down payments are typically 30%-40%, my down payment would be from $66,000 to $100,000. Based on a simple calculation of our earning potential versus expenses, it would take us anywhere from twelve to sixteen years to save up this amount, ignoring the effects of inflation. And that doesn’t include times like now, when I’m unemployed watching my savings bleed away. Also, while as a new couple it is possible to save up money, as time goes on and there are, God willing, more and more mouths to feed, saving anything in this country becomes impossible.

Our original plan was to give it a year and try to find something that paid better than my job at the solar power startup company. Then, five months ago, I was laid off. I’ve been to a couple of job interviews that looked really hopeful, to the point that one manager told me, “You are the ideal candidate. I’m flying to Austin next week to sign a contract, and when I come back, I’ll have an offer for you.” Having not heard from him in some time, I asked around. Turned out the company didn’t get the contract and was in a nose dive, shedding employees. I’ve reaped similar sour grapes from my other job interviews. It seems that, at least as far as I’m seeing, Israel is just too small a market for large, stable engineering firms. If they exist, they sure aren’t hiring. I’m sure that if I continue to apply myself, I can eventually land another six-month gig at another green-tech startup till it flops or is sold.

The question of leaving Israel temporarily to work and save is an option I’ve considered for some time and my feelings are mixed. Nobody comes to Israel to get rich, they come to satisfy a spiritual and ideological impulse, and to live with family. On religious terms, there is simply no comparison to the potential for spiritual growth in an environment with endless options for Torah study, the highest levels of kashrut, and a culture rooted in Jewish life. While I could sacrifice a few years of this growth on a personal level, there is a national aspect to living here as well. Living in Israel isn’t just another lifestyle choice, like dropping into Paris or London for a few years. I still haven’t lost the inspiration of participating in the restoration of the Jewish homeland and repatriation of its exiled natives after thousands of years of wandering. If every Jew were to base his or her decision to stay or leave on financial grounds alone, this country would be abandoned and revert to the deserted ruins it was under Muslim rule. Then again, if working abroad for a while helps me anchor myself here more permanently, then it could be a worthy sacrifice.

There is a reasonable case to be made for either sticking it out or going back into the diaspora for a while, and so I asked Hashem to affect my ratzon, my will, to push me in the right direction. In the end, my ratzon is pushing me to jump through this window of opportunity.

In Yosemite, I remember once speaking with a mountain climber who had scaled El Capitan, at over 3,500 feet, the tallest shear cliff in the world. At certain points on his ascent, he could anchor his equipment into the granite face and lower himself down by pulley, and then hoist himself back up to the same spot the next day. Walking into a bar in the evenings, his friends asking him what he was up to, he would answer, to their bemusement, "Right now, I'm climbin' El Cap'."

El Capitan

And so am I. Aliyah, literally "Ascent" is a process. When I landed here three years ago, I never thought I would have to leave again, but I'm not giving up on my Aliyah by a long shot. I have my family, friends, and connections, and I have some idea of how life works in this country. It may be a few months or a few years before I'm back permanently, but I can pick up life where I left off, I view this as part of the process.

So, on November 2^nd, wifey and I are going on a voyage. We will land on the East Coast, spend some time with my wife's family and purchase a used car. After visiting cities in the east, we will begin driving cross-country. We will stop in various communities across the United States and Canada getting to know one another’s family, seeing the sights, visiting those who could not attend our wedding, and hunting down job leads, until we reach my family in the Pacific Northwest. I’m confident we can find something, but even if we don’t, at least we’ll know we didn't let the opportunity pass by. And I won’t forget to write.

More on Student Loans and Defaults

I've been having a conversation with Zapporah over my previous post on the Student Loan Scam.

I think it deserves its own post here, since this is an important issue which affects people for their entire lives.

Zapporah said...
Please answer me this... I just graduated college and I am moving to Israel in just a few months. Can I escape these high loan amounts in Israel? What will happen to my credit rating in Israel? Is it the same as in Canada with the new social number? What will the repercussions be for me in Israel?Thank you so much for this article.
8:49 PM

Ephraim said...
Hi Zapporah,There is no such thing as a credit history in Israel. At this time, lenders do not persue delinquent debtors outside of the United States. Also, there is no debtors' prison or anything like that, so you can fly back and visit as desired. Please note, however, that as of the writing of this comment, there is still no bankruptcy or statute of limitations on student loans. Therefore, if you default, and then you return to the U.S. after 20 years, your debt collectors will be waiting for you. Also, over the next 20 years, there could be a change in finance laws which makes it easier to persue debtors abroad. Nobody really knows which direction this will go. But for now, you will be safe from the loan collectors.

Zapporah said...
Ephraim, thanks. I signed up for as many classes as possible to get out of school in 18 months so I didn't have to pay more money. I knew my end date would be in June, but it kept coming up for Sept and no one could answer me why. I ended up being charged $3,000 more for the 3 months they added on because they didn't put me in more classes to get out of school by June which I signed up for. I was fully prepared to pay the $15,000+ amount but after reading this and getting $3k+ tacked onto my bill, no way am I going to start repayment. I will try for one more month to get the school to wipe the $3k off and if they don't, I'm out. Thanks a lot.


And Ephraim Says:

So basically, your college ripped you off. This is actually somewhat unsurprizing. Many colleges are now run more like businesses than educational institutions, and with a profit motive involved, inevitably there will be crooks and thieves in the mix.

However, please bear in mind one thing. If the college goes forward with charging you $3,000, then they will probably just take the money straight from the lender, unless you can find some way to convince the lender not to send the money to the university. Basically, if you default, the odds are that the university will get the money regardless.

If you do default, keep in mind that this debt will balloon with late fees and astronomical interest rates. They will not be able to come after your income as long as you are here in Israel. However, they will be able to sieze your tax returns (you still have to file tax returns from Israel to the United States every year, even if you are abroad.) That means that things like the stimulus checks or any other sort of money you would ordinarily receive on your tax returns would be lost.

More importantly, if say in ten or twenty years, should you decide to return to the United States, even if just to work for a few years, the creditors will come after you and attempt to garnish your earnings.

My own opinion is that people who are trapped in this hellish mess of massive and unrepayable debt should flee the United States as a last resort. However, this has dire personal consequences and probably shouldn't be undertaken unless the debt is so crushing that it is impossible to repay.

It's just a good idea to think about the ramifications of a decision which will affect the rest of one's life.

Our Wedding

Well, it's been a few days, and wifey and I are now recovering from the holy ceremony / wild party that was our wedding. I've posted some preliminary pictures taken by friends. We still don't have the official photos from the photographer or the video guy, but this should give you some idea as to how it went down!

City of Light, Part II

Continued from Yesterday...




Multi-colored buckets hanging from the retaining wall of the Temple Mount.
Lights on trees. It looked sort of wintry to me.
Back in the downtown area, spinning "movies" projected onto the Iriyah (City Hall.)
In the central plaza of the Iriyah, a 3-dimensional projection of an image. The symbols of all of the 12 tribes, in this case Reuvein, were projected holographically.Meanwhile, back in the Christian quarter of the old city. A fountain in the main plaza was covered with a giant plastic bubble. Fans spun feathers and bubbles around inside the giant plastic bubble, to make it look like it had its own weather system.

Making juice next to the giant plastic bubble fountain.

City of Light, Part I

A couple of weeks ago, the Jerusalem municipality put on the "city of light" display, where artists displayed their light-based sculptures, also projecting colors and images on the ancient walls and buildings of the old city.

Click on the images below for larger versions.

Walking toward the Jaffa Gate, the streets are lined with hanging colored lanterns. some sort of glowing translucent plastic tanks which constantly change color.

Welcome sign projected on Jaffa Gate.

People dressed in light.
Outside the walls of the citadel, some sort of whale-shaped figurine with a kinetic flying bicycle attached.

The kinetic flying bicycle.

In the Cardo, vendors selling lamps.
Multi-colored, ever-changing lights projected onto strings.
One of the benefits of the City of Light display was that all of the archaeological gardens, parks, etc., were open to the public free of charge. We went into the archaeological gardens to view some of the sculptures on display there.
Images projected on giant 20-foot tall spinning vases.

Light tubes, with a little Magen David (Star of David) in the middle.
Looking at the light tubes from the bottom.








To be continued...

The Vort / Lechayim / Engagement Party

Wife2B and I had our Vort (Yiddish) / Lechayim (Hebrew) / Engagement Party (English) (choose appropriate language) last week. I've posted some photos here:

Yours truly spinning in the circle with Tel Aviv Moshe. That's Adam playing guitar in the background.


Peeking through the Mechitzah.

More guys dancing.

Rabbi Shurin from Wife2B's seminary came to give a speech.

Wife2B with friends and roomies.

Wife2B

Women dancing.

And, of course, more dancing on the men's side:

Yours truly with Wife2B!

Mighty Moish of Modi'in (soon Tzfat)

Yours truly, living it up