By Michelle Caffrey- NJ.com
GLASSBORO — Today may mark the end of the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot, but as Rabbi Hersch Loschak — the director of the new Chabad Jewish Student Center at Rowan University — helped students celebrate Tuesday afternoon, he marked the beginning of a new focus on Jewish culture and religious life at the school.
In front of a “pedi-sukkah” parked at Rowan’s student center, Rabbi Avi Richler of the Chabad of Gloucester County and Rabbi Loschak — who the Chabad hired along with his wife, Fraidy, to run the brand new center at Rowan — discussed the meaning of Sukkot, the sukkah and their new venture into collegiate life.
The Chabad, located in Mullica Hill for the past six years, has programs for adults and children, and a Hebrew school. It has seen significant growth in its reach, minus one area.
“One part of the community is missing, and these are students,” Richler said, adding the holiday of Sukkot is a perfect time to initiate inclusion.
Richler explained that the holiday of Sukkot centers on acceptance, and commemorates the time when the Israelite people were protected while wandering in the desert. He said the key to the holiday is that all of the Jewish people, regardless of observance or actions, were protected.
“It’s focused on unity,” Richler said.
The sukkah is a small shelter, often built with wood and branches outside of a home, that commemorates the protection, and is a place where people eat, pray or even sleep during the holiday. A lulav, a combination of four herbs and branches with different smells and appearances, is placed in the sukkah with an etrog, a citrus fruit, to show that whether a Jewish person performs mitzvahs or follows the Torah, they’re accepted and protected. Inside the sukkah, much like the new Chabad of Rowan and the student center, all are welcome, he said.
“In the sukkah, we bring them all together. It shows that if one person isn’t included, the community is not complete,” Richler said.
That’s why he’s excited about the Loschaks taking the helm of the Rohr Family Jewish Student Center, which just opened its doors this fall. The aim is to provide Jewish students on campus — Loschak estimates about 1,000 of Rowan’s 12,000 students are Jewish — with support, opportunities to celebrate holidays, and an ability to connect or reconnect with their culture.
“We want to provide a Jewish home away from home,” Loschak said.
He’s spent the past week riding around campus in his “pedi-sukkah,” a miniature sukkah the size of a phone booth, attached to a bicycle. It wasn’t long before students started to flag him down to shake the lulav and eat one of his wife’s homemade cookies, complete some mitzvahs, or commandments, of the holiday.
The idea is to give Jewish students the chance to celebrate, while spreading the word about the new Jewish student center and their upcoming activities.
They’re planning on weekly Shabbat dinners with a “Friday Night Live” theme, lectures, holiday prayers as well as sponsoring Chabad Birthright trips to Israel, free to Jewish students.
And it’s a place that welcomes students of all religions, he added.
“It’s not only for Jewish kids, we’re here to bring awareness to anyone who wants to learn more about the Jewish culture,” Richler said.
Especially since the college years often see students redefining or rediscovering parts of their heritage and religious background.
“This is a time when kids go out of their home and figure out their ideals,” Richler said.
It’s about being fun, creative and welcoming, Loschak said, showing off a flier for their “Kosher Pizza in a Holy Hut” Sukkot event on Tuesday night that could be mistaken for another college Pizza Hut flier at first glance.
The gearing up of Jewish-focused events is a welcome change to students who gathered around the pedi-sukkah, parked outside the senior center on Tuesday afternoon.
“Every Jewish student on campus thinks they’re the only Jewish student on campus,” senior Max Shatz said. “In reality, it’s a community, it’s just a matter of establishing it.”
good rabbi
youwr the men! – binyamin unger
Created by Levi DUCHMAN!! BEST BOCHUR IN LUBAVITCH!!!!
MOVING FAST!!! You guys are seriously awesome!
Nice to see articles like this. Keep making the Rebbe proud
a big easy button.what is it does it say”that was easy”?
Go hersh and fred the best shluchim out there
JOEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you guys are the best
great job!! looks very successful BH!
Yay Hesh and Fraidy!
http://gotetrog.com/
lookin good 😉