A Bar Mitzvah After Sandy

By COLlive staff

Hurricane Sandy was a test…of patience, character and faith for those who suffered devastating losses from the megastorm that hit the East Coast last week.

Yet while the tempest outside brought silence, dark and cold, the same fierce and frightening winds energized and mobilized a powerful force in the Manalapan community – Chabad moved into action.

“I was feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable due to a flooding basement and a defrosting refrigerator,” said Evelyn Fabrikant. “I was surprised when Rabbi Levi Wolosow appeared at my door…asking if he could help me.”

Within moments, Fabrikant describes, “he wheeled a mobile generator to my door, connected it, and worked to empty my sump pumps and drain my basement floor.

“Rabbi Levi is not an electrician…nor a plumber….he is more – he is one of the many ‘mobile generators’ of Chabad – reaching out to our community to help physically and spiritually, bringing light where there was darkness and warmth where there was cold.”

Fabrikant says she drove to Chabad later that day, to find that they were set up almost like a ‘field hospital.’

“Orange electrical wires were strung along the floors like a yellow brick road, leading to cell phone charging stations, coffee stations, and praying and eating stations.”

And, even more surprising, she says, at the same time the Chabad House was the nerve center of preparations for two Bar Mitzvahs, even without power.

Thursday evening, the Bar Mitzvah of Philip Kordunov of Morganville took place with hot food, warm hearts, song and much gratitude to Hashem.

Then again on Shabbat morning, more than 200 people came to celebrate with the Katri family for the Bar Mitzvah of their son David, with great joy, enjoying light and power from Chabad’s generators.

Shliach Rabbi Boruch Chazanow drew a comparison to the generators plugged in all around them, and the generators we have within us, that we each have the power to be a generator – to ourselves and to our community – we just have to plug in.

Even their relief efforts could not deter the opening of this year’s semicha program Yeshiva experience at the Chabad Center in Manalapan.

Over 20 students are participating in the program, with 5 Rabbis and 6 yeshiva students available for the local community’s congregants to learn with.

“The congregants are really enjoying this opportunity,” said Rabbi Levi Wolosow. “For some this is their first time experiencing a real yeshiva, for others it brings them back to the ‘good old days’ when they were yeshiva students themselves.”

“I love learning with both the Chabad Rabbis and students,” said Marc Borish. “They are very learned and personable at the same time.”

The Yeshiva students are from the local Yeshivah Beis Menachem Semicha program, a project of the Chabad of Western Monmouth County. Rabbi Levi Shapiro is the Rosh Yeshiva.

The center is open each Monday and Thursday from 8 – 9 PM at the Chabad House in Manalapan on 26 Wickatunk Road.

If you would like to join the Yeshiva experience please call the Chabad house at 732-972-3687.

For more information go to www.chabadwmc.org/yeshiva