Students’ Crown Heights Shabbos

Chabad on Campus held its acclaimed International Shabbaton and Conference for students this past Shabbos. Despite Hurricane Sandy and all of the related travel and administrative complications, the Shabbaton was experienced without a hitch and attracted a crowd of 650 participants from across North America and Europe including many who experienced a travel ordeal to get there.

It all started on Friday with registration at the Jewish Children’s Museum. During the day, many students enjoyed a unique tour of New York City beginning with a walk across the iconic Brooklyn Bridge and continuing on foot to Battery Park City and Ground Zero. Upon their return to Crown Heights, the group enjoyed a tour of the community and the local mikvah.

The Shabbaton program began with recitation of Psalms, as the Shabbaton participants prayed in solidarity with those who are enduring Sandy-related hardships. Following a highly charged Shabbos candle lighting ceremony, sessions and lectures were presented in a wide array of topics relating to Jewish life. Discussions spanned matters of belief in G-d to understanding the relationship between a modern Jew and the modern world from a Torah-true approach.

Friday night davening at Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway was a uniquely energizing experience. After davening, students enjoyed their Shabbos meals at their respective Crown Heights community hosts, gaining first hand insight into Jewish family life. Following dinner, students returned for “Friday Night Live” which featured a series of informal discussions that ran well into the night.

A packed Oholei Torah main ballroom was the venue for an uplifting Shabbos lunch program, complete with energetic singing and dancing. During lunch, students were treated to a moving keynote address by Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky who spoke about the power of each individual to improve the world for all. Following that students were treated to a series of more than a dozen inspiring and entertaining workshops on topics from Religion & Science to inspiring personal stories to Relationships to text-based “Taste of Yeshiva” classes. The moving Havdallah ceremony concluded with hundreds of students spontaneously breaking into a lively dance.

The Motzei Shabbos “Celebration of Jewish Life” featured a sumptuous Melave Malkah, a resource fair attended by Yeshivos and Jewish fraternities, and a concert that electrified the crowd with a sense of joy at simply being a Jew. On Sunday, the entire group, filling almost a dozen busses and many private vehicles, came to experience the Rebbe’s Ohel with Rabbi Simon Jacobson delivering a brief talk on the meaning and significance of the Rebbe’s leadership and visiting the resting place of a Tzaddik. Rabbi Yossy Gordon, Executive Vice President of Chabad on Campus, shared his feelings about the relationship every individual has with the Rebbe and urged everyone to internalize the experience and bring the inspiration of the Rebbe and the Shabbaton back with them to their campuses and beyond.

The Chabad on Campus International Foundation would like to thank the entire Crown Heights community for the great hospitality we enjoyed this past Shabbos, and particularly to the hundreds of families who opened their homes to students and their Shluchim from across North America and Europe.