Members of the Tribe (25 page)

Schwartz read the phrase aloud in English: “I came into my garden, my sister, my bride.” Then he asked the man on his right—a sound track composer—to continue reading. The man cleared his throat and began to recite:

“The midrash explains that shir hashirim is not a simple love story, rather a metaphor describing the relationship between God and the Jewish people. The above verse refers to the time of the destruction of the sanctuary, when the shechinah, The Divine Presence, came into the garden—was revealed in the earth. Developing the concept further, the midrash (on the above verse) emphasizes the phonetic relationship between the Hebrew word for my garden, ‘gani,’ and the Hebrew word ‘ginuni,’ meaning ‘my bridal chamber’ (since the verse uses the term ‘gani,’
my
garden, the possessive form, implying a place of privacy, it can be interpreted to mean, ‘my bridal chamber,’ a private place for the groom and bride [note commentaries on the midrash]. It interprets the above verse as ‘I came into my bridal chamber, the place where my essence was originally revealed’).” The sound track man put down his mimeographed sheet and several of the others nodded
solemnly, as if they had been given a sudden insight into the workings of the universe.

One by one, the class recited from the article. They stumbled over unfamiliar Hebrew terms, sometimes completely losing their places as the text became more and more obscure. An intense young woman with a trained speaking voice and a scarf tied severely around her head grappled with “Normally the Hebrew word for ‘walking’ would be ‘mehalach.’ Instead the Torah uses ‘mis-halech’ (which implies a state of withdrawal), as the midrash comments, ‘walking and jumping, walking and jumping.’ ” When she finished reading, heads once again bobbed in agreement.

Orthodox Jews approach mysticism late, after long years of Torah and Talmudic study, and with a firm grasp of Hebrew. Even then, mystical texts are often inaccessible. Teaching “Bosi l’gani” to people like these was like teaching advanced nuclear physics to students who think that an apple thrown in the air will keep on going. The yuppies in Rabbi Schwartz’s living room that morning comprehended what they were reading about as well as a group of Yiddish-speaking Chasidim from Poland would have understood the front page of
Variety
.

If anyone was aware of the absurdity of the scene, however, they didn’t let on. Schwartz smiled benignly through the reading, and the students exhibited an adolescent eagerness mixed with the self-confidence of people who have made it in a tough town.

“Shlomo, I want to know if I’ve got the seven tzaddikim who brought the revelation right,” said one woman in a tentative voice. “Let’s see, there was Abraham, Isaac, and, ah, was Jacob in there someplace?” The woman managed to make the question sound like an inquiry about the final four at Wimbledon.

Another woman mentioned that she had recently read a midrash that explained how Eve’s creation gave forth an unnatural love of men by women. Rabbi Schwartz looked puzzled; he had never heard of any such thing. Suddenly she snapped her fingers and laughed without embarrassment. “Now I remember, it’s not a midrash, it’s from Milton.”

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Rabbi Schwartz. It couldn’t have been easy for him to sit around in his paisley suspenders talking Torah to a bunch of Americans who wanted to know if God was sincere. Despite his ersatz American cool, Schwartz
comes from a world where Judaism is a way of life, complete and consistent. His students, for all their earnest curiosity, were only visitors in that world.

One of the women in the group took me aside and confided that now that she had become religious, she was planning a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai during the holiday of Shavuot. “Is there, like, I don’t know, a Hilton or anything where I can stay nearby?” she asked. I told her there was only desert and a monastery, and she visibly cooled. “Well, in that case, maybe I’ll just come to Jerusalem. I know there’s a Hilton there,” she said. “Jerusalem is just as good as Mount Sinai, I guess.”

“Look me up when you get there,” I offered, and she smiled.

“Don’t worry, I will. Maybe you know some cute guys you could fix me up with.”

Not long after I got back to the East Coast, a friend, Arthur Samuelson, suggested that I go up to Boston to meet Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, also known as the Bostoner Rebbe. I didn’t really want to go—Brooklyn and L.A. had satisfied my appetite for Chasidic encounters. But Arthur, normally a skeptical and irreverent fellow, was persistent. “Forget the stuff you saw in Williamsburg,” he said. “And forget all those stone-throwing fanatics in Jerusalem. This guy’s the real thing. Besides, how often do you get a chance to meet a genuine Chasidic rebbe?”

He had a point; I was still fascinated by the concept of a wonder-working, miracle-making rebbe, and eager to meet one. More than anyone else, the rebbes—dynastic heads of Chasidic sects—are representatives of the Jewish civilization of Eastern Europe that the Nazis destroyed. They are relics of another age, full of dark shtetel arts and mystical fervor, able to command the unquestioning obedience of followers who behave like subjects.

Most rebbes are ancient men from Europe, but Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe, is an exception; the first Chasidic rebbe to be born and raised in the United States. According to one of the group’s publications, Horowitz “assumed the leadership of his court” at the age of twenty-three. Not many men born in the Dorchester section of Boston have their own court, and I was intrigued by the opportunity to see one face to face.

When I called the Bostoner synagogue, a woman with a brisk New England accent said, “New England Chasidic Center, rabbi’s study” in a businesslike tone. I wasn’t sure how to make an appointment with a mystic, but it turned out to be as simple as fixing a date with the dentist. The secretary gave me instructions on how to reach the Chasidic Center, requested a number where I could be reached in case of a change in plans, and wished me a good day. After I hung up, I realized she hadn’t even asked what I wanted to see the rebbe about.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz claims descent from the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism, and from a long line of famous rebbes. His father, Pinchas David Horowitz, was born in Jerusalem and came to the United States during World War I; there he became the first Chasidic rebbe in Williamsburg. After a few years, the old man left New York for Boston and founded “the new dynasty” at 87 Poplar Street. The current rebbe was born there in 1921. Twenty years later the old man died, and in 1944 Levi Yitzchak took over the Boston court.

The literature of the New England Chasidic Center is refreshingly free of false modesty regarding the accomplishments of the rebbe, “[a] miracle man of mythical dimensions [who] is the surrogate for his Chasidim. His prayers are an intercession. He pleads as an advocate to heaven.” According to his pamphleteer, “This city of loving kindness, Boston, is famous because of the rebbe.”

Despite this claim, the Irish cabbie who drove me out to the rebbe’s Beacon Street headquarters in Brookline had never heard of Grand Rabbi Horowitz. He was a fortyish man who told me he grew up in Brockton, “the city of champions.”

“Today it’s Marvin Hagler,” he said, “but back when I was in school it was Rocky Marciano. Heavyweight champion of the world. What a guy.”

“Did you know him?” I asked.

“Yeah, him and his brothers. I knew the whole family. Hey, I took a lot of punches in the head because of the Rock.”

“You fought Rocky Marciano?”

“Naw, nothin’ like that. See, Rocky got to be champ when I was in high school. And all of a sudden, everybody in town wanted to be a fighter. People fought all over the place—on the way to
school, in school, on the way home from school. Every time you turned around, somebody tried to punch you in the head.” The cabbie paused, lost in nostalgia, contemplating the prolonged donnybrook.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though. He really put Brockton on the map,” he said. “Anywhere in the world, you say ‘Brockton’ and people say, ‘home of Rocky Marciano.’ ”

“Boston is famous because of the rebbe,” I said.

“Yeah? Reggie who?”

The New England Chasidic Center, when we reached it, did not look like the site of a dynastic court. It is a simple brick building that contains a synagogue and study hall and, up two flights of stairs, the rebbe’s study. In a large outer office, two modestly dressed secretaries busied themselves with clerical tasks, and a young man with a beard sat typing noiselessly on a personal computer. Through the open door of an adjoining room I caught occasional glimpses of a white-bearded figure who paced back and forth, wrapped in a large white prayer shawl.

After a few minutes the man, now wearing an old-fashioned black frock coat, came into the waiting room. He exchanged a few words with the secretaries, peered briefly at the computer screen, and walked over to me and introduced himself as Rabbi Horowitz. He was an arresting figure, the very picture of a Chasidic rebbe—high forehead, prominent nose, long white beard, and soft, expressive brown eyes—and he radiated presence.

The rebbe ushered me into his study, sat at his desk, and motioned me to a chair across from him. He regarded me with a benign stare that I found surprisingly unsettling—for a moment I imagined he was reading my mind. I was impressed, and annoyed with myself for being impressed.

Twenty years ago, when I first moved to Jerusalem, I had a romantic attraction to Chasidic Jews and the lost world they symbolized. But as their fundamentalist fervor grew, I began to see them as the enemy—people who throw stones at my car on the Sabbath, seek to impose theocratic restraints on my freedom, shirk their duties as citizens, and consider me to be a second-class Jew
at best. I came to Boston to see the rebbe out of curiosity; but I never considered the possibility that I might find him impressive.

My discomfort made me go on the offensive. “I’m writing a book about Jews in America,” I said, “and I’m curious about what you do. Can you really work miracles?”

The rebbe ignored the unmistakable irony in my voice and gazed at me thoughtfully for a long moment. “I think you have a misconception about the role of a Chasidic rebbe,” he said in a dry, analytical tone. “A person doesn’t feel good in the world if he or she is all alone. That’s why people need a rebbe. A Chasidic rebbe is, in essence, a support system.

“There is a special relationship between a Chasid and his rebbe. But to be satisfactory it can’t be based on blind obedience. I want my Chasidim to understand me—why I do certain things, the way I see the world—and then to act on that understanding. A Chasid shouldn’t be a robot. His relationship with me, or with any rebbe, should make him more sensitive.”

“I thought Chasidic rebbes were supposed to be wonder workers, intercede with God, act as an advocate to heaven,” I said.

The rebbe smiled, recognizing the phrase from his brochure. “The role of a rebbe depends upon the needs of his Chasidim,” he said. “Those who dealt with more ignorant kinds of Jews went in for fairy tales and legends about the rebbe. Others, like the Lubavitcher, became total authority figures for their Chasidim. To a large extent, a rebbe has to be responsive to the needs and limitations of the people he leads.

“Now in the case of our dynasty, when my father came to Boston he found Chasidim here from various courts. All of them had different ideas about what a rebbe should be. He had to be flexible, appeal to everyone, give each person what he needed. That was my father’s way, and it’s mine.”

“You mean, if somebody expects miracles, then you perform miracles?” I asked, and this time he sighed. “No, I don’t perform miracles. No Chasidic rebbe can do the supernatural. A good rebbe is like a top doctor, a specialist. If your family doctor needs some help in dealing with a problem, he refers you to an expert. This expert can’t perform miracles, but he can get the most out of his training and knowledge, the most out of the natural. Of course, some experts are quacks,” he added dryly.

I found his candor disarming. “To be honest, from my perspective as an Israeli, most of them seem like quacks,” I said. “Why are people like the Satmar rebbe so intolerant?”

“I think you may misunderstand him,” he said. “I was just in Brooklyn for a visit with the Satmar—our families have a special relationship. And believe me, he’s a very fine man. But our world is based on different premises than yours, and it’s not always easy to understand one another.”

The Bostoner was in a reflective mood that morning, and he turned my interview into a monologue. His topics were seemingly unrelated—the place of women in Judaism, the relationship between faith and science, Massachusetts state politics, town planning in Jerusalem—but somehow he managed to connect them, displaying a subtle intelligence and a surprisingly moderate view of the world.

I was determined not to be seduced, however. “Let me ask you something, rabbi,” I said. “Are you a Zionist?”

“A Zionist? Of course I’m a Zionist. I may not agree with every single policy of the Israeli government, but is that a reason to punish Israel?”

“A lot of Chasidim seem to think so,” I said, and he sighed again. “Look, I have a lot of followers in Har Nof, in Yerushalaim. The neighborhood where they live is ninety-seven percent Orthodox. But the other three percent here have rights, too. So I told my supporters, don’t close the streets to traffic on Shabbes—let those who want to drive, drive. We can make Shabbes here without stopping the traffic.” I noticed that when he said “here,” he meant Jerusalem.

“You see,” he continued, “ ‘Shabbes’ used to be the most beautiful word in the Jewish vocabulary. And the stone throwers have turned it into a curse, a threat. When a Jew hears the word ‘Shabbes’ he should think of flowers, not stones.”

“What about here in America?” I asked. “A lot of American Jews don’t even know what the word ‘Shabbes’ means.”

The rebbe nodded in agreement. “We’ve been doing outreach programs in Boston since 1950. Singing, dancing—you’d think such things are old-fashioned, foreign to American students. But it’s surprising—a lot of assimilated students respond to it very strongly. I think Americans may be missing certain things in life,
certain spiritual things. We respect them, even if they’re not religious. We try to understand them, and to remember that it isn’t their fault. They haven’t had a chance to learn.