At the Machon Menachem Rabbinical College, it’s all about education. Photo provided
By C.B. Hanif
Education, education, education — particularly adult education. It’s the root that has characterized Chabad of East Boca through the years. It’s the tree whose fruit includes the chabad’s new Machon Menachem Rabbinical College. It’s the harvest soon to ripen as the first ever rabbis “made in Boca.”
“It’s a significant milestone in the advancement of the Jewish community of Boca Raton,” said Rabbi Ruvi New, “insomuch as this is a school of advanced Jewish learning and the only one of its kind that will actually offer rabbinic ordination.”
Although there are rabbinic schools in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, he said, the 14 students completing their studies here represent “the first time in the history of Palm Beach County that there are rabbis who are trained and ordained here.”
Count on others flocking to join them in what he called a sort of a coming of age. “In Jewish history, the stamp that puts the community on the map is having what’s called a yeshiva, where there are scholars who are devoted full-time to their studies — higher, advanced levels of Jewish studies.”
Beyond the obvious attraction for the students, he said, is that “part of their training is to be tutoring people and teaching classes to people at all levels, whether it’s how to read Hebrew, or more advanced levels of study. But we’ve set up three nights a week where people from the community can come and study with the students. So that’s a unique opportunity for them.
“They’ll also be sitting with local business people and reaching out to them, and generally helping with our outreach efforts. So they bring a tremendous energy and idealism to our organization and to the community at large” — illustrated in the Sept. 15 official welcoming ceremony attended by 150 people.
The rabbinical college only is the first phase of an overall vision laid out at an inaugural gala dinner in April at the Boca Raton Resort and Club. Phase two, New said, is to build what will be called the Jewish Heritage Museum, “a very dynamic, technological wonder kind of place. It’s going to bring Jewish traditions of yesteryear and today together in a very exciting way that will be an educational center for the entire South Florida community, whether Jewish or non-Jewish.”
It’s all part of the overall mission of chabad to reach out to the community through education and humanitarian efforts, he said. “Chabad is the largest movement in the Jewish world. To give perspective, in the state of Florida alone there are about 150 chabad centers, about 100 of those probably in South Florida. So it’s a very dynamic and dominant force in Jewish life today.
“What people are attracted to is that we are very accepting, we are very open-minded, and at the same time we deliver a message that’s very authentic, that resonates, that’s real. I think that’s why you see a proliferation of chabad centers” — 3,000 branches worldwide, he said.
That worldview helps explain why New was born and bred in Australia — where his grandparents went on behalf of the chabad movement. His primary training was through the Rabbinic College of Australia and New Zealand, and advanced his studies in New York, before his educational outreach work on behalf of the movement from South America to the former Soviet Union and Asia.
“So we’re a branch of this global network that has a very global vision,” New said, “and that is to educate, to be a light unto the world, and to bring the world to a point where it is enlightened with purpose and with meaning and an awareness of God. And when the world will be saturated with that, it will be a world at peace, and harmony. And that’s what we’re working towards.”
On the web: www.chabadbocabeaches.com
C.B. Hanif is a writer and inter-religious affairs consultant. Find him at www.interfaith21.com.
Comments