Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers
eBook - ePub

Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers

An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls

Stephanie Wellen Levine

Share book
  1. 255 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers

An Intimate Journey among Hasidic Girls

Stephanie Wellen Levine

Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

From the ardently religious young woman who longs for the life of a male scholar to the young rebel who visits a strip club, smokes pot, and agonizes over her loss of faith to the proud Lubavitcher with a desire for a high-powered career, Stephanie Wellen Levine provides a rare glimpse into the inner worlds and daily lives of these Hasidic girls.

Lubavitcher Hasidim are famous for their efforts to inspire secular Jews to become more observant and for their messianic fervor. Strict followers of Orthodox Judaism, they maintain sharp gender-role distinctions.

Levine spent a year living in the Lubavitch community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, participating in the rhythms of Hasidic girlhood. Drawing on many intimate hours among Hasidim and over 30 in-depth interviews, Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers offers rich portraits of individual Hasidic young women and how they deal with the conflicts between the regimented society in which they live and the pull of mainstream American life.

This superbly crafted book offers intimate stories from Hasidic teenagers' lives, providing an intriguing twist to a universal theme: the struggle to grow up and define who we are within the context of culture, family, and life-driving beliefs.

Frequently asked questions

How do I cancel my subscription?
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on “Cancel Subscription” - it’s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time you’ve paid for. Learn more here.
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlego’s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan you’ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers by Stephanie Wellen Levine in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Gender Studies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
NYU Press
Year
2003
ISBN
9780814752401

1
The Community

A Cultural and Psychological Tour

BENEATH THE CHUTZPAH, Lubavitch girls are deeply enmeshed in their religious roots; some sense of their rich Hasidic heritage is crucial to understanding their lives and thoughts. Lubavitch is one contemporary sect among several spawned by the eastern European Hasidic tradition. The originator of modern Hasidism, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (born in 1698 near the Carpathian Mountains in what is now part of southern Russia), had spiritually invigorated much of the eastern European Jewish community by the mid–eighteenth century. He began life humbly. In his early years ben Eliezer was poor and academically undistinguished, with no hint that he would one day galvanize Jewish history.
According to tradition, he first revealed his spiritual gifts at age thirty-six.1 He had become an itinerant healer and preacher, and word spread of his vast powers. Hence, he acquired the title Besht, an acronym of Baal Shem Tov, or “Master of the Good Name.” The appellation stems from his practice of “name magic”; he fell within a Jewish tradition of healers, magicians, and miracle workers who would invoke secret mystical names of God believed to control the forces undergirding our world.2
The Besht was a gifted speaker who could express central Jewish mystical notions of the human condition and its relationship to God in the form of simple, engaging stories accessible to the uneducated masses.3 His core message was that pure faith, passion, and ardent prayer are as important as Talmudic scholarship in achieving godliness. Wholly unlearned Jews could pray lovingly and attain spirituality on a par with the greatest scholars. This notion was revolutionary in a culture that revered study of the Talmud, a collection of ancient rabbinical writings that define Jewish religious and civil law, as the truest path to holiness. Contemporary Lubavitchers’ fervent efforts to persuade all Jews to perform religious rituals hark back to this egalitarianism; Lubavitchers believe that even Jews with no religious knowledge release sparks of holiness that reverberate throughout the world whenever they complete a Judaic rite.
The Besht stressed God’s mystical presence in all of creation and wanted to infuse holiness and joy into every aspect of life. By the end of the eighteenth century, about half of eastern European Jewry had become followers of the Besht’s ideas. These people were called Hasidim, or “pious ones.” And while the Baal Shem Tov drew his initial base of followers mainly from the poor and uneducated, he eventually attracted some leading Talmudic scholars.4
Some of the Besht’s followers became leaders in their own right and spread their particular interpretations of Hasidism. They became known as Rebbes. Distinct sects sprang up around these men. Each Hasidic group centered its existence around a Rebbe, who was seen as a tzaddick, a perfectly righteous man with extraordinary spiritual powers. The Rebbe’s centrality was key to Hasidism. Hasidim looked to their Rebbe to guide them through life decisions, and members of a given Rebbe’s court would become intensely intimate. Through the generations, the Rebbes have passed their leadership on to successors, usually sons or other male family members.
Revolutions inspire angry detractors, and Hasidism attracted its share of bitter foes within the European Jewish power structure. Many adversaries of the movement were of Lithuanian origin; Lithuania was known for rigorous Talmudists deeply invested in the notion of scholarship as the most direct path to God. These misnagdim (opponents) bristled at what they perceived as Hasidism’s excessive valorization of the Rebbe, overemphasis on mysticism, and disrespect for Talmudic scholarship. Eventually, though, the groups reconciled somewhat. Spiritual descendants of both misnagdim and Hasidim are numerous in Israel and America, and despite differences in philosophy, they follow the same laws and feel united in their unwillingness to assimilate into mainstream culture.
Certainly, the early enemies did not stem Hasidism’s growth. The various sects grew in strength and influence, with their revered Rebbes at the helm. Rabbi Schneur Zalman (born in 1745) was the first Rebbe of Lubavitch, named after the Byelorussian town that hosted the group’s leaders from 1813 to 1915. Rabbi Zalman’s philosophical system, still the foundation of Lubavitch wisdom, was called Chabad, an acronym representing the Hebrew terms for wisdom (chochma), understanding (binah), and knowledge (daath). Lubavitchers are also known as Chabad Hasidim, and the Lubavitch outposts around the world, where the sect’s emissaries try to inspire nonreligious Jews to become more observant, are called Chabad Houses. The spiritual foundation that Rabbi Zalman built continued to define Lubavitch through a succession of several beloved Rebbes.
The sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Y. Schneersohn (the most recent Rebbe’s father-in-law), escaped to the United States in 1940 after the Nazis invaded Poland, his home at the time, and organized Lubavitch’s current world headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Schneersohn’s story is typical of Hasidim, many of whom first left Europe when World War II demolished their world. The Jewish refugees and survivors of World War II who came to America included a much higher proportion of people with an entrenched, spiritually inspired Judaism than did earlier groups of Jewish immigrants. They had grasped their European way of Jewish practice until the war destroyed their communities. Unlike their predecessors from the previous wave of Jewish immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these Jews tended not to enter America with the primary goal of achieving financial security and the often attendant willingness to relinquish religious observance. Dire emergency, not economic ambition, compelled their exodus. They often arrived in America with a sense of mission: here they would carry on the Torah way, a final victory over their prior tormentors.
The Hasidim among them set up new roots in the United States, with the largest concentrations in the New York City area. Today Hasidim number about 250,000 in North America and 650,000 worldwide, with about 150,000 in Brooklyn alone.5 Williamsburg, Brooklyn is home to the Satmar Hasidim, the most cloistered of all the American Hasidic groups, and Borough Park, Brooklyn has an eclectic mix of various sects; insiders can spot the distinctive hats, coats, and beards sported by different types of Hasidic men. The overwhelming majority of the approximately 15,000 Crown Heights Hasidim are Lubavitchers, and the neighborhood’s few members of other Hasidic sects typically have an affinity for Lubavitch. New York City is a radically different setting from pre–World War II eastern Europe, but the Hasidim have done a remarkable job of replanting their cultures here, complete with Rebbes who center their lives in the New World.
Modern-day Lubavitch is a clear heir to the Rebbe-centered roots of Hasidism. Until he became ill in the early 1990s, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, galvanized his followers. He was the nearly unanimous choice for Rebbe when the previous Rebbe, his father-in-law, passed away. At first the brilliant Sorbonne-educated engineer shied away from the position and the enormous responsibility it entailed. But his fellow Lubavitchers were so insistent that in 1950 he took his sect’s helm.
His post did indeed require unfathomable energy, wisdom, and strength. Every major decision in a Lubavitcher’s life inspired a letter to Rabbi Schneerson, and each word of his response was seen as a divine gem. The Rebbe regularly held community-wide celebrations filled with song, dance, and spiritual bliss. During his later years he gave out dollars, along with brief prayers, to all who appeared at a special weekly gathering. Stories of his miracles—advice that shrank tumors, unclogged arteries, filled long-barren wombs and long-empty pocket-books—proliferated. He was like a sun powering and centering the Crown Heights Lubavitch community, and his light radiated out into Lubavitch outposts around the world.
Rabbi Schneerson guided Lubavitch from a small group nearly extinguished by the Holocaust to a thriving international network. Actual population figures are elusive. Lubavitch does not keep official membership lists, and outreach work creates a large gray area: people who, perhaps, aren’t observant by Hasidic standards but who have become more or less faithful to Jewish law because of Lubavitch mentors. Still, Simon Jacobson, author of a popular book on Rabbi Schneerson’s wisdom, writes that there are “hundreds of thousands” of full-fledged Lubavitchers.6 The Rebbe worked passionately toward spreading the Lubavitch message throughout the globe, establishing a corps of emissaries known as shluchim who have built Lubavitch centers—Chabad Houses—in over fifty countries.
Chabad Houses have nurtured Lubavitch’s outreach success through classes, holiday celebrations, and cultural events geared toward secular Jews. The shluchim who run them base their lives on a few central goals: to teach Jews throughout the globe about their religious heritage and to convince as many Jews as possible to follow Judaic law. Their lives are radically different from the Crown Heights Lubavitchers’ world. They are often the lone Hasidim in the area, with no surrounding religious community. Their children typically travel far for school or attend places with no Lubavitch affiliation. Kosher food can be scarce, and some families must have supplies flown in from Jewish centers. They usually operate their own programs but occasionally team up with other Orthodox Jewish institutions, say, in cosponsoring a public menorah lighting ceremony during Hanukkah. This outreach work, or shlichus, is difficult but enthralling. Chabad Houses attract a lively assortment of curious souls. Many come just for kicks, but some gradually take on Hasidic beliefs and rituals. These outposts are surely among the Rebbe’s proudest legacies.
Rabbi Schneerson’s death in 1994 spurred anguish and impassioned theological debate. There is no new Rebbe. The Schneersons had no children, and there is no heir. Rabbi Schneerson’s influence was too profound and too vital to allow for a replacement. The scene I described in the book’s opening paragraph can now occur only in memory; the atmosphere at the main synagogue is much more subdued these days.
The Rebbe still undergirds this community. Lubavitchers regularly pray at his grave, and advice seekers examine letters he had written in the past to help his followers negotiate their lives. Videos and portraits in homes and community shops capture his kind, piercing eyes. While the community bustles as always, the Rebbe’s absence is omnipresent. Many of the girls I interviewed offered poignant reminiscences of Rabbi Schneerson. Most feel a profound emptiness, but a few sense his presence just as strongly now. A complex emotional world has emerged. Typical Lubavitch girls are content, energetic, even joyful; Bais Rivka is hardly a center of grieving. Mention the Rebbe, though, and tears may well form. It’s rather like the distant loss of a parent. Years have elapsed; life progresses; the death does not engulf existence. But a permanent sadness hums inaudibly.
The Rebbe’s influence is one of many qualities that distinguish Lubavitchers from other Hasidic groups. Rebbes are crucial within Hasidism, but Rabbi Schneerson’s centrality is unparalleled even among Hasidic sects. Hasidism is one movement among many in the Orthodox world. “Orthodox” is an umbrella term encompassing all Jewish groups that adhere strictly to traditional Jewish law. Contemporary American Hasidim differ from the more assimilated “modern Orthodox” Jews, who interpret religious law less stringently and embrace a much broader spectrum of secular culture, and from certain fellow “ultra-Orthodox” Jews (spiritual descendants of the misnagdim, the original opponents of Hasidism) who are nearly as strict in observance but do not follow a Rebbe. Ultra-Orthodox Jews (both Hasidim and misnagdim) constitute about one-quarter of the approximately 9 percent of American Jews who are Orthodox.7 The Hasidic sects themselves are hardly uniform. Each group reveres a different Rebbe, and customs and philosophies vary somewhat.
Hasidic beliefs and culture have even influenced certain brands of non-Orthodox Jewish expression. The havurah movement attempted to merge the communal and spiritual aspects of Hasidism with the countercultural politics of the late 1960s and 1970s; it offered a general openness to Jews with varying beliefs and levels of observance. Jewish prayer groups sprang up around the country, emphasizing family-like intimacy among members, typically young adults. Havurah members sometimes viewed themselves as neo-Hasidim; they identified with Hasidism’s communal spirit, mysticism, and unabashedly Jewish character.8 Most, but not all, of these original groups have fizzled out. Today more mainstream synagogues around the country offer their own brand of havurah: small-group fellowship for people who would like to study Jewish issues together, socialize around Jewish themes, celebrate holidays with other members, or pool their efforts in community service.
The havurah movement strongly influenced the development of Jewish Renewal, still active today. Inspired by ex-Lubavitch rabbis Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Shlomo Carlebach, this intriguing brand of Judaism fuses Prophetic, Cabalistic, and Hasidic traditions with gender equality, feminist spirituality, ecological consciousness, political activism, openness to homosexuality and single life paths, desire to learn from other faith traditions, and individual power to decide which aspects of Jewish tradition to follow and which to overlook.9 Because Jewish Renewal emphasizes direct spiritual experience and mysticism, some refer to it as neo-Hasidic Judaism.10
Despite these offshoots, though, traditional Hasidism is staunchly Orthodox, and much of the ritual and lifestyle that defines Lubavitch lives is common to all Orthodox Jews. The basic dietary laws, the daily prayer schedule, the holidays, the sense that one’s actions must conform to a higher purpose—these qualities are not Hasidic per se; they are intrinsic to all Orthodox Judaism, whether the modern variety that allows Americanized dress and enjoyment of secular culture within certain bounds of decorum, or the ultra-Orthodox branches. Indeed, many of the conflicts and issues that surface among Lubavitchers could crop up in any stringently Orthodox Jewish group or, for that matter, in any religious community with strict expectations for behavior and belief.
The Lubavitchers’ most distinctive traits—their reverence for their Rebbe, their focus on the Messianic era (which many believe is imminent), and their zest for outreach among secular Jews—define their unique niche in the Jewish universe. All truly Orthodox Jews believe the Messiah will come one day; it is a central article of their faith. But Lubavitch places unusual focus on this conviction. For many religious Jews, the Messiah’s coming is an ethereal, seemingly remote event that may take generations. And most Hasidic groups avoid outreach. They fear spiritual contamination from their secular counterparts and harbor skepticism that Jews raised outside the Orthodox world can ever embrace Hasidic doctrines and rituals with the proper spirit.
Desire to influence secular Jews profoundly affects the entire Lubavitch community, including the adolescent girls. I chose to study the Lubavitchers among all the Hasidic groups because their friendliness to outsiders makes them accessible and because the combination of religious intensity and worldliness spawns intriguing dichotomies: street smarts and Messianism rolled into one. Many people around the globe have experienced the Lubavitch touch. These Hasidim love to work the streets, exhorting their lax coreligionists to observe upcoming holidays or say their daily prayers. The sect’s emphasis on worldwide outreach allows some people to travel extensively, which gives them international exposure that is rare in America at large. Older girls attend summer camps and post–high school seminaries throughout the country and the world, where they help spread Orthodox ideals and Lubavitch philosophy to less observant Jews.
Lubavitchers’ gift for proselytizing has shaped their demographic makeup. Most members of other Hasidic sects hail from ancestral lines of Hasidim. The Lubavitchers’ outreach success has created a different sort of Hasid—the baal teshuvah, or returnee to Judaism (plural: baalei teshuvah). Baalei teshuvah (often known as BTs) have become so numerous that a term has arisen for the old-line Hasidim, to distinguish them from their newly religious counterparts; they are known as the frum (religious) from birth, shortened by insiders to simply “FFB.”
Often from thoroughly secular backgrounds, Hasidim-in-the-making slough off their past and embrace the Lubavitch way. They feel they are reclaiming their true heritage, since non-Orthodox brands of Judaism have only emerged in the past few generations. These people’s children have extended family members who are not religious and parents who have a broad familiarity with the secular world.
The 1960s began a fruitful time for producing baalei teshuvah. Hasidism may seem a strange place for ex-hippies to land, but for some, Lubavitch mysticism and desire to transform the world through Jewish ritual was a natural way to channel their idealism once they became ready to marry and settle into family life. The momentum has continued through the ensuing decades; for Jews searching for ultimate values, Lubavitch outreach attempts can be alluring.
As the baalei teshuvah’s children grow older, they may begin to outnumber their classmates with pure ultra-Orthodox lineage. Two young women who grew up in the Crown Heights community perused yearbooks and estimated that 10 percent of the high school graduating class of 1990 had baal teshuvah parents (they are generally matched together when it comes to marriage, for reasons of both compatibility and residual snobbery on the part of the old-line Hasidim). About half of the class of 1994 hailed from baal teshuvah homes, and by the class of 2000, the number rose to 70 percent.
These figures may well be inflated; most current students offered lower estimates. Teachers requested that I not do full-scale surveys because they didn’t want to emphasize their students’ differences. This was probably wise, for most girls are refreshingly unconcerned with their classmates’ family backgrounds. At any rate, exact numbers miss the point of this community. From the woman who accepts whatever guests come her way on Shabbos—no counting or planning—to the school administrators who say they genuinely do not think in terms of determining numbers from various backgrounds among their students, this is a community of heart, not precision. Suffice it to say that baalei teshuvah and their children are numerous and influential.
Beyond producing full-fledged Hasidim who move to the community and start families, Lubavitchers’ openness brings to Crown Heights a motley assortment of seekers, misfits, and plain old mainstream Americans who happen to be Jewish and feel like having a cultural experience. Guests at a family’s holiday meal might include a curious college undergraduate; a young surgeon with a newfound interest in spiritual concerns; a recently divorced middle-aged woman who has moved to Crown Heights to study Judaism at the local school for baalei teshuvah; an unemployed man in his thirties living with a Lubavitch family because he has nowhere else to go; and even a writer, awkward in her newly donned skirt and tights, trying to develop a sense for the lives of the community’s girls.
Typical Lubavitch children know how to engage all these people in conversation; they have constant training in handling diverse crowds. The more separatist Hasidic groups communicate primarily in Yiddish, but American Lubavitchers tend to speak English. The heavy influence of baalei teshuvah may be at work...

Table of contents