770 Eastern Parkway

By Brendan Garrone

770 Eastern Parkway is the center of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish world. It acts as a synagogue, community center, administrative building, and pilgrimage site, and was home to the last two Lubavitch leaders, known as rebbes.

While the Lubavitch community centers around 770 Eastern Parkway, the community also includes Chassidic-related grocery stores, book stores, and delicatessens, all of which contribute to a unique neighborhood organized around a specific culture. The Jewish Chassidic Discovery Walking Tour, led by Rabbi Beryl Epstein, provides an insiders look at 770 Eastern Parkway, and other places of importance in the Chabad-Lubavitch community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, such as the scribe’s workshop and the Lubavitch library, home to thousands of rare texts.

A branch of Chassidic Judaism based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Lubavitch community follows the teachings of seven rebbes, or teachers, the last of whom, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, passed away in 1994. It is one of the largest branches of Chassidic Judaism in the world, and the Crown Heights population is actually the world headquarters of the Lubavitch movement. The Chassidic Discovery Walking Tour is designed to familiarize visitors with the workings of the Lubavitch community as well as to dispel what the tour-givers feel are misunderstandings regarding Chassidic Jewish traditions.

Lubavitch Judaism has its origins in Eastern Europe, with the largest populations coming from Russia, Poland, and Germany. In 1940 the sixth rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneerson, came to Crown Heights, Brooklyn after fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland. Confined to a wheel chair, the rebbe chose 770 Eastern Parkway as his office and living quarters because it had an elevator. Today, 770 Eastern Parkway, or Beis Moshiach as it is sometimes known, is the most important building in all of Lubavitch Judaism. Acting as the world headquarters, the building is a synagogue (one of thirty-two in the area), an area of study for students, as well as the former offices of the last two rebbes. It also acts as a meeting place to celebrate events and discuss community issues.

As men and women are separated in the Lubavitch community, the ground floor is reserved for the men’s section and the second floor for the women. On the Sabbath, hundreds of Chasidim file inside to join the services, with the woman looking on and participating from the second floor. Prayer groups also move throughout the building, visiting areas considered especially sacred, such as the rebbe’s office. The site has become a pilgrimage site for thousands of Lubavitch Chasidim each year, and camera footage of the building is streamed online at 770live.org twenty-four hours a day. In addition, exact replicas of the building have been built all over the world, in places like Jerusalem, Italy, Argentina, and Australia. Nearby is the library which contains thousands of volumes of sacred texts, including personal writings from the rebbes. Many of the more valuable books are on display in a small museum on the top floor.

The ground floor of 770 Eastern Parkway is a large room filled with male Chasidim of all ages, reading, studying, praying, conversing, and singing. Indeed, the primary purpose of each Lubavitch adherent is to study the Torah, Talmud, Mitzvot, and other sacred texts. Like virtually all other aspects of Chassidic life, girls and boys attend separate schools, with three major boys’ schools in the Crown Heights area. By age fifteen, a young man in the community is expected to be able to converse with a rabbi on Jewish law and theology. Males attend Yeshiva-religious schools until the age of twenty, after which they are able to obtain their certificate of rabbinate. While males have traditionally been the dominant sex in religious study, Chasidic females have become increasingly involved. The Schlucha, a female version of advanced rabbinate study, has provided the opportunity for women to become schluchot, educated women who spread the message of Lubavitch with their husbands to new-formed Lubavitch communities.

In addition to learning some secular subjects in school, Chassidic youth are also taught four languages: English, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic, though only males learn the latter. English is not emphasized, however, as the Lubavitch believe the study of English takes time away from more important and holy languages such as Hebrew. Familiarity with these languages is of crucial importance to the Lubavitch community both in Crown Heights and elsewhere. Since Chasidim come from all over the world, especially Eastern Europe, languages such as Yiddish provide a lingua franca for the members of the community. In addition, the hundreds of international Lubavitch centers can communicate in these languages, creating a unified network of communication.

Nowhere is the tradition of the Lubavitch Chasidim better expressed than at the scribe’s workshop, located at 353 Kingston Avenue. Here workers construct tefillin, leather prayer boxes that contain Biblical verses and are worn on the head and around the hand. Each box is made of leather from the neck of a cow. Inside, specific Biblical verses are written out in kosher ink and then tied with animal sinew. The verses can only be written by trained scribes who take great care making each box. Indeed, in Judaism, as in Islam, the act of writing sacred verses is a ritual in and of itself, and must be done with great care. The tefillin are used while praying by men above the age of thirteen, and act as a rite of passage when boys reach this age and are allowed to use them.

Outsiders often consider the Lubavitch community in Crown Heights to be completely cut off from the outside world, however, the Lubavitch believe they are one of the most extroverted of the Chassidic traditions. From the campaigns in Manhattan which display enormous pictures of the rebbe to the embrace of the World Wide Web for communication and proselytization, the Lubavitch community interacts with the “outside” world in ways which the Chasidim feel will help the faith. They believe that the use of webcams, such as the one at 770live.org, helps to reaffirm religious beliefs by allowing individuals from around the world to view and pray in the presence of some of the Lubavitch movement’s holiest sites. The walking tours provide another way to interact with the “outside” world and show the Lubavitch way of life. The organizers hope the walking tours will also contribute revenue toward the creation of a Chassidic Welcome Center. Still in the planning stages, the center would not only welcome Chasidim from around the world but also serve as tour headquarters for non-Lubavitch visitors.

At the heart of the Crown Heights Lubavitch community is a strong, tight-knit bond among its members. Cooperation is an important part of life for this community, both in religious matters and daily life. For example, many of the young men who study at the synagogue do so in groups, generating a dialogue that facilitates the study and interpretation of the texts central to their faith. In addition, the women of the community form strong social networks which provide help to pregnant and nursing mothers who are unable to keep up with household duties such as cooking. The community even has its own volunteer ambulance unit that responds to domestic calls as well as calls from the synagogues (many people faint during particularly crowded religious holidays). The Lubavitch community has created an infrastructure of social services completely separate from the New York City system. At the heart of these services, such as education, and a system of financial assistance, however, are strong relationships between the individuals and families in the community. Thus, while the places of importance in the Lubavitch neighborhood are easily recognized, it is the strong social bonds that are formed between families and friends which act as the glue that keeps the community together.

Many of the walking tours visit other interesting sites in the community such as the matzah factory at 460 Albany Avenue. For more information about taking a Jewish Chassidic Discovery Walking Tour, visit www.jewishtours.com or email Rabbi Beryl Epstein to reserve a spot on the tour at be@jewishtours.com.