Every Tuesday at Chapman University, a private college in Orange County, Calif., senior Max Toporek sets up a table at the center of campus. Instead of collecting signatures or conducting a survey, he offers Jewish students walking by the opportunity to wrap tefillin with Rabbi Eliezer Gurary, who directs Chabad of Chapman along with his wife Mushky.
From October 22 to 25, Toporek and 27 of his fellow Chapman students left sunny California to spend Shabbat in chilly New York City with nearly 2,000 Jewish college students from around the world. Organized by Chabad on Campus International, the “Pegisha” weekend draws attendees from more than 160 universities in six countries for an authentic Shabbat experience in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Students board with local host families, enjoy home-cooked Shabbat meals and observe Shabbat in a lively community setting.
As the “Guy’s Chair” at Chabad of Chapman, who leads weekly Torah classes and hosts farbrengens – spirited gatherings with food, drink and singing — he is excited to connect with his peers.
“I’ve been growing in my Judaism and welcome this opportunity to learn and immerse myself more,” Toporek said. “I decided to go because my relationship with Judaism has changed my life, and I want to experience that connection on a much bigger scale. “
Students Teaching Students
Chabad on Campus’s Pegisha is the organization’s largest annual event. It began in 1961, when Dr. Yaacov Hanoka, one of the pioneers of Jewish campus outreach, brought 17 college students to Crown Heights during winter break for a full Shabbat. Sixty-five years later, the weekend includes a Friday afternoon welcome, followed by candle lighting, talks and workshops throughout Shabbat, a Saturday night party called “the vibe”, and a farbrengen that extended to three o’clock in the morning.
Over Shabbat, students attended dozens of sessions, on topics from a Jewish view of drugs, to a blind kosher taste test, to Jewish speed dating. Students from Hamilton College, Penn State and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa also gave short TED-style talks. Saturday night opened with an outdoor musical Havdalah concert in front of the President Street home of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—followed by a kumzitz with singer Joey Newcomb.
Avi Weinstein of Chabad on Campus International said the weekend left him feeling optimistic about the prospects for Jewish life.
“Seeing so many students from campuses around the world and hearing their stories, I came away truly hopeful about our people’s future,” he said. “This generation has faced so much on campus and has every reason to feel defeated,” Weinstein said. “Instead, they are full of pride and strength, and they are yearning to connect with one another and with our spiritual heritage.”
Brooklyn to Brooklyn
For the six students from Pratt Institute, the trip to Crown Heights was a 10-minute Uber ride from Clinton Hill. Surprisingly, this was the school’s first time attending Pegisha. Rabbi Yossi Eliav and his wife Chaya arranged for family friends to watch their children so they could stay with the students in Crown Heights for the full weekend. Eliav insisted the group sleep in Crown Heights instead of going home each night.
“If you’re hopping back and forth, you lose out on the whole experience,” he said. “To really have it affect you the way it should, you have to completely disconnect and immerse yourself in the experience.”
Romy, a second-year fashion design student at Pratt, said she had never been at an event with so many Jewish people. The Friday night check-in, with students dancing and singing as they arrived, moved her to tears within 15 minutes. On Saturday night, after the joyous Havdalah celebration, she joined the crowd for a communal recitation of Shema.
“I’ve never said Shema with so many people,” she said. “It felt so powerful.”
One of the weekend’s lectures about the neshamah and whether it’s truly possible to love everybody, changed how she thinks about the people around her. “This is a place where you can be completely yourself, and there’s no judgment,” she said.
Eliav said the students kept telling him how glad they were that they came, and that they were already talking it up to friends. He expects a much bigger group next year.
From the Rebbe’s University to the Rebbe’s Home
Fifteen students came from Paris with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Aronov, whose Chabad House sits next to the Sorbonne, near the Luxembourg Garden. The Rebbe studied in Paris in the 1930s, and the rabbi said his students are keenly aware of the connection. Next month, Aronov will hold a public Chanukah menorah lighting in front of the Sorbonne.
Lea Lascar studies at ESTP, the engineering school the Rebbe attended. Shirel Soussan is a fourth-year medical student at Sorbonne University. For them, it was their first trip to the United States.
Soussan had attended Pegisha Europe last year and wanted to meet students from farther away. “In France we mostly talk to people from other European countries,” she said. “To meet students from the U.S. and Australia is amazing.”
French students mostly live off campus, they explain, so the Chabad House works as a daytime hub. Students drop in for lunch, before and after class, and use rooms set aside for studying. Many come every day, partly because there is no other kosher food nearby. “We need to eat every day,” Teboul said, laughing. They also come for the company.
Lascar said she feels comfortable being openly Jewish at her engineering school, which she described as not very political. Friends in other programs are more careful. She tells of a friend studying political science who doesn’t tell his classmates that he is Jewish or where he goes on holiday.
Before Shabbat, the Paris students toured Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. Another student said she came to see 770 Eastern Parkway, the Rebbe’s synagogue and Chabad Chabad World Headquarters, for the first time. “It’s an experience you have once in your life,” she said.
Asked what they would take home, the group gave short answers: memories, new friends, and the feeling of community.
Carrying the Message Home
Over the course of the weekend, from Thursday night through Sunday evening, students visited the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe, in Queens, N.Y., in twelve groups. Many wrote personal notes with prayers and requests before the visit, and participants named it as the part of the weekend they carry back to campus.
For Toporek, his trip from Chapman to Crown Heights was just one step on his path toward living a more meaningful Jewish life.
“For me, this journey has become about much more than getting involved in Jewish activities. It’s about understanding who I am, why I’m here, and what it means to live with Hashem at the center of my life.”
He is leaving the Pegisha having gained new perspectives from the lectures and the encounters he had with Jews from all levels of religious observance.
“Every Jew has a Jewish neshamah, and every person has a connection to Hashem, even if they haven’t fully discovered it yet,” he said. “People may be at very different places in their observance, but there’s something deeper that connects us.
“A year ago, I was in a very different place in my understanding of Judaism,” he said. “I wanted to be around people who are also trying to grow in their Judaism, learn from them, and bring that inspiration back to my community at Chapman.
“I want to remind the Jewish students who they really are at their core.”
