The Hasidic Table and the Rebbe

The Hasidic Table and the Rebbe: SHMA.COM A Powerful Encounter SHULEM DEEN o be a Hasid, one must push,” my be shoved; to allow the force of bodies pressed brother Avrumi used to say to me. It closely together to permeate one’s senses — the ‘‘T was back when I was 13 years old tactile, the auditory, the olfactory — while and he was 11, around the same time he’d start- crowding around the rebbe, who served as a ed running around town on Erev Shabbat, on conduit between his flock and whatever ethe- Friday night, to the tischen of various rebbes in real realm he had special access to. our Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park, It was only several months later, when I Brooklyn. first visited the village of New Square, N.Y. that While the rebbe is clearly the focus of the tisch, I grew enchanted with the tisch. As we gath- ered around an enormous table in the center the tisch isn’t really about the rebbe but about of the large synagogue, I watched as hundreds a community experiencing itself fully as a of men and boys stood pressed tightly against single organism, each part playing its role. one another on six-story bleachers, eyes fixed on the rebbe as he ate tiny forkfuls from over- The tisch (table) is the place where the sized portions of boiled chicken and sweet car- rebbe eats his Shabbat meals on Friday night rots. Strange boys shook my hand and made and Saturday evening. For the committed room for me on the bleachers. Gruff middle- Hasid, it is the highlight of his week, when he aged men offered me plates of roasted chicken gathers with his rebbe and his fellow Hasidim and potato kugel and bowls of apple compote, in an amalgamation of food, song, dance, insisting that I eat, eat, because there was prayer, and occasional words of inspiration. plenty more. And then there were the songs The rebbe sits at the head of a large table with and dancing that carried an energy that I’d his male family members by his side, with the never before experienced. rest of the community arrayed, sitting or stand- Despite Hasidism’s embrace of the spiritual ing, around them. capacity of the common man, it nevertheless At the time my brother chided me about asserts the elite status of the rebbe, the tzad- pushing, I didn’t enjoy tischen much, seeing dik, the perfectly righteous individual, of them mostly as tedious affairs led by small-time whom the Talmud tells us: “The righteous one rebbes who spoke in Old-World-accented decrees, and the Holy One, blessed be he, com- Yiddish about Torah study, or prayer, or kugel, plies.” Among Hasidim, however, the tzaddik’s or good Jews, or bad non-Jews. There were status stems not from demonstrable piety but uninspiring songs, tepid melodies sung half- from the power of the people who, by their heartedly and off-key by unenthusiastic crowds. very recognition of him, imbue him with his I was far more concerned that my black, faux- powers; it’s a theological democracy of sorts. silk caftan wouldn’t become creased, that my Scholarship isn’t a necessary quality of a rebbe, polished black shoes would remain shiny, and even though many rebbes have undoubtedly that my beaver-fur hat wouldn’t get knocked been scholars. Neither is oration, although into a bowl of chicken soup. It was the crowds, many have surely been great orators. It is the most of all, that I disdained — the sense that in tisch, therefore, that serves as the primary order to partake of this ceremony, to play a part venue for a Hasid’s interaction with his rebbe. in this theater (for the tischen were always The rebbe might offer words of Torah — pietis- overtly theatrical) one had to inhabit a space in tic homilies, typically, rather than scholarly dis- Shulem Deen is the founding editor of a Web journal, which bodies were packed, often for hours on course. The Hasid might partake of the rebbe’s Unpious: Voices on the Hasidic end, more tightly than a crowded subway at shrayim, the leftovers from his meal, from Fringe (www.unpious.com). His rush hour. which nitzotztot — the sparks of the divine articles have appeared in the It was when I expressed this disdain for the trapped within — have been raised by the Forward, the Brooklyn Rail, the crowds at the tisch that my brother rebuked me rebbe. There might be Shabbat songs, zemirot, New York Daily News, and elsewhere. A former Skver about the need to push: “Tzi zein a khusid darf and a snaking circle of dancing Hasidim Hasid, he now lives in men zich shtippen” — to push the crowd and to around the synagogue. Whatever the form — Brooklyn, N.Y. allow oneself to be pushed with it; to shove and and the form varied among different “courts” [2] MARCH 2012 | ADAR 5772 — the tisch is primarily a place of communion moments, the kabbalists tell us, are times of with the rebbe and also with fellow Hasidim. ra’ava dera’avin, when the divine presence is I later realized that the tisch is also a mech- revealed with greater intensity to those who anism for the Hasid to become enveloped seek it, a time for mokhin degadlut, of ex- SHMA.COM within the communal experience of ritual per- panded consciousness of the divine. formance. While the rebbe is clearly the focus In a haunting poem, Benei Heikhala Join a of the tisch, the tisch isn’t really about the rebbe Dikhsifin, Isaac Luria speaks of the unveiling of “Virtual Tisch” but about a community experiencing itself fully cosmic light in those hours before Shabbat ends. with Rabbi David Ingber, as a single organism, each part playing its role: Despite my having left the Hasidic community Amichai Lau-Lavie, the young men and boys dancing; the elderly many years ago, I recently attended a rebbe’s Susan Berrin, men sitting around the table swaying gently; tisch. I noticed that hearing the poem no longer Karen Erlichman, the elderly gabbai setting food in front of the made the hair on my arm stand stiff; the rebbe’s Renna Khuner-Haber, rebbe and then distributing his leftovers; the chanting now sounded irritatingly mournful. Reb Mimi Feigelson, rebbe’s family arrayed in their places of privi- The words were still beautiful, carrying a faint and many more lege; and, of course, the rebbe himself, to which but distinctive reminder of the ecstatic heights all eyes are turned. The rebbe might be the they once triggered in me. It was then that I re- Sunday night, March 25 heart, but an organism does not consist of a membered my brother’s words, an eleven-year- at 8:00 PM EST/ heart alone. old’s aphorism, and realized how right he was. 5:00 PM PST. One of the most beloved times for a tisch As someone who no longer holds Hasidic be- Join us at (more common among the Skver Hasidim, my lief, or observes its practice, I no longer felt the www.shma.com now-former community) is at seudah shlishit, tactile quality of participation; I no longer to participate and send the third meal of Shabbat. The tisch is held in pushed among the crowd. For me, the tisch was in questions, comments total darkness in the final moments before the now mere performance and I, as in childhood, and teachings in real day of rest passes into the next weekday. Those only a tired audience member. time right from your computers. A Horizontal Table RACHEL NUSSBAUM search for the phrase “rebbe’s tisch” on same. Our tisch, like a traditional one, features YouTube generates hundreds of hits. To words of Torah as well as spirited singing, with Athe untrained eye, these videos have a the mood alternating from mellow and reflec- similar look: men dressed in the black-and-white tive to energetic and frenzied. And, yes, these Hasidic “uniform”; a crowd hovering around one events contain moments of focus and close- or more tables; singing with great devotion; a ness, when community members share both rebbe at the head table. That same untrained eye food and an experience, and feel connected to would also recognize that the tisch I hold at my one another and to the transcendent. However, home in Seattle looks very different. the very different audience and cultural context Here in Seattle, the “rebbe” does not have of a “horizontal” tisch elicits several interesting a beard. On a more serious note, though, my questions to ponder. experiments with creating tischen for a non- First, who is an insider to the experience? Orthodox community have raised broad-reach- Classically, the act of breaking bread together ing practical and theoretical questions about — and, by extension, sitting at the table — leadership and community building in a lib- plays an important role in defining who counts eral, egalitarian setting. At a tisch, the bound- within the Jewish community (think about the aries of the community are delineated, quite laws of kashrut, for example). While the con- literally, by who has a seat at the table. The temporary liberal Jewish community’s bound- power of the traditional tisch emerges from a aries are already more porous than the shared religious vocabulary and the authority boundaries of a Hasidic community, we have Rachel Nussbaum is rabbi and of the rabbi. Can the intimacy and cohesive many more invitations to offer before all Jews executive director of the power of the traditional tisch be transposed will feel welcome at the Jewish table.

Load more