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Thursday, February 16, 2006

Matisyahu Moment and What Chabad Is Not

Two thoughts I thought I would share today:

1. I was sitting at Starbucks-sipping my caramel macchiato-grooving to the background music-when a song from Matisyahu came on. King Without a Crown is a wonderful song-just kinda amusing to see how mainstream it has become.

2. What is role of Chabad in far off places like Prague? It's not so tourists can have a place for shabbos. I am not saying that it can't be...but after consulting an official member of Chabad yesterday C. told me that while many people who run Chabad all over the world offer their food and homes and company to those Jews/tourists-the tourists are not the main concern. The focus is on the people of that community in which they live-to bring Judaism to thoses who are disconnected from it.

But what happens when you have a tourist who is disconnected from Judaism and seeks out Chabad?

Note: This is not a criticism-just a response to a story I was told of yesterday of somehone who had a negative experience. I know that Chabad does wonderful things for communites and people and tourists too-