Whoever Said “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” Never Ate at Yale’s Chabad House

NEW HAVEN, CT — I’m a Jew of the stomach: bagels and schmear, kugel and latkes are as spiritual as I get. My mother was raised by post-Holocaust transplants of Eastern Europe—a nervously practicing bunch—and the ideology seeped between generations. I wasn’t bat mitzvahed, I’ve never been to synagogue, and the closest I get to religion is washing away my neuroses with a blanket disclaimer: “I’m Jewish!”

So when word spread about the Chabad House at Yale, a house on Edgewood Avenue that serves a fantastic homemade Shabbat dinner to anyone who happens by on a Friday night, I was skeptical. Chabad Houses are a phenomenon of the Chabad Lubuvitch Jews, an orthodox sect that emphasizes bringing non-practicing blood-right Jews (like me) back to the fold of religion. Most know this group from their transport: giant white vans that circle Chapel Street on high holy days offering miniature menorahs or packets of Matzah to anyone who answers “Yes” to the question “Are you Jewish?”

The Chabad House isn’t hawking Jewish trinkets, but fellowship and food. Started by Rabbi Shua Rosenstein, then a rabbinical student, in an apartment in the Taft building in 2002, Chabad moved to its Edgewood digs a year and a half later. The premise is simple: For any Jew—or non-Jew, for that matter—the Chabad House provides Shabbat dinner, occasional bagel brunches, Jewish classes and home-delivered Matzah ball soup if you’re sick and request it. All the classes are run by Rosenstein, all the food prepared by his wife Sara. All the services are free.

On a recent Friday night, Rabbi Shua Rosenstein, who runs the Chabad house, greets guests at the door with a politician’s fervor for conversation, instructing us to leave our coats and join him in the house’s attic where a meandering table is strung around the roof-beams. There are about 35 people crammed around the table, but when a Chabad regular arrives totting his girlfriend and five friends from high school Rosenstein just crams in another table. Rosenstein is an expert at entertaining. A quiet boy is pushed toward a friendly group. A lull in conversation is filled by a raucous song. L’chaims, or toasts (“l’chaim” being Hebrew for “to life”) are a Rosenstein-mandated Chabad tradition, ranging from serious (a newcomer asks for prayer for her ailing grandfather) to ridiculous (“I’d like to hear it for v-neck shirts…They do my chest good”).

By the time dinner is served everyone is talking; perfect strangers are laughing. Somehow, none of this seems forced. Maybe because there is wine—lots and lots of wine.

Then there’s the food, all of it served kosher. The first course isn’t so much a course but an array of dishes, passed family-style around the mammoth table. There’s cuisine straight out of my grandma’s favorite deli: pasta salad with mixed vegetables, a cold corn salad and mixed cabbage coleslaw laced with pecans and sweet oil. There’s a salad from my childhood: iceberg lettuce, ranch dressing and croutons, along with a few I’ve consumed in more recent years: avocado and mixed greens, and a really tasty one with mandarin oranges and red onions. There are traditional Jewish staples: a cold breaded salmon, Challah bread and rich Matzah ball soup. It’s all stuff I recognize—prepared, dare I say it, just like my mother used to make it.

I’m ready to tuck in and digest for a while, but that’s before the entrees come out. There’s meat lasagna served rustically with layers of sauce and crumbled meat between the noodles, fluffy rice, and packets of pastry stuffed with lunchmeat.

The orange-glazed chicken comes from a recipe they must give Jewish women upon birth of their first-born. I’m pretty sure I remember my grandmother, several aunts and my mother all making the same thing, armed with a bottle of Tropicana. For dessert there are fudgy brownies and surprisingly good non-dairy ice cream drenched in chocolate sauce. That is, if anyone could stuff down dessert at this point.

Rosenstein gives one of the last l’chaims, in honor of his wife for cooking such a splendid meal.
“You can go anywhere in New Haven and get great food,” says Rosenstein, “but only at Chabad can anyone come here and feel like you’ve come home.”

The sarcastic Jew in me wants to scoff but it’s true. As much as I’ve searched Connecticut for world class knishes, quality Jewish cooking comes from something beyond culinary training. Though Katz’s blintzes and Claire’s latkes may be fine, they don’t come from Sara’s kitchen.
And I feel more Jewish then I have in years. Maybe because they finally translated Judaism into a language we both understand: unbelievable nosh.