Rest Stop: Tourists, Truckers, Soldiers, Seekers Refresh in Chabad’s Mack Truck

IDF soldier Matan Cohen, serving at Shimshon base in the lower Galilee, climbs into the trailer of a 16-wheeler truck to wrap tefillin on his taut, tanned forearm, opposite the black beret tucked into his epaulets. He will be on leave at the end of the week and off to Sri Lanka for a two week break.

“I didn’t want to miss my tefillin day,” said Cohen. He unwinds his tefillin, one of the twelve pairs Chabad keeps on hand, and passes it on the next man in line. Jacob Bari, a tour escort, keeps his gun strapped to his shoulder and puts on tefillin while waiting for his tour bus to fill.

All day long at Chabad of Golani Junction, the tefillin rarely rest. Summer is peak season for tourism in northern Israel. Golani junction is a gateway to river kayaking, jeep tours, and the holy cities of Meron, Tiberias and Safed. Chabad of Golani Junction is staffed from 8:30 a.m. until sunset to welcome a non-stop parade of tourists, truckers, soldiers and seekers into its unusual sanctuary.

Chabad representative Rabbi Shmulik Rosenberg purchased a truck six years ago. The first model burnt to a crisp in 2009. The new tractor trailer is equipped with a small galley kitchen, Jewish library, and a Torah ark the size of a microwave. Rabbi Rosenberg estimates an average of 100 people put on tefillin with Chabad of Golani Junction each day. Judging by the action seen over the course of one day, it’s a humble estimate.

Last December, Dr. Benjamin Fisher, a dermatologist from Herzyliya, dedicated the truck’s Torah in memory of Gabi and Rivka Holtzberg, Chabad representatives murdered in Mumbai. Rivka was Rabbi Rosenberg’s sister.

Now that the truck has a Torah, Rabbi Mendy Makmel, who manages Chabad of Golani Junction, is ready to host bar mitzvahs. “Everyone is looking for an out-of-the-ordinary spot for their bar mitzvah. So why not here?”

Chabad’s truck has become a fixture of the rest stop, and an eclectic community of regulars has grown around the wrap-tefillin-and-go operation.

“People come and go, but those who come here a lot have gotten to know each other. They help each other find jobs, solve problems. They’re connected,” said Rabbi Makmel.

The earliest regular is Shaul Dorf, a trucker from Rechovot in central Israel. Dorf leaves home at 3 a.m., too early for morning prayers. He makes it to Golani Junction around 6 a.m. Rabbi Makmel gave him a key so he can put on tefillin in the truck trailer after sunrise.

Yoram Weisman, a project manager from Kiryat Shemona, even further north, stops off each week for a Torah mini-class.

“It’s much more fun for me to put on tefillin and learn Torah here than to do it alone at home,” said Weisman.

This week, when Weisman and Rabbi Makmel sat down to study, a gaggle of gangly teenage boys from Bnai Akiva youth group in Ranaana burst in. The boys wolfed down Chabad’s sandwiches and yogurts and sat in on the class. They drained jugs of punch, thanked Rabbi Makmel and ran off to catch the camp bus that was taking them for six days of roughing it near Ein Zeitim. Rabbi Makmel caught them at the door and handed them coins, urging them to give charity before they go for a safe trip. No small concern in these days of increased violence.

Barely are they out the door when Adi Glassman from Kibbutz Ein Dor steps in. Glassman found out about Chabad when Rabbi Makmel hosted Rosh Hashanah services on his kibbutz.

“I am not a religious man, but I like Mendy. I stop in here to put on tefillin whenever I can,” said Glassman.

A group of picnickers pulls up to the junction’s rest area. They aren’t approaching the Chabad truck. Undaunted Rabbi Makmel loads tefillin into a milk crate and carries them and his portable tefillin stand to the tables. Clusters of men take up the offer to do a mitzvah.

Shmuel Maman of Netanya looks on. “Every Jew in their deepest selves believes. Sometimes people need a little push to find out what’s inside of them. Putting on tefillin opens up a spiritual connection,” he said.

Others are not so eager, but Rabbi Makmel has a way of making people feel at home. Teenagers who flip burgers at McDonald’s in the junction stop by for a cup of coffee with the rabbi. Police officers entrust Rabbi Makmel with their keys so the next shift can get into the mobile operating station. Hundreds of soldiers receiving their Golani Brigade berets pause before or after the ceremony to mark the day with prayer and tefillin.

Joe Woolf, a retired accountant from South Africa, who volunteered for the Israeli army during the War of Independence in ’48, also proclaims his secular stance. That didn’t stop him from studying for his “second bar mitzvah” at age 83 with Rabbi Makmel.

Woolf serves up food to soldiers at the Friends of the IDF snack bar across the lot from Chabad. When the snack bar closes at 2 p.m., the workers transfer the food to the Chabad truck, and Chabad feeds the soldiers for the rest of the day.

With tefillin still in place, Woolf repeats the old complaint that too few religious Jews serve in the IDF, a dated gripe now that about a third of the infantry officers are religious. Nor does it apply to Rabbi Makmel. After graduating yeshiva and serving in Chabad houses across India and Florida, Rabbi Makmel married and served in Israel’s Air Force for two years.

“I helped people put on tefillin there, too,” he said.

Today he lives about 25 minutes away. Hitchhiking to and from the Chabad center gives him an opportunity to meet more people.

“At first I was a little afraid to approach people, but when you are with them you discover that beneath the big hair and under the piercings, they are warm-hearted Jews,” said Rabbi Makmel.

Towards lunchtime two yeshiva students, not of the Chabad-Lubavitch brand, stop in. They help themselves to coffee and bless the rabbi for the caffeine saying it’s like resurrecting the dead.

As they leave, the rabbi puts a challenge to the boys. “You have to be active. Find one Jew, just one, and help him put on tefillin.”