Students Return from Weekend Inspired to Do More

When Noah Gross, 21, headed to Brooklyn, N.Y., for the Chabad on Campus International Student Shabbaton and Conference, he wasn’t really sure what to expect, or if it’d really be the combination of fellow students, lectures, and community his campus rabbi had been promising.

“The Shabbaton lived up to all of my expectations and even more,” Gross, a Drexel University student and veteran of other kinds of Sabbath programs during his high school years, said of last weekend’s event in Crown Heights with around 850 other collegians. “Just being in a room with that many college students, and knowing that we had at least one part of our lives in common – we all had Chabad on Campus connecting us to [our Jewish heritage] – that was really an amazing, eye-opening experience.”

The annual event came 50 years after the Chabad-Lubavitch movement first began bringing organized groups of college students to Crown Heights for weekend programs to learn more about their heritage and develop communal connections.

Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive vice president of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation, said it was great being able to provide a new crop of students and returnees from past year’s Shabbatons a chance to take advantage of the experience.

“It is truly incredible that we have the opportunity to host these students here in Crown Heights,” he explained, “and contribute significantly to their Jewish identity, fostering positive feelings towards Jewishness among a generation of our future leaders.”

For Gross, the three days of activities created a weekend that “was a pretty powerful experience.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people wish me ‘Shabbat shalom’ in one Shabbat as I did this weekend,” he said.

Jacqui Black, 21, said it was the experience of being hosted by local families that stuck out most in her mind.

“Instead of just hearing and learning from speakers, you actually go to experience their lifestyle,” she said of the hands-on weekend, which at one point, had her entire table standing on chairs, dancing and singing during a group gathering.

And while she went with friends and got to make new ones, she said she was surprised to run into a young man she had studied abroad with the previous semester and an Israeli soldier she’d met in Israel.

“It’s very cool that I ended up seeing them,” she remarked.

As for what she takes home with her, she said the trip helped her learn about the community’s values and how members of the primarily Chasidic Jewish community in Crown Heights live their lives.

“I came back with a more personal knowledge about the Lubavitch movement,” she said, adding that she feels she has a better grasp on who the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, was and what he represents. “I understand more the foundations of Chabad as a movement.”

With all of the attendees gathered in a ballroom for an afternoon session, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, chairman of the Chabad on Campus International Foundation and vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, spoke about the test of the latest generation.

The Jewish people have collectively faced a series of challenges, he told them in a voice, increasing in intensity as he moved from generation to generation. There was “Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the pogroms and the Bolsheviks,” he boomed. And then there were “Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka … children who knew no sin!”

Now, G-d presents “you with the ultimate test, the test of prosperity,” he continued. “Going to college and being able to choose whatever way of life you want, with no one to harm you in any way, this is the ultimate test. And you all have the power to choose to be the leaders of the next generation of the Jewish people.”

Asal Ehsanipour, a University of Southern California sophomore, said in addition to the spiritual and recreational elements of the weekend, she had a lot of fun comparing how various campus Chabad Houses operate. As a young leader the local Chabad House directed by Rabbi Dov and Runya Wagner, she said the back and forth provided ideas for improving students’ experiences.

The weekend also provided a nice reminder that she’s part of a group of people with a strong love for Judaism.

“I think at this age we’re constantly questioning things and trying to figure out how we want to apply those practices in our everyday lives,” she said. “So all these rabbis, they’re trained to bring it to our level so we can meet each other halfway. I walked away thinking about it, so I enjoyed that a lot.”

Drexel’s Gross said he even left with food for thought as it relates to his intended career. A talk on reconciling Judaism and science gave him a foundation for approaching questions that could arise as he studies mechanical engineering and maps out his life as a potential scientist, engineer, and a Jew.

“I’ll definitely be back next year,” he stated, “and I hope to bring 900 of my friends from own school with me. That would be fantastic.”