Marriage Unites Campus Centers from Across America

BROOKLYN, NY — The wedding of Reuven Kasten and Tziporah Hoffman looked, at first glance, like a typical wedding of two Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidim. Standing beneath a wedding canopy in the pouring ran outside of Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., the bearded groom wore a hat, while the bride was bedecked in a flowing white gown and intricate veil.

But the match was made under the most extraordinary of circumstances, an illustration of the array of choices students can make after attending programs at an ever-expanding list of campus-based Chabad Houses. And while a great majority of the thousands who stop by each week do not embrace the Chasidic lifestyle, stories abound of Jewish couples of all stripes getting their start when introduced to each other by Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries.

Rabbi Yonah and Keren Blum, directors of Chabad at Columbia University, first met Kasten when he went by his given English name, Corey.

The Ivy League student, who came from a traditional, but not strictly-religious home, “would often stay over for Shabbat and crash on our sofa,” remarked Yonah Blum. “He was always involved with our campus programs.”

The relationship continued past graduation, with Kasten turning to the Blums for guidance in an exploration of Judaism that ultimately found its expression in the young man embracing the study of Chasidic thought and the Lubavitch lifestyle.

Article continued at Chabad.org