Chabad’s Sukkot Marches to Beat of Different Drummer

Manalapan, NJ – Chabad of Western Monmouth County congregants danced to the beat of a different drummer at this year’s Sukkot celebration.

It’s not every day the Jewish hymn “David Melech Yisrael” is set to the rhythm of a djembe, or African drum, Chabad members said.

“It’s loud. I love it,” said Menachem Eizenstat, 9, of Silver Springs, Md., who was visiting his grandmother, Risa Gold, of Manalapan for the holiday.

About 200 celebrants attended the not-so-orthodox Sukkot event Oct. 9 at Congregation Sons of Israel in Manalapan.

On stage, 22-year-old Shmuli Stiefel of Manalapan belted out Hebrew lyrics over the thundering rhythms of the Drum Cafe, an African drum troupe.

People wearing both dashikis and yarmulkes led the audience in song as the Drum Cafe beat out rhythms on 150 djembes.

“There’s always music, dancing and singing (during Sukkot),” said Raizel Bernstein, 13. “This year it’s different, but it’s cooler different.”

Three troupe members taught the audience to pound out their own rhythms and to work together to create sounds in unison.

Drum Cafe usually is hired for corporate team-building programs, said South African-born Alain Eagles, 32, of the Drum Cafe.

“But there are a lot of similarities between what we do and a religious holiday like this that cross those lines,” said Eagles, who is from Atlanta. “It’s about unity and community, and synergizing and energizing a group of people and getting everyone to feel that.”

Sukkot is a seven-day celebration during which families eat and spend time together in a sukkah, a makeshift four-walled structure with a bamboo roof. The celebration commemorates the Jews’ exodus from Egypt, during which they lived in similar huts, Chabad Rabbi Boruch Chazanow said.

Chabad leaders decided to add a twist this year by inviting the African-born drummers, Chazanow said.

“The idea was to get a new venue of happiness instead of just a traditional music band, to have something unique and different,” Chazanow said. “And we’re not only watching. We’re getting to be part of it ourselves.”

The celebration still included traditional aspects of the holiday, such as shaking boughs of palm, myrtle and willow in six directions to represent that “God is everywhere,” Chazanow said.

But the new take on the traditional Sukkot drew about twice as many attendees as previous years’ celebrations, he said.

The number of reservations forced the Chabad to relocate from its own Wickatunk Road site to the larger Congregation Sons of Israel on Gordons Corner Road for the evening.

“We never expected we’d draw such a large crowd for this,” Chazanow said as congregants lined up for kosher hamburgers, hot dogs and other barbecue-style fare during the event.

Attendees said the beat may have changed, but the tune remained the same at the festive celebration.

“I came out because I wanted to enjoy the Sukkot holiday,” Ruth Schaefer of Manalapan said. “It’s different, of course, because it’s African style, but a lot of people I know are here, people who I love to see, and that’s what it’s still about: the unity of the Jewish people.”