Mansfield Rabbi Reaches Out

Mansfield, MA — As a kid in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, young Yossi Kivman heard two sirens call.

“I wanted to be the first rabbi fireman,” Kivman says.

You’ll never see Kivman, 29, pull up to a burning building on a Mansfield fire engine and run inside to rescue the occupants.

However, more and more area residents seek his help in fanning their interest in their Jewish heritage.

The Angell Street home from which Kivman and his wife, Tzivi, may not have sirens and ladder trucks, but Rabbi Kivman has no regrets. “I’ll stick to my job. I think there’s enough work on my side to do,” Kivman says

Indeed, Passover, which commemmorates the liberation of the Jews by Moses from slavery under the Pharoah in Egypt, begins at sundown Monday.

The Kivmans will host a first-night seder at 7 p.m., and a second-night seder at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, at their home, 121 Angell St. Reservations are due Sunday by calling 508-339-8767 or e-mailing chabadmansfield@gmail.com.

Each seder will feature hand-baked matzoh, which is unleavened bread; Passover wine; and a traditional Passover dinner.

The seder prayer book, called the haggadah, speaks of four kinds of participants: the wise child, the morally challenged child, the simple child and the inquisitively challenged child.

However, Kivman says his seder seeks to reach out to, among others, a “fifth son” identified by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneersohn, the leader of the Chabad movement.

“The fifth son doesn’t come to the seder at all. Our job is to give him an opportunity to come to a seder,” Kivman says.

The Kivmans are among 4,000 full-time emissary families directing more than 3,300 Chabad institutions around the world, providing spiritual and physical aid to Jews.

Although the Chabad movement leans toward Orthodox, the highest degree of observance, the movement sees all Jews as equals.

The Kivmans and their two girls, ages 2 and 1, came to Mansfield in December 2005.

They held a “Chanukah Extravaganza” at the Mansfield Public Library. More than 100 people attended.

Hundreds of people have since attended the Kivmans’ programs over the past year.

But attendance figures don’t interest Kivman.

“I feel that I’m here to touch one person,” he says. “If I manage to do a lot for one person, that’s great.”

That help takes the form of ministering at local hospitals and nursing homes, and running programs for the community.

One local patient, who is older than 90, has warmed Kivman’s heart.

“He’s always happy. I come up to him and say, ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Besides my foot, I’m great!’ ” Kivman says.

“That’s amazing! I’m on the receiving end of being inspired.”

Kivman was inspired to become a rabbi by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to help other Jews.

“One way to do that is to become a rabbi and go out to a community that doesn’t have any rabbis,” Kivman says.

Kivman grew up in the movement. He is the fifth of seven children in his family.

The family lived the Chabad-Lubavich teachings, he says. Guests were invited over constantly.

A portrait of the Lubavitcher Rebbe now hangs in the dining room of the Kivmans’ home.

Although Kivman is often the public face of the Chabad Jewish Center, he and his wife are a team.

Mrs. Kivman hosted a women’s event recently, in which women learned to make beaded jewelry, which was then donated to a women’s shelter.

Many of the programs are held in the couple’s home.

In Mansfield, the Kivmans have found that the degree of religious affiliation is higher than he expected.

“They want more Yiddishkeit. They want to do more than just, once in a while, go to temple,” he says.

They’ll even go online to find it.

“Conversations with the Rabbi,” a 30-minute question-and-answer session, will start with a Passover program about different parts of the seder.

Viewers can send Kivman questions while watching, and he will try to respond immediately.

Kivman has shared Jewish traditions around the world.

In 2002, as a rabbinical student, he attended two seders in the small town of Lipetsk, Russia.

“One hundred eighty people came to our seders,” Kivman says, “people who never saw a seder in their lives.”

Coincidentally, Kivman enjoys traveling and sightseeing.

However, most of his spare time is spent with his kids.

“When you have children, you watch them grow and you play with them,” says Kivman.