A Truly Hairy Situation Despite Beard, Rabbi Cleared to Serve as Chaplain

GAITHERSBURG, MD — Rabbi Chesky Tenenbaum, like his uncle before him, has pierced the “beard threshold.”

That term was coined by Germantown resident Martin Hershkowitz to describe a Department of Defense grooming regulation prohibiting military personnel from having beards.

Tenenbaum was recently granted an exemption to that rule, thereby enabling him to serve as a chaplain with the Maryland Defense Force ‹ a volunteer, state-supervised civilian organization that primarily provides support for the Maryland National Guard.

Tenenbaum, a 28-year-old Gaithersburg resident who is affiliated with Chabad Lubavitch, is the only Jewish chaplain in the MDF’s 10-member chaplaincy corps, and was the first rabbinic chaplain in the 84-year history of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department.

He is also one of only a handful of personnel in the entire U.S. military who are allowed to have beards for religious reasons, according to observers.

“It’s unusual, but not unheard of,” said Lt. Col. Chaplain Charles Nalls, director of the MDF Chaplaincy Corps. “It’s not the military norm, but the military tries to enable people to practice their faith properly.”

In a sense, Tenenbaum is following in the footsteps of his uncle, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, a chaplain with the U.S. Army Reserves. Goldstein, who is now assigned to Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, was granted a beard exemption about 30 years ago, when he was with the New York Army National Guard.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Tenenbaum, the associate rabbi and program director at Chabad of Upper Montgomery County in Gaithersburg. “I’ve always looked up to my uncle.”

“I’m ecstatic,” said Goldstein, 60. “It’s important to show that people from that part of the world,” he added, referring to the Chabad and Orthodox world, “do put on a uniform and serve their country. It’s a very important statement to us as Jews and to the larger world.”

Tenenbaum, who is also a chaplain at the Shady Grove Rehabilitation Hospital in Rockville, became interested in serving as a chaplain in the military in mid-2006 after talking with Hershkowitz, 75, who was then a patient at the hospital. A former bureaucrat with the U.S. Department of Energy, Hershkowitz is now a volunteer security analyst ‹ as well as a colonel in the MDF.

Despite Tenenbaum’s interest in the military chaplaincy, “he feared that his beard would get in the way,” said Hershkowitz. “I call it the beard threshold.”

Tenenbaum said he does not shave because Chabad deems facial hair holy.

Hershkowitz did some research and found that Goldstein’s precedent would not necessarily apply to Tenenbaum because, as Goldstein explained it, that ruling was presented as a onetime-only decision. Hershkowitz explained the situation to Nalls, who presented the case to his superiors. “It took about three hours to go up and down the chain of command” before the exemption was granted on religious grounds, said Nalls, who noted that virtually every branch of the military is suffering from a severe shortage of chaplains.

“The need today is great enough to afford us the opportunity to think outside the box,” added Lt. Col. Robert Hastings, public affairs officer for the MDF. “But it’s obviously the right thing to do. It’s a welcome and warmly embraced concept.”

Tenenbaum, who has the rank of captain, likely will be assigned to support the Maryland Army National Guard 70th Regiment in Reisterstown, Md., according to Nalls. His primary duties will include conducting religious services and ministering to the spiritual needs of personnel of all faiths.

But first, he must complete chaplaincy basic training ‹ along with a Ukrainian Orthodox priest and a Baptist minister.

“That’s diversity at work,” said Nalls.