Chabad Rabbis in Taichung Park

7-26-16 

      I asked their names and they told me, but I soon forgot. The one who sent me four photos (two duplicates) on the internet from our meeting was the caller who signed he and his buddy as “The Young Rabbis.” They weren’t rabbis yet as they weren’t ordained or whatever you call it when you become an official rabbi.

     They were young men; 21 and 24. I guessed  the age of the one who never smiled was 27; “We look older because of our beards,” he said. The two rabbi wannabes were replacing Rabbi Shlomi, sent from Hong Kong a few years ago to be their franchise in Taiwan. He was on sabbatical in Israel with his wife and family for a month. They told me this on the phone when they called Sunday. When we got disconnected, I thought I heard the last from them, but the older one called back yesterday, said they were in Taichung, and wanted to meet; anywhere with me was fine. I suggested Taichung Park.

They were on time, in the twin gazebos on the lake that I had indicated; I called them Sukkots and they smiled for second. I led a stroll around my favorite Taichung meeting place pointing out a few historical sites which led to a bronze statue. I pointed out the huge lantern of the goat done for the year of it, 2015, and put there. He asked if it was new and I said, "No, it is a scapegoat from the past." He snickered in irony.

The only time the older man intentionally mentioned a preference, it was for avoiding the monument to Confucius; it had a seat and was shaded so I headed there. Instinctively, it looked too much like an idol which cannot be worshiped in Judaism, though I had no such thought in mind, though many do worship the Chinese rabbi. Instead, he chose an area nearby where retired men sat and chatted on benches around a tree. They looked at us strangely when we sat down.

My story was longer than theirs because I am older and more interesting, but I asked a few questions which the older one answered. No surprise; they were originally from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, their parents were orthodox (“No, not conservative,” the elder corrected me sternly) and were coming from Israel. I told them that I told my wife that they would probably ask me to put on tefillin and pray with them, as they do with Jewish commuters leaving the NYC subway stations, and that is exactly what he did.

"The tefillin are to serve as a reminder of God's intervention at the time of the Exodus from Egypt.^[9] Maimonides details of the sanctity of tefillin and writes that "as long as the tefillin are on the head and on the arm of a man, he is modest and God-fearing and will not be attracted by hilarity or idle talk; he will have no evil thoughts, but will devote all his thoughts to truth and righteousness."^[10] The Sefer ha-Chinuch(14th century) adds that the purpose of tefillin is to help subjugate a person's worldly desires and encourage spiritual development.^[11] Joseph Caro (16th century) explains that tefillin are placed on the arm adjacent to the heart and on the head above the brain to demonstrate that these two major organs are willing to perform the service of God." - Wikipedia 

I was asked when the last time was I did this and said two years earlier; it’s true - outside the Sheepshead Bay subway station. I told them who they were to me, that I didn't believe the messiah had come yet, and that I had seen their messiah, Schneerson the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in Crown Heights, but I didn’t mention it was on a TV screen, the same screen I had seen his heavily attended funeral procession through the streets of Brooklyn.

  A few of the nearby Taiwanese men were curious what was going on; they had never seen  rabbis before and not too many foreigners, either!  They  wanted photos of us together with them! It was nice of the rabbi wannabes to ‘check up’ on me as some retirees are lost in space; I am not one of them, knock on wood. 

 My issue with conservative capitalists on the “Jew list” in Taiwan, mostly busy exploiting working people outsourced in Asian sweatshops, intrigued them. I think the list-maker was their next appointed stop.

 Mentioned then was my connection with the 95-year-old Rabbi Einhorn, the other rabbi in Taiwan, but the honorable Conservative rabbi, who advised me in 1979 and whose Rosh Hashanah ceremony I had attended last year, hadn't been mentioned to them by Shlomi. 

 They were sent the link to the Taichung Journal blog piece “Judaism; My Faith,” about the presentation I had done at National Chi Nan University. I had sent it to Shlomi without getting any response. (https://taichungjournal.blogspot.tw/2016/05/judaism-my-faith-presentation-at.html) 

We strolled to their rental car parked on the street (“Why are the red lights so long here?”) and I was given a book called Daily Wisdom before they left. They didn’t have any of the food stuff I imagined they'd have (I asked for halvah)  when they said they had things for sale from Israel; only Shabbos candles and mezuzahs and such. I asked for Hanukkah candles but they referred me to Shlomi. The 1000 NT bill -$31 I’d brought for purchase was instead lost on the sidewalk when I went to get the key to unchain my bike.  

 Thanks to donations from the Chabad movement of Rabbi Schneerson, they could travel the world, just like the Mormon recruiters, but a lot more selective; only Jews, please.