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A feast for the body and the soul

Jewish congregation gathers for an evening of food
and traditional Chassidic song

By Jon Anderson
Tribune staff reporter
January 15, 2004

Raised in glorious harmony, voices filled the old townhouse on the Gold Coast.

Around a table filled with the foods of old Russia, from borscht to blintzes, it was a night to sing old, old songs and to meditate on going deeper into one's soul. It was an opportunity to reflect on the past, enjoy the present and plan for the future.

"It's the soul that counts, not the words," suggested Cantor Feitel Levin, setting the tone for Tuesday night's program at the Lubavitch Chabad of the Loop, Gold Coast and Lincoln Park, which currently occupies temporary quarters, known as Chabad House, at 1236 N. Dearborn St.

Nor was it a time to dwell on the congregation's major project for the future, the construction of a four-story building at the corner of Clark and Chestnut Streets. The new Center for Jewish Life will replace an asbestos-ridden former post office and movie house. "Thank God, we are getting closer and closer to groundbreaking," reported Rabbi Meir Chai Benhiyoun, who hopes excavation will begin this spring.

There was an architect's rendering of the glass-clad center on the mantel during dinner. Designed by architects Daniel P. Coffey Associates, the first phase, to cost $5 million, will contain a sanctuary, children's center, meditation room and kosher cafe. Another $5 million will be needed for later phases.

But the aim of Tuesday's two-hour gathering, which drew almost 100 people, was not to promote a physical structure.

Rather, as the invitation explained, it was a chance to "Touch Your Essence, at an Evening of Chassidic Song."

"We are not about a building. We are about people," Benhiyoun said. He described the Lubavitch Chabad as "an outreach organization" trying to engage Jews in their faith, especially those not affiliated with a synagogue. It also offers lessons of value to all Jews and non-Jews looking for a better life.

"Music—song—is part and parcel of Jewish life," the rabbi said.

"It helps a person open up to pray and to connect with God."

He introduced Levin as "someone who knows the songs, can sing them accurately, with personality, and—this is the hard one—convey them."

Working a Yamaha keyboard and waving his hands to encourage the two rooms filled with singers, Levin led them through more than an hour of communal melodies and lyrics. He urged the singers to concentrate more on expressing their own feelings and spirit than on accurately following notes and text.

"Each soul has its own language," said Levin, a rabbi who also serves as principal of Lubavitch Girls High School in West Rogers Park.

One soul, much remembered at the dinner, was that of one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages, Moses Maimonides. A member of a prominent Jewish family in the Spanish city of Cordova, Maimonides wrote a compendium of Jewish law, "Guide for the Perplexed."

Though the historical fact was not likely noted elsewhere in a neighborhood that includes the clubs of Division and Rush Streets, this year marks the 800th anniversary of the Jewish scholar's passing, Benhiyoun said, offering a brief biography.

Not all of the evening was serious. "Come on, celebrate a little," Levin said, urging participants to hoist shot glasses of liquor in a toast "to life." But that caused a complication.

One woman, passing a bottle of bourbon across a table decorated with little Russian nesting dolls, brushed too close to a candle and accidentally set her hair on fire. Amid gasps, the fire was quickly extinguished.

On an evening of song, it was the only problematic note.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune