Saadya.com

Welcoming Shabbat with Notik
The Yediot Achronot
By Gil Shefler
February, 12, 2010

The young rabbi promised not to save our souls, so we came to a fascinating Shabbat dinner in Crown Heights

Rabbi Saadya Notik is the poster-boy for what Chabad wants to project to the secular world. On the one hand he is an ordained rabbi who travels the world to attract young Jews to Jewish tradition. On the other he is a 26-year-old guy who speaks in Brooklyn street slang and can quote not only from the Talmud but from hip-hop songs as well. As the young face of Chabad he managed to appear many times in the media. Last year, for example, Notik was the focus of a New York Times' article about the "Party Bus" that Chabad organized for Purim. When he's not traveling between Chabad Houses around the world or organizing parties on wheels, Notik likes to invite friends to Friday night dinners by friends in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Usually, I don't respond to invitations of this nature, for all sorts of reasons, but it's hard to say no to Notik. My friend Gadi met him at a bar, and after Notik persuaded him, he persuaded me to come along to the meal. "You know who he looks like? Matisyahu. He really reminds me of Matisyahu."

Gadi was right. The young 26-year-old rabbi resembles Matisyahu. Not only because both of them are tall, slender, wear a long black beard and dress in Chasidic garb, but also because Notik is gifted with the unique combination of charisma and calm, just like the famous Chasidic singer. "I started organizing these Shabbat dinners a year ago," he told me, "and since then we've been doing it once a month. Our aim is simple: To bring Jews together to meet one another and bond. That's it." And so it happened that I found myself making my way over to the Chabad enclave to welcome in the Shabbat together with another 32 invited guests.

The night began somewhat awkwardly when my friend Gadi accidentally rang the bell after the Shabbat began. But our hosts, Yossi and Yocheved Sidof, ignored the minor transgression and opened the door, which was, obviously, open all along.

In their modest apartment, the Sidof family had set up a long table filled with plates of humus, corn salad, garden salad, pasta, bread, and wine that stood in wait of the guests who arrived and introduced themselves one to the other.

B.J., a publicist, who moved to New York from Minnesota a week earlier, learnt very little about Judaism from his family growing up in a small town in Wisconsin. Last year he visited Israel as part of a program to rediscover Jewish roots and since then he likes to keep in touch with the Jewish community. B.J. said he came to the dinner hoping to make new friends.

Sari Ganulin has a deeper connection to Judaism. She loves to come to Notik's Friday night dinners despite identifying more with the Reform stream of Judaism than with the orthodoxy of Chabad. She hopes to study to be a cantor next year in Jerusalem and she speaks eagerly about living in the German Colony.

Two young Israeli girls arrived together. One works for a company that manufactures x-ray equipment and the second girl for El Al security, which in a way is the same thing. The rest of the guests were single Jewish Americans, many who have recently moved to New York and were looking for some sense of family, some friends and maybe even the beginnings of a life-long match, or at least a date.

So now that we've been introduced, we make the blessings. Sing. Wash our hands. And then on to the food. And the food just kept on coming - more dishes and more wine, while the hosts, the Sidof couple, were busy waiting on us, stuffing us beyond measure.

At one point, a guest arrived: Saadya Notik's brother-in-law, the soul-singer Moshe Hecht, had come for a visit. At the crowd’s request Hecht sang a song from his soon to be released album. Hecht may be dressed like a Chasid, but he sings rhythm-and-blues as though he lived his entire life in Mississippi.

At one point a meditation was introduced on the word “Haiti.” "Imagine the letters of the word Haiti. H-A-I-T-I," suggested a young fellow, a friend of Notik's. "Try to feel the letters, and sense their colors." That was a bit too much for me, as was the numerical analysis of the word “anochi.” Aside from that, the evening was authentic and enjoyable. If I was expecting a sermon-laden evening, well, I was wrong. With Notik and his friends I found real common ground. They didn’t try to save my soul, and I didn't try to open their eyes to the wider world. There was no need. They know it just as well as I do.