Community

divorced, "non-Jews nursed my mother
through a difficult period. That's when I
began to see that everyone is a child of
God and that non Jews are like my
extended family," Rabbi Boteach says.
Non Jews comprise some of the
rabbi's biggest fans. "Shmuley demysti-
fies religion," says Cory Booker, a city
councilman in Newark, NJ., who
served .as president of Oxford's EChaim
Society while a Rhodes Scholar there in
1993-94. "Our generation sees religion
as dogmatic and oppressive, and he
strips that all away and engages you with
a joyful approach.
"Look, I'm an African-American
male; I belong to a Baptist church, but
Shmuley and I really connect."

Rogue Rabbi

It was Rabbi Boteach's decision to open
L'Chaim to non-Jewish members that
led Lubavitch to break with him. But he
insists much of the campus organiza-
tion's success was a result of that deci-
sion, noting that when Jewish students

saw non Jews attending EChaim events,
the Jews followed in large numbers.
Booker calls his friend "the rogue
rabbi. He's manic. He's meshugge in the
ways that the greatest leaders of our time
were a little of He is out in the world
addressing our most common problems:
divorce, the breakdown of families.
"He's a world-changer," Booker says.
"He's being what a good Jew should be."
Avrum Erlich, a former director of
Oxford L'Chaim and now a fellow in
the political science department at
Cambridge University, has a different
perspective.
"Shmuley is a master of the Jewish
sound-byte," he says. "In our day and
age, people who can reduce complex
issues into sound-bytes and symbols are
appreciated. But Judaism is a cacophony
of ideas, and I find it upsetting to have
it reduced to a series of sound-bytes and
symbols."
Rabbi Boteach prefers the term "pro-
fundity for the masses."
"When I wrote Kosher Sex, I didn't
know it was that kind of book," he says.

"My first nine books barely sold. Now I
know I am speaking to popular culture.
I have always wanted to get Judaism to
places it hasn't reached."

Leader Or Influencer?

Rabbi Boteach moved to England after
he married Debbie Friedman (not the
well-known songwriter). As Lubavitch
emissaries, they set up shop at Oxford
University. That's when he "began to see
Jewish outreach as fundamentally
flawed."
"Oxford changed my life complete-
ly," Rabbi Boteach says. "All the models
of Jewish outreach were boring, insipid
and oppressive and all about how do we
get people in the mainstream world over
to us on the periphery. How is it that
Judaism got consigned to the periph-
ery?"
The EChaim Society, which began as
a Chabad house, evolved into a high-
profile organization that attracted speak-
ers from Boy George to Mikhail
Gorbachev. "We took popular culture

and made it Jewish," says Rabbi
Boteach.
A hundred years from now, though,
will the world remember Rabbi
Shmuley Boteach as an unorthodox
Orthodox rabbi and Jewish leader?
"Shlomo Carlebach had that same
love-hate effect on people," says Egon
Mayer, a professor of sociology and
director of the Center for Jewish Studies
at the Graduate School of the City
University of New York.
"People in the Chasidic world were
appalled by what he was doing. Today,
they listen to his music."
Mayer, however, cautions against
ascribing leadership qualities to people
with "charismatic personalities that
translate well into contemporary medi-
ums. There are leaders and there are cul-
tural influencers, and I think the most
telling thing about contemporary Jewry
is the distinct lack of leadership."
As long as he's still on Earth, rest
assured Rabbi Boteach will do his best
to ensure that future generations will
remember him as "the one who brought
Judaism from the periphery to the cen-
ter" of civilization.

❑

Focused On Family

Rabbi Boteach, the "Kosher Sex" author, speaks June 13 at JCC in West Bloomfield.

JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR
Special to the Jewish News

R

abbi Shmuley Boteach is tired and under-
standably so. You would be, too, if you
were a father of six, a devoted husband and
an author of 12 books, including two wild-
ly popular ones: Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and
Intimacy and Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments.
Despite a whirlwind tour to promote his books that
has included appearances on Howard Stern's radio
show and Larry King's television show, the rabbi still
insists on being home as much as possible. Although
he has gained a measure of celebrity from his 10 books
on contemporary issues — ranging from relationships
and sexuality to the existence of God and human suf-
fering — Rabbi Boteach is strongly committed to his
family life.
"I love being a husband and a father. I try not to be
away for Shabbos," he said, adding that on a recent
trip to London to collect an award naming him
"Preacher of the Year," he spent a single night in the
city before returning to his home. "I don't want to be a
public success and private failure."
Which is why he will be here for just the single day
on Tuesday, June 13, when he presents the fifth annual
Reva Stocker Memorial Lecture at the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit in West
Bloomfield. The lecture, endowed by Larry and the
late Reva Stocker, focuses on promoting healthy fami-
lies as a way to reduce family violence and child abuse.

6/9
2000

44

The rabbi's talk at 7 p.m. is co-sponsored by
Southfield-based Jewish Family Service and the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
Rabbi Boteach has traveled the world with his mes-
sage of Judaism and its teachings applied to relation-
ships. Many of the people he reaches are assimilated
Jews or Gentiles, a result that he says leads him to a
greater Jewish audience than if he were to address
Jewish groups alone.
"I operate in the Jewish world but the primacy of
my efforts is in the secular world," he said. "The
best way to change the Jewish world is to change the
general world.
"Those who work in the Jewish world know this
because they are reaching maybe 10 percent of the
Jews. The vast majority of Jews today are assimilated
and secular. Yes, they have a sprinkling of tradition in
their lives. They will go to shul twice a year," he said.
Still, the rabbi's moderate views and open discussion
of sex has led him to be spurned by the very communi-
ty of which he counts himself a member. For example,
about three weeks ago he wrote an article in New
York's Jewish Week newspaper say-
ing that the Jewish community
should welcome homosexual Jews
and give them better treatment,
even as he held firm on his stance
against the sexual practice.
Prominent rabbis have accused
Rabbi Boteach of leaving the fold.
In fact, he says, his constituen-

cy is largely Reform, Conservative and secular Jews.
Still, he remains firm in his feeling of where his
heart is and feels pain at being misunderstood by his
peers.
"Some people love the message, some people hate
it," he said. "In the U.S., it has been a very positive
and very welcome reaction.
"This is a really painful thing to me. The ques-
tion is: Where do I fit in?" he said. "I am not
Conservative. I am not Reform. I am not only
Orthodox — I am passionately Orthodox."
Despite this challenge to his place in the world,
Rabbi Boteach continues sharing his message of pro-
moting healthy relationships through Jewish princi-
ples. He recently led an Alaskan cruise for singles
and plans a trip to Australia, a favorite place since he
studied for two years there and because his wife hails
from that country. The rabbi also works as an
Internet matchmaker and plans a Web site
(www.loveprophet.com) to answer some of the 200
e-mail messages he receives each day. ❑

Tuesday, June 13, in
's Kahn Building,

