Metro

ON THE

Shelli Liebman Dorfman

Staff Writer

A

t 18, Levi Stein is exceedingly
well-traveled. Last fall, he spent
a month standing in for the
chief rabbi of Sochi, Russia.
A native Oak Parker, Stein's parents,
Rabbi Bentzion and Chana Stein, are
the longtime directors of the Cheder
Lubavitch boys and girls schools in Oak
Park.
The youngest of nine children, Levi
travels a road that will lead him to the
rabbinate and as a Chabad emissary,
directing Jewish outreach, very pos-
sibly in a community with little or no
Jewish resources. But, at a young age, he
. also understands the great difference
between being in charge of a group and
leading them.
The Shabbat afternoon group he
founded for Detroit-area pre-teen boys
from non-Chabad day schools attracted
dozens of participants for learning and
games. He spent three years on Friday
afternoons visiting Detroit- area busi-
nesses with fellow members of Chabad
Student Outreach, teaching about Jewish
holidays and religious traditions and
being involved in programs of Chabad-
Lubavitch of Michigan, which is directed
by Rabbi Berel Shemtov.
And the weekly Daily Mitzvah e-mail
he has edited since he was 14 is sent to
5,000 individuals worldwide.

Getting Away
This year, Levi's classmates — mostly
from other communities — continued
their studies here. "But I've always been
in Detroit, so it was time for me to get out
and see the world," he said.
And the place he chose to see first was
Russia. Moving alone last fall – his first
time away from home — he said his No.
1 priority there is to learn Torah.
But, he admitted,"I'm also a little more
focused than most on going to other
communities to help a rabbi with a pro-
gram or even to do what I can in a place
without one
Since September, Levi has been living
in Rostov. But he takes every opportunity
to travel. While classmates at his Russian
yeshivah go into other communities a few
times a year, he said, "The only times I
don't go is if they don't let me because it
might interfere with my studies."
He has been to Helsinki, Finland,
where he helped run a teen program
and learned about Jewish outreach from
the Chabad House rabbi. He traveled

16

June 15 . 2006

A young
Detroiter
introduces
countless
Jews to
Judaism.

to a Russian town whose synagogue was
down a dirt road and hung a mezuzah
on the door of a Jewish vendor and
helped him put on tefillin.
On Purim, he read the Megillat Esther
in six different places — in three corn-
munities — in a single day. In awe, he
noted, "In one town, it was the first time
many people saw a real megillah in their
whole life
Last month, Levi made a 30-hour
round trip journey to a Ukrainian shtetl
to help organize a community program.
"It's a place with no paved roads, no run-
ning water, no bathrooms and no cars,"
he said. "Just buggies, wells — and mud.
The rabbi there even has to go every few
weeks to another town to milk a cow to
bring back kosher milk."
On Chanukah, he joined in the grand
opening of a new Russian synagogue and
helped light a giant menorah at 1 a.m.,
complete with fireworks.

Home And Back
Closer to school in Rostov —
"a place with no kosher food,
except what is brought to my
school, no Orthodox commu-
nity, no Judaica store and not
too many English speakers
— there is also work to be
done Levi said.
He sees the lack of Jewish
involvement as a challenge.
"In America, Jews know
they are Jews; they know
what a bar mitzvah is," he
said. "Here, some people
only know they are Jewish
because I told them they are
— because their grandmoth-
er on their mother's side was
Jewish. The rewards of being
here are not being able to

guide a Jewish person to do a little more
— but to do it all for the first time.
"And the biggest thing I did all year
was when the chief rabbi of Sochi went
to Israel with his wife so she could have
their baby, and another boy and I took
over his shul and his Chabad House," Levi
said. "We took turns being the chazzan,
blowing shofar and reading Torah in the
beautiful, beautiful, big resort town by
the Black Sea."
He gives credit for his life's direction
to his parents and the late Lubavitcher
Rebbe, who created the concept of
Chabad emissary outreach.
"Myself, I'm not so great:' he said. "I'm
just me, Levi Stein. I'm not a rabbi and
I'm not in charge of a Friendship Circle
or anything. I'm just studying in yeshi-
vah and trying to help the world in my
free time."
It's no surprise that after a summer
in Michigan doing outreach work for
the newly formed Chabad Jewish Center
of Novi-Northville, Levi will return to
Russia. "I didn't originally plan to be here
for more than one year',' he said. "But
I'm loving it,and when I made my ticket
home for the end of June I found myself
getting a round-trip ticket. I'm learning
the language and now, with what I've
learned and with lots of hand motions,
I can have a much bigger influence on
Russian Jews.
"Many times, Russians off the street
come up to me he said. "They ask me
about my kippah. They tell me they
never saw a man wear such a Russian
hat. I tell them it's not a Russian hat. It's
a Jewish hat."

❑

Levi Stein in Russia

