Page 99 - issue
P. 99
Two Revolutions
The teshuva revolution paralleled the age of “peace and Jewish Used Book ©WWW
love” and the Vietnam War. One of our group lost his draft Collection
deferment and was in danger of being called up. There were
no more new student deferments, but there was a protected at the
4-D status for a rabbi or clergyman. What could be done?
Simple. Start a shul with him as the rabbi. (He had legitimate Savings Center
smicha in addition to being a graduate student.) An apart-
ment was rented, a sefer Torah borrowed, and a minyan for 4003 Seven Mile Lane
Shacharis occurred every day. Now remember: We were all
’60s college students, so each morning a different young lady Loads and loads of books!
was invited to make breakfast for us while we davened. One All books are under $4
of them made pancakes that were so fantastic that on her
mornings we had two minyanim show up! The shul had an All proceeds go directly to
official name, Makom Shivto, but no one called it that. It was Chananya Backer Memorial Institute
known as B’nai Breakfast.
Well, the war came to an end, and the students got jobs
and moved away. It is appropriate to ask, “Where are they
now?”
The peace activists I believed in seemed to change. Abbie
Hoffman committed suicide, and Jerry Rubin (who had dis-
rupted the stock exchange) became a very well to do stock-
broker and capitalist. The barefoot folk singing Joan Baez
became wealthy, and in a recent interview said she prefers to
buy her clothes in Paris. She said that things had changed.
Bob Dylan, who wrote the song “The Times They Are
A’Changin,’” caused controversy by straying from acoustic
purity by using electronic instruments at a folk concert. He
built a house in Malibu with an onion shaped dome on top.
One of the most popular young singers ended up in prison –
not for political reasons but due to some improper behavior
with a minor. I lost my respect for Pete Seeger when I learned
that he had been a supporter of Stalin and when he
appeared at a benefit at which a video of Yassir Arafat was
featured. I became further disillusioned when I learned that
Peter Paul and Mary were not a group that came together out
of their idealism but had been put together by a promoter,
and that the Mary Travers (who went on to be married three
times) had been chosen because they wanted an attractive
thin blonde.
And what of the motley Boston crew? The pancake maker
married one of the B’nai Breakfast congregants, and they
daven at a chasidic shul. The couple who married in a back-
yard live in Meah Sha’arim. A student of Middle Eastern cul-
ture conducts archeological expeditions while wearing a
black hat and a kapota (gotta be hot!). As for me, well, I wear
a bekeshe on Shabbos, and I’m otherwise working on
things…. The Rebbe, zt”l, has left this world, but his beautiful
Torah families span the globe. The ideals of the BT revolu-
tion continued and were put into practice.
Two revolutions. Two different outcomes. Rav Kook once
said that “a little bit of light drives away the darkness, since
the light is real and the darkness is not.” Of the two revolu-
tions, only one was real.◆
u 410 358 8509 u 95
The teshuva revolution paralleled the age of “peace and Jewish Used Book ©WWW
love” and the Vietnam War. One of our group lost his draft Collection
deferment and was in danger of being called up. There were
no more new student deferments, but there was a protected at the
4-D status for a rabbi or clergyman. What could be done?
Simple. Start a shul with him as the rabbi. (He had legitimate Savings Center
smicha in addition to being a graduate student.) An apart-
ment was rented, a sefer Torah borrowed, and a minyan for 4003 Seven Mile Lane
Shacharis occurred every day. Now remember: We were all
’60s college students, so each morning a different young lady Loads and loads of books!
was invited to make breakfast for us while we davened. One All books are under $4
of them made pancakes that were so fantastic that on her
mornings we had two minyanim show up! The shul had an All proceeds go directly to
official name, Makom Shivto, but no one called it that. It was Chananya Backer Memorial Institute
known as B’nai Breakfast.
Well, the war came to an end, and the students got jobs
and moved away. It is appropriate to ask, “Where are they
now?”
The peace activists I believed in seemed to change. Abbie
Hoffman committed suicide, and Jerry Rubin (who had dis-
rupted the stock exchange) became a very well to do stock-
broker and capitalist. The barefoot folk singing Joan Baez
became wealthy, and in a recent interview said she prefers to
buy her clothes in Paris. She said that things had changed.
Bob Dylan, who wrote the song “The Times They Are
A’Changin,’” caused controversy by straying from acoustic
purity by using electronic instruments at a folk concert. He
built a house in Malibu with an onion shaped dome on top.
One of the most popular young singers ended up in prison –
not for political reasons but due to some improper behavior
with a minor. I lost my respect for Pete Seeger when I learned
that he had been a supporter of Stalin and when he
appeared at a benefit at which a video of Yassir Arafat was
featured. I became further disillusioned when I learned that
Peter Paul and Mary were not a group that came together out
of their idealism but had been put together by a promoter,
and that the Mary Travers (who went on to be married three
times) had been chosen because they wanted an attractive
thin blonde.
And what of the motley Boston crew? The pancake maker
married one of the B’nai Breakfast congregants, and they
daven at a chasidic shul. The couple who married in a back-
yard live in Meah Sha’arim. A student of Middle Eastern cul-
ture conducts archeological expeditions while wearing a
black hat and a kapota (gotta be hot!). As for me, well, I wear
a bekeshe on Shabbos, and I’m otherwise working on
things…. The Rebbe, zt”l, has left this world, but his beautiful
Torah families span the globe. The ideals of the BT revolu-
tion continued and were put into practice.
Two revolutions. Two different outcomes. Rav Kook once
said that “a little bit of light drives away the darkness, since
the light is real and the darkness is not.” Of the two revolu-
tions, only one was real.◆
u 410 358 8509 u 95
