Senators Wow Shluchim in DC

By COLlive reporter in Washington
Photos by Baruch Ezagui for COLlive.com

A slew of U.S. Senators and members of Congress swung by the Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning where a Congressional Leadership Breakfast was taking place.

This was not the first nor will it be the last time legislators attend a meeting or convention attended by rabbis and Jewish leaders and activists.

The surprise was how personally intertwined their lives were with the topic of the Living Legacy conference: The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson‘s achievements in the areas of education, morality and charity for which he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1994.

One after another, Jews and non Jews from both side of the political aisle came up to the podium and proclaimed their friendship to Chabad, the Jewish people and the State of Israel in front of a crowd that included Chabad-Lubavitch Shluchim, supporters and student leaders.

There was Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who said, “nothing helped me better understand the importance of Jewish activism (than) learning at Rabbi Aron Lieberman’s feet when I drove him from the airport to wherever he needed to go.”

Then there was the new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown who said he played for the Chabad Shluggers softball team, led by Wellesley/Weston Shliach Moshe Bleich. “The energy he brings is an energy that I enjoy watching – how he brings in the young and old.”

Orthodox Jewish Senator Joe Lieberman proudly noted “the remarkable expansion of Chabad” and that in Connecticut “there are more new Chabad Houses opening than the Subway franchise.”

Lieberman went on to quote a letter the Rebbe wrote in 1982 which, according to him, “speaks so much to the challenges facing America, like the economy and the oil spill, and challenges facing Israel.”

An admirer who began as a skeptic was Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley. “When Rabbi Shea Harlig showed up for the first time in my office, I said “Oh my G-d! This is not going to go over in Vegas. But he made the desert bloom and today in Sin City there is the Lubavitch movement.”

Berkley, who some call the Yiddishe Mama on the hill, said she feels like she knew the Rebbe personally. “I learned so much about him. I judge people by the eyes, and just look at the Rebbe’s eyes: you see goodness and G-dliness in them,” she concluded.

Along with condemning Iran’s nuclear arms race, some speakers thanked Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Director of American Friends of Lubavitch, the host of the conference, for celebrating with them Jewish tradition even when “we don’t go home for the holidays,” Maryland Senator Ben Cardin noted.

California Congressman Brad Sherman (from Sherman Oaks) vowed not to repeal the Jackson-Vanik amendment until Russia releases the Schneerson Library, while Florida Congressman Ron Klein said the next big threat after Iran was Venezuela which already cooperates with Hamas and Hezbolla.

From there, participants headed to the Ronald Reagan Building, racing down Constitution Avenue with police escorts cutting through lights and city traffic, naturally attracting the curios looks of locals and visitors.

There particiants heard from a Leadership Symposium, examining the concept of enduring leadership as demonstrated by the Rebbe. Panelists were author Rabbi Yosef Telushkin, London Rabbi Dr. Tali Lowenthal, Chabad.org’s Tzvi Freeman and law expert Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe.