Braden Hamelin & Jillian Diamond | Staff Writers

Being stuck in the hospital during the holidays can be a stressful and isolating experience while being away from the community during a special time of year, which is why Chabad Lubavitch of Downtown Baltimore has done volunteer visits to hospital patients during Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot every year since 2008 to bring holiday joy to Jewish patients.

Rabbi Levi Druk, the director of Chabad of Downtown Baltimore, started training local young adults and community members on how to properly sound the shofar and got in contact with pastoral departments to coordinate the holiday visitation program.

Druk said that the initiative is based on the teachings of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, who encouraged visiting the less fortunate on the holidays and sharing Jewish traditions with those who were unable to join the community.

“Thousands of Chabad volunteers in the USA, Israel or everywhere else around the globe spend their holiday afternoons sharing the holiday joy and camaraderie with Jewish men and women in their communities. No Jew should be left behind,” Druk said.

Druk said that the Baltimore area is home to some of the most renowned hospitals in the world with a large number of Jewish patients, which makes it a perfect location to fill that need in the community.

Volunteers sign up to visit for Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot or both and will sound the shofar on Rosh Hashanah or make a blessing with the lulav and etrog on Sukkot while bringing challah, honey and get-well cards from Chabad’s young adults.

And the reception to the visits is welcoming, according to volunteers, who all added that the experience was moving for themselves.

“Sometimes, hospitals are a very stressful and sad place. But people really were happy and appreciative, even patients who are not religious. Overall, it was a very meaningful, good experience to see how important these visits were.” said Chaya Ropers, a participant in the program this year.

Ropers went on the visits to Johns Hopkins with her husband, Ariel Winnick, as the couple have connections to the school, with Winnick working at the hospital and Ropers formerly serving as the president of the Jewish Student Nursing Association.

The couple said they have familiarity with the chaplains and Winnick added that it was great to see the collaboration from non-Jewish chaplains to help them provide services to patients.

“It was unique to see the non-Jewish chaplains [at the hospital] helping us out, because the Jewish chaplain was celebrating the holidays with his family outside of the hospital. The non-Jewish chaplains knew it was important, and that there are many Jewish patients who want that connection,” Winnick said.

Winnick said that not everyone they visited knew about the visits beforehand and were surprised, but eventually excited and appreciative of their presence.

The experience also served as a powerful way for volunteers to connect with their Jewish brothers and sisters during a time of need and uplift their spirits.

“I’ve [blown the shofar] at the University of Maryland Medical Center, I did it at Johns Hopkins Hospital earlier this year, I did it at Mercy Medical Center. To be able to give people that bolt of spiritual energy on a very holy day is a very powerful thing to do,” said Desi Rotenberg, a physician’s assistant at BW Primary Care in Owings Mills.

Rotenberg said that sounding the shofar is something he’s felt a calling for since receiving one from his parents as a wedding gift, and Druk presented him with a perfect opportunity to give back to the community in a spiritual way.

Rotenberg said that the feelings of joy that patients experienced wasn’t confined to people with strict religious observance, and it was moving to see people come together in their collective appreciation.

“Regardless of the patient or their family’s level of observance or knowledge of Judaism, as soon as they see the shofar, their eyes light up. It’s cool to see that regardless of what background people come from, there’s this sort of universal language people speak. They know exactly what a shofar represents for them and their religion,” Rotenberg said.

Rotenberg added that this was a tradition he could see himself doing again in the future and was excited to pass down the tradition to his kids for whom he can be a role model with his volunteering.

“My son and daughter see me doing this, so I’m definitely going to teach them to blow the shofar and about the energy that goes into it, and why it’s a very valuable and powerful thing to do for other people,” Rotenberg said.

The hospital visits are indicative of the community working hard to follow the mission laid out in the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson and the spirit of leaving no Jew behind during the holiday season.

“The downtown community is very close. Because of that closeness, it was easy to coordinate who was going and who to contact. The downtown community is really good at serving the community and doing outreach, because that’s just what you have to do.” Ropers said.

bhamelin@midatlanticmedia.com
jdiamond@midatlanticmedia.com