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Mezuzot are going up all over Cypress. Student rabbis Benny and Shmaya Friedman are just two out of several hundred Chabad-Lubavitch rabbinical students who are visiting places like India, Ireland, Poland, Turkey and Uzbekistan, among hundreds of other remote U.S. and international destinations this summer.
The students are not on vacation. Here in West Orange County, they are based in Cypress and will visit some 2-3 hundred local Jews.They will meet community members and reach out to individuals and families with a wide range of spiritual and educational resources.
At an orientation meeting last week, the students met with Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, director of the Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch Peace Corps Program, who gave them pointers for effective outreach on their mission. Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, Chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch—the Lubavitch educational division, addressed the students and recalled that the Jewish Peace Corps Program was founded by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, in 1946.
Dedicated to the purpose of Jewish outreach, the mission will address community needs on many levels. The rabbinical students will run Kosher Day Awareness tables in local supermarkets and give private classes in local homes and offices. The rabbis will connect members of the community with the nearest Chabad-Lubavitch center, to help facilitate continued Jewish activity after they leave.
"We have much to learn from people living in Orange County," says Benny, "we are asking for only ten minutes of people. We hope to visit with 2-3 hundred people over the next 4 weeks."
Now in its sixth decade, the program, sponsored by Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, with the generous support of the Rohr Family Foundation, has set a goal of reaching 600,000 Jewish people this year through similar missions in the course of the year.
Meetings may be arranged with visiting rabbis this summer by contacting Chabad at 714-828-1851.
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