'Roving rabbis' scour Montana on kosher mission
HELENA, Mont. — Two young Orthodox rabbis have traded their studies in Brooklyn for the back roads of Montana, where they are teaching the far-flung faithful how to keep kosher in Big Sky Country.
Eli Chaikin, 23, and Dovid Lepkivker, 25, call themselves the roving rabbis. Their mission is to reach as many of the state's 3,000 Jews as they can in a month.
Their message is a gentle one — more of a nudge than a push — in what are at best loosely organized Jewish communities where relatively few people strictly follow the dietary laws.
“Any step you take is a positive step,” Chaikin said. “It's not all or nothing.”
Chaikin and Lepkivker are affiliated with Chabad-Lubavich movement. Chabad's Bozeman-based rabbi, Chaim Bruk, said he invited them to help him honor the 40th anniversary of a worldwide campaign to promote observance of the kosher laws by the influential Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, known by his followers as the Rebbe.
The roving rabbis have visited more than 60 homes in Montana since July 7, many of them cold-calls to people they had only learned about by asking around town or from someone the next town over.
On a recent visit to Helena, they sat in Beth Pagel's living room as she told them about the traditional meals and snacks she prepares for her grandson's classmates on Jewish holidays. Pagel readily offered that she is not kosher but told them that she knows the rules: “I'm not going to offer you a cheeseburger,” she said.
The rabbis were polite, never disagreeing with their host, but they kept on message. “I would venture to say you're much more kosher than you think,” Lepkivker said.
The rabbis handed her a pamphlet on keeping kosher and pointed out the listing of all the certification symbols found on food products. Then they delivered their request: Just change one non-kosher brand she regularly buys to a kosher one.
Pagel nodded agreeably, but later shook her head no when a reporter asked if she would change anything as a result of the visit.
