Rabbi Chaim & Chavie Bruk: "Yes, there are Jews in Montana!"

00:00 Speaker 1 In 2004, Chaim Brook and a fellow yeshiva students landed in Montana as roving Chabad rabbis. Less than 24 hours after they arrived there, people began reaching out to them.

00:13 Speaker 2 I got a call from a woman who heard that we were in town because she read about it, and she says, "Hi, is this Chaim?" I said, "Yeah." She goes, "I'm Jewish, but I don't need you." I'm like, "Okay, that's a great way to start a conversation." She goes, "But I have a friend who's struggling with cancer, is in the middle of a divorce, and the only ones that are caring for her are the church, and she's getting more and more interested in going to the church because they're the only one taking care of her, and I really think someone needs to do an intervention." So I said, "Give me her name."

00:43 Speaker 1 Brook and his friend hopped in a car and drove two hours to Billings. They spent hours with her, sharing videos of the Rebbe and talking about her Jewish soul.

00:52 Speaker 2 Three months later, she told me the good news that she rejoined the Jewish community in Billings. That's where we step in and we show and we teach and we embed within every Jew the recognition that they are part of a community, that someone does care about them, and I had a Rebbe that did.

01:08 Speaker 1 Chavi Brook says that story helped answer the many questions they got when they declared their intention to build Jewish community in Montana.

01:17 Speaker 3 There's Jews in Montana? Like, what are you doing, and how is this gonna be sustainable, and are you sure? And we were like, "No, yeah, we're sure."

01:25 Speaker 1 Rabbi Brook also heard the naysayers.

01:28 Speaker 2 But when there's individual Jews who are far out in rural America and they need the same qualitative Yiddishkeit that every Jew in the big city deserves and needs, we knew we had to change that narrative. Someone had to step up and say rural Jews deserve the same Torah that Moses gave at Sinai.

01:51 Speaker 1 I'm Gary Wolk and this is Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. Life as a Chabad emissary is often joyous, but it can be unpredictable and even dangerous. Chabad has become a ubiquitous presence in every corner of the world, but behind every Chabad house are emissaries, regular people striving to transcend their circumstances and a community that supports and relies on them. These are their stories. Rabbi Chaim Brook grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

02:33 Speaker 2 You know, I had the, the great zechus, the great merit for the first 12 years of my life to grow up with the Rebbe. I had the great honor of spending many, many, many tens of hours in the Rebbe's presence.

02:43 Speaker 1 When he was 12 years old, Brook was inspired to visit Manhattan on Fridays with a newly bar mitzvahed friend who'd bring his tefillin with him.

02:52 Speaker 2 And we started going booth to booth in the di- in the diamond exchange, in the gold exchanges, 55 West 47th Street, "Excuse me, are you Jewish?" And we started wrapping people in tefillin and bring sometimes Jewish books, sometimes mishloach manot for Purim, sometimes matzah for Passover. So we really started as a 12 years, at 12 years old and never stopped since.

03:11 Speaker 1 Chavi Brook grew up in San Antonio, Texas, in a Chabad house run by her parents.

03:17 Speaker 3 Growing up that way and really believing in the mission and really appreciating and loving the experience as a child, it didn't even cross my mind to do anything else. Like, of course, this is what I'm gonna do.

03:32 Speaker 1 And they both had ties to Montana, although in different ways. In the '50s, Chavi's grandfather had traveled in Montana as a rabbi. Three decades later, her father ran a Jewish summer camp in Great Falls. 18 years ago, Chaim Brook also visited the state as a roving rabbi.

03:51 Speaker 2 The first thing I learned the day I landed in Billings, Montana, which is where we landed on that day in August of 2004, was there was something genuine about Montanans, that when they said, "How are you?" they meant it, and when you answered them how you were, they wanted to hear it, and it really changed my perspective about the human beings that I was going to spend the rest of my life with from that very first moment I met them.

04:12 Speaker 1 But young Rabbi Brook needed a wife before he could go out on shlichus. So in 2006, on the recommendation of a mutual friend, Chaim took a flight to San Antonio, where he and Chavi began dating.

04:25 Speaker 2 From our second date, we already spoke about the idea that should we get married, and should this work out, the goal would be to open a Chabad center somewhere in the world and brighten the world with the Rebbe's love for humanity and the authentic, deep teachings of Torah. So on our second date, I mentioned to Chavi, I said, "You know, I've been spending some summers in a place called Montana. Would that even interest you?"

04:52 Speaker 3 And, like, without missing a beat, I'm like, "Sure."

04:58 Speaker 1 The Brooks were married in 2006 in San Antonio. That summer, they spent three weeks traversing the Big Sky state from Billings near the south to Eureka on the northern border with Canada. They learned that there were about 5,000 Jews living in Montana, but they were living all across a huge state, and they were still hearing the doubters.

05:20 Speaker 2 Go to Florida, go to a place where there's a lot of Jews. Lots and lots of Jews would be in our synagogue or in our center.

05:26 Speaker 1 But they decided to permanently settle in Bozeman, which was central to Missoula, Billings, Big Sky, and Yellowstone National Park. Even though there was almost no Jewish infrastructure, no schools, markets, restaurants, or Orthodox community, the move made perfect sense to them, but-

05:46 Speaker 3 I think everybody questioned the wisdom, from family to friends to donors to a- almost anyone that we came across, and there was a lot of skepticism. I think my husband and I both, like, that kind of, like, fuels the fire for us. We're like, "Oh, people think this is crazy. Oh, okay, now we're really going."

06:07 Speaker 1 The Brooks moved into their home on March 14th, 2007, and they got right to work. What they experienced was a Jewish community starved for authentic Judaism.

06:19 Speaker 2 I saw it in almost every interaction. We came to many homes unannounced. We just knocked on the door, we rang the doorbell. People came to the door. They were kind, they were gracious. They're like, "Wow, you guys came from where? From Brooklyn? For what?" But when they realized that there was nothing to it other than the mitzvah we're going to experience at that moment, it was done.

06:40 Speaker 3 Like, tell me more, you know?

06:42 Speaker 1 A little over a week later, the Brooks hosted the first of many Shabbos dinners in their home. They began offering Torah classes on Shabbos morning, along with coffee and cake.

06:52 Speaker 2 There's something magical about the Shabbos table when done right, right? We're gifted. Chavi's an incredible cook. I'm a pretty good speaker. There's something magical around the Shabbos table.

07:03 Speaker 1 But the Brooks didn't do Shabbos morning services at the outset, because they didn't want to compete with the Reform temple in Bozeman, which did. The temple also offered services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, but not on the second.

07:17 Speaker 2 We only hosted services on the second day, when they were closed. And we had, you know, a small group, I think it was maybe nine or 11 Jews, men, women, children, that came for that sec- second day Rosh Hashanah service. Yom Kippur, we drove to Salt Lake City. We didn't wanna make a competition. But then came the second year we were here, and that's when the people locally said, "Hey, hey, hey, you're not running away for Yom Kippur. You're not not doing services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. You're our rabbi, you're our synagogue." I said, "Oh, boy, if the community's demanding it, then I have to respond."

07:49 Speaker 3 And that really took off, and people loved it. And you actually establish those relationships and build, like, a foundation.

07:56 Speaker 1 One of the very first, and most lasting, relationships the Brooks established was with a family that had moved to Bozeman just a few months after they had.

08:05 Speaker 4 It all started with needing a kosher chicken.

08:07 Speaker 1 That's Mick Lifson.

08:09 Speaker 4 I was looking for some kosher chicken, and the Reform shul told me that there's this crazy Orthodox guy who just moved into town, and why don't you give him a call for, for kosher food?

08:24 Speaker 2 And I get a call, and the guy's asking me about a kosher chicken. How do you get a kosher chicken? And I still remember where I was standing in my house, because when you're a new Chabad rabbi and you get a call from a local Jew, you get excited, you jump for joy. So I told him, it took me about 60 seconds to tell him about where he can get kosher food.

08:39 Speaker 1 Mick went to the Brooks' home to pick up a chicken, but with some trepidation, because Mick, a doctor, had grown up and worked in Baltimore, where there was an Orthodox Jewish community, but not the sort of universal acceptance that characterizes the Chabad world.

08:55 Speaker 4 I wasn't wearing a yarmulke in Baltimore, but I needed kosher food. And I'd go into the Orthodox butcher and was not treated warmly, and so that was my impression. My impression was that there are some more religious people looking down their nose at me, and I did not appreciate that.

09:14 Speaker 1 Lifson says he wasn't looking to become Orthodox, so he was leery about visiting the Brooks. But...

09:21 Speaker 4 I went over there and had a delightful meeting with Chaim and Chavi and another woman, and came back and I told my wife, I said, "Hey, I went to this Chabad house, and I, I met someone and had a delightful conversation with her, and they're not scary."

09:40 Speaker 1 At that first meeting, the Brooks gave Mick Lifson his kosher chicken, and they invited him and his wife, Holly, to Shabbos dinner. They accepted.

09:49 Speaker 4 It was a real eye-opening learning experience for us.

09:52 Speaker 1 The Lifsons continued to learn and worship and grow with the Brooks, and they learned something very important about Jewish observance.

10:01 Speaker 4 This concept of it doesn't have to be all or nothing. A lot of Jews, they figure, "I can't do it all, so I'll do nothing." And we've learned that everything that you do stands on its own. And in doing something, you are thinking about HaShem.

10:17 Speaker 1 The Lifsons became regulars on Shabbos. Mick began wearing tefillin every day, and they've grown at their own pace.

10:24 Speaker 4 It's amazing what you can do if you have an open mind and you're willing to experience something different.

10:30 Speaker 1 They're now an integral part of the Chabad community of Bozeman.

10:34 Speaker 3 15 years later, they're such wonderful, dear friends and s- a huge support. They're family at this point.

10:41 Speaker 2 It's like souls that were meant for each other, and when you get that, when you have that incredible feeling of knowing that you're not just congregants, we're partners, and that means through tough times and through good times.

10:54 Speaker 1 Though the Brooks have enjoyed many good times, they've had some tough times as well. Every new Hasidic couple dreams of starting their own family, but in 2008, less than two years after they had put down roots in Montana, they were diagnosed with permanent infertility. They were devastated.

11:15 Speaker 3 You get married, you're young. Like, you're gonna build a family. It's gonna happen right away. There's gonna be no, no obstacles to that. And that is not at all how it happened. And then you're opened up into this whole new world of, okay, well, well, now what? Like, the rug's pulled out from under you. So we just, we really had to accept and work through that, okay, it wasn't meant to be that way.

11:40 Speaker 1 The Brooks were unsure what to do next, in part because, in some parts of the Orthodox Jewish world, adoption carries a stigma. The Brooks say they worked through their pain together, but the turning point came when Rabbi Brooks saw a series of previously unreleased videos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe advising childless women to adopt. The Brooks decided to flip the script. In 2009, they adopted their first child, Chaya. Over the next eight years, they adopted four more children. Chavi says each has brought them great joy and challenges. Their 17-year-old Shoshana.

12:19 Speaker 3 She wasn't raised in a religious atmosphere, so she had to learn and adapt to the family from an older age.

12:28 Speaker 1 Chaya.

12:29 Speaker 3 Chaya i- is 12, and she is really, really intelligent and empathetic and bright.

12:37 Speaker 1 11-year-old Zissi.

12:39 Speaker 3 She has a, a rare genetic disorder which affects her diet very severely. She's on a medical ketogenic diet, and she, it amazes everybody with her perseverance and her... She doesn't complain.

12:53 Speaker 1 Eight-year-old Meni.

12:54 Speaker 3 He is Black and adds such a unique flair to our family. He has an amazing personality. He has so much life. He's the life of the party. He's sparkly.

13:05 Speaker 1 And four-year-old Chanaleh.

13:07 Speaker 3 And Chanaleh, who's four, is our baby. She was actually born in Montana, and she is a, a lot of fun, a huge character.

13:18 Speaker 1 You can learn more about their daily challenges on Chavi's blog website, Clear as Mud, where the Brook children have become examples for people living beyond Bozeman of how adoption can be a wonderful option for Jewish families who struggle with infertility. And in Bozeman, they're the star attractions for many in their Chabad community.

13:41 Speaker 3 They'd rather hang out with them than with us, I mean, obviously. Um, they really are just... They're, they're where it's at, honestly.

13:53 Speaker 1 Rabbi Brook says that their family and the way they've built it should dispel stereotypes about Orthodox Jews.

14:01 Speaker 2 When you have a family of seven, five adopted children, and each one comes from their own unique DNA and their own background, their own skin color, their own journey, I think the message that's clear to anyone that interacts with our family, that all of the stereotypes that they've heard about Orthodox Jews, about Chabad-Lubavitch, is out the door. I mean, you can't claim that we're somehow a marginalized or, or marginalize others when we have such a diverse family.

14:25 Speaker 1 The Brook kids study Jewish material online, fully observe Shabbos, and uphold strict kosher standards, but they attend local public schools. That creates a new kind of outreach.

14:37 Speaker 2 The result of that has been incredible interaction, both with the non-Jewish community, which is part and parcel of our role, but also with the many Jews that would have otherwise not been involved in Chabad. So Meni invited his classmate to a, a Purim party, and Chaya invited her classmate to a Hanukkah event, and this one invited this one. It, it created a, an integration into the community where we are who we are at our standards. There's nothing like it. The innocence of a child when they share something about Yiddishkeit is just incredible.

15:06 Speaker 1 Rabbi Brook says there's also a disadvantage to that arrangement.

15:10 Speaker 2 So sure, I have to struggle sometimes if my kid comes home singing Jingle Bells. You know, it's not a Chabad rabbi's wish for their kid to be doing that. But at the same time, I know that half the non-Jewish kids in the class are also gonna be singing VaHi Noe Achashverosh for Purim, so the payback is sweet.

15:26 Speaker 1 Montana is the fourth-largest US state by area, but by one estimate, it has the nation's fourth-smallest Jewish population, so doing outreach there is challenging, and it often requires dangerous mileage over the mountains, through the valleys, and over the plains of Montana. Before they built their own mikvah in 2009, the Brooks drove to the closest one in Salt Lake City, which was a 14-hour round trip.

15:53 Speaker 2 I used to drive every month to Missoula to give a class. I'd drive to Kalispell five hours to give a class. Great Falls, Helena, Billings. I was like a circuit-riding rabbi, never stopping to drive and go to find Jews and give classes and whatever needed to happen. And I would drive on icy roads with black ice that was not safe. I had many, uh, incidences where things could have gone very... Let's just say they could have gone really bad. I had a, a spin-off on the 90 where I ended up on the on- incoming traffic because you're driving on Montana roads in the winter.

16:21 Speaker 1 But nothing deterred the Brooks' campaigns to get as many Jewish Bibles, mezuzahs, and books of Psalms to Jewish Montanans as they could. There have been many quickly arranged brises and funerals. Rabbi Brook runs a kosher supervision agency throughout the state. It's incredibly hard work, but work to which the energetic Brooks are well suited. But when their family began to grow, Chaim and Chavi got an idea.

16:47 Speaker 2 It was 2014, we, we had just adopted our third child, and it was time to grow Chabad of Montana because I couldn't do the driving anymore, and the communities were interested. They wanted it. They were yearning for it. And so we hired a couple to open Chabad in Missoula, and it's been going strong ever since with incredible programming. And in 2018, we opened up a second Chabad center in the Flathead Valley, which is another amazing place near Glacier National Park in the Flathead and Whitefish Lake. And today, both Missoula and Kalispell have flourishing, beautiful, active Chabad communities.

17:18 Speaker 1 Even with all their success, the Brooks need moral support from time to time. It's hard to run an Orthodox home in a non-Orthodox community. But the Brooks are in contact with about 700 Jewish households in the greater Bozeman area, and rabbi says the community has been extraordinarily supportive of them.

17:37 Speaker 2 Because sometimes rabbis and rebbetzins are also falling in their morale. Things don't always go well, and you're struggling, and you sometimes feel like you're alone. And if a member of your community sees themself as your partner, it changes your entire perspective on the whole thing and uplifts you, and we all need uplifting at certain times in our lives.

17:57 Speaker 1 But there have been lighter stories to accompany the challenges. Two years ago, the rabbi had a little brush with the law.

18:07 Speaker 2 So we get our, our, uh, kosher food shipped in from a company out of, uh, Minnesota Generally, the trucks would come in Saturday nights, and they'd meet us at a truck stop at Exit 305 on the I-90. There's a rest area. We'd meet there, a bunch of families would come. We'd load up our vans with boxes of whatever we ordered. Some weird-looking guys throwing boxes, and lo and behold, it was a order we got before Passover, and I suddenly see two police cars coming in simultaneously into the rest area, one going through one road, one coming through the other. They're sort of meeting by the truck, and I turn to one of the guys that was there helping me, and I said, "It's happening." And I, I knew what was going down. And to be honest, on a late Saturday night, at 10:00 o'clock in the summer, 10:30 at night in the summer, it could look like a drug deal.

18:50 Speaker 1 The police officers got out of their vehicles and approached Rabbi Brook.

18:54 Speaker 2 They get out of the car. "Sir, are you in charge here?" I said, "Yes." "Can I see your driver's license?" "Absolutely." "What do you have going on here, sir?" I said, "I'm a Jewish rabbi. You know, the holiday of Passover's coming up in three weeks, and we're getting our kosher food in, and, uh, have you ever heard of gefilte fish?" Now, I knew that the cop in Bozeman doesn't know what gefilte fish is, and I did it for, you know, for, uh, for show. I said, "Here, let me show you." And I started going to the box to get a loaf of gefilte fish to show him. He's like, "No, no, Rabbi, we're good." So w- when they were about to leave, I said, "Officer, just tell me, I'm curious, how did you end up here?" So he said someone had pulled into the rest area, saw something going on here tonight, and they got a little suspicious, and they decided to call 911.

19:31 Speaker 1 Through the funny and not so funny stories, the tough times and the good times, the Brooks are continuing to build Jewish community in Montana. Rachel Cohn moved to Bozeman a few years ago to work as a lobbyist for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation. She grew up on a small horse farm in Maryland in a home she describes as culturally Jewish.

19:53 Speaker 5 But my Judaism is incredibly important to me and always has been, and that continues to grow.

19:58 Speaker 1 Rachel began joining the Brooks for Shabbos dinner a couple years ago. Now she seldom misses the Friday night meal. She appreciates Chavi's amazing cooking and the conversation around the table.

20:10 Speaker 5 The dialogue is there. It's a discussion, and it's an open discussion.

20:14 Speaker 1 Since Rachel's area of expertise is agriculture, many of the discussions center around what the Torah says about the laws of harvest and the proper treatment of animals. The Brooks recognize Rachel's expertise, and she respects their Torah knowledge, but they don't always agree.

20:31 Speaker 5 I grew up in a big family, and so it was always like whoever can talk the loudest. If you can talk louder and faster, you'll get your point across.

20:38 Speaker 1 And what I've noticed is that Rabbi Brook has a very loud voice, and he always gets his point across. Has that been your experience as well?

20:46 Speaker 5 Yeah, he's, uh... I'm a, like I said, I'm a lobbyist, so I argue for a living. And, uh, he's always right.

20:54 Speaker 1 Rachel says she feels totally comfortable at Chabad of Montana.

20:58 Speaker 2 She realized that whether she agrees with the rabbi or the rebbetzin on every issue or not, there's something authentic right here. There's something beautiful right here. There's something so deep. Rachel Cohn is learning Hasidic thought every week, and what that's doing for her is that now that she works in agriculture, she's able to translate these ideas of the Torah with the Hasidic dose, with the Hasidic perspective.

21:20 Speaker 5 I want to continue learning about Judaism and learning what it means to me and learning how it can enhance my life. You'll never know what being Jewish means to you if you don't go and learn about it. And so I, I think that's really important, is to, to be open-minded enough to give it a shot and see how it can make your life better.

21:42 Speaker 1 With all they've accomplished so far, Chaim and Chavi Brook are looking toward the future. They opened a sparkling new 4,000-square-foot center in 2021. It's well-equipped to accommodate their growing community. But they know there's more to be done.

21:58 Speaker 3 My dreams and my goals and my hopes are just to be able to grow with the community, to continue to understand the needs of the community and be able to meet the needs of the community as it grows and develops.

22:10 Speaker 1 One of those needs, Rabbi Brook points out, is to teach and learn more Hasidic insights of all the Chabad rebbes, as well as the founder of Hasidus, the Baal Shem Tov.

22:21 Speaker 2 The hope is that one drop will end up in our soul and reignite that flame within ourselves to be more of a godly individual. And if I want that of myself, I want that for my community, and my community's not just the Jews. Every human being in Montana should be touched by the light of Hasidus, sharing the wellsprings of the Baal Shem Tov in the great, great outdoors of the Last Best Place.

22:45 Speaker 1 And there's something very special the Brooks want to do this year. April 12th, or the 11th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar, will mark the 120th birthday of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Chavi and Chaim Brook want to acknowledge the gifts they're giving for that occasion.

23:02 Speaker 2 Chavi and I took upon ourselves two things for the 120th birthday. The first was to open a fourth Chabad center, which we're, God willing, doing in Billings. That is the first gift we are giving the Rebbe from Montana for his birthday, that there will now be four centers. And the second is that we launched a massive campaign called The Seven Points of Light, which is to teach the seven Noahide laws to every human being in Montana, something the Rebbe yearned for and hoped for, so we can all live in a civil, healthy, holy society that is ready and able for Moshiach to come, so we can get out of this dark exile and this fractured world and enter a world of perfection and utopia.

23:36 Speaker 3 What would we give the Rebbe? Literally, we gave him our life, and any single person who steps into the Chabad house and does a mitzvah and connects with their Judaism, connects with God, that's the gift.

23:50 Speaker 1 Chavi, 15 years later, what would you tell those who at the beginning said that going to Montana was maybe not such a good idea?

23:59 Speaker 3 I would say look at the evidence. I mean, like, here we are 15 years later, um, with a wonderful community. We're not surprised by the results, and if other people are, I hope it's a good surprise.

24:16 Speaker 1 And what about you, Rabbi? What would you say?

24:18 Speaker 2 It's not the first, and it's not the last time you're gonna be wrong. You were wrong about Montana. You were wrong about Missoula. You were wrong about Kalispell, and you'll be wrong about Billings, too. I know that in Heaven our dear Rebbe is having a lot of nachas from this production that we pulled off for Yiddish guy right here in Big Sky Country.

24:38 Speaker 1 I'm Gary Wollek. Thanks for listening to Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. We welcome your questions and comments about what you've just heard on Lamplighters. Please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com. And if you know of a great story involving Chabad emissaries or the people they inspire, please let us know about them. That's podcast at L-U-B-A-V-I-T-C-H.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. This is a Lubavitch International podcast.