The Over-the-road Rabbi: Every Mile, Every Soul - Rabbi Chaim & Chayala Markovits

00:00 Speaker 1 My little community, I would say, is kind of rural

00:03 Speaker 2 That's Margo Kennery, who might be a master of understatement because Margo lives in Bolingbroke, Georgia, an unincorporated community of less than 500 people. Through much of her life, Margo maintained a tenuous connection to Judaism.

00:20 Speaker 1 I really didn't participate in anything Jewish, and I really wouldn't tell anybody I was Jewish, so I really was, like, under the radar.

00:26 Speaker 2 But then she met Rabbi Chaim and Rebbetzin Chaya Markovitz of Chabad of Rural Georgia. They shared some fundamental truths about who she was and why that was important, and the Jewish spark within her ignited a flame which is still spreading outward.

00:43 Speaker 3 Margo is the Lamplighter in her town.

00:46 Speaker 4 And we see the worth when you have people like Margo be more in tune with their Judaism, which some of them, they haven't experienced since they were little kids.

00:54 Speaker 2 These are truths the Markovitzes have shared with hundreds of Jews in some of the unlikeliest places all over the large state in which they operate. It's a unique type of mobile outreach that, until just a few years ago, they couldn't have imagined because it didn't exist in the US. I'm Gary Wollek, 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. Back to our story in a moment, but first, I'd like to tell you about a great opportunity. You can partner with Lamplighters in sharing stories of Chabad emissaries doing amazing work all over the world. Please consider dedicating an episode. You can email us at podcast@lubavitch.com to explore dedication opportunities. That's podcast@lubavitch.com. You can also let us know how we're doing and about the shluchim you think we should consider for upcoming episodes. Please rate and review Lamplighters to make it easier for other podcast listeners to find us. Lamplighters is a project of Machne Israel, the social services arm of Chabad Lubavitch. Chaim Markovitz grew up in Sydney, Australia, in a home dedicated to community service.

02:51 Speaker 3 It wasn't a Chabad house, but even though we weren't official shluchim, we were outreach 100%.

02:58 Speaker 2 But the Markovitzes were a Chabad family, and as Chaim went through yeshivas in Israel, England, Australia, South Africa, and Crown Heights, he knew what he wanted to do in life.

03:10 Speaker 3 I don't know if I ever had a doubt. I am gonna be a shliach, and that's it.

03:18 Speaker 2 Chaya Markovitz grew up 7,500 miles away from Sydney.

03:22 Speaker 4 I grew up in Bel Air, California. My parents are shluchim there.

03:26 Speaker 2 As the daughter of Rabbi Chaim and Rebbetzin Chana Mintz, Chaya lived the life of a shliach pretty much from birth.

03:33 Speaker 4 Definitely from a young age, I was very involved in my parents' shlichus, and I knew that that's something I wanted to do when I got married.

03:41 Speaker 2 After studies at Machon Shoshana in Jerusalem, Chaya returned briefly to Bel Air and then moved to Crown Heights. There, she learned about a promising young man who lived nearby.

03:53 Speaker 4 Chaim actually lived four doors down from me, and we were set up.

03:57 Speaker 2 The Markovitzes were married in early 2017. They looked into shlichus opportunities in Texas, Colorado, and North Carolina. They landed for a time with Chaya's parents in Bel Air.

04:09 Speaker 3 And then eventually, we got a phone call from Rabbi Yissroel Neu offering us this opportunity.

04:15 Speaker 2 Neu is associate director of Chabad of Georgia.

04:19 Speaker 4 What about being like Mirke Shlichus Bachurim, getting in a mitzvah tank, and traveling the whole state?

04:25 Speaker 2 What Neu was looking for was a young couple willing to log long hours on the road in search of isolated Jews in Georgia's vast outback.

04:35 Speaker 3 And my wife initially reacted with, like, a, a resounding no way.

04:42 Speaker 4 No way. I'm not living in a RV. Like, what kinda life is that? I said, "We're not interested."

04:49 Speaker 2 That left the Markovitzes without a permanent venue in which to work, but then they happened upon a letter of the Lubavitcher Rebbe which said, in part, "In previous years, it was enough to follow the path of the Magid of Mezritch, who stayed in one town and waited for Jews to travel to him. Now we must revert to the path of the Baal Shem Tov, who traveled from one place to another searching for Jews, meeting them where they were, and inspiring them."

05:20 Speaker 4 And that really filled my heart, and I started to cry. It was very emotional. I felt that the Rebbe was really there with us, telling us, "You can do this. You can be the Baal Shem Tov couple." I didn't even have to think one more moment.

05:35 Speaker 3 It was like, "Absolutely. Let's go."

05:37 Speaker 4 We messaged Rabbi Neu, "We're in."

05:40 Speaker 2 Chaim and Chaya Markovitz established Chabad of Rural Georgia in December 2019. They moved to Atlanta the following June. Georgia's major urban areas were already covered by Chabad, so the Markovitzes' mandate was to cover the rest of the state.

06:01 Speaker 3 Which is probably 93% of it. The Rebbe has given me the responsibility to make sure that every person has a chance to- connect with the message of Judaism.

06:12 Speaker 2 But how to reach every lonely member of the tribe living in Georgia's most remote areas? Chabad of Georgia had been compiling lists of Jewish-sounding names for about 15 years when Chabad of Georgia director Rabbi Yossi New began holding lunch and learns in northern Georgia and sending bochurim out into the wilds. Armed with those lists, the Markovitzes began combing the state. But one of the first contacts they made was with a woman who actually contacted them after she learned about Chabad of rural Georgia on social media. So the Markovitzes hit the road. They drove for three hours, excited to farbreng with the woman who had asked them to visit.

07:01 Speaker 4 And we show up to her home, and the house is run-down. The wood is crickling as we get to the front steps. I remember there was holes in the floor of her balcony.

07:13 Speaker 2 The Markovitzes went inside and sat with her. They talked about what it means to be a Jew.

07:19 Speaker 4 And at the end of the conversation, she said to us, "Okay, I'd love to give you guys a donation." I said, "Wow." And so we walked into her kitchen, and she opened up her freezer, and she stuck her hand in the back of the freezer and pulled out an envelope, and she pulled out 18 frozen dollar bills, and she counted them out for us, and she said, "Thank you for coming. We're so happy that you're here."

07:46 Speaker 2 Chaya and Chaim said goodbye and made their way back to the car.

07:50 Speaker 4 I started crying a little bit . And I told my husband, "How are we ever gonna make it? If people are giving us 18 frozen dollar bills, we're never gonna cover our bills. Like, this isn't gonna work." And my husband, in his incredible way, pointed out, like, "Chaya, did you hear how excited she was? Did you see how beautiful that was for a woman to be so excited about giving tzedakah? People in rural Georgia might not be giving us millions of dollars, but what we will have is the one-on-one interactions and meetings and people who feel that they have someone that they can call, that they can rely on."

08:29 Speaker 2 What that encounter also taught the Markovitzes was that there were a lot more Jews in the middle of Georgia's nearly 60,000 square miles than the lists had indicated. So they started off with a lot of cold calling and knocking on doors.

08:45 Speaker 4 And I wish we could record for you their reaction when we knock on their door. "How did you find me? How do you know? What are you doing here?"

08:54 Speaker 2 But sometimes the Markovitzes will simply drive to a town they haven't yet visited.

09:00 Speaker 4 We definitely go into Kroger's, and we'll hang out at the Manischewitz aisle, and have met a few Jews that way. My husband has a tactic of davening with his tallit to fill in on the main street so that he draws attention, and we'll get one or two Jews like, "Are you a Jew, and are you here?" Like, "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"

09:23 Speaker 2 And the Markovitzes' strategy has evolved over the years.

09:27 Speaker 4 My husband has a big map in his office. We highlight, we circle, we X where should we put our focus on now.

09:34 Speaker 3 Maybe it's 15 or 20 cities on a monthly rotation, so every Monday and Wednesday, I'm for sure on the road driving three, four, five hours away. Tuesday I might hop over to, you know, an hour and a half away, so it could be two, three, sometimes even four days a week I could be on the road.

09:52 Speaker 2 That method has worked. The Markovitzes met more and more Jews and began to connect them with others.

09:59 Speaker 3 I pick various cities where I think there's a potential to create a shiur, to have a class happening, or to get a larger group of people together for any kind of event.

10:11 Speaker 2 With the help of Rabbi Yonatan Ariel Homburger, yeshiva bochurim, and roving rabbis, the Markovitzes have set up Torah study classes, workshops, and holiday celebrations all over Georgia. But most of the time, Rabbi is the one putting the pedal to the metal, covering mile after mile on highways, secondary routes, and country roads to meet with just one person. He's fond of keeping a sort of running video journal on social media.

10:44 Speaker 3 This is the town of Dexter, D-E-X-T-E-R, really a, a lovely little quaint town, and I'm here. I basically found someone's... a Jewish last name in town.

10:58 Speaker 2 He's emphatic that even when Chaya stays in Atlanta, she's always with him.

11:04 Speaker 3 My wife is my rock. I can't do any of this without her.

11:08 Speaker 4 So when he leaves, I'm always excited. I'm like, "Okay, Chaim, can't wait to hear what happens."

11:13 Speaker 3 She's always calling to check in and to make sure that I'm happy.

11:16 Speaker 2 Markovitz says he can go a whole day on the road with a Kind bar and a bottle of water, but Chaya sees to it that he has much better than that.

11:26 Speaker 4 We even have these really cute Crock-Pots that plug into the car so that he can heat up, like, chicken and rice.

11:31 Speaker 3 She makes me a three-course meal that I can thrive on.

11:35 Speaker 4 I feel really blessed and grateful that we are a great team in this work.

11:43 Speaker 2 Many people in rural Georgia live there because they don't want to be bothered. Sometimes the Markovitzes have learned this the hard way. Some of the doors they've knocked on have large, vicious dogs just behind them. Once, Rabbi Chaim met a man in northwest Georgia who lived at the end of a long dirt road. When he knocked on the door...

12:04 Speaker 3 The man of the house comes out, and his hand is suspiciously behind his back. So we're chatting, and once he's determined that I'm safe, he called his wife out, who was the person we had come to visit, and then he said, "You know, I, I'm just gonna go and put this down." And he just swivels around and walks back into the house, and I saw that behind his back he had a gun

12:25 Speaker 4 It takes a lot of courage and bravery to knock on random doors

12:29 Speaker 2 But most of the time, Chaim and Chaya Markovitz are greeted warmly by the people they meet on the road. For the first three or four years, the Markovitzes racked up the miles on a regular sedan. Recently, they purchased a high-top Sprinter van.

12:45 Speaker 3 A synagogue on wheels delivering the Jewish experience.

12:48 Speaker 4 Trays and trays of chicken and kugel and challah and dips and food and tables and chairs, you know, netzak, candles, Jewish books. It just stores all the stuff we need to carry out our multiple events. So it's like our little Chabad on Wheels, I like to call it.

13:04 Speaker 2 All the miles, well over 200,000 in less than five years, have paid off. The Markovitzes say that in that time they've met well over 1,000 Jews, like the 13-year-old boy studying for his bar mitzvah who tells them, "Now I feel Jewish." Or the widow and widower living a three-hour drive away from each other, but who are now dating because Chaya set them up. Or the 90-plus-year-old Holocaust survivor who they discovered simply by knocking on his door. At that first meeting, he wrapped tefillin for the first time in his life, and he cried.

13:42 Speaker 4 And he said to us, "Maybe this is why Hashem kept me alive all these years, was waiting for you to come and for me to say that, yes, I have put tefillin on as a Jew."

13:56 Speaker 2 Zach Levinson is a software developer in Warner Robins, Georgia. Zach's unaffiliated and single. He says he misses the sort of synagogue community he was part of in Miami, where he grew up. One day he got a call out of nowhere from Rabbi Chaim.

14:14 Speaker 5 Asking, "Hey, would you be interested in meeting?" I said, "Yeah." And he came over, we talked a bit, he explained some of the Torah portions for that week, and he was extremely kind and friendly, so it was a very positive experience.

14:30 Speaker 2 Since then, Rabbi Chaim has made a monthly trip from Atlanta to study with Zach, and Zach has celebrated Shabbos and Hanukkah with the Markovitzes, who invited him to recite a special prayer at a menorah lighting in Forsyth, Georgia.

14:44 Speaker 5 And I wasn't expecting to go up there, take up the mic, and read out the prayer because I wasn't expecting to get that experience anymore. I was in a location where I am alone as a Jewish person.

15:00 Speaker 4 He's a young boy. At such an age to feel alone is, it's painful, and it happens all the time that we meet people and they tell us, "We're so lonely over here."

15:11 Speaker 2 But now Zach says he doesn't feel so lonely anymore. Susan Gershberry is a resident of an unincorporated community on Georgia's northernmost edge called Mineral Bluff, population 223.

15:28 Speaker 6 Where we used to just have two Jews. Now we have 10.

15:33 Speaker 2 A population explosion.

15:35 Speaker 6 Yes, yes.

15:37 Speaker 2 Susan has lived in the mountains of Georgia for more than four decades, and in Mineral Bluff since 2001. She moved there with her husband, who passed away over seven years ago. Susan did her best to stay connected to Judaism, despite all the challenges of living in a tiny mountain town.

15:56 Speaker 6 So I kept Judaism in our home, holidays and things like that, but that was basically it.

16:03 Speaker 2 There's nothing in Mineral Bluff resembling Jewish infrastructure, so Susan was surprised the first time she went shopping at a supermarket a few miles away in Blue Ridge, which had a couple of shelves of kosher products.

16:16 Speaker 6 But one thing I'm not gonna do anymore is get the gefilte fish, because the one time I bought gefilte fish there, I don't know how many centuries it had been in there.

16:31 Speaker 2 About 15 years ago, Susan learned that friends of hers were attending monthly classes led by Rabbi Yossi New, who was making the four-hour round-trip drive once a month to Blue Ridge from Atlanta. Susan decided to attend.

16:46 Speaker 6 And it was wonderful.

16:47 Speaker 2 Then in March of 2020, Susan and her Jewish friends learned that there were new shluchim coming to deliver shmurah matzah before Passover. COVID restrictions had just gone into place.

17:00 Speaker 6 So we met in a parking lot of a bank. Rabbi Markovitz and Chaya came. They were excited to meet us, as we were excited to meet them. They brought big boxes of matzah, the round matzah, and we had families come out. And people, we met each other. There was an excitement of finding each other.

17:29 Speaker 2 That led to an informal community of Jews that Susan calls the Blue Ridge Congregation. With a newly energized community, regular visits from the Markovitzes, and even an annual Shabbaton, Susan and her friends are more involved than ever in Yiddishkeit.

17:47 Speaker 6 I want to follow my religion more. I want to do more acts of loving kindness. I want to study. I'm taking B'nai Mitzvah classes. I was not bat mitzvah-ed. I feel inspired to do that. You feel Jewish again. You feel Jewish again.

18:08 Speaker 2 Mineral Bluff is as far north as one can get in Georgia. St. Mary's is just about as far south as one can go in the state. Fred Parvey lives in that small coastal city. He says he's the only Jew in St. Mary's, but there is Jewish infrastructure there.

18:26 Speaker 7 Yes, I have a menorah, and of course my candles that I light, and that's the Jewish infrastructure in St. Mary's.

18:35 Speaker 2 Fred grew up in South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida, in a family that stressed assimilation over Jewish observance. The Markovitzs heard about him a few years ago, gave him a call, and sent Bochurim on a six-hour one-way drive from Atlanta to spend the day. Now Fred is studying Tanya with Chaim's father, Rabbi Shmuel Markovitz, and he says the Shema every day. Just this year, Fred made the long drive up to Atlanta to celebrate Pesach at the Markovitzs.

19:09 Speaker 7 It was a lot of fun. It was upbeat. It, it was great, and without Rabbi Chaim calling me up, I probably wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't have gotten involved.

19:23 Speaker 2 Perhaps the Markovitzs' poster child for involvement is Margo Kennery. She's a data analyst who works for the Technical College System of Georgia. She grew up in New Jersey.

19:36 Speaker 1 We did celebrate Passover and Hanukkah, and we definitely identified and knew that we were Jews, but we were not members of any sort of synagogue.

19:46 Speaker 2 Margo attended Rutgers and earned a degree in biological sciences. She underwent four years of ROTC training and served in the US Army Signal Corps for eight years. She now lives with her husband and daughter in Bolingbroke, a small unincorporated area outside of Macon. In late 2020, Margo attended a shofar-making event led by Chaim Markovitz at a friend's apartment.

20:13 Speaker 1 I really didn't think anything was gonna come of it, but all of a sudden, I was getting these phone calls, "Hey, do you wanna have some rabbis come to your house for your Hanukkah lighting?"

20:21 Speaker 2 The calls, of course, were from Rabbi Markovitz, who also asked Margo if she'd like to study Torah. She told him...

20:28 Speaker 1 "No, I don't wanna study Torah. Um, I'm not like a Jew like you. I don't keep kosher, and I can't read Hebrew. I don't do anything," that I was always a less-than Jew.

20:42 Speaker 2 Markovitz's response surprised Margo.

20:45 Speaker 1 "You're just as much of a Jew as anyone who is a religious Jew, one that does do all the mitzvahs, one that does speak Hebrew, or someone who keeps kosher," that I was 100% Jewish without doing any more mitzvahs in my life, that we all have to keep trying, and we all have to keep doing one more mitzvah at a time, no different than him or any other Jew, and it's been a lesson for me to learn to know that I'm Jewish one mitzvah at a time.

21:18 Speaker 2 Margo began learning online with Chayela. Then in 2022, Rabbi Chaim asked her if she knew of a place in her town where they could display a menorah for Hanukkah.

21:29 Speaker 1 And I told him, "Rabbi Chaim, I don't have a town hall where I live. We have a post office." But he kept coming back to me, "I need somewhere to put this menorah." I said, "Okay, well, Rabbi Chaim, if you really want the menorah to be seen by lots of people, you've got to participate in what's called the Hometown Holidays Parade." And he's like, "Yeah, that's a Christmas parade." I said, "No, it's a Hometown Holiday Parade."

21:52 Speaker 2 Markovitz agreed, and Margo submitted her application, but she still needed a menorah to put on a float. She called Rabbi Markovitz and asked for one.

22:02 Speaker 1 And the next morning he had an, uh, somebody, somebody he knew drive down in the Chabad rural van with a menorah in parts with a very deflated-looking blow-up dreidel thing that he, I guess, he borrowed at last minute. The van drove into my long driveway, and a guy jumped out and said, "Hello, I have your menorah. Here it is. It's in parts, but I think you can figure out how to put it together." We had no idea even if the thing would work, but my husband and I put it together and tested out all the lights.

22:36 Speaker 2 They all worked. Margo took care of the rest, latching a four-by-seven trailer to a 25-year-old pickup truck. On parade day, Margo assembled the float, starting with the menorah.

22:48 Speaker 1 So I ratcheted that thing down with these 500-pound straps from the auto parts store. I made these festive blue and white stars of David. I made, um, giant presents with boxes decorated in Hanukkah paper. I got a little mini generator so that it could have all my electricity needs. I got my blue and white lights. I put speakers on the float. I made a playlist in Spotify so the correct music would be playing, Hanukkah music would be playing for my float, and I really think the best piece of my float would be a frying pan, a spatula, and a box of latke mix for my caboose.

23:27 Speaker 2 Sounds delicious. So how did the parade go?

23:30 Speaker 1 I'm glad you asked. So during the parade, the menorah float was welcomed with dozens of "Merry Christmas," some "Happy Hanukkahs," and even a "Happy Kwanzaa." I had somebody who's actually a pretty prominent person in the community saying, "Oh, you know this is a Christmas parade, right?" And I'm like, "No, it's a holiday parade." So I really, I loved all the feedback I got. It was just such a festive occasion. I really felt that the crowd was interacting with my float.

23:58 Speaker 2 After the parade, the holiday parade, Margo disassembled the float and arranged to set the menorah up at the Monroe County Courthouse, where the Markovitzs and Rabbi Chaim's parents joined them for the first ever menorah lighting there. The menorah now lives with Margo.

24:16 Speaker 1 And I hope that we keep on erecting it each year at Hanukkah at our courthouse.

24:21 Speaker 3 Margo is the lamplighter in her town.

24:29 Speaker 2 Keeping the idea of one mitzvah at a time firmly in mind, Margo has welcomed the opportunity for new experiences. She recently attended the annual convention of shluchos with Chayela in New York. Services at 770 Eastern Parkway, Chabad headquarters, were especially inspiring for her.

24:49 Speaker 1 By going in that building, I saw what Judaism was past tense 100 years ago, 200 years ago, but I also see what Judaism is going to be 100, 200 years from now. Chabad gives me a window to how Judaism was and how it is going to be.

25:05 Speaker 2 And Margo saw herself as part of that future. She's thankful for that.

25:10 Speaker 1 I do feel like maybe I could have been a lost Jew, and there's lots of people like me.

25:17 Speaker 2 The Markovitzes will continue to look for new ways to find and connect with individual Jews in the sprawling state of Georgia. But they've also implemented a sort of incubator model that will send permanent shluchim to more parts of the state.

25:32 Speaker 8 Currently on the table we're working on a full-time Chabad presence at one of the campuses. It's a two-hour drive from here, but we'll have a, a rabbi and rebbetzin there, with God's help, as soon as next season to move in and make a full-time Chabad house in that area.

25:48 Speaker 2 Until that happens in every Georgia city, town, hamlet, and unincorporated community, the Markovitzes will drive their van, with the Shalom Y'all artwork on the side, into every corner of Georgia, making sure every individual Jew has everything they need to connect with Yiddishkeit.

26:08 Speaker 8 "atem t'lidku echad echad beit yisrael." This is the rebbe's vision. It's one person. If it's one person in Macon, or if it's one person in Valdosta, or Vidalia, or Morganton, or Blairsville, or Young Harris. It could be anywhere. It doesn't matter where that is. The rebbe cares about that person, and wants to make sure that that person has a connection to their God. Every person wants more connection with God, and my job is simply to provide them that opportunity, wherever it is.

26:39 Speaker 9 Every time we leave their home, my husband and I are just like, "That was unbelievable." Worth every minute in the car, worth the whole thing.

26:53 Speaker 8 All you have to do is spread the light with one more person, and you're in.

27:02 Speaker 2 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. Lamplighters is a project of Machne Israel, the social services arm of Chabad Lubavitch.