Rabbis go door to door to counsel and pray

They come in pairs to people’s homes in the name of faith.

But they are not Jehovah’s Witnesses or teenage missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both of whom are known for proselytizing door to door.

They are young orthodox rabbis visiting Jewish households in Colorado Springs and other southern Colorado cities. Their goal is not to convert people to Judaism but to minister and counsel fellow Jews.

“We’re sharing our passion for the faith and making positive progress in the Jewish tradition,” said Rabbi Sholom Ceitlin, 23, who, along with 23-year-old Rabbi Mordechai Ives, has visited about 35 Jewish homes in southern Colorado since Aug. 9 and will continue through today.

Ceitlin and Ives are part of the Jewish Peace Corps, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based nonprofit that has sent thousands of young orthodox rabbis around the world to minister to fellow Jews since its founding in the 1940s. This year, 400 orthodox rabbis were sent out to minister this summer.

Before ministering in southern Colorado, Ceitlin and Ives were in Michigan visiting Jewish families.

On Wednesday, Ceitlin, Ives and Moshe Liberow, rabbi of the Chabad Center of Southern Colorado in the Springs, visited Springs resident Alan Gottlieb.

Ceitlin and Ives typically pray with or counsel fellow Jews. But when they visited Gottlieb, they performed an ancient Jewish ceremony called Tefillin.

Around Gottlieb’s arms they wrapped leather straps attached to two small black boxes, one placed on an arm and the other on Gottlieb’s head. Scrolls containing Jewish wisdom were inside the black boxes, which Gottlieb kissed to show his devotion to Judaism.

Ives and Ceitlin will return Friday to Brooklyn to begin advanced studies at the Chabad Rabbinical College. Both say they will fondly remember their time in the Jewish Peace Corps.

“It’s so exciting for us to spread the light to people we meet,” Ives said.

—

Call Barna at 636-0367