Hello and welcome back to Hey Alma’s advice column on all things Jewish life. Read on for advice from our resident deputy editor/bossy Capricorn Jew, and submit your own dilemmas anonymously here.
Hey, Hey Alma,
I live in a New York apartment building with a Chabad right next door. I find that the Chabad rabbi, though generally nice, can be very pushy. I try to be a good, respectful neighbor. If I’m passing by and I’m not in a rush, I will do a tefillin wrap for him.
But one time he chased me down in the street, when I was on my way somewhere, and encouraged me to help him make a minyan. When I said no, he kept pushing it. I said I would come later just to get him to leave me alone but I had other plans and did not go back. He then came to my apartment later in the day and asked why I didn’t come back and kept pushing the issue. He is always trying to get me to come to Shabbat and other events he’s hosting, but I usually have other plans, and I don’t really want to go to his Shabbat anyway, because there are always more fun and interesting Shabbats or other activities going on in the city.
I want to maintain a friendly neighborly relationship, but I would like him to be more respectful when I don’t want to attend his events. Do you have any advice?
— Trying to Be Polite
Dear Trying,
I have to admit, your question made me chuckle. Whomst among us hasn’t had an awkward scenario with a Chabad rabbi where we really wanted to be polite but also didn’t really want to get into a whole thing about wrapping tefillin or lighting the candles? Any Jew in New York City (or on a college campus with a thriving Chabad) has been in your shoes, and considering it’s such a pervasive quandary, you’d think I’d have better advice.
The problem is, I have a history of being a people pleaser myself (in spite of all the time and money I’ve poured into my own therapy journey to learn how to create and enforce my own boundaries). And as I read your question, I felt less of my typical bossy advising self come out and more of my people pleasing self come out. Suddenly I’m a 21-year-old student at NYU simply trying to cross Washington Square Park on a Friday afternoon all over again! How on earth can you politely say no to a rabbi who is showing up at your door?!
Luckily for both of us, some of my colleagues showed a better grasp of simple boundaries in this scenario. “A polite but firm ‘no thanks’ is really the only solution here,” one well-boundaried colleague said. Another agreed: “My hot take is that the Jewish content of this question is irrelevant: The Chabad rabbi is not respecting personal time/space. This person can simply draw a boundary and politely decline interactions, then stop responding when necessary.” And there it is: The whole entire answer.
I appreciate what Chabad rabbis contribute in terms of creating community spaces for Jewish people, but that does not give them special privileges when it comes to eschewing social norms. It may feel challenging to draw a boundary with a person in a position of power and/or with a neighbor (and this rabbi is both!) but all the more reason to rise to the occasion. The Chabad rabbi is certainly within his rights to offer his services, but you are well within your own rights to decline them, and once that exchange has occurred and he continues pushing (by showing up on your door!) he is firmly in the wrong.
If you really can’t stomach simply telling him you won’t be attending his events and you’d like him to stop asking you, a third colleague suggested diffusing the situation by explaining your Jewish connections elsewhere: “Oh, I’m already a member of [this synagogue]; oh, I have to go home and light the candles with my family/my roommates/etc.” But you shouldn’t have to lie, or explain the truth of your personal situation, to get this man off your case. Even if you are a Jew who isn’t inclined to belong to a synagogue, light candle, or participate in any religious or cultural rituals whatsoever, you still don’t owe the Chabad rabbi your time.
So I encourage you to be brave, set your boundaries and stick with them. Do it for yourself and for every other recovering people pleaser who has been in your shoes.
