We spent a beautiful week here in Las Vegas, complete with all of its flashing lights and scorching heat. But, as we came to find out, in addition to the physical heat, it is spiritually hot as well. Not a desert, but a hot spot of Torah scholarship and a fiery warm Jewish community.
One of our first stops was to an old-timer whose Hebrew name is Yosef. Yosef is an 88-year-old man, living by himself in the middle of town, after having relocated here several years ago from New York City. He happily put on tefillin with us, an act that he admitted he hadn’t been able to do in quite a while. He shed some tears as he showed us pictures of his family, who had been gone now for a long time, and reminisced about the Jewish life of a bygone era.
One of our favorite locations to find “customers” quickly became the malls sprinkled throughout Vegas and the surrounding areas. The Las Vegas Premium Outlets, one of the largest outdoor malls in the country, is a hotbed for young Israeli men and women selling all kinds of products. The expressions on the faces of Rami, Tzvi, Benny, and many of the other people whom we encountered was truly priceless! In classic Israeli fashion, they all put aside whatever they were involved in and did a quick mitzvah.
All in all, we visited dozens of these mall merchants. One could truly see the meaning of the verse, “And all the nations of the earth will see that the name of G‑d is upon you,” which the Talmud explains as a reference to the mitzvah of tefillin. “Everyone knows that Chabad operates synagogues all around the world. But that Chabad can even come to a mall in the middle of Vegas to offer us Judaism there—that is something special!” remarked Yossi, one of our regulars.
Undoubtedly, the highlight of each day was the nightly learning sessions in the many Chabad houses throughout the region. Every night, between 20 and 40 men and women would pour into their local Chabad center to study the Torah topic of their choice—some for the very first time. The two-hour sessions were enjoyed by all, and many promised to come back for more.
