A Home Away from Home
The “Shabbat Experience” at Stanford Chabad
Catalyst
With gourmet food prepared by Rachel and volunteer student chefs, these Shabbat dinners combine the comfort of home-cooked meals with the wide-ranging intellectual curiosity one expects from Stanford students.
Every Friday night, more than a hundred students gather at the home of Rabbi Dov and Rachel Greenberg to dine, socialize, and celebrate Shabbat. The Shabbat Experience, supported by a multiyear grant from the Koret Foundation, has grown to become one of the largest single regular Jewish events serving the Stanford community.
“The Chabad House at Stanford provided me with the Jewish life I needed during my time at university,” reflected journalism graduate student Francine Miller. “Always warm, always welcoming, and on Friday nights, a real home away from home.”
With gourmet food prepared by Rachel and volunteer student chefs, these Shabbat dinners combine the comfort of home-cooked meals with the wide-ranging intellectual curiosity one expects from Stanford students. Chabad invites prominent faculty, visiting scholars, and community members to attend its Shabbat Experiences and speak to students on Judaism and Israel, as well as to share their experiences as Jewish people in the business world, public service, the arts, education, or social activism.
Speakers have included author Dennis Prager; Larry Kramer, Dean of Stanford Law School and one of the country’s leading legal scholars; Dr. Charles Jacobs, president of the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership; Professor Ruth Wisse from Harvard University; and Dr. Joseph Perl, CEO of Mobilygen, Inc.
Shabbat dinners reinforce the Chabad values of welcoming every Jew, regardless of affiliation or degree of observance; creating a sense of belonging; supporting Jewish learning; and fostering spiritual growth and practice. Chabad also provides a safe haven for the university’s pro-Israel community, as the organization strongly supports the State of Israel.
Rabbi Greenberg hopes to encourage the personal growth and personal transformation of each individual Jew, without judgment, by helping connect the inner self and Jewish identity of each person. Under his guidance, the Chabad House has become what one student called “an oasis of rest in an otherwise restless age.”