December 20, 2007

Reuven Fischer: The Slightly Different Chabad Rabbi

By Julian Voloj

“Second Life, for me it’s an opportunity to meet other Jews, talk to people, make new friendships,” Fischer explains. On Saturday evenings, when he’s in Second Life after the Sabbath ends and he accesses his virtual Western Wall, he always meets new people. “Most of them are totally enthusiastic about the SL Kotel and think it’s cool that a Chabadnik is in Second Life.”

When Gal Brandes, a French businessman from Grenoble, was transferred to South China by his employer, the first thing the 34-year-old did was not to ask about real estate prices, say, but to inquire whether Chabad had a presence there yet. “Wherever I travel, when I go to Chabad, I always feel at home.”

Chabad, an acronym for the three Hebrew terms chochma (חכמה, “wisdom“),binah (בינה, “understanding"), and daat (דעת, "knowledge"), is the name of an Orthodox Jewish movement, which since 1951 has sent so-called shluchim (in Hebrew, "emissaries"; singular, shliach) all over the world to bring Jews closer to (Orthodox) Judaism. From Shanghai to St. Petersburg, from Bangkok to Berlin, more than 3,300 Chabad shluchim are currently active worldwide.

GruvenReuven Greenberg is one of them. But Greenberg is different from all the other shluchim, because he is an avatar in Second Life.

The virtual world of Second Life is part of the so-called Web 2.0, a term for a number of interactive and collaborative Internet phenomena. Web 2.0 refers to a change in the perception and use of the Internet: Content is no longer generated in a centralized way by big media, but also by independent users who create network effects. These decentralized web-based platforms include blogs, wikis, portals such as Flickr und YouTube, and now virtual worlds as well, three-dimensional animations in which people communicate with each other via alter egos, so-called avatars.

Second Life, currently the best-known virtual world, began to be developed in 1999 by Linden Lab, based in San Francisco, and it has been online since June 24, 2003. The stated goal of Linden Lab is to create a world like the “metaverse” described in Neil Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash: a user-defined virtual world in which people can interact, play, do business, and otherwise communicate.

For just under one year, this metaverse has also had a Jewish community with various synagogues, a Jewish museum, a Holocaust memorial, a Jewish art gallery, and now its own magazine, 2Life, which belongs to the Jewish Media Corp. (JMAG).And in GruvenReuven Greenberg, this world also has its own Chabad shliach. Greenberg’s name in real life is Reuven Fischer, and he comes from Philadelphia. After meeting several times in Second Life, we decided to meet in New York, where Fischer goes once a month to pray at the grave of Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the last head of the Chabad Lubavitch dynasty.

Schneerson, who was seen as the messiah by many supporters, stressed the value of outreach, not only relying on the above-mentioned shluchim, but also using new media, in contrast to other Hasidic groups, some of which completely forbid use of the Internet. Therefore the Chabad movement, unlike any other Jewish group, has exemplary websites, and it is no surprise that a Chabad shliach is also represented in Second Life. The goal of Chabad outreach is to publicize Orthodox Judaism, and in particular Baal Teshuvah, the return of Jews to (Orthodox) Judaism.

Fischer himself is a Baal Teshuvah. “I’ve been Orthodox for only seven years,” he explains to me as we drive to the Ohel, Schneerson’s grave. The cemetery is in the eastern part of Queens, far from any subway station, so Fischer, who has driven here from Philadelphia, picks me up at the end of the New York Subway’s E Line. Fischer is the first Second Lifer whom I’ve met offline, and he looks younger than I had expected. Fischer’s avatar, GruvenReuven Greenberg, has black hair, but Fischer himself is a redhead. Otherwise the two are very similar in appearance.

During the drive to the cemetery, Fischer tells me about his exploration of Second Life. “I thought I was familiar with just about everything available on the Web, but then I read about Second Life in the December issue of Time Magazine and was curious.” Since the Chabad tradition rules out studying Torah at Christmas, Fischer decided to learn about Second Life. The first search term he entered (“Jewish”) brought him to Temple Beth Israel, at that time the only Jewish site in Second Life.

“I just couldn’t believe it. A synagogue in Second Life?!” The next day he became acquainted with avatar Beth Odets, who had created the synagogue. Only one week later, Fischer had his own site in Second Life, the SL Kotel, a virtual Western Wall.

“Since I’m not a great Website builder, I simply created a wall. It was fairly easy.” The SL Kotel soon became a central contact point for Jews in Second Life. Since January, visitors have been able to download the parashah of the week there and get information about the teachings of Rabbi Schneerson.Since that time, the Jewish community in Second Life has grown steadily, and since May there has even been a Jewish island, Ir Shalom. “It’s wonderful how the Jewish community is growing. But establishing a real community is more important than all the new buildings, and that’s exactly what Beth has done. I’ve told her many times: In her heart, she’s a real Lubavitcher woman,” says Fischer, grinning.

But as GruvenReuven Greenberg, Reuven Fischer does more than explore the Jewish offerings in Second Life. “I see Second Life as a place where you can create wonderful art.” Just as we’re driving on, of all things, Linden Boulevard, he tells me about his favorite sims, to use the term for virtual localities: Besides a sim devoted to the Grateful Dead, a band that Fischer admired before his conversion to Orthodox Judaism, he is especially fascinated by sims that are patterned on real towns.

“Do you know the Amsterdam sim? Simply fantastic.” Fischer visited the “real life” Amsterdam when he was working in Europe for the shopping channel QVC. “First I was in Liverpool for a couple of months and then in Bochum, and I could also travel around a little.”

It was the stay in Germany that was a special time for Fischer. “Both my parents are from Germany. We spoke English at home, but my parents spoke German to each other when they didn’t want my sister and me to understand them.”

We’ve reached the cemetery. We drive to a side entrance that Chabad built near Schneerson’s grave. You enter the cemetery through a small prayer room, in which there is a lot of hectic activity: men in black caftans gesticulating as they discuss something, Orthodox women wearing headcoverings as they daven, swaying in prayer, children running around and playing. We go directly to the grave, which is visible right from the entrance. In place of a simple tombstone, the grave is surrounded by a wall and looks like a small mausoleum.

Going through a door, we first enter an anteroom where small candles are burning and Hebrew prayer books in English, Russian, and Spanish translations are on display. Reuven takes off his shoes. “This is a holy place,” he explains to me. “But I don’t do it in the winter.”

Another door leads us to the grave of the Rebbe, an open, quadrangular room in which, along with other Hasidic men and women, a few Russian Jews are also praying. Many of the visitors leave behind handwritten messages for the Rebbe. This pilgrimage site reminds me a little of the Western Wall.After praying, Fischer, who always fasts before prayer at the Ohel, eats some honey cake. Other Hasidim ask me whether I want to put on tefillin (phylacteries).

“You’re the first Javatar [Jewish avatar] whom I’ve met in real life,” Reuven tells me as we drive from the Ohel to Crown Heights in Brooklyn, the center of the Chabad movement. “But it feels like we’ve known each other for a long time.” I have the same feeling. Although until now I had met Reuven Fischer only as GruvenReuven Greenberg in Second Life, and we chatted via Instant Messages, he’s not a stranger, but more like an old acquaintance.

“Second Life, for me it’s an opportunity to meet other Jews, talk to people, make new friendships,” Fischer explains. On Saturday evenings, when he’s in Second Life after the Sabbath ends and he accesses his virtual Western Wall, he always meets new people. “Most of them are totally enthusiastic about the SL Kotel and think it’s cool that a Chabadnik is in Second Life.”

We’ve reached Crown Heights. Crown Heights is something like the Mecca of the Chabad movement. It is the location of Seven-Seventy. The number refers to the address--770 Eastern Parkway—a typical Brooklyn Tudor building where Rabbi Schneerson once lived and now the headquarters of the Chabad movement. The synagogue at Seven-Seventy is a pilgrimage site for Chabad followers worldwide, and we end our meeting there by reciting the Mincha together. A minyan, the quorum of ten adult men required for communal prayer, is quickly assembled.

As we leave the synagogue, I ask Fischer what his fellow Chabad followers think about his being active in Second Life. His answer is prompt: “They love it! They think it’s a really great way to reach out to new people. Some Second Lifers hadn’t had any contact with Judaism in years, and now they’re connected with Judaism again through the virtual world.”

Before I say goodbye to Fischer and get on the subway, he tells me one more thing, about a meeting he had recently in Second Life. “A female Javatar told me that she regularly attends the Friday prayers in the Second Life Synagogue, and now she’s planning to light candles at home, too. And you know that’s what the potential of Second Life represents: changing virtuality into reality, one step after the other.”



Julian Voloj is the editor of 2Life, the Jewish magazine in Second Life. Offline he is a freelance journalist and photographer. Currently he is working on a series of portraits of Jewish Second Lifers. To learn more about2Lifemagazine: www.2lifemagazine.com.