Daniel And Yael Aldrich Shaah Tovah 2010

Name: Daniel and Yael Aldrich

Place: West Lafayette, Indiana

I first met Daniel and his wife, Yael, over a decade ago, when they came to Israel to spend a year studying Torah. A few weeks before they arrived, my older sister, who is a good friend of Daniel's mother, phoned me from her home in North Carolina and asked me to "please take care of her friend's children." So I made sure to invite them for Shabbos.

But if I thought they would be excited at the opportunity to meet the natives, I was mistaken. Yael politely declined my invitation. But I was not about to disappoint my sister; after all, she had had charged me with mothering her friend's children. So a few weeks later I contacted the Aldriches a second time. This time, Yael graciously excused herself, explaining that they had already been invited out and were unable to come.

I decided to try one more time. At least that way I could honestly tell my sister that I had really tried, although I was almost positive that the answer would once again be negative.

This time, however, instead of an outright refusal, Yael answered my question with a question of her own: "What do you mean by Shabbos?"

I was floored. Hey, I was told that these people were frum. How come they had never heard of Shabbos?  I politely explained that if they come to us for Shabbos, they will be incarcerated in our home for 25 hours, and that we'd provide them with everything they could possibly need, except pajamas.

Yael told me that she would like to discuss this with her husband and that she would get back to me later. By this time I was really hoping that the answer would be no. They sounded a bit strange to me. But the answer was yes. They were coming.

I later found out that Daniel and Yael had assumed that we were not religious, like my sister in North Carolina! So they packed a huge suitcase with food and planned to politely sit with us at our table, before retiring to their room to eat their own meal. In the end, all of us – both the Aldriches and the Shapiros -- were pleasantly surprised!

That first Shabbos was the beginning of a wonderful relationship. Over the years we've kept abreast of the Aldriches from afar, hearing of their experiences in Boston, Tokyo, and New Orleans, where they lost almost all of their material possessions in Hurricane Katrina.

Last year, Yael, informed me that their one-year stay in Japan was coming to an end and she and Daniel were planning to move to West Lafayette, Indiana.

"West Lafayette, Indiana?" I repeated. "Never heard of it. What's there?"

"Purdue University; Daniel will be a teaching there," Yael responded.

"No, that's not what I meant. I meant to ask, what's there in terms of frumkeit?"

"At the moment, nothing," Yael answered. "And that's exactly why we're going there."

Debbie: Why did you move to West Lafayette?

Daniel: I was offered a position as professor in the department of political science at Purdue University, which is located there. Although there were many options available to us, we chose West Lafayette because we felt that that was one place where we'd really be able to impact the Jewish community. 

Most cities, and especially most cities with a major university, have at least one kiruv organization that is actively involved in working with the Jewish students. But at Purdue the only thing available was a Hillel House, which did not even have a rabbi! There was no Orthodox Jewish presence on campus.

Yael and I are working totally on our own. We are not part of any of the many wonderful kiruv organizations out there. We volunteer our own time and money to make a difference to the Jewish community. We're doing it because that's what we want to do; not because it's our job.

Our family – Yael, I and our three children – live about twenty minutes walking distance from campus, so the students can – and do – come over all the time. They feel comfortable in our home and many of them have become almost like members of our family. Every Shabbos and Yom Tov we host dozens of students at our table. On Friday afternoon, students volunteer to help my wife finish the Shabbos preparations; others come early to set up the chairs for minyan. They love playing with our children and just being in a wholesome, family setting, something which is so rare in today's upside down world. Our kids pride themselves on being the host and are full partners in our avodas hakodesh. And of course they enjoy being pampered by the students who just adore them!

Debbie: Speaking of kids, how do you manage to provide them with a Torah chinuch without a frum community?

Daniel: Since there's no Orthodox day school here, Yael and I home-school our three kids. As a result of being so intimately involved with our children, we have greater control over their environment. We're using our skills as educators – Yael has two masters degrees, one from Brandeis' Heller School of Social Policy and Management and the other from Brandeis' Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program while I have semicha from R' Dan Channen of the Pirchei Shoshanim Yeshiva and a Ph.D. from Harvard University - to provide our children with a full Jewish education in addition to the secular skills they need to succeed in life. Yael takes full advantage of the vast amount of educational resources available to us -- curriculum guidelines, books, videos, worksheets, you name it -- to create a real school, with tests and papers and a fairly rigid curriculum.

Thank G-d we've had phenomenal success. This last erev Pesach, our oldest son – all of eight years old! -- made a siyum on maseches Brochos of the Mishna. After reciting Birkas Hachamah, we celebrated his achievement together with the opportunity to perform such a rare mitzvah with a beautiful seudah to break the taanis bechoros (…well, as beautiful as one can expect on an erev Pesach), catered by Yael of course! The students were really impressed with Gavriel Tzvi's accomplishment, and our son saw the impact of his actions on others.

At the suggestion of our rav, whenever possible we have our children spend time in a frum environment. After all, we don't want them to grow up thinking that they're the only frum kids in the world! This summer, for example, we rented an apartment in the heart of Chicago's frum community. Our children attended a frum day camp where they made friends with other religious kids. Every month we spend a long weekend with frum friends in Chicago, to recharge our batteries and refill our freezer!  We also spend chagim with our friends in Southfield, Detroit and in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Debbie: Could you tell us more about your work with the college students?

Daniel: As I mentioned before, every Shabbos is basically a Shabbaton, with lots of guests, meaningful conversation and delicious food – Yael is an excellent cook! In addition, one afternoon a week we have a lunch and learn program at the local Hillel. The food there very simple, just bagels and cream cheese, but the learning is great. We study the parshah as a group; I try to connect it to something that is relevant to the students, so that they will have something real to take home with them.

Both Yael and I study b'chevruta with students; she learns with the women, I learn with the men. The students choose what they want to learn, be it going through the entire davening or Michtav M'Eliyahu.  Yael has started a very popular Crash Course in Basic Hebrew.

Once a semester we coordinate major event together with other kiruv organizations. Last Shabbos, for example, we accompanied nine of our students to a Shabbaton in Chicago. There, in addition to a phenomenal program including great classes delivered by world-famous speakers such as Charlie Harary, they were given the opportunity to meet other Jewish young people who, like them, are actively involved in learning about their heritage. For many, it was a real eye opener.

Before we moved to West Lafayette, well meaning people told us that we wouldn't be able to make any real impact on the community, that we were just wasting our time. But Yael and I really wanted to try. Both of us did a lot of informal kiruv during the years that we live in Tokyo, New Orleans and Boston, where Yael was in charge of the Partners in Torah program. We were used to having an open home with lots of company. And with Yael's degrees in community work and my semicha, we both had the right credentials.

Baruch Hashem we've had amazing success, seen incredible growth and change. No, none of our students wear a black hat or are learning in yeshiva, but that's not what we're looking for. My rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Peretz Friedman, shlita -- who Yael and I met when we were young students, studying at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill —- taught me that tiny steps make for permanent change. We never, ever push our students, but yes, they are definitely on the right path!

Last year, one of our students went to Eretz Yisrael with the Jewish Learning Experience (JLE). Today, he puts on Tefillin, takes Shabbos seriously and is actively involved in Yiddishkeit. This coming winter, four of our students applied for the Birthright program and two of our students will be attending Pathways, the introductory program offered by Darchei Noam Yeshiva – which is where I learned.

For some reason, a lot of not-yet-religious people believe that if they become frum, they'll have to cut off their relationships with their families and divorce themselves from the secular world. But although both Yael and I are deeply religious, we are young and "with it." We break their erroneous stereotype of Orthodox Jews, which is one of the reasons they are able to relate to us.

Debbie: Your enthusiasm is contagious! Was there any person who inspired you to do what you're doing; a role model that you are emulating?

Daniel: Among the many amazing people that we encountered while living in California, New Orleans, France, Japan, Boston, Israel and Indiana, Yael and I were fortunate to become close to two religious couple - Dr. and Dr. Daniel and Beth Gordon, now of Baltimore, Maryland; and Rabbi and Mrs. Avraham Peretz and Marsha Friedman, shlita, now of Passaic, New Jersey – who were fantastic role models. Both couples were, and still are, totally dedicated to helping others grow in their Judaism.  

We met the Gordons when Yael and I were living in Berkeley, California; Yael was working as the Program Director for Chabad of the East Bay and I was attending graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley.  The Gordons' home was open to the community every Shabbos, and the ruach and amazing hospitality they provided to their many guests inspired many people, including Yael and I, to move forward on our paths towards full mitzvah observance.  Dr. Gordon also took time out of his schedule to learn b'chevruta with me. We studied several subjects, including meseches Brochos and the Haftorah trop, which enable me to participate more fully in the Shabbos davening.

Yael and I met Rabbi Friedman and his family when we were undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Friedmans resided in nearby Durham, where Rabbi Friedman worked as chaplain at Duke University. They opened their house – and heart -- to us as well as to many other college students living nearby. Yael and I essentially spent every Shabbos with this family. After graduation, I moved into their house to be able to spend time with them and their amazing children.  Rabbi Friedman served as our mesader kedushim as well as our long time spiritual advisor.  He is also a spiritual advisor to the FBI and a number of police departments, but that is a different story.

Seeing these two families – who both have excellent secular and Jewish educations – accomplish such amazing things, inspired us to take on our own responsibilities toward the Jewish community, whether it be in Tokyo, Japan or West Lafayette.

Debbie: What are your plans for the future?

We hope to remain here for as long as we feel comfortable, are able to educate our children b'derech Hatorah and can make an impact on the Jewish students.

TEXT BOX  Between 2004-2005 Rabbi Dr. Daniel Aldrich  and his wife traveled to Japan on a Fulbright scholarship, where Daniel researched and wrote his first book, Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West  (Cornell University Press, 2008), which talks about NIMBYs. When Daniel told me the topic of his book, my immediate reaction was, "What in the world is a NIMBY?"

NIMBY is an acronym for Not In My Back Yard, a term used to describe people's opposition to a new development close to their place of residence. The people opposing the development are called (of course) nimbies. So if, for example, the government wants to construct a highway that will cut through a particular neighborhood, although the community as a whole stands to gain from this development, the people living in that particular neighborhood will suffer. Juggling the residents' needs with the needs of the community is a NIMBY problem.

Daniel studied these kinds of controversy generating facilities in Japan, France, and the United States, and wrote Site Fights: Divisive Facilities and Civil Society in Japan and the West to show how different governments handle these issues.

Daniel is presently completing his second book, Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery, which discusses how communities and neighborhoods rebuild after crisis. He focused on four different natural disasters: Hurricane Katrina (to which he and his family lost all their belongings); the 1923 Tokyo earthquake which leveled half the capital of Japan; the 1995 Kobe earthquake which claimed more than 6,000 lives and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which devastated Thailand, India, and Indonesia.