Family Album / A weekly profile of a family--its history, joys and trials. The Cunins : L’Chaim: A Devotion ‘to Life’ : A Hasidic rabbi and his extended clan are steadfast in their commitment to their religion, to community service and to each other.
The family--about 35, including an infant in arms--is celebrating the birthday of its patriarch. It could be any Westside family, except: The men sit on one side of the long table, the women on the other. The little girls wear long dresses; the little boys’ hair is cropped short, save for long curls in front of their ears. And the men have abundant beards.
These are Hasidic Jews. In a city where materialistic values and secular temptations abound, they cling as a family to traditions and teachings that date from 300 years ago in Eastern Europe.
Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin, 59, the birthday celebrant, sits at the head of the table, his wife, Miriam, at his left. “Who’s going to do the Torah?” he asks, and a gaggle of children comes forward, eager to recite a passage they have memorized for the occasion from the Jewish Bible.
Platters of kosher chicken, pasta and salad are cleared and, as the cake is brought in, everyone sings “Happy Birthday,” first in English, then in Hebrew. The rabbi looks around the table, smiles and says, “The biggest birthday present is all of you--family.”
A Family-Centered Spiritual Path
Sanctity of the family unit is a major precept of Hasidic Judaism and of those who, like the Cunins, are followers of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.
“Raising children is more important than being prime minister of the state of Israel,” says the rabbi. Today, he adds, too many children “are raised by a series of nannies and baby-sitters you wouldn’t let take care of your dog.”
The rabbi, who is West Coast director of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, and his wife were both reared in the Hasidic tradition. They married in 1965 in New York and soon after moved to California, tapped by the Lubavitchers’ rebbe (spiritual leader) in Brooklyn to spread the message.
Rabbi Cunin established the first Chabad House in the world, close by the UCLA campus. Today, it is both West Coast headquarters and a place where those in need may come for succor ranging from a hot meal to a student loan. Under his leadership, Chabad has reached out to the larger community with nonsectarian programs including a homeless shelter, immigration assistance and a drug rehabilitation center.
The rabbi, a third-generation American born in the Bronx, recalls being invited soon after his arrival in Los Angeles to speak at a Reform temple. At the time, a Lubavitcher in Los Angeles was rare indeed. As Rabbi Cunin remembers it, the temple rabbi introduced Cunin by saying: “I don’t know how much English he speaks. Enjoy and take a good look. This is a vanishing breed.”
A great storyteller, Rabbi Cunin relishes telling that one. “Today,” he says, “we’re hanging on every lamppost all across the city and over the freeways.” The reference is to the “L’Chaim--To Life” banners promoting Chabad’s 19th national fund-raising telethon, which will air on KCOP-TV from 5 p.m. to midnight today.
Giving Succor to Those in Need
The event, which will feature stars including Anthony Hopkins, Steve Allen, Sid Caesar and Jon Voight, has over the years raised millions of dollars in support of Chabad’s social service outreach and given Chabad a presence with a capital P.
Still, most non-Jews know little about Hasidism except what they’ve gleaned from films such as “Yentl” or “Fiddler on the Roof.” Both, Hasidic Jews are quick to say, are Hasidism-a-la-Hollywood. But to outsiders, there is something rather 19th century about Hasidism. Don’t they believe in arranged marriages? Aren’t the women second-class citizens?
No, and no, say several generations of Cunins, men and women, regarding their family. This is a big family--the Cunins had 13 children, six boys and seven girls, who range in age from 10 to 33. All six men are now rabbis, spreading the Chabad message in the Southland. The three married daughters have wed rabbis; the other four daughters are in school. There are 26 grandchildren.
Miriam, the matriarch, is a slender woman with a calming manner that has served her well in bringing up 13 children, 10 of whom were at home at one time. For three years, she coped alone while her husband was on a mission to Russia.
It is a role she treasures. She talks about daughter Geula Brocho, who is studying at a seminary in Australia. It is not a rabbinical seminary--Hasidic Jews do not permit women to become rabbis--but a seminar for rebbetzin, or female spiritual leaders. Asked what Geula Brocho will do upon graduation, she says, “She’ll be able to raise children properly.”
As a rebbetzin, Miriam, 53, conducts seminars on Jewish issues, teaches Torah classes and tries to “lend a good ear” to women in the Hasidic community. That might mean counseling a woman referred by her husband or preparing a young girl for marriage. None of the women in this family work outside of the movement, though that is not forbidden.
The Cunins’ eldest child, Channa Hecht, 33, wife of Boruch, a Chabad rabbi in Brentwood, is asked how many children they have. “We don’t count them,” she says. “They say there should be as many as the stars.” (There are seven.)
Like all of the women at the birthday celebration, she is modestly dressed, in a long-sleeved blouse and knee-covering skirt, as dictated by her faith. She says, “A Jewish girl is a daughter of a king. She likes dressing this way. When you have a tradition, it’s something that’s always in style.”
Just as the women must dress modestly so as not to present temptations of the flesh, only married couples are permitted to touch. There are no handshakes exchanged between the sexes. Even among married couples, public displays of affection are frowned upon.
“Hasidic are regular people,” says Rabbi Cunin. “You have better marriages, worse marriages.” And because this is a tight-knit community--though dispersed from Malibu to Orange County--men and women who have known each other since childhood frequently end up marrying.
His son, Rabbi Levi Cunin, 28, laughs and says, “People think we meet our wives only three times before marrying.”
Though marriages aren’t arranged, courtship is by societal standards rather quaint. Couples are not supposed to so much as hold hands, and the first kiss is to be exchanged only after marriage. Does the younger generation cheat? “By and large, I think not,” says the elder Rabbi Cunin. “There would be a loss of respect.”
His son, Rabbi Chaim Cunin, 25, met his wife, Tova, 20, a soft-spoken woman who was raised Hasidic in Ottawa, through a cousin. They married in March. On a woman’s role, Tova says: “The Bible actually puts a very high status on the women. They mold the house. We’re not at all inferior.”
As for women sitting apart at religious services, Tova says, “It’s just easier to concentrate” without distractions. “It’s time for God.”
Hasidic families are more stable than the American norm. Although the Torah provides for divorce if there are irreconcilable differences, it is strongly discouraged. And the birth rate is high--birth control and abortion are allowed only for reasons of the woman’s health. Each child is viewed as a ray of light and, Hasidim contend, the world can accommodate all of them if people live more simply.
Rabbi Levi’s wife, Sarah, mother of three, says, “Our main thing is the education of our children.”
This fall, she will be director of a new Chabad preschool in Malibu, where Tova will teach. In Chabad schools on the West Coast, 2,800 children are learning Hebrew as well as computer science--boys and girls separately. Says the elder Rabbi Cunin, “It’s becoming quite clear what we’ve known through history. Boys and girls learn better without the competition.”
Hasidic men are easily recognizable by their somber garb. “We don’t want to blend in,” says Rabbi Levi, who heads the Chabad center in Malibu.
Even in the wake of the shootings at the Jewish day camp in Granada Hills, which is not a Chabad center, he says he is not fearful. “I’ve never ever been afraid of being Jewish.”
Rabbi Chaim, who edits the Chabad magazine, Farbrengen (Yiddish for “a joyful gathering of the faithful”), adds, “We can’t live our lives in fear. One of the precepts of Judaism is to be happy. When you’re faced with evil, don’t give it any credibility. Do something good.”
The day of the shootings, children in Chabad day camps citywide were gathered to pray. “We don’t trust in miracles,” says the elder Rabbi Cunin. “When in trouble, we recite the psalms.”
Children abound at family get-togethers, which are frequent. Chaya Mushka, 10, the elder Cunins’ youngest child, loves “the holidays, a lot of people at our house.” Although she attends a Chabad school, she has a few non-Jewish friends. When they ask about her faith, she says, inevitably they want to know “how many sisters and brothers I have.”
Both Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Chaim grew up in the duplex near UCLA where their parents still live. They grew up without television, which in their father’s view is one of the things “that destroy the American family.” Says Rabbi Levi, “Our parents wanted the children to interact, play Monopoly together, talk.”
Taking Pride in Preserving Tradition
As teens, he recalls, he and Rabbi Chaim were not forbidden to see R-rated films or attend hard-rock concerts. “We were brought up with a certain set of values. We didn’t have to go out and see the latest movie.”
And Rabbi Chaim remembers another lesson: “As kids, we were helping out at the [Chabad] drug center. We were exposed to the dangers,” an effective preventive.
Have any of the children ever rebelled against the constraints their faith imposes? “Thank God, no,” says their father, “not from a religious point of view. We’ve never had one of our kids cut off a beard” or make a similar statement. “Like any parent, we’ve had them ask, ‘Why do I have to do this?’ ”
He adds, “In a large family, it’s a buddy system. You’re trusting the older ones to teach, even discipline, the younger children.”
Miriam, their mother, acknowledges that rearing 13 children in Los Angeles while hewing to Hasidic tradition is a challenge. “Kids are always testing limits. Thank God we had the tools. . . . We have a value system, which is what makes life magnificent and beautiful.”
As in all Hasidic families, it is she who lights the ceremonial candles just before sunset on Friday, eve of the Sabbath, when the family gathers to observe the age-old ritual with prayer. She considers the Sabbath the most meaningful of Jewish observances, a time of respite when “there are no phones and you focus on the family.”
On this day, Orthodox Jews may not type, turn on an appliance or ride in a car. The Sabbath is precious to her--as a day of rest, acknowledging that God created the world in six days and on the seventh day rested, and as a celebration of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. Without knowing this history, she says, observing the Sabbath would be “like touching the goal line without running the race.”
On Friday, the women in the family will have baked the braided challah and prepared the cholent, a thick soup traditionally served at noon on Shabbat (Sabbath) day. As no cooking is permitted on the Sabbath, some families, like the Cunins, opt to keep the cholent warm overnight in a Crock-Pot.
Just as the Cunins’ children learned their values from their parents--”They led us by example,” says Rabbi Chaim--they will pass on to their children these values and the Hasidic teachings.
Says Miriam, “Our guideline is the Torah. The first thing we do in the morning is thank God for another day.”
* Beverly Beyette can be reached at beverly.beyette@latimes.com.
* For more information, e-mail rabbicunin@hotmail.com.