Real Team Work is Chabad-Style Jewish Solidarity

Editor’s note: Alan Veingrad, a former professional football player of 1992 Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl championship fame, speaks about professional teamwork. After experiencing the Jewish “teamwork” fostered by the worldwide Chabad movement under the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s leadership, Mr. Veingrad is now of the opinion that the best football teams in NFL history can learn a thing or two from the “Lauderdale Chabadniks.”

My father passed away suddenly this past March 4, 2005 (23rd of Adar I, 5765). Being Baal Teshuva for less than a year, I was unaware of, and amazed by, the power that a Jewish community offers when it pulls together like a team. Having played football for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, I have experienced professional teamwork first hand, but the Chabad community of downtown Fort Lauderdale elevated this concept called “teamwork” to a whole different level, which should, more fittingly be called “solidarity.”

When I arrived at the hospital emergency room, the Doctor immediately rushed me into the cubicle where my father had just passed away. As the doctor began explaining how my father died, I recall asking him to please allow me a moment to catch my breath. I was in shock; all I could do was walk around in solitude outside the hospital. After 40 years of being virtually estranged from my father, we had built a beautiful close relationship, and now he was gone.

At that very moment my palm pilot/cell phone began to vibrate. Expecting that it was my brother and mother arriving at the hospital, I reached into my pocket and saw that it was an email newsletter from the “Daily Dose” at Chabad.org. The title quickly caught my attention: “Be a rock." As I sat outside the hospital on a bench crying and awaiting the arrival of my older brother and my mother, I read the email, which provided me with great comfort and much needed strength. The message was for me to be “a rock” for my family and myself.

Soon after my family arrived, I called Rabbi Kaplan who dropped what he was doing and set off immediately to be with me. The first question I asked my Rabbi when he arrived at the hospital was, “What do I need to do?” The Rabbi responded with, “Everything will be taken care of.” This was the first time I had ever lost someone for whom it was my responsibility to sit Shiva.

Then I asked Rabbi Kaplan, “What prayers should I say? Should I start reading Tehillim? Are there any special mourners’ prayers, etc?” The Rabbi responded with a steady reassuring voice, “Shlomo, there is nothing for you to do right now.”

My mother, being more experienced with such matters, informed me that my home would be the Shiva house and that I had much to prepare for, i.e. bridge tables, chairs, food, coffee, cake, fruit, etc. I turned to my Rabbi again and asked him, “What do I need to do? Do I need to order food for my home? I will need tables, chairs, food, cake and coffee. I will have to say Kaddish in our humble little one-year-old Jewish Community of Downtown Ft. Lauderdale. How is this possible?”

The Rabbi responded again with the same steadfastness, “Shlomo, there is nothing for you to do. Everything will be taking care of.” I was not sure the Rabbi heard me, I wasn't sure if he understood how many people loved my father, how many great friends my brother and I have who would be paying their respects.

With the Rabbi’s assurances, I started to think that he had everything well in hand, like a great coach upon whom all teammates can rely. I played for two of the greatest football teams in NFL history, the Green Bay Packers of 1989, which won 10 games after many years of losing seasons, and the Dallas Cowboys of 1992, which had a 16-3 record with the final game being a big win in the Super Bowl XXVII. The Cowboys had great football players that year and teamwork was the reason why I have a Super Bowl ring. However, all of these great football memories pale by comparison to the “team players” of that little Chabad house in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

After the funeral I went back to my house, as my Rabbi suggested, to mourn the loss of my father, and gave no thought to any preparation. As Rabbi Kaplan instructed, I read the Halachah for a mourner and did not even think about food, chairs, tables or anything else. My new Jewish friends took care of everything. How was this little community on the eastside of Ft. Lauderdale, which is barely able to make a Minyan on Shabbat, going to pull together 10 men for Shacharit, Minchah and Maariv so I could say Kaddish for an entire week? Nonetheless it happened – all of it. It was as if my humble little home just steps to Downtown Ft. Lauderdale, was transformed into a Shul, a restaurant and a place for me and my family to mourn. The traffic was so overwhelming that my neighbors stopped by daily asking me to keep the visiting cars off their front yards. They had no idea what was happening. This was teamwork in the form of Jewish solidarity! This was awesome, Jews helping Jews.

Every week we read the Torah, and each and every week we learn that the mitzvah of reaching out to and supporting other Jews is what our forefathers passed down to us more than four thousand years ago. My father was not a religious man, but thank G-d he spent more time in Shul over the last few months than he did in all the years of his life. Over the past year I had invited my dad to the Shul for a community Shabbaton and for Rosh Hashanah. For seven weeks in a row prior to his passing he was there for every Shabbat. He would walk right in and begin the daily rituals as though he had been going to Shul for all of his life. How proud he was to be there, and that I was there with him. In fact, he told me that he was more proud of me wearing a yarmulke than he was when I wore a football helmet.

My former teams are the best in the NFL and although we all can learn about being a team player in life from football, if you really want to see what teamwork is all about, go take a look at Rabbi Kaplan and his “players” in downtown Fort Lauderdale and all of the other Shluchim world-wide who follow the ultimate “coach” of G-d’s team – the Lubavitcher Rebbe.