Schwartzie, a product
of a Chabad yeshiva and still a devoted follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's
teachings, ventures where no rabbi has gone before. A onetime bongo-thumping
Greenwich Village beatnik, he frequents rock concerts -- flowing beard,
yarmulke, Mickey Mouse suspenders, leather thongs and all -- and will on
occasion lace a wedding ceremony with lyrics from the Grateful Dead's
repertoire.
He hardly ever
wears a jacket, but will extract from his ample pants pockets a cell phone,
beeper and electronic address file.
One of his oddest
venues is the
Venice Beach boardwalk
-- the haunt of rollerbladers, muscle builders, incense peddlers and
tourists gaping at the weird Los Angeles scene.
Every other Sunday,
Schwartz sets up a folding table at his usual spot and affixes a prominent
"Jewish Astrology!" placard. Then, surrounded by books and calendars, he
practices his craft through a method of his own devising.
The basic data and
tools for his "kosher horoscope" are the client's birth date, according to
the Hebrew calendar ("Some 95 percent of Jews, even religious ones and
Israelis, don't know their Jewish birth date," he says); the appropriate
Torah portion for the birth date; the numerical equivalent of the letters in
his or her Hebrew name; the Tanya, the classical text of Chassidic
mysticism; and thoughts for the day by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
Schwartz doesn't
claim to be a psychic and he doesn't predict the future. "I try to tell
people who they are, their essence, and through that identify their
potential and how they can realize it.
"I started this
astrology as a shtik, a hook, but I've been blown away by how often I hit
the mark," he says.
Schwartz's
unorthodox approach and style is based on the simple premise that if Jews,
especially the younger generation, won't go to synagogues or join Jewish
organizations, then he has to go where they normally gather, or provide a
setting in which they feel comfortable.
The 52-year-old
Schwartz was born in Atlantic City, N.J., the son of a "Conservadox" cantor,
who had fled Vienna in 1939. The father disliked all Chassidic movements
with a passion, and when his only son decided to become a Lubavitcher
disciple, the father turned his back on Shlomo, predicting "you'll be a
bum."
After rabbinical
studies, including two years at Kfar Chabad in Israel in the late 1960s,
Schwartz found his natural calling at UCLA's Chabad House, the first of its
kind at any American university.
He quickly became a
highly visible campus figure, setting up his stand on the main student
thoroughfare, next to the Moonies and Jews for Jesus.
Soon he was dragging startled students into his mobile
Succah on wheels
to wave palm fronds, engaging a seven-piece rock band for a
Purim party and
buttonholing anyone he suspected of being a Jew.
"I could identify
nine out of 10 students as Jews just by their looks," he says. "The other
one was either Armenian or Italian."
He left his campus
post after 13 years, when his unconventional methods got to be a bit much
for his superiors. "I am still a Lubavitcher in my heart," he reflects, "but
by no longer being an official Chabad representative, I figured I could do
even more outrageous things."
Left with no job,
but with a wife and 10 children (the number has now swelled to 12), Shlomo
and Olivia Schwartz founded the CHAI Center nine years ago. The name stands
for "life" in Hebrew, but doubles as an acronym for "Center for Happiness &
Awesome Insights."
His business card
further identifies the CHAI Center as "A Very Non-Profit Organization," and
he conducts his far-flung operations on a budget of $400,000 a year. About a
third of that sum is raised at an annual banquet, and for the rest he relies
on donations for officiating at
life-cycle events, sale of Chai (in Hebrew
letters) baseball caps, and the skills of the center's executive director,
his 28-year-old son, Mendel.
Schwartzie has the
last word. "I've been called a Reform Chassid and God's court jester, but
whatever the label, I do believe that to bring Jews back into the fold one
must serve God with joy."
