The words entrepreneur and CEO are ones you’ll typically find in a business story rather than one about religious life. But both terms describe Rabbi Chaim and Chavie Bruk of Bozeman, Montana. Almost 17 years ago to the day, the couple, married only a week, set out to establish a Chabad house in one of the few states without one at the time.
Fast forward to 2023, and the state now has four Chabad centers and “Yiddishkeit is booming,” shares the New York native in a recent conversation with the Intermountain Jewish News.
An operation that ran out of the Bruks’ home for 14 years has evolved into a dedicated center in 2021 with views of the Bridger Mountains and Mt. Ellis, not to mention the affiliates in Missoula (2014), Kalispell (2018) and Billings (2022). Implementing and overseeing that type of growth, Rabbi Bruk is on solid ground using those terms to describe himself.
Since 1956 the state had been served by Chabad-Lubavitch’s “Roving Rabbis” program, which sees young yeshiva students visit far-flung locales during the summer, bringing with them tefilin and other Jewish ritual objects for Jewish residents. However, it has not been since the days of gold and other mining rushes since the Big Sky state has had a fixed Orthodox presence.
That changed with the arrival of the Bruks. By 2009 a mikveh had been built, serving Jews not only in Montana but also in the Dakotas, Idaho, Wyoming and even parts of Canada. In 2010, Rabbi Bruk launched Vaad Hakashrus of Montana, providing mashgiach services to local industry.
Rabbi Bruk’s entrepreneurship has local and even global impact. He sees kosher certification as a win-win-win — for larger agencies, local Jewish institutional life and Montana businesses.
Often Rabbi Bruk works in concert with larger agencies, such as OK, Star K, Scroll K and even OU. Having a person on the ground in Montana means that when an issue arises, an agency doesn’t have to send out a mashgiach but instead can contract Rabbi Bruk to investigate.
Rabbi Bruk also provides hashgacha to plants and is available to oversee changes in production lines or introduction of new machinery. What that means for a local company is that production doesn’t need to stop while waiting for personnel from the East Coast or elsewhere in the country. Rabbi Bruk can be on site in four or five hours. Montana is a huge state, but a few hours is still far quicker than flying someone out.
For complex issues, he says, such as those involving meat and dairy, he will recommend a larger agency. But for non-perishable products — grains, legumes and tea, for example — Vaad HaKashrus of Montana, which is recognized by the Association of Kashrus Organizations (AKO), can provide hashgacha from start to finish.
Providing certification opens up markets for Montana businesses, says Rabbi Bruk.
One example: An Israeli rabbi contacted him before Pesach with a question. One of the plants that Vaad HaKashrus of Montana certifies produces chickpeas. Could Rabbi Bruk oversee a chickpea for a kosher-for-Passover run? An Israeli company was looking for a chickpea supplier to make kosher-for-Passover hummus for Sephardim who are permitted to eat kitniyot. Rabbi Bruk took it on — a complex process that must ensure there is no cross contamination of the chickpeas with any of the five forbidden grains, from production through to transportation.
“It continues to this very day,” says Rabbi Bruk. “You have a company in Montana providing a product to Jews in Israel from Montana.”
That opened the eyes of Montana businesses, says Rabbi Bruk. “If I can get kosher certified, what does that mean as far as getting my product all the way to, as far as Israel?” Having a local rabbi who is not only accessible but also wants to see Montana companies succeed, helps that along, he said.
“The primary focus is to make sure that everything is 100% kosher,” he says. “But a secondary focus is that I as a rabbi want to see Montanans do well. I want to see their businesses grow. If I can help them get their product to markets that they never thought they would end up in, it’s a bonus.
“There’s nothing more that a rabbi wants, or that a community leader wants, than to see the people in the community, both Jew and gentile, succeed.”
An entrepreneur is defined as someone who identifies a need that no existing business addresses and determines a solution for it. Another aspect: willingness to take risks to achieve that end. While Chabad of Montana is not a business in the traditional sense, the qualities of risk taking and identifying needs certainly apply to the Bruks.
The young couple arrived in Montana with a little training, a lot of passion and the blessing of Rabbi Yehudah Krinsky, one of Chabad-Lubavitch’s leaders. Most of the training, says Rabbi Bruk, came in the form of being a “Roving Rabbi” as well as summer jobs at the Chabad center in Oklahoma City.
But there is no fixed training to be a Chabad shaliach, or emissary.
“It’s on the shaliach to use his or her own personality,” he says. “There’s no carbon copy. Because Bozeman is not Denver and Oklahoma City is not San Antonio,” he said (where his wife is from, and where her parents run the Chabad center). It’s all about boots on ground. The shlichim must identify the needs, figure out where to start and build slowly. Having a rav to consult is also key, he said, calling it the “entrepreneurship of the system.”
An entrepreneur also typically exhibits initiative — and that is certainly true of a Chabad couple starting up a new center. Many skills must be acquired, from leining (chanting) the Torah, blowing shofar, learning tahara and, in the case of Rabbi Bruk, hashgacha. Almost all of this, he says, he learned on the job, calling that “the best way to learn.”
It’s an ongoing apprenticeship in Jewish ritual life, “endlessly faceted,” he says. “To succeed in 2023 you have to be open and willing to expand your activities to a wide variety of things.”
A typical day, he relates, could see him texting people for the minyan for Friday while he’s running to the hospital, while he’s picking up the guest speaker at the airport while he’s dealing with a septic tank backup while he’s taking his kids to school while he’s running to the grocery store because his wife is cooking for an extra 17 guest that just showed up for Shabbos. Phew!
“Nobody said it would be easy,” says Rabbi Bruk, but his and his wife’s dedication has borne success — evident not only in the new Chabad centers and the Vaad HaKashrus but, most recently, in formalizing a chevra kadisha.
People in his position must ensure that they do not burnout, he cautioned. “We need self care,” he says, which can include individual and marital counselling as well as hitbonenus, or meditation.
“We need to make sure that we are spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically sane and in a good place so that we can do our job for the betterment of Klal Yisrael in the best way.”
This is the life the Bruks wanted, “to go out there and change the world.
“We knew that we were getting into this for the bigger picture.” He and his wife believe they have inspired other Chabad houses opening up in smaller communities. “If you could do it in Bozeman, then I guess you could do it in Sioux Falls, or Fargo, or Colonna, British Columbia.”
Much like the pioneers of the mining days, Rabbi Bruk and his wife set out for an unknown territory, eager to plant roots and see a community flourish. Seventeen years later, this entrepreneuring couple is bringing Jewish life to the Big Sky state, one city at a time.
Copyright © 2023 by the Intermountain Jewish News