In the Denver Tech Center, slightly west of I-25 on Belleview, a passerby can get a glimpse of the strangest playground you’ve ever seen. The climbing structures, often in the shape of animals, are in this case a large mushroom, a larger watermelon, and an even larger avocado.
Yes, an avocado.
It’s not only a place for kids to play. It’s the theme of Rabbi Avraham Mintz’s outlook on life and the rabbinate.
“It’s G-d’s garden,” says Mintz. “Every person is a flower. My blessing is that I’m grateful every day that I can be one of the many gardeners to bring and help grow this beauty.”
Mintz and his wife Hindy founded Chabad South Metro Denver in 2003 in a simple storefront off County Line Rd. The five-acre flagship school in Greenwood Village that opened in 2019 is bursting with campers, and is the partner piece to the organization’s 6,000 sq. ft. sanctuary and teaching space in Lone Tree.
“It is unbelievable how much we have grown,” says Mintz. “We have been fortunate and very blessed, because when we started, we really felt like this was a small garden.
“When you open up a newspaper, sometimes the world looks like a jungle. There’s pain and suffering, and war. It was engraved into my mind early that the world really is G-d’s garden, and we need to nurture it.”
Mintz grew up in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. He became a Torah reader at area synagogues after his Bar Mitzvah. When he was 16, Mintz pledged to his family that he would conduct Pesach services for any shul that needed one, wherever.
Wherever led Mintz, as an 18-year-old, to lead services in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine.
“I didn’t know a word of the language, but luckily the older ones there understood Yiddish,” says Mintz.
He followed that up the next year in Kathmandu, Nepal. Mintz claims that to be the largest seder ever, with over 1,200 attendees.
“It was mostly 90% transplanted Israelis who wanted a place to go, because it was too expensive to get to the US,” says Mintz. “There were a lot of backpackers.”
Mintz, now 43, speaks rapidly. It is obvious he is in constant search for The Next Big Outreach Opportunity.
When he was in 10th grade, Mintz read the megillah at New York’s famed Sing Sing prison.
Talk about a nerve-racking proposition.
“Somebody came to yeshiva and said they need volunteers to read the megillah,” Mintz remembers. “I was a yeshiva boy in Brooklyn; I had no idea what Sing Sing was. I thought it was an old age home.”
The service went well; Mintz recalls that the inmates were attentive.
One catch, though: arriving on a Friday afternoon made it impossible to travel back to Brooklyn before sundown. Your friendly soon-to-be-rabbi spent the night in a prison cell.
Now Mintz is the prison chaplain at FCI Englewood, a federal correctional institution.
“These are mostly forgotten people,” says Mintz. “It’s not my place to judge or whatever. They’re people who appreciate that somebody cares for them.
“We’re not there to step on each other. We’re there to grow together. That’s how redemption comes.”
In 2011, Mintz debuted the Friendship Circle, a network of 200 volunteers that become buddies for a year with children who have special needs.
“The idea is to provide good, old-fashioned friendship, which is so important,” says Mintz. “We’ve had parents and families tell us that our program has succeeded just by meeting once a week.
“Now we have kids who are in college and post college who still keep in touch with that special needs friend.”
While the shingles in Greenwood Village and Lone Tree may read Chabad South Metro Denver, Mintz will accommodate any denomination, and any age. Mintz doesn’t have a defined membership list, though he says the organization’s email blasts reach over 3,200. The Hebrew school has over 140 students, and adult education classes have 70 regular attendees. Shabbat services include approximately 100 congregants.
“We have a family service, and we want everyone to feel comfortable,” says Mintz. “There are always kids running around. People sometimes aren’t used to that; as long as the sounds are sounds of laughter, doing what kids do, that’s great.”
While some summer camps in the Denver metro area have faced smaller attendance than in years past, Mintz’ Camp Gan Izzy is packed with 275 kids. He says it is the largest Jewish camp in Colorado.
“Our school is called ‘the Garden School,’’’ says Mintz. “The name goes back to what was ingrained in my mind as a kid about being G-d’s guardian.”
In his brightly lit office in Englewood, Mintz, a father of eight, ranging from 19 years old to seven months, monitors the comings and goings of every parent, every child. His office door is always open, so that the ever present laughter is within earshot.
“I read that children should be seen and not heard,” Mintz says.
“I don’t believe that.”
“In the garden,” Mintz continues, with a familiar refrain, “some flowers need more than others. The children are ones who need more sunlight, more water, more love, more compassion. But everyone in their own way needs as much as they can get.”
“I’m glad we’re here for them.”
More from “The Rabbi Replies” series: Rabbi Iah Pillsbury, Temple Beit Torah (Colorado Springs); Rabbi Shmuel Halpern, DAT Minyan; Rabbi Kim Harris, B’nai Chaim (Morrison); Rabbi Jay Sherwood, Temple Shalom (Colorado Springs); Rabbi Marc Soloway, Bonai Shalom (Boulder); Rabbi Fred Greene, Har HaShem (Boulder); Rabbi Yaakov Chaitovsky, BMH-BJ; Rabbi Boaz Heilman, B’nai Torah (Westminster); Rabbi Emily Hyatt, Temple Emanuel Denver; Rabbi Yisroel Engel, Bais Menachem; Rabbi Richard Rheins, Temple Sinai and Rabbi Menachem Siderson, Aish of the Rockies.
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