Nachum Shifren is a most unusual Chabad rabbi.
He helps disadvantaged high school students in Los Angeles by teaching them the joys of surfing in the Pacific Ocean.
Rabbi Shifren is the subject of an interesting Vision TV documentary, The Surfing Rabbi, which will be broadcast on June 27 at 10:30 p.m and again on June 30 at 3:30 p.m.
It is part of Vision TV’s “Extreme Clergy” series, which follows pastors, ministers, priests and rabbis as they attempt to bring social justice to their respective environments.
A lean, athletic, amiable man in his mid-40s, he considers surfing an integral component of his “holistic growth.”
Raised in a secular household, he credits surfing with drawing him into religion. “It enables you to reach beyond your limitations,” he says.
Rabbi Shifren got hooked on the popular sport after watching Gidget, the 1959 Hollywood movie starring Sandra Dee and James Darren.
“I just got completely sucked into surfing,” he says.
What he did not realize then was that Gidget, a blonde and shapely surfer, was actually modelled on a nice Jewish girl named Cathy Zuckerman, who appears briefly in The Surfing Rabbi.
The film glosses over many biographical details, never mentioning that Rabbi Shifren was born into an assimilated Jewish family in the San Fernando Valley, that he served in the Israeli army and that he lived in an Orthodox commune in Israel.
Instead, The Surfing Rabbi focuses on his association with five inner-city youths who are willing to try surfing. Four are Hispanics and one is an African American.
They live in rough neighbourhoods infested by gangs, seared by violence and a drug culture and far from the ocean.
Rabbi Shifren wants to help them by ensuring that they do not drop out of school.
On a chilly December day, he and the students travel by bus to Malibu beach, and there they encounter the majesty of the sea.
After the rabbi gives them a pep talk and a demonstration, they venture into the cold water.
And lo and behold, the waves enchant them.
“I felt the rush,” exclaims one guy.
“I felt free out there,” declares a girl.
Rabbi Shifren has obviously “converted” them and done a mitzvah.
