Rockaway Chabad to add schools and a ritual bath

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Chabad of Northwest New Jersey broke ground Nov. 13 for its new education center on Norman Road in Rockaway. The $2 million project, expected to be completed within the year, will include a mikva, or ritual bath, a first for northwest New Jersey.

The community has outgrown its original building on Torah Way in Rockaway, according to Rabbi Asher Herson, regional director of the Chabad Center.

“Right now we have a preschool, a Hebrew school, and a Hebrew high school, and we run adult education classes — and our current premises are not big enough,” he said.

When the building project was conceived four years ago, the focus was on the mikva. “We always wanted to have a mikva, but we had no space,” said Herson “As we brainstormed about it, it morphed over time into the concept of an educational center.”

Currently, the nearest mikvaot are in Morristown, West Orange, and Millburn, about a half hour’s drive away. “You have to be very committed to do that [drive]. I knew if we had a mikva on site, usage and interest in it would increase manifold,” said Herson.

The mikva is used most often by women who observe laws of “family purity,” which require that menstruating women immerse themselves in a ritual bath at the conclusion of their monthly cycle. The mikva is also used in conversions, to kasher pots and utensils, and by men on various occasions.

The Rockaway Chabad, established in 1988, now has 300 families who come on a regular basis to the synagogue, the school, or the adult education classes.

The 11,500-square-foot Education Center will be three stories high. The top floors will house the preschool, the religious school, and the Hebrew high school. The first floor will include two mikvaot (one for people, one for vessels), office space, a library, a small sanctuary, and a gathering area. The large sanctuary in the original building will continue to be used, and its multipurpose space will become a social hall.

While the school portion of the new building will continue to serve Rockaway and surrounding communities, the mikva is expected to serve the entire northwest New Jersey area (northern Morris and Warren counties, as well as Sussex County), where there are now four satellite Chabad communities, located in Flanders, Montville, Sparta, and Rockaway.

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnew.com.

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