KREMMLING, Colorado (population 1,402) — I have pulled over to park on the gravel at 6th and Eagle, a very indistinguished corner. Nary a person nor a moving vehicle in sight. It is perfectly quiet here. A perfect place to sit and record the elevated happenings of the past Shabbos in Vail and Sunday morning in Steamboat Springs. Elevated not because of the elevation of Vail (8,150 feet above sea level) or Steamboat (6,732 feet). No, elevated in spirit and community.
Shabbos at the Chabad of Vail with Rabbi Dovid and Doba Mintz is, to begin with, an international conclave. My wife Elaine and I came from Denver to get away to the invigorating mountain air and the incomparable Rocky Mountain views. Unplanned, we met friends from Denver (Ahron Katz), Florida (Mark and Debbie Berger), Mexico City (Rabbi and Mrs. Marcos Tousia) and tourists from Paris, Chicago, Brooklyn, Monsey, as well as locals from Vail and nearby Edwards. These were just the few we chatted with. About 70 people converged on Chabad of Vail for Shabbos last Shabbos.
I am told, the week before it was 200 people.
Jews who might not otherwise pray together do pray together at Chabad of Vail. Chasidim with peyot and shtreimel, white-shirt types, long hairs, kollel scholars, retirees, kids, formally dressed, informally dressed. Strangers meld together for the purpose of Shabbos prayer and community.
Strangers? No one is a stranger to Rabbi and Mrs. Mintz. It’s not just hello, how are you. It’s hugs, it’s smiles, it’s welcoming, it’s outreaching, jokes and a good bit of serious Torah talk, too. It’s a very lively davening.
Rabbi Mintz passionately declaims in his sermon that no Jew is “too far gone,” not worth reaching out to.
It’s a great kiddush. That term is actually a misnomer in Vail. It’s not a kiddush. It’s an elaborate meal, complete with challah, cholent, cold cuts, beautiful fruit platters, cakes, cookies, your choice of 20 brands of shnappes, fresh vegetables, you name it.
It’s a time not just to eat the Shabbos meal, but to converse, to enjoy each other’s company.
I don’t know who made it all possible, but I suspect it included Elaine Farkas who, in the kitchen on late Friday afternoon, kindly supplied us with the one item we forgot to bring with us (grape juice).
My wife and I have been coming up to Vail once a summer or so since before the Mintzes came to Vail in 2006, and we’ve watched them grow from a very small setting to a building of their own. It’s a shul but more than a shul; it includes a kids’ space, a library, a kitchen, an exercise center and, handily enough, a grocery right next door, not to mention the adjacent lodges and condos. But mostly it’s the exuberance of the Mintzes that makes everyone feel at home. That hasn’t changed.
Here is one thing that has changed: the expansiveness of the outreach. Rabbi Mintz would come north to Steamboat Springs regularly to give a Torah class, and as time passed he noticed that the area could use its own full time outreach couple. Fast forward 24 years and Rabbi Isaac and Chayah Abelsky are now that couple.
I got a call out of the blue a month ago from Rabbi Abelsky, who invited me to Steamboat Springs to evaluate a hot spring — could it serve as a kosher immersion pool?
Little did Elaine and I know that after we left Vail on Sunday morning, the drive from Vail to Steamboat Springs would rank as one of the most beautiful we have ever taken (Highway 131, accessible from Exit 157 on I-70). The terrain varies every few miles: red rock, gray rock; lush growth, sere landscape; “Finger Rock,” jutting to the sky; horses (black, golden and white) and herds (red and black), even a goat farm; flat plains, rapid ascents, steep descents; and, every few miles, a break in the panorama with an extremely small . . . I don’t know the word. Smaller than a town, even smaller than a village. McCoy, Colorado (population, 30 people). Oak Creek. Phippsburg. Topanas.
Puzzling were many of the fields alongside Highway 131 — field after field, mile after mile — that looked evenly mowed. What were these fields? Plantings? That didn’t make sense; it was summer. Then, after many miles, we saw bales of hay. Yes, these fields had been mowed, harvested for hay for the ranch animals. It looked as if nature had its own lawns.
Quixotic signs along the way:
“Cowboy hats, $6.98.”
“No cell service.” “
“Stagecoach State Park.”
“Post Office” (pointing to McCoy).
Also along the way: the Colorado River, the watershed for much of the American southwest; and, every few miles, quiet lakes, some very small and enticing; others larger. Suddenly, railroad tracks snaked through.
We made it to Steamboat Springs and met the Abelskys, who are quite new to the city. They were told, “Be prepared to be bored for two years.” That is, before Jews could be ferreted out of the woodwork, there would be little for them to do. “We’re not bored!” Rabbi Isaac told me.
Just a couple of weeks earlier, for example, the Abelskys had gathered some 70 people for a Shabbos under the stars.
They were designated to move to Steamboat because they would be a good fit. They already feel at home in their new role. As time goes on, we’ll be hearing about them, as we hear so much about their family’s impact in Aspen, South Denver, Longmont and Broomfield.
Meanwhile, that Sunday the Abelskys were hosting family from Pennsylvania. Steamboat may be much further from Denver than Vail, but Steamboat, like Vail and Aspen, has its own airport.
So it goes, another Jewish outreach center in formation.
The Abelskys have already absorbed the spirit of their home city. Rabbi Abelsky contrasts Steamboat with Vail. Vail, he says, is a resort. Steamboat is a community. People want to be there, although, to be sure, when ski season departs so do many skiers. But a community remains. The Abelskys embrace it.
Up and down the hills, then across the miles of flatland, ranches, beautiful horses and calm cattle grazing in wide ranges — it all conveyed the peace and the attraction of living on the land, and of living from the land, far from the city and its noise and cramped spaces. We city slickers may think that the folks out there on the prairie are rubes or some such. Maybe, the joke’s on us.
© IJN 2025
