Was I fooling myself, confusing the buzz of an inhabited fantasy with the voice of a soul? And what was I doing in this congregation of hasidim, who pledged their orthodox devotion to this law in fervent kisses? How could I ever have considered the narrowness and prejudice of this life in any way superior to the freedom of the "real world"?

I resolved to leave as soon as the Torah service ended. But my plans were changed when a man sat down on the bench to my left, turned and spoke to me.

"Are you new here? What's your name?"

I told him my name, and he told me his, and then he said, "Do you know much about this congregation?"

"A little," I answered.

"If you'd like," he said, "I can introduce you to the Rebbe after the service." He gestured toward the old man in the chair. "You know that that's the Bostoner Rebbe?"

Just then, a man who had been shuttling back and forth among the rows throughout the service approached me and asked, "Do you want gleela?"

"All right," I answered. He was asking if I would like the honor of wrapping the Torah scroll back up in its cloth after the reading was through. My new friend nodded his approval, and I followed the honor-giver up to the bimah. I became preoccupied with getting the task done right, and forgot about leaving. I didn't want to seem a clumsy heretic in front of these hasidim. As I fumbled with the material, I heard the other men on the bimah chatting and laughing among themselves. It was not at my expense; they were simply using the excuse of this slight pause to relax and enjoy each other's company. As I covered up the white parchment, listening to their voices, I felt as if I were perceiving the mundane stitches in what I had taken to be a purely ethereal fabric.

After the service, the congregation thronged down to a basement room for kiddush, the blessing of wine and light snack that follows prayers on Shabbos. Here the women were visible, though they sat apart from the men, and the boys and girls ran among the chairs and tables, playing games. The Rebbe sat at the head table, flanked by his son and another impressive looking hasid. When all were assembled, the Rebbe rose and muttered the blessings in an energetic, high-pitched tone, and we all dug into the cake, kugel, and whiskey arrayed at our tables.

The Rebbe rose again to make a short speech, praising the generosity of the man who had sponsored the kiddush and then led the room in a zemira (Shabbos song.) The hasidim, even his own son, seemed to greet his efforts with a kind of indulgence. I did see someone pick up the Rebbe's abandoned plate of kugel and distribute it among a select group of hasidim, and I wondered if this practice, once an expression of fervent devotion, had not devolved into a habitual custom. Still, I was excited when I was told it was time to make my introductions.

I first met the Rebbe's son, the active leader of Beit Pinchos, who shook my hand with quick indifference and went on about his business. Then I was taken over to the Rebbe, who was still seated beside his table. The weary look I had seen on his face upstairs was gone, and replaced by a relaxed expression of ease and pleasure. He looked up at me pleasantly, and shook my hand as my host informed him I was a young man visiting for the first time.

"What's your name?" he asked me. He spoke quickly in a round, bubbly voice, and his accent was distinctly Judeo-American. I told him my name.

"We have a man by that name on the board. How do you spell it?"

I told him how I spelled my last name.

"You spell it wrong," he said to me, with a deep smile spreading across his face. As I looked at his loose, black-clothed form, his white beard, his shtreimel, and the smile on his face and in his eyes, I felt a kind of giddiness rising up inside of me. I felt like I was being tickled.

"You are welcome here today," he said, "and you are welcome to come back anytime."

"If he comes back again, it will be a chazzak, and we can announce him from the bimah," said my introducer, suggesting with the Hebrew word meaning "strengthening" that a further visit would symbolize my increasing engagement with the community.

The Rebbe gestured toward his own heart, and said, "That he is here today, that itself is a chazzak," and with that we said our good-byes.

And as I walked home, the old question still echoed in my mind, "What can you expect from a Bostoner Rebbe?"