Chabadnik on Rollerblades: Shmuel Darshan’s Unique Approach to Outreach

Meeting a Chabadnik who asks to put on tefillin might not be rare, but when Shmuel Darshan does it on rollerblades and documents the activity for TikTok, it looks completely different. This is not the only reason why the videos of 23-year-old Darshan are exciting the web, but his special approach to passersby: those who refuse to put on tefillin receive a surprising offer from him for a warm hug. "The point is to remove the imaginary separation that exists between us," he explains in an interview with C14 about his mission.

From the Yeshiva to the street – and back

Darshan's journey began in a Chabad house, but at the age of 14, he experienced a crisis following abuse he suffered from one of the educators and began to distance himself from the yeshiva and religion. "I was a good Hasidic boy, very influenced by the Hasidic aspect," he says about those years, "but the moment I stopped influencing my environment, I started being influenced by it." The deterioration was rapid and led him to street life and drug use from the age of 15. The kippah came off, earrings were added, and he found himself very far from the world in which he grew up, trying to escape his inner distress in various ways.

Rehabilitation that became a mission on wheels

After a period in the USA and attempts to start businesses that did not succeed, he realized he had to stop the snowball effect. About a year and a half ago, Darshan arrived at the "Retorno" rehabilitation community, where he underwent an intensive rehabilitation process that lasted over a year. "Physical cleansing is short, but cleansing emotional dependency is work that took time." Only after he finished the year in the community and moved to a yeshiva in Jerusalem did the idea of opening the TikTok page come up.

For years, people told Shmuel that his energy was suitable for the web, but he testifies that he never really believed in himself enough to open an active page. His original idea was to combine extreme videos of fast skating with words of Torah and Hasidic stories in the background, with the goal of "catching a person's eye and dripping divinity into their ear."

"A little light drives away a lot of darkness"

The reactions on social networks surprise even him with their intensity, and according to him, almost 99% of them are positive and overwhelmingly supportive. "A little light drives away a lot of darkness," he explains, "if you see only light, there is no room there for any other desire." Even when he encounters isolated and less favorable comments, he chooses not to be hurt and to see them as another point of view. He makes sure to respond to his followers in the comments and emphasize that he is not the main thing in the story, but the shared power of everyone. "I respond to people and tell them that together we are a force," he notes, "I am not special, I just believe in the good of a person and try to create something sweeping here."

Darshan admits that the encounter in front of the camera poses a difficult challenge of authenticity for him. He shares that without the camera, it is much easier for him to be himself, and the documentation sometimes makes him feel the need to be "politically correct" and less uninhibited. At the same time, he understands the power of the social network and seeks to use it to grow a real community that believes in unconditional love for Israel. He emphasizes that "the success is not in my power but in the power of the Sender, the Rebbe of Lubavitch," and his aspiration is to use the exposure to promote meetings and joint studies. "I understood that the point is unconditional love," he concludes, "I am trying to raise a movement here that everyone believes in, from all walks of life."