Ask the Rabbi: Meaningful Chats and Viral Moments on the Beltline

On any given morning, the Atlanta Beltline moves the way most city trails do — runners with earbuds, dog walkers, cyclists cutting through. Just off the pavement in the Old Fourth Ward, though, something stops people mid-stride: a cart, a bearded rabbi, and a small sign.

Rabbi Leivy Lapidus has been wheeling that cart out for a few years now. He sets it up with a sign that reads “Ask the Rabbi,” puts out whatever fits the season — water bottles, granola bars, Chanukah gelt — and waits.

The Beltline, which loops around Atlanta connecting a patchwork of neighborhoods, makes for an unlikely but fitting setting. It draws everybody — longtime residents and newcomers, secular and religious, people of every background sharing the same two miles of trail.

“People see a rabbi giving things away for free and they think, what’s the catch?” he said. “Once they realize there isn’t one, they stop — and it often leads to meaningful conversations, and sometimes even mitzvahs like tefillin or Shabbat candles.”

For years, those interactions stayed on the trail. Then a few months ago, Lapidus noticed a lawyer doing something similar nearby — sitting outside, answering legal questions, filming the exchanges and posting them. The logic was hard to argue with. People were already stopping. A phone on a small tripod changed nothing about the encounter itself, but it meant the conversation didn’t have to end when the person walked away.

Hours after news broke of the deadly antisemitic attack at a Chanukah celebration in Sydney, Australia, Rabbi Lapidus set up his stand despite the cold and a near-empty trail. “I needed to go out, do something,” he said. A man named Farook walked up, shook his hand, and said he was sorry about what happened in Sydney. When Lapidus asked if he celebrated Chanukah, Farook said he was Muslim — and offered a hug. “Brother, we’re all in this together,” Farook told him.

The video of their encounter has since been viewed more than 25 million times.

Not every interaction at the cart goes viral, but some moments stay with Rabbi Lapidus. A man stopped one afternoon and told him, “You have no idea how much comfort this brings, even to those of us who aren’t actively engaged with our Judaism.”

And it’s not limited to local impact. A man — not from Atlanta — who came across one of his videos on Instagram recently called in and shared his thoughts. “It was amazing to watch a rabbi interact with the people in his neighborhood. Right now, I think the most important thing is education, communication — get out there, speak to your neighbors, befriend them.” He had just been scrolling on social media.

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The Beltline keeps moving regardless — runners, cyclists, dog walkers. It has not been a simple few years to be visibly Jewish in America, and Rabbi Lapidus knows that as well as anyone. He brings the cart out anyway. Occasionally someone stops. Sometimes it becomes a conversation. Sometimes it becomes a moment watched by millions. And sometimes, it’s just two people on a trail, talking, trying to make the world a little bit brighter.