Journeys of the Soul

The state of Idaho is not a place where one would expect to find many Jews, but that hasn’t stopped Chabad Rabbi Mendel Lifshitz and his wife Esther. They moved to Boise, Idaho five and a half years ago with the goal of building up the local Jewish community. When they arrived, they were greeted by fields upon fields of potatoes, but little else. The state had only a single synagogue, a Reform congregation, but virtually no other organized Jewish community resources. However that’s exactly the environment that the Lifshitzes were looking for.

“I was working as a rabbi in Bal Harbor, Florida when we got married. Esther and I decided we wanted to do something special for other Yidden and help them,” Rabbi Lifshitz said. “I was doing kiruv work out there and helping them, I was very involved, but I realized as much as we were doing, we wanted to be in a place where we were really needed.

“In Florida or New York, rabbis are a dime a dozen. There are plenty of Jews that need to be reached out to, but we wanted to be in place where there’s not much going on and our presence would be crucial. We started looking into different options through Chabad. The name Idaho came up. The first time it came up, we didn’t know what to make of it. People hear Idaho and think of potatoes, not Jews.”

The Lifshitzes took an exploratory trip to Idaho to gauge whether they could make it work. They traveled the state, met with the few Jews they could find, and scoped out the Jewish resources. The low cost of living has attracted newcomers and even major corporations to the state over the last several years, and handfuls of Jews have been moving in. The Lifshitzes decided that Idaho was exactly what they were looking for. So immediately after Pesach, they packed up their bags and moved out west.

As soon as the Lifshitzes arrived, they began looking to meet local Jews. One day, Rabbi Lifshitz walked into a local office to meet a Jewish man whom he had heard worked there. Suddenly the man burst out of his office with a look of horror on his face. When he was told by the receptionist that a Rabbi had come to see him, he immediately assumed that there had been a death in his family, because he didn’t know any other reason why a rabbi would be visiting him!

Another time, Rabbi Lifshitz was shopping in a supermarket in Boise with his son. The two were speaking to each other in Yiddish when a man approached them. He introduced himself and said he was also Jewish. He had read an article about Rabbi Lifshitz in the local paper. The man said he grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in California and had moved from there to Idaho three years earlier. Having not heard Yiddish in years, his ears perked up when he heard it. Rabbi Lifshitz schmoozed with him and invited him for Shabbat dinner. The man took him up on his offer several weeks later.

“You never know what type of yid a person is and what will inspire him,” Rabbi Lifshitz said. “He’s looking for chicken soup and kneidilach, but his neshama is looking for a connection to Yiddishkeit.”

The Lifshitzes had several such experiences of Jews coming out of the woodwork to introduce themselves, but it was difficult when they first arrived. The challenge was compounded by the fact that Esther gave birth to a baby boy soon after they moved in and they were making a bris. They needed to invite ten Jews to the bris to make a minyan, but how could they go about finding them?

Their challenge was solved just in time, literally by a knock on the door. Rabbi Lifshitz opened the door, to find the local mailman hand-delivering his mail. The Lifshitz’s house had a mailbox by the street, but the mailman decided to bring the mail to the door to welcome the new family to Idaho.

The mailman stuck out his hand and introduced himself.

“I’m Hershel the mailman.”

Rabbi Lifshitz was too shocked to answer.

“Your name is really Hershel?” Rabbi Lifshitz finally stammered. “I’m Mendel. I wasn’t expecting to find a Hershel in Idaho.”

The mailman explained that he was originally from Long Island, New York. Other than knowing that his first name was Jewish, he had little other connection to Judaism. He had grown up in a mixed-marriage home, and when he was 11 and his parents got divorced, he moved with his non-Jewish father to Idaho. After that he had no other Jewish connections until Rabbi Lifshitz arrived.

Rabbi Lifshitz points out the clear Hand of G-d present in the story. This wasn’t Hershel’s normal route as he was just filling in for another mail carrier who was on vacation that week. However he knew of other Jews in the area, which helped the Lifshitzes to gather a minyan together for the bris.

The morning of the bris arrived, and the Lifshitzes were surrounded by an unexpected group of new Jewish friends. That group has grown significantly in the few years since then, and many people have taken on new mitzvot and other observances. The Lifshitzes have also brought many new Jewish resources to the state, from kosher food to Jewish education. Now when people think of Idaho, they don’t just think of potatoes, but they think of Jews too!

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in January 2010

After the Iron Curtain was lifted in Europe twenty years ago, a surprising thing occurred – thousands of people who had been raised as gentiles came to the startling realization that they were actually Jews. Poland is home to thousands of such stories. During the Holocaust and under Communist rule, many Jews there hid their identities and continued to conceal them even after the fall of Communism. On their deathbeds, some of them have revealed their true identities to their children or grandchildren. Other people found out from old family records or through other means.

Once they discover their roots, people often turn to Rabbi Michael Schudrich, an American who has been the Chief Rabbi of Poland since 2004. Rabbi Schudrich has been the guide for multitudes of Jews to return to Torah Judaism. They turn to him for guidance and direction, and he tries to help them to reclaim their proud heritage that had been hidden for so many years.

Several years ago, Zbiszek, a 52 year-old man from Bialystock, came to Rabbi Schudrich’s office in Warsaw. Zbiszek told him that his mother had passed away four months earlier. Following the funeral, Zbiszek was approached by several neighbors who told him astonishing news - this woman who had raised him, whom he knew to be his mother, was not his actual biological mother.

They told Zbiszek that he had been born Jewish. In 1942, as Jews throughout Poland were being exterminated, Zbiszek’s Jewish parents gave him to the woman for adoption in case they were killed. His biological parents did not survive the Holocaust, and so the woman raised Zbiszek as her own son.

She had risked her life to save him during the war, and so she never wanted him to know the truth. She swore her neighbors to secrecy, and they dutifully remained silent for five decades. Now that she had passed away, they decided it was time to reveal the secret.

Zbiszek trembled when he first heard the news and didn’t know what to do. He spent a long time in deep introspection. Should he continue living his comfortable life as a Christian, as he had been raised, or should he embrace his newfound religion, of which he knew nothing?

Zbiszek decided he wanted to live proudly as a Jew, but didn’t know how. So here he was in Rabbi Schudrich’s office, looking for answers. Zbiszek told the rabbi that he felt most guilty that he never had a “Jewish baptism.”

Rabbi Schudrich calmed his fears and taught him the basics of Judaism. Zbiszek spent the next few years studying together with Rabbi Schudrich and attending classes in the community. Today he goes by Zecharya Asher, and is an active member of the Polish Jewish community.

Another unique story is that of Pawel Bramson. He was raised in an observant Catholic family. As a teenager, he joined a skinhead gang. He was virulently anti-Jewish, anti-black and anti-Gypsy.

Pawel married his Catholic high school sweetheart. They had two children, and at the age of twenty, Pawel’s wife found out that she was really Jewish! The news shook Pawel. However over time he was able to reconcile his previous hatred of Jews with the knowledge of his wife’s religion.

Several years later, Pawel’s wife decided to bring some Jewish traditions into their home. She began making Shabbat meals and Pawel consented to her desires. When he told his parents about the meals, they reacted with anger. They tried to pressure Pawel to make his wife sweep her Judaism back under the rug.

Pawel continued to support his wife, despite his parents objections. One day, his parents revealed the source of their anger - they were both Jews themselves! Pawel’s parents had hid their Judaism out of fear of anti-Semitism in Poland. The religious life that Pawel’s wife was beginning to explore represented everything they had tried to run away from.

The news stunned Pawel, and it took him a long time to accept it. The same Jews that he had hated as a teenager were now his own people. But Pawel slowly accepted the discovery, and he and his wife began bringing more traditions into their home. They are now fully observant.

Pawel has three brothers, one who is his twin. The twin still believed in many of the anti-Semitic myths that Pawel had rejected. And yet he has been influenced by Pawel’s religious growth in some small ways.

One Friday night, Pawel’s twin brother tried calling him on his cell phone but could not reach him. The twin went to the synagogue to try to find him, but Pawel was not there. That Friday night the synagogue had only nine men in attendance, just one short of a minyan. So when Pawel’s brother walked in, Rabbi Schudrich asked him if he could stay in the synagogue to be the tenth man. He said yes.

Such is the rebirth of Jews in Poland. Even Jews far removed from Judaism, with seemingly no connection, still have a tiny spark of Judaism deep inside them. With the right impetus, that spark can ignite into the beautiful fire of a proud Jewish soul.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in December, 2009

Some people can accomplish more in a single moment than the rest of us do in our entire lives.

The Baraisa (Avodah Zara 17a) recounts the story of Elazar ben Durdaya who dedicated his life to empty pursuits and pleasures. One day, a chance comment caused him to realize how meaningless his life had been. He immediately broke down in tears of sincere penitence, accepted responsibility for his misdeeds and committed himself to changing. At that moment he died, and a voice called out from heaven and said, “He has been readied for the life of the World to Come!”

When the incident was reported to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, he said the sincerity of Elazar ben Durdaya’s teshuva was the key to its acceptance. He said some people acquire their place in the World to Come through many years of work, and some can acquire it in a single moment.

Doniel Goldrich* witnessed a similar moment of life-changing teshuva nearly 20 years ago. Doniel participated in a learning program sponsored by Partners In Torah. Once a week, Doniel and several other men from Lakewood drove to a synagogue in a neighboring town where they learned one-on-one with community members.

Doniel was paired with 38-year old Marshall Lichtenstein*. Marshall’s two sons attended the nearby religious Shalom Torah Center school, but at home the family kept very few practices.

Doniel and Marshall studied the Torah portion of the week together and used it as a springboard into many other topics, including Jewish philosophy, mitzvot and holidays. Over the two years that they learned together, Doniel was constantly inspired by Marshall’s excitement for learning and his passion for the material.

When Marshall was a young man, he had been diagnosed with a serious heart condition. But after years with no episodes, he assumed the condition had passed. However a year and a half after Doniel started learning with him, Marshall began feeling ill. After a battery of tests his cardiologist said that he needed a valve replacement as soon as possible. He went through open-heart surgery to have a pig’s valve inserted, and when the procedure was unsuccessful, his doctors performed a second round of surgery.

“Through the process we got to know him,” Doniel said. “We went to the hospital to visit him. He wasn’t religious at all, but he put on Tefillin in his hospital room for the first time. He was very appreciative that we visited.”

Committing to particular mitzvot can be a major source of merit for a person in a difficult situation, so Doniel suggested some small religious steps that Marshall could take. Religious growth is based on taking baby steps, and Doniel suggested a few preliminary ideas.

“I said to him ‘would you want to take on something, to bring to action things that we’ve talked about? It might bring fulfillment to your life. You don’t have to keep completely Kosher, but at some level you might consider keeping Kosher in your home, or maybe your wife would like to light Shabbas candles,’” Doniel said.

“That’s an amazing idea,” Marshall said. “Let me think about it.”

The following week Doniel spoke to him during their learning session after he had been released from the hospital. Doniel could see a difference in him, a certain excitement that he had never seen before.

“I could tell that something had changed. His face was lit up,” Doniel said. “Marshall said, ‘we can’t keep Kosher in our home now, but every Thursday night we go out on a date to particular restaurant, because of our favorite dish on the menu which is made of pork. We decided we won’t go to that restaurant anymore. We’ll change our weekly date because it’s not Kosher. It’s something we accepted on ourselves because of your suggestion.’”

“You could see the happiness on his face. It was not an easy decision. It was very hard,” Doniel said. “I told him how wonderful it was.”

For Marshall, it was a major step. To give up a favorite dish and restaurant takes a lot of self-control, but Marshall and his wife were committed to their decision. They understood that the value of their decision outweighed their enjoyment of the particular dish.

Ten days later, Doniel received a call from Marshall’s wife at 6:00 in the morning. She said that Marshall had passed away during the night.

Doniel put the family in touch with a local Orthodox funeral home which gave him a full kosher burial. Doniel and several of the other men from Lakewood attended the funeral. A Rabbi from the sons’ school delivered the eulogy. He knew Marshall and over the last two years had witnessed Marshall’s growing excitement for Jewish learning. The rabbi quoted the first Mishnah in Bava Kamma that refers to man as maveh, a word which comes from the root “to search or inquire.”

“He said that’s the root of human beings – we’re always searching, always looking to make ourselves better. This was Marshall. He was able in mid-life to become a searcher, to accept new opportunities.”

At the cemetery, Doniel and his friends made sure that Marshall was buried in the proper way. Everyone else had gone home after the service, but the men wanted to make sure everything was done perfectly. They threw shovelful after shovelful of dirt into the grave until it was full.

“After we finished putting dirt in the hole, a woman came over to us, hysterically crying. She said ‘I’m Marshall’s first cousin. To see what I just saw, he must have done something in his life to merit having people like you burying him.’”

That was Marshall. With his one major decision, Marshall transformed his life both in this world and the next world. How much can we achieve, not just in one special moment, but over a lifetime of dedicating ourselves on the proper path?

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

* Name has been changed

(Published in The Jewish Press in November 2009)

For Robert lipanzer*, a chance question in college sent him on an amazing journey into his religion and deep into his family roots.

During his freshman year at George Washington University, Robert connected with a local outreach rabbi and began learning more about Judaism and growing in his religious observance. Towards the end of the year, Robert decided he was ready to begin putting on tefillin daily and asked the rabbi to order him a pair.

“How do you wrap your tefillin, in or out?” came the rabbi’s reply.

Jews wrap the strap of their arm tefillin either in towards their body or away from it, with the direction differing based on the place of origin of a person’s family and their religious group. The direction of the wrapping affects the type of Tefillin he would be purchasing. Robert didn’t know his family’s tradition, but knew that his grandfather used to wear them so decided to ask him.

Robert’s grandfather said his father taught him to wrap the strap outward and not to wrap it on his hand in the shape of the Hebrew letter Shin. Both practices differed from the prevailing customs of the Jews of Minsk where the family originated. Robert’s grandfather didn’t know why their customs were different.

Robert began to wonder if these were Chassidic customs. Besides the way to wrap his tefillin, the only other family custom his grandfather remembered were unique tunes for the Passover Seder. Robert began researching his family and the community of Minsk in depth. He started learning Chassidic texts and was deeply drawn to them. He began learning and growing more, especially towards the direction of Chassidism.

“I knew I had found the path for my soul. Chassidus spoke to me,” Robert said.

Robert contacted a Chassidic rabbi in Monsey, New York who used to live in Minsk. Robert was hopeful that maybe he knew more about the Jews of Minsk and possibly even his family.

Robert called him. Not only did he have a lot of information on the Jews of Minsk, he said the maiden name of his aunt’s mother was Lipanzer! Her family had come from Minsk, and yes, they were Chassidic. They were followers of the Koidenover Chasidic dynasty, which Robert found out later had been a large group in White Russia and Lithuania before being decimated in the Holocaust.

Robert was overjoyed. Maybe he had found a long-lost relative. Because of his interest in Chassidism, the potential that his family was Chassidic also made him ecstatic.

Robert spent the Spring Break week of his senior year in Monsey. He met the Chassidic rabbi and heard more about the Jews of Minsk. The rabbi also gave Robert the phone number of his sister-in-law, who was the wife of a Rosh Yeshiva of a Chassidic yeshiva and knew a lot about the family.

Robert called her. He explained that his great-grandfather was named Chaim Noach and he had lived in Baltimore.

“Uncle Chaim from Baltimore!” she exclaimed.

They realized that they were direct relatives. The woman also mentioned her grandfather “Zeide Yosef,” whom Robert knew as Uncle Joe. Robert had heard about Uncle Joe from his grandfather, but the families had lost contact with each other. Robert began signing the Passover tunes that he knew, and the woman said they were the same tunes used in her family.

She began filling in more details of Robert’s family. They were indeed members of the Koidenov Chassidic dynasty. She said that her grandmother, who was Robert’s great-great grandmother, had the coveted job of baking the 12 special challahs used at the Koidenover Rebbe’s Shabbat table.

“I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe I would track down information linking us to a particular Chassidus, but to find frum cousins was beyond my imagination,” Robert said.

After graduating from college, Robert went to Israel to study in Yeshiva. On his first free Shabbat, he went to Bnei Brak to meet the current Koidenover Rebbe who is trying to rebuild the group in Israel. Some of Robert’s religious cousins in Bnai Brak hosted him and introduced him to the Rebbe.

On Friday afternoon he went to meet the Rebbe. Robert told the Rebbe about his family and that this great-grandfather was a Koidenover chasid. The Rebbe quoted the verse “v’dor har’vii yashuvu ad hena” –“and the fourth generation will return here” (Bereishis 15:16). Robert’s soul felt complete. Here was a direct connection to his family and heritage. More than that, he had found his direction in life.

“I had come home and received a royal welcome,” Robert said.

Over Shabbat, Robert davened with the Rebbe and ate meals at his table. He felt at home. These were his family’s customs and tunes. These were his origins.

Robert continues to be a devoted student of the Koidenover Rebbe as he helps him to rebuild the lost community and reconnect to his family’s traditions. And it was all because of a simple question from the rabbi in college.

“Imagine if the Rabbi from college did not ask me how we wrapped Tefillin. He could have ordered me a regular pair with an Ashkenaz [knot], yet his one question sparked a search which eventually ignited my soul,” Robert said.

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Michael Gros is the former Chief Operating Officer of the outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. He writes from Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

* Name has been changed

(Published in The Jewish Press in October 2009)

For every Jew alive today, even the most unobservant, it’s necessary to only go a couple of limbs up the family tree to find an observant predecessor. If you peek far enough, sometimes you can find amazingly special people in the family, from famous Rabbis to strong matriarchs. For one unassuming family in the cold hinterlands of Alaska, that was just the case.

In Alaska one finds plenty of snow, moose and oil, but few Jews. There are less than 6,000 in the entire state. Half of the Jews live in the city of Anchorage, so when Rabbi Yosef and Esther Greenberg arrived in Alaska in 1991 they set up the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska there. Handfuls of Jews also live in remote towns and cities such as Sitka, Kenai, Ketchikan and Kotzubue. Rabbi Greenberg flies to these areas, sometimes in a seaplane, to prepare boys for their bar mitzvahs, put up mezuzahs and teach Jewish classes.

The Greenberg’s annual Chanukkah party has always been their most popular event. At the 1993 party, Rabbi Greenberg noticed a new couple among the many familiar faces. He introduced himself and spoke to them for a few minutes but did not expect to see them again.

A few months later the wife called Rabbi Greenberg and asked him if he could train their son for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. Their son had never been to Hebrew school and couldn’t read Hebrew. His family had not even planned on making a Bar Mitzvah. However the boy’s elderly grandmother from Los Angeles was persistent that her grandson have one, so to make her happy the couple was now turning to Rabbi Greenberg for help in preparing him for it.

Rabbi Greenberg tutored the boy, teaching him Hebrew and training him to say the blessings on the Torah. Finally the Shabbat of the Bar Mitzvah arrived and the boy’s extended family flew in from all around the country.

The Bar Mitzvah was beautiful. The boy read the blessings, and Rabbi Greenberg chanted the Torah portion and Haftorah.

During lunch in the synagogue after services, the boy’s grandmother asked for permission to speak. She stood up and explained why it was so important to her that her grandson have a Bar Mitzvah.

First she was worried that living in Alaska, her grandson would grow up without a Jewish identity. Therefore she wanted to make sure he would at least have a Bar Mitzvah.

Second, the grandmother related that she had moved to the United States from Russia many years earlier. She rarely attended synagogue, but fondly remembered receiving a strong Jewish education in her youth. She grew up in the town of Berditchev, and a private teacher came to her house every day to teach her and her siblings Jewish subjects. When Jewish observance was banned after the Russian Revolution of 1917, her religious education ceased.

Why did her parents value Jewish education so much, and why did she push so hard for her grandson to have a Bar Mitzvah?

“It was very important to me to make this Bar Mitzvah because of my family tree,” she continued, now looking directly at Rabbi Greenberg. “My family, we come from a big rabbi. Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name was Rabbi Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov.”

Rabbi Greenberg’s jaw dropped. The Ba’al Shem Tov founded the Chassidic movement in the 1700s, of which Chabad-Lubavitch is a part. Two hundred years later the Ba’al Shem Tov’s efforts helped provide his descendents in Alaska with an authentic Jewish experience and a point of entry to return to Jewish observance.

After lunch Rabbi Greenberg approached the grandmother and said he had a piece to add to her story. Rabbi Greenberg said he himself is a ninth-generation descendent of the Maggid of Mezritch, who was the foremost student and successor of the Ba’al Shem Tov. So here in Alaska was a descendent of the Maggid of Mezritch helping to bring back a descendent of his teacher the Ba’al Shem Tov.

In the years since the Bar Mitzvah, the young man and his family have become more observant. Hashem specifically sent Rabbi Greenberg to Alaska because He knew that the deep relationship between the Ba’al Shem Tov and his student would help his descendents return. Plus G-d knew that the many merits of the Ba’al Shem Tov would remain in the family and be a spiritual catalyst to bring them back.

“All Jewish children running around the world are the grandchildren of Tzaddikim and Tzadekot,” Rabbi Greenberg said. “If your child or grandchild was going away from Judaism, wouldn’t you fight to get him back? The Baal Shem Tov was crying in heaven.”

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Michael Gros is the Chief Operating Officer of the Jewish outreach organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. The Teshuva Journey is a monthly column chronicling amazing teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. To share a story or send other comments, email michaelgros@gmail.com. To receive the column via email or see back issues, visit http://www.michaelgros.com

(Published in The Jewish Press in August 2008)

Moshe Feldman* grew up Reform in Manalapan, N.J. He began becoming observant after he graduated college, and early on in his teshuva journey experienced an open miracle that changed his life forever.

Moshe belonged to a close-knit group of five friends who met in high school and remained buddies for many years after. They called themselves the Roundtable. They were all Jewish, and none was raised observant. Three years ago, the first of these friends got married. John Shapiro* was marrying a non-Jewish Filipino girl, and the wedding was to be on Shabbas. Moshe and his friends decided to take a ten day, 500-mile road trip from San Francisco to Newport Beach, Calif. for the wedding.

Among the members of the group, Moshe stood out like a sore thumb. He described himself then as “the quintessential flaming ba’al teshuva. I was unshaven and righteous, wearing a khaki paperboy cap like that of a European immigrant, tzitzit hanging over my Levi’s jeans and a gold chai hanging around my neck.”

Moshe tried sharing his newfound observance with his friends, only to receive the harshest of abuses. They mocked his praying, yelled at him for bentching after eating because it delayed the trip, made fun of him for trying to say Tefilat Haderech in the car and even tricked him into eating shrimp.

“The irony was that we’d only been such close friends in the first place because we were Jews. There were deep, unsaid inexplicable bonds between us simply because we had Jewish souls, regardless of any affinity whatsoever to Judaism itself,” Moshe said. “Now that I brought Torah to the Roundtable, rifts of resentment began to form and the facade of our friendship began to crack. I honestly felt like a stranger in their presence.”

Before leaving on the trip, Moshe searched on the Internet for a Jewish community close to the hotel. The nearest synagogue was seven miles away, too far to walk. He decided to attend the wedding on Friday night, and spend the rest of the Shabbas by himself in the hotel.

After a week of abuse from his friends, all he longed for was a beautiful Shabbas experience. On Friday he planned to buy Shabbat candles, wine and food. However upon arriving in Newport Beach, he realized it was in the middle of nowhere. There was no place to buy the items he needed. His plans for Shabbas were doomed.

While two members of the group went inside the hotel to check in, Moshe stayed in the rental truck with the luggage and the fourth member of the group, Ian Butler.*

Suddenly, Ian pointed out the window.

“Hey, here comes one of your friends,” Ian said.

Moshe’s jaw dropped. A boy with a yamacha and tzitzit walked past, followed by another and another.

Moshe raced out of the truck. Inside the hotel lobby were dozens of observant Jewish teenage boys and girls. He ran to the parking lot, where tour buses were unloading even more frum teenagers.

Moshe approached a man with a clipboard.

“What’s going on at the hotel this weekend?” Moshe asked.

“NCSY is having their annual West Coast conference.”

Moshe said it was impossible to describe what he felt at that moment. NCSY, the largest Jewish youth outreach organization, just happened to be making their Shabbaton in the same hotel. Over 500 Jews from all across the United States and Canada had flocked to Newport Beach.

After roaming around taking in the scene, Moshe ran into the groom John and his parents by the hotel’s entrance. They looked completely bewildered.

“Did you have to invite your whole congregation?” John’s father asked.

A few minutes later Moshe met Rabbi Steven Burg, one of the organizers of the weekend who has since become the national director of NCSY. Rabbi Burg invited him to spend the entire Shabbos with NCSY, and to attend all of the meals, classes and festivities for free.

Shabbas was saved.

The Shabbaton was absolutely beautiful. The meals were delicious, the spirit was uplifting and the classes were inspiring. One session was about the significance of studying in Israel. Moshe had thought about someday visiting there, but had never before thought about going to a yeshiva.

From the sudden turnabout of events Moshe gained a newfound appreciation of G-d’s involvement in the world and a commitment to grow in his observance and knowledge of his religion.

Before the trip Moshe had received calls from Rabbi Elazar Meisels. Rabbi Meisels was trying to recruit him to attend the Sinai Retreats, a ten-day program in upstate New York which teaches Jews about their heritage. Each time he called, Moshe declined saying he was too busy looking for a job. Now when Rabbi Meisels called during the week after the road trip, he jumped at the chance.

The program picked up where the NCSY Shabbaton left off and Moshe grew in his excitement for Torah study. When a Rabbi at the Sinai Retreats approached him to ask if he would like a chance to learn in yeshiva in Israel, he immediately agreed. That was three years ago, and he has remained studying in Israel ever since.

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Michael Gros is the Chief Operating Officer of the kiruv organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. The Teshuva Journey is a monthly column chronicling amazing teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. To share a story or send other comments, email michaelgros@gmail.com. To receive the column via email or see back issues, visit http://www.michaelgros.com

*Not his real name.

(published in The Jewish Press November 1, 2007)

For Rabbi Nosson (Mark) Sachs, a Reserve Chaplain in the U.S. Army, building a Sukkah last year in Afghanistan against all odds showed him Hashem’s hand more clearly than almost any other experience of his life.

Rabbi Sachs traveled to Afghanistan in 2006 for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot to lead services for American personnel. For most of his time there, he was based at the Bagram Air Base. When he arrived, the Presbyterian chaplain at the base assured him that the base had not just one, but two sukkahs for the coming holiday. Rabbi Sachs was ecstatic – of the 15 personnel who attended his Yom Kippur services, 11 said they would be interested in coming back for Sukkot, so two Sukkahs would be enough to seat everyone.

Four days before Sukkot Rabbi Sachs opened the boxes and immediately realized they didn’t hold two Sukkahs, but the broken parts of a single small pop-up Sukkah.

Sukkot was starting on Friday afternoon, so Rabbi Sachs had to quickly design and build a new Sukkah. He sketched plans and brought them to the sergeant major involved with the base’s engineering corps to see if they could build it. The sergeant major handed him a stack of papers which required several signatures.

“How long do you think it will take to build it?” Rabbi Sachs asked. “The holiday starts in four days.”

“Maybe we could finish it by December,” the sergeant major replied.

Rabbi Sachs gulped.

Rabbi Sachs decided to try to build the Sukkah himself. He and the Presbyterian chaplain ran around the base for the next few hours getting all the necessary signatures.

A passerby (left) looks on as Rabbi Nosson Sachs (right) builds the Bagram sukkah with the help of a carpenter friend.

Rabbi Sachs next went to the base’s building supplies store. The two Bosnian Muslims manning the store had never heard of a Sukkah before, but were eager to help. They said all the supplies would be available by Thursday afternoon.

The only items they did not have were metal L brackets which to connect the sukkah to one wall of the chapel. The valley surrounding the base is very windy, so Rabbi Sachs needed the brackets to provide stability to the sukkah. However in a country of mostly mud huts, metal brackets were almost nonexistent. Finally after an hour driving around the base looking for brackets, Rabbi Sachs finally found a building that made aluminum air conditioning ducts.

Rabbi Sachs ran into the building and asked the man inside, this time an Afghani Muslim, if he could make L brackets. He was so excited to make something other than air conditioning ducts.

“How many you need?” the man asked. “I can make a lot. A thousand?”

“Actually no. Twenty will be sufficient,” Rabbi Sachs said.

Rabbi Sachs returned two hours later. The man had made sixty brackets.

Thursday afternoon came and Rabbi Sachs picked up the rest of the materials. He had requested wood beams to build the frame of the Sukkah, but the only beams available were twelve feet long! So he borrowed a saw and began the long process of cutting the wood.

Also on the base were a group of civilian comedians who had been brought to entertain the troops. They were set to return to the U.S. but were unable to arrange a transport out of the country. Soldiers and military supplies are given priority on aircraft in a theater of war, so for civilians not essential to the war effort, finding a way out can be a challenge. Each day the comedians tried to arrange a flight back to America. It was especially pressing as one member of the group was set to get married the following Monday.

The groom happened to walk by Rabbi Sachs as he began cutting the wood and asked what he was doing.

“I’m building a Sukkah,” Rabbi Sachs responded.

“What’s a Sukkah?”

Rabbi Sachs explained the fundamentals of the holiday, and noticed a shocked look on the comedian’s face.

“Is everything okay?” Rabbi Sachs asked.

“You know what my full time job is? I’m a carpenter by trade. A carpenter!” he yelled. “Don’t you get it? Now I understand why I’m stuck here! If I help you, I’ll get out of here.”

“Halleluyah!” Rabbi Sachs shouted.

The carpenter began cutting the wood, and in three hours the two men had assembled the entire frame. And just as the comedian hoped, he and his friends caught the next flight home.

As they were finishing the frame, an officer came by and asked what they were doing. Rabbi Sachs described the fundamentals of the Sukkah.

“What are you going to use for the walls?” the officer asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Rabbi Sachs said.

“Come with me.”

The officer brought Rabbi Sachs behind his quarters, where there was a large, unused bundle of camouflage netting. When they brought the netting back to the Sukkah frame to see if it would work, it fit to the inch.

For skach Rabbi Sachs used tree branches, but he had another problem: the valley surrounding Bagram experiences extremely strong wind storms every fall afternoon which threatened to blow the branches off the Sukkah.

In another miracle, just as Rabbi Sachs finished assembling his Sukkah, the wind stopped blowing and it didn’t start again until after Sukkot.

Friday night came and 11 Jews joined Rabbi Sachs in the Sukkah for a beautiful meal full of singing and dvrai torah. It was the first time most of them had ever eaten in a Sukkah. Here they were, in the middle of war, and for a few days could have the spiritual bliss brought by the miracle Sukkah of Afghanistan.

As Rabbi Sachs learned, when a Jew tries to bring light to a dark part of the world and inspire Jewish souls, Hashem makes anything possible.

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Michael Gros is the Chief Operating Officer of the kiruv organization The Atlanta Scholars Kollel. The Teshuva Journey is a monthly column chronicling amazing teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. To share a story or send other comments, email michaelgros@gmail.com. To receive the column via email or see back issues, visit http://www.michaelgros.com

(published in The Jewish Press October 3, 2007)