OPEN DOORS

From the very beginning, the students loved him, even as some of his colleagues found him to be too original. He was marked, early on, by two features: He always seemed to be laughing, and there was always a group of students around him.

Innovative as he was, he made frequent trips to Bnei Brak, where he would discuss chinuch with Rav Shach. The elderly rosh yeshivah appreciated the American educator. As Rav Shach aged, he recommended that Rabbi Berg start speaking with a younger, unknown rosh yeshivah named Rav Aharon Leib Steinman. The door to the apartment at Chazon Ish 5 was usually open — there were no lines and Rabbi Berg had a new mentor.

The Bergs moved to Bnei Brak, and Reb Motty was promoted to menahel, but there was a new side job as well, one that only started after he arrived home at the end of a long day. It was an era before formal parenting classes and expert columnists: parents desperate for guidance heard about Rabbi Berg, and they flocked to his home.

He would sit behind the closed doors in the dining room helping them understand that each child needs different things. He reassured the parents desperate to raise a metzuyan that success would come, that every child has his own path to greatness, that there is no substitute for a happy, warm home.

He was a fountain of kindness. He used his English skills to help Israeli roshei yeshivah with fundraising, accompanying them on trips abroad. As the flow of American immigrants to Eretz Yisrael increased, the line outside Sonnenfeld 14, the apartment of the mechanech who’d “made it” in the more rigorous Israeli system, grew to include them as well.

The years passed. As Rabbi Berg’s reputation as an expert mechanech spread, so too did the pressure increase. As his family grew and his older children reached shidduchim age, finances became an issue.

Rabbi Berg wasn’t someone who spent time planning his next move. On a visit to Monsey on behalf of the yeshivah where he worked, he was casually chatting with Rabbi Zev Freundlich, menahel of Monsey’s Yeshivas Shaarei Arazim. Rabbi Berg mentioned that he was considering a move to America for a few years in order to make ends meet: Rabbi Freundlich needed a rebbi.

Rebbetzin Chana Berg recalls that period. “My husband lived every day that way, whatever came his way became his new mission. He always saw the open door and walked right in. He had tremendous bitachon, and was always optimistic.”

And so the Bergs packed up once again and headed back to America. The man who’d brought America to Bnei Brak was ready to bring Bnei Brak to America.

A VICTORY

In 2004 they arrived in Monsey and settled down. Rabbi Berg got right to work, bringing his innovation to Shaarei Arazim, itself a revolutionary yeshivah, a place that offers classes in music, arts, mechanics and the like, in addition to a regular yeshivah schedule. He seemed intent on his mission: not to be a teacher, nor to be an advisor to the talmidim. He’d come to be a friend.

Sometimes, his approachability and humility led them to forget.

Once, a bochur was valiantly trying to find a way to get his dirty shirts to the dry cleaners. Rabbi Berg overheard, and offered to drop them off. “I pass right by the cleaners on the way home.”

The next week, a few bochurim “sort of” asked the rebbi if he might take their shirts along as well. He became a drop-off and pick-up service for them. When the other rebbeim found out they were horrified, but he was overjoyed. For Rabbi Berg, this was a victory. He’d connected in his way — and he knew it to be the most effective path of all.

He brought energy to a yeshivah that already pulsated with life.

“One day,” recalls Rabbi Freundlich, “Reb Motty pointed out that Shacharis was lackluster. It was early in the morning and it was hard to get the boys going.

“So Rabbi Berg told me that when he lived in Eretz Yisrael, he’d noticed how the Sephardic shuls were always noisy and alive, even for early-morning Selichos. He felt that it was because they sing a lot, they have a nusach they enjoy. And so he gave us a nusach.”

Until today, the Pesukei D’zimra in Shaarei Arazim is sung to a nusach: a pleasant enough tune, it carries undertones of heart. Rabbi Berg’s heart.

THAT’S RABBI BERG

One fundraising visit had led Rabbi Berg to settle in America. It was another that brought him to lay roots in Wesley Hills.

Rabbi Freundlich was visiting a donor, Mr. Sruli Dahan, who lives in that neighborhood, and the host mentioned that his shul was looking for a rav. Opened a few years earlier, the shul saw its first rav move away from the neighborhood, and the search for a replacement was proving harder than expected.

Rabbi Freundlich didn’t hesitate. “You should meet Rabbi Berg. He’s special.”

Reb Sruli, president of Ateres Rosh, followed the rosh yeshivah back to yeshivah and first laid eyes on the man who would become his guide and best friend.

“I saw this tall man with a short beard standing on the basketball court, holding a ball. There were boys crowded around him laughing. I thought, Wow.”

“That’s Rabbi Berg,” Rabbi Freundlich told him.

Rabbi Berg’s eyes opened wide when he heard what the unfamiliar balabos wanted. “I’ve never been a rav before. I’m a mechanech. I love to teach bochurim, to make them truly love Yiddishkeit and Torah. That’s what I do.”

“Come for Shabbos, you’ll see the kehillah,” Dahan persisted.

Another door open.

The improbable rabbi and rebbetzin came for Shabbos.

Dahan smiles at the memory. “He ate the seudah at one of the balabatim, who told me afterward, ‘I don’t know if he’ll get the job here, but he’s my new rav, wherever he goes.’ ”

By Motzaei Shabbos, an offer was made. Rabbi Berg needed time to speak to his wife. Late on that same evening, the offer was accepted.

It would be the happiest marriage in the world.

WE SIT TOGETHER

From the outset, the new rav made his three primary goals clear: Torah, tzniyus, and chesed.

The sun is setting into night as we stand in front of the shul, making the faces of the men standing with me near invisible. The occasional headlights from passing cars illuminate their features as they speak.

“He never gave us mussar, never made us feel small. He made us feel big. We wanted to deliver for him. He would say, ‘Torah is wonderful, it’s such a gift, how can you not want to learn more? Do you know how you’ll feel, how proud your wife and children will be?’ ”

Rabbi Berg was a busy man, retaining a variety of full-time chinuch positions along with the rabbanus. He would try to come to simchahs and events and stay as long as he could, but was often limited in time — unless it was a siyum. “He would sit at a siyum with such obvious joy, he would sing and dance with us. He enjoyed it if the siyum was elegant, if there was good food. He wanted women to participate and share the simchah. That’s how he conveyed what was most important.”

Demographically, Ateres Rosh is a diverse kehillah: successful businessmen, professionals, and blue-collar workers feel equally comfortable between its walls: one by one, they all bought into what he was selling: shiurim, chavrusas, programs.

“When he took the job, we asked him to say the daf yomi shiur,” recalls a congregant. “He refused. ‘Someone said the shiur before I came, how can I disrespect him that way?’ he asked us. That was amazing. But what was more remarkable was that he would come to the shiur on Shabbos morning, his day off from yeshivah, just to give chizuk to the maggid shiur and participants.”

He would follow along and ask questions, adding vitality with his very presence. And during the grand Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium, the Rav turned down a dais seat to sit with members of the chaburah. “We learn together, we’ll sit together,” he said.

THEY CAN HEAR IT

There is no VIP status in Ateres Rosh. “This is a kehillah where we don’t know, or care, who has lots of money and who doesn’t. No one is getting fancy aliyahs because he has money,” says a soft-spoken man, who turns back toward the shul as he says this, as if the building itself can bear witness.

But with all that, there are elite members of the shul: yeshivah bochurim. The Rav put bochurim on a pedestal, singing their praises, showering them with encouragement, and making sure they themselves knew just how special is their role.

On Yom Tov, when the shul was jam-packed, Rabbi Berg wouldn’t speak before Mussaf — instead, he asked bochurim to speak. He would introduce each speaker, discussing the challenges facing young men these days, lauding the strength and heroism of these boys who toil in Tosafos and the Rashba. Then, the entire kehillah would rise in respect for the speaker.

No one saw an awkward, hesitant, shy young man — they saw only a valiant soldier, a credit to his family and nation. He learns Torah!

Limud haTorah, kevod haTorah — and hachzakas haTorah. He once overheard a discussion in the shul and perceived a certain negative attitude toward Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, a lack of appreciation for the benefits of pure Torah, with no other goal. The Rav stood up and confidently announced an event to benefit the yeshivah and volunteered the home of one of the members.

A world-class yeshivah hosted an event in the neighborhood. Sizing up the crowd, the speaker decided to “sell” the yeshivah in a way he imagined it would appeal to them, talking about how the yeshivah offered college credits and helped prepare young men for a career along with learning.

Rabbi Berg was upset. “Please,” he urged the speaker, “don’t patronize my balabatim. They can hear the real thing and appreciate it.”

He was a rav for eight years. He started off speaking about learning and ended off the very same way. A few weeks before his petirah, the kehillah gathered in his home and he spoke, his voice hoarse but determined. “Torah,” he said, “is the most important thing in the world.”

NOT A JOB, BUT AN OPPORTUNITY

Tzniyus was a big part of the kehillah he envisioned — he wanted, as he often said, the Shechinah to feel comfortable in the shul, in the homes of its members.

He was not a big issuer of rules, but there was one law that was ironclad. He wanted there to be full mechitzahs at simchahs; if the baal simchah chose to forgo the mechitzah, the Rav himself would not attend the simchah, and it couldn’t be held in the shul’s banquet hall.

The beauty of the kehillah is that not everyone listened — yet they remained just as much a part of things. “Often,” a mispallel reflects, “he would speak in shul at the simchah of someone who wasn’t following the takanah, yet he spoke with the very same warmth and genuine respect for who they were. It was clear this was important to him, but it wasn’t ‘Have a mechitzah because I said so,’ but rather, ‘Have a mechitzah because it’s a good idea.’ Those who weren’t holding there weren’t looked down upon, and it certainly wasn’t personal. He would sometimes wish mazel tov to the baalei simchah at home, since he couldn’t join the kiddush.”

Perhaps because he’d never sought the position, the job meant less to him than the opportunity. He would often repeat the same stories, speak about the same themes. His balabatim got it: He wasn’t trying to be entertaining or impress them with oratory — he was only trying to make a difference, and this was the way he felt most effective.

He laughed when the shul board suggested he sign a contract. “If the shul likes me, they’ll keep me even without a contract. If they don’t, they’ll find a way to get rid of me even with a contract.”

And just as he taught Torah, tefillah and tzniyus by example, so too with chesed.

WE’VE COME TO SING

He oozed generosity and kindness and he expected the same from them. The rav in Wesley Hills was also its most prominent driver of hitchhikers. His constant trips down Route 306 to the yeshivah were the blessed quiet moments in his day, but he was incapable of passing by a Yid who needed a favor.

He created a culture of giving within the shul — those with the ability to give were expected to give, and those who needed help were helped, a flow of generosity and achrayus that united them all. No one knew who was giving or who was taking —no one besides the Rav, who looked at them all through the same loving eyes.

Late one snowy night, Rabbi Berg was spotted digging his car out of a snowbank. “Where is the Rav going at this crazy hour, in these conditions?” a congregant said, approaching.

The Rav explained to this mispallel — the administrator of the shul’s gemach — that he was going to drop off a check to someone who needed the money right away.

“So let me go, please,” the gentleman urged.

Rabbi Berg looked at him. “Never. It’s bad enough that our friend has to accept money. It’s bad enough that one person knows that — me. Does he really need the added indignation of involving another person in the story?”

The closest Rabbi Berg ever came to making a real mecha’ah, condemning a certain behavior, was when he spoke about extravagant simchahs. “How can you flaunt your money when your neighbor doesn’t have a way to pay his bills?”

A couple approached the Rav with a question. Their son was being bar mitzvah, and the boy loved music and singing: others in the neighborhood had hired adult choirs to join them for Shabbos simchahs, and this was their son’s dream as well. These parents were of means, but they understood that accommodating the boy’s request would create pressure on other families in the community to follow suit.

The Rav was unequivocal —he felt it would be unfair to turn an extravagance into a necessity.

On Leil Shabbos, as the baalei simchah and their guests concluded the festive seudah, they were joined by the Rav, who’d come along with several kehillah members blessed with good voices. “We’re your mezamrim,” Rabbi Berg said with a smile, as the men sat down and started to sing.

In his derashos, the Rav would often recall his experiences fundraising for various yeshivos. He would speak of the humiliation and difficulty. “Please, rabboisai, I know what it’s like: treat each one the way you treat me.”

His kindness extended to the realm of psak as well. A mispallel who worked with silver used a certain type of polish that contained traces of chometz. As Pesach approached, he worried about the halachic ramifications and asked Rabbi Berg.

A few days later, there was a knock at his door.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Motty Berg,” came the answer.

The host opened the door to see the Rav, holding a large carton. “I researched the product and was able to find a similar cleanser that does the same job, but has no chometz in it. I thought you’d like to have it.”

IN IT TOGETHER

In eight years, he changed people’s lives. Husbands, wives, children — they were all comfortable with “let’s ask the Rav” as the resolution to any problem. His campaign against talking in shul was never based on threats or rebuke. Traditionally a long davener, he switched to a short Shemoneh Esreh, reasoning that if he expected people not to whisper after completing their own Amidah, he had to make their wait as short as possible.

He got up and said, “Look, in Beis Din shel Maalah, they’re going to say, ‘Berg, you were rav in a big shul — the people talked by davening and you did nothing.’ What will I say? Please, rabboisai, make it easier for me, have rachmanus and help me out.”

He didn’t deny that it was hard. “You think I don’t want to talk by davening? You think I don’t know what it feels like to have a good joke or important question that you’re bursting to share? Of course I do. But we don’t talk by davening, period.”

One of the men stands in the back of the shul and gives a long look at the Rav’s vacant chair as he tells me about the “Super Bowl” speech. It was the night of the biggest football game of the year, the most watched event in American life, and someone decided that rather than ignore it, he would embrace it. He hosted a Super Bowl party, renting a huge screen and offering a lavish spread. During the intermission and halftime show, the screen was closed and there was a shiur. Many considered it a unique kiddush Hashem, but Rabbi Berg had his own opinion.

“Listen rabboisai,” he said from the podium, “I understand why someone would want to watch professional sports, and why it’s engaging. But please, recognize it for what it is. It isn’t Torah and doesn’t come from the same world as Torah. Torah is Torah, and this isn’t it. I urge you to be honest about what you’re doing and don’t fool yourselves.”

Sometimes, he would share a hashkafah idea. Then he would stop and say, “That’s what I feel. Aderaba, argue with me. Let’s talk this out together.”

He never suggested to his people that they change: it was always “we.” We should work on this. We should be more aware. We should try harder.

In a hesped, Rav Yisroel Dovid Schlesinger, whom Rabbi Berg considered a rebbi, recalled how Rabbi Berg would often bring balabatim from shul or talmidim from yeshivah to speak with him. “He never just introduced them. It was always, ‘This is one of our most choshuve balabatim,’ or ‘This is one of our most accomplished talmidim.’ ”

From Rabbi Berg’s end, these visits to Rav Schlesinger were part of the culture of kevod haTorah he sought to create. He encouraged them to ask their questions to gedolim, and would often accompany them to help them clarify what they were hearing.

A kehillah member recalls driving across Monsey one day to ask Rav Schlesinger something. There was a long line outside Rav Schlesinger’s office, and one of the gabbaim indicated that Rabbi Berg should go to the head of line. He refused. “I’m here because we’re living kevod haTorah. Waiting is part of it. We’re not looking for shortcuts.”

THE FINAL SHIUR

About a year and a half ago, Rabbi Berg started to deliver the most meaningful shiur of his life. He’d been diagnosed with a dreaded illness, but rather than preach, he would live faith and optimism.

He was visibly weakened, but he maintained his rigorous yeshivah schedule, teaching and giving shmuessen. His face got thinner, but his smile never wavered. His voice grew hoarse, but the message he’d preached for eight years remained unchanged.

He got sicker and sicker, often davening at home. The empty seat at the front of the shul spurred the people on to the heights of tefillah.

Last Shabbos Hagadol, he came out to give the customary derashah. Word spread that the Rav was coming, and the shul was filled to capacity. He spoke sitting down and his voice was barely audible. The derashah lasted for just a few minutes.

Hilchos Pesach begins with the din of kimcha d’Pishcha, he said, because people shouldn’t worry about their own matzos until they know that their neighbors have what to eat, a means of making Yom Tov. That was it.

A few years earlier, after word of Rabbi Berg spread, a wealthy kehillah had offered him double the salary to come serve as their rav.

“You might be able to give me more money,” he told them, “but you can’t give me what I already have — the best balabatim in the world.”

The connection between the Rav and his flock was never more obvious than in those final few months.

The children of the neighborhood set up lemonade stands, offering cold drinks, snow-cones, cotton candy, doughnuts — anything, for free, just take and make a brachah l’zechus the Rav.

Their fathers gathered around the Rav, as if bottling up the way he made them feel, cherishing each word, each comment, each encounter.

On that final Shavuos, Rabbi Berg was too weak to go to shul. But he insisted on coming out — being carried to shul for ten minutes — when a bochur spoke. It was his final appearance, his enduring message.

That night he was rushed to the hospital.

Over the next two weeks, Ateres Rosh moved into his hospital room, as one. There was singing and learning and conversation, Torah and tefillah and so much love.

Guitars played, bodies swayed, voices rose — different songs, but they all had the same lyrics, the cry from so many hearts that said: Kasheh aleinu preidaschem. Rebbi, don’t leave us. Rebbi, we still need you.

WHAT HE WOULD SAY

He was niftar on Erev Shabbos B’haalosecha. On Motzaei Shabbos, the family and devoted mispallelim accompanied the aron to Eretz Yisrael, where the levayah was held at the Eretz Hachaim cemetery outside Beit Shemesh. The airplane arrived late; hundreds of people had been waiting for several hours by the time the family arrived at the site.

But there was a problem. Another nifteres had come on the same flight, to same beis hachayim, and they could only perform one levayah at a time.

“The halachah is that a woman goes first in this case,” said a chevra kaddisha member.

He indicated the halachah in the sefer Gesher Hachayim.

“But look on the very next line,” Rabbi Berg’s son replied, “it says that a talmid chacham is an exception, and he takes precedence.”

“Look,” the chevra kaddisha member said quietly, “I know your father, I used to go his Shabbos groups when I was a child in Bnei Brak. I know what he would pasken in this situation. He would say, ‘Of course she should go first.’ ”

The son listened.

“My father,” he remarked, “is still teaching me.”

It’s astonishing what this man accomplished in eight years: not a rosh yeshivah of hundreds, not an askan serving the masses, not a millionaire able to create some kind of super-organization.

An ordinary rav, in an ordinary neighborhood, in an ordinary shul. That’s the story of Rabbi Berg and his kehillah.

In the details of this story, I hear a passionate response to those who charge that it’s an apathetic, overwhelmed generation, that a rabbi can’t really change people, can’t lift them higher.

Rabbi Berg did it. How, where others are broken by politics and frustrated by indifference, did he manage to create happiness and growth?

The Rebbetzin gave us the answer.

At her dining room table, this woman of humility and refinement showed me pictures, shared letters from mispallelim, and reminisced about every joyous hour spent at his side.

She told me of her own hesped. It was just after her husband, her life’s partner, was taken. The levayah was over. She had a moment alone to say goodbye.

And she said three words. Just three words.

Hayita chaver ne’eman. You were a loyal friend.

In just eight years, you took a kehillah and breathed life into it. You elevated families: inspired fathers, gave new hope to mothers, lifted up their children.

And you did it not with the force of a warrior, not with the authority of a ruler.

You did it with love, warmth, and loyalty, with belief that they could be great, that they would be great: you did it with the faith of a good friend.

Hayita chaver ne’eman.