Rabbi Fishel Schachter encases vital messages in pathos, charm, and wit

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

Always listening for Hashem’s messages, seeking out the positive within the challenges, and living with an unrelenting bitachon that all is for the best have been the refrain of all Rabbi Fishel Schachter’s lectures, articles, and even his kids’ tapes for years. It’s all about the everyday stories that frame our lives – and if you can’t find them, it means you weren’t looking hard enough

Chein is one of those words that just doesn’t translate. It’s been called beauty or charm or comeliness, but it’s so much more than that and we all know it.

But if we can’t say it, we still sense it: Chein is that undefined something that strikes a chord nearly forgotten. It’s a rush of defiance to reality, transcending time, disregarding maturation. Suddenly, you’re that little boy again, ensuring the candy-man that, yes, you’ll make a shehakol; you’re that little girl in a frilly dress, suppressing the crunch of a Bissli once the thrill of the first few tekios has begun to ebb.

Chein is a spark of purity that we had as children and spend a lifetime longing to recapture.

While the industry of inspirational speakers in the Jewish community has flourished in the last few decades and the plethora of shiurim span the gamut of Torah, few carry the characteristic of being able to hold captive an audience of both children and adults, equally entertained by the humor, riveted by the depth, inspired by the message.

But somehow, as Rabbi Fishel Schachter’s children’s albums play through the speakers, children giggle while their parents listen, silently giggling along. And as those parents tune in to Rabbi Schachter’s adult-geared shiurim, their children will sit by quietly, finding the more mature message so easily relatable.

Chein might be undefinable but, in that moment, you know exactly what it is.

“My father would pump me with stories,” Rabbi Schachter remembers. “My heroes growing up were Reb Meilich and Reb Zishe.” The tales of Divine messages and miraculous salvations were the backdrop of his upbringing, but, in truth, it began even before he was born.

His parents were survivors. His father, although a Belzer chassid, learned in Novardok and escaped along with the Mir to Shanghai; his mother was a survivor of Bergen Belsen. The two married, hoping to rebuild a future upon the rubble of a devastated past. But the hope showed no signs of realization.

“My parents didn’t have children for 12 years,” says Rabbi Schachter. “All my mother’s siblings were killed. For her, this would mean no continuity of her entire family.”

The prognosis was dire, but unwilling to resign, the senior Schachters set up an appointment with yet another expert in the field. “Mrs. Schachter,” said the doctor upon completing the examination, “hair will grow on my palm before you have any children.”

They boarded the bus to go home, but when it pulled up to their stop, Mrs. Schachter refused to disembark. The bus rolled on, throughout New York City, filling and then emptying but with the Schachters not budging from their seats. Finally, the bus driver took off his cap and turned to face them.

“Lady,” he said, “I had a hard day. I don’t know what you’re going through, but whatever it is, it ain’t gonna help by sleeping in the bus garage tonight. Get off the bus and get on with your life.”

The words tumbled out in a grumpy slew of bad etiquette, gruff persona, and a too-strong New York accent.

But Mrs. Schachter heard a deeper message. “Get off the bus and get on with your life,” the man had said. She understood this was a message from a higher source, the Heavens were telling her it would be all right.

One year later, they had a baby boy. They named him Fishel.

He was their first and only child, but the Schachters’ gratitude knew no bounds.

That specifically this experience should serve as the provenance of Fishel Schachter  is nothing short of prophetic. Always listening  for Hashem’s messages, seeking out the positive within the challenges, living with an unrelenting bitachon that all is for the best — these are the very lessons that have become Rabbi Schachter’s raison d’etre. It’s a central theme in almost all his myriad lectures and is the refrain of dozens of articles he’s published over the past few years as a regular Torah columnist with Hamodia. Those essays, which have been compiled into a newly released book published by ArtScroll/Mesorah entitled Did This Ever Happen to You? underscores how, just like the bus driver’s angry slur, our shared common daily experiences of life are replete with sparks of inspiration.