With a loving heart and an embracing kehillah, Dayan Rav Moshe Shtesel is rekindling chassidish souls that have gone cold

Photos: Flash 90, PR Production

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hea M., a chassidic young man who lives in Boro Park, remembers the first time he met Rav Moshe Shtesel, the man who would change his life. At the time, he was part of a quiet yet growing group who still looked chassidish on the outside, but whose sense of detachment from Yiddishkeit was growing daily.

One local askan, a man with a noble heart and a passion to help these estranged bochurim and young marrieds, tried to form a type of chaburah where they would learn with idealistic avreichim while enjoying good food and occasional inspirational speeches. But the young men didn’t really connect to their learning, and many of the avreichim, inspired as they were, didn’t really want to get into deep discussions about a world that was foreign to them. The askan eventually decided to dissolve the group, but wanted to make sure their final meeting together would give some type of spiritual food for thought.

“I wasn’t really into the group by then, but they said it would be the last meeting, like a farewell get-together, so I figured I could manage that and show my face in a goodwill gesture,” Shea remembers. But then Rav Moshe Shtesel arrived.

“The truth is that we weren’t even interested in listening to speeches,” Shea recalls. “We had come from work, and we were tired. We didn’t know anything about him, and we didn’t really care. But when Reb Moshe began to speak, it took exactly two minutes for me to find myself drawn in. He didn’t talk about spiritual avodah. He didn’t make us feel that our lives were rotten, or that we were nebachs and drowning and needed spiritual chizuk. He gave us the tools to make quality choices, the kind of direction you’d pay a fortune for from a top coach.”

Shea’s friend Yoeli, a young married man with a few kids who he sent to the “right” mosdos, was also there for the farewell party — actually, he showed up at the very end, conveniently missing the program. “I got there just before Reb Moshe finished speaking,” he recalls. “Just before his usual concluding sentence, ‘May Hashem help… that we will see the arrival of the righteous redeemer.’ I said ‘Amen.’ I was pleased with my timing — I’d shown my face at the event, and I had also escaped listening to a speech. I went inside to talk to the chevreh, have something to eat, and ask my friend for a ride home, since I’d come straight from the city, without my car. But then, just as I was leaving, Reb Moshe came over to me and asked if I had a car. I told him I was getting a ride with a friend, and Reb Moshe asked if he could come along.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea — the last thing I wanted was for some ‘mashpia’ to ruin my night, but I didn’t have the nerve to say anything, especially since it wasn’t my car,” Yoeli continues. “I knew it was a bad idea, because before we even got underway, Reb Moshe said from the passenger seat, ‘What do you think about having a daily chavrusa?’ He was addressing the driver and me together. I was about to ask him to get out of the car, but my good manners told me to give him a chance.

“Look,” I said, “the two of us come from good homes, but today Yiddishkeit doesn’t really speak to us. What makes you think you’ll succeed where others have failed?”

Rav Shtesel, however, wasn’t fazed by the question. Instead, he asked them equally directly, “Why don’t you have a connection to Judaism? You know what, give me 15 minutes a day for one week, and we’ll work out the things that are disturbing you.”

The two bochurim answered, “Okay, you have one week.”

“Reb Moshe wasn’t bothered by our antagonistic attitude,” Yoeli says. “He called us every morning and waited patiently for us. And we kept up our end of the deal — we came every day for exactly fifteen minutes. That Thursday, as soon as I sat down, I told him, ‘This is the last day of our agreement. You still haven’t managed to prove anything.’

“Reb Moshe closed his book, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Are you happy in life?’ I replied that I thought I was. But as I thought about it, I realized that I actually wasn’t satisfied with my job, that my finances could be better, and there were a few other frustrating gaps in my ordinary life that prevented me from feeling satisfaction. I decided to modify what I had said. ‘If I could go on vacation with my wife, without the kids, then I would be happy,’ I said.

“Reb Moshe smiled. ‘Will you do a small exercise with me? Let’s think about how much time it takes to organize a vacation, and how much money you spend on it. If you subtract the time spent traveling, and the time it takes to make all the other logistical arrangements, how much quality time do you have left to experience happiness?’ I made some earnest calculations, and I concluded that I had a total of ten vacation days during the year — and I would truly be happy for only one tenth of that time.

“At that point, I went on the offensive. ‘Do you have a recipe for happiness?’ I demanded. Reb Moshe smiled serenely and said that he did. He told me that he doesn’t look for happiness at the end of the road; instead, he tries to enjoy every moment of the journey. He takes pleasure in every mitzvah, and tries to find some satisfaction even in the hardships. His words held a certain promise I’d never experienced before. So I put my head down, suppressed my ego, and decided to listen. We literally started with the basics — why I should be a Jew, how to do it right, and how to enjoy life in the best possible way. We discussed all the major questions — questions about G-d and other fundamental concepts, as well as the question of why, for Heaven’s sake, I should wear knee-high socks on Shabbos. What would be wrong with ordinary pants?”