A Haven of Love

For Dayan Rav Moshe Shtesel, an Israeli-born Belzer chassid, being an authentic chassidic role model and mashpia runs in the family. He’s a son-in-law of Rav Pinchas Friedman, American-born gifted orator and rosh kollel of Belz in Jerusalem who has a worldwide following for his lectures and tapes, and is author of the Shvilei Pinchas sefarim series on halachah and chassidus. After his marriage, Rav Shtesel served as a maggid shiur in the Belz yeshiva gedolah, and then opened a Shas kollel under the instruction of the Belzer Rebbe. He later moved to America, where he was appointed a member of the beis horaah of Rav Yechezkel Roth of Karlsburg.

News travels fast in American chassidish circles, and word soon spread about the popular darshan who had a special knack for reaching the hearts of his listeners, products of a generation faced with formidable responsibilities and endless distractions. Every speech led to another invitation, and everywhere he went, he accumulated new “cases.”

On one of Reb Moshe’s trips back to Eretz Yisrael, the Belzer Rebbe asked him to open his own shtibel on the outskirts of Boro Park. People moved there because of availability and affordability, but also because it was a bit of an escape from the heart of the chassidic enclave. For Rav Shtesel, the Rebbe envisioned an integrated kehillah of baalebatim and avreichim, with a communal Seudah Shlishis and other means of cultivating close bonds between all the kehillah members and creating more an extended family than a mere shtibel.

“We built this shtibel to be a place of friendship and love — love for Klal Yisrael and love for Hashem. There’s no reason why a person who spends a day at work shouldn’t also be able to delight in the sweetness of a daf of Gemara or an invigorating chassidish shtikel, which illuminate the nature of our struggles in this world.”

Rav Shtesel’s Torah knowledge is virtually encyclopedic — his command of Shas, poskim, and the works of chassidus is both vast and profound; and his ability to break down complicated issues into clear, meticulously organized points, is one of his keys to success in reaching Jews who’ve lost their emunah along the way, or who’ve found themselves enmeshed in complicated shalom bayis and chinuch issues.

Warming Up

In Rav Shtesel’s Thursday night chaburah in his beis medrash, the bitter cold outside stands in stark contrast to the enveloping warmth indoors — a sense of camaraderie that’s practically tangible, topped off with a lavish spread of kugels and cold cuts with a huge pot of cholent, that great catalyst for ahavas Yisrael.

Rav Shtesel says getting to a person’s heart with a warm pot of cholent is a family tradition. “The Shtesels are a well-known family from Bnei Brak who’ve become synonymous with Jewish cuisine,” he says. “My grandfather, Reb Menachem Tzvi Shtesel, used to prepare a massive pot of cholent every week. On Shabbos, a long line of needy and lonely people would form outside his door, each of them holding a small pot — the line reached all the way to the street. My grandfather would stand there and devotedly ladle out steaming portions of cholent to all of them.”

The evening begins easily, without any sort of formal ceremony; but when the atmosphere warms up, the singing begins — hours of heartwarming melodies seeming to erupt of their own accord. And then, as the world outside prepares to make its transition from the previous day to the new one about to dawn, the questions begin.

Candor is the name of the game. The members of this group — working men, businessmen, and professionals — speak frankly about their thoughts, knowing that here, they won’t be judged or scrutinized.

“I first came to Reb Moshe on the recommendation of a business associate in order to consult with him about a specific issue,” says Dovid L. “In addition to being a huge talmid chacham, he’s a very pragmatic person who really understands the world. He has an excellent sense of humor and an amazing ability to mediate conflicts. At the end of our conversation, he asked me, ‘What about you? How are you?’ I answered him simply, ‘Baruch Hashem, good.’ But that wasn’t what he was looking for. He wanted to know about me in the fullest sense.

“So I began talking. It was midnight, and I thought I would tell him a few sentences about myself and then move on. Instead, I found myself pouring out my heart, telling him about everything that had happened to me since my time in yeshivah. I explained how a single run-in with a faculty member is enough to destroy a bochur’s life. That’s what happened to me. The putdowns — at least how I perceived it at the time, and the relationships that deteriorated further and further… No one understood me. Everyone was too busy with their own regular lives.

“I finished my monologue at 3 a.m. I couldn’t believe what time it was, and quickly called my wife to tell her I was fine, that I would explain later. When I looked up, I saw that Reb Moshe looked like he was saying Tachanun. But when he finally raised his head, I saw that his eyes were red, and a small puddle of tears had formed on the table.

“That was the moment of an electric shock to the heart,” Dovid continues. “It was the moment when my Jewish heart began to beat again. I saw that there was someone who cared about me — not because he knew me or because he thought he could gain anything from me or because it was worthwhile for him for some other reason. Reb Moshe wiped his eyes and whispered to me, ‘You are a true tzaddik for continuing to observe the mitzvos. I don’t know if another person would have been able to stay strong after experiencing the same challenges.’ ”

Beyond the Laktes

Rav Shtesel just shrugs when asked about his secret recipe for mending broken hearts. “I don’t have any secrets,” he says. “I don’t have any special ‘techniques,’ and I’m not out to brainwash anyone. Every Jew has a holy neshamah, and we can’t judge another person’s challenges or feel superior to the spiritual level where he’s holding. Our job is to be there for them.”

Still, Rav Moshe Shtesel is not one to relax his standards for anyone. If he finds out that one of his chevreh is engaging in improper behavior, he doesn’t let the matter pass in silence. He pours his heart and soul into his people, but he also demands that they grow.

“Our situations aren’t so simple,” Yoeli admits. “Many of us have burned our bridges. Rifts have developed in many families because of the changes some of us have made in our lives, because we haven’t exactly towed the line of our mesorah.”

Rav Shtesel, for his part, has set down his own boundaries. “The Belzer Rebbe gave me certain basic rules for kiruv: If a person deliberately severs his ties to Judaism and connects to things that are forbidden, the first thing is to make sure he doesn’t ruin other people. But if a person finds himself slipping yet still understands at some level that he’s gotten on the wrong train, even if he doesn’t know how to get off, we have to do what we can to mekarev him, to save him and his family. So many young people today don’t really know what it means to create shalom bayis, give proper chinuch, do basic work on their middos, and live a more G-d-conscious life. No one has ever managed to teach them, and all of their experiences come from the wrong places.

“And so,” he says, “we gather and sing a little bit together. We talk about any holidays that are approaching. We don’t simply fall into those days anymore. We prepare ourselves for Lag B’Omer, Shivah Asar b’Tammuz, Tzom Gedaliah, and Shovevim — and, of course, for all the Yamim Tovim.”

Because for so many chassidish Yidden who walk the walk and talk the talk, Yamim Tovim might hold a level of sentimentality and tradition, but these auspicious times are missing the pnimius. What is Shavuos beyond cheesecake, Chanukah beyond latkes? Many people who look the part can’t tell you, and don’t even know themselves.

“Long before the days actually arrive, we study the fundamental points and understand the significance of the time, not only in its historic context but especially as it relates to our own lives,” Rav Shtesel explains, “because there’s no person in the world who doesn’t want to find joy and satisfaction in his life. That’s part of how Hashem created the world. So we make sure to find the joy in mitzvah observance, at the most basic level.

“There is a certain tendency in chinuch within chareidi society,” he continues. “Sometimes educators tend to ignore the basics of Judaism, assuming that anyone who had a religious upbringing will not have questions about his faith. They often write off such doubts as pretexts for bad behavior. But that’s not true. Some people who become emotionally disconnected at a very young age are lacking those crucial foundations. If we give that back to them, without mocking or denigrating them, we can literally give them back their Yiddishkeit.

“I’ll give you an example: I once received a call from one of the chevreh, someone who would only come around occasionally. He attended the preparatory shiur before Chanukah, probably because he had nothing else to do that night. On the last day of Chanukah, he called me to tell me that he had sat next to the candles the night before and had wept for two hours. Something finally opened in him. He’d never understood about Chanukah before. Now, a person can bury his head in the sand and insist that everyone should simply have pure faith and no questions or doubts. But I want to emphasize that the vast majority of these inwardly disconnected people would have been very happy if they’d found satisfaction in Judaism and chassidus way back, but something went wrong on the way and they need to learn everything from scratch. You can’t tell him, ‘You already know how to walk, don’t you? Then stop playing games and start running!’ ”

Reb Moshe’s chevreh has become a phenomenon that has grown far beyond his Boro Park shtibel, and he’s often invited to speak in others shuls that have patterned themselves after his own kehillah.

“When Jewish people get together and bless each other wholeheartedly,” he says, “when each of them wishes his friend the best in every area in which he knows he’s lacking — whether in ruchniyus or gashmiyus, finding a home or parnassah, success with children or shidduchim, or health and satisfaction in life — it has a tremendous impact in Heaven. And the most precious thing one Jew can do for another is to inspire him to make strides in his spiritual growth, enveloped in love.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 702)