Sing, dance, and reconnect along with the Thank You Hashem nation

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

Its a frigid winter night, but inside this comfortable Lawrence home there’s a warmth generated by something other than the heating system. It’s a spark that emanates from a group of friends huddled around, kumzitz-style, jamming and brainstorming their newest ways to spread a message of ahavas Yisrael, spiritual connection, and, above all, THANK YOU, HASHEM!

Yep, these are the guys — Aryeh Blumstein, his brother Elimelech, singer Joey Newcomb, and Yakov Josephy, with the help of a cadre of friends and supporters — who launched that quintessentially grassroots, infectiously exuberant movement to promote gratitude, positive thinking, and chassidic ideas throughout the Jewish community. You’ve surely seen their swag: the stickers, bracelets, hoodies, and keychains sporting the logo of a little crown and the words “Thank You Hashem!” Their online posts compel thousands. Every song they release goes viral. An idea that might have once been dismissed as a fad has become a badge of cool consciousness and dveikus.

So how did a bunch of FiveTowns guys in their thirties launch an international craze? And how did their hallmark phrase manage to inspire Jews of all ages to deepen their relationship with Hashem? The group was eager to share their story.

The Inspiration

Aryeh Blumstein, one of the movement’s initiators, is our host tonight. His brother Elimelech is the creative arm and together, these two brothers kindled the flame that ignited the TYH fire.

The Blumstein brothers are the oldest sons in a clan of 11 children, a family in which outreach is the family business. Their father, Rabbi Heshy Blumstein, is the rav of Yismach Moshe in Woodmere, Long Island, the type who pulls people off the street and brings them home for Shabbos. “He’s our inspiration,” Elimelech says. “He was always an out-of-the-box guy, and we grew up in a kiruv home that was full of ahavas Yisrael.”

While the TYH story is one of serendipity in Tzfas, its origins can be traced back to when Elimelech first grew enamored of chassidic teachings. An alumnus of Toras Moshe and Rav Yotzchok Berkovits’s kollel in Jerusalem’s Sanhedria Murchevet neighborhood, he’d worked for a few years in kiruv with JEC in Manhattan, a member OLAMI organization, before starting a menswear business called Twillory. During his yeshivah and kiruv years, he gained renown as a songwriter, composing songs for Benny Friedman, Dovid Gabay, Yaakov Shwekey, Avraham Fried, and Avi Perets. But as time went by, the inspiration waned and he let the mic drop.

“When I left the kiruv world to work, it was time to move on,” he says. “But I was feeling a bit second-class. I wasn’t surrounded by Torah all day anymore, and it felt like I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to in my avodas Hashem.”

That changed when he started going to shiurim from Rabbi Moshe Weinberger of Aish Kodesh in Woodmere and Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky, the rav of K’hal Mevakshei Hashem in Lawrence. From them, Elimelech absorbed that the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings were meant to reach out to the everyday working person and help him connect to Hashem. “Ein od milvado, Hashem is everywhere,” Elimelech says. “You can connect to Him at yeshivah and at work; he gives us opportunities for growth during every step of life.”

Three years ago, Elimelech had a yen to visit Eretz Yisrael, to take a little time for himself, learn for a few days, and spend a Shabbos in Tzfas. He arranged a simple Shabbos with Aryeh, his friend Mikey Mause, and two other brothers who were learning in Israel at the time.

“We gave the caterer very specific instructions,” Aryeh relates, “but he completely bungled the order and delivered it 20 minutes before Shabbos. I said, ‘Hey! What is this? This is not what we ordered...’” The caterer’s casual, oddball response would launch the guys, and the Jewish world, into a new era.

It was a simple thing; an off-the-cuff shrug and: “Thank You, Hashem! Don’t worry, it’s all going to work out.”

Aryeh and Mikey thought it was a strange response coming from the caterer, given that Shabbos was so close and he had botched their order. But they went ahead with last-minute plans to go to the Arizal’s mikveh, and while they were gone, the caterer managed to scare up some bottles of soda and a little nosh. By the time the guys returned to eat, it didn’t even matter anymore. “The way the caterer had just smiled and said ‘Thank You Hashem’ with such sincerity was a feeling we had to tap into,” Aryeh remembers. It wasn’t the phrase that drew them, but the caterer’s nonchalance and humility.

Shabbos turned out pretty great. “The whole experience was so inspiring. We were screaming our hearts out during davening with all the other Jews,” Elimelech relates. “Everything was unplanned, but so magical.” Almost humorously, they kept flinging the caterer’s words at each other. “We were on a high,” Aryeh says. “Our Shabbos was transformed. That whole Shabbos we kept repeating, ‘Thank You Hashem!’ ”