| Double Take |

Discordant Notes

By Rochel Samet | September 16, 2020

I hoped the kehillah would welcome Luzzy, see past his shabby appearance, and understand that here was a lost soul who desperately needed our kindness

Sruli: Can’t you accommodate an old man who’s had a hard life?

Michoel: Chesed is wonderful, but not at the expense of everyone around you.

Sruli

I know Luzzy from way back, so far back that I can’t really remember him not being part of our lives. I always thought of him as old, but technically speaking, he must’ve been only around middle-age when I was a child.

Luzzy ate with us almost every Shabbos. He walked funny, like he should’ve had a cane but couldn’t afford one. His clothing smelled bad, and I used to wonder if he ever changed shirts. He also had these weird habits, like checking the peephole before leaving our house. He was suspicious and strange and sometimes aggressive, but my parents treated him like a prince, and we kids grew up with Luzzy at the table as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

When my parents decided to fulfill their lifelong dream of aliyah, my father didn’t forget about Luzzy. He made me promise I’d continue the Gluckstein tradition — host Luzzy for Shabbos meals and make sure he was okay.

“He lives alone, no family, he’s had a geferliche time in life,” Tatty said, shaking his head. “Without Shabbos invitations, who knows if he’d ever get a decent meal?”

Without you and Mommy, you mean. I didn’t say it, but I knew it was the truth. There weren’t many people willing to host our longstanding Shabbos guest.

I checked in with Breindy, of course. She knew Luzzy from his frequent visits to my parents, and she agreed to extend him an open invitation. After a few months, Luzzy seemed as comfortable at our table as he’d ever been at my parents’ house. I was happy to be able to relay that to Tatty, grateful to Breindy for being willing to accommodate our eccentric guest, and relieved that it was working out well.

It was Shimmy, my six-year-old, who took things to a new level.

“Ta, where does Luzzy go to shul?” he asked me innocently, as we cleared the table from Shabbos lunch.

I paused, my hand resting on the glasses I was collecting. “I don’t actually know,” I confessed. Funny, for all these years I’d taken for granted that he had a shul, a place somewhere, but come to think of it, we often knocked on the door of his basement apartment to offer him a meal, and I’d never seen him walking around town on Shabbos morning.

“He could come with us,” Shimmy offered enthusiastically. I patted his cheek. “That’s a great idea, tzaddikel,” I told him. “Let’s invite him to join us next Shabbos.”

I daven in a beautiful shul, a warm and welcoming kehillah, very united and friendly. It has a large membership, but the rav still takes the time to get to know everyone personally. I hoped the kehillah would welcome Luzzy, see past his shabby appearance, and understand that here was a lost soul who desperately needed our kindness.

Apparently, it wasn’t to be.

Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.

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Comments (4)

0
Freda Birnbaum
5 years ago
Reply

I held off on commenting on the recent Double Take, waiting to see what other people thought. Not seeing any responses in the just-arrived issue, I’ve decided to weigh in.
It is a tough call to balance the needs of an individual against the needs of the whole community. Sometimes it seems like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.
I recall years ago, how a good friend who was active in an outreach minyan was very hospitable about taking in people like Luzzy. She finally wised up and realized that the outreach rabbi was cherry-picking the interesting newcomers and sending the “Luzzys” to her, when her teenage daughters (very fine and serious young women) said to her, “Please, Ima, stop having these people — they are ruining Shabbos.” And she stopped. Regretfully, but realizing that her children did come first.
I also remember a long-ago very successful outreach rabbi who wisely took his wife’s condition seriously: One Shabbos a month is wife-and-family Shabbos, no guests.
No question, both positions here have what to claim. But sometimes we have to watch out that our mitzvos don’t adversely affect other people’s situations. and clearly, the kindness to Luzzy wasn’t effecting any improvement in his condition.
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Morris Engelson
5 years ago
Reply

In last week’s Double Take we are faced with the problem of a somewhat deranged individual, Luzzy, who imposes himself upon the congregation to the extent that something must be done about it.
We are all familiar with the problem, though not at this intensity. But the story, in my opinion, is incomplete. We need a sequel. Fortunately, the seeds of a sequel appear in the same issue of Mishpacha in the story about the Klausenberger Rebbe, starting on page 162. The Rebbe miraculously survived the Holocaust while in the deadliest camps, including Auschwitz, but his entire family perished. There are numerous stories about this amazing person; some in multiple versions. Here is one that fits the issue raised in Double Take.
The Rebbe was present soon after the war where there was a loud commotion, as a young man was shouting and screaming words that Luzzy used: “It’s not true! It’s all a pack of lies.” No one could calm him down, and people were about to eject him from the premises. But the Klausenberger Rebbe got him to stop with the promise that he would listen to anything the young man wanted to say in the privacy of the office.
Privately the young man explained that he had been a rebellious teenager. He did not accept any rules, and he openly violated all commandments. Then the Holocaust came, and his parents and little brothers and sisters, who faithfully adhered to all they were taught perished while he, the open apikorus, survived. If anyone deserved punishment it was he, but he survived. “So, you see — it’s all a pack of lies,” he said. “There is no Judge and there is no justice.”
Then the young man started crying. And the Klausenberger Rebbe responded by telling his own story about his rebbetzin and 11 children – pure as malachim – all perished while he survived. The Rebbe was crying, and the young man was crying. And they consoled each other with their tears.
So, in our story Luzzy disturbs the congregation and behaves inappropriately. Why? Apparently, he’s had a difficult life but we don’t know any details, and nobody bothers to find out. Luzzy can’t sing and he slurs and mispronounces some words. But nevertheless, he has the experience and knowledge to daven from the amud. That does not happen by itself. There is a background and a history — a story — here. Possibly the problem would solve itself if only we knew the story. We need a Klausenberger Rebbe-type person to whom Luzzy would be willing to tell his story.
Who could that person be? I look forward to the sequel.
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Gitel Moses
5 years ago
Reply

I must comment on the piece that went into the magazine about Luzzy and his coming — or not coming — to shul.
What did it look like, dear friends, when we were all being oleh regel? It was everyone. It was not just the elitists or the ‘haves.’ It was not only the talmidei chachamim and the rabbis. It was everyone. The mothers, the fathers, the kids — including the ones who were interesting, strange, and different. The Briskers and the kids at risk all sharing the same walkways…
That means the guy with the earring, the guy with the blue hair and the half-shaved head and the tattoos and the jeans standing next to the shtreimel and the kippah serugah — and in one building, too, not in individual shtiblach.
In my childhood shul, there was a woman who was a Holocaust survivor. She was a very capable and very bright woman who came to shul every week. At a certain point in time she “lost it” and became mentally unwell. Every once in a while she would have an outburst and would force her way into the men’s section — usually when they would open the aron kodesh, and she would either sing something or say something about the government or against Hitler.
It was extremely difficult and very disruptive. The gabbaim knew to look out for her. She was very determined, but after a few minutes she would allow herself to be escorted out and the davening would resume. This same woman would, on occasion, come to community events and have a similar outburst as well.
One Erev Yom Kippur the rabbi arrived at shul a few minutes early and noticed a security guard posted at the entrance. Upon inquiring further, the guard told the rabbi that he had been hired by the board to prevent the woman from entering the shul. The rabbi asked him how much he was being paid. When he told him, the rabbi went into the shul and came out with the sum of money that he had been promised and sent him on his way.
The Kol Nidrei speech that evening was about recognizing and accepting who and what people are, and how we treat everyone — healthy and well — and especially those who are not healthy and well. It is what a community and a shul is all about. Even if and when they are disruptive, even when it is not easy and it is not pleasant.
That woman had a husband and children, and sometimes we have to learn compassion through someone else’s eyes.
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Laura E.
5 years ago
Reply

I was dismayed to read this week’s “Double Take,” in which a gabbai justifies banning a mentally ill man from a congregation, because “chesed can’t come at the expense of our rav’s kavod and the community’s comfort.”
But when has comfort ever justified avoiding a mitzvah? It didn’t work when Yonah tried to use it to avoid his obligations toward the people of Ninveh, and it won’t work for us. Indeed, if performing chesed were not at times extraordinarily difficult, we would not need to be commanded to perform it.
Our tradition warns many times what can happen when we act this way. In Gittin (55-56), the Gemara explains that Jerusalem itself was destroyed on account of embarrassing a hostile guest at a feast, Bar Kamtza, who was accidentally invited instead of the host’s friend, Kamtza.
During the time of year we are asked to perform teshuvah, tzedakah, and chesed, is justification for turning away a Jew in need on the basis of our comfort really the message we want to send?