Mordy’s Shtiebel.

The name piqued my interest the first time I heard it: Mordy, the modern-American nickname for Mordechai, juxtaposed with Shtiebel, the paradigmatic throwback to European Jewry. And indeed, I soon learned that this hallowed place straddles both worlds in a most unique way.

I remember one of my first mornings at the Shtiebel; as I pulled into the huge dirt parking lot, I marveled at the multitude of cars. Even more fascinating than the volume was the unique assortment, ranging from new and flashy to old and decrepit, all side by side, a hint of the blended group I would encounter inside. I recall smiling as I pulled into a spot between a brand-new Lincoln Navigator and what seemed to be the remains of a 2004 Dodge Caravan.

These days, I am a frequent mispallel at Mordy’s Shtiebel, and I can honestly say that a day that starts at Mordy’s is just a different kind of day. As you walk up to the backyard of the modest, barn-red bilevel adjacent to two massive white tents, you can’t help but take in the sight of dozens of Yidden clad in tallis and tefillin walking to and fro; the rich aroma of the on-site convenience shop’s coffee wafting through the air; hints of smoke from last night’s bonfire still drifting from the fire pit, and several men sitting on hammock swings and schmoozing. Large speakers up in a tree play new Naftali Kempeh songs or MBD oldies. There are dozens of meshulachim in the crowd, and the chevreh happily hands them tzedakah and invites them to join the conversations.

Beloved gabbai Avrumy Lowy sprints from tent to tent and then back into the little house, ensuring that the various minyanim are running on time, the aliyos are being sold, and the temperature is just right in each room. Every now and then, you’ll hear him shout out where the next minyan is starting or remind everyone about the fast-approaching zeman.

All the while, a steady stream of Yidden trickle through the yard and the various batei medrash. And there’s one factor you just can’t miss: There’s literally every type of Yid at Mordy’s Shtiebel on any given day. You’ll see conservative yeshivish attire, knitted yarmulkes, long peyos, bright-red hoodies, up-hats, and even the occasional denim overalls (wet paintbrush sticking out of the pocket and all). Wherever you go, whether it’s the busy coffee room or one of the benches in the yard, you’re sure to get a warm “Good morning!” from either an old friend or a total stranger. The whole vibe is one of unity, acceptance, and a stress-free mentality.

The minyan you choose may be nusach Sefard or Ashkenaz, depending on who decides to take the amud. And that’s part of the beauty of the place; nobody’s pushing any specific minhag, havarah, or style onto anyone. It’s all about connecting to Hashem, each Yid on his own level and in his own way.

Some mornings after Shacharis, you’ll hear an insightful shiur on Sefas Emes, while on others you’ll join a chaburah tackling Rav Aharon Lopiansky’s Ben Torah for Life. You can spend time perusing the Shtiebel’s large library, which offers hundreds of sifrei kodesh as well English books on topics like shalom bayis and business advice. And when you make your way to the coffee room, you’ll always find something fresh to eat, at any time of day — be it bagels, cereal, or hot soup.

A kol Torah resonates in the Shtiebel throughout the day. Led by Rabbi Binyomin Weinrib, Rabbi Yitzy Gewirtzman, among others, the morning starts with a vibrant kollel at 6:15 a.m. followed by several other morning kollelim studying Gemara, halachah, an Oraysa program, and mussar sedorim. At night, there’s a Mishnah Berurah shiur followed by a night kollel, culminating with a kollel chatzos. And between the various chaburos, there are always people showing up to learn privately or with a chavrusa.

As I headed back to my car after a recent Shacharis, I witnessed a comical scene that underscored the Shtiebel’s singularity. Two Yerushalmi meshulachim were standing in the middle of the yard, one staring at the convenience shop owner skillfully flipping eggs on a frying pan, the other captivated by the chaburah swaying on the hammocks listening to a shiur from the inimitable Reb Nochum Stein. Their mouths were agape. Finally, one mumbled to the other, “Motta, ein makom kazeh b’kol ha’olam (Motta, there’s no place like this in the entire world).”

There is so much to talk about when discussing Mordy’s Shtiebel, but to fully understand what this place is all about, and why more than 600 Yidden flock to its campus each day, we must first understand the Shtiebel’s namesake, the person whose vision inspired this bastion of avodas Hashem: Mordechai Greenes a”h.

Mordy was a real character since early childhood. When friends and family describe him, the descriptions range from “fun,” “upbeat” and “super-friendly,” to “very thought-out,” “deep,” and “analytical.” Mordy was a confluence of all these things.

As a young teen, he was very open about his struggles.

“He refused to take things at face value,” says his mother, Mrs. Simi Greenes. “Whatever he was taught or instructed to do — he needed to fully understand.”

Mordy wouldn’t just walk the walk without getting to the bottom of each sugya; he debated a value until he felt it was something he wanted to uphold. It was the same with his learning; his rosh yeshivah in Adelphia, Rav Yeruchem Shain, explains, “He learns hafla va’feleh. He takes apart a Gemara like he’s doing open-heart surgery. He needs to answer every single question.”

When he got a bit older, Mordy once told his mother that each time he drove past a McDonald’s, he needed to remind himself why he had reached the conclusion that it would be wrong to go in and grab a bite. Each small step was a struggle — but that didn’t stop him from carving out his niche in frum society. After graduating as valedictorian at the Yeshiva of Norfolk in Virginia, Mordy — who looked more modern than his kollel-style family back in Lakewood but loved his chelek in Yiddishkeit — began racing his way up the ladder of financial success, throwing himself into the rapidly expanding cash advance industry.

Over the next few years, Mordy became known for his massive heart — and his tireless efforts to make peace between Yidden. It seems these were his signature tafkidim: bringing Yidden together and encouraging them to be the best they could be.

One bochur relates that his parents sent him to Eretz Yisrael at age 16, as he was clearly failing in the American system. Yet even once he got there, his hair kept growing longer and his choice of clothing grew less refined by the week — until he bumped into a relative in Yerushalayim who changed the course of his life.

“You have to know why you came here. You’re not here just to have fun! You’re here to find yourself,” he was told — and he took this bochur under his wing, arranging a chavrusa, taking him boating and to the Machaneh Yehudah shuk. With every encounter, he boosted the boy’s confidence. Today, he is married, serious about his learning, and confident in his avodas Hashem and his life’s goals.

That fellow, of course, was Mordy Greenes.

That’s how he operated, always looking to bolster the confidence and dignity of people around him. Like the time he took his rebbi to a suit store, had him try on a suit that was way out of his budget, and then promptly placed his own credit card on the counter. “He wanted me to look respectable,” the rebbi relayed at Mordy’s shivah. “I’m still wearing that suit today.”

He once went to get his tefillin checked by a sofer in Brooklyn, and he could see the financial situation in the house was dire. When he came back to pick up his tefillin, he handed the sofer 100 dollars instead of the 35 dollars he was asked to pay — and two hot pies of Mendelsohn’s pizza.

“He seemed like he was struggling, so I wanted to brighten his family’s day,” Mordy admitted when asked about this incident.

And then there was the peacemaking. Just as Mordy loved and believed in people, he couldn’t fathom the idea of them being torn apart from each other for material, mundane reasons. He routinely built bridges between people who had been at odds for years.

“His married friends used to fight over having him for Shabbos, because he would improve their shalom bayis,” says Mrs. Greenes. “He would see how they interacted with their wives and then advise them how to be more considerate and respectful.”

Mordy and his two roommates, longtime friends Yisroel Gross and Yehuda Klein, often discussed their shared passion: creating a place that would be welcoming for all Yidden, regardless of where they were holding in life. Many of their friends didn’t feel comfortable in classic yeshivish settings; others needed music or social events to keep them connected; and yet others just needed a place to go after a long day in the office, whether to open a sefer or schmooze with a friend. The idea was placed on the back-burner — until one Tammuz morning during the Covid pandemic, when Mordy was niftar at the young age of 30.

“It was a total shock,” a close friend relates. “Mordy was our anchor, the one that gave us chizuk and inspiration — the glue that kept us all together. And from one minute to the next, he was gone.”

Mordy’s friends and family were bereft of his smile, optimism, and encouragement — but they weren’t going to let go of all he had given them. Yisroel Gross’s mind was already whirring a couple of hours after the petirah; he needed to perpetuate his friend’s larger-than-life legacy. That sentiment was cemented when, after the levayah, two of Mordy’s friends who hadn’t spoken in over a year due to a business dispute were seen locked in an embrace in front of the fresh mound of dirt. Mordy had tried valiantly to bring them back together during his lifetime — finally, after his kevurah, he succeeded.

Yisroel got to work right away. A couple of days into Mordy’s shivah, he signed a contract to rent a modest starter home on a large property on the Lakewood-Jackson border. They erected some walls, transforming the living space into three small batei medrash and a dining room. Yisroel and his friends spread the word via WhatsApp, and Mordy’s Shtiebel was in business.

At the outset, there were three Shacharis minyanim, along with Rabbi Chai Karp’s early morning kollel and a halachah kollel from ten to one by Rabbi Yitzy Gewirtzman. The chevreh was a heterogeneous group from the start: There was the single guy in the colored T-shirt standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the 40-year-old cheder rebbi; the chassidishe construction manager getting an aliyah alongside the ba’al korei with the Modern-Orthodox havarah; and the kollelim comprised of working men learning animatedly with Lakewood yungeleit and guys with Breslover peyos. Mordy would have loved it.

“There’s something really fascinating about the Shtiebel,” says Shneur Mueller, one of the driving forces behind the burgeoning makom Torah u’tefillah. “All sorts of people come here on a daily basis — and they all feel like it’s exclusively theirs. The Sephardim, the Ashkenazim, the yeshivishe, and the guy who just started keeping Shabbos — they all think this place was established just for them.”

“It’s the ultimate expression of Mordy’s neshamah in this world,” says Shmuel Grossman, Mordy’s nephew and a regular mispallel at the Shtiebel. “I think it’s amazing that they called it the Shtiebel; it’s more than just a shul. It’s more like a home for anybody, at any time they need it.”

It’s Lag B’Omer, a mild spring night.
The campus is abuzz. Inside the house and throughout the yard there are tables laden with hot food, free bow-and-arrow sets for the kids, and an endless supply of cold drinks. Massive bleachers tower around the perimeter of the yard, and in the center, a tall wooden stage with a mammoth structure waits to be lit. It looks like a great ball of cotton, the once-white layers now a deep shade of yellow from all the olive oil soaking it. Fire-builder Daniel Checkanow is standing high on the stage making last-minute adjustments, as the gabbai auctions off the zechus of pouring in more oil.

“One hundred-fifty dollars!” cries someone in the crowd, and he is ushered up the narrow ladder and handed a bottle of oil.

Rabbi Weinrib, clad in his beketshe and wide gartel, is shuckling with fervor. He addresses the crowd animatedly, describing the importance of inculcating the light of Toras hanistar into our lives. Then, he takes the large wooden stick in his hand and slowly begins igniting the flame. The band of chassidishe musicians, perched on another stage across the lot, is softly playing the tune of “Kah Echsof” as the rav circles the bonfire, making sure to light all sides. And then, he steps back.

“Bar Yochai,” the giant crowd bursts into song.

A drone is whizzing around up above, capturing snapshots of the dancing and the laughter below; the photos will be tinged with a bright orange glow from the blaze. Reb Binyomin dances high up on the stage, arms outstretched, his every move feeding energy to the crowd — and the jammed bleachers respond in kind, swaying back and forth to the beat of the music.

T

he Shtiebel wouldn’t be what it is today without its rav, Rabbi Binyomin Weinrib, at the helm. An experienced posek who received semichah from Rav Yitzchok Berkowitz shlita, Rabbi Weinrib — or Reb Binyomin, as the olam affectionately calls him — is also proficient in the works of the great baalei mussar and sifrei chassidus. Whether he’s drawing upon the wisdom of Rav Yeruchem Levovitz, the gratitude of Rav Avigdor Miller, the depth of the Ba’al HaTanya or the hope of Rebbe Nachman, Reb Binyomin has what it takes to be mechazeik just about anybody. He’s young and dynamic, he’s a skilled orator  — and perhaps most importantly, he’s a true friend to the mispallelim.

I asked Reb Binyomin if he ever thought a phenomenon like Mordy’s Shtiebel was feasible.

“Actually, I dreamed of starting a shul like this one,” he shares. “When I was learning by Rabbi Berkowitz, I had lots of friends who were starting out their married lives in Lakewood, and many of them were struggling: struggling to understand what a working guy’s avodas Hashem is supposed to look like, struggling to find a place where they could daven and learn with like-minded, nonjudgmental people. I had this idea of opening a shul in Lakewood that would cater to all kinds of Yidden, a place that would have lots of food and free smiles at all hours. But when I voiced this idea to a rebbi I am close with, he didn’t think it was realistic, and he advised me to start out as a rav in an out-of-town community and see where that took me.”

Indeed, Reb Binyomin landed a position as a rav in Seattle, Washington — but shul attendance was already declining by the time he arrived, and when Covid hit, the shul closed shop.

“I found myself in the middle of the pandemic without a position, and shuls weren’t quite looking for rabbanim at that point,” he says. “This was right before Shavuos, when many shuls were still closed.”

A friend of Reb Binyomin’s, Yaakov Moshe Florans, put him in touch with Yisroel Gross.

“I chatted with Yisroel on the phone for a few minutes, but I soon realized that although we had an identical vision, this whole project was just an idea. There was nothing concrete yet.”

That all changed about a month later, after Mordy Greenes’s sudden passing. The Shtiebel took off quickly, and the first major event was on Tishah B’Av, when they erected a massive tent and hosted an array of speakers to present the kinnos. Reb Binyomin was one of those speakers, and the people were enamored of his insights. He sat with Yisroel the following week and officially became the rav of Mordy’s Shtiebel.

“From the outset, we received the backing of the Lakewood roshei yeshivah, and we continue to work in tandem with them,” Reb Binyomin stresses.

Indeed, the Shtiebel’s events have been graced by the likes of Rav Dovid Schustal, Rav Yeruchem Olshin, and Rav Shalom Kamenetzky shlita, among other gedolim and rabbanim.

Reb Binyomin is always present, and he has his finger on the Shtiebel’s pulse. On any given day, he’ll be learning with guys one-on-one, helping a shaky bochur find his footing, or busy coaching a mental health patient back to stability. It’s no easy feat to be highly attuned to such a large, diverse group of people — but Reb Binyomin does it happily, improving lives one day at a time.

Reb Binyomin also leads the olam at the Shtiebel’s various events — whether it’s the massive Lag B’omer hadlakah (which people call “the closest thing to Meron outside of Eretz Yisrael”), the Purim mesibah, or just an ad hoc Thursday night kumzitz with the chevreh, infusing it all with words of wisdom, inspiration, and encouragement.

Under his guidance, the Shtiebel has also spearheaded various initiatives to address timely matters. The joint forces of Rabbi Weinrib, Shneur Mueller, Aryeh Miller, Yisroel and Shlomo Gross, among others, have undertaken issues like job placement, business networking, shidduchim, and the like. Many people have made their way back to financial stability through these initiatives. And on more than one occasion, Shtiebel-goers have been treated to a lavish bris, most of them unaware that the proud new parents met in the first place thanks to one of the Shtiebel’s shidduch initiatives.

It’s Friday, Chol Hamoed Pesach, and one of the tents is filling quickly.

“Musical Hallel minyan starting in the first tent in two minutes!” Avrumy Lowy cries.

Davening is routine, but when the time comes for Hallel, Simcha Gruskin — one of the Shtiebel’s talented baalei tefillah — approaches the amud and begins singing the brachah. The crowd immediately begins harmonizing with his melodious voice, and the few guys who brought their instruments settle around the amud.

With each perek of Hallel, Simcha introduces another song, each one a simple, Carlebach-style tune. The energy from the crowd is electrifying: people wrapped in talleisim are singing, dancing, and clapping, some circle the makeshift orchestra with their arms interlocked. One guy with a large bongo is beating so hard that his hands must be numb, while another fellow with a guitar strums as though the whole show depends on him.

Joining the circle of dancers, I see one common look on their faces: wholesome, uncomplicated joy. Whether their eyes are closed in concentration, looking around or upwards to the Heavens, they all share the expression of gratitude for what they were given, and the simple happiness of what their lives have to offer.

After the musical Hallel, a guitar player, I’ll call him Eli, shares his story: He had gone through a rough day on the stock market and wanted to get some shut-eye when he suddenly got a text from an old friend: “Wanna join me for a musical Hallel minyan tomorrow @ 15 Delaware Trail? They do musical Hallel every day of chol hamoed at the 9:30 minyan. You should bring along your guitar.”

Eli, a born-and-raised Brooklyn boy who slipped through the cracks after barely getting through mesivta, was working on Wall Street in his late 20s. He hadn’t joined a minyan in over a year — and he had no intention of changing that. He ignored the text and succumbed to his exhaustion.

But at 9:05 the next morning, his phone rang; his friend again.

“You should really come! I’m heading there now. The guy who’s davening from the amud is a solid tenor, and a bunch of the chevreh are bringing instruments. You’re a huge music guy;  give it a shot!”

Eli finally agreed, and a few minutes later, he placed his guitar in the trunk of his car and followed Waze to the little red house on the corner of Delaware Trail and County Line Road. At first, he was uneasy with his choice of dress — brown Blundstone boots, an off-white knit sweater, tight gray jeans, and a guitar slung over his back. But that feeling vanished the moment he walked into the yard behind the house and saw the potpourri of Yidden all over the place.

Eli found a spot in the back of the overcrowded tent and began to daven. The words felt kind of awkward on his lips; he hadn’t done this in a while. A few minutes in, his friend walked by and whacked him on the back. Eli suddenly got this strange sensation: he was comfortable in his own skin. This was a strange feeling for him; he had been allergic to shuls and yeshivos for several years now.

When Hallel began, his friend nudged Eli forward to join the musicians in the front. In just a few minutes, Eli found himself swept away.

“I didn’t want to leave after the two-hour long davening was over,” Eli relates. “I wanted to stay there all day.”

Eli explains that this minyan created a sense of calm he hadn’t felt in years, that he was alright and worthy of respect, rather than his usual inner conflict — constantly tearing himself apart.

That Motzaei Yom Tov, he was cleaning his apartment and caught sight of his tefillin.

“The bag was just sitting there on the windowsill, accumulating dust, waiting to be noticed,” he says with a chuckle. The next morning, Eli stood in that same spot, wrapping his tefillin around his arm. He hasn’t missed a day since.

GROUP EFFORT

It takes a team to keep a place like Mordy’s Shtiebel running. On any given morning, Shneur Mueller is ensuring the coffee room is in order, and he pulls the strings behind the scenes of every event. Nochum Stein spices up the atmosphere with shiurim of his own unique flavor. Yitzchok Yusselevsky is forever breathing a spirit of Breslov optimism into everyone’s day, randomly telling total strangers his favorite refrains, such as: “Remember, nothing can possibly go wrong today!” or “Hey! Don’t forget that everything is a brachah” or “Isn’t it the most geshmake thing to be a Yid?”

I would be remiss not to mention Shaul Abuhav’s coffee kiosk, a hallmark of the Shtiebel’s yard, an affable coffee maker with a beautiful story: Shaul grew up in Latvia to a secular family with scant exposure to Yiddishkeit, but he learned a lot about brewing a variety of sophisticated coffees. After moving with his family to the Brookwood One development in Jackson, Shaul discovered Mordy’s Shtiebel, a mere five minutes away on his electric scooter.

“I was drawn to this place because of the daily breakfast. I realized that everybody was happy at Mordy’s, and I understood it was a simple formula: When people are satisfied, they are happy,” he says.

Shaul wanted a chelek in the zechus of starting off people’s days with a full stomach and a cheerful attitude. One day, he showed up with some of his state-of-the-art coffee paraphernalia — including a Turkish cezve, coffee bean scale, and grinders — and started selling coffee in the dining room. The heady aroma of coffee from the Abuhav pop-up shop added a new dimension to the Shtiebel, which was already accustomed to the delectable scents of hot soup, hash browns, and Friday morning to’ameha potato kugel.

Shaul soon outgrew the dining room tables, so Reb Binyomin offered him a permanent spot in the yard where he could set up a full-fledged shop. There, you can get anything from Ethiopian coffee to scrambled eggs or ice-cold Coke — and most importantly, a warm greeting with a Latvian lilt.

It’s spring of 2023, and the place is on wheels.

Tonight’s appeal is not just the music and the singing, though; it’s the guest speaker, Rabbi Daniel Kalish, beloved 12^th-grade rebbi at the Mesivta of Waterbury.

The tent is set with hot food — poppers, schnitzel, cholent — and the ambience is enriched by the sound of some of the chevreh doing an impromptu jam on their guitars. The crowd is comprised of an eclectic blend: dozens of former Waterbury talmidim who see Rabbi Kalish as the hero who infused their lives with direction and purpose, intermingled with yeshivishe guys who don’t know him personally but are excited to meet the face behind the empowering self-confidence and chinuch speeches they’ve heard over the years.

As people are socializing and finding a seat, the devoted and diligent gabbai, Avrumy Lowy, is all over the place. He’s refilling the rapidly disappearing pan of poppers. He’s monitoring the HVAC system to make sure the tent doesn’t get too stuffy. Someone points out that there appears to be an issue with the sound system — and Avrumy Lowy’s on it, shvitzing over the tangled wires for 20 minutes while everyone is getting settled. The moment he’s done, you’d think he’s ready to sit and enjoy some food and a cold drink — but no, he’s out in the parking lot, directing the multitudes of cars to open spots at the far end.

The skill and sensitivity needed to manage a large event while simultaneously being cognizant of each individual’s needs is classic Avrumy Lowy. With his rugged boots, cabbie hat, and chassidishe beard and peyos, he can be spotted darting from minyan to minyan, making sure everything is running on schedule — and greeting as many people as he can with his trademark smile.

But it’s more than his joyful demeanor. Despite the hectic nature of a bustling shul, Avrumy is always calm, positive, and respectful. He is at the heart of Mordy’s Shtiebel because he has a Mordy-style heart.

When Rabbi Kalish’s car pulls up to the dirt lot, Avromy helps direct the guest speaker as the olam sings him from the car into the tent and all the way to his seat at the front next to Reb Binyomin.

I’m sitting in the crowd; the energy in the room could power all the EVs in the lot. But suddenly, my euphoria is cut short by an emergency call. I run to my car — and stop short when I see it’s blocked  by another vehicle.  I dash back to the large tent, clearly flustered and with no real plan of action. But while the entire tent is mesmerized by Rabbi Kalish, who has just started a niggun, there’s one person who notices my distress and rushes to my side: the gabbai.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, taking note of the car keys in my hand. “You’re blocked in?”

In a flash, he’s at the mic making a brief announcement, and within minutes, I’m on the road.

As I drive, I reflect on something Rabbi Kalish had shared. He had smiled affectionately at the assembled crowd, flashing winks at former talmidim scattered throughout the room.

“In Al Hamichyah, we refer to Eretz Yisrael as eretz chemdah tovah u’rechavah,” he said. “Now, I can understand why it’s a land that is chemdah, desired, and tovah, good. Anyone who has ever been there can easily attest to that. But why do we call it rechavah — wide, or broad? Just look at a map and you’ll see that Eretz Yisrael is a narrow strip of land. It’s anything but wide!”

Rabbi Kalish quoted the Gemara in Gittin explaining why Eretz Yisrael is also called eretz tzvi  — because like the skin of a deer, it can stretch to accommodate as many inhabitants as necessary.

“This is what we mean when we call it ‘wide’ — it may be small geographically, but it spreads out wide for all who want to come,” he explained.

Rabbi Kalish looked around the room for a moment, a twinkle in his eyes, and then smiled directly at Reb Binyomin.

“Rabbi Weinrib, this place is wide. Mordy’s Shtiebel is a wide place just like Eretz Yisrael. Anyone who needs a place to go, whether during a high or a low — comes right here. And I’m so excited to finally see it with my own eyes.”

M

any people recite a well-known tefillah from Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk before Shacharis. In this beautiful piece, Rav Elimelech stresses — as a precursor to davening — the importance of seeing only the good in our fellow Yidden and removing all strife and rivalry from our hearts.

Aderaba, tein belibeinu she’nireh kol echad maalas chaveireinu velo chesronan (on the contrary, plant in our hearts the ability to perceive the positive attributes of our friends, and not their shortcomings). By sincerely disregarding that which sets us apart, Mordy’s Shtiebel encourages us to meld together as one, amplifying the power of our tefillos and our ability to lift each other.

Mordy Greenes lived and breathed that mindset, and his Shtiebel — the wide, wide shtiebel – continues to perpetuate that message: It’s dark outside but it’s light in here. Eretz rechavah. Maalas chaveireinu.

The Shtiebel has space for it all.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1033)