I

had never been to America.

All I knew about it was from books and from friends. I heard there used to be slaves there, and today there are thousands of frum Jews who live in Brooklyn — in Boro Park and Williamsburg.

In yeshivah I also heard about the meshulachim industry, the Yerushalmi Jews that spread out through these neighborhoods, knocking at doors and going from shul to shul collecting tzedakah.

The day after the tena’im, one of my friends told me straight: “You have no choice. Get the right recommendations and go to America. Tell your story and Hashem will help you.”

I knew I didn’t have any better options. My heart palpitated with fear and overwhelm at the foreignness of it all. And so with no other options, I scraped together some money for a famous Yerushalmi askan to make me an expedited appointment at the American Consulate in East Jerusalem (those were the days before the consulate moved to Talpiot, when you had to make your way through the narrow Arab streets and then face a cadre of Arab guards and clerks, all employees of the US government).

“Don’t dare hint about schnorring,” the askan warned me. He equipped me with an invitation to a wedding of a Chabad couple from Crown Heights, which he had plucked off the wall in the neighborhood Chabad shul. “Tell them you’re going to this wedding, that you’re a relative.”

Armed with the invitation, I came to the consulate. It looked like a small military camp. Invasive inspections, confiscation of cell phones, and a thousand warnings not to dare take any pictures.

These were the days before the visa deal between Israel and the US, and I was told the rule was that if, at the end of the series of questions, the clerk gave me back my passport — then I’d failed and wouldn’t get a visa. If he kept the passport and told me, “We’ll be in touch” — that means I got the gold.

The questions were rapid and unpredictable. The goal was to make sure you weren’t planning to stay in America and become a parasitic immigrant, that all you wanted was a short visit. But when I couldn’t even remember the name of the chassan on the invitation, it was obvious to the clerk — from my nervousness and my garb — that I was going to America to schnorr.

I offered up a silent prayer: “Ribbono shel Olam, help me, this is my last chance to try and raise the money for my wedding.” Well, that must have worked, because he kept my passport and said: “Go home, we’ll be in touch with you.” I was getting a visa. My American dream was becoming a dreaded reality.

Where would I stay? Who would help me? I didn’t speak a word of English. How would I manage?

The Meah Shearim travel agent booked me a ticket, my maggid shiur signed a guarantee of payment, and we made up that I’d pay for the ticket when I got back. And off I went.

F

ear. That’s how I felt standing in line for passport control at JFK Airport. Hulking black police officers are stationed at their posts, and their expressions are never encouraging. One word out of place, one suspicious move, and I imagined being sent to a detainment room along with refugees from Guyana and Sudan. But the questioning was brief, my chareidi appearance apparently shortening the process. I nodded in response to all the questions the border officer asked, even though I didn’t understand a word. I collected my suitcase and found myself in a bustling arrivals terminal, surrounded by a massive swarm of humanity. I don’t think I ever felt so lost.

I looked for a familiar Jewish face, who could perhaps help me. All I knew was that I had to get to Boro Park and find the Halberstam Hachnassas Orchim. I sat down in a corner of the arrivals hall and waited desperately for a friendly face.

Suddenly, I saw him, a chassid with a vest, a walkie-talkie, and several beepers, with the logos of Hatzolah and Shomrim. In other words, a knacker, or hotshot, as we say.

“Are you going to Boro Park?” I asked in Hebrew.

“Vos?” What?

“Can I get a ride?” I tried again.

He didn’t understand a word of modern Hebrew, just some basic Lashon Kodesh from the siddur.

I tried again, in the simplest language I could: “Ani bachur m’Eretz Yisrael. Ani chassan. Ani mechapeis car [the only word I knew in English] linsoa leBoro Park….”

His face lit up.

“Oho, burich habu, chussen. Come with me!”

It suddenly, it dawned on me that without Yiddish, which I barely spoke, I might have a problem in the chassidic enclaves I was directed to. Meanwhile, I couldn’t dwell on that. The fellow helped me drag my suitcase to his sleek black SUV with lots of flashing lights, and we were off. Forty minutes later, the human scenery began to change. Suddenly, I began to feel at home. Chassidic Jews, signs on shuls in Lashon Kodesh on the shuls, yellow school buses with Hebrew lettering. The flashing lights helped get us through the midday congestion.

“Here we are!” he announced.

He helped me unload my suitcase and gave me a brachah in Yiddish. The truth is, I was somewhat accustomed to Yerushalmi Yiddish, but this American-chassidish Yiddish, the rapid-fire pronunciation spiced with English words, was like a foreign language.

I waved goodbye to my benefactor, and the SUV sped off in a cloud of dust.

In front of me was a flight of stairs, an old brown wood door, and a sign in Hebrew: “To all the meshulachim: The code is C-Torah.” I pressed the numbers of the gematria: C4625, and pushed the door open.

A strong odor of mayonnaise-based salads welcomed me. The owners of event halls unloaded their leftovers from weddings here every evening, and the meshulachim enjoyed the food and saved money, as they did not have to buy supper.

Four rooms, bunk beds and a strong smell of sweaty socks. After stepping my way between suitcases and negel vasser bowls, I reached a bed at the end of the room.

“It’s empty,” an older Yerushalmi Yid said to me. “And may it be with lots of hatzlachah.” It was clear to both of us what he was referring to — what I had come here to do.

At midnight, the apartment began to fill up. The drivers dropped off the meshulachim at the door, and they came in one after another. Some of them looked upbeat and cheerful, others looked despondent. It all depended on their daily haul.

Ten meshulachim, most of them much older than me, launched an ad-hoc briefing over steaming black Turkish coffee, summing up their exhausting day and dropping tips and assessments for the next day. They compared information and addresses: who opened, how much they gave, which gvir was holding a wedding that night and who was out of town. The information came thick and fast. I was dizzy.

Each one spilled his loot onto his bed and began his nightly count. First, they sorted all the bills, and then the vouchers (which the local tzedakah fund gave out and could be exchanged for dollars at the money changer), and then the quarters.

Whoever had collected five hundred dollars for the day breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever did not felt dejected, like a failure. There were some elder, experienced ones, mostly the Yerushalmim, who had reached even $900, but for that, you had to know the neighborhood and its doors for at least ten years running.

And I took in the whole scene, trying to understand what I had fallen into and what exactly I was supposed to do.

An older meshulach noticed how lost I looked and whispered to me: “Bochur’l, every minute is a waste. Go to sleep early. We have to get up at five already for the shuls.”

“What does that mean, to get up for the shuls?” I asked, with dread. And he replied, “I’ll show you.”

AT

five in the morning, the meshulachim were all awake. Only I slept on. My older friend shook my shoulder: “Bochur’l, get up. It’s not a time to sleep. You did that in yeshivah already. Now it’s time for money.” He brought me negel vasser, and I noticed the last of the meshulachim leaving the apartment. “Quickly, quickly,” he urged me “Every minute is precious.”

I hastily got dressed and stood at the doorway of the apartment. When the door opened, I was assailed by bone-chilling cold. The street — which yesterday was gray and dull — had been transformed into a white wonderland overnight. The snowplows were going up and down the streets, preparing them for another day of routine. No one here got very excited by snow.

“We’ll start in Shomrei Shabbos,” my friend said. I knew nothing about the central Shomrei Shabbos shtiblach, but I just went along. He walked, and I staggered behind him.

The first minyan had begun with the early risers. “Terach’s minyan,” as per the local jargon. The meshulachim were already in position at the doorway of the shul, waiting for the signal. As soon as the shaliach tzibbur began “Vayevarech Dovid,” they all dashed inside, holding a letter of recommendation in one hand — and a wad of bills in the other. “Hachnassas kallah! Hachnassas kallah…” they murmured, passing by each mispallel in order of the tables. They didn’t skip a single one.

I stared at the scene, dumbfounded.

Is this what I was supposed to? Is this what they meant when they said, “We’ll start at Shomrei Shabbos”? This is what “shuls in the morning” meant? My legs shook. I just couldn’t. I was not going to schnorr in a shul, no matter what! For all I cared, the wedding could get canceled. There was a limit to the shame I could endure.

I went back to the hachnassas orchim feeling shattered, struggling to understand how much lower I’d have to sink.

“In the afternoon, you’ll go house to house,” the meshulachim who had returned from their rounds at the shuls for a short break advised me, before they set out to knock at doors. “From five o’clock, the drivers start to work, until eleven.”

I picked a nearby street and began to go house to house. “Ver is dos (who is it?)” I heard a voice on the intercom, and the blue light of the camera that went on blinded me. I had practiced for this moment a thousand times. Now, like a parrot I said the following sentence:

“Ich bin a chussen fin Eretz Yisruel. Ich hob chasunah noch tzvei monaten. Ich vel mich freyen oib ets vellts mich kenen helfen (I’m a chassan from Eretz Yisrael, and I’m getting married in two months. I’d be very happy if you could help me).”

“Ein minit,” (one minute), I heard the voice, and in the background I could hear the noise of children, home from school by this hour.

The door opened and a little hand stuck out a one-dollar bill.

“Shkoyach,” I said and ran to the next door.

These were hours when husbands are not at home. The mothers send single dollars with the children to the door. Don’t think that’s minor: On a regular day, they need to answer about twenty knocks, and still, they give over and over again.

Another door, another one, and my feet began to freeze. A dollar, and another. Doors that didn’t open, and lots of cameras that studied me from above the doorposts, with only silence in response.

After a few hours, I returned to Halberstam absolutely exhausted. I threw myself on my bed and began to rub my limbs, trying to restore the blood flow. The shame and the cold had completely broken me.

Yissurim of both body and soul.

I poured my daily haul onto the mattress, sorted and counted. I almost wailed in helpless frustration. Four hours of suffering and this was all I’d made? A few pennies?

That evening, I didn’t go out with the drivers. The humiliation in front of dozens of intercoms had been enough for me for one day.

Once again, midnight came, the meshulachim returned from their day’s work, and convened for their briefing. The coffee was served and the information was exchanged, and I began to realize that I’m not even in the parshah.

Shame? Humiliation? These old men were swallowing up the shuls, knocking at doors and covering miles with their driver, night after night, and they saw nothing else.

A feeling of utter failure spread through my every limb. How could I have fallen so low on the first day already? How?

The next morning, I got up and made my own way to Shomrei Shabbos. I would be strong, I promised myself. I’d make every effort. I would not break.

I stood at the doorway of the first minyan, waiting for the signal. Slowly, the meshulachim gathered, as they did every morning, waiting for Vayevarech Dovid. The signal was given and they all darted inside. A cold sweat broke out on my palms. The shame seared my soul. My legs refused to move and I berated myself: “Nu, what did you come here for? What are you thinking? That money grows on trees? You need to pay for your wedding, let’s go, move inside!”

I forced myself to walk into the shul, and went over to the first Yid. I showed him my recommendation and lowered my gaze. A quarter. I blushed in shame. And moved on to his neighbor on the bench. He didn’t even notice me — his face was covered with his tallis. I could understand. I’m the tenth schnorrer today, and he needs to daven Shacharis.

Bench after bench, my face was turning into a beet. Some were kind, some ignored me. Some read my recommendation word for word, leaving me standing there, and finally gave a quarter. I noticed that the older meshulachim had developed instincts that discerned the potential of each mispallel in an instant. They didn’t linger at a mispallel for more than a second. But I, a young bochur, was submissive, sensitive, and vulnerable.

Any time I was ignored, it burned me inside. I felt like I was being hanged in the town square. I couldn’t do this anymore, and in the middle of the rounds, I fled outside to the snowy street. I was not made for this.

I got back to Halberstam at seven in the morning. The apartment was empty. Everyone was at work. I lay down on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. “Ribbono shel Olam, what do You want from me?!” I cried my heart out. “Why do I have to go through all this humiliation? What am I asking? To get married at age 22?”

I

don’t know how long I cried for, maybe an hour, maybe two. I got up at lunchtime, when the meshulachim came home for a lunch break. I had already promised myself last night that I was not going door to door. In this cold, with my aching legs, I forwent the honor.

In the evening, I went out with a driver, an older bochur and a veteran of the schnorring world — and a Hebrew speaker.

“Do you know Yiddish?” he asked.

“A bissel (a bit),” I answered.

“A chassan should be getting big donations,” he said, and I nodded. Insha-llah (if G-d wants), I whispered to myself, knowing it was not Yiddish.

He loaded me and three older men into his antique Buick, which drove through the streets of Boro Park hunting for prey.

He knew all the cars of the gvirim and could quickly size up the situation. If he saw them in the parking spot, he would signal us to go up quickly. The gvirim were a group of very nice and exceedingly generous people who found themselves playing daily mind games with drivers who dumped people outside their doors in droves, all seeking hefty donations.

There are gvirim with hearts of gold, and there are those who are arrogant. One needs to prepare to absorb anything — from kind, warm words to passive-aggressive insults.

We went up together and entered an opulent dining room, the likes of which I had never seen before. We walked to the head of the table, where the gvir was sitting, he seemed to be glowing. Each one of us shared his trouble, opened a photo album of a sick patient, or the institution that he was collecting for, and tried to get him to donate as much as possible.

Sometimes it worked. They got $18, or even $180. It was all a matter of finding favor, a click. But there it was again, the language. It seemed like in these parts at least, Yiddish played a crucial role. Now, I know you don’t have to be a Yiddish speaker to be a successful schnorrer, but these were the people I was directed to. I wasn’t in Lakewood or Flatbush or Baltimore — I was in a very chassidish milieu, and I’d just have to make the best of it.

My turn came. “Vus vatzeilt a Yid? (What does a Yid have to tell me?)”

My Yiddish isn’t so good; I answered in Hebrew. “I’m a chassan who needs to marry himself off. The wedding is in two months and I’d be very happy if you could help me.”

I’m no fool, and I saw the face of the Hungarian gvir suddenly fall as soon as I started to speak Hebrew. There was no missing it.

He muttered a few words under this breath, and then gave me a folded voucher. “Mazel tov,” he said flatly, and invited the next one in line. I thanked him politely and went out to the driver.

“Nu, how much did he give you?” the driver and the three older men asked me unison. I opened the voucher and glanced at the number — $18.

“Shvache meise (weak story),” they all said derisively. “Batlan,” they added salt to my wounds. “You don’t leave with less than $180 from him!”

I shriveled up. Everyone in the car had gotten $180 and I’d gotten just $18? Why?

And that’s how it continued, one address after another. In the neighborhood I was told to hit, the veterans, the ones who spoke Yiddish, came out with big checks, and I opened my mouth in the Zionist language and left with pennies.

I returned to Halberstam frustrated and despondent.

O

ne day passed, and then another. I realized that if I was going to be so fussy, I’d return home empty-handed. And what would be with the shidduch? Having no choice, I dragged myself to Shomrei Shabbos and Satmar in the mornings. One day yes, one day not, one day immersing in the steaming mikveh of shame, and one day healing myself from the burns. One day I went door to door, and then next day I swore never again. And on it went.

They told me about chassidic askanim who accompany chassanim to the gvirim. These askanim knew how to raise huge sums within two or three days, but to get such an askan, you have to run after him for weeks on end and bring him a real tear-jerker of a story, one that he could sell.

Tzorchei amcha merubim. The needs of our nation of so many. The handful of tzedakah raisers are busy over their heads. They don’t answer phones and they change numbers like socks, because they get so badgered. In order to catch them, you need to lie in wait at weddings of wealthy people or at the door to their homes, to pressure them until they agree to go with you for two days.

They are champions at evasion, while at the same time are collapsing under the burden of need.

They get phone calls from the courts of all the rebbes in Eretz Yisrael, and in order for a serious askan to take a bochur as a project, he has to come from a chassidus with a strong, serious lobbying effort. If the askan is touched by the story, he could raise $50,000 to $100,000 in two days by going around in the evenings with the chassan to the gvirim.

It works in a most interesting way: The askan “determines” for the gvirim how much they have to give. He also makes deals and matching offers with them. If this gvir gives this amount, you will give the same amount. And the numbers fly through the air.

All my efforts to persuade askanim to take me on were futile. With all due respect to me, my story wasn’t special in any way. There are thousands of bochurim getting married, and many of them don’t have enough to pay for the wedding needs.

And if the weekdays were so excruciating, Shabbos was even more difficult.

After a few embarrassing Shabbos meals, I realized that I had to find Hebrew speaking hosts. Initially, I tagged along with the others in my new little group of fundraisers — I davened in Satmar and waited for an invitation.

There’s nothing like the heart of a Satmar chassid. These Yidden will never let another Jew stay hungry no matter what. As soon as davening is over, each meshulach is besieged by dozens of mispallelim pleading with him to join them for the Shabbos seudah.

I was also invited. But I had a huge problem with the language. The only thing they know is that you are a “chussen from Eretz Hakodesh.” Or rather “a poor chussen who doesn’t have a penny and came to collect here.” We could barely communicate beyond that, and I’m sure they were as happy as I was when the meal was over.

At one point, my inner dignity woke up and began to shout: “No more Shabbos seudos in front of little children in kasketlach staring at you, watching you swallow. Boro Park is filled with Hebrew speakers. Take some initiative and go find them!”

I found a Chabad minyan, some friendly Israeli expats, and discovered Shabbos seudos with hummus and salatim and a chassidic atmosphere in a language that I could understand and speak.

Well, Shabbos began to work out, but the weekdays just got worse. One can get used to anything, except shame. It pursued me wherever I went. From shul to shul, from one intercom to the next, from one slammed door to another door that doesn’t open. And then, there were the weddings.

After long weeks of meager daily hauls, my neighbor on the bunk bed at Halberstam gave me an idea over a cup of black coffee: “Why don’t you do weddings?”

“What does it mean to do weddings?” I asked. Apparently, I was still quite wet behind the ears.

It was time to become familiar with the wedding halls in Boro Park and Williamsburg. Lavish weddings. Everyone dressed in the very best. And you, the “chassan,” come in wearing your faded, old clothing.

First thing, you go over to the mechutanim. They’re equipped with an envelope of bills in the inner pocket of their beketshes, and they often give generously. But a wise meshulach makes the rounds of the guests at the tables, too. Every family has a couple of wealthy uncles. A bit of pressure in the right place, and the yield can be very generous.

So I went into a hall, approached the mechutanim, each one gave a heartwarming sum, but then the real Gehinnom started: The rounds at the tables.

There is nothing more demeaning than badgering a person in the middle of his meal at a family simchah. I started at the first table; I lowered my head and whispered my regular shpiel about a chassan getting married in a month who has nothing, and so forth.

The music was deafening, the guests were busy excitedly meeting family members, and here I was, stuck between them like a thorn, with my hand stretched out, full of quarters. I bent down to the ear of each one at the table, but I didn’t need to: Everyone seated at the table knew very well what I wanted from them.

And then the ignoring started. Some of them were suddenly busy, others stuck their phones on their ears. Some simply didn’t respond, and yes, there were those that actually got angry. I understood. They were at a wedding. Which makes it all the more amazing how so many wonderful, compassionate Jews wished me a sincere mazel tov and gave tzedakah with a smile.

But not every baal simchah was happy to have schnorrers going around among their guests. One evening, a mechutan came over to me in front of masses of guests, stuck a few singles into my hands, and then escorted me to the exit. In front of hundreds of people.

I felt like death would be better than this life. I tried to whisper to him: “It’s okay, I’ll go out myself. Just let me do it discreetly, so people won’t notice.” But he didn’t even understand what I was talking about.

That night, the pillow at Halberstam was soaked with tears.

Hashem, please, let it not be a michshol for this Yid, not in This World and not in Olam Haba.

D

ay after day, shuls in the morning, house to house during the afternoon, addresses in the evenings, and wedding halls. A few dollars here and there. Chassanim who arrived weeks after I did had already hooked up with an askan, covered all their expenses, and went home. And here I was, after seven weeks in America, a week before my own wedding, and I was still scraping the bottom of the barrel, without a future, without hope, without a dream.

Back home in Jerusalem, there were those who voiced the idea of recalibrating with regard to the wedding date. If the chassan is not able to meet his commitments, someone from the kallah’s side hinted, then there’s no choice but to postpone the wedding until “things get easier.”

I was terrified. But what could I do? There was no yeshuah in sight.

Then, one evening, as I was walking down the street in Williamsburg, planning to hit the halls, I noticed a small crowd clustered near a relatively modest building. I went over to check it out, and it turned out that two families has just closed a shidduch, and they were coming for a brachah from Rav Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, the son of the Satmar Rebbe at the time, the Beirach Moshe, and the acting rav of the kehillah.

I don’t know how, maybe in desperation, an idea popped into my head. I’d go into this rav and I’d share with him what I was going through, and who knows? Maybe he could help me. But then I hesitated. The Yiddish. Uch! It would be a waste of effort to speak in the language of the Zionists in this neighborhood.

Despondent, I left. I was still trudging sadly, when that inner voice again chided me: “Aharon, do you run the world? Are you thinking with your mind again? Are you calculating a hundred steps ahead? Throw out the seichel, trust in Hashem and what will be will be.”

I turned around and retraced my steps, to the home of Reb Zalman Leib.

A small hallway lined with chairs welcomed me. A waiting room. A young, energetic bochur went in and out from this room to the Rav’s room, the fax was spitting out papers constantly, and a telephone console was blinking incessantly.

At the time, the Beirach Moshe of Satmar was ailing and weak, and the responsibility of leading the community and the mosdos in Williamsburg fell onto his son, Rav Zalman Leib. And yet, access to him was easy — the bochur was just keeping things organized.

“K

im arein,” the hoiz bochur said, motioning me inside.

I put on a gartel and walked in, with trembling legs, not sure what language to speak.

It was a very elegant rebbishe room featuring a long table, fourteen fancy chairs, the walls covered with bookcases and china closets, filled with seforim and silver. And at the head of the table, he sat, with his wide-brimmed hat and long beard. I felt a strong sense of awe in the room.

I approached and leaned forward. He raised his eyes to me, and put out a hand. “Shalom aleichem.”

“Vi heisti?” (What’s your name?)

Silence.

“Fin vanet bisti?” (Where are you from?)

Silence.

“Vi shteiste ein?” (Where are you staying?)

Silence.

He realized that something wasn’t right.

“Zitz.” Sit.

I sat down, and remained silent.

“Vi azoi ken ich dir helfen?” (How can I help you)

Silence.

He looked at me with questioning eyes, and didn’t ask any more questions.

We sat, one facing the other in silence, alone in the room.

Two minutes passed. My face turned red, and my fingers were mashing each other stressfully under the table.

I was silent, because I couldn’t open my mouth. I was terrified at the response of the crown prince of the anti-Zionist chassidus when he’d hear a bochur turn to him in Hebrew.

It was pretty clear to me that either I had to open my mouth and try my luck, or the hoiz bocher would come in and save the Rav from this mute bochur who had parked himself in the room.

“I’m a chassan from Yerushalayim. The wedding is in another week, I committed in the tena’im to cover all the expenses of the wedding, and so far I’ve barely raised a few shekels,” I said in Hebrew.

Finally, he understood what I had come for.

“Feel at ease,” he said. “I was a rav in Yerushalayim, and Ivrit is no problem for me.”

I could not believe my ears. I was taken aback by the Israeli vernacular — and no less by the accent. I breathed a sigh of relief — and thanks.

He took my hand, gave me a long brachah, and then handed me $200.

I took the money and thanked him.

But I didn’t stand up. I just sat there in my place. Silence. The Rav looked at me, not understanding what was happening.

I tried to open my mouth, to muster up the courage to share what was on my heart, but I couldn’t. The shame was killing me.

“What else can I help you with, Reb Aharon?” he asked.

And then the dam burst.

All the humiliation, the shame, the torture of the past two months, it all came up. I couldn’t breathe from the pain, the tears pouring down my face like water.

And Rav Zalman Leib sat across for me, with a concerned, fatherly look, grasping my hand and stroking it. His other hand pulled another tissue and then another out of the silver box on the table. He didn’t ask anything. He was just there, feeling my pain.

After many long moments, I calmed down. He gave me a cup of water, as the door opened and the bochur appeared. The Rav motioned for him to go out right away. Again, we were alone.

“What would you like?” the Rav asked.

“Help. I need help. I have no more strength for this schnorring, I’m not cut out for this. There’s a week to my wedding and I’m afraid it’s going to be postponed. I want the Ruv to help me.”

He listened, and then put his head between his hands and retreated into deep thought.

Then he raised his head and dialed a number on the huge phone that rested on the table. The man who picked up sounded like he was older, and obviously, he was speaking a rich, Hungarian-accented Yiddish. Already from the tone of the conversation I could hear the respect and the bittul of the man on the other end. The Rav fired off a few words and the older voice promised to be there pronto.

Until he came, we spoke. The Rav asked about my parents, my family, the yeshivos I had learned in and mostly about Breslover chassidus, its different factions and mashpi’im. The atmosphere in the room was calm and warm.

He appeared ten minutes later, a well-dressed man wearing a three-quarter length suit, a Satmar cylinder style hat, gold rimless glasses — the look of a typical Williamsburg gvir.

He stood near the table, trying to size up the situation. “Meet Reb Mechel Schlesinger,” the Rav said. I couldn’t help but notice Reb Mechel’s mouth drop open when he heard his rebbi speaking to a strange bochur in that language.

“Sit,” the Rav instructed Reb Mechel, and began to share my life story. “The wedding must not be delayed, not even by a day. The kallah is an orphan and this bochur has been through enough. I’m asking you to take him and make sure he has everything — down to the last detail — by the end of the week.”

Reb Mechel nodded submissively. The Rav gave me a hand and said, “Reb Aharon, stick with him. He has a lot on his head. You’ll have to make the effort. Let me know what happens and don’t forget when you’re standing under the chuppah to daven for Yekusiel Yehudah ben Pessel Leah.”

And then we were back in the waiting room — this time it was me and Reb Mechel. And as much as he tried to figure out who he was dealing with, I realized that the language barrier would be a hindrance. Reb Mechel didn’t know a word of modern Hebrew, and so he summoned his son, one of the community’s askanim, who was able to communicate better. When he arrived, his father told him about the task Rav Zalman Leib had given him and asked his son to help out. The son made a phone call to his brother, also an askan. A father and two sons with huge hearts — a family of chesed.

“It will be fine, you’re in good hands,” they told me. “The wedding won’t be delayed, and everything will be as good as can be. One thing is sure — no more schnorring. We’ll take care of it all.”

We parted, I went back to Halberstam, but this time, with butterflies of hope in my stomach. Finally, a ray of light, a future.

E

arly the next morning, the phone rang. Reb Mechel’s son was on the line. “We want to take you today to buy clothes for the wedding,” he said.

We made up to meet in the kaveh shtiebel of the Satmar beis medrash.

“First of all, a shtreimel,” Schlesinger determined. His brother agreed.

“Come with us,” they said, and we entered the beis medrash. Shacharis had just ended. They walked to the mizrach, and I followed. They approached a yungerman, spoke for a moment, chuckled a bit, the yungerman looked at me for a moment and offered his hand. “The shtreimel is on me.” $1,800 in a minute. I couldn’t even open my mouth, that’s how emotional I was. But it was just starting.

I didn’t utter a sound, standing near them like a mute. My Hebrew would just ruin things. They spoke whatever they spoke, and I nodded at the end of the speech. After the gvir signed the check, I offered my hand for a brachah and we moved on to the next one.

All the meshulachim walking around in the beis medrash looked at me enviously. “The Schlesingers are going with him,” they murmured. I was glowing.

Within a few hours, tens of thousands of dollars were collected — the expenses for the wedding day, along with the additional expenses involved. At the end of that morning, the Schlesingers told me: “It’s all taken care of.”

One of them even called the kallah’s side to inform them that they had arranged the chassan’s commitment. “On my word,” he said, and the kallah’s family in Yerushalayim breathed a sigh of relief.

We made up to meet that same evening in a clothing store in Boro Park.

In the meantime, I returned to Halberstam for a short rest, struggling to contain all this goodness that was being showered on me, as I murmured constantly, “Abba, todah, Abba, todaaaahh.”

The clothing store was actually a magnificent hall, where they sold everything from shoelaces to shtreimlach. Reb Mechel was waiting for me at the door. “Nu, how was the morning?” he asked. I gathered his sons had updated him about their speedy fundraising efforts. “Now the chassan needs clothing,” he announced.

He wasted no time. “Take everything you need, for weekday and Shabbos. Don’t be cheap with yourself!” He spoke to the salesman, and from the nod of his head, I realized that the payment was taken care of.

The salesman accompanied me, measuring my size and then he began handing me things. Shirts, pants, socks, beketshes, tzitzis, pajamas, sweaters, winter coat, weekday and Shabbos shoes, everything, head to toe. We got to the register with a mountain of clothing and shoes. The salesman entered the prices into the register, which spit out a receipt so long that it hit the floor.

I didn’t dare look at the bottom line. It was long. And in dollars.

“Deigeh nisht,” the salesman said when he noticed me eyeing the snaking receipt. “Reb Mechel paid it all. He also left two brand-new suitcases that he bought next door.”

The salesman packed up all the clothes and helped me load them into the car of a driver waiting outside. “Where to?” the driver asked.

“To Halberstam,” I answered, and he stepped on it.

I would be leaving back to Eretz Yisrael the next day, and Reb Mechel had one request: “Go to the Ruv before you leave and tell him we helped you and that we raised the sum we needed.”

In the evening, I set out for Williamsburg. I remembered the way to the Rav’s home by heart. The hoiz bocher welcomed me warmly — he’d realized by then I was not just a typical story.
Two minutes of waiting and I was summoned inside. As I walked into the now-familiar room, the Rav smiled broadly. “Ah, shalom aleichem, Reb Aharon, what’s doing?”

Nu, what was doing? My face said it all. If I knew how to write poetry, I would have written an entire Nishmas about Reb Mechel the tzaddik and his sons. I told him in detail about the quick fundraising after Shacharis, and how they’d bought all my clothing and shoes. The Rav beamed. “Zeier shein, zeier shein, very nice,” he murmured.

It was hard to leave.

I didn’t have enough words in my lexicon to thank the one who had brought me out from darkness to brilliant light, who had rescued me from the humiliation and the emotional suffering. And mostly: who had guaranteed that my wedding would take place at the appointed time.

The Rav gave me brachos over and over. Reb Mechel arranged a driver to take me to the airport. We stopped at Halberstam, loaded my suitcases and sped towards JFK.

I walked into the same airport where I had arrived in a daze just two months earlier, and I couldn’t help but think how wondrous and miraculous the ways of Hashgachah are. With my prayers and my passport, I had traversed this sea, and now, I was returning home with two stuffed suitcases.

A dank, Eibishter. Thank You, Hashem.

T

uesday, 26 Adar 2006.

I began the morning fasting and davening vasikin at the Kosel, followed by Kever Dovid Hamelech, Kever Rochel, and then Me’aras Hamachpelah in Chevron. My wedding day. The most important day of my life.

After rounds of tefillos and pirkei Tehillim, we headed for the Gutnick Halls in Yerushalayim. The kesubah was written, and then, accompanied on either side, I walked to cover the kallah’s face, and then on to the chuppah. How I had waited for this great day, how much I had fretted and how many menios there had been, but here I was.

I stood there alone, the kallah and mechutenestes going around me seven times, as the crowd sang moving niggunim and a fountain of hot tears dripped onto my new clothes. An entire life of challenges, a trip full of humiliation, all rose in my mind’s eye. The disappointments, the shame, and the yeshuah of the Rav and his emissaries.

I davened for myself. For the coming generations. For the home I was establishing. And I didn’t forget to whisper the name of Rav Zalman Leib, Yekusiel Yehudah ben Pessel Leah. I davened for him and for Reb Mechel and his two sons. I davened for dozens of good Yidden whose names I will never know, who signed checks for huge sums.

And of course, I kept murmuring: “Ribbono shel Olam, thank You, thank You, Ribbono shel Olam.”

A

month later, on 26 Nissan, we heard the news of the passing of the Beirach Moshe of Satmar ztz”l. From afar, I followed the levayah, and the crowning of his two sons as successors. And suddenly, I saw that Am Yisrael was zocheh: Before the sun set, it rose again. The Rav who had saved my life had been crowned as a melech b’Yisrael — a king of a malchus shel chesed, an empire of chesed, as I, a young avreich in Eretz Yisrael, could wholeheartedly testify.

A few years passed, and I became an editor and production manager at the Bakehillah newspaper.

In that capacity, always on the lookout for interesting interviews, I met a 90-year-old man with a fascinating life story by the name of Mordechai Dovid Hollander, a wealthy Hungarian Jew who lived in Jerusalem’s Rechavia neighborhood. After the war, he worked for the UN, then became a Mossad agent, and was also a seasoned businessman with a huge net of philanthropy. But the most fascinating part of his story was that in his youth in Hungary, before the war, he had been the attendant of the Beirach Moshe — Rav Moshe Teitelbaum — when the future Satmar Rebbe was the rav in Zenta, Yugoslavia.

Hollander had even disguised himself as the Beirach Moshe and sat in for him when the government ordered him to attain a university degree in order to continue serving as the rav of Zenta. And during the war, Hollander figured out ways of protecting the Rebbe and his family, made sure they had kosher food, and even devised an escape plan for them from the ghetto in Szeged, but the Rebbe refused to abandon whatever was left of his kehillah. The Rebbe and his family were sent to Auschwitz, where his wife and three children were murdered, and where he himself almost perished.

In 1947, the two were reunited in America. When Hollander got married, the Beirach Moshe — who had remarried the previous year and had been named as the Sigheter Rebbe — was mesader kiddushin. (The Beirach Moshe was the nephew of Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum, the previous Satmar Rebbe, and was appointed to lead the chassidus after Rebbe Yoelish’s passing in 1979.)

In January of 2013, Rebbe Zalman Leib, now the Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, would be arriving for a visit to Eretz Yisrael, and I had an idea: What if I could arrange a meeting between him and Hollander, the man who was so close to his father and had even saved his life?

I’d maintained contact with Hollander, and knew they’d want to meet each other. I contacted Yaakov Yaakobovitz, the communications manager of the chassidus, and suggested the meeting. He was very excited. “This is a historic closing of a circle,” he said.

I went to pick up Hollander, and we drove to the Rebbe’s lodgings in the Givat Moshe neighborhood. Hollander was overjoyed — the dynasty had not been wiped out. He had seen Satmar in its destruction, and now he was seeing it in its glory.

The meeting was very moving. It’s not every day that the Rebbe meets a survivor who was close to his father and shared some of his most personal memories.

I was sitting in the background, taking it all in. But mostly, I was gazing at the Rebbe as I was thrown back seven years. I was that chassan once again, sitting across from him and collapsing into a heap of sobs.

And then the conversation was over. Hollander stood up, the rest of the editorial team went over to receive a brachah, and I, too, waited my turn for a handshake.

I didn’t tell anyone about my previous acquaintance with the Rebbe, and I assumed he’d surely forgotten me. Out of tens of thousands of families, he couldn’t possibly remember some bochur he’d met a few years earlier while serving as rav of the community.

And then it happened. The Rebbe turned and asked everyone to leave the room.

He looked directly at me, and suddenly asked in Hebrew: “Are you who I think you are?” I almost stopped breathing. This time, I didn’t cry, I smiled broadly and told him, “Yes, it’s me.” The Rebbe shook my hand warmly and asked how I was doing. I told him I was already a father of three sweet children.

“And what do you do today?”

“This,” I said, pointing to the table and the receding backs of Hollander and our entourage.

“Fein, fein,” the Rebbe said with satisfaction. “The main thing is you are happy with what you are doing and earning a dignified parnassah for your family.”

“I live those months in America every morning,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Every morning in shtibel, when I see people passing by and collecting money, I remember what I went through in those moments of Gehinnom in the shtiblach in Boro Park and Williamsburg, and I try not to turn anyone away. And if I see someone who is a bit embarrassed, I add some more money. And if I notice someone next to me ignoring him and hiding under his tallis, I double the sum.”

The Rebbe’s face lit up, and he began to speak about the great virtue of tzedakah. He spoke about his great-uncle, the Divrei Yoel, who imbued in Satmar chassidim tzedakah as a top priority, the mission to help every Yid.

I thanked him over and over from the bottom of my heart for everything he had done and we parted.

Nineteen years have passed since those dreaded days, yet the shame still sears my soul. And here I am today, pouring it out to you. Believe me, it’s no great honor, but maybe the next time some young chassan passes by you in shtibel or at a wedding with an open hand, you’ll remember my story. Tizku lemitzvos!

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1057)