Years passed, and each Yom Kippur anew I was tormented at the forgiveness I wanted to give, but couldn’t

"Mr. Goldberger, it’s Chaim Sander calling from Yeshivas Ohel Yaakov with an offer.” Ohel Yaakov was a local elementary school for boys, a small school gradually growing in popularity, and Rabbi Sander, a master mechanech with great ideas, was the menahel. “Our secretary and bookkeeper have been handling the technical end of things here, but we’re growing baruch Hashem, and we’re ready to hire an administrator to get a handle on things and put our finances in order. Would you have time later tonight to meet?”

An activist used to holding two phones at a time with a third one vibrating impatiently on my desk, I thrive on challenge. And with summer in Camp B’Yachad behind me, Hatzalah’s dinner months away, and the last few boys who needed to be placed in schools accepted, things were pretty calm. The idea of helping a cheder struggling financially was appealing.

I jumped right into things, hiring additional staff members, implementing systems, organizing the computer files, and figuring out what was happening financially. The office, which looked like a paper factory hit by a hurricane, was methodically organized. File cabinets were ordered for the important documents, and a giant dumpster was put to good use. After a matter of days, the place was completely revamped.

At the end of September, the first month of the school year, when I strolled down the corridors a few minutes before dismissal to deliver paychecks to the rebbeim and staff members, the surprise and shock was visible on every face. Shaya Eckstein, the 5th grade rebbi, couldn’t contain his disbelief. “You know we haven’t gotten paid in months here, Shloimy. Thank you so much!”

If I ever felt overwhelmed by the responsibility I’d taken on, I’d draw on the positive feedback I got practically every day. The staff was on a high, the vendors were being paid, and Rabbi Sander was free to do what he did best. The cheder was thriving.

While the majority of school funding originates from the government, if there’s nobody to manage the logistics, the funds don’t magically appear in your account. I leveraged my connections to iron out myriad legal aspects necessary for obtaining government funding. Then it was time to work on tuition and getting the necessary funds to fill all the remaining monetary holes. The lack of financial management until now meant there was a large pile of unpaid tuition invoices for me to tackle. Of course, I needed to do my due diligence and figure out if the money wasn’t coming in simply because there was nobody on top of the situation to remind occupied fathers of their dues, or was it because in some families money was so scarce that tuition couldn’t be covered? It was time to set up a new tuition program, and I lost no time putting it into action.