Master of the Trade

You can hardly say the word “Druk” without rolling the reish Yerushalmi-style; the name itself bespeaks all the charm, and all the ancient tradition, that flows through the streets of the holiest city on Earth.

Rav Druk is an eighth-generation Yerushalmi, and he comes by the maggid trade honestly. His father, Rav Mordechai Druk, was a legendary maggid, a relic of the era when maggidim such as Rav Sholom Schwadron and Rav Shabsi Yudelevitch played central roles in shuls and yeshivos throughout Yerushalayim.

Young Asher grew up observing his father as he went from shul to shul, enthralling his audiences with the power of maggidus. He attended cheder in Meah Shearim, then went on to learn in Yeshivas Kol Torah for his mesivta and beis medrash years. He struggles to point to one specific influence on his life — “ich hub genasht fun yeder einer — I ‘noshed’ from everyone,” he says.

His father obviously had the strongest impact, but Rav Druk sees Rav Yankel Galinsky and Rav Shimshon Pinkus as primary rebbeim as well. Interestingly, the famed Breslover mashpia, Rav Yaakov Meir Schechter shlita, is his uncle — providing him access to an inside perspective of the Breslover philosophy.

In 1994, he married Esther Brevda, the daughter of Rav Shlomo Brevda ztz”l, another master of the trade who delivered myriad derashos in America, London, and Eretz Yisrael. Following his marriage, Rav Druk learned in kollel for several years. In 2005, he assumed a position as maggid shiur in Yeshivas Noam HaTorah. But even as he held a formal teaching position, his less formal role as a maggid began taking shape.

“I was always giving derashos,” he remembers. “Even as a bochur in yeshivah, I was known as a speaker. But it took a push from my shver to make this my calling. He was a tremendous baal eitzah — he understood people and their inherent capabilities extremely well. He encouraged me to become a maggid in an official capacity.”

While today, “maggid” is not a commonly held title — at least not in a formal sense — it’s a position with a long and storied history. “The maggid,” Rav Druk tells us, “iz a zach fun a pur hundert yohr — it’s a concept that has existed for a few hundred years.”

Over the course of centuries, maggidim visited shuls throughout their general locale or, at times, traveled considerable distances to share words of inspiration and pinpointed mussar with various audiences. Typically, they used a special nusach to deliver their speeches — a haunting sort of melody that was the perfect vehicle for a serious and deeply introspective message.

As Rav Asher mastered the ancient trade and began delivering shiurim, demand steadily grew. Soon he left his post at the yeshivah and became a full-time darshan.  All across Eretz Yisrael he went, delivering his impassioned derashos from hundreds of podiums and gaining a name for uniquely relevant and powerful addresses. As his audiences grew in number and size, yeshivah after yeshivah, shul after shul, sought out the inspiration of Rav Druk. Throughout Eretz Yisrael, he became a household name.

There are multiple elements to his appeal. While he speaks in serious tones, there’s a decided warmth in his delivery. Any severity is laced with snippets of humor, usually embedded into dramatic storytelling. His eyes will widen, his tone will drop, his head will shake in consternation as the various pieces of his stories fall into place. And then will come the story’s moral, and fist will meet shtender as he cries out the derashah’s takeaway lesson.

And those lessons are always relevant. He speaks about the primacy of Torah, the power of tefillah, the importance of hakaras hatov, the centrality of chesed.

World-renowned mashpia Rav Meilech Biderman once listened to one of Rav Druk’s derashos. Afterward, he called over Rav Asher.

“You are exempt from Torah and tefillah,” he said. “Spend all your time delivering derashos.”

IT

was approximately seven years ago when Rav Druk’s star power first crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He traveled to America and delivered speeches in multiple venues throughout the New York area. The trip was exhausting and being away from his family — which included several young children at the time — was incredibly taxing.

“I came home and said, ‘That’s it, I’m not going back.’”

Rav Druk would not be returning to America. Or would he?

“My host found out about my decision,” says Rav Druk.  “He called me and said, ‘You’re not coming back?’ I said no, it’s too difficult. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to tell you the impact you made when you were here?’”

The host went on to share an encounter he had just experienced.

“I was at a wedding,” he said, “and the brother of the kallah came over to me. He said, ‘Look around and tell me. Do you see what’s happening? Do you appreciate what’s going on here?’”

The host shook his head — he had no idea what the man was referring to.

“Our family had been torn apart by machlokes for decades,” the man explained. “My mother hadn’t spoken to one of my sisters in 20 years.”

But, in one moment, everything changed.

“When Rav Druk was in town, I heard one of his derashos — it was on the topic of being maavir al middosav, overcoming your natural harsh, judgmental tendencies. I bought a recording of the speech and brought it to my mother. She listened to it and started to cry. She then listened to it again. And again. After the third time, she picked up the phone and called my sister, who almost fainted when she saw who was calling.

“This wedding,” the man concluded, “is the first time that the family is together in 20 years.’”

“That’s what this man told me,” the host told Rav Asher. “And you say you’re not coming back?!”

Rav Druk realized that he had a mandate to travel, spreading his message far and wide, impacting people across the globe. Now he travels often, delivering multiple speeches to audiences in Lakewood and beyond. More often than not, he begins his speeches by reassuring his audiences, in a charmingly accented English, “Don’t vorry — I von’t be too long.”

With that ice breaker, the Yerushalmi maggid transcends language and cultural distance to deliver a message suited just for them. Then he gets to the task at hand, summoning up the right messages, spicing them with the perfect stories, fusing profundity and playfulness, and alternating between a ceaseless stream of insights and those melodic phrases that pierce the heart.

Set to a Tune

Even in casual conversation around a dining room table, Rav Druk slips into maggid mode. Every word he utters is laced with drama, if not dripping in it. As much as he fills the traditional maggid role, he’s brought a modern twist to the historical template.

“Ich tu mein drashos muzikalish,” he says. “I turn my derashos into musical performances.”

The result is something more directed and purposeful than a kumzitz, but more heartfelt and rhythmic than a typical speech. With the evocative strumming and picking of his son’s guitar in the background, Rav Druk delivers a shiur that is part stream-of-consciousness, part sippurei tzaddikim, part witty asides. And then, when the drama reaches its height, his voice switches from rapid-fire speech to long, melodious, prayerful notes.

“Achim yekarim, my dear brothers,” he begins, his voice warm and inviting, “tishme’u sippur, listen to this story!” — and his voice shoots up at the word sippur.

Rav Druk’s musical innovations have garnered some criticism, he admits.

“People ask me why I do musical derashos — ‘it’s beneath your kavod,’ they argue. I answer with a mashal from my rebbi, Rav Shimshon Pinkus ztz”l. Rav Shimshon would say that a chassan can be self-conscious about the way he dances at his wedding. But all those dancing around him can’t be self-conscious. Their job is to make the chassan happy, whatever it takes!

“Rav Shimshon would say that in life, we have to decide: Who is the chassan? If it’s you, then you can choose to be wary of people’s perception of you. But if Hashem is the chassan, then you do anything to make Him happy!’”

Clearly, Hashem’s people are drinking up Rav Druk’s musical messages with real enthusiasm, listening to shiur after shiur and implementing real change in their lives. So he shrugs off the criticism and forges ahead with his musical derashos.

Anything for the Chassan.

But the true novelty of Rav Druk’s derashos is not the style but the content. “Tochachos [chastisements] don’t go over well today,” he says simply. A maggid of yore might have captivated his audience with chilling descriptions of Gehinnom, or fire-and-brimstone threats about the terrifying din that awaits them in Shamayim. But Rav Druk mentions none of this. He has one primary focus in all his derashos: “You have to show people that this is the good life.”

You needn’t understand Yiddish to understand those last three words. Rav Druk says “the good life” in perfect English — “This is the good life!” — injecting more Yerushalmi deliciousness into that one phrase than any other English syntax has ever enjoyed.

Another English word he’s learned is “positive.”

“I say that ‘positive’ is made of three words: poh zeh tov, here it’s good.”

Rav Druk shares this message constantly — we must live “the good life.” And how does one do that? By constantly thanking Hashem. A constant eye toward gratitude opens people up to the realization of how much good is in their lives. By looking for the positive, one becomes a person of “poh zeh tov.”

BUT,

says Rav Druk, there’s more to it than that. In addition to all the natural benefits of a grateful attitude, thanking Hashem is actually a most powerful segulah. He launches into classic maggid format, demonstrating the principle with a story.

There was a Yid in Rechovot who woke up one morning to find that he couldn’t see out of one eye. Panicked, he ran to his doctor. Upon examination, the doctor looked very concerned.

“You need to go to an eye specialist,” he said.

The man made an appointment with a specialist, his anxiety mounting. The specialist performed an examination, only to deliver even more dire news.

“Your eye is finished,” he said. “There’s nothing to be done.”

The man was shattered but would not give up hope. He ran to another specialist and requested a second opinion. The second specialist examined him and delivered the same devastating conclusion. The man frantically reached out to an organization that helps people in medical crisis. He was advised that there was one specialist in America who might be able to help him. Otherwise, there was no hope.

The man worked to collect the significant funds he would need to cover travel and medical costs and soon found himself in the impressive office of the American specialist. The walls were lined with implements that seemed far more sophisticated than what he’d seen back in Eretz Yisrael. Perhaps, the man allowed himself to hope, he would indeed see his salvation here.

The doctor laid him down and conducted a lengthy examination.

“Sir, I’m terribly sorry to tell you this,” he said. “There is nothing I can do for you. In fact, the way things are now, your eye needs to be removed. Otherwise, it can cause harm to your other eye.”

The man went numb.

“You can have this operation done at home,” the doctor told him. “Or, if you want, I can do it for you here.”

Barely able to speak, the man weakly said, “I’d rather have it here — but can you give me some time?”

The doctor nodded and the man left the office. He knew where he had to go. He found an empty shul and headed straight for the aron kodesh.

There was no burst of anguish. No desperate plea. He spoke deliberately.

“Hashem,” he said, “I am ashamed. I am truly ashamed. For 40 years You gave me eyesight. And not once did I thank You for it.”

Only then did the torrent of tears come. His mind traveled back in time, and he proceeded to thank Hashem for everything he ever had since his birth. For his parents, his siblings, his wife, his children. For his job, his home, his chavrusa, his shul.

“Thank You, Hashem,” he kept repeating. “Thank You!”

Finally, after thanking Hashem for everything in his life, he lifted a tear-streaked face. “Hashem!” he cried out. “Please let me be able to thank You for two healthy eyes!”

He left the shul and called the doctor.

“Can I come back to the office?” he asked. “I’d like you to check my eye one more time.”

The doctor agreed. The man entered his office for the second time that day and was met by a very sympathetic face.

“I see you’ve been crying,” the doctor said. “I understand this is very hard for you.”

The man shrugged. “Please check my eye.”

He lay down, the machinery was moved into place, and the doctor peered through a lens intently.

“What?!” he suddenly cried. He called over fellow doctors. “Do you see?!” he exclaimed. “We can save this eye! If we operate immediately, I think there is something here we can salvage — I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before!”

An emergency operation was conducted and a very thankful man returned to Eretz Yisrael, his vision fully restored.

First Thank, Then Ask

Rav Druk has shared this story multiple times — and it has produced significant dividends.

“A rosh yeshivah once recounted this story,” Rav Druk tells us. “A few months later, he got a call from a man who was sobbing on the telephone. The man shared how he had two daughters in shidduchim, one 28, the other 32. They were wonderful girls — aleh mailos — but no matter how hard they tried, nothing budged.

“Then the man heard the story about the man whose eye was saved through gratitude. He decided right then and there that he was going to change his life around. From now on, he would thank Hashem for everything. His effusive expressions of gratitude would end with a single tefillah — ‘Hashem, please let me thank You for sending my daughters shidduchim.’

This man then told the rosh yeshivah, ‘Two weeks ago, the 32-year-old got engaged. Tonight, the 28-year-old is getting engaged.’

“Every family should go into their succah!” Rav Druk cries out. “Bring along a guitar! Sing to Hashem and tell Him thank You! Thank Hashem for everything! And, after that, daven that you should be able to thank Him for delivering whatever yeshuah you need.”

Rav Druk has his own “miracle story” to share.

“I was once visiting a hospital,” he says, “and someone told me that there was a chassan in critical condition. I went into the room and saw the young man lying in the hospital bed. His father was sitting next to him. The chassan had gone in for a medical procedure that had not been successful. He was awake and conscious, but deathly ill.”

Rav Druk sat down next to the father and shared with him the story of the man with the lost vision.

He then wished them a refuah sheleimah.

And left.

“A year later, a man came over to me.  ‘Do you recognize me?’ he asked. I shook my head. He said, ‘I am the chassan you visited in the hospital last year.’”

This fellow shared what happened upon Rav Druk’s departure. “Together with my father, we started going through every single stage in my life, and thanking Hashem for it. For my birth, for my upsheren, for my starting to learn, for my bar mitzvah. We kept saying, ‘Thank You, Hashem, thank You.’ Our tears were flowing freely. Finally, we finished. And then I said, ‘Please, Hashem, let me say thank You for bringing me to the chuppah.’”

The man then looked at Rav Druk. “I recovered. I walked down to the chuppah. A year has passed and, last week, we had a baby boy. Tomorrow is the bris. We would like you to be the guest of honor.”

“Have you ever thanked Hashem for electricity!” Rav Druk exclaims. “Do you realize the brachah in being able to flick on a light switch? A hundred years ago they would think you were crazy for even imagining such a thing! Thank Hashem! Thank him for everything!”

That, he says, is the key to living “the good life.”

R

av Druk is particularly sensitive to the bitter pain caused by the shidduch crisis — “the makkah of the dor,” he calls it. Wrenching as this situation can be, Rav Druk cautions those who are in pain not to forget the power of gratitude. Another story:

A Yid once came to an elderly rav and said, “Rav! What should I do? I have a daughter who needs a shidduch, and we’re not finding anyone for her.”

The rav looked at him and said, “Why are you mixing up two stories?”

The Yid looked at the rav strangely — he thought he must be confused.

“Uh,” he repeated, “I have a daughter who needs a shidduch.”

Again, the rav said, “Why are you mixing up two stories?”

This time, the Yid really thought that something was wrong with the rav. But then the rav explained.

“You said you have a daughter! What a simchah! Do you know how many people would do anything to have a daughter? Thank Hashem for your daughter! Now, you also need to daven for her to find a shidduch. But don’t farmish di tzvei maisehs — don’t confuse the two stories.”

“I even made a song for this story,” Rav Druk smiles, and he begins to sing the words, “Ich hub a tuchter… Ich hub a tuchter (I have a daughter… I have a daughter)” to a melody of “ki miTzion tetzei Torah.”

If you think about it, Rav Druk says, there’s always another opportunity to thank Hashem. And you don’t need any particular creativity to formulate the style. It was prescribed millennia ago.

“How do you say asher yatzar?!” Rav Druk exclaims, “Blublublublublublu umafli la’asos?! Do you talk to your wife that way?”

Making brachos with kavanah, says Rav Druk, is all part of this powerful segulah — as is explicitly stated in the Midrash. “The Midrash Tanchuma in parshas Bereishis says that k’sheim sheha’adam mevarech HaKadosh Baruch Hu, kach HaKadosh Baruch Hu mevarech oso — the same way one blesses Hashem, so too Hashem will bless him. If your brachah sounds like ‘babababa,’ what will your brachah from Hashem look like?”

Making brachos goes to the very heart of creation’s purpose. Rav Druk quotes the Chida that the word “Bereishis” is an acronym for “B’chol ram avarech sheim Hashem tamid — Each day, in a loud voice, I shall bless Hashem constantly.”

For this, Hashem created the Heavens and Earth.

Divine Embrace

The concept of thanking Hashem, says Rav Druk, is central to the theme of Succos.

“On Succos, there are two different mitzvos,” he explains. “One is the arba minim, the other is the mitzvah of succah.”

These two mitzvos may seem entirely unrelated to each other, but that cannot be. If they form the twin focus of Succos, then they must share a connection.

But not only is it difficult to identify what this connection is, the two actually seem to represent opposite ideas.

“One of the simplest explanations for the arba minim,” says Rav Druk, “is that Succos is the chag ha’asif, the celebration of the harvest. We therefore take these four species, which grow from the ground, and with them, we thank Hashem for the harvest.”

But where a celebration of the harvest marks a salute to the value of material bounty, the succah suggests a contrary implication. “The succah is a diras arai, a temporary dwelling. It reminds us that life on this world is temporary; Olam Hazeh is not to be accorded any significance. That’s why we read Koheles, because there, we express how everything in this world is hevel havalim — the ultimate futility.

“So we have a contradiction!” Rav Druk exclaims in his trademark chant. “Nu, how do we understand this? Is Succos a declaration that the harvest — and materialism generally — is to be celebrated? Or does it communicate that materialism is to be shunned?”

The answer, he says, is that material success is certainly something to be celebrated. But a correct perspective is critical.

“The pasuk in Yeshayah says, ‘Sos asis ba’Hashem tagel nafshi b’Elokai, ki hilbishani bigdei yesha — I shall exult in Hashem, my soul shall rejoice in my G-d, for He has adorned me [in] clothes of salvation.’ Look at the wording!” says Rav Druk. “What do you see? The pasuk does not say to celebrate the fact that you’re wearing bigdei yesha. The simchah is that Hashem adorned me in bigdei yesha.

“Of course you should celebrate the harvest!” Rav Druk says. “But only because it comes from Hashem! Materialism itself is worth nothing, but if you value it because it’s a gift from Hashem, as an opportunity to become closer to him, then it becomes a source of the greatest simchah.”

It is brought in the name of the Arizal that a person’s simchah for an entire year is defined by the joy he achieves on Succos. Perhaps because of this, suggests Rav Druk, Chazal therefore instituted that we read Koheles on Succos. “Because all our simchah comes from these seven days, it is critical that we disparage gashmiyus and remind ourselves that all our simchah comes from Hashem and from nowhere else.”

Rav Druk shares another insight from the Arizal. “The halachah is that a minimum shiur for a succah is ‘shnayim k’hilchasan u’shlishis afilu tefach — two full walls and the third, even a tefach,’” he says. “The Arizal explains that ‘two walls and a tefach’ forms a hug.” He extends his arm forward, then bends it at a 90-degree angle, then further bends his wrist inward, demonstrating with his own hands the words of the Arizal. This configuration follows the formula of “two walls and a tefach” and succeeds to create the perfect hug.

On Succos, we are in Hashem’s embrace.

“I invented my own segulah,” Rav Druk leans in and tells us. “On Succos, I hold a kumzitz. We play guitar and we sing the words ‘hodu la’Hashem ki tov’ 72 times — the gematria of chesed. After each round of Hodu, everyone thanks Hashem for something in their life. Then, after we finish, we all daven quietly, asking that Hashem should ‘let us thank Him’ for whatever yeshuah we need.

And from within the embrace of two walls and a tefach, the tefillos are surely answered.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1033)