For years, Rav Shlomo Bussu, grandson of the Baba Sali, was an anonymous kollel avreich… until pressured to forge the next link in his chain of tradition and meet a thirsting public

“We have to focus our bechirah only on the things that are in the realm of free choice, which is the choice between tov and ra. But when you come to a choice between two ways to good — don’t choose. Leave it to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The more you leave in His Hands, the more He does. Because the best thing is to say, ‘I don’t want anything — He knows the best.’ In my own experience, nothing went better when I went the way I wanted. Hashem always knows better” (Photos: Moshe Shapoff)

Y

ou have to climb the stairs at the side of the Hamelech Hachassid print shop in order to get to Beit Medrash Tiferet L’Yisrael, but for those who know Rav Shlomo Bussu, the location is really no surprise — his shul is tucked away, just as he’s been all these years.

Situated at 25 Rechov Givat Shaul, in the middle of yet another aging Jerusalem industrial area giving way to gleaming residential towers on either side, the two-year-old shul occupies a humble address that is sure to become prime real estate.

On this sunny spring day, Rav Shlomo Bussu is giving chizuk to a group of American bochurim from a Sephardi yeshivah before they head back to the States for Pesach. He is wearing multiple pairs of tzitzis and tefillin — he keeps his tefillin on all day long, every weekday. He speaks to them in their language — fluent English softened by a light French accent — about how victories over the yetzer hara, even the ones that seem so small down here, take on majestic proportions Above.

After his shmuess, the bochurim form a line to receive individual brachos from Rav Bussu. He gives them each a warm smile, a firm handshake, and a clap on the shoulder, along with personalized counsel. His good cheer and easy camaraderie with these young men call to mind a winning coach exhorting his team. But the bochurim’s awed demeanor shows that their rosh yeshivah prepared them well for this visit: for Rav Bussu is a mekubal, towering talmid chacham, a posek, sofer, shochet, and mohel. He is also a grandson of the Baba Sali, Rav Yisrael Abuchatzeira zy”a, the beloved mekubal and leader of Moroccan Jewry who was niftar in 1984 — himself the grandson of the revered Abir Yaakov, Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira, scion of a distinguished line of Torah scholars and kabbalists stretching back to the time of Rav Chaim Vital and the Arizal.

Into the Open

This public role is relatively new for Rav Bussu, one he stepped into only several years ago. For the quarter century before that, he stationed himself in the Ohalei Avraham shul on Eretz Chefetz Street in Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood, learning as an anonymous kollel avreich. He adopted the rigorous schedule practiced in the Abuchatzeira family, engrossing himself in Torah for 18 hours every day, sleeping just two hours a night, and fasting from morning to evening — all out of the public eye.

“Those were my best years,” he says with a hint of a wistful smile of the years in his “hideout,” where avreichim in the neighborhood knew a brilliant tzaddik was in their midst, but not many others had an inkling. “It’s best to be under cover, to be nistar. Something that is hidden cannot be compared to that which is known by people.”

He resisted taking on a public role, but his relatives pressured him to forge the next link in the chain of tradition, binding together the generations of the Abuchatzeira family. “They told me, ‘If people don’t come to you, they will go to all kinds of charlatans.’ ”

In the end, he consented, because he was persuaded that his yichus could be a powerful asset. “If a person comes to me with an open heart, and he’s excited about meeting me because I’m a grandson of the Baba Sali… without [the yichus] it would be much, much harder to influence that person. You can’t pass up the opportunity to be mekarev him and be mechazek him.”

The decision really came down to how best to make a kiddush Hashem. And for that, there couldn’t have been a better role model than his saintly grandfather, the Baba Sali.

“Simple derech eretz can make a kiddush Hashem,” he says. “Sometimes even just by being there you can make a difference — we have such an achrayus not to make a chillul Hashem.

“Even in our appearance,” he emphasizes. “We see how the secular and the modern people are fastidious in their appearance. I don’t know what kind of heter some yungeleit have not to be makpid this way. You should be clean and proper. It’s a Chazal mefurash that when a talmid chacham is not makpid on cleanliness, others will say, ‘Oy, this is the way lomdei Torah are?’

“I remember how the Babi Sali used to be very clean…. Even in Morocco, which is very hot, he was makpid to be clean and to keep his clothes clean. He said, ‘A person who is naki b’gufo is naki b’nishmaso.’ This is a very important inyan.”

Parting the Clouds

The Baba Sali was a constant presence in Rav Bussu’s house when he was growing up — even when he was not physically there. Rav Shlomo Bussu’s father, Rav David Bussu, was from a Buenos Aires family, orphaned at a very young age. He made the hard decision to leave his family in Argentina to learn Torah in Eretz Yisrael, eventually landing in Yeshivas Mir and then Porat Yosef. His mesirus nefesh attracted the attention of the Baba Sali, who announced to young David that he had been selected to marry the Baba Sali’s bat bechorah, Avigayil.

“I think it was this mesirus nefesh that gave him the zechus to marry the daughter of the Baba Sali,” Rav Bussu says of his father. “Behind everything special there is always mesirus nefesh.”

There is a story Rav Bussu often shares about the lesson he learned from the Baba Sali regarding mesirus nefesh. Rav Bussu was once at a seudas bris with his older brother, Rav Shimon, who is also a highly esteemed talmid chacham and mekubal. There was also a very well-known rosh yeshivah in attendance.

Rav Shimon rose to speak first, and in the course of his devar Torah he mentioned that someone once saw his grandfather, the Baba Sali, learning Gemara. His eyes flew down the page as if he were speed-reading. The onlooker asked the Baba Sali how he could learn Gemara so fast; doesn’t learning Torah require ameilus, great effort and concentration? Shouldn’t he review more slowly?

The Baba Sali answered, “My grandfather, the Abir Yaakov, was zocheh to be given the Zohar as a gift. I was zocheh to be given Shas as a gift.”

While Rav Shimon recounted this, Rav Shlomo noticed that the rosh yeshivah, who had been smiling throughout the bris, suddenly went straight-faced.

When Rav Shlomo’s turn came to speak, he made note of this. “I noticed that the Rosh Yeshivah stopped smiling when my brother mentioned this, and I would like to strengthen the Rosh Yeshivah’s question — how can Gemara be a gift if a Jew is supposed to work hard to acquire it? — with two more stories.

“One night, when we were living in France and the Baba Sali was staying with us, he asked my older brother Rav Moshe to run downstairs and check to see if the sky was clear enough for him to say Kiddush Levanah. Young Moshe dutifully ran down several flights, only to see that the moon was completely obscured by clouds. He carried this news back to our grandfather.

“This happened three nights in a row, until the last night came when one could say Kiddush Levanah. The Baba Sali again sent Moshe out to check — but it was again too cloudy. When Moshe reported this, the Baba Sali rose from his place, took his cane in hand, and made his way down all the stairs with Moshe’s help. When they got outside, the Baba Sali raised his cane toward the sky. The clouds parted in front of the moon, and he recited Kiddush Levanah.

“But I have a question on this,” Rav Bussu said. “There was another instance when, in order to say Kiddush Levanah in time, the Baba Sali rode by train for 600 kilometers to reach a place where there were no clouds. But why didn’t he just wave his cane?”

Rav Bussu proceeded to the second story. “I heard this from Rav Amram Abergil, my grandfather’s gabbai in Morocco. Once the Baba Sali told Rav Amram he wanted to go toivel in the mikveh, which was a natural spring inside a cave. Rav Amram accompanied the Baba Sali to the cave, but when they reached the pool, Rav Amram saw that the water was swarming with biting, stinging creatures. The Baba Sali nevertheless prepared to immerse, and when he put his foot in the water, all the creatures parted. When he emerged, the creatures swarmed back again to fill the water.

“The Baba Sali told Rav Amram to toivel also, but Rav Amram was afraid: Sure, the creatures made way for the Baba Sali, but they would eat Rav Amram alive! The Baba Sali advised him not to worry. He would put his own foot in the water, and the creatures would all keep away — and that’s what happened.

“But there was another incident. I heard from my cousin, Baba Elazar, that he also once accompanied our grandfather, the Baba Sali, to toivel in a mikveh in Morocco. Baba Elazar heard him descend into the water, but then heard gasps of agony. Baba Elazar hurried to see what had happened, and saw the Baba Sali covered in blood, having been stung and bitten by the same types of creatures. So here’s the same question: Why didn’t the Baba Sali simply clear the creatures out, as he did on the other occasion?

“It all comes down to mesirus nefesh. Because the Baba Sali was willing to travel 600 kilometers to say Kiddush Levanah, he was zocheh to part the clouds with his cane. Because the Baba Sali was willing to be ravaged by stinging, biting creatures in order to toivel, he was zocheh to be able to clear them away and immerse undisturbed. It was the same thing with the Gemara. Because my grandfather was moser nefesh with a great many years of intense ameilus in learning Gemara, he was zocheh to be given it as a gift.”

Always Feel Their Pain 

Rav Bussu says that in addition to his father’s mesirus nefesh, there was another trait that met with the Baba Sali’s approval. “My father’s anivus is unbelievable — only one who knows him understands,” he says. “If you want to see, just come to my parents’ house in Har Nof in the middle of the night. You will see him there in the window, absorbed in a sefer.”

After Rav David Bussu and Rabbanit Avigayil were married, the couple moved back to Buenos Aires. Rav Shlomo Bussu was born there on Hoshana Rabbah 5722 (1961). In the meantime, the Baba Sali was in Paris, and his son-in-law and daughter soon felt called to join him there. Rav Shlomo grew up mainly in Paris, and French became his mother tongue. Although the Baba Sali moved on to Eretz Yisrael in 1964, he returned to Paris three times during Rav Shlomo’s youth, staying for three months on each visit.

“My whole life would be completely different if I hadn’t known the Baba Sali at this formative stage of my life,” Rav Bussu muses. “A malach, mamash. I would come back home from school, knowing that the Baba Sali was at home. Light was coming from the house, the whole house was light. It wasn’t normal. He wasn’t a man, he was a malach. When he passed away, that’s when we really realized. It was a sunny day, but everything was dark.

“Just to be in his presence was like being recharged,” Rav Bussu says. “People used to come to the house just to see him. ‘We want to look at him.’ Even litvishe people would come over, just to look at him.”

There is a story about his grandfather that Rav Bussu tells frequently, one he witnessed as a child with his own eyes. He cites it to stress the importance of never becoming desensitized to other people’s pain. A desperate father had come before the Moroccan sage, pleading that he pray for the man’s dangerously ill son. After the man left, as young Shlomo looked on, the Baba Sali broke out in tears and called out to the heavens, “Ribbono shel Olam, take my hand away. Take my hand so this child should have a refuah sheleimah.”

“Doctors, you know, can lose all their sensitivity,” Rav Bussu points out. “When they’re in the middle of an operation, they can’t think about what they are doing to this patient. But the Baba Sali, who heard thousands and thousands of stories of people’s pain and suffering… he had the same regesh, the same sensitivity, with each and every one of them.”

Rav Shlomo grew up in Paris, attending yeshivah ketanah at Mercaz HaTorah, headed by Rav Yaakov Toledano (son of Rav Rafael Baruch Toledano, leader of the Jews of Meknes, Morocco, for most of the 20th century). He went on to learn at Yeshivas Chochmei Tzarfat, headed by Rav Chaim Chaikin, a talmid of the Chofetz Chaim.

In 1978 he followed his brother, Rav Shimon, to Gateshead, where he learned under Rav Leib Gurwicz, Rav Leib Lopian, and Rav Moshe Schwab. That is where he picked up English and Yiddish — as well as the Ashkenazic pronunciations he sprinkles throughout his speech. (He also learned Arabic from his illustrious grandfather during the extended periods the Baba Sali stayed with his family in France.)

After learning in Gateshead, Rav Bussu became engaged to the daughter of his uncle, Rav Baruch Abuchatzeira (Baba Baruch) of Netivot, son of the Baba Sali. It was clearly an auspicious match; the shadchan was the couple’s grandfather, the Baba Sali himself. In 1982 Rav Bussu and his wife, Rabbanit Rut, settled in Eretz Yisrael, and he went to learn in Yeshivas Mir; his chavrusa was Rav Dovid Moore, today a noted dayan and posek in Brisk.

Then Rav Bussu began his nearly 25-year sojourn in the Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood of Jerusalem, essentially leaving his family for the week across town in Har Nof and living in a machsan so he could focus all his energies and waking moments on Torah.

He blended into the crowd in Shmuel Hanavi, a complex of long tenement buildings built along the 1949 armistice line to accommodate the large influx of Jewish refugees from North Africa. Even today, many homes in the area feature portraits of the Baba Sali, mounted on concrete walls built three feet thick, to withstand the pre-1967 Jordanian artillery shells.

But the days of blending in are over now for Rav Bussu: He has been pressed into service to head several kollelim, and his itinerary has taken him around the world, where he is in demand for audiences with the public, all while still keeping to his rigorous daily schedule of learning and fasting.

He has been back to his native Argentina, as well as Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Morocco, and the UK. His stops in the US have included New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

“I didn’t leave Israel for almost 25 years,” he reflects. “I thought I’d be staying until Mashiach comes. I understood that if a person is really shteiging and trying to get closer to Hashem, he can’t disconnect himself. I thought if I went to chutz l’Aretz, it would be like trying to cook something, but taking the pot off the fire, putting it back on, then taking it off again…”

Rabbi Moshe Shapoff, a Stolin-Karlin chassid who has known Rav Bussu for a decade and has served as his gabbai for the last six years, identifies a thread running through the Abuchatzeira family history that has perhaps found expression in this current generation as well.

“The Baba Sali was always running away from kavod, a model of anivus, and now the whole world knows who the Baba Sali was,” he says. “It’s a whole avodah to run from kavod that you don’t find in many other places today.” And now, it seems, honor has taken off in pursuit of the Baba Sali’s grandson.

“It was a real earthquake for me, the difference between all the years of being alone and now having to be very awake and alert and careful to do exactly what Hashem wants in every situation,” Rav Bussu says. “So, baruch Hashem, after staying in one place for so long, He is bringing me to other places. Everywhere we go, every step, we feel the Hashgachah. We feel Him leading where we have to go.”

Don’t Choose

Rav Bussu has a well-developed strategy culled from the depths of Torah that can help a person determine which direction to take when Hashem puts him at a crossroads. Mainly it involves being judicious about when to apply one’s freedom of choice.

“A person needs not to have his own ratzon in these things,” Rav Bussu explains. “We have, on one side, the Chazal that a person is guided in the direction he wants to go, for both the negative and the positive.

But here, Rav Bussu cautions, a person can fall into another trap. When a person is given a choice not between a good thing and a bad thing, but rather between two good things — say, a choice between two yeshivos — he may start to form his own plans and desires around the question.

“We have to focus our bechirah only on the things that are in the realm of free choice, which is the choice between tov and ra,” Rav Bussu says. “But when you come to a choice between two ways to good — don’t choose. Leave it to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The more you leave in His Hands, the more He does. Because the best thing is to say, ‘I don’t want anything — He knows the best.’ In my own experience, nothing went better when I went the way I wanted. Hashem always knows better.”

But what is a person to do when Hashem does not make His preference in the matter abundantly clear? What if it seems the decision is left to the individual alone?

“That’s also a challenge,” Rav Bussu acknowledges, “but there’s a trick you can use, and it’s something that will never fail if you go with it.”

Rav Bussu refers to Chazal’s teaching that during Avraham Avinu’s ten trials, he asked no questions of Hashem, until the malach instructed him to stay his hand and not slay his son Yitzchak: “Yesterday, You told me ‘Yitzchak will be accounted for you as offspring.’ Then You came back and told me, ‘Take, please, your son, as an offering to Me.’ Now You’re telling me, ‘Withhold your hand from the youth.’ ”

“So what happened?” asks Rav Bussu. “Did Avraham Avinu lose control, when we said previously that he asked no questions?”

Rav Bussu resolves the apparent contradiction: Avraham Avinu reasoned that Hashem had presented him with two options: Under the first scenario, Yitzchak would survive to be his heir and carry on his mission to bring Hashem’s message to the world. In the second scenario, Yitzchak would be brought as a sacrifice.

Avraham was able to recognize how Hashem’s will was expressed in the first option, but when he analyzed it objectively, he had to concede he favored that option himself; if he followed that first option, he could not discount the possibility that he was acting to benefit his own interests, and he could not claim to be exclusively following the will of Hashem.

The second option also reflected the will of Hashem, but Avraham had to admit that he himself did not prefer this scenario. Avraham ultimately decided that, to ensure he was fulfilling Hashem’s will only, and not taking his own interests to heart in the slightest, he should obey the command kach na es bincha. He was resolute in this decision, and was in the midst of carrying it out when the malach stopped him.

“As long as he was determined to slaughter Yitzchak, he had no questions,” Rav Bussu says. “But when the malach told him, ‘Al tishlach yadcha el hanaar,’ he thought maybe it was a trick. Then he had questions! ”

Just as Avraham Avinu went against his own ratzon at the Akeidah, so should a person avoid taking the easier way out. “When you are in safeik as to what’s best for you, don’t choose the option that you are prejudiced to take. Choose the one that is less comfortable for you. That way, you will certainly not be making a mistake.”

Stories to Live By

The extended Abuchatzeira family remained tight-knit, guarding the derech of the Baba Sali and their other holy ancestors. Rav Bussu guards the mesorah he absorbed directly from his grandfather, and there is no place he taps into it more than during his reception hours for people in crisis, many of whom are suffering because of chinuch issues with their own children.

A traditional couple was once referred to him because they were having issues with their children and their own shalom bayis. He asked them, “And what’s with Shabbos?” They responded that they keep Shabbos. “And what does your Shabbos table look like?” They answered that they didn’t really have a Shabbos table. Everyone in the family just ate on their own.

The Shabbos table, says Rav Bussu, is an antidote to many ills. “I almost never start Kiddush until I see every child is at the table,” Rav Bussu says. “Everyone should be there, from big to small. But I don’t force them. I try to make it geshmak to be at the table. We keep going for three or four hours — I have to fight to start the bentshing. You don’t have to prepare a lomdishe devar Torah — just keep it geshmak, a light devar Torah, and make it interesting, with lots of singing, and speak with each of your children in front of the others. It is the only protection. It makes you their best friend.”

The number one priority in confronting the particular challenges of this generation, he says, is to stress the positives with your children. Negativity should be employed only in extreme situations, to set borders on behavior.

“Be as positive as you can be — the negatives, dwell on them as little as possible,” Rav Bussu says. “I almost never said to my children, ‘Sit and learn,’ almost never. But if I happen to catch one of them learning from a sefer, I say, ‘Wow! What are you learning? Tell me about it!’ They feel excited and encouraged.”

Rav Bussu carries this principle even into the realm of dealing with a child whose actions aren’t measuring up. He remembers how one of his sons fell asleep in shul on Shabbos morning. “Anyone else would have woken him up, but I let him sleep. Only at Mussaf did he open his eyes, yawn, and stretch. And then he davened Mussaf. Afterward I said to him, ‘Wow! How did you do that? You were so tired! I can’t believe it!’ I came home and told my wife, ‘You won’t believe what our son did, how he davened Mussaf when he was so tired.’ Most people would scold and say, ‘You slept through shul and hardly davened Mussaf!’ But what does the child get from that? Nothing.

“You have to give encouragement. Tell him he’s a gibor when he wakes up in the morning even though he’s tired. When he gets this kind of encouragement, he wants to show he can do it.”

Rav Bussu lists another priority that he says might seem very small but may well the most important inyan of all: to tell a story about tzaddikim at the Shabbos table. “Do you know why? Because the main inyan of tefillah is ambition,” Rav Bussu asserts. “If you think about it, everyone has an ambition. In life, too many things arise that spoil a child’s pursuit of his ambitions. But with a story, he has no negiyus. He always identifies with the tzaddik, and internally he develops ambitions to be like him.”

Sippurei tzaddikim were a regular fixture at the Bussu family table when he was growing up. His father’s stories captivated the entire family. Rav Bussu emphasizes that there is a correct shiur for stories of tzaddikim: exactly one per week, at the Shabbos table. He said he heard in the name of the Chazon Ish that one story is worth more than a thousand mussar shmuessen. But the one-per-week ratio is not only a minimum; it is also a maximum.

“I was once at a chinuch conference with the Tolna Rebbe — he spoke about it explicitly, the need to tell sippurei tzaddikim,” Rav Bussu says. “One rav who was present said he wanted to tell his kids a story every night. The Tolna Rebbe said no — they’ll just fall asleep. Once a week is enough. Once a week and they’ll pay attention.”

Rav Bussu emphasizes that this is not a simple story time for children; very great care must be invested in this task: “There was a time it was harder for me to find the right story than it was to prepare a shiur. It’s pikuach nefesh.”

Reconnecting Rav Bussu reflects on his new public role — of being an address for people all over the world who seek his counsel and blessings — and the preparation Hashem provided him for it, seeing the Hashgachah pratis every step of the way. Besides his illustrious lineage, Rav Bussu’s own life experience has equipped him with powerful tools and a unique insight for dealing with the hopes and concerns of Jews all over the world.

“I was born in Argentina, I moved to France, I learned in England,” he reflects. “I’ve met in my life all kinds of mentalities — chassidish, Sephardi, Ashkenazi. And also, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave me the languages.”

Above all, the message he hopes to get across is that however formidable the challenges facing our generation appear to be, they are dwarfed before the power of Torah and connection to Hashem.

“Being connected to the Torah is being connected to Ein Sof,” Rav Bussu says. “When we say, Koh amar Hashem, im lo brisi yomam valailah, chukos Shamayim va’aretz lo samti [if My covenant were not day and night, if I had not set the laws of Heaven and earth — Yirmiyahu 33:25], it doesn’t mean the Torah only defines a black-or-white set of rules, the world either exists or it doesn’t. It means that all the grays in between depend on Torah, as well. All brachah comes from the Torah — parnassah, health, shalom — it all depends on the Torah Hakedoshah.

“The more people are connected to the Torah, the more success they will have in everything. When a person is learning, he’s influencing the whole world. It makes learning completely different. It’s not only about filling your neshamah, to enable you to overcome the nisyonos in your own life — you’re connecting to the essence of the brachah for everything.”

And as our own conversation winds to its close, Rav Bussu turns back to the sefer on the desk before him, and reconnects. —

The First Second Opinion

Rav Bussu shares a story about his grandfather the Baba Sali giving an eitzah that proved prophetic, regarding Rav Yisrael Dovid Novener and his rebbetzin. (Rav Bussu heard this story from Rebbetzin Novener.) Rav Novener was a rosh yeshivah in Mattersdorf, as well as a noted composer of niggunim. After the war, the Noveners moved to France, where after a time Rav Novener took ill. A diagnosis revealed he had a condition in his spine that required immediate intervention. They managed to consult with the world’s number one specialist in this realm — a French Jewish doctor.

This specialist advised Rav Novener that he must undergo an operation that was extremely risky, but offered the only ray of hope for recovery. Without it, he said, Rav Novener could not expect to live long. Rebbetzin Novener flew right away to Eretz Yisrael, straight to the Baba Sali who had already moved there from Morocco and with whom the family was connected since his sojourn in France, to get a brachah for a successful operation.

But upon hearing the details from Rebbetzin Novener, the Baba Sali’s response was adamant: “The operation isn’t necessary,” even as the operation had already been scheduled.

Rav Novener also had a connection to the Satmar Rebbe, who advised, “Get a second opinion.”

The Noveners were a bit thrown by this — who could give them a second opinion, after they had already consulted the number-one specialist in the world? In the end, they went to this specialist’s professor from medical school. This professor reviewed all the tests and diagnostics and said the operation was necessary.

So they went back to the specialist, but when he heard they had sought a second opinion — from his professor, yet — he was offended and refused to perform the operation.

The Noveners were distraught — who would now perform such a dangerous operation? In the end, they were recommended a non-Jewish surgeon, who reviewed all the files and determined that surgery was necessary. He told them he’d take them on a Sunday, but they requested instead that it be pushed off to Tuesday. Since the operation was being delayed two days, this doctor wanted to do all the tests again. The results came back, and he said emphatically, “Yes, you need the surgery.”

But as he reviewed the results again, this time a bit more closely, he exclaimed suddenly, “No! It’s an infection! The infection looks like this other condition, but it can be cured with antibiotics!”

Straightaway they put Rav Novener on antibiotics, and he was cured.

Don’t Throw Them Out

“I was once talking with an American yungerman about technology,” Rav Bussu says. “This yungerman told me, ‘Kids today, you know, they know what they want.’ But why? Who said so? Who decided?  A family has to sit together and find some kind of solution. It has to be done with understanding — the parents can’t just say, ‘Give me your phone!’ but rather, ‘These are the issues, this is the danger.’ Don’t look at it as taking away your child’s pleasure — you’re protecting him for his whole life! Everyone has kedushah, and compromising that affects his whole life. Your kids can understand this.”

But from the side of the mosdos chinuch, on the other hand, Rav Bussu charts a very fine line to which mechanchim must hew; because although the challenge from technology is formidable, a bochur must not be cast out.

“Roshei yeshivah today, when they throw out bochurim because they hold it’s pikuach nefesh, they have to try to understand that we have no idea what kind of nisyonos these bochurim have to confront. There is a big disconnect between many mechanchim and their talmidim. It’s a disaster.

“My son Moshe Yaakov — the mashgiach in his yeshivah threw out a bochur. Moshe Yaakov asked to speak to the rosh yeshivah. He said to the rosh yeshivah, ‘The Gemara says when we pasken whether a beheimah has a mum or not, we must consult many different experts to be sure we pasken right. But with this bochur, you decided by yourself that it was pikuach nefesh?’ And the rosh yeshivah brought the bochur back!” Rav Bussu relates this story with evident relish.

Rav Bussu points to another challenge confronting today’s yeshivah bochurim that contributes to their challenges: Their yeshivos won’t let them get married early.

“That makes things much, much harder,” he says, shaking his head. “That has caused a lot — a lot — of korbanos. When a person knows he’s about to get married, he has a safe harbor. If you’re not letting him start shidduchim till 23, he’s already struggling. A rosh yeshivah tells me not to worry about such a bochur, saying, ‘What’s the problem? He’s a tzaddik! Look, he’s learning!’ Your tzaddik comes to me to tell me all his struggles. We cannot fathom the nisyonos they are struggling with. Sometimes they get addicted to very bad things. I don’t know what heter a rosh yeshivah has not to let someone get married when he wants to.”

He interposes the well-known story about Rav Steinman ztz”l and a mashgiach who sought the Rosh Yeshivah’s advice on how to deal with a certain bochur. All the positive measures had been exhausted, and now the yeshivah’s only option was expulsion.

“We warned him,” the mashgiach said, “but it continued, he’s finished now, and he cannot stay in yeshivah.”

Rav Steinman was pained to hear this. “Are you sure you tried everything?”

“We tried everything, and I’m telling the Rosh Yeshivah, it was mamash erech apayim,” the mashgiach insisted.

Rav Steinman gave a deep krechtz. “What’s his name?” he asked. “And what’s his mother’s name?”

“I don’t know,” the mashgiach said with a shrug.

“What?!” Rav Steinman demanded, now clearly agitated. “You didn’t daven for him?! What are you, a policeman?!”

“Rav Steinman threw the mashgiach out,” Rav Bussu says, “and he told that rosh yeshivah he had to find another mashgiach.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 704)