Boro Park Story: 8th Grade School Trip to Boro Park

by Rabbi Sender Haber

   Ten years I ago, I told my class of eight 8th grade boys from Norfolk, Va, that if they learned for extra hours, we could go spend a day in Boro Park, which they were very excited to do.

   Our first impression of the neighborhood was awful: The congestion, the double parking, the honking, and the noise. It did not take long, however, for us to see and experience the high level of the Boro Park’s residents, with whom we only had excellent interactions.

   We started our day by entering Congregation Shomer Shabbos to daven Shachris and to experience a “minyan factory,” where we experienced a different type of traffic: when hundreds of men crowded in for different minyanim. Before our minyan even ended more mispallelim were crowding in once more for the next Shachris. 

    After davening, when we walked out onto the street, we saw people stop everything they were doing, just to give a quarter to a poor person.

   Then, we headed to Hatzolah’s headquarters at 5215 16th Ave., where I had arranged to meet with paramedic Rabbi Shlomie Rosenberg, who is just a geshmak person.

   We were waiting for him to arrive, and my 8th graders were in awe of him before he even got out his car, as he, at a very high speed, drove a large station wagon with many car seats in his back seat into the garage, and then expertly squeezed his large car into an unusually tiny parking spot, greatly impressing me and my 8th graders.

   Mr. Rosenberg then kindly took my group down into the Hatzaloh headquarters for a tour, where we joined a group of 8th graders from the Vizhnitzer Cheder to witness a “heartbeat” of the many forms of chesed that take place every day in Boro Park.

    Although the two groups of boys came from different backgrounds, they quickly found that they had so much in common. 

   While the Hatzolah volunteers were showing us their equipment, my boys were thrilled when, during our tour, we heard an emergency call come in on the radio, a call go out for volunteers, and then sirens immediately blaring outside. Not only was the hustle and bustle exciting, but one of my talmidim, who is now 22 and married, was so inspired by this trip, that he later trained to become an Emergency Medical Technician.

    A few hours later, after spending 20 minutes trying to park a 16-seater van, we ducked into Munkatch on 14th Avenue. 

   Amazingly, Munkatch also had “Boro Park traffic.” When we walked inside, a large group of people had formed at the stairwell, but everyone’s movement had come to a standstill, as people quietly walked down the stairs.

   Unlike the blaring sounds of the traffic outside, I noticed that nobody inside was yelling, pushing, or even talking loudly on their cell phones. 

   The only sound came from the front of a line, at which a distraught man poured out his heart to the Munkatcher Rebbe, who stood, listening, riveted to his spot. 

   This was a type of Boro Park traffic that I could appreciate. 

  From there, we traveled to the Living Torah Museum, where we saw all of the animals that are mentioned in Perek Shira. The exhibit’s creators had carefully consulted with Rav Chaim Kanievsky for accurate depictions.

    Finally, we headed to Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, first to have a shmooz with Rabbi Avroham Chaim Fruchthandler, and then, to meet with Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Aharon Schechter, who tested my talmidim on the Gemara that they were learning.

   We davened Mincha at the yeshiva, and then we found a restaurant for supper in the neighborhood, before we headed home.

  Our biggest surprise was how much the boys were able to relate to everyone in Boro Park. We loved to see such a big, beautiful community of tens of thousands of frum Yidden. We just had so much respect for the individuals who live there. 

       New York City is big, busy, and loud, but as we were driving home, we talked about how the neighborhood’s friendly and quiet kedusha and chesed really touched and inspired us. 

   Rabbi Haber, who is the rav of Congregation B’nai Israel, taught as a rebbe at the Toras Chaim Elementary School for 12 years, and now teaches Chumash and Hashkafa at Bina High School for Girls in Norfolk, Va.

   Readers who have a “Boro Park Story” to tell can e-mail [email protected].