Everyone’s Shtiebel   

After Mordy Greenes’s sudden passing four years ago, a group of his friends opened a shtiebel in his honor — and the small shul mushroomed into a massive center for Torah, tefillah, chesed, and nonjudgmental ahavas Yisrael

It’s a Thursday night in the dead of winter.

The tire marks crisscrossing the dirt parking lot are filled with frozen puddles, and the frig id air penetrates the bones. But one of the large white all-weather tents at the end of the lot seems unaffected by the chill. Its canvas walls flutter gently in the breeze, and the entire structure is aglow from the bright light emanating from inside.

Plastered to the tent’s front door and all around the property are large signs reading, “Rosh Chodesh Seudah tonight at Mordy’s Shtiebel. Hot buffet, live music.”  Car after car pulls into the lot, and a constant flow of people hurries from the cold air into the tent.

Once inside, it’s hard to believe it’s really winter out there. Large ducts inserted into holes in the canvas blast warm air. The tables lining the outer walls are covered with foil pans set in wire stands, blue flames flickering in the Sterno cans beneath them. The pans are filled with fan favorites: piping-hot sesame chicken, overnight potato kugel, and Yerushalmi kugel. Between the pans are trays of various flavors of Mike’s Chicken crunchers and bottles of cold seltzer and Coke, and people stand around, chatting and noshing.