“If rabbanim want respect, they should learn and become real talmidei chachamim.” Those words were spoken more than three decades ago, by Rav Noach Isaac Oelbaum, who is celebrating thirty-six years at the helm of the Khal Nachlas Yitzchok shul in Kew Garden Hills. But even as Rav Oelbaum looks back upon a long and distinguished career in rabbanus, his eye is firmly fixed on the present — and, as usual, he has some sage words of advice for a new generation of rabbanim concerning the challenges they face.
Dinner journals usually don’t make for inspiring reading unless you’re the guest of honor or the fundraiser. But when you read the 36th Anniversary Journal of K’hal Nachalas Yitzchok you get a sense that there is a story here. The letters written by shul members have the nostalgia of a yearbook the warmth of a letter home. The picture that emerges is that of a group of young families seeking to build a real kehillah gathering around a young rav and saying “lift us up.”
It’s a look back thirty-six years later at the path they’ve shared.
I had a bad accident and hurt my legs two days before Pesach. I needed to hear a siyum on Erev Pesach because I’m a bechor so the Rav took the whole minyan into that small hallway (between the Rav’s house and the shul) where there was a phone and made the siyum while holding the phone so I could hear it writes one.
Another person remarks: Like myself many of our members walk long distances to reach shul…. Neither July’s heat nor January’s blizzards holds us back. Our shul is a magnet that attracts a diverse crowd of Ashkenazim and Sephardim Americans Iranians Eastern Europeans those educated in chassidishe yeshivos and those educated in public schools….
Create a free account to keep reading.
