It’s a bright and breezy Friday morning in May, and at 9:30 AM, the Sasregen shul at Avenue M and 24th Street isn’t even close to emptying out. As yet another minyan gets underway, the Sasregener Rebbe, Rav Rubin, is putting away his talis and tefillin at the front of the shul. And in the back, at his post, is Reb Yehoshua Danese, who in less than a year’s time, has made Shalom Bayis Flowers a Flatbush byword – and, he’s hoping, a buy word, too.
Reb Yehoshua Danese was a successful kiruv rebbi for 11years and has also have written several books including the most popular one of Rav Avigdor Miller’s books called Path of Life. “It consists of his Shabbos drashos which I would memorize and transcribe after Shabbos ” he explains. He also wrote a kids’ book called Yoni Ploni Never Talks to Strangers about how kids can stay safe.
But after years of teaching the school effectively went out of business and he was struggled with unemployment for a very long time. “Then one day” he recounts “a very concerned Jew called me up and gave me the strangest instructions: I bought you 25 bouquets of roses; go out and sell them.”
The proposal wasn’t quite a bed of roses. “I must say” he admits “I was not pleased with him at the time but what could I do? I had to do something to support my family.” And that’s how Reb Yehoshua’s flower business got its rocky start.
Right Place Right Motive
Ever creative Reb Yehoshua realized that he could fuse the two top motives for buying flowers — kavod Shabbos and enhancing shalom bayis — by offering ready bouquets to men on their way out of Shacharis on Friday mornings.
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