“Chassidei Skulen?” he asked. “It’s only for the chassidim? It’s for any Yid who wants ah bissel varmkeit!”
Some 13 years ago, when I was a bochur learning in Lakewood’s Beis Medrash Govoha, Friday nights were challenging. As the only “out-of-towner” in a dorm room of locals who returned home for Shabbos each week, I was left to face an empty room once the seudah concluded. I could check into the beis medrash and learn for a bit — but the loneliness inevitably got to me. I could roam the streets — but the idyllic beauty of Clifton Avenue is, well, it isn’t.
Then I learned that just a few minutes’ walk from the dormitory, on Ninth Street between Lexington and Clifton, was a simple trailer; on the doorway hung a sign humbly stating, “Kehal Chassidei Skulen.” That trailer served as the beis medrash where the Skulener Rebbe’s second-youngest son, Reb Tzvi Noach Portugal, served as rav and conducted Friday night farbrengens.
I decided to go. The interior revealed a classic clash of dignified improvision, with handsome seforim doing their best to disguise the makeshift walls. The tables lined into two parallel rows against a smaller head table conveyed an unassuming hospitality.
But at Skulen, I quickly learned, the physical trappings were not the focus. The 20 or so attendees were fixed on the man at the center of the head table. He was young in age but more so in personality — he radiated youthfulness. He bounced as he sang, uplifted by the energy that he himself generated.
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