If you want to have a positive impact, if you want to build Torah, you don’t necessarily need to live in Flatbush or Lakewood
This isn’t because there are no other Jews nearby. In fact, just days ago, there were thousands upon thousands of them in the area, celebrating the joys of a Torah life, lifting four cups, and carefully reclining while eating measured k’zeisim of matzah. But now they’ve left Orlando and returned home to their established communities across the country. Who is left in mine?
Within walking distance of our home there are a few dozen families that care enough about their Judaism to be part of a synagogue. Draw a wider circle, say a ten-minute drive, and you’ll encounter hundreds more families who identify as Jewish and thousands who actually are Jewish. But for at least nine miles, our gray house on leafy West Yale Street is certainly the only conventionally shomer Shabbos home.
This wouldn’t be remarkable if I were a product of Crown Heights or Morristown. But I’m not. I learned at Yeshiva University and spent many single years visiting special environments like Emunas Yisrael in Boro Park and making routine pilgrimages to contemporary leaders like Rav Aaron Lopiansky and Rav Michel and Feige Twerski. My wife is from London’s Golders Green, perhaps one of the most densely populated frum Western communities after Brooklyn.
So how did we end up virtually isolated from any neighbors or friends who live the way we do?
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