As Ohr Yisroel in Tenafly, NJ opens its doors this week, Rabbi Scott Friedman knows his own success can be accessed by anyone
He describes his Jewish education as mostly cultural and his grade school performance as religiously disengaged and apathetic.
“I was completely disconnected. I felt that they were teaching us from meaningless, archaic books, like I could have as easily been learning in Japanese. The rabbanim couldn’t convey any meaning to me,” he reflects on those early elementary school years. High school downgraded his feelings about frumkeit from “irrelevant to downright painful.”
Today, this yeshivah founder, experienced rebbi, Columbia University-educated therapist, and former religiously disenchanted teen, has created and runs a high school where he fearlessly embraces out-of-the-box methods in order to infuse his students with a lifelong love for learning. Rabbi Friedman believes that his personal journey is not unique, and that his eventual success, the life balance he’s created, and the deep, meaningful relationship he’s forged with Hashem, can be accessed by all young people, just as it was by him.
Leaning on the support and guidance of daas Torah, including Rav Yerucham Olshin, Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky, Rav Elya Brudny, Rav Avrohom Schorr, and Rav Menachem Zupnick, Rabbi Friedman’s goal is to provide disconnected or marginalized kids with that “Aha!” moment that will turn them on to Torah and mitzvos.
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