Agroundbreaking approach to mental health and emotional well-being for struggling teens
Shlomi is a Lakewood businessman who was spending his morning at a local café with his laptop recently, when he noticed a teenage boy sitting at a nearby table. Although Shlomi had a project to finish, he managed to keep a careful eye on the bochur, who was clearly at an age where he should have been in school or mesivta at that hour. This boy’s obvious pain triggered something in Shlomi — it had been years, but he’d been there too at one point in his life, feeling disenfranchised and not able to succeed in the mainstream environment he’d automatically been placed.
Finally, after an hour, Shlomi snapped his laptop shut and walked over to the bochur. “You know,” he said as he helped himself to a seat across from the boy, “I had my own story. And if you feel like you want to talk, I’m here.” The teen grabbed on to this lifeline and told his new friend how he’s been out of school for several weeks. His family was going through their own rough time, and no one even noticed how he was falling.
When the two stood up and parted ways, Shlomi knew he had to do something — he couldn’t just leave this boy to flounder. And so once out the door, he made a quick call to his friend Rabbi Yishai Ghoori.
“We found him a new school and a mentor,” says Rabbi Ghoori, a Lakewood educator who’s spent the last two-plus decades helping challenged teens. “But the credit goes to the guy in the café. He noticed something, opened his heart, and most importantly, reached out. He may just have saved this boy’s life.”
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