Home Away from Heaven   

Rabbi Shmuel Zucker had been teaching in yeshivos for over three decades, introducing his students to a world most of them didn’t know existed — the endless layers of depth inherent in every aspect of Yiddishkeit and accessible to anyone with a spiritual thirst — when talmidim realized it was time to open their own kehillah, a place where the neshamah feels at home even as it’s pulled back into the mundane world

“We should be zocheh that the Kehilla Kedosha should always remain me’uchad — united — together. How much nachas ruach… and how much taanug the Ribbono shel Olam has from the achdus of the kehillah and the bikush Hashem from the kehillah…

We should be zocheh to grow together —

ish es re’ehu ya’azoru

ul’achiv yomar chazak! ”

These were the supplications offered by Rav Shmuel Zucker, rav of Ramat Eshkol’s Kehilla Kedosha Beis Shlomo, as he stood at the entrance to the kever of the Baal Shem Tov in Mezhibuzh, Ukraine, five years ago.

A group of men hung back as their rav stood in fervent, tearful prayer, trembling at the very notion of entering the burial place of such a lofty tzaddik.

The thick blanket of awe was a jarring contrast to the mood that had prevailed just minutes earlier. As their bus rumbled through rural roads toward their destination, the travelers had burst into exuberant dancing and spirited singing, overcome by the joy of the moment.

And now there was fear. Reverence. Trepidation.

From dancing to trembling, from joy to fear — in the world of Rabbi Zucker, these pose no contradiction.