What you're really craving: Joey Rosenfeld speaks to our inner addict with the language of the soul
Photos: Elisheva Green
In a drug rehab center in St. Louis, it looks like there’s some kind of kiruv seminar taking place — the group leader has a black yarmulke on his head, full beard, tzitzis flapping out from under his shirt, and an open sefer of chassidic thought in front of him.
Only thing is, the listeners aren’t quite potential baalei teshuvah — they’re non-Jewish drug addicts here on a judge’s orders. And Reb Joey Rosenfeld is helping them heal.
Some people might know “Reb Joey” from his online shiurim broadcast out of his St. Louis home, with his extensive library as a backdrop, or from his active social media presence, where he’s become a rising star as he shoots off highly articulate yet relatable emunah-based teachings into cyberspace and hopes they’ll land on fertile soil.
He’s cobbled together a remote community, a chaburah made up of people from all over and from every profession — lawyers, businessmen, therapists, students, even rabbis and kollel yungeleit — who take comfort from Reb Joey in their own struggles to navigate the inevitable pain and lack intrinsic to the human condition in this world.
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