Moishe Metzger, the indefatigable gabbai of the revolving-minyan Shomrei Shabbos shul in Boro Park, proves that a person can be in many places at once, as he whizzes around to accommodate the 3,000 people who come through those doors every day
Moishe Metzger, the indefatigable gabbai of the revolving-minyan Shomrei Shabbos shul in Boro Park, proves that a person can be in many places at once. He’s at every one of the simultaneous minyanim — making sure each starts on time, seeing to it that an aveil gets the amud, manning the pushkes, replenishing the coffee, and whizzing around to accommodate the 3,000 people who come through those doors every day
It’s not often that the way a writer scores an interview is an integral part of the story, but then again, it’s not often one meets someone like Moishe Metzger.
I had assumed that getting an interview with Moishe — gabbai extraordinaire of Boro Park’s famed Shomrei Shabbos shul — would be much like getting an interview for most other profiles. Silly me. It’s not that he plays hard to get; for one thing, he’s not playing, he’s truly one of the busiest, most single-mindedly devoted people you’ll ever meet. And besides, he’s not hard to get, he’s downright impossible…
Since I work in Boro Park and often daven Minchah at Shomrei Shabbos, the iconic makom tefillah at the corner of 13th Avenue and 53rd Street, it stood to reason there’d be ample opportunity to approach him about an interview — or so I thought. Knowing with whom I was dealing, I had honed my pitch down to a one-minute sound bite. But after numerous failures to get even a word in edgewise with Moishe, I realized that with an endless stream of three simultaneous minyanim to tend to, he simply doesn’t have that one minute to spare.
Create a free account to keep reading.
