Tzali didn’t want more than ten yungeleit. Enough for a minyan, small enough for a tight chaburah. Keep it exclusive, he believed. He’d worked long and hard choosing the first eight, he was number nine. The tenth was a bit of a surprise.,The Tenth Man,Tzali didn’t want more than ten yungeleit. Enough for a minyan, small enough for a tight chaburah. Keep it exclusive, he believed. He’d worked long and hard choosing the first eight, he was number nine. The tenth was a bit of a surprise.
“Trust me every kollel needs one Panzer” he patiently explained to Dina. “You know the guy who knows those halachos that no one else does who will stick around to roll up the sefer Torah. And besides ” he added nobly “he’s a good guy. He deserves a break like this. Cortina Kollel. It’ll look good on his résumé one day.”
Cortina. Dina liked the way it sounded like it was some exotic location in Mexico or Spain even though it was in New Jersey and there was a Bed Bath & Beyond three minutes away.
It would be their city Tzali kept saying. They were going to put it on the map. Tzali’s kollel would be the breeding ground for the future roshei yeshivah of Klal Yisrael. The askanim who’d come to her apartment last week — when she’d listed off the names to her father his eyes had opened wide — were confident that once the kollel was up and running others would move there as well. Houses were affordable and it wasn’t that far from Lakewood or the city. There were astute businesspeople only too happy to invest the money Tzali needed to assemble his all-star kollel; they would make it back when the town took off and people scrambled to buy houses.
Some nights Tzali came home for supper feigning annoyance about how the best yungeleit in yeshiva were pleading for a chance. Dina knew it was true because well-known roshei yeshivah called the house trying to push talmidim.
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