You Chose to Be Here

This is a story from a different time, when sacrifice for Torah was a part of daily life: In 1965, when my father, Rabbi Yitzchak Bensoussan, was 13 years old, he was brought from Morocco to the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn by the venerable Rav Avraham Kalmanovitch. No family. No money. Nothing but the clothing on his back, a few belongings, and what was referred to throughout my childhood as “the chaburah,” a group of Moroccan boys who sailed to America together. Who learned together. Who grew together. This tight-knit group stayed the closest of friends, bound by a unique history and experiences.

Even as adults, this group remained close. Once a year they would join together at the Moroccan minyan on East 7th St. led by Rabbi Shlomo Lankry. His passion and love for every Jew, regardless of their religious standing and background, made a deep impression on us kids. Rabbi Lankry would grab the less religious stragglers from the corners of the room, have a l’chayim, and tell them a joke in his gruff Arabic sing-song peppered with some French and Hebrew and then an English word as the punchline. They would all double over laughing, and even though we never got the joke, we felt the love.

It was like he could see into their souls and knew how great they could be even if they didn’t know it yet.

In the Moroccan shuls, every single person present has a role, from the greatest rabbi to the youngest child and even the old man who can’t read Hebrew but knows the siddur by heart. Everyone is part of the davening in some way. Everyone sings and everyone participates. No exceptions.