If you happened to be walking on Dizengoff Street at the corner of Arlozorov on Sukkos, you might have seen a bearded Chassid, with a hat and sirtuk, fly right past you hooked up to a small sukka. That would have been R’ Shai Shuruk, a Chassid bursting with ideas and gimmicks to educate the residents of Tel Aviv about Judaism, in the modern-day mode of innovation and surprise. * Behind all the wacky original gimmicks that he comes up with throughout the year, is an innovative Chassid with a fascinating life story.
By Mendy Dickstein
“It seems to me the whole world has gone crazy. Today I saw a chareidi on rollerblades, gliding down the street. Was I dreaming? It was bizarre. A tall, thin religious guy. The ends of his black coat were flapping in the wind as he glided toward us. Odd that nobody at the bus stop said a word to him. Maybe we were all too tired.”
“It’s the dos (derogatory term for religious person) on wheels. A known thing. Sorry to disappoint you but you are not hallucinating. Anyway, why does it seem bizarre to you to see a dos on rollerblades?”
(From a dialogue between two commenters on a blog.)
A stranger on the streets of Tel Aviv this past Elul would have likely seen a sight that would have caused his jaw to drop. Picture this: You are innocently walking down the street, for example, and suddenly, a towering fellow with an unusual appearance (an understatement), in a king costume, riding in a chariot straight out of the story books, is moving at astonishing speed. As he moves about, he takes out a long, curvy Yemenite shofar and blows it, as is customary in the month of Elul.
This sight is not unique to Elul for he offers up various surprises throughout the yearly cycle, and the residents of Tel Aviv are treated to a mobile display meant to draw attention to each upcoming holiday. Before Shavuos, they see the impressive visage of Moshe Rabbeinu coming down Mount Sinai while holding the Luchos. “Moshe Rabbeinu” personally invites each person to come to shul and hear the reading of the Ten Commandments.
Erev Chanuka and Chanuka he goes around with a large mobile menorah attached to himself. Erev Pesach he is dressed up like a smiling baker, with pressed white clothes and a chef’s hat. He smilingly enables everyone to participate in a model matza baking here and now. Erev Yom Kippur he appears as an oversized chicken and this is how he inspires people to do the custom of Kaparos. Before the 15th of Shevat, he is dressed like a large many-branched leafy tree, which alludes to the comparison between man and a tree of the field.
It would seem that the climax of the year-round displays is the mobile sukka, original and unique, the likes of which exists nowhere else in the world. It’s not a sukka built on a motorized platform which has been done for decades. It’s a kosher sukka with four walls that surround the body of the wearer who is on skates. He and his sukka move from place to place. The space inside the sukka is like that of the average elevator car and has room for another person to enter and eat something. This is how he enables many Jews to shake the lulav and make a bracha in the sukka.
In Tel Aviv, there are many Jews who don’t eat in a sukka but this gimmick of a sukka on wheels gets even the toughest Tel Avivians to smile and agree to enter.
I wanted to get to know this interesting person behind these gimmicks. I met with R’ Shai Shuruk and asked him where he gets his creative ideas that can make even veteran public relations people jealous.
This question and those that followed, exposed me to a fascinating story of a young man who grew up in Tel Aviv. And who, after getting a taste of Judaism and Chassidus, made the conscious decision to be mekarev as many Jews to this light as possible. As a born and bred Tel Avivian, he knows the city better than anyone. He decided in a very thought out fashion to use all possible tricks and gimmicks to get the attention of the residents of the city-that-never-stops focused on Jewish ideas.
This is no easy challenge, to get apathetic, self-satisfied Tel Avivians to take an interest in Jewish matters, to make them curious about what lies behind the ceremonies, customs, mitzvos and Jewish traditions. He decided to use gimmicks and character acting methods that he acquired over the years to penetrate the Jewish heart which is covered with many layers of fear of “religification.”
After a short conversation with Shai, I realized that in order to better understand the soil in which his creative ideas were nurtured, I had to start from the beginning.
THE RIGHT WAY TO INFLUENCE
Shuruk looks at everyone from above. Not out of arrogance, G-d forbid, but because of his height, over six foot three, not including the black hat and rollerblades. For years now, he has been gliding around the city getting people to look up, and that is the most important thing to him
“I was born in a home of glitz and glamour, a home that the average kid in Eretz Yisroel would dream of being born in,” he began, while still sitting (for a change). “My father Aharon (Roni) was a star soccer player for the HaKoach Ramat Gan team that enjoyed tremendous admiration back then. My mother was a member in good standing of Tel Aviv society. The home I grew up in had the spotlights on it. Every move and word from my parents was documented and reported.
“Of course, this scintillating life was only external; the truth was altogether different. I was only eight years old when the home fell apart and my parents separated, leaving me and my brother torn between them. It was awful, but it galvanized me to move forward in life.”
After completing elementary and high school, Shai was drafted and was assigned to serve as a counselor in the Youth Corps. His job was to ease the preparation process, both physical and psychological, of the candidates for the draft, and to prepare them for absorption into the army. He also had to seek out those with special needs or problems.
“Generally speaking, it was a fascinating position which demanded a lot of work and provided tremendous satisfaction. As part of my job as a madrich, I also took courses in krav maga and physical training for the purpose of providing candidates with the tools to help them afterward, in the army.”
When he was released from the army, he adopted this as a central focus of his life and decided this would be his life’s work. He registered for courses at the Wingate Institute for Physical Education. After years of hard work and tremendously difficult physical training, he was given a degree in Phys Ed.
“With this diploma, many gates and opportunities were opened to me. I decided to be selective and went to work in the best place – I became an instructor in sports and Israeli geography at the exclusive Teva School in the Tel Kabir neighborhood of Tel Aviv.
“To understand what demographic attends this school, the school was founded in 5746/1986 as a unique, quality school, promoting nature studies, environmental studies, and sociological studies, and with the newest educational approaches. The idea to found this school came from the educational administration in the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yaffo, together with the Education Ministry, the University of Tel Aviv, and the Society for the Protection of Nature.
“This elite school prides itself on its decision to eschew diversity and carefully choose its students. Since it is formally listed as a non-regional school, its students come from the most exclusive neighborhoods in the city and it is considered a ‘green’ school which teaches environmental awareness. Its students do educational projects on environmental quality issues.
“As a teacher of sports and Israeli geography, I had a central role in this special education project. I devoted myself to working with the students with all my heart. I held special sessions with them and detailed lessons on proper, healthful nutrition. I showed them documentaries and newspaper articles that spoke about the importance of movement and physical activity. I taught with passion and with the belief that we need to operate and fuel our bodies properly. However, with time, I’ll admit, I began to burn out and I felt like a failure.”
Why?
“At a certain point, I realized that one visual advertisement for harmful food cancels dozens of hours of lessons and lectures. I felt that if I wanted to influence youth to change their way of life and change their eating habits, there were other places to work than in a school.”
What do you mean by “other places?”
“The media. I realized that through the media you can reach the hearts of youth better, deeper and quicker, because the youth are more connected to the media. It’s only from there that you can make a real change.”
R’ Shai left his prized position at the elite school and studied acting, theater and standing in front of the camera. “It was burning within me,” he says. “I spared no expense and went to study by the best. I registered at Sharon Alexander’s school on Rechov Sheinkin in Tel Aviv, who was the top in the field in those days.
“I began studying acting; I had a great fear of performing in public. The first time I faced an audience, I fainted. That was still at Wingate when the teacher asked me to demonstrate something. I was terrified.
“For the next six years I studied acting with Sharon Alexander urging me on and building my confidence. While still studying, we acted in small theaters in greater Tel Aviv-Yaffo with the senior teacher and his staff watching on the sidelines and pointing out various insights based on their observations.
“I remember how one time, he said to me that I wasn’t suited to cheap, ordinary acting as in advertisements or ordinary movies, but belonged in the league of the festival in Cannes, an annual festival in France that is considered ‘the brass ring’ of the industry. It’s the place where every actor dreams of going. Many years later, when I had done teshuva and started with the Judaism displays in the streets of the city, a Romanian filming crew accompanied me for a few days. They wanted to produce a film about my work and how I spread Judaism with all the gimmicks. A while later I found out that they had produced a film that was featured at the festival in Cannes …”
FIRST STEP TOWARDS TRANSFORMATION
The road wasn’t smoothly paved for Shai Shuruk. After studying acting, he decided to enter the world of visual media, so he could influence from the inside on subjects that he considered important. Sadly, he did not pass the screen test. “Over a year’s time, I went to more than 600 auditions and tests and was rejected every time. In other words, nearly every day, I played the role of three different characters before an audience or judges and they all said no.”
Did you despair?
“No. It definitely did not weaken my resolve. I determined that I was going to enter this market, no matter what. It later turned out that this persistence led to the big turning point in my life.”
After many difficult challenges, Shai was offered the leading role in a low-budget student film, which ended up changing his life. It was a film that was shot focusing on the life of a family that lived on yishuv Pekiin in the Upper Galil where, according to archaeologists, there was a Jewish presence since the conquering and dividing of the land in the time of Yehoshua bin Nun, continued in the period of the first Beis HaMikdash, second Beis HaMikdash and the era of the Mishna. “Most of the key events of the film occurred in a cave that is reputed to be the cave of Rashbi, and the surrounding area.
“During the filming, I felt things I had never felt before. Since I had really gotten into the plot, I began to think more and more about the existence of the Jewish people, why the world needs them, and what is special about this nation. I made a note for myself to look further into this subject after the filming was done.
“One of the film crew was a local Druze who invited all the actors and staff to his house for coffee. All of them except for me were religious to some extent or another and they declined, except for me who had no problem eating and drinking in a place without a hechsher.
“When we got to his house and sat down, he thanked me warmly for agreeing to come and ‘saving his honor,’ since in the Druze tradition, if a person invites someone for coffee and he doesn’t come, it’s a bad sign for him. In appreciation, he wrote me a thank you letter for the great honor I gave him in visiting his home. After handing me the note, I noticed that behind his signature, the word ‘Shuruk’ was printed on the stationary in Hebrew and Arabic.
“When I asked him how he managed to print the name of my family so fast, he laughed and explained that the word ‘shuruk’ in Arabic means ‘shining sun,’ and that is the name of the local theater and cultural center of Pekiin. The significance of my name gave me a sudden push which was added to the inspiration I felt in Rashbi’s cave. I began to feel that a new sun had begun to shine in my life.”
With this feeling about the special quality of the Jewish nation, Shai returned to his hometown of Tel Aviv and began checking out places that were foreign to him until then. Shai went to a shul where he tried to join the t’fillos but felt he needed someone to guide him. After making inquiries of a rabbi in a shul near where he lived, he went to learn in the yeshiva Zecher Shlomo, a Litvishe yeshiva in northern Tel Aviv.
A wonderful world was opened before him, along with numerous questions. “I felt there was a disconnect between the fascinating material that I was learning and its implementation. I felt that the Torah is huge but disconnected (G-d forbid) from real life. I was missing a connection or bridge between what was learned in books and the world of action. I asked the rabbis of the yeshiva my questions but didn’t get satisfactory answers. When I presented these dilemmas to other students, the yeshiva administration decided to push me away so I wouldn’t corrupt others.”
THE WHEEL OF LIFE
TURNS AND TURNS
Starting from age six, Shai was interested in skates. Skates morphed into rollerblades. Over the years, Shai had developed expertise and excellent control in traveling on them while keeping his balance, even while holding something heavy for example. He also learned how to travel up inclines and go down steps and to skate even on difficult and treacherous terrain (don’t try this at home …).
“I always loved skating. I think it’s a most useful and available tool, but when I did teshuva, the rabbis told me that it’s not modest, that it’s what goyim do.
“One day, I heard about a Jewish lecturer who has all the answers to the questions that were bothering me. I tried to find out where I could hear him and they told me he was giving a class in the shul Beit HaChayal in Tel Aviv.
“I went on the appointed evening and went down the stairs on my rollerblades to the basement where the shiur was taking place. When I walked in, I asked, ‘Is this where Torah is being learned?’
“It turned out that the shiur was for women. The rabbi said that if I wanted to hear it, I needed to sit separately, which I did. I began to listen to the shiur and for the first time understood the connection between Torah and our modern lives. The rabbi skillfully connected the thousand-year old verses to modern life while constantly emphasizing that our Torah is a living Torah and is not an ancient artifact or solely a book of laws.
“The truth? I was blown away! I felt I had found what I had been searching for since I began to investigate about the Jewish people and the secret of our existence.
“At the end of the shiur, I stayed alone with the rabbi. I introduced myself and said I was favorably impressed and inspired by the shiur. The rabbi, Rabbi Yossi Ginsburgh, rosh yeshiva of the Chabad yeshiva in Ramat Aviv, listened to what I had to say. When I was done, he recommended that I be in touch with Rabbi Shneur Chaviv, who worked in those days in Ramat Aviv, who would learn with me.
“For a long time, Rabbi Chaviv was like my personal trainer. He accompanied me through all my internal struggles and answered all my questions patiently. He was also tolerant enough to listen to my complaints, pleasantly and politely, and tried to show me the good and the positive in the whole process. With time, I was hosted many times by the Chavivs. I felt myself becoming part of the world that Rabbi Chaviv belonged to, the world of Judaism and Chassidus.
“I made progress in my personal life and decided to devote my life to learning and spreading Judaism so I could enable others to have what I hadn’t had.”
ROLLERBLADES IN THE SERVICE OF TORAH
“At that time, Rabbi Dovid Yitzchok Aziza opened ‘Bayit Chadash l’Midrash’ in Tel Aviv. The place turned into a lighthouse of Torah and chesed in the heart of Ben Yehuda, one of the busiest and most crowded streets in Tel Aviv. Bayit Chadash l’Midrash became a spiritual charging station for those who sought G-d.
“When I first met Rabbi Aziza, he gave me his commentary on my rollerblades. He said G-d also created rollerblades. Once, when I was late for the mikva, he told me to hurry over on my rollerblades, thus giving his hechsher. With R’ Aziza’s guidance, I began to integrate all my abilities and talents: rollerblading, acting, my desire to spread Judaism on a large scale, and all of this along with the ability to think out of the box.
“That’s how I started with the colorful displays before each of the Jewish holidays, ‘dragging’ them along with me all over the place thanks to my rollerblades and my being able to move swiftly. These displays ‘opened the door’ for me all over Tel Aviv.”
The displays that you built and that you carry everywhere are just for the holidays?
“No. Throughout the year I use regular displays, like a giant mezuza that arouses people’s curiosity and invites people to buy kosher mezuzos for the doorways of their homes. There is also a huge tefillin stand that has every passerby taking another look and even rolling up his sleeve. I have various Besuras Ha’Geula costumes like planes, clouds, Geula and Moshiach products, and more. They all arouse great interest in the big city that has already seen and experienced everything.”
People don’t think you are cheapening the Rebbe’s mivtzaim?
“Without the mivtzaim, I would just be a clown. It is not just some gimmick. It is making a real statement that the Geula is really here and if rollerblades grabs someone’s attention on the street and he says, ‘Oy, I forgot to put on tefillin today,’ it worked. If someone says, ‘Oy, Shabbos candles,’ that shows it’s right. As far as I’m concerned, the rollerblades are a speedy means of transportation that also helps me make people happy. People see me and it’s funny and when you make someone else happy, that makes you happy.”
R’ Shai is aware of the astonishing opportunities that he has specifically in Tel Aviv. “If I went around like this in Beit Shaan or Metulla, it wouldn’t work. Tel Aviv is a place of novelty. If you don’t have something new one day, you will fade away. I love it, because I know that I’m reaching people.”
Can you tell us about reactions you get?
R’ Shai burst out laughing.
“Someone was working in a photo shop in Ibn Gabirol. He saw me enter like a whirlwind, dressed all in black, and he was very frightened because he didn’t see the skates. He was sure I was hovering and that I had come to take him to the next world.
“This combination of acting talent and interesting displays has opened doors to places that Chassidim usually never enter, certainly not for those who purposely want to offer Jewish content.”
Can you give examples?
“Sure. A few years ago, in Elul, I went near a certain preschool while dressed up like a king on a chariot with a big shofar. The children were fascinated and looked at me through the fence. The teacher agreed to let me in and let the children play with the shofar, hear the t’kios, and have me say a few words about Elul and Rosh Hashana.
“One of the children was especially curious, and he kept playing with the shofar, asked me to pick him up and give him the crown, etc. I didn’t ascribe particular significance to this but before I left, the teacher told me that he was a special needs child who was in a bubble and did not interact with the world. That was the first time he was connecting with someone after a long period in which he sat alone in his corner. This story got around and made a big kiddush Hashem. Thanks to him, I was invited to other preschools and schools.
“On one of my mivtzaim outings, R’ Aziza told me to go, or more accurately, to skate, to Rechov Yirmiyahu and do outreach there. I didn’t know why I should go there in particular as opposed to the place I usually went to. I had never worked on that street before, but I listened to him and began going around the stores there.
“I went into a big office where I suggested that the employees put on tefillin. Some were happy to oblige, some refused, but one of the secretaries yelled at me for my suggesting it to the men in the office. At first I ignored this, because over the years I developed thick skin to complaints like these, but she didn’t let up. After I finished putting tefillin on with whoever wanted to, I asked her why she was so opposed. She couldn’t quite explain it except for proclaiming some clichés about chareidim. I brought her a brochure for Bayit Chadash l’Midrash and suggested she go there and get to know the world that she so besmirched. Surprisingly, she actually went and she loved it.
“After learning there for a while, she became religious and went to Machon Alte in Tzfas. When she finished her studies there, with the guidance of R’ Aziza we got married and are raising children to Torah and mitzvos! I consider it extraordinary divine providence that came about through R’ Aziza’s insistence that I go to that street.”