THE YESHIVA THAT OPENED WITH ONE BACHUR

Shaked Meiner was drafted into the undercover counter-terrorism unit Duvdevan and operated past enemy lines with a sense of mission on behalf of the Jewish people. * But his soul yearned for a spiritual mission, and after searching in India, he became a baal teshuva. This time, he enlisted in the elite unit of the Rebbe’s Geula army. * Like Avrohom Avinu, he calls upon young people to join the yeshiva he started for baalei teshuva in the Romema neighborhood of Yerushalayim, so they can recognize the One who created the world.

I’d like to introduce you to the yeshiva U’faratzta in Romema, a Chabad yeshiva for young men interested in Judaism and Chassidus. This is its second year. There are twenty-five students, “miskarvim,” along with a group of T’mimim who returned from Beis Chayeinu and are learning there as student-shluchim.

The yeshiva is located in a spacious building and is a “Chassidic lighthouse,” which attracts many young people. In addition to the learning schedule, Nigleh and Chassidus, like in every yeshiva, there are numerous shiurim, workshops and Shabbatons.

The staff includes Rabbi Shaked Meiner who is mashpia and rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Yinon Giladi who gives shiurim in Nigleh, Rabbi Zev Shenker who gives shiurim in Chassidus, and Rabbi Shmuel Lalum who runs the smicha program.

Four dynamic young men dreamed of starting a yeshiva when they themselves were still bachurim. The four are: R’ Shaked Meiner, R’ Dovid Moshe Gamliel, R’ Shmuel Shuraki and R’ Amichai Korech. Said R’ Meiner, “Over time, I gained experience of how to run a yeshiva for baalei teshuva and two years ago we held meetings in which we discussed launch planning and of course, how we would raise funds.”

After many exhausting months of searching, they found a building that met their needs. “Until then, no shluchim worked in Romema so we were happy that we could also do outreach work there.”

Before they met with the landlord they wrote to the Rebbe and asked for a bracha. The answer they opened to in the Igros Kodesh had a bracha that the Rebbe gave for entering a new building and mentioned Yerushalayim.

They arranged to meet with the landlord but were disappointed to hear how much money he wanted. “We offered him half of what he asked but promised that we would pay for renovations. The place needed serious fixing up. But he wasn’t interested. We left disappointed, but Hashem had better plans for us.

“We continued looking for a few more months but found nothing suitable. By Av, we were frustrated. We were ready to open the yeshiva but did not have a building. Although we had seen many other buildings, we kept thinking of the building in Romema. In the meantime, we heard that the building had been sold to a developer and was undergoing extensive renovations. That was what finally cemented our dream to be in that place.

“One fine day the phone rang and it was the real estate agent. He told us that the property owner finished renovating at a cost of hundreds of thousands of shekels, and then decided he wasn’t interested in being there. He wanted to rent it out. The man turned out to be a nice guy and after brief negotiations he was willing to rent the renovated building to us at the price we had offered a few months earlier. We got a shiny new building without having to pay for renovations and for the price we wanted.”

The Rebbe’s brachos were fulfilled. This was a lesson in emuna and the realization of the Rebbe’s brachos. “Sometimes, you just need a little emuna.”

The yeshiva opened in Elul with just one bachur. During the year, other bachurim joined, some of whom were ripe for the taking as a result of the work of yeshiva bachurim and shluchim in the neighborhood and the nearby city center. “We built our base mainly on talmidim who are the products of Chabad outreach in the center of Yerushalayim, though of course we would not turn away any interested young men who became interested in Judaism through any of the Chabad Houses worldwide.”

FACING TERRORIST FIRE

R’ Meiner grew up on a pastoral yishuv called Amuka, in the Galil. He was raised with the ideals of independence and working with your hands. “Until the army, I had never met a religious Jew.”

Despite his education, he always believed in a Creator and even prayed to Him.

“I was a quiet, introverted boy. At a relatively young age I would pack a knapsack with clothes and food and go to the Negev alone and hike. I loved the quiet in nature and the extraordinary harmony there. Meditating there led me to the insight that there is Someone in charge.”

When he became of draft age, he volunteered for the elite undercover counter-terrorism unit Duvdevan. He served there for four years. During his military service he was part of numerous operations and activities that cannot be disclosed.

“The unit I served in focused on the Yehuda-Shomron area. At a certain point during Operation Cast Lead, I entered Gaza with some of my unit. There were open miracles in this battle. Army estimates before the ground troops entered were of hundreds of dead, which did not materialize.

“We were told to go in a camouflaged car into Gaza City, drive along the coast and take control of a multistory building from where long-range missiles were being shot into the center of the country. Unfortunately, we were exposed right near our target and terrorists came charging out of one of the alleyways and shot an anti-tank missile at our vehicle. An outright miracle occurred. This missile has a small bomb attached to it to help it penetrate the target and then there is a big explosion. The missile penetrated the windshield and continued on. Unbelievably, only one soldier was lightly wounded.

“When we realized we had been discovered, we decided to ditch the car, remove our disguising clothing and move forward toward our objective on foot. Whatever we did not have to take we left in the car and we started to charge towards the target. Many shots were fired, and the truth is we were at a strategic disadvantage. We walked down a narrow alleyway between tall buildings, from the roofs of which they threw explosives at us. When we arrived at the entrance of the first building, it was locked.

“Since the tools needed to break in were left in the car, I attached explosives to the door, set it to blow up and it opened. From that point on we operated like automatons. As we were taught, we cleaned out the building. In one apartment we saw a young man fleeing. We hit him and he continued running. We chased after him and saw him enter a room full of weapons. If he had discovered us first and surprised us, we could have taken serious casualties. In another house we found a group of armed terrorists hiding under the beds. After only a few interminably long minutes on the offensive we completed our objective, and no more missiles were sent from this area toward Israeli cities.”

What do you feel during and after an operation like this?

“There is no fear but there is tension and high alertness. You are operating in the zone. As far as that specific operation, I can say that although I had been part of many operations before that, I was in joyful spirits this time. I felt uplifted and that it was a privilege to defend my people.”

SURPRISE ON THE SILK ROAD

R’ Meiner is not a talkative person. “Say little and do much,” describes him well. But he finally gave in to our pleading and shared the details of another operation that he was part of at the casbah (enclosed open-air market) in Sh’chem.

“At the end of my training, my peers and I were part of an operation to locate a terrorist mastermind who was hiding in the casbah. This terrorist was an expert in explosives and he was responsible for sending suicide terrorists all over the country. He was also adroit at hiding.

“Since the field conditions are very complicated in the casbah, we made extensive preparations. We conducted several preliminary scouting missions in disguise. For various reasons it was decided that the operation would take place by day and not by night. According to the plan, until we arrived at our destination we were supposed to be in disguise. The minute we arrived at our destination, we would show ourselves. It turns out that the spotters that the terrorist had stationed on the nearby roofs, identified us before the operation began and they began whistling to alert him of our arrival. The muezzin also began calling out.

“We quickly knocked down the door to the yard leading to the house where he was, and then the terrorist poked his weapon through the window and began pouring heavy fire down on us. Between one magazine of bullets and the next we broke into the house and completed the operation. Miraculously, not one bullet hit any of us.”

For this and other similar operations that are still top secret, R’ Meiner and the other members of the unit received the Chief of Staff Medal.

After four years, he wanted a break from this intensity and decided to take a trip that crossed the famous Silk Road (regions of Asia that connect the East and West from China to the Mediterranean Sea). Before leaving, he met with Omer, also from his unit, who had made a 180 degree turn and had gone to a yeshiva in Tzfas.

“It was surprising to see him with a beard and kippa. We learned a bit of a maamer of the Tzemach Tzedek about Ahavas Yisroel, in which he explained that all Jews are part of one construct despite our differences. I left on my extended trip with this insight and I thought about it a lot.

“I hiked the Silk Road for ten months and passed through countries under terrible dictatorships. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, there was a big uprising. I didn’t know about it and arrived in a city which was the capital of the rebels and saw corpses lying in the streets. The smoke from the bombing and shooting of the army was still smoldering everywhere.

“At many stops on the way I saw magnificent sights. Even if I did not consider doing teshuva, because I did not know what teshuva is, it was clear to me that our existence on earth is for deeper purposes than becoming a lawyer, for example. Throughout this trip, I met no Jews except in one place.

“It was when I set out on a two-week trip. Every night I would pitch a tent on the side of the road and continue walking the next day. Since this trip was in the summer, I had light clothing and did not realize that, unlike the climate in Eretz Yisroel, in these areas it rains in the summer too. And that’s what happened. One day, it began to pour. My clothing was soaked and I knew that the nearest village was dozens of kilometers away. If that wasn’t enough, I made a wrong turn at some point. All the food I had in my backpack was waterlogged. There I was, walking in the rain with no food.

“In areas like these, it is possible not to see a human being for days and even if you do, they are often armed and dangerous. After a few hours of walking in the rain, I met someone who explained my error. There was no point in retracing my steps so I continued forward. At night I arrived at the border with Chechnya where I pitched my tent and got inside. I was very hungry and freezing.

“After a few minutes, I heard footsteps approaching. I looked up and saw a team of menacing looking Russian soldiers. ‘What are you doing here?’ they asked. Since I had learned a few words of the local language, I managed to answer that I was a tourist from Eretz Yisroel and was walking the Silk Road with the plan of reaching China. I had no idea what sort of response to expect. Suddenly this soldier responded excitedly to what I had said and shared with me the fact that he too is a Jew. ‘Do you realize how you look?’ he rebuked me, and immediately invited me into his large military tent. He dried out my clothes and fed me hot soup. He went all out to help me, and I was reminded once again of what I had learned in the maamer about the Jewish nation being one entity.”

When R’ Meiner completed his trek, he hopped on a flight to India. He was looking forward to meeting other Israelis and conversing in Hebrew, after not having done so for so long. He arrived in Pushkar and took up residence in a local boarding house. “One evening, we were sitting together, a whole group of backpackers from all around the world. They were all gentiles and I was the only Jew in the group. At some point, each one began bragging about all the acts of kindness that they do, one supports an orphanage, the other a soup kitchen for the needy and so on. Then they got on the topic of morals and ethics, and began to attack Israel for all of our supposed crimes against the Arabs.”

This gave Shaked another boost to the feeling that he needed to connect more with his fellow Jews. He sensed their hypocrisy and didn’t even bother trying to set them straight. Instead, he turned to the local Chabad House where he met R’ Shimi Goldstein. “I told him about the sweetness I had sensed in the maamer that I had learned with my friend Omer. He opened the maamer Heichaltzu and began teaching me. What transpired within me is nothing short of astounding. We had only learned two lines and it already became clear to me that I was going to return to Eretz Yisroel and become a baal teshuva.

“Throughout my travels, I had been reading a thick tome on modern psychology that is well regarded in the free world. The first two lines of Heichaltzu condensed everything that work had to offer.

“Within a month, I found myself back in Eretz Yisroel and I went to learn in the yeshiva in Tzfas. My immediate social circle of friends was in shock, but I felt that I had found my place. It felt like my entire life had been a search for the truth that I discovered in yeshiva between the pages of Gemara and maamarim.”

NEWCOMERS ALSO NEED A P’NIMIUS’DIK CHINUCH

After a long period spent in the yeshiva in Tzfas, where he became a full-fledged baal teshuva and even merited to spend time in 770, he married a girl from Yerushalayim and that is where they set up their home. During the first year of marriage he learned in kollel, but from the get go it was clear to him that he wanted to set up a yeshiva to help young people discover the light of Torah and Chassidus. The same sense of mission that carried him throughout his military service to physically protect the Jewish people, continues in him today on the spiritual plane.

“My whole life I was involved in things that gave me a sense of shlichus. Obviously, after I became involved in Chassidus, it was even clearer to me that I would devote my life to shlichus. The steps of man are planned by Hashem; the shliach of the Midrachov in Yerushalayim set up a center for baalei teshuva, and asked me to run it. I worked with bachurim there from morning to night. When that framework closed, I knew I would build something similar.”

What distinguishes your yeshiva?

“In my opinion there are three key elements. First, excellent material conditions, starting with the accommodations, in a nice and spacious building, and on to the food. We are particular that the food be nourishing and plentiful.

“Secondly, we maintain personal conversations with each student. Each student knows that he has a listening ear with any one of the staff members, all hours of the day and on every possible topic. Third, every bachur who joins goes through an assessment process to determine his level of knowledge and abilities, and we build a personal learning program suited to each student individually.”

“On any given day, the yeshiva is visited by young men who form a connection through a kiruv project called ‘School for Chassidus,’ which is run by R’ Shmuel Shuraki and offers classes and chavrusa learning on a day by day basis. Also, once every month or two, there is a Shabbaton with between 20-30 participants. The approach works. Most of our students are products of these outreach activities.”

How does one educate a baal teshuva in a p’nimius way and not just on an external level?

“Your question is a good one, not only in regards to baalei teshuva, but to any student. On this topic, there are countless letters of the Rebbe and there is also the ‘Klalei Chinuch V’hadracha’ of the Rebbe Rayatz. The first rule is that we do not compromise on any matter of Yiddishkait. We see clearly that not compromising arouses the heart of the student, especially those who are undergoing a kiruv process in search of the truth.

“Secondly, we need to be role models, to walk the talk. We need to examine ourselves on a regular basis as to what extent we are ‘living’ the messages that we want to communicate, and strive to integrate them ever more.

“It is also essential to believe in the abilities of the bachur from the very first steps that he takes into the world of teshuva, when he is still struggling and confused. We need to convey that we are confident that he will succeed, and that his inner strengths are far greater than he gives himself credit for. At the same time, not to ignore his difficulties, to feel him and to know his limitations, and to bolster him in the right places and with the right words.

“Beyond all else, we need to teach that the Rebbe is the center of our lives. In every matter and issue, we must demand from the student to seek what the Rebbe wants from us. Regardless of whether we are up or down spiritually, the Rebbe is always with us. As soon as a bachur absorbs this outlook and it resonates with him, even when he gets older and leaves the yeshiva to build his home and encounters difficulties, he will be able to handle them.”

From the perspective of someone who went through the kiruv process and is involved in reaching out to others, what is the difference between the Chabad approach and others?

“There is an epic difference. To my mind, someone who became religious through other groups and then comes to Chabad, needs to redo the whole process from scratch.

To such an extent? Why is that?

“In other communities, the person remains as the center of his own universe. Obviously, he has to work on his character, daven, learn and do chesed, but he still remains an independent existence. When a Jew comes close to Chabad, he is educated that he needs to nullify himself to the Rebbe. It doesn’t matter what you think and what you want. The only thing that matters is what the Rebbe instructed and that is the way to go.

“I remember that at the beginning of my teshuva journey, I had a study partner whom I learned with regularly. I once asked him if he wished to be a tzaddik. He thought about it for a moment and then answered in the negative. When I asked him why, he said that he has no interest in becoming anything that could conceivably create a conflict to total bittul to the Rebbe. I was impressed by his answer, and then it clicked for me just how internal and powerful is the bittul of a Chassid to the Rebbe. That is a guiding principle in Chabad.”

What is the approach of the yeshiva when it comes to chinuch on the topic of Geula and the identity of Moshiach?

“The staff lives and breathes the subject of the Rebbe as ‘chai v’kayam.’ Anybody who is involved in connecting Jews to the Rebbe – and a few years ago I was on the other side of the table – knows that ‘Yechi Adoneinu’ attracts people. The very fact that a Chassid ‘lives’ the reality that the Rebbe lives is what gives him life. All his activities and his actions are alive, and people are attracted to something that is alive. Additionally, we have regular study sessions in the sichos of 5751-52, and these sichos are filled with great revelations on the subject of Moshiach and really drive the messages home in a deep way. When this is internalized, it influences the externals as well.”

What are your future plans?

“The plan is to keep growing. We have plans to increase the number of students and to intensify the outreach activities of the ‘School for Chassidus.’ We want to expand the roster of classes and activities aimed at outreach. We also launched a smicha program this year and that is something we also hope to build up.”