If you spent any time in Israel you probably are at least one shabbos meal at the Machlis family, known world wide for their hospitality crammed into a small space with the most random of random people and a chance to make contact with some seminary girls that don’t frequent the drunken madness scene that we call Town.
My room at Ohr Someyach overlooked the pathway that lead from the street into the section of Maalot Dafna where the Machlis Family lived, I used to wake up and watch all the random people floating by until I decided to check it out for myself. The Machlis Family was a great fallback plan for us Ohr Someyach students who didn’t get high or drunk on Friday night because when you went to Ohr Someyach you knew you would have to fend for yourself when it came to the food. Fact is that it was a running joke that Ohr guys would go to discovery at Aish Hatorah just to eat their food – and its true Aish is way wealthier and had way better food, I myself checked out one of their brainwashing sessions on the day I knew they would be having schnitzel and mashed potatoes and it was well worth the mind altering session of irrefutable proofs to try and get you to sign away your brains.
But shabbos was different, you couldn’t always get a meal at the Kotel, it was known that Jeff Seidel could smell a yeshiva guy a mile away and would not get you a meal if he knew you had one waiting at yeshiva no matter how bad it tasted. When I didn’t hit up the kotel or friends I went to Machlis, because there was free food, weird people and the very distant possibility of hot seminary girls.
I’m a guy who likes my space, I always push the utensils and plates of my neighbors down the table and give myself all the room, if possible I take an end seat, if not I get up and pace in other rooms during the meal – this is not possible at the Machlis family, they cram people in similar to the way they have people called “Pushers” who work for the Tokyo subway system that are assigned to cram people into the train so they can close the door.
I remember one time this guy got up in the middle of the meal and threw a bottle at Rabbi Machlis, he tried to throw him out and needed backup, I saw the guy again and again and he would always start a fight – yet they let him back in the door – I could tell it really pained the Rabbi to kick someone out. I am sure I could have stood on the table and dropped my pants and he would have let me stay, I didn’t contemplate this (I think more along the lines of: what if I cursed out the head rabbi right now)
One time everyone was seated and this whole crew of cute single girls popped in, the only place for them was in the back table with us Ohr Someyach guys, the Rabbi hesitated, he didn’t need a bunch of cracked out sex fiends to work their magic on some innocent seminary girls but he had no choice, I had noticed that they tried to keep the men and women separate, I wonder if the shidduch crisis changed his mind.
Last week I was asked if I ever went to Rabbi Machlis for a meal, when I responded yes this dude from Facebook commissioned me to write a post to try and raise money – I only agreed because I had the ability to make it funny and informative. Either way the Machlis family needs to raise $300,000 by July 15th or else they will have to close down their operation. I have been asked to post the following link so that some of you may donate something to help in their amazing work, and yes I made a donation. Please visit The Machlis Campaign website and help them continue to help thousands of Jewish folks in Israel and beyond.
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B”H
Unfortunately, the Machlis have been in dire straits for months. Now, due to the worldwide financial crisis, it got even worse. They lost many of their firm donors.
So, if anyone has too much money, just give some of it to the Machlises.
There are weird people and sometimes it is really disturbing. However, it is the Rabbi’s decision to let them in, as no one else is taking care of them.
Who threw the bottle ?
The crazy Jemenite ???
There aren’t that many Ohr Sameach guys anymore. They must have found another source.:-)
Back when I went there were ALWAYS hot sem girls not just sometimes…. I wish I did have too much money… I can def. give some though..
Great post–thank Gd for Machlis!
I find there’s always a missionizing Christian who comes and makes a shpiel R. Machlis always handles it so gracefully. They should be blessed with the funds to continue!
It kind of feels good to be able to write a post, make it funny and be supporting a good cause.
Dude, Paypal hates APO addresses, good thing I have a local bank as well as my US one..
Dude, I’ve got so many fond memories of Machlis. I remember the time I was going to take two of my friends there from the Kotel. I was hoping that Jeff Seidel would be sending a large group there. So I asked him. Instead of giving us someone with a gun (like the one they called “Rambo”, he used to go to Machlis every week and always carried plenty of guns with him), he gives us a group of 5 MMY girls. Great, so little old me was commissioned by Jeff Seidel to walk 2 friends and 5 sem. girls through the Muslim Quarter. The first challenge was how to break it to these girls. The look on their face was palapable when I said in the calmest voice I could muster “we are going to traipse through the Muslim Quarter”. They came, but were obviously scared shitless; like my 2 friends and I were chatting vociferously the whole walk through, but the girls didn’t say a word the whole time. Once we finally exited the Nablus Gate, the tension finally broke, and they went back to being their chatty sem. girl types.
And oh the characters who were there. Shemtov, who’d always get up on the table and start singing in the middle of everyone’s d’var torah. Purple Lady, who has a thicker goatie than I do and thinks she’s a gilgul of the Queen of Sheba (damn Jerusalem Syndrome!). Rav Machlis was always so nice to all of them, even when they’d be turning his place into a zoo.
Final anecdote for now. So one of Rav Machlis’ rules is that your “teaching” must be politics free. This dude who was sharing a table with me blatantly violated the rule by giving a teaching about the high intermarraige rate amongst liberal judaism and the amount of kids Chareidim/Chassidim have, ergo in 20 years Judaism will be dominated by Chareidim/Chassidim. Rav Machlis, in his typical Machlis fashion, tried covering for this man by interjecting with an “isn’t this wonderful? what we can learn from this is…” (any way he can save this man from embarrasing himself). The man then interrupted Rav Machlis with “I hear there are no trees in B’nei Brak”, a statement that was so asinine, that even Rav Machlis couldn’t rescue him from that one. The whole room was in an uproar at that point. In fact, my friend Alex, who was a bit of a comedian, began his “teaching” with “I was just in B’nei Brak last week, and let me assure you that there are PLENTY of trees there”. And so it goes, the next week my Yeshiva took us to B’nei Brak. My friend who was sitting next to me at Rav Machlis’ was with me. He and I the whole way through kept going “oh look, A TREE! There’s A TREE growing in B’nei Brak! Oh look, there’s ANOTHER tree! Oh my God, this place is full of trees!”
B”H
@ Margelit
Its true, there are plenty of Christians and even their missionaries showing up. I still go to the Machlises quite frequently when I am in Jerusalem on Shabbat. I also go to the Rabbi’s Shiur on Sundays (at the Great Synagogue) as well as on Tuesday at his house. (Again, if I am in Jerusalem).
The Rabbi knows how to deal with the missionaries and I haven’t witnessed a severe case for a long time. However, it is disturbing when there are Christians with their crosses sitting at a Shabbes table.
@ Ghost
The guy with the gun is RUVEN from Hebron and Shemtov hasn’t been to the Machlises for, at least, the past two years ! But the seminary girls are still around.:-).
who’s the big israeli loud guy? he’s a riot!
the machlises are true tzadikim – no judgement, no ulterior motives – just pure love
B”H
The big guy singing “We don’t need no education !”
???
This is Ron Ovadiah.
He has been quiet lately.
Thanks for posting this Hesh!! I can’t add anything to what mookie said. Pure love. Machlis is the only place I’ve yet to see such pure love. That they should need to close down due to finances is incredibly sad. Please let all your friends know about this campaign (if they have been to Machlis). There is a facebook group for the campaign as well. Please join it and invite your friends as well. The link is: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2354352751&ref=ts
The group is called “The machlis experience”. Please help make sure the Machlis experience stays alive.
Machlis must have started after my time. I was in Yeshiva in Israel in ‘87-’88
I miss that classic rock singing guy.
Totally cool to read this article and the excellent comments.
I’m the fellow running the campaign so obviously I’ve known and lived the Rav for many years but I want to add my voice to the mix here anyway just to say that I concur, they’re awesome. It would probably be bad web etiquette to cut and paste here the Three Random Saturday Nights stories that I posted on the wall at the facebook page but I’d recommend that people check it out along with the many other stories that people have posted there as well. There’s also “A Panoply of Links” page at the http://www.themachliscampaign.com website where I’ve been adding links to pages like this one, so whomever writes up a nice article on their site with some Machlis stories or other, drop me a line and I’ll get it added to the page.
One more Saturday Night story to close here. This will give you a small idea as to how essential the Rav and Rebbetzin are in the larger scheme of things. I mean everyone knows about their Shabbatot but it’s really what goes on during the week that’s most important for the good of the world.
On Shabbat the Rav hardly gets any sleep at all such that when Matza”sh comes he’s pretty darn tired. But never too tired to help someone who needs his help.
In this instance I watched as the Rav was falling asleep on his couch around 11:00PM Saturday night as he struggled to assist a guy who had somehow come to the startling conclusion that he (the guy) might just be the reincarnation of Hitler. The fellow had decided that Hitler had been an effective chap (and Saddam Hussein as well – this was in Saddam’s glory days) and he had no one else to talk to about this realization (which he concluded ought best result in patricide – I kid you not). He was a loner and a nebech who had no friends and no family with whom he was in touch and he spoke with literally nobody but Rav Machlis.
Again, the Rav had not slept in around 30 hours and had probably slept rather sparingly prior to that too. Almost anyone else would have retired to their bedroom and left the lonely weirdo outside. but not Rav Machlis. I was too in awe to say anything. I just sat there and watched humbly as Rav Machlis spent time with this man whom no one else would even give the time of day.
Rav Machlis convinced him that he was not indeed a gilgul of Hitler and that killing anybody was a very very bad idea and he reminded him that he loved him and invited the fellow to come back every day and to talk with him whenever he wanted to.
That’s a Fourth Motzei Shabbos.
Anyone interested in knowing more about this Urgent Campaign should please check out http://www.themachliscampaign.com/urgent.php . (Donation buttons are on the Home page but this page reminds us WHY we’re donating.) Also, anyone who is interested in speaking with Rav Machlis directly about sponsoring a particular Shabbat or holiday or a week worth of Chesed L’Orchim’s chesed activities should please drop me a line.
Kol Tuv, Tizke L’Mitzvot and may we all share the happiness, joy and success that we’re inspired to feel and share when we attend a Machlis experience.
Moshe
chesed.lorchim@gmail.com
(760) 880-1584
The man is a living angel. Did you know that once a year he would take his students on a special field trip? This ‘field trip’ was actually a walk around the poorer sections of Jerusalem so that they can meet the homeless people and understand what they were going through.
The world is such a better place because of Rabbi AND Rebbetzin Machlis. I strongly urge everyone to give whatever they can to support them.
If only ALL Yidden would behave like the Malchis’ more people would WANT to be observant.
They make up .0005% of the population (and yes, that include the frum population)
I never sign this but this post compells me–
I went to the Machlis’ a few times when I was seminary. I was very hesitant to go at first bc I thought I was taking up the seats from other people who really needed a Shabbos meal-and my friends and I could easily have found places to eat, or Gd forbid, made our own food. Also, I’m not so into meeting random people in crowded rooms. But I knew it was an experience and my friends convinced me to go.
I went and it was so amazing. I remember we ended up sitting with 3 or 4 American yeshiva guys and then I kept seeing them around Yerushalayim–I was convinced one of us was going to marry them (this didn’t happen and I’ve since forgotten all about them).
I realize now that having all these different types of people–seminary girls, Israelis, yeshiva guys, soldiers, missionaries, nebach crazy people–is what makes the Machlis family unlike any other place in the world.
I will try to give if I can. The irony of working in the Jewish community, as I do, is that you don’t have the ability to donate as much to every cause you want.
I happened to merit a shabbos meal by the Machlis family when I was in Israel. It is a very nice and warm meal, and an opportunity to see Jews from all sides of the spectrum. When I was there some random guy got up and said that he was a rapper and raped about parshas Beraishes. It was quite a seen let me tell you. If anyone can help this amazing cause that would be great!!!!!
I also used to learn Thursday nights (when I wasn’t doing anything else at the time) in Aish to get their delicious food. The cook is a real nice guy and lets you eat there if you learned for 2 hours prior to the dishing out of the food.
*scene
@ yeshiva dude
a more important correction:
*rapped
yak,
I didn’t corect that cause I thought it was pretty darn obvious that I made a quick typing mistake because i spelled “rapper” correctly.
Wow, awesome post.
“I myself checked out one of their brainwashing sessions on the day I knew they would be having schnitzel and mashed potatoes and it was well worth the mind altering session of irrefutable proofs to try and get you to sign away your brains.”
CLASSIC! Well put.
”
But shabbos was different, you couldn’t always get a meal at the Kotel, it was known that Jeff Seidel could smell a yeshiva guy a mile away and would not get you a meal if he knew you had one waiting at yeshiva no matter how bad it tasted.”
Funny you should bring that up, because when Jeff Seidel came around asking for donations recently I couldn’t find it in my heart to give him anything, for I was one of those yeshiva students he didn’t want to have anything to do with at the kotel.
I thought it was pretty odd he’d be collecting money from ex-yeshiva students and not from the Bar-Ilan and Hebrew U types he focused on, but in fairness maybe he’s just hitting up anyone he can, and I wish him luck.
They say Jeff Seidel has a memory like a trap as well. I guess in my case, it also just so happens that Jeff and I knew each other personally as well. I dunno, either Jeff has changed since my days, or it’s just me, but Jeff set me up with several people on shabbos. Sometimes he’d even give me people to show them the way.
It’s also rumored that he’s a member of the “mole patrol” who hangs around town, finds out which yeshiva students are hanging out in the bars, and reports them to their respective yeshivot. Apparently, his memory is that good. I don’t know. But it still does mystify me how my yeshiva’s mashgiach knew that my room mate and several of his friends were in “Champs” that motzei shabbos (as they walked out, he was waiting for them). “Champs”, for those of you who don’t know, is a strip club on Rechov Yaffo–and due to municipal laws has a mezuzah on its door (sigh, only in Jerusalem).
I remembre back in 94-96 I attended many times to their house to pig out like a motherfucker, lots of chicken and brisket and salatim, afterwards I just to go get drunk to a bar I forgot the name on Yafo Steet, lots of Brits would go there, it was a place on a basement just around the underground, those were awsome times.