I searched frantically for something to read during laining, I went to the library on the side of the shul and all I could find were two stone chumashim. There were no English mussar texts, no stories about people gaining riches through tzedaka, and certainly no random emails from random shuls in Monsey that charge you $36 a year for your shul subscription (those emails cost more then most magazine subscriptions)
I was really disappointed actually and felt the need to display my anger to a friend in the hall, he said I was a dumbass because upstairs there was a whole English Library, but then someone else butted in and told me it was closed. What kind of baal teshuva yeshiva is this?
I thought to myself as I went back in to laining. I know Shar Yashuv isn’t what it used to be, mostly based on old timers stories and descriptions I can tell its nothing like it used to be, in fact it became exactly what they didn’t want it to be. Just a run of the mill large yeshiva of penguins.
My friend told me one story of how Rav Shlomo Freifeld zt”l went up to Woodstock in 1969 and talked torah with kids on the way to the festivities, that would never happen nowadays, instead they would probably curse everyone and start a riot or something. My old man knew Rav Shlomo from Chaim Berlin and told me he was one funny dude.
One of the few people I idolize went to Shar Yashuv back in the day and I asked him and his friends what they think of the current yeshiva, to which they responded “no comment, that’s a sore subject” which means the obvious.
The sanctuary or shul for you frummies, of shar yashuv is beautiful , the only problem is that their mechitza engineer designed the place so you never see the women. In fact I have no idea if there were any women there because you can’t even see where they come in or leave from, it was as if they beamed them up through a portal or something – but like most yeshivas I expect that. Apparently the only time they open the mechitza a drop, is durring simchas torah, when the women “go shopping” can the men go shopping too?
About half way through davening a cousin of mine invited me out to what I can only call a poor mans ghetto kiddush club in the dorm. I ate broken garlic tam tams and two kinds of herrings while my cousin and his yeshiva buddies boozed it up. We missed the haftorah, benching rosh chodesh, the rabbis speech and musaf = good kiddush club.
Shar Yashuv does have something interesting that I would advocate all shuls to acquire or train. They have an official “shusher” to run up to you and tell you to be quiet if you talk during shul. So for instance my dad had to tell me that he noticed at my stepsisters graduation from Tag that her class “didn’t have no beauties” and repeat it multiple times to make sure he could tell me that he was becoming a dirty old man, I’m so proud of my dad.
Anyway, out of nowhere comes this man with a white beard and his finger placed neatly on his laps while he reassuringly pats me on the shoulder in a friendly way.
I got to talking with him after shul to congratulate him on being the first shul talker shusher that doesn’t embarrass people in public or stop the entire davening to quiet the shul and is very effective. Apparently he was appointed by Rav Shlomo himself, I wonder what his salary is.
The only reason I walked the long haul to shar yashuv, besides to check out the non-existent ladies section, was because the person I was eating at is the announcement guy at Shar Yashuv, huge would be understatement , this man is almost 7 feet tall. He told me he stopped telling people he’s a fan of Frum Satire because he wants his daughters to get shidduchim, it all comes back to shidduchim.
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