Bergenfield—As a younger man, Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky had the reputation of always being in the beis midrash. “The defining characteristic of Yehoshua bin Nun is never wanting to leave the tent of Torah,” said YU Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Mordechai Willig, known to most in the Ohr HaTorah community as “their Rav’s Rav.” Rabbi Willig spoke at Ohr HaTorah’s inaugural dinner last week at Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck.
A key point, relevant to the shul’s very creation: One simply can’t be in the beis midrash all the time; sometimes one must get haircuts. Ten years ago, a chance conversation in a Teaneck barbershop led to a major shift in the lives of many people who are now residents of Bergenfield. The encounter between Rabbi Sobolofsky and Rabbi Daniel Hartstein, now of Israel‘s Yeshivat Lev HaTorah, led to discussions regarding bringing Rabbi Sobolofsky and his family to live in Bergenfield, to head a small community shul, a shteibel really, with the gracious blessing of the community’s mora d’asra, Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger.
Rabbi Sobolofsky, a YU Rosh Yeshiva, didn’t seek or expect to head a large community shul, and he didn’t want to step on any toes, but he did want to create a community of Torah-centered families who would join him for meaningful study and prayer. His wants and needs were humble. He hoped to be able to learn with talmidim and have a minyan. “I just want 20 people to daven on Shabbos,” Sobolofsky reportedly told Hartstein, who became the new shul’s founding president. The shul was named Ohr HaTorah, light of Torah.
Today, Bergenfield benefits from being part of the large “greater Teaneck” Jewish community; its Jewish community’s size is second only to Teaneck as the largest in Bergen County. It continues to grow. In addition to Rabbi Neuburger and Rabbi Tanchum Cohen’s Congregation Beth Abraham, the community is also host to the Beis Midrash of Bergenfield (BMOB), headed by Rabbi Moshe Stavsky. Another growing shteibel headed by YU’s Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Weinberg also has found a welcome home in Bergenfield. Learning on all levels occurs late into the night in all these places, with many parent-child learning programs. Children from all these communities grow up with Orthodox neighbors on each side; eating in another family’s home rarely, if ever, brings up a question. Books are borrowed, clothes and baby gear are passed from house to house, and high school-aged girls are in great demand as community babysitters, as more and more young children arrive. In Bergenfield, shuls hire youth directors before executive directors.
But it’s not just the daily living that has been affected. The community also benefits profoundly from having one of Modern Orthodoxy’s leading lights in their midst. One of the most impressive things people say about living in the Ohr HaTorah community is never having to doubt a shailah, and always having it answered quickly. Rabbi Sobolofsky’s phone buzzes at all hours of the day and night with people asking a great variety of halachic questions. “Sometimes I walk with the Rebbe (the Rebbe Zvi, as Rabbi Willig’s children call him), and his phone is vibrating all the time. He is always answering shailahs, day in, day out, night in, night out, in the funniest places,” said Willig.
“Thanks to his encyclopedic knowledge, his experience and his humility—he is not afraid to consult, Baruch Hashem, there are wonderful rabbanim, both here in Bergenfield, and in our yeshiva and beyond—this mixture of tremendous mastery of large sections of shas and poskim, combined with the requisite humility, create a fantastic rav that your kehillah is privileged and blessed to have as your mora d’asra,” said Willig.
Community members know that there is rarely a delay between the shailah’s question and the answer (and often it seems that the answer is emanating from Rabbi Sobolofsky’s mouth before the query is completed), but when there is a delay, one has the sense that the question is central among his concerns, and the answer will be shared as soon as he has it. His “shailah of the week” talk on Friday night between Kabbalas Shabbos and maariv is often discussed around Bergenfield’s Shabbos dinner tables.
Last week, Congregation Ohr HaTorah, this shteibel-no-longer shul with 100 member families, that Rabbi Sobolofsky started with help from honorees Daniel and Rifky Shor, along with Dr. Efrat Sobolofsky’s parents, Dr. Michael and Bracha Samet, in addition to the Hartsteins, the Finkelsteins, the Orlinskys, the Belizons and so many others, celebrated a truly impressive inaugural dinner. Two hundred seventy people attended to honor Rabbi and Efrat Sobolofsky and the Shors, and to celebrate a community that simply didn’t exist just 10 years ago.
Because Congregation Ohr HaTorah was never really a small shteibel with 20 families. It is a light of Torah, a place where Torah is alive and good middos are practiced and celebrated. It is a community comfortable and well-placed within the Bergenfield community, with its own valued and beloved mora d’asra, who stands honorably alongside community members to celebrate their smachot, mourn their losses and answers shailos everywhere in between.
Congregation Ohr HaTorah recently purchased a neighboring property on Rector Court, in order to continue its growth and celebrate Rabbi Sobolofsky’s light of Torah. To learn more about Ohr HaTorah, visit http://www.ohrhatorah.com/.
By Elizabeth Kratz
