For many years, Rav Kalman Krohn gave a weekly vaad to the bachurim in the Adelphia yeshiva. Rav Dovid Trenk would often give Rav Kalman a ride to the yeshiva. The following story occurred on one such trip from Lakewood to Adelphia.

During our trips together to Adelphia, Rabbi Trenk and I utilized the time to discuss important matters related to the chinuch of the bachurim we taught. Due to the private nature of our conversations, we did not usually take anyone else in the car with us.

Adelphia is about a fifteen-minute drive up Route 9 from Lakewood. One Monday, about five minutes into the drive, we saw two bachurim walking on the side of the road up ahead. We didn’t have much time to decide whether or not to stop for them, since in just a few seconds, we would have long passed them.

“Let’s stop for them,” I suggested to Rabbi Trenk. As he slowed the car and pulled up alongside the boys, I asked, “Are they bachurim from Adelphia yeshiva?”

 “No,” Rabbi Trenk responded, peering out the window and not recognizing the pair. They were wearing yarmulkas and were most definitely frum boys, but they didn’t attend our yeshiva.

I rolled down the window. “Come inside,” I called to the two bachurim.

They opened the back door and slid inside.

“Where are you going?” I asked them.

“We’re going to Freehold,” one of them responded.

“What do you have in Freehold?” we wondered.

“We’re going to buy a tie,” the pair informed us.

Rabbi Trenk and I looked at each other. They were going to Freehold to buy ties! Who knew what kinds of nonsense they might get tied to in Freehold?

Rabbi Trenk had a suggestion for them. “Before you go to Freehold to purchase your tie, why don’t you come with us to Adelphia Yeshiva? We’re going to daven Maariv, and then afterward there’s a shmooze for about an hour. When we’re done, we’ll take you to Freehold to buy the tie.”

There was a moment of silence and then Rabbi Trenk added, “Of course, if you want to go directly to Freehold, then once you’re in my car, I will let you off there. But I can’t leave you off on the street. So please let me know if you’d like to come with us to Adelphia or if you’d like us to take you to the tie store in Freehold.”

There was another moment of uncomfortable silence.

“I’ll give you some privacy to make a decision,” Rabbi Trenk offered, popping a tape into the cassette. Normally, we didn’t have any music on when we drove together, since I am especially sensitive to the new kinds of Jewish music, but this time, Rabbi Trenk felt it was necessary. Rabbi Trenk turned up the volume to drown out the hushed voices in the back seat, giving them thirty seconds of relative privacy.

“Okay, fellas, what did you decide?” Rabbi Trenk asked, turning off the music. “Do you want to come to Adelphia, or should we take you to Freehold?”

“We’ll come with you to Adelphia,” one of the boys said.

“If you’d like, you can tell me your names,” Rabbi Trenk said. “But only if you are comfortable telling me. Or you can tell me where you are from.”

Both bachurim seemed uncomfortable disclosing their true names. One said his name was Yitzy and the other one claimed to be Shaya, but it was clear to me that they were hiding their true identities. They also told us where they came from, two very different parts of the United States.

“And what are you doing in this part of the country?” Rabbi Trenk asked conversationally. “That is, only if you don’t mind sharing.”

“We came to Lakewood for a few days,” they said, not supplying any more details.

We arrived at the yeshiva and the two bachurim followed us inside. When we entered the bais medrash for Maariv, I found them seats at two different tables. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that Yitzy didn’t daven a word the entire tefillah. But Shaya, I noted in satisfaction, seemed to have been influenced by the yeshiva surroundings and davened with feeling.

After Maariv, when it was time for my shmooze, I told a story about a what it means to be a yid, and how happy we must be to know that there is always a way back. There’s no such thing as getting stuck on the street without a way home. All you need is willpower to come back, but then you will be accepted back. It was an inspiring story, and my audience seemed to appreciate it.

After the shmooze was over, I joined Rabbi Trenk and our two guests for the ride back home.

“Where should we take you now?” Rabbi Trenk asked the bachurim. “Would you still like to go to Freehold to buy a tie? Or, if you’d like, we can take you somewhere else. We’re not going to leave you out here in the dark.”

“No, please take us back to Lakewood,” the boys requested.

While the ride into Adelphia had been mostly silent, on the way back, the boys had warmed up a bit, and we got into a conversation with them. Over the course of the short trip, both boys told us their version of their life’s stories. They were stories of pain and of challenges that were too much to bear that running away seemed like a better option.

While hearing them describing their difficulties, it struck me that Shaya’s speech was measured and somewhat refined, while Yitzy’s manner of talking was vulgar and uncouth. Both of them were expressing strong feelings against those in their lives who they felt had wronged them, but somehow, Shaya spoke respectfully while Yitzy expressed himself in terrible language.

Their stories were so similar, but the way they expressed themselves was not. I found myself

thinking that the chances of Shaya making a turnaround were considerably higher than Yitzy’s, based on this fact alone.

When we arrived in Lakewood, we stopped at Falafel and Chips, and the boys left the car. We didn’t even know their true names, and we didn’t think we would ever meet them again.

A few days later, someone came to visit me at home. He told me that he knew the boys, and that the names they’d given us had been fictious, just as we’d suspected. After he told me who they really were, he confided that ‘Shaya’ wanted to return fully to Torah and mitzvos. He had relished the davening in yeshiva and tasted the geshmak of an inspiring story. For the first time in a long while, he felt that he had an opportunity to be a part of something bigger, and he wanted that very much.

‘Yitzy’, however, was not holding there yet, just as I suspected from the brazenness in his speech. But Shaya had tasted spirituality, and he understood that there were no ties in Freehold that could compare. With sheer willpower, he made the first step to renew his ties to authentic Yiddishkeit, and once he took that step, we were waiting for him to welcome him back. That one Maariv had changed his life forever.

Have a Wonderful Shabbos!

This story is taken from tape # TG114