When the Agudath Israel Yarchei Kallah participants saw the
words "Shuvu Dinner" on their itinerary, some of them may
have groaned internally, thinking, "Oh, no, not another
dinner!"
What actually transpired that night, however, was definitely
not just "another dinner."
I entered the hall and saw the usual round tables and dais
and large video screens. The first sign that something
unusual was taking place came when my table companions
arrived. Instead of older men in black jackets and hats, they
turned out to be a group of freshly scrubbed 12-year-olds
wearing white shirts and ties. They had distinctly Russian
faces.
Knowing about children this age, I braced myself for some
pushing and shoving and general chaos.
But these kids weren't cut from the same cloth. They held
their forks and knives the right way, waited until I served
myself the salads before taking any themselves, offered to
pour me water from the carafe, and politely asked for things.
Most incredibly, they spoke quietly and behaved.
One of the kids sitting beside me explained that he and his
friends were "the bar mitzvah boys."
At that point Shuvu Chairman Abe Biderman walked up to the
microphone and made a Shehecheyanu without Shem
and Malchus. He then announced that as part of
Shuvu's yearlong "Bar Mitzvah Celebration" -- this is Shuvu's
13th year of existence -- we would now join in celebrating
the bar mitzvahs of 31 Shuvu students. The exact term he used
was, "our children."
The music started blaring, Shuvu Director Rabbi Chaim Michael
Guttermann and several school principals started dancing with
some of the boys at my table, and suddenly the whole room was
one big wedding hall.
Yarchei Kallah participants, the bar mitzvah boys, Shuvu
school principals and hanholoh members, and
bochurim from Shuvu's Yeshiva Gedolah -- it was
definitely what you would call a diverse group of people.
In addition to the professional video guy, there were six or
seven Russian parents running around the hall with small
handheld cameras. In the end they gave up trying to capture
the moment, but let themselves instead be captured by it.
Once the dancing died down, the Pidyon Haben was
announced.
Everyone looked pretty surprised. It is, after all, difficult
to plan a Pidyon Haben.
But there was no baby on a silver tray this time. The "ben"
turned out to be fully grown -- when his parents came to
Eretz Yisroel 12 years ago, they had no inkling of the
concept of pidyon haben, and they only found out about
it when they sent their son to Shuvu's school in Rishon
Letzion this year.
The Shuvu school principal in Rishon Letzion was Shaliach
Beis Din to serve as the boy's father in this ceremony.
(The boy's father is not Jewish.) Rabbi Shmuel Bloom,
Executive Vice President of Agudath Israel of America, was
the Kohen.
It wasn't long before the room erupted in music again, and
with the first course still on the plates, everyone got up to
join the steadily widening rings of dancers. The dancing
filled the room. There were circles snaking up and around the
dais, on the dais itself, around the tables, and almost out
into the hotel lobby.
This was really turning into a family function. People were
loosening up, with the different cultures and age groups
communicating vivaciously in a rich concoction of languages
and hand signals. There were a lot of smiles, and a lot of
laughter in the air.
"What happened to the dinner?" I asked Mr. Abraham
Biderman.
"Dinner? What dinner?" he answered with a mock shrug and a
big, genuine smile.
At some point -- it's hard to remember exactly when -- all of
the bar mitzvah boys went up to the dais and received their
gifts: a pair of tefillin and a silver Kiddush
becher. One of the boys, Boruch Valeni, said a few words
in English in the name of his friends:
"Today we celebrate the greatest day in our lives -- the day
of our bar mitzvah. I want to congratulate all of you, my
friends and their parents, on this special day. We've reached
the age when we've become adults, and we have to take
responsibility for our decisions and choose the direction of
our lives.
"We also have to fulfill all the commandments of our
religion, and at this step of life we become full
participating Jews of our community. From this day on we feel
and understand that we are grown-ups. We have to obey all the
commandments given to us by Hashem. We've become wiser, and
we'll try to acquire all the wisdom of our religion and of
this world.
"Studying Torah and the reality of life, we'll try to serve
our society. I want to thank you [American Shuvu supporters]
for giving us the opportunity to get the best education
possible. I want to express my deepest feeling of excitement
and happiness.
"My friends and I thank Hashem for helping us, for bringing
us to the Torah, to yiras Shomayim, to kiyum
hamitzvos, to Eretz Yisroel. My friends and I are
ready to become the very best members of the Jewish People
anywhere in the world. Thank you!"
It could have ended there. But it didn't.
Next came the Sheva Brochos. A Shuvu student had just
gotten married the night before and Shuvu was helping him
celebrate.
The boy, Vladimir -- now Yitzchok -- Izuilov, 21, learns at
Toras Moshe, Shuvu's Kollel and Yeshiva Gedola in Har Nof.
But his decision to marry his kallah wasn't an easy
one.
Yitzchok is a Cafkhazi (from the Caucusus mountain areas),
and it is the accepted practice in his circle for parents to
find their children mates whom they feel are appropriate.
Yitzchok's parents, who live in Dimona and are not religious,
found him a bride -- but she was also non-religious and there
was no way Yitzchok would marry her.
Meanwhile, someone else had introduced Yitzchok to the girl
who would become his kallah -- a Russian olah
who became frum and attended seminary in Eretz
Yisroel.
His parents, however, were dead set against the shidduch.
Yitzchok consulted daas Torah, HaRav Aharon Leib
Steinman. He was told to marry quietly.
The week before his wedding, he was spending Shabbos at the
home of Rabbi and Mrs. Shea Weinberger. Rabbi Weinberger is a
maggid shiur at Shuvu's Yeshiva Gedolah, and Mrs.
Bracha Weinberger is Shuvu's educational supervisor. Mrs.
Weinberger noticed that he seemed upset about something, and
it was only after much prodding that he finally revealed that
he planned to get married the following Tuesday night. In
keeping with daas Torah, the wedding was going to be a
modest affair, with only his friends at yeshiva as guests and
no family members present.
Mrs. Weinberger, deeply saddened by Yitzchok's story, wanted
to do something to improve the situation. Then she hit upon
an idea -- to hold a Sheva Brochos for Yitzchok at the
Shuvu event.
The guests once again stood up to dance -- this time to give
much-needed chizuk to a couple who are being moser
nefesh to build a Torah home.
At the Shuvu event, they were shown that they aren't alone.
Shuvu and the Yarchei Kallah participants became their
family, and the Shuvu event became a true family affair.
