In the hyperbolic style of Mishpacha Magazine. Inspired by bullshit like this.
Mild mannered and unassuming, most people looking at Gedalya Halevi Fleagenkrautz would not realize the man is truly one of the main leaders of the generation, a gadol who has brought thousands closer to Yiddishkeit.
In the corner, a scrawny looking teenager wearing an Adidas tracksuit and a black velvet kippa balanced precariously atop his gelled hair spikes, hunches over a sefer.
“Just a few weeks ago that boy was doing drugs under a bridge. Now he’s learning tosfos,” beams Rabbi Fleagenkrautz.
This city didn’t used to have a single shul, he explains. Now we have 40 of them, most of them built in converted bomb shelters.
“You see that man?” Points out Rabbi Fleagenkrautz. “Years ago he was an officer in the special forces. He Faught in the Yom Kippur war, shlom hagalil, and multiple operations. When he finished, he was a well-paid bezeq employee. Now he sits all day in front of a shtender. He traded his physical salary for a spiritual one.”
Rabbi Fleagenkrautz’s key to success his love of all Jews. “When Rabbi Fleagenkrautz talks to you, it feels like someone is really listening,” explains his talmid, Shraga Abulafya. “You realize he’s not doing it for his own interests, he just cares about you. He’s pained by Jews out there who don’t know the beauty of being meticulously careful about discarding their toenail clippings.”
“It’s a sign that something metaphysical is at play here. It’s mamesh a miracle,” says Abulafya, in his signature accent of a Sefardi person trying to imitate an AshkenaziOne of the two main flavors of Jews, Asheknazi Jews hail fro... dialect. “That an sefardi from Morocco get into Beis Shraga? Who would have believed it?!”
“The people who come here are lost. And not only are they lost, they are idealistic,” proclaims Fleagenkrautz. “They want to change the world. And I tell them, you want to change the world? Lock yourself in the beis medrash all day. This is the impact the world needs. Solving poverty, disease, and war, all starts with Tosfos”
What is truly impressive about Rabbi Fleagenkrautz is that he’s not AshkenaziOne of the two main flavors of Jews, Asheknazi Jews hail fro.... And yet, despite this tremendous setback he’s gone on to be a huge Talmid Chocham. In his youth, he studied under Rabbi Yeruchom Groizenberg of Beis Sharaga, before becoming Rosh Kollel of Heichal Hasimcha in Deal, NJ under the auspices of Elyokim Machluf.
“We truly are winning this war, smiles Fleagenkrautz. We’re decimating the secular way of life. It’s a battle of love, and we’re crushing the enemy one daf gemarah at a time.”
