He’s a macher.
He can get you into seminary and out jail with a well placed phone call.
He can bring you back into the fold or get you excommunicated for life with a flick of his flip phone.
He’s a macher.
He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and of three different cellphones, beepers and hatzalah walkie talkies on his belt; all seamlessly connected to the Bluetooth headset permanently lodged in one ear.
His every step jingles with power and the keys of a thousand institutions hanging off his belt.
A macher of the most effective kind.
His shoes are almost as shiny as his slicked hair, thin peyos curved behind his ears or curled thinly beside his head (depending on his denomination).
There are two kinds of machers.
Those who drop names and those who drop dollars.
He’s either made his money in real estate, mortgages, or assisted living, or he knows all the people who have.
You achieve the same results either way.
Machers have distinct names.
The rest of the world suffices with Yankel and Yossi.
Machers need better brand recognition.
If he’s the well connected type, he’ll go for a distinct name that’s easy to drop, like Easy or Yotzkekele or Leibish Tinklelkeit.
If he’s of the filthy rich variety, sometimes a distinct last name is all he needs – Goldfaber. Mendelstein. Itzkalach. The world has just one Pitzel, and anyone who knows him therefore automatically does so on a first name basis.
The world revolves around chesed, and as a macher, he’s committed to doing it around the clock. The favors he’s done are too numerous to count, but who’s counting anyway? Of course, we all know that for that one time he put in that word for you, you basically owe him for life.
A macher must have his finger on the pulse. He needs to know who is happening to what, and which rabbi said when about whom. Prophecy is no longer a thing, but damn it if he’s not the next best thing. He basically knows everything that’s happening, as it’s happening. From the other end of town.
He’s like a walking lashon harah dispenser, but fortunately it’s all letoeles. Chas vesholim he should gossip for gossip’s sake (but if people only knew what’s really going on in the back of Kishke Levinsthark’s white Lincoln it would make their hair stand on end).
Being a macher is a thankless job, but luckily it has its perks (which we can’t mention here because they are insignificant and beside the point). I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of times he’s saved Zaltzman’s ass, and could you be believe what he did last motzei shabbos? I’m just saying, if he was in this for the money, he’d be in real estate.
How do you become a macher? You don’t, you’re born one.
You’re either a macher in a long line of machers going back all the way to Moshe Rabeinu, patron saint of all machers. Or you’re born into a simple, uninfluential family and claw your way to the top with raw, unfiltered ambition.
You hone your craft through the circle of life. Yeshiva, weddings, levayas. You’re helping orphans, fighting autopsies, expanding eruvs. You’re a staunch Republican, unless it’s better to be a Democrat, in which case of course you are.
You are beloved by all, even the schvartze mail carrier who you always invite in for some cholent and schnaps on Shabbos morning. But let no one cross you, or they’ll feel the full wrath of Gdolei Hador and congressmen at your disposal.
So let’s raise a glass of bourbon to our local macher, without whom the world would cease to rotate around its unrestricted access, and it would be much harder to bask in the glow of the Gadol Hador’s son.
