amount of one-on-one teaching and I give

a lot of shiurim. What makes thls different

from other places is that we offer so many

more classes on a weekly basis. Early on, I

went to an AJOP convention and I'd hear

rabbanim wonder how to majntain their

learning and I never understood it. Teach,

and the more you teach, the more you learn. The shul doesn't realize that they're

actually paying me to sit in kollel. There's an intensity to your learning because you

don't have five hours to sit on a daf-you've

got 20 minutes - because you've got three

other things you need to be preparing to learn with people, too.

"When you walk into the shul it looks like a beis medrash; it has that feel, so that's

what people identify it with. It's not just a shul where people happen to come to learn.

Learning is what the shul represents."

His point about the shu.l's unusual design

is immediately apparent upon entering the

building. It's a cavernous space, without a single wall in sight. The davening area is bounded by bookcases, some filled with

siddurim and Chumashim but many more

stocked with hundreds of Judaica titles

on every imaginable topic. The message is

clear: We don't just daven here, we learn

too. The aron kodesh and bimah were both

designed by the rabbi's late father, David

Wohlgelernter, who was both an art teach­

er in New York yeshivah day schools and a

theatrical set designer whose woodwork­

ing and stained glass artistry also grace sev­

eral synagogues back East. From the pews it's just a few steps up to

an even larger, wide-open area that rings

the davening space, with ample room for

lots of tables and chairs. Not far from the

front entrance sits a long conference-room

table surrounded by many swivel chairs,

where numerous shiurim take place week­

ly. At that table, Rabbi Wohlgelernter has

for many years given an in-depth daily Ge­

mara shiur that has learned numerous ma­sechtos covering not only Gemara, Rashl

and Tosfos, but Rishonim, Shulchan Aruch,

Tur/Beis Yosef and Mis/mah Berurah. And

not one of this shiur's participants had any

background in learning when he joined.

Over the last three decades, Adat Ye­

shurun has become a model for other com­

munities in how to create a highly success­

ful kiruv shul, and although he declines to

quantify how many of his congregants have

made the move to Torah observance, Rabbi Jeff allows that the number is "pretty stag­

gering." There are even, by his count, close

to 35 individuals who became geirei tzedek

over the years, many of them now the heads

of their ownfrum families. Even today, with

a strong nucleus of Torah-observant fami­

lies in place, he estimates that of the near­ly 200 people in shut on a Shabbos morn­

ing, about 60% of them are not yet shomer

Shabbos.

When people ask how an Orthodox syn­

agogue in suburban California is able to

attract so many unaffiliated Jews, Rabbi

Wohlgelernter's answer again focuses on

learning: "It's all about Torah learning. There's tremendous encouragement to

join shiurim. When the ladies came back

from the Jewish Women's Renaissance

Project trip, we added three new shiurim

for them."

The rabbi also teaches every bar mitz­vah boy his parshah and learns with all the

bas mitzvah girls too, studying a topic like

chesed once a week over the course of a

year. But isn't that something he can easily

delegate to others? "I trunk to myself, how can I ever give that away? Here's a kid who

might not be so connected Jewishly, yet is

sitting and schmoozing with his rabbi for

45minutes, with nofearor discomfort.And

while thls doesn't usually make themfrum,

you know what it does do? When they're in

college and looking to get married, either they come back to me or they go to a guy

that looks like me, because to them that's

how a rabbi looks. The whole thing of 'the

rabbi' is demystified." If Rabbi Wohlgelernter's approach to

rabbanus is unconventional, his initial

entry into the field also took a rather un­

predictable route. He never spent a day in

"My rabbanus i s a teaching rabbanus. I'd hear rabbanim wonder how tomaintain their learning and I never widerstood it. Teac h, and the more you teach, the more you learn. The shul doesn't realize that they're actually payingmeto s it in lwllel"

MISHPACHA 67

father-in-law, Rabbi Refson, the day

school principal and a friend from Ner

Israel were lhere too.

Shabbos morning, they were down to

ten.

"But," says Rabbi Wohlgelernter, "in 30

years, we've never missed a minyan since

then. It's ape/eh. One Friday night early on,

nine of us were sitting, waHing. Finally, we

said it's time to give up and start Maariv, and

just then there was a knock on the glass door

and a fellow walks in, 'Eh, shamali sheyesh

kahn eizeh beit knesset oh mashehu kazeh?'

He was a secular Israeli who was visiting lo­

cally. We had our minyan."

It was too expensive to rent the confer­

ence room for Minchal1 too, so on Shab­

bos afternoon davening was moved to the

rabbi's house, followed by Shalosh Seudos

to which two people would show up. "I re­

member saying to myself, 'One day, this

could take off, so let's lreat it that way.' So I'd

announce pages: 'Afternoon service, page

502. Congregation please rise.' And eventu­

ally, it did turn into something big."

A rav always needs someone he can turn

to for guidance, but in those early days it

was especially crucial. Reb Jeff had main­

tained a strong kesher with his rebbi from

his Ner Israel days, Rav Yissachar Frand,

who has continued to have a powerful im­

pact on him and on the kehillah. He still

consults frequently with Rav Dovid Cohen

in matters of halachah.

Each week, the shul would find itself in a

different place in the hotel, wherever there

was an available room that week. It was an

exciting beginning, but a bit too tenuous

and makeshift for some of the members.

Then, Reb Jeff received a call from Ner Is­

rael's unforgettable menahel, Rabbi Naftali

Neuberger z"l - he had been close with

Jeff's father and grandfather and kept tabs

on Jeff after he left the yeshivah - to check

on the fledgling shuJ's progress.

When Reb Jeff admitted that it was a little

slow going, Rabbi Neuberger said, "Jeff, you

have to get out of there and get a permanent

place," to which he replied, ''Rebbi, there's

no money ... " Rabbi Wohlgelernter has never

forgotten the response, which has become

his own mantra: "If we waited for money,

there'd be no yeshivah. You can't wait to do

things until you have money. Do, and you'll

get the money."

Buoyed by Rabbi Neuberger's words, the

shul took a big leap, renting space on the

second floor of an office building across the

street from the hotel, and almost instantly,

it began to grow on an ongoing basis - first

20 families, then 40, 60, 80. The congrega­

tionj ust kept growing, knocking down walls

to make the space bigger.

Staying Put Adal Yeshurun stayed in

that location for 15 years, but running a very

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active shul out of an office building brought

its own challenges. On Simchas Torah, the

building would shake, making the first­

floor occupants very nervous. Kiddush on

Shabbos was also a problem - due to space constraints, it had to be held in the outside

courtyard.

One thing, however, was a constant from

Day One: "We started right away "vith shi­

urim," says the rabbi. "The first shiur was

a Pirkei Avos class attended by one lady. That turned into two ladies, five ladies,

then men started coming. There came a point when there were more people com­

ing to learn than were coming to shul on

Shabbos.

"If you look through the shul's bulletin,

you'll see we have an unbelievable number

of shiurim. Unfortunately, l don't have any

staff, so it's basically me giving all the shi­

urim. We're now looking for an assistant

rabbi because it's gotten to a point where

we need another, younger pair of hands, not only to help out with giving shiurim

but also because we're afrum shul now­

which is the problem of every kiruv organi­

zation, when you look around the counh-y.

When new people walk in, they get fright­

ened because everyone looks frum. The

truth is they're not really fully 'cooked' yet, they're still struggling with Hebrew,

but people don't see that because they look

/rummer than the people walking in. So we

have to create further programming to ad­

dress that."

Much of the community's early growth

was due to an influx of South Africans, who,

as the children of Lithuanian Jewish immi­grants to South Africa, are vt!ry tradition­

al-minded. They formed much of the nu­

cleus of the first group of La Jolla's baalei

teshuvah and although some have moved

away, many others have not and continue

to play a prominent role in the community.

This is the challenge Adat Yeshurun shares with other successful out-of-town kiruv communities: Once people become

frum, they decide to move on to more pop­

ulous frum locales. Rabbi Wohlgelernter says that over the years, when a family has

72 MISHPACHA

contemplated leaving, he'd tell them, "You

got to do what you got to do, but we're not

going to get anywhere if you go. So if you

have it in your capacity to make this com­munity's success part of your cheshbon,

then please do so. I can't tell you not to go,

but if you can make this part of yow- pros

and cons, staying here and helping us to

continue to build, then stay here." Many

people took that advice and stayed, which

is why, he says, there is a community today.

You Have to Love It Grateful for the

abundant success Hashem has granted

him in helping to create a thriving Jewish

community from scratch, Rabbi Wohlge­

lernter is quick to concede that rabbanus

comes with many stresses and can at times

be a lonely calling. But, he says, "It's the successes - thefrum families created, the guys learning for years in kollel - which

offset all the nonsense. The only way to

make it through is to realize that there are

going to be these breakthroughs."

And, says Reb Jeff, you can never pre­

dict how those breakthroughs will happen. "There was a guy who was prominent in

the world of surfing, pretty well-known on

the beaches," he remembers. "He met a guy

who told him about the Pesach Seder and brought him to mine. Now, my Seder isn't

really the place to be mekarev someone -

it's very long and drawn out as we speak out

everything. So this fellow came and kept

dozing off throughout. I said to my wife, 'We killed this guy. His first Jewish expe­

rience is this? It's terrible.' I didn't see him

for six weeks and I thought we'd never see

him again. Then he showed up one Shab­

bos - and didn't leave for ten years. He had

been totally turned on by the Seder.

"I remember him asking me if he could leave his surfboard at the beach before

Shabbos and have a goy take it out into the

surf for him. Then we sent him to Ohr So­

mayach and three weeks later he calls me

and says, 'You gotta get me outta here.'

I said, 'What's the problem?' I'd sent so

many guys to Ohr Somayach and never had

a problem before. He said, 'I can't stand it in Yerushalayim, it's too far from the wa­

ter.' So we found a yeshivah called Marbeh

Torah in Bnei Brak, so he was close to the

beach. Today he's married with children,

lives in Ramat Gan and learns part of the

day in the Slabodka yeshivah.''

The bottom line, says Rabbi Wohlgel­ernter, is that rabbanus can't be just a job.

"You have to love people. You have to look

at someone and say 'that person needs

help,' and although there are ten other guys who can do it, it happens to be that I was

put in this place so I can figure out how to help that guy."

Rabbi Wohlgelernter is also quick to credit the advantage of

having a rebbetzin at his side whom he describes as "ibergegeben,

totally given over to helping people. Her strength isn't just as a speaker and teacher, al though she has always learned with women

one-on-one, prepares all the kallos for marriage and is an excel­

lent presenter. But beyond that, she's very warm, very outgoing,

loves people, with a very positive attitude that helps others see the

good in even the most trying situations."

That upbeat outlook comes shining through when I ask Reb­

betzin Wohlgelernter whether it can be lonely out in La Jolla. "I can honestly say, it's never lonely. I have many wonderful people

around me that are lifelong friends - different from me, sure, but

that's what makes it exciting. On a daily basis, I feel the purpose of

why we are here. We've created both a family and a community to­

gether. When we see people growing, each on their own level, what

more purpose can I ask for?"

That's not to say she knew exactly what she was getting into be­

fore coming here. Among the surprises, she says, were that "the

biggest growth I would experience would be mine and my hus­

band's."

She says another surprise was the realization that "not everyone

is going to like you. In fact, if you're universally loved, you're prob­ably not doing Hashem's work. Dealing with people who disagree

with you and make it personal is part of our growth process. You

know, when l was young, I said l would never leave Israel. When I

was young, I said I would never marry a rabbi. So I've learned nev­

er say never."

Despite Reb Jeff's status as a native New Yorker, it has often

been visitors from back East who've made him appreciate how holiness and Jewish vibrancy can be created even in the spiritual

wilds of California. One time, a chassidishe fellow from Brooklyn

showed up in shul for davening. Afterwards, he came over to say

hello and asked the rabbi a question. "How do you bring up bnei

Torah out here?"

Having raised a very fine family of seven kids, the rabbi assured

him it can be done.

The visitor replied, "You know, I can relate to that, because I

was also brought up out-of-town." "Oh, yeah? Where?"

"Sheepshead Bay."

Then there was the tin1e a well-known Boro Park family spent

Shabbos in La Jolla. Following Havdalah, the husband approached

Rabbi Wohlgelernter to compliment him on the uplifting Shab­

bos. "Rabbi," he said, "this Shabbos was really special. In Boro

Park, Shabbos afternoon my wife doesn't leave the house. Here we come to Lahoya and she says, 'ShJoime, Shloime, wake up, we have

to go to the shiur. So we come to the shiur, such wonderful Torah."

Then his wife pipes up, "Rabbi, this is so wonderful. It's like, it's

like ... an Agudah convention."

3 Adar 57771 March 1, 2017