Bensalem Kollel 24th Annual Dinner

When you live in Ben Salem, you're able to have that ashba on people just by giving good smile by making a keshm living as a regular from Jew. You're able to make a tremendous impact on the thousands and thousands of secular Jews who live in Bucks County. Our success rate is 100%. Because if you cause someone to think about Hashem for one moment, to come closer to YKA for one moment, that itself is a success. Doesn't necessarily have to be someone kashabas tbaka all in one day. When you are out there in the world, you have the parties, you have all the friends, you have all the the strong emotions, but at the end of the day, when those strongest emotions leave, you feel emptiness. I knew there needed to be something else. There is something bigger than all of that. [Music] My name is Alexander Kletchko. My family happens to be from Russian backgrounds. A lot of Russians aren't so religious, including my parents. I asked my mom to uh to take me to a Hebrew school. Being that Russians aren't so religious, for some reason, she obliged. A friend of mine in the uh in in school in the public school like no one else worry. I guess, you know, I because I knew I went to Hebrew school and everything like that. So, I knew, you know, he's Jewish. So I so I thought you know I'm also Jewish so why not do the same and basically just since then I've been constantly you know just growing in my Yiddish kite really thanks I mean most of the things I learned up until that point was just from the Hebrew school I didn't know anything you know my parents didn't teach me anything actually the rabbi was giving everybody kabalas when I went up for the rabbi tritzky gave me what my cabala is so he said I should go in gap year the next year to yeshiva and you know I thought about it for a second I'm like oh sure after my first year in yeshiva I remember telling the rabbi that you know coming back second year he was like elated and everything and went back to yeshiva for a second year then then after third year also I remember I remember was even more like you know 3 years it's like lot I'm actually going to be going for my fourth as well people should know that they managed to get someone you know from the absolutely non-religious family my family is like nobody's religious and you know here I am sitting here in initial learning Torah [Music] No, I didn't keep shabas. I was really respecting the rabbi's family cuz it's next door. So, I did everything new, but I didn't keep shabas at all. We were even driving in Shabbat just like in any other day. This is the life we knew. So, basically, we were just uh living living our life the way we know it. We weren't yet religious, but we decided to send their kids to the preschool. And all of a sudden, we're watching his son come home with a yamaka and with with sisters. I happen to be privileged this year to have a boy in my class, Elroy Sahar, a wonderful young man. I wish I would din like Elroy would davin. He davin so beautifully, honestly, and he's always learning to grow. My mother and father are from and this community has been really well trading us. They live for a while. The Sahara is right next to the Kell. In any conversation I have with them, they always say, "What could we do to help Elroy grow and he's just a delight? He's growing and certainly has benefited greatly from his community of Ben Salem." I would like to study terror as much as I could so I could be like Robert Chvitzki. In 2023, I was working at a company in Florence, New Jersey. There was an individual there by the name of Douglas that was working there at the time as a customer service rep and I was there about a week or so before Rashashana and posted on the door that we're going to be closed for Yum Kipper which was falling out on a Monday that year. So I asked Douglas what he was going to be doing. I said to him listen I might not be religious but I went to and I know enough not to be messing around in Yonke versus China. Completely taken aback. I knew Douglas at that time for probably a year and I never knew he was Jewish. So he told me, you know what, maybe it's best for you if you go to this place. That place was been sailing. I connected Douglas with Rabbi Chvitzky assuming that he was going to go there for Rashan Yam Kipper and I don't know what would happen after that. He ended up going there for Shashana Kipper the entire sukus and then I find out he's going there every single week for shots. After Sukis, it came to a point where he's like, you know, he was living in Trenton and there was nothing Jewish in the area. And I asked him if he would be interested in coming for Shabas every week. And he said he would be. And actually from that point I would help him every Shabas find a place to eat to make sure obviously we had a place for him to stay but to make sure he had meals and set him up with a kabusa. Very close with Ra Travitzki throughout this journey of coming close into Torah mitzvah. He became my mentor. He became my guide. Not only spiritually but also personally what to do in difficult situations and what to do in Ley had a lot to do with the Ben Ko who he grew so much from and they recommended that he spend some more time learning in a yeshiva environment growing in a yeshiva environment. So that was great collaboration with the Benze Colo and Toro links in Lakewood. My most immediate goal is to keep solidifying my relationship with Hashem and creating that connection as as a son to a father that it should be for all of us. There's 50,000 Jews in Bucks County and at any point in time those 50,000 Jews could be looking for a lighthouse and that if any point in time that lighthouse is not open for those Jews, that would be a disaster to them. What you've learned over the years is the lighthouse just kept getting brighter and brighter and brighter due to the relentless energy that they have. And it really provides an enormous service to people, the Jewish people in the Bucks County community. [Music]