Tonight, for the first night of Selichos, I was not sure where to go. I basically had three options to choose from: Carlebach, Rav Weinberger and Stollel.
Up until today I was fairly certain that I would be by the Carlebach shul for Selichos, being that I was never there and it sounded like something I would like.
Then, I thought that I would go to Rav Weinberger.
You see, my theory with Stollel, until tonight, was that we are not a new independent mehalech. Rather, we are a group who gets together and does it the way that we like it when the other options are not appealing to us.
So as the idea to have Stollel selichos was developing, my feeling was: why should we have 20 guys praying in someone's basement when there are two other very good options with hundreds of people? There is no chiyuv for us to always remove ourselves from the klall.
However, tonight I changed my mind. I went to Stollel and I am certain that I made the correct decision. I got to Stollel about 15 minutes late, and by then the street was packed with cars. Inside, Rav Moshe Tzvi Weinberg was giving over a shiur and it was amazing to see how may young, Eretz Yisrael-dig Jews were there.Tefillos were led by Chaim Feigenbaum and the energy was unbelievable throughout. Praying there last night reminded me of praying in the Breslov Beis Medrash in Tzfat. Each word was said individually, on its own, with kavana.
And during the selichos I came to the realization that I do not believe that I would have enjoyed any other option as much as I enjoyed the Stollel selichos. And I realized, that what may have begun as the response of a minyan of Jews to the realities of America, has become an entity of its own of mivakshei HaShem.
I find that few people really believe in themselves to create holiness and spirituality. We mostly rely on others to get us high, which is still awesome, but if we really believed in that we have a chelek eloka mamash iside, we would be betollel tamid.
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