Help Glorify the Rebbe’s Name in Boro Park

Bais Menachem is more than just a shul, it’s a center of Lubavitch in Boro Park. Being small and dilapidated, they wanted to renovate, but the mashpia Reb Leibel Altein wouldn’t hear of it.

Simchas Torah a year and a half ago in Boro Park was more than just dancing and farbrenging.

You see, Boro Park boasts over 300 shuls spread throughout the neighborhood, in fact, almost every block has its own local shul.

But there is only one shul called Bais Menachem – Lubavitch.

Bais Menachem Lubavitch is more than just a shul. It is the very core of a close-knit and supportive yet very welcoming community of Yidden who have come together from the outside to join under the Rebbe’s umbrella and learn תורת החסידות and embrace the way of living בדרכי החסידות.

And the Hachlatah was made then: the Shul is way too small and old.

The shul we are in was built in the 50’s and quite small and dilapidated. Not only was the shul growing in membership count, it was also offering many more shiurim and farbrengen. This was in part because the committee had been trying to get the young crowd more involved in the leadership of the shul so that the leadership adequately represented the dynamic.

The original plan called for a very basic renovation, in which the tenant who rented office space above the shul would be sent out so that the עזרת נשים could be moved there as well as some work to move the coffee room and kitchen down to the basement.

Upon bringing it up to R’ Leibel Altien, the Mashpia of the shul, he objected. R’ Leibel’s reasoning was as follows: “If you walk down the streets of Boro Park, you will find that most of the shuls are beautiful and welcoming places. It can’t be that Lubavitch is in a hole in the wall. It is a בחינה of ‘ועיר האלקים מושפלת עד שאול תחתיה’. Just as Shluchim set up their environment to be welcoming to their target audience, so too, must Bais Menachem be for the Boro Park community. לפאר ולרומם את בית השם.”

We took R’ Leibel’s words to heart and we revised the entire plan, making it so that this shul would be spacious, comfortable, practical and most welcoming to the locals.

We are NOT launching a building campaign, the Building is already up! Now a little over a year later we are using the new building day to day. The Shul almost doubled in size, but right now it looks more like a warehouse then a proper shul, and we need to finish the interior as is befitting the house of Hashem.

The job continues as the last of the 2.5 Million dollars generously pledged by the Balei Batims starts to dwindle, forcing us to reach out to you and the community as a whole for support.

And now it is our turn.

With your and fellow Anash’s generous help, over the summer we hope to finish the full basement which includes the Shuls Mikvah בור ע”ג בור (The only one in Boro Park), a חדר שני/חדר הלימוד.

Let me tell you: It was not geshmak to be unable to farbreng until 9:45 pm each night because of scheduled shiurim, sedarim, and tefilos in the shul.

Now, with the extra rooms – חדר שני and separate women’s shul upstairs (as opposed to a Mechitza that divides the main shul) as well as partitions to divide the enlarged shul – we will have the flexibility to offer multiple shiurim, farbrengen’s, and minyanim simultaneously. The basement will also include a large coffee room and the kitchen that’s needed for all the shul Farbrengens and Kiddushim.

Click here to donate.

There are just 7 hours left to the campaign. Please donate now and help us glorify the name of the Rebbe and Lubavitch in Boro Park.

Click here to donate.