Baltimore, MD - April 21, 2025 - Recently I received the following email:
We had a not-yet-frum friend over for a visit who used to live in Baltimore but now lives in a different city. She went for a walk around the block and came back glowing.
She couldn’t get over how many people wished her “Good Shabbos” or “Shabbat Shalom”—even little children. She said what she misses most about Baltimore is the warm, welcoming frum neighborhoods.
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About one year after the passing of Rabbi Moshe Sherer, the legendary president of the Agudas Yisrael of America, his son Reb Shimshon entered the towering office building that housed the organization’s headquarters. Near the entrance sat a non-Jewish receptionist. Rabbi Sherer stopped by her desk to wish her a good morning and inquire if she had known his father.
“Did I know him?” the woman repeated emotionally. “I certainly did! When your father was alive, he would come into this building every morning in a hurry and rush to push the button for the elevator; it was clear that he was very busy. But while he was waiting for the elevator, he would come back to my desk and wish me a good morning with a huge smile. And I could tell that he meant it!”
Indeed, Rabbi Sherer recalled from his own childhood that his father was in the habit of greeting every Jew they met on Shabbos morning as they made their way to shul through the streets of Boro Park.
In Aleinu Leshabeach, Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein relates that a baal teshuvah once admitted that his return to Torah and mitzvos was triggered by the congenial behavior of a religious neighbor. He lived in an apartment building in Haifa that was occupied by an overwhelming majority of irreligious families; only one of his neighbors was religious. Yet that religious neighbor was always particular to greet the man warmly every time he encountered him in the stairwell. Eventually, the man realized that if his religious neighbor could constantly radiate such joy, it must mean that his life was filled with meaning and fulfillment. He resolved to explore that life for himself, and that is how he became a baal teshuvah.
The Gemara (Berachos 17a) states that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was always so quick to greet the people he met, even the non-Jews whom he passed on the street, that no one ever managed to greet him before he greeted them. Rav Dessler (Michtav Me’Eliyahu vol. 4 p. 246) points out that Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai was an exceedingly erudite scholar, who was extraordinarily well-versed in every imaginable area of the Torah. Furthermore, he was a leader of Klal Yisrael, and all of the nation’s needs and issues required his constant attention. Yet despite all of this, he was never so distracted that he overlooked greeting anyone he passed.
