I was born in Eretz Yisrael, and my family moved back to Lakewood when I was about two years old. I’m one of 14, bli ayin hara, smack in the middle of the family. We’re extremely close. When one of us makes a simchah, seven brothers walk into shul together. None of us are shy, and we all have big personalities. My father is a businessman with a very strong, funny, dynamic personality, and I’d say we all got that from him.
“My mother is the matriarch, the queen of the family. She’s a tremendous baalas chesed and very much into tefillah. We grew up preparing bags of clothing to send to Eretz Yisrael, and we used to go out in the van in the mornings to pick up bachurim who were hitchhiking and drive them to their yeshivos.
“When I was around nine years old, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was not an easy childhood, and there were definitely years that were emotionally difficult for the family. But b’chasdei Hashem, we never developed a victim mentality, and in many ways the experience made us stronger and even closer.
“My mother is an exceptionally strong woman. At the last wedding in our family, which we just celebrated, there was a very emotional moment when my mother walked into the hall surrounded by her seven sons and seven daughters. For all of us, it was a realization of how much she had gone through and the fact that nearly 20 years later, she is still standing strong at the center of the family.
“I also deal with a number of medical issues that I’m currently managing. But again, I think my upbringing kept me from developing a victim mentality.
“For high school I learned in Rav Uren Reich’s yeshivah, which at the time was located in Woodlake Village. Afterward I learned in the beis midrash of Rabbi Moldaver in New City; I was there for its very first year. I was an extremely serious bachur, very focused in yeshivah. I’m a very intense person; I only work well under pressure. I collapse when there’s no pressure.
“I was very into learning when I was young, and I wasn’t much of an entrepreneur at the time. One Pesach bein hazmanim I had a small business cleaning garbage cans, and I actually see a few companies doing it now. I put out a small ad, thinking my focus would be mainly yungeleit because of chametz and chumros before Pesach, but I ended up getting all the balebatim. We would go to one house, and everyone on the block would drop off their cans. We charged them $20 a can, and it worked out very well. But that was about it on the business front.
“My shidduch story is pretty unique. I wanted to get married instead of going to Eretz Yisrael, partly because I was born there and would have had issues with the army. Instead, I went to a post–Eretz Yisrael yeshivah in Monsey run by Reb Matis Rokach. At the time, I was the youngest bachur there, only 20 years old.
“On my 21st birthday, my rosh yeshivah called me and told me that a chasidishe shadchan had reached out asking whether he had any Litvishe bachurim to suggest, and he mentioned he had only one Litvish talmid who was ready for shidduchim—me. Ordinarily, I probably would not have taken a random shadchan seriously, especially someone who did not know me personally, but I recognized one of the names listed in the references. We checked into the family, heard very positive things, and the rest is history.
“We got married on my wife’s 21st birthday. My wife is from Flatbush. Her maiden name is Weitman, and her grandfather founded TAG in Far Rockaway.
“We told the girl who was listed on my wife’s résumé that we would find her a shidduch out of hakaras hatov, and kach havah—a few months later we did!
“For kollel, I was looking for something intense, so I went to Reb Motti Piller’s halachah kollel. It’s a serious program where showing up late simply isn’t accepted, and I loved that. I learned there for roughly five years. By then I had two kids, and I started looking for a job. I got a call from David Rottenberg of Evergreen Landscaping, who was featured in Lunchbreak a while back. The development where we lived was utilizing his services, and he was impressed because I spoke so highly of his company. He liked my spiel and asked to meet me.
“At the time, I was thinking that landscaping was a very shvache business; I wasn’t going to mow lawns. But I met him at his house, and he gave me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. I accepted the job, and I still have tremendous hakaras hatov to him for starting my career.