CAPTION BIG PIC: Nearly every one of his generation had been through the hell of Europe. None were left unscarred. People carried their wounds with them, yes, but still they lived life as fully as they could. Why did he have to be so… different?

To these Boro Park chassidim, the shtiebel was home. Ancient wooden doors opened to old walls, pitted floors, rickety railings alongside sloping stairs, worn wooden benches, and faded siddurim. The immigrant kehillah had built this place with devotion in their hearts and little in their pockets. Cozy and cheerful it was, a place for praying with song, dancing with joy, of little boys with shining eyes and long peyos who ran underfoot, of teenagers swaying in learning alongside the older scholars. Everyone was united by a unique camaraderie that came of shared joys, sorrows, jokes, and winks. Or perhaps not quite everyone…

Hersh Frankel* was simply a loner.

You could usually find him sitting alone at a table, quietly learning or davening. When the beis medrash was full and he couldn’t avoid the crowds, he sat at a table with others. But he was alone then, too, wrapped in his own world. The cohesiveness that bound them all simply slid off his shoulders, leaving a pocket of cold air around Hersh and his sefer.

That’s the way he wanted it.

If you got too close, you paid the price. Annoyed, he would look disapprovingly over his glasses at the man who had the audacity to disturb his privacy. In a polite but annoyed tone, the conversation would quickly be terminated.

Children weren’t so easily kept at bay. Children in the shtiebel ran, talked, laughed, and generally got involved in everyone and everything. Hersh would have none of it.

Sha! he would hiss, annoyed when the noise rose. If they came too close to him, playing, chatting, or simply disturbing, he’d become frustrated. Leave me alone!