The Rabbi Who Put Men Through Boot Camp of Non-Complaining, As A Path to Joy In Marriage

repost, Celia Farber

Celia wrote this in 2015, long before the Alt Right Figures on Social Media.

On New York's Upper West Side, a rabbi aims to help people of all ages and all walks of life "get married and stay married.

“Welcome! Come in,” said a strong, Middle-East-accented voice, as I hesitated at the door.

Behind the counter at Alibaba—the long-running neighborhood falafel restaurant on 85th and Amsterdam—stands a man with a long beard, gentle brown eyes, a yarmulke, and an engaging way about him. 

“Spicy?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“One to ten?”

“Ten.”

Seconds later he hands the sandwich to me.

“Sit down,” he says.

He’s a rabbi, it turns out—a fifth-generation Yemenite Israeli raised in Tel Aviv, where he still lives part of the year.

He opened this place after Staples knocked out his stationery store, in the mid 1990s.

Most falafel cafes are “about” serving falafel.

This one uses falafel as a medium for a much more important message, as I quickly discover as we begin to talk. 

Rabbi Moshe Harizy attends tirelessly to what many would consider a nearly hopeless cause: helping people (all ages, all walks of life) “get married and stay married.”

He helps them right here, right at this very table—a long wooden table that seats about eight—the only table in the tiny restaurant.

In between preparing and serving truly outstanding Yemenite-Israeli cuisine—with lafah he bakes himself every morning—he is a matchmaker, dating coach, and spiritual teacher.

He grew up from the age of six…

opens in the Observer.com [archive]