"The Enlightened": David Brown Opened His Home to Yeshiva Students and Didn’t Expect What They Would Give Him

David Brown was living in New Jersey when one day a fire broke out in the yeshiva near his home. "There was no place left for the students to live," he recalls, "so I went to the head of the yeshiva and offered that some students stay in our home until a new dormitory was built. We had a big house, and nine students came to stay with us for more than a year." David was confident it was the right thing to do, but he didn’t anticipate how much it would benefit him and his family.

Drawing Closer to Judaism Together

Around the age of 40, David and Chava Brown had very little knowledge about Judaism. "We knew we were Jewish, but we didn’t know what that meant," he explains. "We went to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and celebrated some holidays, but not much beyond that."

Their 17-year-old daughter, who had been exposed to Judaism at a youth outreach conference, slowly began to observe mitzvot. "She wanted to keep Shabbat, so we koshered the kitchen for her and started learning ourselves to understand," he describes. "Even before, we always believed in Hashem. It was like a matchmaking process—at first, you don’t know much, and then gradually, the relationship becomes serious. We had basic questions and started reading, and suddenly found ourselves saying 'Wow!' Many questions suddenly had answers, even ones I hadn’t thought of before. I saw this was the truth and just wanted to absorb more and more."

David's two sons, influenced by their sister, also began to embrace the path of the Torah. "One of the miracles was that we faced no opposition and that we all took this path together. Even my mother, who lived with us at the time, agreed to open up and follow it."

Asked how it was so straightforward for them, David answers: "I don’t feel like I accepted the mitzvot upon myself; rather, they were within me all along. This comes from our forefathers, and when my eyes opened, everything that was hidden inside started to come out."

A Cold Shower by Surprise

The yeshiva fire occurred on one of the days of the Chanukah holiday. "With the arrival of the boys at our home, my wife and I became more and more involved with the yeshiva," he recounts. "They had significant financial difficulties, and I started working there, organizing their finances, mortgages, and also raising funds for the new building."

What drives a person to take on such a burden and invite nine boys into his home for a year?

"Recently, we read about Abraham in the Torah, who sat at the entrance of his tent on a hot day after his circumcision, waiting for guests. What drove him to do that? Just like in business, where you recognize opportunities, I saw an opportunity here to help, and I was happy to take it. The amazing thing is, my wife and children also had to agree, and they all did, happily."

When the couple took on the task, they didn’t realize how much the students would give them. "But eventually, we discovered that their behavior influenced us. We saw how they spoke to each other, how they spoke to us with respect, and it left us in awe. We didn’t set house rules for them, even though it seemed necessary for order, but they were always well-behaved. I looked at myself and my children compared to them, and saw that they had certain qualities we lacked. I asked myself—where does that come from?"

David's sons, who were at a mixed religious school at the time, began to form connections with the yeshiva boys. "Eventually, due to the influence of the students, the boys asked to attend yeshiva, and we, of course, transferred them to a place we were connected to."

"Initially, the students didn’t eat with us," David continues, "although our kitchen was kosher, it wasn’t enough for them." When they understood the issue, the Brown couple didn’t wait and began adhering to a higher level of kashrut. "I would drive to Lakewood to buy meat with a superior hechsher, and generally, we learned the topic and started keeping good hechsherim because of them."

On Shabbat, the influence of the students on the family was also noticeable. "After a meal at the yeshiva, the boys would come to our house and sit around the Shabbat table, with candies and cakes my wife made. I asked each of them to say something they learned that week, filling us with words of Torah. I didn’t sit and study for days, so it added a lot to me."

The first Friday night the boys were at their home, David expected a surprise. "I used to return from work on Fridays about an hour before Shabbat, then shower and get ready," he recalls. "That Friday, I continued my routine, but when I came home, I found they had showered even in our bathroom due to lack of time and space. When I went to shower myself, I realized only cold water was left. It wasn’t very pleasant. After that, I started leaving work on Fridays between twelve and one p.m., not later. That way, I got a hot shower, but it was also a lesson for me that I turned into a regular habit. I worked with non-Jews then, and they got used to saying 'Shabbat Shalom' to me between twelve and one, knowing after that, I was unavailable."

Getting close to the yeshiva rabbis also deeply affected David. "There were times yeshiva rabbis would stay at our place, and from such people, you learn how to be a real person. When I started working at the yeshiva, I would show up in a cowboy hat when everyone around wore black hats. But gradually, I absorbed their way, and suddenly, without understanding how, I became one of them. We had been observing mitzvot before, but they brought us to a different level."

Progress and Persistence

Over time, the Brown children married and made aliyah one by one. "We found ourselves alone in the U.S., and realized we needed to make aliyah too," David explains. "We had a large house with a pool in the U.S., an expensive car, everything, but Hashem led us to the Land of Israel, and we knew that was our destination."

David shares his loving relationship with the Land: "My family lived in the U.S. for several generations, but I’m a realist and understand that sooner or later, Jews in America will have to leave because that’s Hashem’s will. Abroad, I heard people say Israel is a place full of stones and rocks. For me, that place is filled with diamonds. Just like diamonds are mined from the ground and are worth money, so are the rocks from the land mined and then built into houses, so they’re valuable. They’re diamonds, just not in the way people think. People said I was crazy, and I truly am crazy about the Land of Israel."

Forty years after his return to faith, David hardly remembers the way things were. "I used to eat all the forbidden foods in the world, today I don’t even recall the taste of those foods. My grandchildren sometimes ask me what certain foods taste like, and I tell them I genuinely can’t say because I’ve forgotten. For me, it’s a miracle how Hashem changed my life."

Today, David and his wife are grandparents and great-grandparents. "Most people don’t realize how blessed they are," he says, "and I feel very blessed. A person I spoke with said, 'You look sixty,' I told him—and what will you say if you learn I’m 84 with 35 great-grandchildren? We were blessed that all our descendants were born in Israel and that Torah is the center of all their lives. I was fortunate to go from being a non-religious guy with a cowboy hat to a grandfather whose descendants are united around the Torah."

And what about the students?

"They became like family to us, and we keep in touch to this day. Just a few days ago, one of them called to say 'Mazal Tov' on our new great-grandchild."