Asher Shimshon Burrows
North Carolina
Beit Midrash
Moving from a quiet, “hippy farm” to the bustling, Orthodox “ghetto” of Southfallsberg, NY gained Asher Burrows a knack for handling transitions. Yet, the move to a modern community in Miami was too much. The Rabbis there seemed starched and the people seemed ignorant compared with NY. Eventually he made his way into secular private school where he realized, “anyone that has learned a little gemara is much smarter than other people.” After a few encounters with the “outside world” (Hari Krishnas, possible gun-runners, non-Jews), he decided his Judaism needed more depth than whatever he had gathered in his youth. He joined a Daf Yomi class and met a Belzer Chassid that changed his life. He saw his choices as follows: be an expert in something insignificant or be a jack-of-all-trades and great at nothing. He chose “to be an incredible person” instead and joined the Derech Program at Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem to do just that. Whether Asher is making menorahs by hand or putting hours into Tosefot – the outcome has been incredible.
