#21: Behind the Bima - Special Guest: Nachi Gordon, Founder of Meaningful Minute

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's 9:00 on Wednesday night, which means it is time to go behind the Bema. Behind the Bema. My name is Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, joined by my dear friends and colleagues, Rabbi Philip Moskowitz and Rabbi Josh Brody. Gentlemen, here we are. Season 1, episode 21. Back together again, continuing to learn this great new program that we're using in order to be able to stream. And we welcome all of our viewers tonight, watching across the many platforms we are on. Guys, one of you have to turn your sound off cuz it's feedback right back in it. And uh and the podcast listeners who are listening on uh podcast. Thank you for listening. Please remember to rate and to review as well. So, welcome back, boys. What's happening in your hoods? What's going on? Big speaker today to the rabbis of South Florida. Thank you, Rabbi Brody, for organiz- Rabbi JJ Schacter. It was really a great moment. But before we go on, are we streaming on Facebook? I don't see it, just for the record. Yeah, I'm seeing us. You do? Okay. So, it was great. It was really great. I You know, one of the things that Rabbi Schacter started by saying was that he teaches rabbis all over the country. I mean, he's he's your rebbe, right? And uh he says he can count on one hand the number of times he's taught a group like ours and still have five fingers left. I think that's basically what he said. He used a little technical one hand with fingers left over. Something like that. Right. Which is really great. I got off that phone call and I you know, I've never felt so great. I just felt like we really did something special, you know, a chance to study together. Listen, nothing makes you come alive like learning Torah and doing so with a great teacher like Rabbi JJ Schacter and doing so with the rabbis of the community and using it to bind us and to build bridges together across the spectrum of the community. It was a really special, beautiful hour together. We have a lot in common, so that was really nice. It was really great. to the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County for sponsoring it. Thank you, Matt Levin, if you're watching. Marla Egers, Rabbi Josh Brody. Thank you all. We appreciate it. To you we say l'chaim, a big thank you. It was so great. L'chaim. Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam shehakol nihyah bidvaro. Amen. But you also Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam borei pri hagafen. Amen. You also felt the uh that there's definitely a tension, right? Rabbis are feeling right now going into the holidays. About having to how to deliver a message that speaks and resonates with families, singles, the elderly, right? The seniors. You know, things are great, right? We've always talked about how things have been almost life-changing, right? But at the same time how it's not so positive for everyone and how do you kind of bring out that positive message. Although it's fascinating listening to it, I was thinking that Reform and Conservative colleagues have a very different High Holiday experience than we do. We're not getting into halakha and the areas of disagreement and of course we believe Torah is immutable, halakha is immutable, non-negotiable. There's no comment on that, but um for Reform and Conservative who I haven't seen or in some ways haven't spoke to many of their members, um they're really counting the High Holidays where they're streaming to be able to give elaborate long drashas that communicate where they are, where they're going. For us it's the opposite. We are having abridged services and we're we're going to try to the best of our ability, not sure if we have that ability, but we're going to try to the best of our ability to cut down um as much as we can our drashas to make them succinct, abridged and to be able to stay within the parameters of our services. So there's really a fundamental difference between us. One of you have your like Facebook playing in the background so the sound is coming out. It's weird. Can I just tell you I don't even have this on Facebook. I don't know if you're seeing it. I'm looking at your page. Am I supposed to be on your page? Yeah, I'm seeing it. But anyway, back to the podca- our podcast listeners are not watching so they don't want to hear about this. But I want to go back to something we left off with last week. Last week we talked about the unwritten rules of baseball. That was two weeks ago. I'm not revisiting not revisiting that disagreement that I was correct about at all. Not revisiting it. Um but we started a discussion about what are the unwritten rules of shul? What are some of the unwritten rules of of shul? So, um, in this week you've had to think about it. Have you thought of any other unwritten rules of shul? Things that are not in the constitution or bylaws of a shul, things that aren't in Shulchan Aruch, and yet if you do it, you're going to get a 98 mile an hour fastball to your arm. Yeah, we could talk about that also that the Yankees threw at someone's head this week um, for no apparent reason and that's basically assault with a license to kill, but um, you seem to have been okay with it. So, we'll move on. but we're not going to because we're not talking sports. We got feedback. We have officially been on notice. We can't talk about cooking and we can't talk about sports. Every week that behind the Bima goes on, our family narrows down further and further what we're allowed to talk about. So, let's not talk about sports or the most winning dynasty of all of sports history. Let's talk about some of the unwritten rules of shul life. So, we've got some viewers. By the way, we if you're listening on the podcast, send us an email after the fact, but if you're watching live, please feel free in the YouTube chat or on Facebook chat, um, send us your your thoughts. I'll share with you some of the ones our our listeners wrote on Twitter, some of the great ones. One of them jumped out at me last week after we talked about it and this one is is very clear. Shavuos morning at the sunrise Netz minyan, the vasikin minyan on Shavuos morning, you cannot sing any part of davening. If you're leading any part of davening, I don't care if you have to shluf, you took a drill, you got some sleep so you can make the brachos for everybody else. If you sing Hallel, Kedusha, one line of davening, by the way, South Florida is different than New York. New York it's a joke. You finish dinner at 1:00 a.m. and you start the sunrise minyan at 2:30 a.m. and that's called staying up all night. In South Florida close to the equator, we start learning at midnight. What time does shacharis start? Like 6:00 a.m.? That is staying up all night. That is no sleep. So, you sing on Shavuos morning, you might take drill. You might take a for to the head. I sit down next to you for the haftorah and I'm out. That's when I just You're out every single Shavuos morning. I look out from the bema and I start to count and calculate, do we still have a minion of people listening at this moment? There are totally unconscious people all around the shul. What are some of the other unwritten rules, gentlemen? What about Simchas Torah when you're ready to go on to the next hakafa cuz you're on like a clock and there's always that one guy that wants to be the hotshot until I continue the song even after everyone's like let's move on a little bit. Or when you're ready to put it back in the aron and and there's that like one guy back from your yeshiva that insists on keeping it going when when everyone else is getting hungry. Absolutely. Sneezing in shul now is an unwritten rule. You cannot sneeze in shul now. You got to walk out. That is for sure an unwritten rule. What's the rules? What about the rule that someone just put up there about a drasha? Do you guys take that into consideration? Are you looking at the clock when you're giving a drasha and say you know what? I might be hitting the 20-minute mark. Is that dangerous? The shul The shul is like a casino. There is no clock. There's no There's a big clock hanging in the back and trust me you see everyone's turning around. Time Time stops moving when we speak. No? There's definitely a clock there. And there's a big one. It's got It's got not only the seconds but it's got like the microseconds. No, but I'll tell you again I I I said this last week but I was surprised to know how much more aware of things than people assume we are. You're aware of the clock. You're aware of who's sleeping. You know and I know I know you know I know you know I know you know I know you know this. If you're telling a story that's killing it, you know it. Right? When you have the room and you're in the middle of a story and you have everyone on the edge of their seats, you as the speaker a 100% it's like putty in your hands, you know you have them. You feel it. Yeah, that's true. Here's some more of the unwritten rules of shul life. This one, the rabbi cannot speak on shabbat hagadol or shabbat shuva before musaf. When everyone's coming back later for the big shabbat hagadol or shabbat shuva drasha, there's an unwritten rule of shul life, you cannot get up and give a drasha. Rabbi Herschel looks famously says that there's no drasha like no drasha. There's no drasha like no drasha. So there's a two mornings that you absolutely cannot give a drasha. What are the other ones? I remember there was a time where, you know, for the for those people that are listening that are not from Boca Raton synagogue, you might not realize but the rabbis speak at multiple minyanim on a any given shabbat. So if for whatever reason Rabbi Goldberg, let's say is at a different minyan and now it's his slot to speak, there's this panic that ensues on the on the bimah. It's where is he and how do we get him in here? And if you remember, there was one time Once. Once in 10 years. we we looked or some there was some miscommunication, let's say. We're not going to say who's to blame. But you didn't make it. And then there was I always make it. No, there was one time one piece I couldn't make it and it took me a month to live that one down. And it took me I it took me like a month to live that one down. I always make it. Back to shul rules. So one is the ka'aylah. You know when the ba'al koreh stops short so the whole community yells the ka'aylah and then they do the ka'aylah. That's like flexing. That's just it's not cool. It's not cool. What about singing birkat kohanim on shul The women there. Yeah, singing birkat kohanim on shul this morning. That's like that's like doing a slow agdamus. It's just it's just out of bounds. Out of bounds. You get a fast esrog pelted to the body. What about one of our Twitter followers says you can't start haftorah till 75% of gelilah's done. You cannot get offsides. Offside, premature gelilah, you can't start haftorah till at least 75 of the gelilah's done. What about hagbah? What about hagbah? The how how how big do you go? You know, some people you know, you try to do the the 10 columns and it's it's like you can see it's just it's not working. Don't go too big. Three is enough. Unwritten rule, don't do more columns than you know you can handle. Nobody wants to give up eating for the week. 100% 100% By the way, you also another one of the writers. If you have sweaty, forego the handshake. Oh, that's a good one. Unwritten rule of shul life, I like that. If you have sweaty hands, just nod. First of all, how happy are you? I'm not We're not going to say who who might be more germ phobic than the other one here, but you know, the rabbis walk around and shake hands. I'm a I'm a total germ phobe and I do not miss shaking hands at all. I miss obviously the chevra and being able to whatever, but the shaking sweaty hands on shabbos morning I'm fine if it never comes back. And we know who has sweaty hands. Let's just for the record. You like brace yourself. Guys, hey, hey, hey, let's let's be gentle. Let's be nice. Not everybody can control it. But I'll say is it is it over? Is handshaking over now? Forever? It's a big question whether it's ever coming back. I won't miss handshaking, but I will miss contact. Meaning when you connect with somebody in a moment of grief, in a moment of joy, there's a real something to to giving a hug, to putting an arm around the shoulder, to feeling connected. The handshake, hand to hand, I I I don't think I'll miss. I hope I don't need it to come back personally, but the ability to have that that contact and that that shared energy is is something I think that we're missing right now. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see. Couple more. What are a couple more unwritten rules of shul life? You can't spread your your sitter, your tallis, and your chumash across multiple chairs and give yourself an entire business section seating. I'll tell you another unwritten rule. You can't start adjusting the chairs to give yourself extra leg room. You didn't pay for the extra leg room, you don't get the extra leg room in shul life. The row. Bro, we know people who come to shul like 20 minutes early. They think before anyone else and they're they're doing construction. If you don't have permanent pews, all of a sudden they're removing entire rows of chairs. Seven rows. Seven rows. That is against against the rules against the rules. What about singing Hallow on Rosh Chodesh during the week? Is that a Is that an unwritten rule of shul life? No, I love it. I actually think that that that should be gone away with. Why not? Sing a song. Two extra minutes to enjoy Hallow. There's actually our fact checker um recently saying a song during Hallow, and I appreciated it. I thought it was wonderful. I'm not outting anybody. No one knows who he is, but it was uh it was really nice, and I appreciated it. I think it's a great thing. I think that most people just don't like don't like to be surprised, you know? It was if I'm coming to a minion where I expect it to be like this, and all of a sudden someone throws in something, like it's a weekday Hallow, and then all of a sudden it just goes you know, uh this guy's doing a whole concert. Like I didn't I didn't sign up for that. No, but there's not a whole whole concert in one song. One song to show that we're not just flying through this. We're not on the fact fast track, but it's Rosh Chodesh. We're going to enjoy this a little bit. Right. Unwritten rule. Unwritten rule is when you don't keep the pace of that weekday minion. The fact that you by the way the fact that you're an ovel doesn't make you a chazan. That's an unwritten rule of shul life. And that's a sensitive subject, and I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a right to the amud. I'm just saying it depends for which tefillah, Shabbos, Yom Tov, weekday, mussaf versus the old Shabbos mincha. There's a reason we have Sukkot and Simchat Shabbos mincha. That is for people who have yahrtzeit that week who are not chazanim. I have a comment on that. I don't know if you want to go there right now. I saw you hesitate on that one. Go ahead. No, I'll just I'll say it's complicated. It's complicated. As as someone who who had to spend a year davening for the amud and hated every single second of it, there's there's an enormous pressure, and I think this is a societal error that we make. We put a lot of pressure on like leading the amud, right? If you're an ovel, you lead the amud. If you're an ovel, you say kaddish, right? That's one part of a toolbox that God gave us, but because we place such an emphasis on it, people think that they're like failing if they don't dive in for the umid. And then we come along and say, "By the way, you're not really such a great chazzan and we don't want you to dive in for the umid." And we basically robbed them in their mind of their ability to connect with a loved one who deceased. So, it's complicated emotionally. That's all I'm pointing out. I think I think that along those lines I want to say I want to I want to push back. Hold on my Brody, hold on one second. I want to push back with sensitivity because I understand that to the right and left of me, the two rabbis who are my dearest and closest friends have gone through life trauma and my heart goes out and you've each lost a father and I can't even begin to imagine what that means at a young age and and really, you know, I hope you do know that that my heart goes out and I try to be sensitive. But on this subject, I really do feel with respect and sensitivity that there are some in chug avila's there are customs of being a mourner which include being entitled to daven on the shabbos before the yahrtzeit or there are customs of getting an aliyah, but as is said, your father made you a not you, a person's father made them an avel didn't make them a chazzan. And and therefore, and I my father my father lost his father at a relatively young age. He knows he's not a chazzan and therefore he never asked for the umid other than psukei dezimra maybe shabbos mincha. Those are the slots that are designated. Rabbi Moscowitz, you happen to daven beautifully. I can listen to you for shacharis most of you should be doing the eila on Yom Kippur. You daven beautifully. So, this is literally not personal literally there it is for sure. But I want you to know that I don't enjoy davening. My brother's a chazzan, he davens beautifully. I'm the speaker in the family. I don't enjoy davening for the umid and I I I found it a burden as opposed to something that gave, you know, meaning and context to what I was going through. I let's say I agree with you. Right now, you and I have had this conversation in the past. I agree just because a person's an avel doesn't make them a chazzan. All I'm pointing out is that we as religious leaders need to then deemphasize davening for the umid. When a parent when someone loses a parent or sibling, we need to say to them, "There are many ways you can contribute to the aliya of the neshama for the elevation of the soul of your loved one. One of them could be davening for the amud. You can give charity, you can do good deeds, you can teach Torah, learn Torah. There are a myriad of ways God gave us to create nachas for someone who passed away. I don't think we're disagreeing and let's pick this up after we entertain our guest who is waiting to come in. We're very excited to have him join momentarily. Let's pick this up cuz it's important discussion cuz the truth is we're not disagreeing. What we're both saying is that if you don't have that God-given gift and you haven't been able to cultivate within you and there are available by the way who struggle with nusach, with Hebrew, they're not as fluent, they're not as familiar. They feel pressured to daven for the amud every day. They sit a little slower. They can't keep up with the assumed pace of the minyan. I couldn't agree with you more that shouldn't be the only way to express that morning. Let's come back to that conversation but right now we want to welcome, very excited to welcome our guest for this evening, Nachi Gordon. Nachi, let's make sure you're not muted. There you are, Nachi. Thank you so much for being with us. What's going on, Nachi? Good to be here on this big-time show. Really, I'm Have you. Good to have you. Nachi, let me introduce you to my dear colleagues and friends Rabbi Moskowitz and Rabbi Josh Brodi. Nachi, you are a really impressive young man. I've been I've been watching you for a little time now and and came to to get to know you a few months ago. We connected over some of the projects you're working on and then feel very privileged to have been interviewed for Meaningful People which is coming out sometime soon. We can talk about that. We're watching Coming out this Motzei Shabbos. All right, we'll have to tell everyone where to look. We'll have to tell everyone where to look. But Nachi, we've been watching and it's it's really Can I put you on the spot to begin with? How old are you? I'm 25. Besides from the fact that you look like I should be babysitting for you right now, 25 years old. So at 25 past his bedtime right now? It might be past Nachi's bedtime but we're we're keeping him up late. He got special permission. So for those who don't know, Nachi worked as an NBA licensed agent and worked in the area of sports agency. Definitely want to talk to you about that. That is very cool and get your opinion on swinging at a 3-0 pitch. And Nachi worked in that arena, Uh for a law firm, um started a Yeshiva League in the community of Five Towns where he grew up and where the Gordons are synonymous with the Five Towns. His dad, Larry Gordon, is the founder editor of the Five Towns Jewish Times. Um and then you morphed. You've discovered this role, this Meaningful Minute, which today how many how many Meaningful Minutes sends out to how many subscribers a day? Uh um Baruch Hashem, we've got 30,000 on WhatsApp, uh another 28,000 followers on Instagram, around 15,000 emails. And we got 10,000 people who downloaded our new app, thank God. So, there's a lot of we're getting it out there. You want to come work for Behind the Bima? All right. You got to move over, though. We're going to we're going to we're going to steal him over. But Nachi, let's start out by telling our listeners, we want to go Behind the Bima with you. How in the world did you get into this? How did you go from NBA sports agent to promoting and teaching and sharing Torah in such a a broad and efficient way that is stretching such far distances? What's the story? So, I was around, I guess, 17, 18 years old. I I That's the only job I wanted to be was a sports agent, to be honest. I think I watched a documentary and I I didn't want to be that guy that goes to shul on Shabbos who talks about, you know, the Knicks and the Rangers and and doesn't have skin in the game. I wanted to, you know, be benefiting off these guys. So, I um I emailed thousands of different agencies and and law firms and I got a few, you know, internships. Um make a long story short, I guess, by the time I was 20, 21, I I, you know, certified with the NBAPA, which you need basically to have a uh bachelor's degree and you have to take a test. And, you know, I I got a pretty solid job with a nice firm that represents some NBA players. And I um I signed a I signed a player and he actually got signed by an NBA team. And it was it was going well. I think I think I was the youngest NBA agent to represent a player in the NBA. A lot A lot of the work that that we were doing in the field that I was doing specifically was overseas. We sent a guy to Spain, to Israel, different countries where they pay pretty well for these guys to play. There's only a limited amount of jobs in in the big leagues here. Is that Is that player's name Yehoshua Blat by any chance? Uh He's He's definitely one of them who made a career outside of the NBA. Um but how it how it morphed, you know, it's a very difficult field to be in as a as a frum Jew. Not that I'm discouraging it. Anyone who's passionate about it, you know, it's possible. I My email My email I had auto reply on Shabbos, so if let's say, you know, a G-League team or an NBA team for a workout were emailing me, one of my jobs was to coordinate the NBA workouts. So, one of my clients, his name was Rashawn, coming out of college, he had, you know, 15 teams that wanted to work him out between the Spurs, the Thunder, the Knicks. So, had to coordinate with the team, you know, the flights, when he's going to get there, you know, the Pacers wanted him from OKC, so had to coordinate everything. And sometimes those emails came in on a Friday night, so we would schedule in a way where I'd get, you know, I'd call it Shabbos mode where I'd send out another email which would, I guess, ping someone else, one of my colleagues, who would take it from there. And um time went on. I I was still single at the time and you know, it's a very exciting business. Um and you could make a lot of money, but it's it's cutthroat. It's very difficult. You know, you have to hang You have to hang out in the underbellies of Madison Square Garden late at night sometimes and it's just it wasn't uh I don't think viable. Um but I was But that's not why I left. I started doing, you know, I started watching, you know, more classes online, uh Torah classes, and I would come across, you know, a line in a speech, um where I'm like, "Wow, that was really good. Like, he he said that really well. I you know, I want I want my friend to hear this or all my brother to hear this, but he's not going to watch the whole entire thing. So, I could I could send him the timestamp. Go to this minute this minute and this and listen to that part. Um but what are the chances they'll do that? So, I decided to just cut him out. So, the first thing I did was I cut out like a 3 and 1/2 minute clip and I sent it around, and I saw that this 3 and 1/2 minute clip that I made, that I sent to like a couple of my friends, ended up on like a bunch of different pages and was and went sort of Jewish WhatsApp viral. And I'm like, "It's pretty cool. You know, maybe let me start doing more of this." And really was a hobby. I started cutting clips. The reason why I did a minute was because at the time Instagram's limit was 1-minute videos. So, I decided to do a minute, and um the name came from somebody I was I was doing an Instagram live one night and they said, "We're throwing out different names. What should we name this?" Someone said, "Meaningful Minute." So, we ran with that, and it's been around a little over 3 years. We started from zero. Uh we started with WhatsApp groups and uh one little Instagram page, and it's grown pretty pretty rapidly. It's really amazing what you've accomplished. And not only have you accomplished it for Meaningful Minute, but as one of the commenta- commenters here writes, the truth is you paved the way. You created a really a new genre, new venue, a new way to disseminate Torah to the masses in a way that is consumed and inspires and transforms people's lives. And and the people who who ride your coattails from the Torah Anytime Daily Dose and Kol Torah Kulah. And I can just tell you as a rabbi that I'm contacted regularly, "Could you record a short video?" And there's no end, you know, to the groups that have, you know, every group of young guys. And I admire them, and I applaud them, and I try to support them and send them something. Um but every new group of young people has come up with their their new group. Every new rabbi, every rabbi has their WhatsApp group. I have several WhatsApp groups and I know what it means to try to send out over several WhatsApp groups. How do you get to 30,000 people? Give us some of the mechanics. Take us into into behind the beamer on on how you send out a minute to 30,000 people on WhatsApp. So, um Take notes, by the way. So, you know what? I get this question a lot from people who are who are, you know, wanting to do the same thing. I think it's amazing that people are continuing to start these up and it's you know, you see more and more every day, which it's great. Um, I think some of them may may might hate me because they can't speak for 45 minutes anymore because you know, Ascension fans are a little bit shorter. Um, but mechanically, it's there's no easy there's no easy way. Um WhatsApp is we don't own WhatsApp. I don't own WhatsApp, so you know, WhatsApp was made so you can talk to your grandmother in Europe. It wasn't made so you could send a send a message to 30,000 people. You can rely on the Jews to go ahead and take that platform and turn it into that and have 15,000 people viewing your WhatsApp status. Um, but it's you know, it's broadcast list and we have, you know, hundreds of them. And it's man- it's manual it's manual work and it it'll take on any given day 4 hours to send a minute out to every single one of our subscribers. We have two phones at this point because one of the one of the decisions I made from the beginning was and I think this is a big part of the success. Of course, everything's from our coach Baruch and I think this this part was if if anyone would ask, what do you think did it? I think it was made a decision in the beginning that we're doing 7 days a week. We're not missing all much of Shabbos, this that. We're doing it every single day. And we're we're in people's lives. We're consistent. And sometimes Shabbos would end at uh, 9:00, 9:15 and it'd take 5 hours to send it out. So, there are times that I'll be sending out videos and it's 1:00 2:00 a.m. Mhm. I'm single, it's, you know, okay, no problem. But if you get married, it's probably not so much fun. And, um, so I had to split it into two phones. Um, you know, so you so you could basically be sending simultaneously to the same same amount of people, takes a little less time. Um, but it it's a lot of manual work. Hopefully, WhatsApp one day has that option where they say, "You know what? You can send a message out to 50,000 people at once." Wow. Um, but not that's not how it is. And that's one of the reasons we invested very, very heavily in our new app because we felt like, you know, we don't own WhatsApp and, uh, we want to be able to have a platform that we can control. And that's what we got went ahead and built. Where where can people download that app? It's a great app. You can download that app in the App Store. If you have an iPhone, you go to the App Store, Meaningful Minute, and Google Play Store. You go to Google Play Store and download it. Thank God, we launched it around a few months ago. I remember talking to you, I think, right right in the beginning. And we just crossed over the 10,000 mark. We have 10,000 people who have downloaded the app. It's very revolutionary. People might think it's just an app where we post a minute, but it's really so much more than that. We went ahead and created a social media for rabbis, speakers, where you know, you could be posting as if you're posting on Instagram or Twitter. And, you know, the users can see a different side, I guess, behind the Bima, really of these these rabbis. And we give them a platform that may be like any other. I think what it does also is, you know, my kids, for example, are not on social media, um, but they they get a taste of it. They basically are filtering out only the best of or the most pure or the most inspiring or the most Torah-dic by creating that alternative to it within a designated app, which is really cool, also. Right, that's that's that was the, uh, that was the goal. I grew up very much, you know, social media world, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Um, and I constantly every day we sit down, me and my staff, and we try to figure out what are ways we can adapt, even like you look at TikTok, which is, you know, really terrible, but we try to see like, okay, what what are they doing on a technical level that has people so in love with it. Um Are we going to see Charlie Harary dancing next week? Is that what you're telling us? Yeah, I guess, maybe. He's dancing. Nachy, when did you know this was this was the real deal? Right? You said it started as a small little project. It's obviously enormous, it's huge, it's making such an impact in people's lives. When did that kind of click in your head that said, wait a second, I'm onto something. This isn't just another cute project, but I'm going to have to take this to the next level. You referenced a staff, the hours that go into it. Walk us through kind of like how that change happened in you. And then I'm curious, what what's been your favorite minute out of all the minutes that you've put out there, which is your favorite minute? Yeah. And you don't have to say Ephraim Goldberg just cuz he's here. Well, I'll tell you, um, it's really two answers to to the first part of your question. I think, um one of the first nights after I started Meaningful Minute, it was just basically a couple of WhatsApp groups, and you know how a link can go out and people join the groups. Um, I went to sleep, you know, I started the groups like three nights prior, and I woke up at 5:00 a.m. My phone was buzzing. And this was on my personal phone. At at this point we have totally separate numbers, and we try to keep it very separate, but this is on my personal phone at the time. I thought like, what? It's what's the big deal? My phone was buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, and I look, and I see, okay, the group filled up. Pretty cool. One group filled up, 200 260 people. Then I saw like a message from my four a plus four four area code, which is, you know, the UK. And it was a message from a guy who's still subscribed to this day, and we laugh about it sometimes. He messaged me saying, "Hey Nachi, I know you're probably sleeping, but your group filled up, so I started a second one for you. Here's the admin controls." That filled up, so I started a third one for you. Here's the admin controls. I I went to sleep, you know, that night with, you know, 200 people on it, and then there was like 600. A lot of Europe, overseas. We get subscribers from countries I really can't pronounce, so it really evolved but in a in a more deeper level, uh one summer I attended camp for like 15 summers of my life, and um I I got a relationship with Sruly Besser um from Mishpacha, and he's an author. He's an incredible and I I met him during the summer where we first got to know each other, and he said, "Yo, you you're the WhatsApp guy?" Like, "Okay, what WhatsApp guy? Yeah, I send out the videos." And he said, "You're going to love this article in Mish- in Mishpacha this week." So, what are you talking about? He said, "They interviewed a father." His name was Avraham Klein, and his daughter passed away. Um there's a story about her, you know, she was rejected from the schools, and you know, she passed away. Um and he says, and it's in it's in the article, and I was reading this, and this is when it really clicked like in a in a inner level for me. He said that he was sitting there by shiva, and he there was a lot of noise. A lot of people were saying a lot of different things, you know, and he he wasn't sure what the message he was supposed to take out of everything. And he said his message came in the form of a daily WhatsApp video that he gets every single day from Meaningful Minute. And it was a video of Rabbi Manis Friedman um saying that as a parent, when you do your best, you know, success isn't measured on the result. Success is measured on, you know, what what you do, what your actions are. And that gave him the chizuk, he gave him the koach in in the during the shiva for his daughter to really speak out and to get up there and and go around and start start an organization and talk about how important it is to you know how we treat you know kids in schools and bullying and stuff like that. So when when I read that and when I and I and I spoke to him and I met him by some of our events, that really clicked for me like this is real and anything else that I'm doing that's taking my attention, a lot of my attention, I think I really need to put on the back burner and sort of invest more hours into growing this. Well, that article must have uh really confirmed the right decision not hanging out in the underbelly of Madison Square Garden, but really changing lives. And it is a you know, Meaningful Minute is um first of all, I've been interviewed on on pod I I have nothing to gain by this. So I've already been interviewed. I've already gotten a Meaningful Minute. Um so I'm just speaking from the heart. It's really it's a movement cuz I know you run events and you're doing things that are really impacting lives. People wait for that minute to come in and they're inspired by it, which is really amazing. Rabbi Brody, what's your question? And first of all, you Naftali, you got to get Rabbi Goldberg's Meaningful Minute from today. This was yeah, it wasn't your Meaningful Minute, but you sent out today a great great thing about the tightrope. So I'll tell you something. Yeah, that was great. That was a great message. It was quick also. Normally, you know, it could be four minutes. This was a shorter one. But the point is now the point that I I want you to know and again, I don't know if you do this or if it's encouraged on the app or if you do it if you if if this is a message, but I would certainly recommend it and I'll I'm going to give you an example something I heard just uh yesterday from from someone that was listening to one of these uh WhatsApp messages and he heard it and the first thing he did was he says, you know what? There's this family that I know and I know that the father would love this message. He's not religious, you know, he doesn't he doesn't practice. But there's something about what I just heard that I think would really resonate with this family. So he sends it over to the to the guy. The guy writes back. He the guy thinks after listening to this message that he's talking now to his wife and kids, but he's talking to the guy that he that sent him the message and he says, "I just got this from a friend." He's not even a rabbi. He says, "I just got this from a an associate. He's you know, he's a very Jewish guy. He sends me this message. I really think you're going to really be inspired by his message." And he said it to the guy, not to the family. But sometimes you just get to see the result when you pass on and it takes 2 seconds. Just forward this friend, that friend, throw that to another group. You never know who's listening. Sometimes you end up by accident sometimes seeing the results, but these things are so easy to pass on. Everyone, I'm talking to the audience that's listening and watching now. When you see something that's meaningful to you, send it to more people. Don't just keep it to yourself. Absolutely. Yeah, and that's really I think how how it grew so quick is is we we send it out to, you know, I guess a certain amount of people on WhatsApp. Let's say 28,000 people that we get it from us directly every day on WhatsApp. But I'm able to I'm able to see some days with some of the content when, you know, we're scrolling, you know, through these thousands of WhatsApp statuses and you see it's posted by like hundreds of people, you have to start thinking like this video is probably seen by well over 50,000 people just by the impressions. Um so, yeah, it's it's it's incredible um just the ability to pass around this stuff and how far it can go. Clearly from that sound, by the way, your phone's blowing up again cuz everybody knows you're on Behind the Bima and they can't and they can't believe how far it's gone. I was hoping you didn't hear that, but oh well. No, it's all right. That's all right. So, I'll tell you what's what's um what's interesting is um I asked you recently uh how you choose the minute, how you choose who goes out, and I was shocked to hear, we're going a little Behind the Bima, I hope we're not going to trade secret, I was shocked to hear how many rabbis forward you their own minute and essentially ask you to choose that one. Now again, there are a lot of rabbis out there that make a career by public speaking, they want to be scholars in residence, they want to get flown around. They're trying a lot of very, I'm sure lishma, very noble. They want to just get that teaching out there. They want to get that message. They want to be ambassadors of Hashem. But, it was pretty shocking to me that rabbis are sending you directly their own minute as opposed to you having a team that is scouring the internet looking for that minute. But, I think it's interesting as three rabbis who speak regularly talking to you. Um I wonder how meaningful minute shaped the way some of these rabbis are speaking, whether they're crafting their 45-minute shiur, trying to find that one minute when they're on fire. They're like, "I'm going to find the minute and I'm going to go on fire for that minute so that I can send that to Nachi Gordon. I want to break through. I want You know, 44 minutes, eh. But, I'm going to find my minute. They'll put a little music behind it. They'll have a little thing scrolling underneath it. And then, I'll break through. That'll be my minute." Yeah, you know, I I I hope I didn't have too much of an effect. Um but, they're definitely they're definitely And I I I was hoping this would happen. You know, we In the beginning, it was really just me going through YouTube and TorahAnytime and hit that brute and whatever it may may be looking for content to cut. And it's hit or miss. You can go You can go through an hour of speech and it still won't be nothing there. No minute. Um but, you know, sometimes I'll just sit there and like, "Wow, I just went through a 45-minute speech. But, you know what? I learned something, I guess." Um but, I I was hoping that one day it would be big enough that rabbis would start sending us stuff directly. And you'd be surprised as baruch Hashem, a lot of them that shoot content that's 60 seconds, which is very difficult. So, I give a lot of props to them to shoot a 60-second message and send it to us. There are There are rabbis who who will uh send me a link and say, "42 minutes and 36 seconds. I got you. That's where I hit the stride for a 60 seconds just for you." So, so that that happens. And And I I think in terms of in terms of the impact, I don't think it changes necessarily the way rabbis speak. I think the way rabbis speak when they're in front of a crowd should remain the same. It's It's enjoyable for the people who are there. The It's in there connecting. But I I feel very strongly that in 2020 the in nature we are in that a speech that's filmed in Chicago where a rabbi is talking to a crowd of 100 people may not appeal to one person who's trying to get get his his up cuz he's not there. The speech is meant primarily for the people who are sitting there. So I'm I'm a big believer in in again podcasting. I think content like this where where it's you know, more intimate and personable. Um you know, a lot of rabbis are shooting messages where they're looking straight at the camera. They're talking to to an audience who are out there. I think that stuff is is is the future of um of the way Torah is going to be shared. I I think. Interesting. Any rabbis trying to schmear you to use their minute? Anybody send a little cash under the table with their minute? No comment. I'm smarter than that. I'm Any Any Any pushback? Anyone give you a hard time for Meaningful Minute? Was it a criticism at first? You know, anytime you're doing something good, it'll always wake up voices of opposition. You'll get the the haters. You get the trolls. So what what could someone even hate about Meaningful Minute? So you know what? I I 99.9% it's all positive. Really, there hasn't been um a lot of negative. In the very beginning, I um I used a a video of a guy named Les Brown who's not Jewish. He's a I don't know if I would call I wouldn't call him a preacher, but he is something of those sorts. And I I got a call from my Pesach phone. He said and I I was like shaking my boots. I was like, "Whoa, I never like I wasn't speaking to Rabbi Paysach Krohn. He said, "I love what you're doing, but like keep it keep it in the firm world. Like keep it for rabbis." And like, "Okay." And I and I think that was great great um guidance by him. So, that was very positive and set me on the on the right path. Um other than that, you know, sometimes when we use let's say a female speaker, we'll we'll get not as much of we used to, but we'll get some pushback from different communities. There are there are so many different type of people out there. It's impossible to please everybody. Um some some people want more of this rabbi, some people want more of that rabbi. And um but honestly, most most of it is is A1. Of course Amazing. there are crazies with everything. Um but we just laugh at it. That's great. That's great. We want to thank Nachi Gordon for being with us, the founder and the uh director of Meaningful Minute. Um thanks for spending some time with us tonight. We really appreciate you going behind the bema. Spend 1 minute on your way out. Tell us about what is Meaningful People. How that podcast get started, what are you up to, and tell us what does it mean that somebody's wired? What does it mean that your most wired guest? Oh, so I guess you heard that. We mentioned it again in the intro. Um so, Meaningful People podcast started by myself and Yaakov Langer, co-host. Um and you know, like I mentioned, the hopes were was to create content that people can listen to and really, you know, engage with and get to know meaningful people. Um you know, people who are making an impact in Klal Yisrael in in their own way. Um and derive, you know, chizuk from their lives. And you know, really squeeze the good stuff out of them. So, we started uh quite a while ago filming. Uh starting recording maybe in last November. Um and it's it's great content. That's really all I can say about it. It also is on on the Meaningful Minute app. We have the podcast uploaded there. I would say if anyone hasn't heard of it or or didn't listen to one yet, just listen to one. This month is Shabbas, you can listen to that one. Rabbi Goldberg. Um, but just listen to one and and you'll get hooked. We we thank God have over 140,000 audio downloads and we have over 85,000 YouTube views collectively on on our episodes. And very different guests. We're 20 episodes in, I think. And it's just it's really good content. You're in the car, you're preparing for Shabbas, you have an hour I think, you know, you can learn a lot from it. And I don't remember the last part of your question. Wired, what does it mean to be wired? I don't know. It's it's like laser-focused on a on a mission, on a goal. It's like it's like it's like you have your coffee in the morning and like you don't have to you don't even blink the rest of the day. You know exactly what's going on. You you don't have to even, you know, you just you're wired. You're you're mission-driven. I guess. that. With that like that. Nachi Gordon, thank you so much for being with us tonight. We had so many more questions. We'll have to have you back, talk about the Five Towns Jewish Times a little bit and talk about so much more the Yeshiva Sports League that's going on. You still running that league? Well, COVID is through a little bit of a wrench COVID, yeah. Uh, cuz we usually run hockey indoors and I don't know what's going to be with that, but we do run Jewish sports leagues in the Five Towns and we should sham will get up and running soon. Sounds good. Nachi, thanks for being with us. Hashem should give you the strength and the wisdom and the vision to keep spreading those messages of Torah and uh it's, you know, promoting a little ADD and ADHD, but we'll let that pass and uh keep uh keep inspiring people's minutes. Let those minutes add up to hours and transform klal Yisrael. Thank you so much. Achsiva Achsima Tova. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you. Wow. It's really amazing. Young guy's 25 years old and he's collectively reaching hundreds of thousands of Jews with inspiration. It's really transformative. It's a and it's almost like you did it by accident. Right. It happened by accident. Let me ask you a question though as an educator. Um you even reference it at the end. Boston You reference contributing to the ADD, the ADHD. You know, someone prepares a 45-minute sheer, an hour class, you give your Shabbos Shuva drash, you'll go an hour 45 minutes, 2 hours sometimes. Um Don't give me that. You 2 hours? I've never gone 2 hours in my life. Um Rabbi Brody, has he ever gone 2 hours in his life? No, I've never gone 2 hours. I challenge Where's our fact-checker? Where is the fact-checker? If Matthew Hackman were here. Anyways, whatever the fact Is there a little piece of you that wonders that however amazing it is, and I'm not I don't mean to diminish it one bit, but they're almost contributing to like a a shortened version of Torah. Right? That that Why would you listen to the hour sheer when I can listen to the 10-minute this, the 5-minute this, the 1-minute this, the 30-second this? It's like how quickly can we get our message out so that people don't actually have to like invest themselves in a sheer, but they can go as quickly as they want. I hear that concern, but my my response to that concern as somebody who who tried to be on social media towards the beginning sharing Torah in that way. I know both of you also share this idea is you could speak to people where you wish they were or you could find people where they are. And and there's both, right? And there people who come to learn with us in the base medrish, there people who come to sheer, and there's learning of all kinds of levels, but there is a world of people who have an attention span of a minute or will give you that minute while they're getting in the car, while they're brushing their teeth, while they're doing whatever they're doing. And that's the time you're going to get, and I think he's appealing to that audience. I I don't think he's trying to grab people out of the base medrish. Right? He's not telling you close the Gemara, leave your havirusa, leave the daf, and watch a meaningful minute. What he's saying is in between your learning, hop another minute. Or if all you're going to get in is a minute, take that minute. And he's reaching people bashert Hashem, and he's reaching them in in very very meaningful ways. In some ways he's got the biggest pulpit in America, uh much bigger than others. And And it is power I mean I was alluding to it maybe I know too much, but first of all it shocked me. It doesn't shock you that there are rabbis who send their own minute and they're like, "Please, please, please use this and send this." I'm not surprised at all. Does he play everyone's minute that's submitted or does he reject some? No, no, no. A fraction of them go in and he chooses. It's a powerful position. He's one of the most powerful Jewish men in America. 25-years old. Power broker online meaningful minute. It's No, it's good stuff. Look, it's good stuff and A of A, you know, be streaming hour-long, two-hour long Shavuot Shavuot drashas apparently. Stream Stream long long elaborate beautiful developed ideas. I'll tell you this and you know this. Trying to say something in 60 seconds in 1 minute Takes us a minute to say hello. Very hard. Very, very hard. Especially for rabbis. Especially for rabbis. Look, if nothing else I hope our audience and I know I look and say he was on one trajectory of his life and he discovered Hashem changed his path. He woke up one morning and this thing went berserk and viral and he's like, "You know what? That's not for a Ben Torah. This is. I'm out of there." And what a lesson for life for all of us. First of all, don't underestimate what we could do. Have a little vision, put in a little work and you can make something big happen and let Hashem pave the path for you. It also shows just how hungry people are for it. If you put out good content, quality content in a user-friendly way, people will gobble it up. There's a real thirst for for spirituality out there and if you can as you said, if you can make it accessible to them, the people will show up. This just in from our fact checker. Never came close to a two-hour Shavuot Shavuot drasha. Maybe you fell asleep, it felt like two hours, maybe you needed the restroom and it felt like it was taking two hours but it never came close. our friend Matthew Ackerman listens to this tomorrow, then we're going to You and I are going to get a text. So so Matthew come in up. Matthew come in up and come on the podcast and if he thinks we went 2 hours he could come on and tell me himself. Let's change gears. We have a bunch of other things to talk about tonight. Um but we're grateful to Naki for joining us. Um and one was brought to our attention, my attention by a good friend of ours, Farley. Give him a shout out. One of like the third or fourth best tennis player in the community. So Farley brought to our attention as the uh president National Council of Young Israel. Not everybody always agrees with their politics. Can be controversial some of the positions they take but I would hope this one's not and that is uh a controversial move that Harvard University did this week naming the head of the negotiating affairs for the PLO as a fellow for the 2020-2021 academic year where he'll join the future of diplomacy project at Harvard's Kennedy School for Science and International Affairs. And why is that controversial? What struck me when I when I saw the story is what I the whole safe space thing. Safe space, triggers. That only applies to racism, xenophobia, homophobia, every other form of hate. Doesn't apply to anti-Semitism? Saeb Erekat is a pathological liar. He has distorted facts about Jews and about Israel. He has advanced uh interests said Hamas is not a terror organization. He has celebrated terrorists who have murdered Jews in cold blood and he's given an appointment at a school of diplomacy? Why are you surprised? Why are you surprised? Do you not know what's going on in college campuses and the the way Israel-Arab conflict is being perceived? I do know that there's a very liberal stance and the whole occupation and all that but my point is the hypocrisy and let's call it out and kudos to those who have that what happened to safe space? Is Harvard's Kennedy School now a safe space for a Jew or a Zionist, a Zionist non-Jew who sees that they named as a fellow by the way, they named him as a fellow on the a safe space? Is Michigan a safe space? My point is I agree with you 100%. My point is I think there's something much more fundamental broken in the university system around America where you legitimately have students on many college campuses, whether it's in Michigan, whether it's in California. Um, I don't want to, you know, I know a lot of people from Boston and a lot of them are afraid to share their their political views in Boston. It's it's not popular if if you're on the other side of how people feel. In in in in in offices, in college campuses, it is take us back to in school. What does that mean? Well, first of all, Boston has a lot of academics. You have a you have a you have a tremendous amount of people who have professorships, academics. Certainly when I was growing up, um, you it's a very college town. It's a college driven town, obviously very liberal town, um, as well. And uh, and there is definitely a there's a bent there. Even in where I grew up, Newton, Massachusetts. So, Newton North, there was a big controversy a few years ago. CAMERA was very involved in the way they were projecting the Arab-Israeli conflict in their textbooks in a way that you want to you and I couldn't even fathom. It would be so Right. out of this worldly to ask to be doing that, but that's that's the reality. Yeah, I'm not playing the victim card. I'm just saying that words like trigger, safe space, cancel culture, they seem to apply to everybody but the Jew. And we've seen that now among athletes, we saw that among celebrities. We're still working on our website. By the way, the people watching who said they'd help with the website, let's get working on the website. We're still working on that celebrate or rate the celebrity or whatever we're going to call that website about whether they're pro-Israel, anti-Israel, and support our friends and protest our enemies. Um, but Harvard University, this bastion and beacon of intellectualism, what happened to triggers and safe space and cancel culture? First of all, I mean, you get your money back. If you're learning diplomacy from one of the greatest failures of diplomacy in all of history, right? He has no success, no no triumph on his record. That is the teacher, the ambassador, the professor of diplomacy, but much more than a failure of diplomacy. What happened to safe space, right? a few years ago Ahmadinejad when he was president of when spoke at Columbia, right? This is This is university life. I mean, this is Listen, you're set Again, I I don't want to get into college campuses, but the openness in the liberalism that is pervasive on college campuses is a double-edged sword, right? And others people who are sending their kids there They're They understand that there's a benefit to that, and they want their children to be worldly, but you're you're going to face these issues. And And by the way, that puts the burden on us as community educators and on our high schools because if by the time our kids go to college, they're not equipped to deal with these types of things and to respond and to feel confident and comfortable speaking out, that for our kids going to college campuses probably the number one thing we can equip them with. So, Rabbi Moskowitz, are you making a comment season 1 episode 21? Are you saying it right here on Behind the Bima, are you opposed to Orthodox kids going to secular college campus? That That is not what I said, but I appreciate you trying to drum up some controversy. I simply said that any that there are situations, there are risks involved, and as a parent making an educated decision, you have to understand those risks and educate your child properly for those risks. And don't be surprised when when Saeb Erekat is invited as a visiting professor. Right? You're buying into a mindset. You're buying into a system. My daughter's applying right now for different colleges. First of all, I think the biggest problem right now is that everything you've mentioned is getting worse. So, you know, if it was bad 10 years ago, 5 years ago, it got a lot worse. Now, it's even it's crazier than it's ever been. And I speak to people on college campuses all over this country, and we always hear stories, very, very, very negative stories. But my daughter right now, she's she's looking and thank God she's doing really well in school, and she's looking at different colleges, and she says, "Well, what about this one?" I said, "Okay, let's go on the internet. Let's just look at at stories of what's happened there." You see a ton of stories. "Well, what about this one? This one is in New York." You know, it's a great New York school. Problems there. What about this one? What about that one? Every one. Found one that was pretty good. You know, hopefully she'll end up in Israel, but But the other kids? Yeah, but but it's crazy. You can't So, one of our one of our commenters said there are risks all over. And I agree with that. There are risks all over. But as a parent, your job is to educate and prepare your child for those risks. It's to help them understand those risks. It's to give them the confidence and the tools to withstand those risks. And if And if what you're saying is correct in that there are legitimate when it comes to being a Jew on college campus and the anti-Israel bias, then then we need to do as good of a job as we can to prepare the kids for that experience. Well, I think you could summarize it like this and I agree with you and and kudos to you for not jumping into that controversy. It is It is complicated. It's nuanced. But I would say this, what you're pointing out is that secular college campuses today are increasingly hostile environments to Torah observant Zionist Jews. And they're hostile environments. They're hostile environments in the classroom, professors. They're hostile environments on those walkway, causeway, whatever they call those things where they're Breezeway. Breezeway. It's something-way. I knew it was a way. Driveway, highway, breezeway, causeway. You ever wonder that they always ask why you park driveway and drive in a parkway. What are you doing in the causeway? Oh, you advocate for your cause. Okay, there you go. So anyway, but college secular college campus Oh, breezeway, I blew it again. What's What happens in the breezeway? You get a nice breeze outside. That's where you get a nice breeze. A sea breeze. Anyway, but what happens College campuses are increasingly hostile environments. So, you Like you said, you just You're making an active choice to put a young person in formative years in a hostile environment. So, if you're going to drop somebody in enemy territory or hostile environment, they've got to be armed. They've got to have the tools, the the weapons in order to defend themselves against the hostility that they're likely going to find. And And listen, again, I can't speak for every community. I think our community does a Did we lose Rabbi Goldberg? Okay, good. I need a Beamer. Uh I I I I think we do a good job. It is 2 hours, right? Much more than 2 hours. Um no, I think our community does a pretty good job of it. Um I just killed that by accident. What just happened? Is this still going? I think he disappeared. I'm talking about your dress. Don't worry about it. I think I lost it by accident. No, I was saying I I'm still getting used to the new system. I do notice a huge drop-off in our viewership while we're having this conversation. Oh, they're coming back. They're back. They're back. Never mind. They're back. good job of it. I give I give Rabbi Uri Pilichowski, who was a former youth director here at BRS, a lot of credit. He was really in my mind like almost at the forefront of a lot of this with his pro-Israel activism, recognizing that if you catch them in that high school stage and involve them in AIPAC and give them the confidence to be activists, so you set them on a trajectory where they're not afraid to use their voice, but they know how to use their voice, they understand how the system works, and they understand how to use their voice with system. And I give him a lot of credit for that. I mean, when he came to Boca, um he had done it in LA, he replicated in Boca, he's still doing it from Israel, and really created a paradigm that a lot of communities have tried to copy after that. He does. Rabbi Uri Pilichowski getting a shout-out. Pillows. Rabbi Uri Pilichowski's doing great stuff. Rabbi Brody, one Let me say different things. Universities, there are great universities for Americans right now in Israel. And it was if you say, "Listen, I I got to go to a university." There's so many options right now. A place like IDC in Herzliya, great option. Zionist University, all Jewish. Rabbi Brody, you remember our college road trip together? And that's not exactly what it's called. But it was great. One of my favorite things that we ever did here I was I rabbi at the time? Assistant rabbi? We had We had kids on college campuses and you and I said, "Hey, let's go see them b'shem sham. Let's go see what's going on in these campuses. Let's go check in on these kids and let them know we love them." So, we flew to New York, we drove around the New York area, hit a bunch of those campuses, we drove to Maryland, Pennsylvania, we made our way down, and we had a great time. We had a great time meeting the students. We had a great time learning what's going on in campuses. You and I just had a a great time hanging out and being together. Both of us had a hair back then, I believe. That's how long ago it was. It's time for another one of those college road trips. That college campuses will open up again one day and we'll be able to do that. Yeah, we borrow a van from someone and we can go up north. That was good stuff. What's gentlemen, what's going on in your challenge groups? How how's the mind, body, soul 30-day challenges coming? Funny, I was going to ask you cuz you definitely have the most active and competitive challenge out of all the nine. In fact, people blowing past each other's records. Someone did a 6-minute plank this week. him a shout-out? Are we giving him credit? Evan Landau, Dr. Evan Landau broke the 6-minute mark on the plank WhatsApp group. I running Havruta, but but yeah, explain what that's like to watch people not only achieve their goals but surpass each other and to really have this ambition to keep on pushing the envelope. It's a beautiful thing. Actually, today's living with Emunah Shiur, I spoke about I wasn't for me. I was quoting Reb Steinman Zatzal who talked about he talked about the basis, the core of a Jew's life is living with Emunah Bitachon that Hashem's presence and involvement in your life is very real. It's at the core, it's at the center. And he said he doesn't understand how there are observant Jews who don't collapse, who don't tip over because they have such a weak core and such a weak base. And I said that's exactly why you have to strengthen your core. There's a physical you need to have a strong core. You know, when you plank, you strengthen your core muscles, you strengthen your back muscles, you develop a spine, you could stand up straight, and you can withstand the wind or an object or a bully. That's true physically and it's also true spiritually. You have to have a strong core. It was nice because after the Shiur this morning, several new people signed up for our plank group. They got a rude awakening because I said, you know, just plank a minute a day and all of a sudden they see these like animals posting like 6-minute planks, you know, competing, ruthless, going at each other. It's really it's really amazing. But I'll tell you a highlight of my plank group was um I only posted it I I only get to it usually late at night and I post mine late at night. I I really was roaring strong and I've taken a little bit of a of a step back, which is frustrating I have to tell you. I'm not competitive, but if someone were competitive, it's a little bit a little bit frustrating. Um but, anyway, so one night I posted basically you don't give it 2 hours hours. If you If you want to lie in the month of Elul coming up on Yom Kippur, you do have my phone number to ask for mechila, right? I do. You got to get in touch. I just want to make sure you know how to get in touch with me. Anyway, so um late one night I post, you know, not too late not too late to plank. Don't let the day go by without doing your plank. It'll take a couple minutes to strengthen your core. So, there's someone who posts on the group, "I was just plank shamed by Rabbi Goldberg getting out of bed to doing a plank." And then they posted their plank time. And that was um it's nice. The truth is 30 days. We all know the research. 30 days you develop a new habit. Just plank every day for 30 days or turn off your phone for davening or do your walk around the circle or uh read a book or express the gratitude or all put on the tefillin. Everyone is working on his tefillin group. 30 days, do it for 30 days and and you formed a new habit. And I think statistics show like 50% of what we do we are creatures of habit. So, you might as well have the right habits and then it's really amazing. Can I just say something about the tefillin thing? Sure. You know, you don't have to ask permission every time you speak. There is your end. Guy Jonathan Listen Look at this. You can see I mean the listeners won't hear it. Guy Jonathan, right? He says, "Hello from South Africa. I'm putting tefillin on at a game reserve." I don't know how I don't know how he's on this group here. I don't know who Jonathan is. But, he's somewhere It's some It's a beautiful thing. Yeah, amazing. Beautiful thing. No, but I think you know, let's let's actually bring let's let's close by bringing behind the Bima episode 21 full circle. Back to Nachi Gordon, which is that the power of technology and the internet is that you could reach people in amazing places. and if you challenge them whether to do one more minute of extra learning, watch a video, or put on to fill in or join a WhatsApp group, you know, you could you could look at these things. I don't want to enter a whole controversy right now. I really don't. I'm going to get in trouble with my family. I don't want to enter controversy. I will just say that I watched with some amazement, a little amusement, that Agudah and Agudah of Israel is beautiful. I'm a member of Agudah. I'm a member I've partnered with Agudah here in South Florida my friend of maths. I believe in Agudah. I've been a member of Agudah and O U and I believe in all these things. But I've really I've watched that Agudah is all over every social media platform including Facebook and Twitter and much more. They're doing a major they're doing a major fundraising campaign right now charity matching campaign. Everybody should go on, give money. Agudah is doing great things. They advocate for things we care about Jewish education, community, religious freedoms. Support Agudah. It's doing amazing things. But it wasn't that long ago that that world was looking at and calling names and dismissing anyone who had anything to do with anything social media. And the point is they're still riddled with problems and you shouldn't be on there if you're addicted. You're going to post the wrong things, look at the wrong things, make the wrong connections, feel FOMO, competitiveness. There are enormous dangers of that world. I'm not saying it's over everybody should jump on. I'm just saying that all along we said just like the car can drive you in appropriate places or take you to do mitzvahs. Just like the telephone can be a conduit of or you can dial into the the internet and technology all of it can be a platform for the good or it can be very dangerous. So you can't reject it wholesale. You got to have filter, you got to be careful. You got to use it in a filtered way and I think that's a theme of tonight. He's doing that by reaching people with meaningful minute. Rabbi Brody is reaching a guy he never met. He has no idea where he is, but that guy is now putting to fill in on every day and there's somebody who got out of bed to plank at night. It's amazing what technology can do. And just to bring it full circle, when we were talking about our rabbinic seminar today with Rabbi J. J. Schacter, one of the rabbis, I don't remember who made that point. They said, you know, for years we've been lamenting technology. We've been getting up in the high holidays and talking about shutting down technology and being alone and spending more time alone. And now during Can you imagine what COVID would have been like without technology, Rabbi Goldberg? Can you imagine what the the the COVID would have been like if you couldn't give your Zoom classes and connect to people through the internet and through these mechanisms. So, you know, the pendulum has switched where this year the high holidays aren't going to be about oh, you got to spend more time alone. Now it's going to be like embrace how technology can bring us together and foster a greater sense of community. Yeah, really amazing. Another great episode, gentlemen. Thank you for giving your time for great conversation. And as always, there's so much more to think about and to talk about. Want to encourage people download the Meaningful Minute app. Maybe watch Meaningful People this week or listen to it if you like. Definitely definitely listen to Behind the Bema and don't forget to rate and review and share Behind the Bema. We've still got I know I've been I've been I've been putting this out there for a few weeks, but we've got a lineup of great guests that you're going to be blown away who's coming on the show in the next few weeks. Very exciting. We've got a lineup of sponsors actually for the next few weeks, but if you want to sponsor, you can email Lee at Beers Online. But please download our podcast, rate and review, share them with others who you think will be inspired. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.