#22: Behind the Bima - Special Guest: Simcha Leiner

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's Wednesday night at 9:00. I am Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, joined by my colleagues and dear friends. One of them you see clearly, the other is blurry. Rabbi Pini Dunner, and Rabbi Josh Brody, and we are here to take you behind the Bima. Behind the Bima. Gentlemen, another week. It's hard to believe another week has passed. And uh here we are together again behind the Bima. So excited to spend the night with you. And we have a fantastic special guest tonight. Very excited, timely, could comment about Simcha uh could comment about the Simchas uh during Corona, could comment about getting ready for uh Yom Noraim and being about Tefillah. We have the one and only Simcha Liner coming on tonight. Very, very excited. But until then, let's make a Lechaim. Who would like to make the Lechaim tonight? One second. I guess I will make the Lechaim. Rabbi Brody is trying to get the sound blast I'm not even I'm not even on the thing, man. You're not even on Facebook. Look at this. I'm Lechaim. I'm going to make a Lechaim. Good health, to happiness, to Lechaim to all the many, many thousands of volunteers across the United States that are helping shuls and schools open and get ready. People who are largely nameless and faceless, but without whom we would all be lost. So I want to give a Lechaim to all the volunteers that Sar Kodesh Tzibur, that Hashem should bless them and shower them for all of their efforts for a year of Bracha and Mazel. Amen. Amen. Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha'olam shehakol nibra bidvaro. Amen. Oh, what are you drinking there? I agree. I'm drinking a 14-year-old Glenlivet. It's delicious. Uh it reminds me, I saw somebody tweeted I don't know who this is. 14 tweets of McCloskey. I don't know who that is. And he writes, "Why yes, I do appreciate the early morning email pointing out the one typo in the eight-page full-color hard copy mailed Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What's going on over here? Brody, turn your phone or sound or feedback off. I'm trying. get killed over there. Oh, you're calling on twice. And Brody is gone. And now, then there were two. And Brody's back. There he is. So, let me try that again. Thank you for ruining our podcast, Rabbi Brody. So, this individual tweeted, "Why yes, I do appreciate the early morning email pointing out the one typo in the eight-page full-color hardcopy mailed to every member of the congregation, high holiday guy. I'm so glad you noticed." Which pretty much summarizes the way pretty much sums up the way many volunteers feel this time of year when they're putting in their all and yet sometimes people look for the missing tile syndrome rather than seeing what is there. So, a huge aliyah to the behind-the-scenes professional and mostly volunteers who are making it all happen in this unprecedented times and we are so so deeply appreciated to them. Um I'm also getting a no feed on Facebook. I don't know why that is. So, um my son asked me earlier tonight, he said, "Abba, when is Corona over? Like, you know, when is Pesach over or when is the graduation over or when is whatever over?" He said, "Abba, when is when is uh when is Corona over?" And the truth is, you know, from the mouths of babes, he's 7 years old and do we not all Uh that's me. Do we not all feel exactly that same way? Yeah, I want it to be over. Yeah, there's an enormous fatigue. We're ready. There's an enormous fatigue. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that we're supposed to be reinforcing with people is that it this will end, that give them the light at the end of the tunnel, that even though we're going through such a difficult time, that this too shall pass. That's one of the things that the psychologists have all been pointing out. But it's hard. It's hard for kids. It's hard for kids who rely on that socialization, that schools wearing masks and it they're just limited and for a lot of kids who just want to go out and be kids, it's really challenging for them. It is amazing how resilient they are. I mean, they come home and they've been wearing a mask all day and you're like, you know, does it hurt? Does it bother you? They don't even think about it. At least the younger ones. Maybe the older Some do, some don't. But right, they adapt certainly better than adults do. They kvetch a lot less than adults do about these things, but it's uh they're they're tired of it. It's over. We've got some great topics to talk about to catch up on. Um Where should we start? We got a few minutes till our special guest comes on. So, there was a story that came out. I think this is a sports story that we're going to agree on. And this is a lesson. It's very interesting. Those who learn on Wednesday mornings with me, Sicha Siyaram, we talked about midos. Character traits are called mida. A mida means a measure. Because character traits are not inherently or intrinsically good or bad. They're neutral or positive and they're all a question of what measure you put them in. The Orchos Tzaddikim says, if you make a chicken soup, you got to have pepper. Too much pepper, you ruin the soup. Too little pepper, it has no flavor. It's a mida. What's the measure of the pepper you add? And the same is true with our character traits. Stubbornness is not bad. It's not good. It depends how you channel it. It can be good. If you're stubborn about the right things. Anyway, so the two character traits that the Ramban and Rambam both agree are categorically bad character character traits are arrogance and anger. And why is anger so bad? So, they both write, the Rambam in his uh Mishneh Torah and the Ramban, the letter to his son, they write cuz anger, you suspend your judgment. You're no longer a human being. You're a pure animal and therefore you self-sabotage. You end up making critical mistakes. You have no judgment and you can ruin your life. And we saw that this week. The number one tennis player in the world, a top professional, who should know so much better, who was disappointed in the way he was playing, took his tennis racket and a ball and slammed it behind him, ended up hitting a line judge in the throat. Go wide. And uh and Novak Djokovic was thrown out of the US Open, which meant he lost quarter of a million dollars. He lost whatever he had achieved in the US Open towards his ranking. Um most importantly, he lost his reputation. Right. And you see the power of anger. In one moment, in one moment when you're angry, it could change your entire reputation and you can you can end your pursuit of this next major, really his pursuit of trying to go down as one of the best tennis players of all time. Rabbi Moskowitz, Rabbi Burry, tennis is is the green ball with the rackets, there's a net back over and over. Rabbi Moskowitz, as a as a competitive tennis player yourself, you and I have some had some epic matches. We won't talk about the the results here, but um as a tennis player yourself, do you think that the US Open do you think the the um the the tennis association was too harsh? Do you think they should have just taken a game or a set and let him continue to play? Do you think that he deserved to be thrown out of the US Open? Did he deserve that was it too much? Well, again, I read a lot of articles about it. By all accounts, the rules the rule and there's not a lot of wiggle room within the rule and it was somewhat um obvious to apply the rule here. I think for us as fans, it's sometimes shocking when you see that the number one player in the world was thrown out and you kind of say to yourself and you shrug your shoulders and you say, "Ah, give him a second chance. Why would you risk the advertisers? It's such a difficult year to begin with and now you're going to reduce the amount of viewership even more, but I think there's a great lesson in that." And that's that no one's above the law. You could be the number one tennis player in the world and it doesn't matter. If you do something wrong, you're going to get punished for it. I think it's a great lesson for our children. It's a great lesson for us which says that there's everyone's accountable and and you know, there there's a part of me that wished that Novak who this is not his first time doing something that's let's say not so crowd friendly. Um there's a part of me that wished that he had come out in a more forceful way afterwards. You know, he gave the classic, "I'm going to learn from this. I have to become a better person." But I think because of the attention that was drawn towards it, there was a part of me that hoped that he would really embrace Teachable moment. Teachable moment. and use it as a teachable moment and I think that would have helped him recover from it. Right. Well, one of our avid listeners and former sponsor Sal Abbati, you can put a see on the screen. He writes, "The rules are clear." So, the rules are clear and you don't leave it up to the umpire to judge because you don't want it to make it personal. What was interesting and I agree with you is his agent clearly helped him communicate and articulate an apology afterwards, but on the court itself he was negotiating on the he definitely had remorse. He ran right over to her. He felt bad. Might have been a little actor job some speculate on her part unclear exactly where the ball hit her. Not suggesting she wasn't actually hit by the ball. Um but he he did run over to her and he was concerned but then he tried to negotiate to continue to play and uh you're right. I think he he missed out on a teachable moment but it shouldn't be lost on us the power of anger. In one moment of anger you can lose it all. We are joined by our special guest our dear friend Simcha Leiner the fourth. Yeah, that was a Simcha Leiner the fourth. Yeah, there's a few of me on Instagram but don't be fooled. Don't be fooled. One second, which one performed at my weddings? Was it the first, second, third, or the fourth? Which one Which one did we get? The other one was cheaper, didn't you know? Oh. That's Simcha Leiner the half. Simcha Leiner the half. We want to thank Simcha for being on tonight. Simcha is a Jewish music superstar, a phenomenal individual. His parents the Gemara say that our parents are endowed with certain prophecy when they give us a name and your parents certainly were. They knew how much Simcha you would bring to people's lives and um we're grateful that you've joined us tonight. Thank you for being here, Simcha. It's a zchus. Thank you. Otherwise known by his nickname Rebyid. The Heilige Rebyid is here. So, Simcha you know I want our listeners to know um you know you have Jewish Jewish music superstar status. Certainly you have that number of followers on social media, your performances around the world, your flow around the world and many people see some of our Jewish music superstars or what we would call our Jewish celebrities and you know they might conclude based on that that um it goes to their head, they have an ego, they have certain arrogance and I want our listeners to know Simcha's as a close friend of mine. People need to know that Simcha is a down-to-earth humble guy. I want to give two examples and publicly thank you and then we're going to get into you with questions. But I've had this custom of making two weddings and and Simcha's done both. I'm trying to negotiate a group deal. At the end of the last one I said, "Simcha, two down, please God, five to go." And I want you to let you know people know that we made one of the weddings this summer in very complicated times. We had planned an entire wedding for Florida and when it clearly made sense to do it in New York, we were stuck. We don't live in New York. We don't know the New York scene and we were late in the game. One phone call to Simcha and he hit his phones, his contacts and uh tried to help us find places. In fact, when one of those places we continued to talk to to find out if it was available and my wife said to the person, "I know Simcha Liner called yesterday." She said, "That was That was Simcha Liner I was talking to? That was the Simcha? No way, that's amazing." And then the day of the wedding itself, of course, you know, tropical storms and hurricanes follow us from Florida to New York or New Jersey and the tropical storm hit New Jersey and knocked out the power at the hall and Simcha was again on the phones and driving around collecting generators to ensure that we could still pull off the wedding. So, I want to give those two examples and I want to give a hakaras hatov, a real gratitude to you for being a good friend and really as an example of how down-to-earth Simcha is and how it has not gone to his head. That said, that said, no, I'm just joking. That said, Simcha, tell us about how you got into Jewish music. Tell us when you knew that you had a gift, a talent and that you wanted to use it in this way. Well, a few years ago I was uh singing in the streets with my uh boy cello out in front of me when a Dr. Avraham Belz on walked by and said, "You know, Boca can use someone like this. Uh how about I throw you a 20 and you come for Shabbos, you know?" How badly did he ask you to mention him tonight? That was That was the launch. That was another 20 right there. So, um truthfully, I I really um as as many people know that are following my my journey in through Jewish music, I had a very very strong cashier connection with the Chazzan Goffin, uh all the children. I studied with him as a child at Yeshiva University's Belfer School of Music. And I'm going to point out the irony over here. This is I'm I'm assuming a predominantly Yeshiva University crowd, these four boxes here. And I'm the Lakewood one wearing the colored shirt. But we'll we'll move on from the basically I had a little bit of a a need for some extracurricular activities in my in my daily life. I I had a very difficult time sitting for long periods of time in Yeshiva. So Dov Levine, who was a great singer, is a great singer, suggested to my father, his friend, to possibly to possibly go spend some time with Sherwood Goffin. My mother would drive me in twice a week from Monsey to Washington Heights. And fast forward a year and a half and at my bar mitzvah I was became the youngest graduate in Yeshiva University's history. Not much of a degree there with the the Belfer School. Some people consider it more of a a filler course, but to me it was the foundation of my musical life, my musical career. And from there it's slowly, you know, that you can watch the dominoes in retrospect, but it one thing led to the next that uh really uh You know, there's some connections here cuz Sherwood Goffin, Cantor Goffin was Rabbi Brody's sister's father-in-law, of blessed memory. And the Belfer School of Jewish Music actually was started by my great uncle. So that's really some connections here. But tell us aside from the chazzan, and people may not know because they love listening to your songs or or dancing to you at a simcha, but Simcha's also a chazzan, about tefillah, davens magnificently. We've had him as a usual gig for the Yamim Noraim. We'll talk more about the Yamim Noraim in a moment this year. But who in the Jewish music world were your role models? Who do you aspire to be? Who would you say you most model yourself after? Who are the the superstars of your youth that you consider your heroes? Sure. It would It would be impossible to not mention Avraham Fried as a overall role model, not just musically, um, but the definition of being a mensch. I mean, you spend an hour with him, it's it's the most incredible experience ever. He is one of those people that he'll turn down a song because he doesn't think that there's a there's a message in the song that will bring people closer to Yiddishkeit. He'll turn down an opportunity to to perform because he doesn't feel that, um, people that are there are going to grow from the experience. Every single thing in it He's a He's a true Hasid, like the real extent of of Hasidus. Um, he's definitely someone that I I value every bit of his guidance. I consider him my my rebbe in terms of, you know, how to be a a performer, a stage role, um, I remember when Yaakov Shwekey broke out onto the scene. I was a kid, I think an early teenager. Definitely changed the game, showed me what what Jewish music is capable of in terms of scale and scope, you know, things that we never thought the frum community can can, you know, handle, such as arenas and, you know, massive orchestras. So, that was amazing. Um, I didn't appreciate some of the other singers until later on in life. I think Mordechai Ben David, some of his music I'm appreciating it now more than I ever did as a as a bachur, as a as a child. Um, and, you know, I I I go through the cycles of falling in love with the some of the older Jewish music. You listen to the some of the, you know, the London stuff and mind-blowingly beautiful and I don't think there's anyone today that can can replicate that. Not that we have to, but, uh, Let me ask you a personal question that you don't you don't have to answer is that, you know, some people who are musically inclined, like you are, feel stifled in Jewish music only. Cuz Jewish music is extraordinary, can move us, it can stir our soul. Obviously, we use it within our davening and and it makes our simcha. But, some people feel that Jewish music, you know, there's an old joke that it's really three chords or four chord two chords I don't I don't know music clearly. But, Jewish music can be can be stifling. Do you Do you listen to other genres of music? Um do you feel tempted to listen or want to participate or to sing? Do those give you opportunities that Jewish music doesn't? Sure. I I mean, on the contrary, I think that that um secular pop music is the the world of the four chords. Um A F C G they call it. It's like these four chords that almost every single uh uh pop song has that mode written into it. Um that that chord progression as they call it. But, I definitely um experiment with music. I listen to genres from all around the world. I'm currently in a Turkish music phase. Please don't judge me. But, uh they have some amazing like you know, tnyues as they say in Yiddish. Tnyues like that are that are unique to the region geographically that we wouldn't even consider musical over here like the way that they bend notes and go from I I find that very inspiring to completely step out of your world that you're comfortable with and listen to uh music from other genres. Um and it actually helped me very much in my writing that I stopped writing with a piano. I stopped writing with an instrument because I would have these muscle memory uh I'd find myself doing the same patterns over and over again and my songs were sounding very repetitious. And by listening to these other genres and writing without a piano, it sort of opened my mind like to a a whole new uh potential. Amazing. Amazing. Simcha, I would first of all, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for being here. Um I want to ask you about performing. You know, obviously anyone who's ever in a public role, so you're balancing the image you're projecting to other people versus I guess what you're feeling internally and emotionally. Whether you're playing a concert or whether you're a chazzan for the Yamim Noraim, obviously you're putting on a show for other people, but you're also grown accustomed to. Uh in Uv Netaneh Tokef, my my tricks sort of have always been um kind of uh scary, but looking through in Uv Netaneh Tokef and identifying um something in my life that has happened somewhat traumatic, I guess, uh when you're looking through the potential, you know, how all this and things that can happen. It definitely brings it home and and and gets you laser focused. The past few years it's definitely This is not very difficult to do. It's a shame. By next year we shouldn't be able to identify any of these things. I mean, so when you're up there, you're not thinking about like, oh, I have to hit this note, I have to hit that note. You're really trying to put yourself into the words of what you're saying. Right. The Yamim Noraim are the one time of the year I'm a very technical person like technique-wise, but Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that one time that it's just I just really throw it out into the wind. I really don't uh I really care that much, you know, as when you put it into context it's like the most important thing is that how people connect to what you're doing and I think when you're so medakdek about the vowels and the this and the that it tends to lose. Even in terms of like dikduk and stuff on a regular Shabbos I'm paranoid about these things. Sometimes on Rosh Hashanah if you're getting emotional and you just have to breathe in the middle of a word and stuff like that and you're breaking up the sentence where the comma doesn't belong, you know. I think Hashem is going to forgive me for this one, you know. Right. I'm just just curious. First of all, is is the behind the beam opening jingle, is that is that ready yet? Have you finished No, but seriously We're still working on it. We're still working on it. We'll have an acapella version in time for uh Do it right now. We can hear it. Breaking news. The you know, you see how in the last couple of years Israeli music Oh, yeah. Yishai Ribov, Hanan Ben Ari, right? These guys have kind of taken Jewish music. It's Israeli music, but it's really Jewish music in a whole 'nother direction. It hasn't really You haven't seen that that type of music or that genre music being being done by American Jewish professional singers, right? So, I'm just wondering, are we going in two different directions? Do you like that? Is there a Is there a move to that type of music, or it's just going to be two different types of music? Yeah, it's interesting. I spent the entire day today filming say that I have waited by you say well. Um it's it's a sham will put out master of the sauna. You hear You heard it here first and it's it's my Behind the FEMA exclusive announcement. We should have that that breaking news sound. Breaking news announcement of my text tonight. What am I What am I going to do, you know? He's still a little shove out of this. Um so, the uh Really, you have to take a step back and and understand that the successful Israeli artists Esha Ribu, Natan Goshen, these guys um they're first and foremost, they're titanum. They're like poets. Um their knowledge of Nach is something that in my entire life I I'll never come close to. Esha Ribu's knowledge of You know, he the way he mixes the the words of of Nach together with the brilliant, you know, poetic interpretations, I I don't know, you know, to what extent they're correct. I'm assuming they're completely on point. Um but that is something that we will never as Americans I don't think we'll ever achieve. If Nach is not given the same priority um in in America as it is in Israel. Absolutely. Although Lenny Friedman, our great musician, is pointing out that you did an Israeli album yourself. I did an Israeli album. I I did that like really as a passion project for myself over, you know, versus uh to sell albums, you know, it was just There's so much beauty um in Israel to introduce. And then we get hit with an Adama, and then all goes to, you know, Let's talk about the unprecedented times in which we find ourselves, Simcha. So, um as a Jewish musician, as a Jewish music uh person who that's your profession, it's your career, obviously a virus, a pandemic screeches everything to a halt. At the beginning of it, you were still of great service throughout the greater Jewish community. You were I know using virtual platforms to be there all the time. I think that you had Corona while you were still performing. It didn't compromise your performance whatsoever, but it took an extra effort of mysterious nefish. I know you plowed and fought through to be able to to provide that Simcha for the people who were listening. So, talk to us about what it was like to put a Jewish music career sort of on hold, on ice while a pandemic was spreading. And then on the other end, coming out of it, what has it been like doing Simchas these days? How how is it different than in ordinary times? What have you seen that's beautiful? What have you seen that's disturbing? What are some of the stories that you have to tell us about about Jewish Simchas during Corona? Sure, yeah. It um the the halt in in in Simchas happened so quickly um that it was terrifying in the beginning as a from a from a you know, from a financial perspective. Um a lot of people sort of like hunkered down and went into like uh you know, hibernation mode, but I I tried to take it as an opportunity to um connect with people that just didn't have anything else to connect to. And uh this constant this trend of doing these uh live stream concerts was something that was unheard of before. I told my wife, I'm like, there's this huge white wall in my garage. Let's put up some projectors, some lights, some smoke, some little overtired kids that are wired on sugar that should have been sleeping 2 hours previously. Um and let's see how many people would be interested in, you know, escaping for an hour or so. Um and we had like 26,000 families join the first week. And that just blew my mind how how people are desperate, like literally desperate for anything to to take their mind off of this. Um and then at that point we started publishing a schedule where I did every other day something virtual, um either pre-recorded or live. And that really also like jump kickstarted the the whole livestream world in the Jewish music uh uh space, you know, something that people were not so comfortable with necessarily earlier possibly because it involves internet or things like that, but it became mainstream Baruch Hashem for these things. Um The wire girls didn't want to The wire you guys didn't want it because of the internet, but the Lakewood people had no problem with Zoom Zoom Tyra, Zoom Slayera, right? Yeah, absolutely. Although my kids did not have um any uh Zoom-based classes. The Lakewood schools all had phone-based. And it was a it was a a huge huge challenge. And uh they're still you know, trying to get over it now. Like the kids are all on all different levels. And I'm sure even on the Zoom classes uh kids are all over the place in terms of their you know, Definitely complicated. Definitely complicated. What have the simple been like? Is there anything jump out not present company excluded, but what have what has it been adapting to this new world with the rules and regulations and the changes and the modified Sure. It's very confusing. Um that's for sure. I you know, everyone has rules, regulations. You're following them, you're not following them. The most important thing that I beg of people is just don't judge. Like stop judging because there's nothing that you're going to get There's nothing you're going to benefit out of out of judge Well, you know, there's six people at that table. One of those guys is closer than the other. We don't know. We're trying our best, you know, we're doing our best. I did my first indoor wedding last night. Um like officially indoor wedding. Uh they they didn't have a tent that blew away. Um but uh the the weddings have been beautiful. I know that the first week in uh in the busy season, you know, we have like 4 months worth of weddings that are condensed now into 6 weeks. Um the March, April, May weddings are all, you know, they all scramble to find dates now. Um the first week, Friday night, I dropped into bed. I I I told my wife uh Friday night, I I feel like exhausted like I've never felt in my life. I I hope I'm not coming down with something. And then it hit me just that I've been outside in the humidity for 5, 6 hours performing every single night. Something that you just take for granted, the air conditioning, the climate control, just ventilation, not being in the sun. You know, that time of the year, it it was the latest shkia of the year. You know, an hour after the chuppah, the sun's still out, you know. So, um that was definitely something to get used to. And now, you know, we just dove in that we can move things indoors at the right time. It's going to be getting cold. Yeah. Simcha, I want to ask you about something you said earlier, which is that um you said sometimes your voice doesn't act the way that you want it to. Um I guess like as someone as pathetic as me who like, you know, barely can catch out davening, so I take it for granted. Like some days my voice is better, some days my voice isn't. But I assume that like guys like you, you just you're able to belt it out. Every day you show up to work, your voice is on autopilot, on auto drive. Do you like when you get up there, you know whether your voice is is operating the way it's supposed to? How do you compensate? Do you ever get nervous about that? Or you're like, I've been there, done that, I can make up for any deficiencies that are there that day? About 5 seconds after I open my eyes in the morning, I know exactly how my day is going to go in terms of the uh vocal fatigue or whatever, they all these different terms. It's probably the most anxiety-inducing thing for a singer. Um I guess after doing it for this amount of time, you learn how to work with what you have, you know. It's like uh there are there are times that you can fool people into them thinking your voice is in incredible shape when it's not. Um there are times where it's inevitable that it's just you're going to have to deal with what you have what you got and it happens and I've had crazy crazy stories over the years, but it's it's a You know, I I did a wedding where I in in Montreal. I got onto the plane in the morning. I I pulled up to a um customs, you know, in Montreal and they asked me my name and I I couldn't even give it. I couldn't say my name. I wrote it down on paper for them. Wow. Wow. At the time the person I was working with was like he's like you have to do your stuff. You have to go. You have to go and do it. I sang the whole wedding like in a falsetto it's called the coming like which is like the only thing you have when you're sick basically. And after the wedding they came over to me you sounded like an angel. You know, whatever it is it is. It's Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Exactly what you were going for. Are there are there particular simchas that that stand out? What is without obviously using names what would you say is the most extravagant wedding that or or the wedding that jumps out in your mind that you'll never ever forget it. You're going to tell your grandchildren. Might have been in a certain location or might have been a certain size orchestra or might have been a certain extravagance or maybe on the flip side maybe the simplicity maybe the modesty maybe there was something about that wedding that stands out. What are what are the what are the what are the weddings or simchas that you're going to tell your grandchildren about? Well, during the COVID weddings I've been telling people that um this is proof that you don't need a 25-piece orchestra by the chuppah. You know, for the And then the past Sunday and the Sunday before I had 20 pieces of at the chuppah and I'm like you know, maybe there is something. So you know, there's something beautiful about having a hundred something people at a wedding. That in particular is something I will never forget um and will I mean my wife is probably listening upstairs banging on the floor saying no way this is going to happen, but but at my kids' wedding I'd love to take the same budget and spend it on 150 people. You know what I'm saying? It's something beautiful. Um I've I've been to weddings particularly on the West Coast where they just they put a week a week and a half into just building out venue. That's Amazing. And on the contrary, weddings in London like on the tarmac of the airport, every time a plane went over and the the couple would just like blow away and You know, every has their they're going to be different but uh yeah. Great stories. Okay, let's do lightning round. We really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us tonight. Lightning round, what's your favorite song that you wrote? I wrote. Um there's a song Gam Keilech. It's on YouTube. Uh you can check it out. It didn't get the uh attention that I believe it deserves. It was uh recorded live with a 100 bachurim and a big orchestra in Lakewood one Motzei Shabbos spontaneously. We threw this whole thing together. That's uh check it out. Gam Keilech. We're going to get the Behind the Bima listeners to go on Gam Keilech on YouTube. Everybody like it. Everybody repost it. Everybody share it. It's going to be the most liked video. We're going to get that. We're going to get that all the way up. What is your favorite song of another Jewish music artist? Sure. So I as I mentioned earlier, I I'd put in so much time to say to have later that I really really appreciate the the artistry and the brilliance and the lyrics and the way you know, obviously the lyrics are from Yom Kippur davening but how to turn the most you know, these are the the lyrics that everyone's bugging out at. This is that part of davening and he turned it into a masterpiece and hopefully in a few days you'll hear a my version of it. What is the most underrated Jewish song out there? Uh aside from Gam Keilech. Um I'm trying to remember that song that I promised Avraham I would learn. Uh the Avraham Fried song. What is it? Come on. Avi loves Oh, he loves that one. He sings it every every song. Every Kedusha. Oh. on. I'll get the answer for you. Okay? And what happens? You ever You ever panicked at like there's a niggun you were going to about to use for Kadusha or something and all of a sudden all the niggunim blend together and you don't remember which one you were going to sing? Right. So, Kadusha I don't really have that problem because I always keep a cheat sheet with me of five backup options. Rosh Hashanah and Kippur, hollow, anytime. There's five songs that will fit any I could sing it at a for Kel Maleh Rachamim at a funeral it will work. Right. Right. Um chuppahs when Shabbos An'im Shabbos An'im that's good. I have them. The The time that the times that I'm asked to learn a new song for a chuppah that's when things really the pressure pressure really builds up. It takes me a long time to learn these things. Um and if I forget the song there's nothing I can do. Amazing. Who Who sings Mimkomcha better? You or Chef Kish? Ooh, definitely It depends what part of the song, but definitely overall Chef Kish. Kish gets the high part. Kish gets the high part. Kish gets the high part. I'm just saving the stage for the you know for the entree. What happens when you're when you're escalating when you're going higher and higher with those notes? Do you ever get to a point you're like uh-oh? I'm on a trajectory. I'm not going to get there. Do you know how to redirect it if you feel that's happening? I think at this point that I I I can sense the the krecht, you know? And then sometimes it's it's good to put in the krecht a little here and there, you know? It's It's stylistically a Yeah. Works out perfectly. favorite venue to perform? Is it a chuppah? Is it the dancing part? Is it chazzanus? If you If you could sing at any venue you could, any platform to be? It's It's probably an orchestral chuppah. A chuppah with a big string section. There's something magical about it. There's something that's Yeah, you can't put into words. Amazing. Amazing. Can we ask you to um to maybe leave us with with Can you hum maybe something from Yom Kippur Get get our listeners in the mood. Get us ready. Give us Give us something. Any requests? We can uh Any requests? Who's got a request? I'll I'll I'll pull one out of the hat here. Yeah, pull one out of Get that sheet. It's that sheet sheet. You got five My piano's not on. That is the first performance live on Behind the Bima. Simcha Leiner, keep bringing simcha to people's lives. Thank you for all that you do. Thanks for being a good friend. Thank you for coming on tonight. May Hashem protect your voice each and every day. May he please guide you to have a successful Yom Kippur. Thank you for everything and have a great night. Thanks so much. Wow, that was great. Amazing. Ah, he's the best. He's the best. Let's talk about music. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Mark Wein Schneider, did you hear me come through there for the backup? I was trying to hold back because I would never hear the end of it from my family, my kids, but it's so hard not to, you know, when someone sings like that or sings well, it's hard not to be moved to want to sing with them. But nobody wanted to hear me or us. He's Yeah, he's He's a great guy. Like I said, he's a great guy and there are all kinds of people who have attained certain Jewish celebrity status and many of For some, it's gone to their head, but he's he's just a great guy and a regular guy and uh it was great to have him on. Interesting. Now, you rely on music a lot, right? I mean, I've come into your office, a lot of stressful situations, you and I'll be before a Yom Tov and I'll be schvitzing about a drasha and you'll be sitting there with a summer on or or some simcha in the background and you'll just be listening to music and describe what it does for you in your Hold on. Can I Can I just Hold on. Before I answer your question, can I just describe to you the texts that are coming right in? One daughter, "Abba" in capital letters, "Stop harmonizing solo." Next daughter, "Abba, I'm dying. Haha." Next, "Stop." Next, "Is coming in too loud." Anyway, what were you saying about stress and anxiety and living with judgment and pressure and How do you deal with so many women in the house? Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Shai and I try to balance it out. A lot of estrogen in this house. Anyway, um what do I do? What was the question? Oh, Jewish music. Ah, I love to have music playing in the background. I love to have music playing in the background. I find music can transport you. It can calm you. Music is such a powerful force and I'll tell you something I started to do recently on my Friday afternoon shiur, the turn Friday into erev Shabbos, I always play music now even before we start learning. And on last week, if you watch the Zoom squares, you would see there was basically a dance party going on in the turn Friday into Erev Shabbos sheer even before we began. And I found that even before we started learning Torah, just having the music play was something that really that really moved us. It was amazing. But it's a question for Rabbi Brodi because one of the most musical people I know on the planet, Rabbi Josh Brodi, plays drums, taught himself the guitar, I think he taught himself a little bit the piano. And Rabbi Brodi and I used to have I talked about last week maybe the college road trip that we took. On that road trip, I remember and several times since then and before then, we've got a game we play, which is if you start a song, you can start the song not necessarily Jewish music, but you could start the song just a couple of notes and Rabbi Brodi will tell you song tell me another song. Tell me another song. Yeah. Give me Let's do it. Name that tune. Now Rabbi, tell us tell us about what music means for you. I I wouldn't be here without music. I wouldn't I wouldn't have made it this far. In fact, then music's going to help me get to the next part. I'm not sure what that's going to be yet, but it's going to keep me going. I love it. I love it. It can't you can't you can't I I Shabbos is hard without without without hearing music. You make your own music. You sing it. But uh it's obviously not the same you know, hearing an instrument. Instruments very powerful. A band is a very powerful experience. And um you know, especially like he was just saying, I mean sometimes it's the instruments that you you you don't consider the the the popular ones that really move you. Like there's parts that get into you. And uh It's interesting actually this week's parsha has the 613th mitzvah, which is to write a Torah and we spoke about in the parsha class this week, why is the Torah called a shira? What is it about music? Rabbi Soloveitchik talks about music transports you. You immerse yourself fully in it and Torah is not supposed to speak to the brain. It's supposed to stir the heart and move the soul the same way that music does so much so that the Torah is called shira. It's called music. So, music is a powerful. Music was probably a lot more prevalent within t'filah and within Jewish life in some ways in the good old days. Right. Or we a lot of things changed, right? I mean, base migdash I mean, music was very prominent. Right, right. A few A few updates from listeners. I have a text from someone asking if they can sponsor Rabbi Brody some AirPods. That would help the Let me give you an update what's happening. I came all the way to the federation right now so I can have great Wi-Fi. Meanwhile, the microphone's not working, my thing froze up. I'm using my phone right now. I could have done this from my living room. Amateur, it's amateur hour here on Behind the Bima, Rabbi Brody. Amateur hour. And if you could see, there's no air conditioning in this room. 84 degrees, 85 It's amateur hour. For our listeners of the podcast listening on any podcast player, if you continue to rate and review us, but you can't see that Rabbi Brody is um he's sweating some buckets out there. He looks like some chassidic liner at a 5-hour outdoor wedding. He's He's working He's still working on that cup of coffee from this morning, also. That could be why you're so hot, by the way. See the timestamp on here? Yeah, what does it say? What time did you pick that up? 6:55 a.m. You've been working on that same cup since 6:55. And That's amazing. That's amazing. So, what One listener wants to sponsor Rabbi Brody AirPods. I got a text today from somebody suggesting a guest for Behind the Bima. And the suggestion was, could we bring the fact checker on Behind the Bima? They're quoted so often, the fact checker, maybe we can get them on Behind the Bima. Which is not going to happen because we don't want to reveal the identity. The fact checker is an anonymous individual, he or she. We don't even want to say their age, what country they live in, what language they speak. But our fact checker, who keeps us honest. A lot of other suggestions have come in, but we've got a long line of guests already scheduled for the next few weeks. So, it's really, really special, really amazing. Moving on to another subject. Um Our dear friend, Rabbi Josh Grajower, posted a tweet last week. Uh we spoke about last week about the unwritten rules of shul, and everybody weighed in about what they were. Rabbi Rabbi Greishaver wrote a great tweet and I quote, "Let's discuss people who intimidate you religiously. I'll start. I'm extremely intimidated by people who say L'cha Dodi by heart." So, in Jewish life, there are people around us who have a certain expertise, maybe better than us that could really intimidate us. And Rabbi Greishaver said the one who intimidates him is the people are the people who know L'cha Dodi by heart. I know who I'm thinking of, the people who intimidate me. Who intimidate you? Can I tell you something? That's what's so great about wearing a mask now in shul. People just davening. You don't know what he's saying. He's not saying he could You could assume he's saying the whole davening. He's not looking in his siddur, but you don't know. It's very It does create a little The private Amidah has never been as private as it is with a mask on, I find. Because, you know, sometimes when you're davening your personal Shemoneh Esrei, you want to insert personal things, but if you pause and you're not moving your lips or it looks awkward or you're getting lost in the particular bracha of the Amidah, when you're wearing a mask, it really has rendered the private Amidah truly private even when you're in a tzibbur. So, there is a benefit to it. There is a benefit. But, what what intimidates you, Rabbi Moscowitz? I'll start. I'll give you more time to think. You know what intimidates me? People who know Shir Shel Yom by heart. I don't know why cuz we say the same Shir Shel Yom. Are there people who know Shir Shel Yom by heart? They know the Wednesday Shir Shel Yom by heart. In fact, I wonder if our fact-checker knows the Wednesday Shir Shel Yom by heart. There are people who know the Shir Shel Yom baal peh by heart. That intimidates me. I'll tell you, it's for me it's Torah readers. When you find guys that you could wake up at like 3:00 in the morning and they can read any parsha basically by heart and they could just get up It would It It would take me 3 years to learn a parsha at this point. And these guys, you call them up you on a Friday and you say, "By the way, do you mind leining double parsha Behar Bechukotai this Shabbos?" They're like, "Yeah, I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it." So, that intimidates me. My brother intimidates me. My brother knows Vayeitzei and Lech L'cha this Shabbos by heart. He knows everything by heart. But, Seth Grossman once told me that that intimidates him enormously. So, those would be two in my category. I remember when we were in together like that long time ago. This could have been 15, 20 years ago that we were in Israel. And then there was we're davening Maariv and I remember there was like no siddurim anywhere. So, I started davening by heart, but you walked over to me. You found some small siddur and gave it to you. You're like, "Here, I know you don't know this." I apologize for that. I'm sorry. I'm not sorry that I did that. I was probably right. I was probably You know what else intimidates me? There are people who can go directly from regular leining into Rosh Hashanah leining into Eichah into Megillah into Haftarah and they could just boom, boom, boom. They could go from one into the other into the other. And if you've ever tried doing the Haftarah on Tisha B'Av morning or of of Shabbos Chazon where you're supposed to do you do the Haftarah bracha and then you're supposed to do the Haftarah and the Eichah trop. Ooh, that can give you a lot of anxiety. That's not easy. My biggest fear of my bar mitzvah. My biggest fear of my bar mitzvah was being able to change from the Torah to the Haftarah. Yeah. That's either going to work or it's not going to work. And if it ain't working, you're going to be pretty embarrassed when you get up there. That was a big point of nervousness there. Let's just say it didn't work. I hear you. I hear you. Amazing. Amazing. So, what Nothing else intimidates you guys? No Jewish life intimidates you? Rabbi Great Shower's tweet got a lot of conversation going. What are some examples there? Cuz that's not the stuff that intimidate. There are other things that intimidate me. That's not That's not one of them. What were some of the things that were counted? I'm not going to post it, but someone just revealed that Friday night cramming is a very common occurrence in the fact checker home. We will not share We will not share that particular comment, but that is good to know cuz we're looking for everything we can have on the fact checker whenever we can have it. So, there are No, there are things that intimidate in Jewish life, but we should all not measure ourselves against others. We really just need to measure ourselves for ourselves for ourselves. Um Yeah, unwritten shul rule, Yanky Hofstatter. Let's put up Yanky's comment. Unwritten shul rule, pre-Corona when being called up for an aliyah, don't take your time. You know the people, they make a whole like they're walking the red carpet. Everybody's got to watch them and they take their time. They're not positioned, they're not ready to go. They're not in the on deck circle. Same thing at weddings, by the way. If you're getting a kibbud at the wedding, don't sit in the back row, middle of the row. Sit up front, aisle, get up. That's a move, by the way, cuz that's Oh, I wasn't expecting it. Right, right. We've seen those. Yeah, exactly. What what me? Oh, who me? Yeah, two comments two comments started by Grosser's tweet. One of them was intimidated intimidated by people who bring a safer to the shabbos table for dvar Torah. Another intimidated by people who do chazara on the daf yomi, don't just learn it once. And You started doing that, I noticed by the way. For for those who are not at Boca Raton synagogue members, I know that Rabbi Goldberg started bringing a safer up for the drasha. Last couple of weeks you bring up a safer, you open it up. You don't look at it, but you bring it up there. Is that like a conscious thing or that's just been happening? No, it is. I'll tell you because pre-Corona and and we don't have enough time to talk about this right now, but I have a I think you know this. I don't write out my classes, I don't write out most of my speeches, but the drasha for some reason, not for some reason, I have five reasons of why I think it's important to write out a drasha. And the drasha when I give it sits on the stender and I don't read it verbatim. I try not to read it. I try not to look like I'm reading it, but it's a huge comfort to know it's there. But since Corona, when in our mind, maybe only in our mind, we're not really speaking yet, um it's 5, 6, 8, 10 minutes, and let's not go there again, but let's call it shabbos morning right now, uh down to 10 minutes. So, I'm not writing out a whole drasha. So, but there's still a need for like a comfort blanket. There's still a need to have something. So, I have to walk up there. I put the safer down on the stender and it just it somehow makes me feel better. I want you know, I'm totally with you. It you you you feel less naked up there. I mean, that's the best description of it. And you feel like if all else fails, you'll just read something in Hebrew and that'll give you time to catch your train of thought. I'm totally with you. I'll tell you. Yeah. So You know what I'm saying? Go ahead. Yeah, I'm just realizing it is reading Hebrew or English from the bema. Like unless I know I need a little bit of head get if I got to read something, I got to practice it 15 times. Otherwise, it could be a Yeah, nightmare. It's it's I'll tell you something intimidating. Here, people don't My first job is ever in Boca Raton synagogue, parshas Vayikra, 11 years ago. I came, Rabbi Goldberg gave the drasha that Shabbos, and did not prepare a second before I still remember you spoke about you spoke about walls. You would just heard the America's Most Wanted guy speak that Friday. You and Dan Katz went to hear him speak. You did not write out a word of your drasha. As you and I were walking, I remember we went to the shul and you were still trying to figure out what it was you were going to say. And you got up there and mesmerized everyone. I said to myself right there, I said, "I can't take this job because that's absurd." That was a little intimidating. No, no, no. I I was probably just trying I was Exactly, I was probably I probably had it all worked out. It was probably written in my pocket. mean we had we had it written like three weeks before you got here? You got here. Exactly. You know what intimidates Rabbi Brody? People with good Wi-Fi, microphone, and AirPods. That's what intimidates Rabbi Brody. But moving right along, we have a lot more topics to talk about. Did you know there's a feature in WhatsApp? Feature in WhatsApp. Not on your phone, but if you have the desktop WhatsApp, if you open a person, a conversation with the person, and you open the info on that person, you can see how many groups you're in with that person. It's very helpful sometimes when you're trying to find a group and you don't remember the group name because everyone's got shtick trying to create the funniest name for groups, which means you never forget the name of the you never remember the name of the group. But if you remember who's in the group, then you can look at what groups you have in common, and you could find the group. So, that's why I was using the feature. I was trying to remember a certain group, and I didn't remember the cute name it was given. So, I went to someone else who's in the group with me. You ready for this? It's a good thing you're sitting down. I did some research before we came on the air tonight in preparation for our podcast. And Rabbi Brody, you and I are in 61 WhatsApp groups together. I mean, first of all, that is way, way, way too many WhatsApp groups. You and I are in 61 WhatsApp groups together. Rabbi Moskowitz, how many WhatsApp groups do you think you and I are in together? A lot more than 61. You and I are in 164 WhatsApp groups together. Now, here's the question here's the question I want to pose. Am I ahead of your wife? What? Here's the question. Apparently, it is you can find it on your phone, too. I'm being corrected by all the obnoxious millennials. Appar- um so, you can use it on your phone, too. Um my wife and I, do you think that my wife and I are in more groups together than you and I, or less groups than you and I? I hope more. I hope more. Way less. I'm going to go with I'm going to go with uh 48. Yocheved and I are in 122 groups together. Twice as many as I'm in with you, Rabbi Brody, exactly twice as many, but 42 less than I'm in with you, Rabbi Moskowitz, which might reflect the ratio of how much time I spend with each of the people, too. It might be sure. I have nothing in common with you. But, it's an interesting study. Open your WhatsApp and see who you're in the most groups with together, and you might learn something more about some of these relationships. I'm going to check my wife right now. That's way, way, way, way too many WhatsApp groups, right? That's like a lot of them. That's like meaningful minute territory of WhatsApp groups, and I only have one phone. Right. That's too many WhatsApp groups. I think this New Year, just withdraw from every group. We lost Moskowitz cuz he's checking his WhatsApp groups right now, trying to figure out how many groups he's in. He's clearly checking right Yeah. Is there anyone more? No, you're you're you're my number one, Rabbi Goldwork. We are. You and I That's a lot of WhatsApp groups together. That's a lot of WhatsApp groups. a good That is a good reflection. That really does reflect a lot. That reflects a lot. That reflects a lot. Um I should get an award. I should get like a t-shirt. The t-shirt 168 WhatsApp a lot of time. Amazing. It's all way too many WhatsApp groups. Way way way. But I find WhatsApp is an amazing efficient way much better than email cuz you miss each other's emails. You're answering. You can't find that email. Attachments within the email. But when you have a WhatsApp group, most of them are are not really active. The WhatsApp groups can exist and be passive. Nope, I'm totally the opposite. Give me an email, it sits in my email box until it gets responded to. If you send me a WhatsApp and I'm running somewhere in the middle of something, I might glance at it and then I forget about it. And then 2 days go by and I get the text, "Rabbi, why haven't you responded to me?" I much prefer email to WhatsApp. So if you want to get a hold of Rabbi Moskowitz, you want to email. If you want to get a hold of me, you're going to want to WhatsApp. If you want to get a hold of Rabbi Brody, I don't get notifications. So you got Notifications are off on everything. Every We we we we know that, by the way. I know. Yeah, we know that. We know that. We've been By the way, we've tried to talk We've been trying to talk to you about something for 3 days. I cannot I am in the middle of things. I cannot have First of all, and then when we were talking about this, I said, "What How many text messages did you just get?" And you're like, "I just got 400 WhatsApp messages, 300 text messages." And that was in like 5 minutes. No, that that's the worst feeling is after a class when your phone has been on airplane mode. You know this feeling, Rabbi Goldwork. You turn on your phone and it just floods. It floods with hundreds and hundreds of WhatsApp messages. Yep. Yep. And you have this like anxiety attack of how am I going to get back Did I miss anything? Is there anything I needed to fill in? Back in the day And you know what? There's things you miss. And that's good luck. You got to go back and you got to catch up on the whole conversation. It is not easy. So, every week we try to shine a light on every Every week we try to shine a light on Behind the Bima, on our friends, and on our enemies, and try to stand up for the Jewish people. That's part of our mission, the BRS movement, the BRS mission, and the Behind the Bima the Behind the Bima podcast. So, I want to call attention to two this week. Um and it's from both sides of the aisle because something I've come to believe strongly is and and I appreciate the encouragement of those who brought me to this is it's easy to call out the people on the other side. It's much more important and compelling and productive to call out the people on your side. So, I'm not telling you what side I'm on cuz we are an apolitical show, at least until we have certain guests on. We are an apolitical show. So, it doesn't matter what side I'm on, but I want to call out both sides. And to call out both sides, I will draw your attention this week to two things that bothered me. One is that presidential nominee Joe Biden and his vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris also went to visit the family of Jacob Blake. Jacob Blake was a black man shot by police and Behind the Bima was out early was out early in talking about racism and drawing attention, shining a light, talking about what we can do. We had our good friend Marvell on early. Since then, by the way, we launched his podcast career. I see afterwards that he's been invited everywhere, but he got to start on Behind the Bima. And and we are clearly on the record of where we are. There's There's racism and it needs to be addressed and we need to improve upon it and we need to fight it and we need to stop it and and we're not getting into that. However, the fact that both Joe Biden and the vice presidential nominee as well went to go meet with Jacob Blake's family and walked away and said, quote, "They are an incredible family." Now, why is that troublesome? They are an incredible family. Because Blake's father is a blatant virulent anti-Semite who has posted anti-Semitic messages on his social media. Leave aside the fact that Blake is himself somebody who has alleged or or attempted rape, and I don't know where the Me Too movement is in speaking up about the fact that he's now become celebrated or somehow why can't we bifurcate? Why can't we combat take on racism, address legislation, education, take it on seriously, but not celebrate or make the poster child out of people who themselves are not righteous and should not at all be celebrated in any context. So, to meet with Blake's family who are on record publicly as anti-Semites, and then to walk away and say they're an incredible family because it fits some goal to me is very disturbing. And I don't think that if on the other side someone would meet if they were a victim of police and someone on the other side let's say met with their family and their family were documented racists, and they said about them, "Incredible family." When they were documented racists, I don't think anybody would give them a pass. And I don't think you get a pass when you're an anti-Semite. I think you can address the racism, and you can even address the justice of the Blake incident or injustice of it without meeting a family or calling them or describing them as incredible when they are anti-Semites. So, that's on the one side of the aisle. And then on the other side of the aisle, it's important to to call out that Vice President Mike Pence and other officials from the administration are slated to attend a Montana fund fundraiser next week of a couple who support the QAnon, is that how it's pronounced? But also who have shared anti-Semitic posts online. How could the Vice President of the United States of America attend a fundraiser hosted by a couple who posted anti-Semitic things online? So again, we got to call out not just the other side, we got to call out our side. And whatever side you're on, I've given you someone to call out on your side and the other side this week as sadly unfortunately there are most weeks. And whatever the standard is, whatever we wouldn't tolerate in the world of racism, we shouldn't tolerate in the world of antisemitism. We can't give a pass just because there's another injustice. In Parshat Shoftim, tzedek tzedek tirdof. What does it say it says tzedek tzedek? Our rabbis tell us tzedek bitzedek tirdof. You got to pursue justice with justice. So, even in the pursuit of a particular justice, you can't violate another injustice. You can't celebrate people who themselves are antisemitic. You can't celebrate people who are violent or abusive to women even if an injustice was done against them. Fight the injustice, but don't make them a poster child. Don't celebrate their life and don't accept a host of a fundraiser I don't care how much money they're offering if they are on the record of having posted antisemitic. Amen. Yeah, listen obviously I agree. I there's there's very hard to disagree with that statement. Um obviously one could question how much they knew, right? Everyone has Did they know? Did they purposefully ignore it? The only thing I'll add about the Biden statement is that to me that also strikes at a more fundamental issue which is that the sound bite generation and how that lacks any nuance within the sound bite. In other words, you come out of a statement you come out of a situation you have like 4 seconds to summarize how you feel about something. They are a great family. That was the news bite. That was the sound bite that he wanted to get out there. Right? Within that though you lose an enormous amount of nuance and because we live in this like 10 30 second sound bite generation, you lose your ability to qualify any statements. They are a great family, but I wish they would do more X Y or Z. You don't get the time to say that anymore. I don't need them to qualify and and I already have a comment a comment from one of our listeners telling me that I should qualify what I'm saying that if they knew if they knew that the father was an antisemite and here's why that's bogus and I don't buy it for a second. Because when you're a presidential nominee and you have an entire team working for you, you are vetting. Before you go visit, before you go meet with, you are vetting. And here's the thing, you didn't need an intense forensic research team to dig this up. This is his social media posts. The father has posted anti-Semitic things in his social media posts. If it didn't take the media long to find it, it shouldn't have taken your advanced team or research team time to find it. So, you don't get a pass and I'm not qualifying it with an if they knew because even if they didn't know, shame on them for not looking. And I'll tell you the same thing in the other direction. Vice President Pence, there's no I didn't know that they support QAnon or have written anti-Semitic things. You have a job to vet. We have a responsibility when we invite people to speak at our shul. We have regrets. We've not always been perfect. We've had to apologize or own up. You have a responsibility when you give a microphone to somebody or by having met with someone and commenting or praising them, you're the equivalent of giving them a approval. You're giving them an endorsement. You have a responsibility to research and to vet. And you have the team and you have the FBI at your disposal, intelligence community to do it. So, I don't buy it in both directions. I don't buy it if it were some other group that were minority that were discriminated and I don't buy it when it's on behalf of the Jewish people and I don't buy this as politics for the sub-person commenting that Behind the Bima is not supposed to address politics. This isn't politics. This is standing up for the Jewish people. We're not commentary commenting on politics or politicians. We're not endorsing. We're just talking about Jewish people cuz if we don't stand up to combat and to fight anti-Semitism, nobody else will. Closing thoughts, gentlemen. Any thoughts? I was giving it to my bro, Lee there. Go ahead. Go for it. What's No, no, I First of all, I loved having Sim Khan. I thought he was I thought he was great. I thought he shared some great insights. And for me, it just it it reminded me of how synonymous the music of Rosh Hashanah is with the Rosh Hashanah experience. Right? The second you start with those Rosh Hashanah tunes, um it creates such powerful images. I don't know about you and your experiences growing up, but the second I hear certain tunes, I can place myself in my shul in Boston growing up with the chazzan. There's such a visceral relationship between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur tunes and our emotional connection to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Unesaneh Tokef, Kol Nidre, certain songs in the Elul. You've been hearing a chazzan for years and years. I've heard the same chazzan for the last 10 years. I'm not going to hear him this year. I'm already missing some of the tunes that he uses that cause my association. So, I guess until Simcha came on, I didn't really think about that, but just how much the tunes drive our emotional connection to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Can I just say, you know, one of the things I remember growing up is that I don't remember Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services at all in JEC. I don't I must not have been there. Maybe I was outside with my friends. And then going in Israel, you know, I was in there Jake and it was it was interesting, but it wasn't a lot of people. Would it be a 50 or 60 guys and it was our first experience with it. But I remember going in Ner Yisrael, that was like year three, like shana gimmel, and you have a thousand people. I mean, they bring in people besides the regular Yeshiva the base medrish and the and the kollel guys. And the high school I remember, I think they came in also. And then all of a sudden, everyone at the like the everything from from just the regular amen to to certainly the singing and the songs, I mean, it was the loudest thing. Everyone was at the top of their their their lungs and there's a thousand people doing it. You know, I've never had that That's And that's one of the challenges this year. Maybe we'll get into this next week, but um this year, you know, the minyanim are all stifled to different degrees depending where you are and what you're following and what task force says, mask, no mask, singing, short, indoor, outdoor, but nobody is doing it the regular thing. Nobody is doing what they do every year. In fact, one of the questions we didn't get to, I had two more for Simcha. One was he normally is the chazzan about fila at Young Israel Woodmere and you know, what's different this year? How is he leading it differently? What does he have to cut out? How does he have to abbreviate? The other The I had for him I didn't get to was you ever the singers, they have an earpiece and like a wire running down. What are they listening to? Who's talking to them? communicating with each other about like what the next what they're doing? Is the guy in the piano being like, here's what we're going to next? Here, Lenny Friedman, what's in the earpiece? you're on. Lenny, what what are they talking about in their earpiece? Are they Are they listening to like Are they listening to the Yankee game? What's going on in there? Are they listening to the Daf Yomi? What's going on in the earpiece? But whatever it is, maybe we'll get into this next week is how do we in a time in an unprecedented time when we can't rely on everyone being together and that sound what you were both just describing, the resounding, reverberating singing, the Amen, the Yishmerani, the the the the different piyutim, how do we manufacture that this year? How do we do it this year? So, Lenny Friedman says the band leader, um he's a professional musician and amateur musician says a monitor, they're hearing themselves so they know, I guess, feedback or timing. Maybe there's truth to both of them, not sure. Lenny Friedman reiterates that it is the band leader. We're going to go with The band Lenny, what band leader saying? He's telling you like what next song is? He's telling you to go higher or lower? Lenny, what's the band What's the band leader messaging? All right, for find out the answer to this and more, the mix of the band. To find out the answer, come back next week. Uh if you're listening to our podcast, please rate and review, help spread the word, help spread the message. Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, stay holy. Thank you, Simcha Liner. Thank you for joining us tonight. If you'd like to sponsor future episode of Behind the Bima, please be in touch with us. You can email Lee, l e e, at brsonline.org. Have a fantastic night.