#89: Behind the Bima - R' Mark Wildes, Founder of Manhattan Jewish Experience

from boca raton florida rabbis ephraim goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbi's schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going welcome to behind the bema good evening it is wednesday night 9 p.m i'm robert from gold we're joined by my friend and colleague rabbi josh brody broyd right we are here to take you behind the bema behind the bema we have been off for a few weeks and we are so glad and grateful to be back to be back together and to be back together with you and to be bringing you a good friend and a great guest tonight we got a great show and uh we're excited to be back behind the beam but first of all let's begin as we always do with our attitude of gratitude thanking our generous sponsors maryland jeremy strauss in commemoration of the year outside of mr michael straussel of shalom strauss's have become very good friends they're really incredible people visionaries philanthropists and hard workers great great people community minded and the tonight is also co-sponsored by another dear friend who had to do it this pains me you remember we had a guest recently who behaved much better than anyone anticipated we had him on at the end of our marathon when it was the morning of israel yeah we had been on for like three and a half hours we thought it was safe it was like one o'clock in the morning in america we figured it was safe and he behaved really well we were proud of him anyway he played tennis this week with someone and he won by seth grossman defeated betsy preda and so uh predator had to sponsor tonight in honor of seth grossman surprising stamina on the tennis court but for a rematch so first of all i love seth you know he's one of those guys which he's always there for you and i got two great stories first of all i would not have had no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no we're not going i can't say that right now okay we are not making him when he sponsors we'll talk about him we're going to get him to sponsor stories with that you got to put him in the bank when grossman sponsors we'll talk about him okay tonight actually also i want to bring to our audience uh whether you're watching live now or later or listening please take a moment take out your phone and do something very significant and meaningful uh not difficult for you but making a big difference in someone else's life estimasquez our own rabbi moscowitz robertson moskowitz their daughter esther young girl amazing beautiful young girl we know she's been suffering and struggling with illness and undergoing significant treatment and we began a campaign called the one in one campaign a dollar a day and a minute a day of learning a dollar a day of stuck him in a day of learning the dollar a day of stucco is in conjunction with our great friend dr donath of daily giving brs are not recipients it's not a ploy god forbid for us to take the money get the money raise money it's a dollar a day daily giving is an amazing project that gives to a diversified portfolio of worthy stuccos around the world millions of dollars giving away simply because people have signed up to give a dollar a day people don't walk around with cash anymore and you can't venmo a dollar a day so you sign up for daily giving and it enables you to essentially give a dollar a day into part of a pool that's a diversified uh daily giving but don't go directly to daily giving go to brsonline.org one the number one a and d1 you can see it on the screen if you're watching brsonline.org one and one and uh there you could sign up for the dollar a day of giving and it'll take you into a whatsapp group but you'll get a minute a day of learning 60 seconds 60 seconds it's not called a minute but it's five minutes it's one minute one minute rabbis around the world or each every day every day until sd's all better and then we'll continue it because people will be learning but we're not giving up we're not slowing down a dollar a day and a minute a day stucca toro learning all in her skulls in the merit yes they should have a complete speedy and painless reforest among all those who are ill i got to tell you i was a little skeptical about the dollar a day because i said what a dollar at the end of the day it's not really that much and then all of a sudden i signed up and i get these daily emails yeah it tells you what's going on i love not only to tell you where it's going but all of a sudden it says because of you now it's almost ten thousand dollars that are being given out nine thousand eight hundred dollars whatever it is right i say you know my little dollar i'm not a dollar i'm like a macher i'm giving him away ten thousand dollars and it's great organizations every day is another organization that's great stuff and and they're they're you know i would call them a partner but again brs is not on the list of recipients we don't qualify and we understand that we're a local effort organization even though we have global reach with behind the bema and our shiram but we understand we're not a recipient and that's what makes this even more uh sincere and authentic is that it's not it's not for us it's not give stuck a dollar dave stucca and uh i'm in a day go to beersonline.org one and one so we've been out for a few weeks we had pace i don't think we've we've met before pesach when we had coach bruce pearl if you didn't listen to coach bruce pearl go back and listen he was amazing he was really fantastic so we've been off several things have been happening we had pesach and lag boomer and some other uh interruptions but we're back we've got guests lined up we are better than ever and we're ready to bring to you some insight inspiration and to go behind the bema with us i'll go behind the beam about behind the bema for a minute should i yeah well i mean you know usually i'm the one that's traveling or something's going on because then all of a sudden one wednesday night someone's in israel another wednesday night their daughter's getting engaged another wednesday night there's something else going on like robert goldberg this guy he can't keep up yeah mazel tov thank you very much yes my daughter leora got engaged to hillel storch the son of rabbi ellie and jacob storch very very excited it's a beautiful shidduch and she's an amazing girl if we say so ourselves he's a great boy and we wish all those all very cool people to get married he's almost 6'4 he he definitely helps our basketball team very excited you should see the picture i took with him he could barely see me in the picture it's funny you've got um we've got our team now he rounds us out we've got you know me and chai mikey and kelly so now and now hello rounds us up we got our starting five and we gained some height with our starting five he brings up our average height so we're really excited and we bless everybody who wants to be married who have children who want to be married everybody should be blessed very good thank you amazing yeah we're excited he's a big boy that's great uh did the boys get along with each other is that part of the uh fantastically yeah they get along great i tell you this is it's really amazing i have six girls and a little boy now this please god is the third the third wedding and i realized it's incredible i love my sons-in-law like i learn with them i hang with them i i play sports with them we have a great time in a great relationship it's amazing someone else took the hard years you know raised these boys put in the time paid for their schooling someone else to finish and i get i get them like they're a mensch i get them when there's someone you want to hang out with i get them when they're ready to rock and roll and ready to go so it's amazing yeah everyone again should be blessed who's waiting who's looking are all the boys different from one another do they have different personalities or their parents very different personalities the girls have different personalities but they have a more in common than they have that separates them you know all three are real benetora they love learning but they're also chill and they get it and um you know they understand family they understand claudius they're they're they're great they're bringing three boys on them on one day believe her maybe it'd be interesting they could talk about being a son-in-law of a rat being a son-in-law so yeah that's exciting and that we're grateful and sort of turning around the wedding and some some record time they got engaged when did they get engaged a couple weeks ago and the wedding is is june 22nd so basically like i think you said it's either you you can you can uh stress about it for a month you get stressed about it for a year what's the big here's my theory and then we'll move on because not everybody wants to hear this and talk about this but my theory is the following when it comes to simchas it takes however long you give yourself to prepare right there are people let's call it the secular world who plan a wedding three years from then and so for the next three years their life is consumed with planning that wedding right and then if you give yourself six weeks so you bang out the prep for the wedding in six weeks you know what you gotta do you gotta line up your your whole your caterer gotta get your music your flowers you gotta get apparently your gowns that's not something i worry about what do you have to get you can eat anything in new time you could do it in three days right tara my second daughter we planned the whole wedding in florida and then because of corona we pivoted and we moved the wedding to new york and just had to replan the wedding in new york last minute it takes however long you give yourself so that was my argument to my wife i said they could get married in august september and there's there's merit and value to a longer engagement but basically that just means you spend the entire summer being tortured and torturing me or we can make the push and it'll be a lot more work on the front end but then we'll have a married couple have a great summer with them they'll be married and we'll be ready to go you can have a summer vacation yeah right so anyway that's the uh that's great what um what's going on with you anything new to report oh my god well first of all that was just one week and then yet another week you were traveling to israel you have some big big things going on right now with the shiva south florida big announcements we did some recruiting israel i went for three days uh hit 13 yeshiva's in three days so it was pretty exhausting trip not really out of my comfort zone to tell you the truth i'm i'm a sure love guy i'm a show rabbi i'm i don't represent you i've done recruiting i don't rotate and go speak i haven't done this circuit before a little out of my comfort zone and i get nervous i get nervous when i'm out of my comfort zone you know i don't get nervous getting up giving a drush or a partial shear or speaking at a funeral or even under a cup of today because those are all in my comfort zone you've done it so many times you gain a level of comfort with it but standing up at a yeshiva was out of my comfort zone but i quickly got the hang of it because it was so many in such a short time and had a great reception great reaction great list of guys who are registered uh many more who are still in serious conversation exploring so some great response to that and that was um that was a great trip i need any any any excited because of behind the bema and did that play into anyone yeah sure absolutely everywhere i go funny it wasn't on this trip i wasn't thinking about it but i watched behind the bema so now i'm considering it you know yeah you know let's just say you walk through certain neighborhoods or maybe the largest yeshiva in israel or in the world and and guys stop and go oh i love behind the bema like they're like really it's it's a fascinating right yeah exactly it's a very interesting um group that attracted to or listened to behind the bema which really takes us behind the about behind the bema because you know we took off these weeks there was conflicts and then the question was do we go back was it a fun ride do you go out when you're feeling good about it or do to get back to the grind of you know the guests and making the time and and uh and so on and uh we debated you know we're down one of our hosts who is focused understandably and correctly with his family top priority for anybody so you know maybe it was time to hang them up maybe time to take a break the truth is when we began this um there were other people in this space but you know we we filled that space pretty well during corona people were locked down quarantined at home distant disconnected board so they knew wednesday nights nine o'clock if you want you could pour a glass of wine or beer or a tall cup of seltzer and uh you could listen to three rabbi's kibbits about nothing and have a guest on but now i feel like everybody's doing this podcast they just have different names for it but the podcast where you interview people that's like everybody's doing it right so do we need to maybe we should pivot and do something different maybe focus on what we're doing maybe there are other priorities in the community or other other ambitions that we want to achieve so we had a big big discussion about we went you know so behind the beam on behind the bema is that we're not sure how long to do behind the bema what the future should be of behind the bema because we enjoy it we enjoy the guests but um but then you know our guest tonight i think this conversation gets us going and got us excited again of of the conversations we're having the difference we're trying to make and why we're doing it and the feedback we get from it so it's pretty exciting we're going to stick with it stick with it we're going to keep going we're going to keep going i just like it so i get to talk to you it's just a fun opportunity for me yeah so we are um yeah we're having a good time with esther the boss ariyatsi porra who want to dive in for her estee esto la basa ariat among all those who are ill we long for their healing i'll tell you one other thing that happened during this time off and then we'll bring on our good friend rabbi with 1b mark wilds you know our our professional who helps us with these overlays um is enduring a pinched nerve i think the medicine that he's on we've had some misspellings recently i think that's rabbi in like spanish or something but it gets yeah we give him a break we're cutting him some slack what's the big bill you misspelled the word rabbi not a big deal but anyway i came back and one other thing i did was ncsy summer programs and see how many kids do you think ncsy is bringing in csy summer programs i used to run the tjj program you know i remember that right how many i would say today i'm going to say 2500 2 they're they're twenty five hundred approximately yeah that's a huge huge number it's huge there's no one else doing that they do a staff retreat to staff shabbos with all their madrigam all of their staff counselors program managers everybody um so you haven't i went to the staff shabbaton over 600 young people in a room and the energy rabbi brodie was unreal amazing right energy the enthusiasm and i i really felt so inspired not just by the beautiful davening and the zemiros and the energy but talking to these young people because in that room we're young people in a world which is all about pursuing your happiness your pleasure what you want to do what makes you happy what's in it from me these young people are taking achara's they're taking responsibility for the continuity of the jewish people and they're like buses they're they're not getting money they're running they don't get paid they're not getting paid right no they don't get paid and the truth is you know it wasn't just in that room where that energy and that commitment and that devotion and that selflessness and to be among young people taking responsibility for the jewish people taking responsibility for jewish continuity the whole theme of the weekend was just over and over again now this has to be not only the best summer ever but the most transformative summer ever and what are you going to do and how are you going to stay in touch with your campers how are you going to inspire them are you going to uplift them how are you going to speak to them on their level what's your goal for them how do you measure success for them you know camp counselors in any camp are amazing and selfless often they do it because they're paid and and you know in many settings the measure is did they have fun and the truth is you know in all the jewish camps there's a lot of growth that goes on not only ncsy summer program so i want to give props and praise to councillors and leaders in every summer program we're using it as a platform to inspire but there was something special about this over 600 young people taking a christ responsibility for the jewish future for jewish continuity for public school jewish children and for learning of all level and for all backgrounds and for special needs and for sports and for every type of of summer program but they also share the same goal which is inspiring and then you and i were at an event on sunday night here in boca first ever an annual um event for hask and again you see that video and and hask and the counselors taking a christ responsibility selflessness putting others before yourself you have didn't did ayala work and ask yeah yala met jake and he asked i mentioned that i knew he was a great guy right any guy that's working in ask has got to be a great guy that's right and that's what i said that night is that hask is producing the best husbands and wives and mothers and fathers right anyway i was very inspired to be around the union and just and just so you know simone reminded me that you have it and her yohev apparently sent her a picture when they were both color war captains right i asked her i asked her who won she didn't say oh you might not have been there but the other color the co yeah i heard captain i heard about that night he did pass guest on behind the bema that's right and he mentioned being a colorward character he spoke magnificently rabbi gibbert told his story of being a public school kid from pittsburgh and finding his judaism in campas can i was crying really really bad we got to bring him back on behind the bmi i know to tell that story because one of his other podcasts are going to swallow him up so we got a great guest tonight rabbi mark wilds are really he's a real friend a long time friend uh rabbi wilds um actually went to law school and practiced law before he pivoted into outreach and he'll we'll ask him about that and learn more about his personal story he's written two books that are very popular he's a great speaker he describes himself as the millennials rabbi running the manhattan jewish experience otherwise known as mje manhattan jewish experience not to be confused with the boca raton jewish experience correct mje manhattan jewish experience lighting manhattan on fire doing amazing outreach and and really change that you can measure doing really really great things and it's a long time coming we've been talking and we're happy to finally get him on so this is a conversation worth listening to and we think worth sharing with others because we hope it it'll um challenge all of us that's right about our role in outreach and in reach and and why it matters and the difference we can all be making so without any further ado mark wilds we are joined behind the beam uh frankly long overdue by our good friend we actually are good friends not just saying good friends rabbi mark wilds the founder the director of mje the manhattan jewish experience lighting manhattan and the tri-state area on fire with a love of all jews changing lives doing great things one of those good-looking rabbis who still has his hair uh flowing and blonde a source of envy you have to tell us the secret one of these days rabbi wow thank you for joining us um my hair and i are very excited to be here thank you for having me we are excited to go behind the vima and learn more about not only your life but to talk about subject that's really important um we're honored rabbi brody is the outreach rabbi the booker it's on synagogue we don't know how many orthodox shuls actually have in their budget or on their staff designated outreach rabbis who are concerned and care about and connect with and engage the entire community it's a great point of pride of our community and a lot of what he's done what we do is inspired by your work at mje bje the rj including the name we said we're looking at it when we're picking out a name we're like what should we call this outreach program so we you know look look at the best man and jewish experience talk about how you got how did you get involved in outreach when you were growing up did you see yourself before before i do that just a legal matter to get out of the way we will have our attorneys calling you because of trademark issues but i guess flattery is the best form what no what is it imitation best form of flattery absolutely absolutely uh manhattan jewish experience and i want to say something else rabbi goldberg this is such a success in honor and robert broyd to be here with both of you i consider you both friends and colleagues and i tremendously tremendously respect you both for the amazing amazing work you're doing um i have so much to say and um i just blanked you out what was your question so let's start with this actually we're going to come back to how you got into outreach your brother became a mayor of politics you went into outreach you know your dad was uh high-profile uh represented some some famous people there's a lot to talk to you about but let's fast forward let's begin actually at the end with where we're at you've dedicated your life not necessarily always on that trajectory but you've dedicated your life right now and your family make great sacrifices they're most are nefesh you work hard because you care about the jewish people you're doing outreach are you moving the needle are you making a difference assimilation intermarriage rate skyrocketing 70 of non-orthodox are intermarrying they're leaving the faith assimilation record highs so with all the incredible work mje and countless other outreach organizations are doing are are we losing this this war this battle are we moving the needle are we making headway and and therefore should we reexamine the resources we have where they should be directed what's the state of worth of outreach today okay so the answer is yes and no it's a great question because if you just look objectively at the numbers 71 of our jewish brothers and sisters outside of the orthodox community are intermarrying and has what dent has mge made in that well somewhat of a dent we've got 377 couples who have met married through mge but here's the way you need to look at it we've got to look at our jewish brothers and sisters from chabad for a little inspiration because if you just look at the objective numbers you're going to go out of business nobody can look at those numbers and be happy but you turn on one jew to yiddish guy and i know this sounds very idealistic but this is the amis you turn one jew on to yiddishkai and they choose to raise their children by sending them to jewish day school and living a life of torah and mitzvot what you've done is you've changed the trajectory for the for the future for that family and for tens and dozens of others to follow you we gotta look they say you can and analyze you know success of continuity not by one but by two generations so right now mj's 23 years old we've got a lot of our students having their children's bar butt mitzvahs now i just came back from teaneck for rabbi shawn baum's our good friend robert baumschult's gone residency i bought 30 mg ears you know who hosted those 30 mg years the 11 mge families who became bali chuva moved to tianak and are living there now beautiful and guess what each one of them has two to five kids each they're all sending them to the jewish day schools and that's just going to continue to build and grow and build and grow so on one hand yeah the numbers i can't argue with the numbers but at the other on the other hand one jew and i don't know how anyone can can just say oh the numbers threw our arms up let's just make aliyah and forget about the 80 percent of american jews that are unaffiliated or whatever the not crazy number is when when you meet one of those jews and you see how a life of torah in mitzvot is so inspiration not only to them but to us too how could you turn your back on that yeah i agree with you and i i definitely um your work is incredibly inspiring and effective right you just mentioned some metrics and we see it's success and the laboratory felt when asked you know how many jews need to live somewhere for him to send the shliyah his answer was one if one of your children lived somewhere and needed help would you not travel for that one child to bring them back and i'm reminded that famous rabbinic story of the jellyfish the boy walking along the beach and there's millions of jellyfishes thrown in the ocean the old cynical man says you know what are you doing don't you see how many there are do you really think it's making a difference and he picks one up throws it in the water and says it made a difference to that one so you're right it makes a difference to that one but i'll ask you again and and if you don't mind and the jellyfish's progeny children and grandchildren great so what's the cost so again i i agree with you i'm just playing devil's advocate for a moment right the business man in me says what's the cost of capturing that one jellyfish and their progeny so if we look at how much does mje how many do all the outreach organizations combined what are the salaries what are the costs what are the resources going in and therefore essentially how much are we spending for that jewish marriage that jewish belchuva for that jewish continuity and is that a conscious choice if we knew that to take a jew who's not connected and the investment to make them feel connected and we'll talk in a moment about how we measure success what is the definition of success is is is the is the amount any amount would we say five million dollar whatever it takes to bring one jew back how do we how do we look at the finances of outreach i i wish i had a simple clear it's an excellent excellent question um we do spend a lot it's a herculean feat to take it's not as though we're taking a jew and transforming them they have to make that decision themselves they're invested with free will but the amount of money that it costs to take somebody from a ostensibly secular jewish existence or lack of jewish tradition education and bring them into our community where they feel comfortable enough to live this kind of life and pass it on to the next generation is very expensive i don't exact number from you but it's a lot of money is it any more money than we're spending on our own children that's what i'll say because what do we spend per capita on each of our children it's about four or five hundred thousand when you finish jewish day school ten years the year in eretz israel two years in israel ncsy call now they're on a college campus and we've got to get the jail esc rabbi to pay attention to them okay take all those numbers we are not spending per unaffiliated less affiliated jews any more money than we would spend on our own children and they are no different than our children they are just as much of our brother's greatest answer that is that is a great answer it is a great answer so how do you define and i'm and robert i want you to join in on this also because you're also involved in outreach i'll ask both of you and we'll see if you have the same answer but we'll start with you rabbi watts how do you define success and outreach what is a successful outcome that's a great question and i'm curious rabbi brodie's uh response because i've i've struggled with this over the years on one hand i'm not satisfied with the lobovich definition which is getting you to keep a mitzvah you're good to go and by the way there's a lot of support in kabbalah and justice if you learn tanya i understand why they say this it's not a concession to a reality to a difficult reality they believe it metaphysically you get a jew to connect with the kurdish who through performance of mitzvos that's it that's not good enough for me on the other hand if you were to define your success only in terms of shmira shabbas kashmir's since filing mezuzah you know i think it depends on the jew because there are some jews who i've met who could really be becoming and they could be not only donning filling every day and darving three times a day but they could be a posik they could be a a um just an unbelievable learned jew and we bar hashem had such successes in mge then there are others who you meet and it just doesn't seem like they're ever going to become religious i know that doesn't sound like a very nice thing we never never give up hope but for that jew i want to keep them involved i want to take into marriage off the table and you know in new york city most young jewish professionals date casually deliberately intentionally jews non-jews it's not even an issue we have to make it an issue and by the way you can make it an issue without without having to make them observe it okay just if you create a social milieu around them of jews and you demonstrate why perpetuating judaism even if it's not halachic judaism is important we can get a whole generation to stop dating outside of the faith because people look at interdating as racist what we're better that's the we have never we've never made the point of why it's worth it to be jewish if a person doesn't believe it's worth it to be jewish then why do i have to marry jewish to ensure that my children will be jewish there's only one way to ensure or to combat into marriage and that's to make a case for judaism and and therefore to answer your question a success would depend on the jew for some people nothing short of torah mitzvos and becoming and for others marrying jewish so rabbi josh what would you say yeah so it's funny i i definitely started over there um you know when we first began when when rabbi goldberg were still in the cola and we were making this transition into the outreach world that was definitely the model you know working through ace and whatever i'd learned learned from them and end jop and all these other local uh or called north american outreach organizations it was kind of fine find the the jew and and then try make them might make them uh as orthodox or or committed in as you can but i also realize that we're living in boca raton which didn't have and doesn't have the same jewish outreach infrastructure that you have in the northeast where there's so many many organizations that are working and other than chabad right now this is pretty much that's pretty much it in in the local community we don't have an asia in our community we don't have an orsamaya and we don't have van job we don't have any of these things but what we do have we have a lot of great great schools and communities and figuring out a way maybe where we can create a campaign that activates those people to connect with the people that we're trying to connect them with and maybe there's that synergy something we were talking about before the show where we can kind of leverage the great things that are taking place in our community and introduce those things to people and help them connect with things that are meaningful to them so is it just a mitzvah maybe is it more maybe it could be anything but you know they're called the one man or woman's show can't really do much more than be the intermediary between the people we're looking to attract and we know where they are because boca is 50 jewish the half the community is jewish 100 and now probably 60 000 jews 110 000 unaffiliated it's the numbers are crazy but we don't have the outreach infrastructure but we do have the jewish infrastructure totally find people in connecticut and you know what you have if you want me jumping in you have the greatest asset and commodity and that is you have incredible besides rabbi goldberg you have incredible you have incredible balabata i know tons of people who and the greatest rabbi riskin my teacher said you know for the price of a chicken you can save a jew it's the greatest truism in the world because you don't need a fancy schmancy outreach program with outreach professionals and all this stuff what you need are jewish families that invite others to their shabbos table and care enough to make some room at the table yeah and they care enough to respond to the to the unaffiliated jew or the intimidated inhibited jew who bagels them who says oi online at publix to turn around and say hi that's my name what's your name and and to realize the number one reason people don't come is because they weren't invited you know you think if you invite them they're going to lash out at you about their feelings about judaism or orthodoxy but they won't they'd love the invitation if they'd come but i want to go back to something that you said in terms of one of the definitions of success or a bar is and i agree with you combating uh intermarriage what's the argument against intermarriage you're in manhattan you're in the hub of it all you're in like ground zero for this and i don't even know i you know i've struggled i i i once begged lord lord saks whose whole life in some ways was composing the argument you know his books and his talks and his speeches he was he was extraordinary but on the other hand unless i don't know that he explicitly ever wrote or gave us the manual gave us the talking points that when you meet the young person college campus young professional which is your target and they say look i fall in love and the other i just had this conversation sunday with the mother of a girl who fell in love with a non-jewish boy and the mother says i'm devastated i'm broken but i'm not losing my daughter over it she knows i'm disappointed she knows i'm upset but it kind of is what it is at this point at least her kids will be jewish so you tell that young lady she met a man and he'd make an amazing husband he'd make a fantastic father she sees in him everything she's looking for you now have half an hour of her time you have her ear what's your argument for why it's important not to go through with this for why it's critical to marry a jew well i will tell you that it's a great question um very little way of very unlikely to convince someone who's already in love what we have to do is we have to get to people that's why we focus on 20s and 30s we have to get to people before they start dating to realize how valuable being jewish is and therefore why it's worth perpetuating that's the argument for marrying jewish is that we want jewish kids because we want more people living this kind of life if you don't believe in that kind of lifestyle i'm not sure what kind of argument you can make the only thing you can do is the following i'll tell you a story when my oldest son who's blee and her now 25 was born and it was linux hospitals looking through the glass plate there uh all these cute little babies swaddled up looked like the united nations i remember and i was looking looking at my baby there's another guy around the same age as me looking at his kid and he starts becoming visibly emotional until he just starts all out crying and he was standing right next to me and he starts repeating i can't believe it i can't believe it i can't believe and i you know i saw my yamaka and i was like what's the matter what you can't believe what i can't believe my wife wants our baby to be christened i said what's going on he says i'm jewish my wife isn't we made a deal we said when we had a kid we would met we would raise him jewish we were just in the room together and she became so emotional and all she wants to do is baptize our son and he literally was crying on my shoulder you know you don't hit a guy when he's down like dude what were you thinking but i do share this story with people because even if you're not bought in now to judaism and i've said this to people dating you do not know what you're going to feel when that first kid comes along and you start wondering or god forbid somebody dies in the family and all of a sudden you're saying kaddish and you're wondering why am i here what am i leaving this world is there any kind of jewish legacy i'm leaving and you realize right so that that resonates with some people it's an emotional argument but you never know because right now i'm in love with this girl but in 10 years you might be in love with something else and it's going to be too late if you don't marry jewish or at least consider a conversion an orthodox conversion and but it's but i think we've lost the battle at that point with most of them we have to get to people when they're younger that's why the most cure of organizations focus on college 20s 30s because we got to get to them before they start dating that that's an interesting strategy i hadn't thought about it in that way you know i i um i have the privilege of learning with a previous guest of behind the bema and we were talking about shivuas coming up and uh you know we have rigorous robust uh conversations and debates a prominent individual and we were talking about the notion of identity jewish identity and in a certain degree the identity politics and this emphasis in our time and generation on identity what defines your identity is it your attraction is it how you feel is it biology it opens the door for us to have those conversations about what is jewish identity and where does judah's identity rank in the hierarchy because really what what what shavu is what mata tora what torah is telling us to do and and he shared with me that you know his interpretation of al-qaeda the binding of isaac is that even in our competing identity as a parent and as a servant of god in our hierarchy of identities my identity as a loyal jew or as a loyal to god has to be the overarching supreme identity that supersedes even an identity as a parent that's the message of a tough message a difficult one but basically we never want to sacrifice you know we don't want to rank or create the hierarchy or priorities of our identities but maybe there's a there's a conversation opportunity there in a world that's focused on talking about identity what is your identity what determines your identity how do you define identity identity politics intersectionality of identity what is your jewish identity where does that fit in where does it come from what does it mean to you where does it rank in conflicts are you willing to are you willing to walk away from it so you answered one of our other questions which was what do you think is the best age to engage when it comes to when it comes to outreach um you know is it is it middle school high school you got ncsy working at that age what are the advantages or disadvantages of that you're saying 20s and 30s at college or maybe on college campus you're partying or you're or you're distracted by so much more how did mje land on the target that it has so first of all all those ages are important because i i started out with ncsy and i'm sure robert broad you've been involved in both of you in helping to makarov a high school kid and it happens and it happens on college campus and it happens 20 30 i just think we got to get to them in enough time before they start choosing their mate um but everybody is different because some people wake up earlier some people need to silt and rabbi bookworld likes to say that people avenge up they i'll wait for them to sober up after college and come back to new york and get a job and then i'll run after them a little i can't deal with them a college campus other people think that the age we're dealing with 23 to 36 is too old too much of the uh you know if the brain has been developed we need to get to them while they're still you know developing it really depends on the person everybody is different i hate turning away people in their 40s and 50s because there are bali truva i don't know if you've heard of this rabbi akiva there are people who are 40 years old and up who'll also become religious but again we're trying to deal with the continuity issues so i'm trying to hit them younger i think i love 20s and 30s i love this cohort because they're a little more serious than on college campus they're well educated and they're a lot of them are aware enough to realize that the dichotomy between their secular education and their jewish education is ridiculous like every i'm teaching a whole bunch of classes tonight if i say in my class is anyone in this room that doesn't have at least a master's degree at least a master's degree in some area okay we've got harvard yale princeton sitting in the room with a third grade understanding of god in judaism and and i think people in their 20s are starting to when they start hearing sophisticated torah ideas they're like oh i didn't realize that you know and this is something i heard from my rover by gremlins years ago said it's the greatest hashem that judaism should appear so infantile and so undeveloped and so unsophisticated this is one of the reasons he was a big advocate of women education that went as he argued that as women become more in the world knowledgeable get masters doctorates and so on and so forth if their knowledge level is left at a third grade then what is gonna what's good where are children gonna be what what's their impression of so i just think there's there's an element of cure of it has to be concerned with the dignity of torah and the way torah is perceived by the majority of our people and and it's it's a busha of how of unfortunately you know the the level of knowledge and and the 20s 30s cohort to me just does it for me on a personal level that's great really brody yeah so so first of all i was wondering about the profile of someone that does work like this the work that you do the work that i've i've begun to do following you i did some research i happen to see that you're also a drummer and uh that's great i mean i think maybe there's something with drums and outreach i also saw that your wife got you the most incredible birthday present one year how do you remember oh i'm talking about i don't know which i mean maybe she got you a lot but i'm talking about the liberty liberty little liberty uh lesson over there do you know what the other birthday present was no i don't i'm not so jealous so first of all right liberty the video game for my 50th that was amazing billy joel's drama for 30 years i was about to say do i embarrass myself by saying who's that oh you don't know liberty deville no billy joel i could sing most of his songs but i don't know liberty and devito liberty you're like liberty i you know what i thought i thought she bought you like a policy liberty liberty mutual that's really romantic yeah yeah um the uh the birthday present i i wouldn't say i purchased but we we got for my wife was an hour shearer from rabbi goldberg probably from goldberg really yeah wow fan of rabbi goldberg our his torah is all over our home and uh it's whatever so that's what i thought you were referring to but anyway i cut you off so now you can uh drop the lawsuit right against them thanks the now the question that i'm just wondering you know there's not a lot of guys out there that are coming from called the more modern world that are doing outreach i remember getting a phone call a couple months ago from it from a parent saying you know my kid is in one of the local yeshivas and and can you speak to them about one of the one of the challenges that they're going through and they said they said you know and i said for whatever reason i said you know i'm dealing with all the outreach stuff this is you know call it an inreach thing this is you know you're already your kids plugged in why can't you go and speak to the 30 rabbis that are working right now in the schools and in the in the community that are actually they're hired to do that i'm not i'm hired to work on the outside there's only one only one of me what do you think it is that in our world a world which i think could actually be a lot more successful than some of the other worlds for just a number of reasons right because we're kind of in the world we kind of look like the average guy maybe we could be more successful but there's not a lot of guys going into it no they're not it's a very astute observation and when i when i go i used to be very involved with ajop which is the association for jewish outreach professionals not that everyone in the yu world wears you know one of these sergeys but i'm like an anomaly you know um there's just very few why you trained you know modern orthodox we just we don't i mean i have a couple of ideas um there is a lack of prestige associated with this kind of work i think people pay homage to it and respect the people who do it but don't look at it as a terribly sophisticated kind of thing to be involved in you know that's kind of like what you do for a couple of years in ncsy and then you grow up out of it and you get a stellar or you become a review and a jewish day school but to like run after young people who are not affiliated it just seems like uh not a terribly dignified kind of lifestyle i'll tell you the other more practical reason you know we eat what we hunt right and who wants that there's a lack of stability in the cure of world you know the jobs don't come with homes and big salaries but i do want to say this and i know you have a lot of people listening so there is some money for young rabbis to make you know in outreach it's not a ton of money but um and i think fundraising is a very very important melaka to learn um and i think it's you know um i'll just make a quick plug also i'll come back to your question do you know how much money is out there like philanthropic dollars that we are not tapping into and i don't just mean orthodoxy i mean jews that is going to museums and hospitals wonderful causes but not jewish institutions because they're not engaged jewishly okay if somebody would just going back to rabbi goldberg your question before if we were to think you know philanthropically a little more strategically we would realize that we should be more invested because there's tons of money out there that is untapped but getting back to your question robert boyd i think we need to rebrand kirov because the best and the brightest no offense to you or me okay i'll put you in the same category with me the best and the brightest are not going into this they're becoming rabbi ephraim goldbergs rabbi's of wonderful say and that's amazing and we need them because you know we wouldn't have the infrastructure you wouldn't have your gig and i wouldn't have people to run after and everything that you know my 30 people being you know integrated into t-neck and into great neck and into boca we wouldn't have anything then but we need more in my opinion i don't know what the term is people don't love this term i went over and heard you speak about this also for the lack of a better term modern orthodox centrist types of rabonum going into this work because our torah omada our belief in torah madha is incredibly attractive and we're not just doing it for the sake of a parnassa or to be impressive to other people but if you follow let's say ravana you know about in in english literature or rabbi tenders in biology and finding the beauty in mada and and that it's zionism like these are attractive aspects to our community that don't exist as much or at all in the haredi world and yet they are the ones on the forefront and and by the way god bless them because they're doing they are lifting they are doing a heavy lifting okay and those are mine something very important you know you've heard of something important which you know the term i would use is nephesh just dude mostly it requires tremendous sacrifice a willingness to sacrifice because the other career paths you both reference this the other career paths are laid out before you right you become a teacher you come in administrator you can try to climb to come ahead of school you become an assistant rabbinic intern and assistant rabbi you become the rabbi but you want to go into outreach you you basically have the the burden of every chabad which is like you said you you kill like there's no no budget there's no revenue that comes in there's no automatic you know you're you're always in raising money phase you're always in that approach and i think for a lot of people they have the talent of the charisma they would step in if somebody else is doing that work to create the infrastructure and enable them to thrive with their talents but a lot of people are scared and not only they're scared they've heard from their parents like you need to have a real job you need a real salary you need to have real benefits you need to have something real you know what are you going to do well i'm going to go to some undeveloped area of jewish life and beg people for money to pay for my salary so i could turn them on to judaism like that scares a lot of parents it scares a lot of young people and they say i mean we're living in a time right now of inflation and cost increases and it's a very very scary time so i wonder if if the community invested funds to create the infrastructure that the talented people could be put into it doesn't mean they won't have obligations in fundraising i'm i'm a rub of a school and i have enormous fundraising responsibilities i've taken them on myself or they've been imposed whatever it is but not to suggest somebody doesn't have any fundraising but maybe we need to build it so that they will come a hundred percent look either we have to change the attitude like chabad because they're vying for these professions and nobody's throwing any money at them they're just willing to do it if we can't affect that kind of attitudinal change then i guess we have to do what you just suggested which is create more of an infrastructure that will still require the fundraising the excuse me the outreach professional to fundraise but it won't be this herculean feat of like you know where it's just it's keeping people from coming in and it's it's a problem because the number one problem i have to this day is not money it's finding the right people now some of that is a function of money but finding the right people because you know that if you you get a superstar that's it you get a schwa myself that's it now and you could train that's it you could train and you could develop and we've been doing that and i've been blessed with incredible incredible people listen i want to give a lot of acoustics to my my parents my father he should live and be well because i i did go the route i was i went to law school i worked within law and he continued to support and it's easy for me to look down at other people and say why don't you do the same thing but i had a very supportive family that was willing to do this and i had also some inroads in the modern orthodox community i was a rabbi kj i was rabbit oh zee i already had some some connections it's not simple for the typical you must not to just jump into this but if we don't change either attitudinally and give it the prestige that chabad does or we don't pump in that cash then we are not going to make the impact we can i want to give you the counter argument now and then i want to go back because we're already deep into this amazing conversation we have not even yet spoken about um your own story and your journey and how you got here but i want to give you the counter argument for a minute with respect and with love what would you say to someone who says you know we shouldn't build the infrastructure and pump money in to the outreach it's important but in any business model you know there's a cost of acquiring new customers and then there's customer retention they're saying who's already bought in who we need to keep because you know you don't just add new customers you know membership too you want new members but how do you keep your members happy that they don't leave so in reach versus outreach we've got a system that we're losing we're losing way too many and you know i hate the terminologies and labels and being put in a box as much as anyone i feel a member of multiple worlds every world is suffering from this may be segments of the world more than others but people who are turned off people who are disaffected people who are walking away so should we put the same dollar into outreach or put that dollar into inreach do we take our greatest talent and say go 20s and 30s before they get married convince them jewish identity matters or do we put that talent and say we've got kids who we've already put half a million three quarters of a million into through jewish day school and they're graduating 12th grade they're going to some secular campus this is a study that's been done i won't say by whom they're afraid to publish it because of how frightening the results are what's happening to kids from orthodox home or going to secular college campuses and walking away from observance in some cases at best and even intermarriage at worst so what are we doing we've got to pump all the money and all the talent into in reach into retention into strengthening our existing observant orthodox community that's what we need to be working on what would you answer them oh god look you can argue either way you can argue and you just made a very powerful argument let's put more money 12 years of day school two years in israel and csy colo more more more more a i'm not so sure more money means will make the difference i think we need to change certain things and that's for a longer conversation i think our curriculum in jewish day schools need to be changed they're not in my opinion hashgraphic enough and they're not and i think i know you're rebbe marsha weinberger um i think a lot more of that approach needs to be needs to be woven into the very fabric of yeshiva day school education and until we realize that maybe 20 of our yeshiva day school students are really with the gemara game i'm not saying we ditch it god forbid it's the staple but it's not working for so many of them and i think that's not a money difference that's not a money difference um it's kind of also yeah it you have to make changes we're still operating with the same kind of curriculum and i think our schools need to change in terms of the way we darven are davening and needs to be inspirational again i'll point to rather emotional weinberger when i go to ashkodesh um it's just like we have to i model mge after age codish because that's a sure people continue to flock to for all the right reasons and we have to change our schools and when we're still not doing we talk about it a lot but we're not doing it yet so i don't think throwing more money is necessarily the answer and i will tell you the other answer from a very just purely torah perspective we are not given the luxury of answering this question from a purely business perspective the torah commands that we have to go out and try to inspire our brothers and sisters in the ways of torah judaism it didn't say there's no rashi there's no qualification there except if it costs too much money or now it's going to come at the expense of some from a yid who we could keep on the path if we threw an extra few dollars i mean and i argued this in jewish action i wrote an article in response to my review ravi jacob uh j shachter who was arguing that we should be putting more money into the orthodox to keep them orthodox and i said i i respectfully disagree we are putting a crazy amount of money listen when i grew up okay i didn't grow up as orthodox as the typical modern orthodox kid okay and we just have to recognize the world has changed and many more people are being affected by the outside world through the internet and so on and so forth i don't think those problems are solved with money i think we have to have an attitudinal change in the way we raise our children and day school education and here's the clincher i'll stop talking we have to leverage kirov and this is what rabbit behold has taught for many many years we have to leverage kirov to turn on modern orthodox jews leonhar have four kids who are very excited about yiddish guy and i give their mother a lot of credit number one and number two the fact that they grew up with 18 to 20 beginners around their shabbos table every week if you introduce your kids at a young age to beginners to judaism who are coming back to yiddish guy and who are choosing to keep shabbos choosing to observe kashrut and and having a hard time giving up shrimp and lobster and are doing it because they see the value in it that's a game changer for a jewish day school kid who's rolling his eyes and waiting to get out you know to do whatever they want to do and um i just think if we mainstream kirov we get care of in every jewish household it becomes part of the education of our own children we will do a lot better and we won't have to make that decision of where we put the money because we'll put it in kirov but it's going to work for our kids you um you were on the path to be a lawyer as you mentioned you were a lawyer and john lennon changed your life indirectly indirectly how's that how's that how's that for a segway how's that for a second no in all seriousness you know you have a brother was the mayor of englewood um your dad accomplished and and you should be well representing uh high profile people you were on the path of corporate america or or legal america you know maybe you would have been representing johnny depp or something today who knows in the courtroom so and something changed what what changed in you when did that happen why did it happen how did it happen how did you how did you give your life to uh to outreach instead so it actually started with ncsy um robert broyd mentioned i was a drummer i am a drummer and the only gigs the band you want to hear a great name for a band touhou vavo chaos and disorder that was the first band i was in who'd you play with who is some of the guys oh god um moe shapiro mark wexler going sexy waxy uh we had a whole group and one of the things that they used to do with ncsy bands was keep them as far away from the kids as possible and i was in that band and like the band and the kids would never and i would sit in once a while then shul i would they would take out a bunch of kids from shul like you know on the shabbat tones bring him into some like school coat room was always in a coat room for some reason and like it'll be a dozen kids and somebody would give like a little talk about fila and i would always listen i'll be like that was pretty good i thought i could do a little better but i was i was the slimy drummer in the band i was like the guy you would not you know not because of me that's just that was the culture of the ncsy with the bands i think they cleaned that up uh years years ago okay so um there was one guy mark cohen who i'll never forget and uh mark cohen was the head of central east ncsy and um he comes over to me in shul and he says i want you to teach the kids in the coat room i said what do you want me to teach the kids what he goes talk to him about tefila i said i didn't prepare anything i don't care let's talk to him about tefila go in the courtroom and then i was like okay i went with like a dozen kids into a courtroom and we talked about what it means to dove and to pray i was in wall you at the time i was in college and then the next time he put me up in front of a shul we were in columbus ohio and he just literally gave me five minutes he said talk i want you to say something and he just kept sticking me up there and not only when i was behind the drum set but and i started to feel like this is resonating with me and when i was in smith nyu which i only really went to to learn because my rebbe should live and be well with harness um i i loved partisan i was in the sheer and i didn't want to leave the sheer why you didn't let you just float around so i had to i did the cover program to stay in the shear for another year and then the only thing left was michael i had no interest in being a rabbi i was already in law school i was also enrolled in a master's degree in colombian international affairs i had all i was going to save soviet jews i was going to go into my father's firm immigration international law i worked for senator moynihan congressman gary ackerman i had a whole thing going but then i started a beginner service just like you were on robert royd a beginner service in the queens drawer center to just be out say my uh internship requirement for yu i wasn't going to do it but they said you got this far in smith just do it and i started a beginner's minion and i remember i plastered 108th street yellowstone boulevard queens boulevard in my neighborhood with flyers i called this guy every bookworld on the phone it's in 1991 okay and i said i'm going to start a beginner's minion i have no idea who's going to come eight shoes showed up i can tell you all their names eight jews showed up and i just got bitten and everything i was doing in the law international affairs i finished my law degree i worked for a couple of firms it was just it was fine but this was like amazing this was like i i just got bit and i just wanted to do it more and more and i just figured the world the jewish world could probably do without one more jewish attorney but maybe if we could grab hold to you know and i want to give credit to my rebbe um rabbi joseph grumbled he was the rabbi of my shoulder it was a big tomato big influence on me and he mentored me for those few years and then i got a call from out of the blue from this rabbi schachter who called and asked if i would teach a class at the jewish center this is now 1995. for non-jewish center members and and he would pay me to teach like a basic judaism class at the jewish center um i met my wife by the way in that class i did not date her while she was in the class i want to make that clear for the record um yeah great story if you did it's okay it wasn't it's not like it was high school um you know i asked my rebbe at one of my rebel at the time i was like what do you think he's like that's a little beneath industry standard it's funny what how many classes is the semester i said it's eight classes we're ready three or four he goes so wait for the semester over and then ask her out she was already becoming observant so i waited and like a schnook for the last class i advertise i'm doing another semester which she of course signed up for started dating my best friend and that was another eight weeks i couldn't do anything anyway that's all of the story but that's my trajectory basically i got bit and i would say to anyone um who really enjoys presenting judaism and engaging with jews who are smart motivated just not terribly learned or knowledgeable there's something that we those of us from a little more of a learned knowledgeable background we can gain so much by being engaged with this literally majority of our people that are disconnected got it up everybody yeah i'm just listening to this this is great first of all where did john lennon fit in oh god so i'm an obsessive beatles fan so my dad represented john for five years i met him on my ninth birthday in court he uh wished me a happy birthday and told me that i could have my father back now because my dad was basically focused on that case for almost five years wow um do you ever get to play with him you ever get to sit in on the ground i was a kid but um i'm obsessed with all of his music had a great great deal you know i actually gave out russia on this past rosh hashanah about imagine which if you know the lyrics for imagine aren't exactly along the lines with our outlook on judaism um i think he was a highly misunderstood personality but a very very gifted artist who cared deeply about society and the way things were going and tried to use you know his his popularity to shift things in a way that he thought was appropriate not all of which we might agree with but i think generally speaking a very very positive way uh you know minus the drug sex and rock and roll well not the rock and roll i'm listening to our whole conversation and and you know fantastic insight and and i'm getting a lot i'm sure our listeners are too and i'm really curious the feedback for one particular listener there's a woman who's a member of the greater jewish community she's not observant she's not orthodox but she's a big you know ruby brody fan of a moscow's fan so she listens to behind the bima and often we get an email and we've even met with her and she gave us some feedback because she's tried to have us pivot to direct and to remember that the whole world is not orthodox or observant doesn't know our lingo and so on i think we've been i think we've been fairly careful with that in this conversation to make it accessible and available to anyone to listen to but i'm wondering when she hears our conversation about outreach outreach outreach outreach we've got to turn on jews we've got to inspire jews we've got to educate jews got to bring jews to where we are i know the laboratory for example was opposed to calling a key roof because kirov means i've arrived and let me bring you closer to where i am you're far away i'm where he meant to be let me bring you close he was opposed to that so i'm just wondering will she listen to this and say wow this is amazing three rabbis talking about the future of the jewish people caring connecting inspiring lifting or will she say you know they think they've arrived they have the only brand that everyone has to be like them transform convert observe practice you know is it i don't mean you rabbi wilds i'm talking to myself is it condescending or insulting to the unaffiliated non-observant who hears or do they say wow this is a whole conversation about caring about me inviting me remembering i'm not invisible and finding me so how do you strike that balance in the outreach world between i love you and i care about you and i'm sharing something special i value with you versus you know i've arrived i'm observant i'm lucky i was born into it you poor intellectual peasant who don't know anything let me reach out you know like i'm curious your feedback i hate people in the outreach world when they talk about how many balichuvas they made not one person in particular who talks about that but and a lot of things i don't like about that person but but there are people who talk about i made balichuva i made millions i made hundreds of thou i made thousands of valetchuva that language i made a baalchuva you would never use that language i would never use language first of all it's not true it's anybody who's really well acquainted with outreach and cure of knows that we are at best facilitators people have to make a choice we can't do that for them okay and i also going back to your question before why are there not enough motivated talented modern orthodox rabbis i think rabbi goldberg one of the reasons people shy away from kirov is because of that perception it's smacks of a certain chauvinistic we're here and you're over there okay we have to be able to articulate that we are doing outreach for two reasons love torah we believe in torah that's one reason and we love you no different than going to a movie that you love that you think is incredible and then you go home and you say nothing to your wife about the amazing movie you just saw that either you didn't like the film or you don't care terribly about your wife if you love the film and you love your wife you're going to try to marry the two together that is it and and and i think at the end of the day people are excited about that they're not put off by that they are put off as you very aptly put it by any kind of sense of i'm here and you're here this condescension of like i have absolute monopoly on truth and all you have to do is plug in what i'm saying and you'll be as happy as fulfilled and as connected to god as i am we're all on a journey and i don't just say that i know that sounds i really believe we're on a journey and i and i also believe that engaging with people that are less connected is part of our evolution not only because of the obligation to reach out but also because of the people we meet challenge us in a way that other orthodox jews do not we need them to be the best jewish selves ourselves and i think if we can communicate that um because i'm i am a little concerned with the direction the modern the the more modern part of the modern orthodox community is very put off by they don't like to use the word kirov it's engagement and i'm like why kirov just means getting closer we're trying to help other people get closer to each other just like you and i are trying to get closer years we have the benefit of a day school or whatever kind of jewish education so we can share things other people don't know that's all it is it's not implying i'm better but it is it is saying something about this information about this thing called the torah but when was the last time we were shy about saying how awesome torah was so i think you know the story you've probably used the story about the young man who the gear rebecca ran into in yerushalayim and he said where are you learning so he named whatever yeshiva was about yeshiva so he told him the name of the yeshiva he said but i'm not about and the rebel looked at him and said and why not why aren't you about it yeah sorry yes so exactly so so that's you know kira we're trying to do care of on ourselves why should we apologize for for sharing it more broadly than that too we can't allow this conversation to go by without mentioning my dear friend ezra cohen rabbi ezra cohen one of your great assets manhattan jewish experience mje so i remember he ran a program he's an amazing example of talent who devoted he's been with us for 20 years now i'm sorry go ahead 20 years no he is he is a talent he is great and a good friend i remember him sharing with me a great program that that he led that you led um mje in manhattan fiddler on the roof on the roof that you showed fiddler on the roof on the roof so tell tell our listeners let's try to close out what are some of the creative programs how do you engage 20 and 30 professionals they could be at a bar at a club um they could be you know professional networking they could be at home with direct tv what kind of programs do you run what are some of the creative i've seen some of your great videos the video the rocky video yeah the videos that was the greatest i mean i mean i love that you love my rocky video because i take a lot of pride in that no but every scene was perfect like i know rocky i know like when you when you wiped your mouth with the egg i know that scene i um by the way the egg kept gelling up in the shell when i was trying to fake drink it because i would never it was orange juice with a little water um you know what number one powerful experience and the whole outreach world realizes years ago and is bringing jews to israel number one israel there's just something anything you do in the diaspora i hate to say it anything you do in the diaspora smacks a little of talking about judaism as opposed to feeling it itself um so israel is just high you know ranks very very high i think music um i think also marrying whatever torah with what's contemporary my son is very into meditation and um music and he does these musical meditations it's really catching on now a lot of young people are getting into and already into meditation if we can demonstrate how judaism and through has is into this and this is a path into torah into yiddish god shabbos has never been easier to sell in in in the 25 years i've been doing here of outreach whatever you want to call it shabbos this detox to put the phone down you know years ago i sounded like old-fashioned now i'm like sounding progressive because everybody's looking to sort of clout from the craziness of technology um i'm not giving you the coolest craziest things i mean i would say israel shabbos dinners classes social events ski retreat we've been doing ski retreats for a long time i love them because you're married skiing with judaism and if you could take like the jacket off and just like chill out on the slopes and literally teach a class on a ski slope or at a lodge around a fire it just brings everything down it just we our guard is is down their guard is down we're looking at each other we're talking we're connecting shabbos meals i want to say it again before we finish here as many of your balabaton robert goldberg rabbi broyd that we can inspire to invite to a shabbos meal because the fanciest most sophisticated and expensive videos and programs will never compete with the beauty of a family sitting down to have a shabbos meal and that was rabbi noah weinberg's mentioned it before awake the sleeping giant who's the sleeping giant it's not the care of professionals it's not the rabbis it's the typical joe jew keeping shabbos living a life of torah and mitzvot how can we bring everyone into this that's how we're going to affect the masses rabbi mark wilds founder director mje you are 100 right there are enough jewish lawyers out there but what would the world look like in case any of our listeners wonder israel wilds really in manhattan does he really live in manhattan does he work in manhattan are we faking sound effects there were sirens the entire interview so he is definitely in manhattan he's not in some studio it's not a fake background he is not only in manhattan he is transforming manhattan but thank you for giving your time thank you my honor pleasure and i thank you for being a pioneer thank you for being out front really being mostly nefesh for this because you know from our community our chevra you are a pioneer in doing this you paved the way you're doing it with tremendous success you've hired lots of people and got them started on their career in this way so you've made a huge huge difference and uh jewish people are much richer for it thank you and we will keep copying you every single well i i i hope other schools will copy you because you said at the beginning how many schools have an outreach director on staff not a lot it takes a real commitment you've made that commit robbie goldberg and you've had a colleague for many years who's awesomely talented and you should vote on me amen thank you so much wow talk to me rabbi brody what uh what struck you about that conversation that interview what's what's your takeaway well first of all i just got an email ncsy mourns the passing of rabbi pika stopler who was a pioneer a trailblazer in the world of outreach and unfortunately just saw that he passed away so it's we've mentioned ncs why a number of times tonight yes the world of outreach is set back i'll tell you a story first of all our fact checker uh did correct me they were not um jellyfish they were starfish the story of throwing one back in it mattered to them yeah you could throw back as a jellyfish because they're like i noticed you didn't correct jello and i'm like i'm never gonna correct you and then let me where are you let me play the role i am a supporter i don't challenge anything i go along with you know what i support my brother whatever he says i go along with listen to this i'm going to thank you robbie pence ncsy pioneer kiriv so on wikipedia listen to the story it has stopler attended yeshua's climbing due to an interesting sequence of events a few short years after the holocaust then mayor of new york vincent impelled terry invited a german soccer team to city hall and honored them with a reception the pain of the holocaust still fresh stopper felt it his duty to stand up and protest what he considered a serious affront to the memories of 6 million he and 12 other people gathered to distribute leaflets and throw rotten tomatoes at the mayor his entourage and the german soccer team the reception was ruined and stolper was arrested stopper's picture was splashed on the front cover of the daily mirror as well as many other papers following day raftner was eating breakfast with rokheim foyermen and was perusing a copy of the daily mirror rafter pointed to the picture of the then 18 year old pinchas sulphur and said this young man has chutzpah we need him in our yeshiva from that event stolper was enrolled in yeshiva's heimerlin and became one of the central tomidumo footner dedicating his life to the summoning of hunter's torah to the world not a great story i love stories like that i love that story but you know you asked me what did i think about that interview you know you at the beginning of the interview there was some point where where rabbi wilde said how you know he's got 300 plus shidduchim that have come about because of what he's done and you asked him for statistics how many have he has he made a dent and you start thinking about it it came up reba akiva right ravi akiva ended up losing 24 000 i'll meet him 24 000 students and now he has five more five more becomes the future of the jewish world right so you never know you know don't talk about numbers don't worry about numbers we've got to do it we got to do our job you know it's true i hear that do our job as much as we can yeah i want to enhance our ship anyway well that conversation i became pumped about behind the beam again because you know we're back i just i hope it's a place that there's meaningful conversation it's not really entertaining or interesting but it's meaningful it challenges you to think and leave your comfort zone uh and i think we had such a conversation i hope everybody is moved to listen to this challenge or by a while to put out there which is invite people to your shabbos table open up your home be part of the difference it's afraid all your others yeah they want to meet you they're not they're not going to scream at you and they're going to yell at you they can't wait to see you yep i'll say my favorite part of the interview i'm curious whether any of those watching saw it was the fly that kept landing on my nose it's gonna end up someone's gonna grab it it's gonna become it's gonna be a meme or a game or whatever i don't know this fly has been following me for like three days it's in my office it's been coming every shear i give and it just buzzes and sits on the mic it lands on my nose it's gotta be a reincarnation of something to someone right yeah i don't know why it's uh but this flies you know what you're tracking me when you mentioned that chamaton you're just at with the 600 energized college students you just imagine like maybe we're not giving them a platform in our own communities maybe they are working with teenagers and they're doing the thing with ncsy but give them more opportunities if they're here they belong to your school let them light up our shoals let them do it let's pay them something let's give them something and i think we've got to challenge them i don't know if they're going to knock on our door on their own but we can actually look for leaders try to find those qualities and and try to you know teach them and lead them and and and see the community and the jewish future with the people plant a seed in ideas that this is a career it can be a beautiful thing but i really think the takeaway from tonight you know you're an outreach professional by wilds as an outreach professional i'm a jewish professional but the takeaway from tonight is not about us or we professionals it's about you it's about lazy about volunteers it's about the doctor and the lawyer the biggest impact on an outreach and this is true in our community too with all that you and simone do but it's the doctor and the lawyer and the accountant the business person it's the it's the you know stay-at-home mom or the or the dad retiree who has that relationship who learns who fills in the class he's not getting paid for it it's not a career out of it right but who cares about it that's telling you we could change the world one one man one woman learning torah with one man and one woman that's it that could change everything it's where we have eight hundred thousand jesus meeting last week with a beloved new member and yeah i won't say his name i don't embarrass him but he moved in a year ago and he called the shulk because he needed him azuza and he didn't know who to call and someone said call brs as a result i think we give those calls to you you spoke to him you invited him oh paul yeah we're not saying who and he's been coming he's been coming every shot ever since he met with me last week and and literally with a tear coming out of his eye he said i've never had a rebbe will you be my rebbe it's a beautiful moment yeah and he's here he's engaged and he loves it he's found the community all because he called because he needed a message he wasn't observant and now he found i want to tell you also i'll tell you the story he told me and then it's getting late but i'll tell you the story um there's a live show by the way live anyone who challenges that live it's late what do you want to know scoring the heat game the yankee game it's a live show 57 51 we're down six points it could prove there you go evidence that we don't have sirens here in south florida but we do have the heat right aj's watching the heat game so um so he said you know he hasn't known what to come to he's intimidated he's not observant this isn't his world it's not his background he said to me he goes you know whatever you give an example that our shoulder such diversity could have a guy in a strimel sitting next to a guy who drove to shul he's like how do you know you're talking about me i'm that guy i'm the guy anyway so we advertised the market we had a beautiful night with our emotional weinberger and we partnered with naki gordon meaningful minute people and inspiration whatever and we and we streamed it for the world and it was it was a great event remember that if i bring it she was packed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands it was packed with live music it was an amazing amazing right so so that friend of ours you may have mentioned his name he came to it he wasn't sure should he come not come not in his comfort zone not in his experience but he came and he sat in the back kind of you know watching part of it but on the on the border of it the margins of it and if you remember of weinberger that night spoke all about the people in the back yeah not giving up on the jews in the back caring about the people in the back future of judaism of the people in the back he finished speaking and the music started playing and you know everybody on the bmw you lock arms then you're dancing and you got the candles and you're rocking and rolling and then all of a sudden the vinegar realized i just spoke about the people in the back do you remember this he came down from the beach he ran to the bed and he ran to the back right so so our friend told me he goes he ran to the back and he held my hand i wasn't sure if i should come that night and the next thing you know i'm holding hands and dancing with her emotional weinberger so those are these little moments like i think something amazing part two of that story i just got a message from from talia right not many schools have an engagement director right right membership engagement there's someone new that had contacted me that's moving to the community also i call it a beginner right someone that's looking to to to come to our community and really wants to begin their journey so she reached out to him today and um she's like i'm telling that guy that you were just talking about to connect with him to let him know how how how easy the entry can be it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing thank you again to our difference the strauss is for sponsoring thank you nc predator who did not want to sponsor it's possible that seth grotzman's been texting me the entire night that he wants to come to school or come on or be interviewed and uh we're not allowing that he's gonna have to pay to play baby pay to 500 bucks or whatever it is that's less than that it's a bargain it's a discount pay-to-play no problem he could be playing again scott would love to see him seth wants back on and to hear the two seth grossman stories from right by brody i got two very special let me just tell you no no no i can't even give you give you a little teaser no not yet it's okay a little teaser don't give a teaser i'm not gonna tell you what happened let's just say that i wasn't married to simone and i wanted to hang out with her for shabbos seth enabled it to happen somehow i got to tell you how to have it okay well we're not giving him that satisfaction but anyway um sign up for the one and one please please please could make an enormous difference give a dollar a day and learn a minute a day partnering with daily giving uh for sd moscow esther the boss ariel brsonline.org slash one and one brsonline.org slash the number one and one one and one sign up to do both great merit for her please god we should hear great things we are back ladies and gentlemen we're back and we're better than ever until next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy