"From Flat Tire to Shas!" An amazing Oorah Journey!

by Abramson who is here this evening with us and Mr Po welcome and thank you for joining Theon as Raab abon Arab abon is a Torah mate and his wife is a Torah mate so it's a family affair um so first of all welcome Rabbi Abramson to the uranak and thank you for coming um and um Mr Po it happens to be because of Mr Po's name I remember interviewing him six years ago on the radio Thon and I even remember asking him a joke if he was related to edar alen Poe but he assured me that he's not that's right yeah yeah well quote The Raven Nevermore um but but we will see in the next exciting interview that I really have to address Mr Poe now as Rabbi Po and uh that is going to be an Ura one wonderful Ura story let's start from the beginning Rabbi AB Crimson when did you get involved first with Mr Poe so I met Mr actually met M Mr Poe's wife first um in 2002 and then shortly afterwards I met uh tuvia and um I was that was back when I was uh giving classes in West Chester Pennsylvania for uh tow links and uh they very quickly were progressing um in their learning and in their uh observance and they uh they moved actually over over the years they moved twice but initially but they uh to in order to be able to send their daughter to a uh from school and in the end they they had their daughter in uh Tor Academy that's right in Philadelphia and uh she was there for most of grade school that civia yeah civia and for uh for um and for high school and today she's in seminary actually um Le bakov right that's you see here's Aura story Rabbi Abramson I know that you uh you had to trick Mr Po to get him to be involved oh the tricking no my wife did did the tricking oh yes yes she wanted me to meet you right and the only way that she could get me to be there was to get a flat tire right right yeah so so you we never know what is going to be the uh spark plug that's going to get a a lifetime involvement I mean the two of you now are learning together for how long well as tour mates we been learning now for four four years four years four years and what did you start with learning as Tor mates uh we started with L pavis with banura um the one of the goals there was to help toia starts from L pis to help tovia build up his reading of Rashi script which was a weakness that he had at that point that's where he was holding when I met him he couldn't really read Hebrew uh at all uh but at that point but at by that point by that time already this he was working on trying to be able to read Rashi script which was a big issue for him at that point and bashem since then he's he's gone a lot further and after pavos what did you learn uh after peros we were we tried learning some of the gar on on devarim um but it's very easy to get distracted and we wanted to be a little bit more focused goal Orient goal oriented we wanted to um so so we recently switched to umem wow and at the same time Mrs PO is a Torah mate with uh Mrs Abramson that's correct what are they studying uh they started with d they started with Derek Hashem they've gone through um a number of far uh so it's really a Family Affair it's very much a family affair and and throughout uh uru has been helping you with tuition with civia yes you see and again here again is will we have the incentive program that if both parents are involved as Torah mates then you even get more help that's right see again I want the listening a the listening audience to understand that Ura takes your money 18777 auction and .org and is very careful with the money in other words they they say okay people gave us money for tuition but we want to make sure that if we're going to give the money that the child is not just going to go to Yeshiva and then afterwards the child will get lost again so they get involved with the entire family and make the whole family inspired which was exactly the situation in your case that's right uh and and I understand that you uh how how did it how did you get involved with the SM program um uh well I got involved with the smika program after I learned Shish mishas oh you hear this you hear this I mean this this man is amazing a little while ago he doesn't know how to read Hebrew he gets involved with Ura and and something that everybody in this room would wish they'd be able to do finish Sid mishna he finishes Sid mishna I mean that's unbelievable that's unbelievable you're an inspiration to all of us I asked you on Friday what was your hottest MAA remember what you told me kadan why kadan because I had to learn it myself that amazing but I would expect him to say or aan or yamas but kadushin because he had to learn it himself yeah I mean isn't that amazing and then H how did you become a rabbi so after after that I wanted to have another goal and um and and I wanted to learn sh um the reason I wanted to learn sh I was listening to a tape a Shear online and Rabbi Kellerman said he was talking about this great cabala safer that's full of AES of how to live a holy life and I said without hearing the answer I said I want to learn that book whatever that whatever it is that he says this book is and then he says you know Mr Rabbi po what are you going to do next become rash sha no just we we need to get him inv but that's not next we need to get him involved in a branch shaburu this man is go I just want to learn a little Torah just want to figure out how to live a holy life maybe we have a Chill Zone that he could run something like that I mean this Chill Zone I mean it's a man he went from sh M to becoming a rabbi but you did when we spoke you mentioned something that I think that our audience needs to hear you see like later on tonight when we will talk about the reiton that feel a need for uh balich Chua and kir people because they a lot of times don't have people that know religious people in their lives to be able to find them mhid you pointed out something to be very interesting and that is that when you when you come closer to yish kite you lose your Social Circle and you need to get a new Social Circle right and you told me how Ura provided that for you that's right um two important places where we were able to build up our our new Social Circle one was in in Ura camp in the zone we sent our daughter there and it was a it was a great experience for her when she came back from Camp she would say you know it's only 10 months till camp that was how she kept time um and another very influential piece of our life was when we went to shabas witha you told me the first one was in Asbury Park the first one was in Asbury Park and we met friend we made friends there with people that were still friends today we've been to we these are our very close friends we've been to them for Simas and chabas and and and it's it through throughout both of these things my daughters met made great friends with counselors um the counselors call the house we happen to be in New York uh and you know and and need some help and they invite us over and we made friends with the with the counselor's parents now we're friends we've been to to Simas by these are one of these are one of the side benefits of an Ur shabas an Pim people meet friends and they develop a religious social network that's right now Rabbi Abramson there are people out there that might be thinking maybe I have an hour a week to be a Torah mate can you tell our gigantic worldwide audience how uh don't be nervous uh how how how being a Torah mate affected and impacted your life um it's really hard to categorize I mean there's on the one the obvious thing is that there are certain SP that I don't think I would have learned uh I'm learning Dam now thoroughly and carefully with with too I don't think that would have happened otherwise um and the way we learn pis even P of course had learned before but to go through it thoroughly and in paying attention to every B which a lot of people B tends to get neglected in of right and to go through it and carefully it just it's but it's more than that um I had a relationship with tuvia and his and his wife and his family before before we became T mates but the truth is there's no question that the Torah mates requirement every week you know we're learning we learned tonight before we came right this is you start off your week with shabas so um that has enabled me to maintain a relationship with with tuvia that is far beyond what I would have had otherwise and tuvia he said tuvia is inspiration and he's he's he and his wife have been and his daughter have been incredible insation for me and for my family okay Rabbi Abramson and Mr Rabbi po um I'm I'm looking forward that you should come back with new accomplishments and again to all of you out there if you would like to be a toram mate 1877 Torah 123 www. toram mat.org to