A $300 Million Dollar Kiddush Hashem Story!!

[Music] it started around eight o'clock and boom because a nice accurate General button still broke you can still see the orange blowing it's just no way to quantify this [Music] on December 11 1995 at 8 pm a boiler exploded in the largest textile factory in America at the time the Malden Mills it burned the entire Factory to the ground the fire was so big it could be seen from miles away and it took an entire week to put out the fire completely at the time Mr Aaron feuerstein the owner the CEO of the company was celebrating his 70th birthday in the middle of the party one of the executives ran over to him and said Mr fewerstein Mr feuerstein there's a fire at the Mill by the time you got there the factory that had been built by his grandfather in the early 1900s was mostly gone which meant that overnight 3 000 employees who worked at Malden Mills lost their job as far as Mr feuerstein was concerned he was about to collect close to a half a billion dollars from the insurance company he was faced with the following decision either close the company and pocket the money or he can rebuild the company down south and hire cheaper labor over there and still make a lot of money either choice would have been common practice amongst CEOs at the time everybody expected for Mr feuerstein to do the same the next morning Mr feuerstein called the press conference thousands of people were crammed and jammed into this huge Auditorium Senators politicians were there and in front of everyone he gets up and he makes this stunning announcement he pledged to rebuild the factory right here in Massachusetts bigger and better than ever before and not only that he continues and he says every single one of you will continue receiving your monthly paychecks until it's rebuilt all our employees will be paid their full salaries [Applause] the entire Place erupted there was so much emotion it was charged because people were so anxious and nervous up to that point thinking they lost their livelihood and all of a sudden the saint of a man gets up and he pledges and he promises that they have nothing to worry about it news media Outlets showed the footage of him making the announcement and they also showed people waiting in line afterwards to pick up their paychecks it made national and international headlines you'll receive your bonuses and everything today he was interviewed by dozens of news media outlets and they asked them they said why would you even do that my father who was a very observant Jew taught me and I still remember the uh his quotation which was uh bimkom Shane anashim in those circumstances where there is a moral vacuum do everything within your power to be a man and that's what he instructed his children to do and that's what I'm trying to do the president of the United States Bill Clinton in 1996 invited him to the State of the Union to set him next to the first lady and honored him calling him periodically afterwards to ask him for business advice recognizing that he was a man who didn't see money as the end of it all as the bottom line somebody said the proper business decision for a 70 year old guy is to take the 300 million dollars in insurance and retire and what would I do with it eat more buy another suit retire and die no I that that did not go into my mind that that was not an option not for a second I was only 14 years old when this happened but recently when I heard about it again I wondered as Mr fierste is still alive can I interview him can I meet him and maybe even can I get a blessing from a great man like that I made some calls and I found that he lives in Brooklyn Massachusetts he's alive and well he hasn't given an interview in 25 years he said yes I took along my 12 year old son Shalom we traveled to Boston we came to the house of his granddaughter Marika fiorestina he lives with his granddaughter 95 not a young man anymore but completely healthy and completely with it as I walked into his home and shook his hand I can see in his eyes the wisdom the life experience and I was really excited to sit and talk with him the first question I asked him I said Mr feuerstein what gave you the Courage the strength to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars and do what's right and treat the workers properly like human beings take care of them first of all the Torah as a young man when I read and studied the Torah that showed me the way of life that was very very important low sauce not to oppress the worker you get a lot of workers not to oppress the worker because he's an onion and a nephew we considered him a human being Not A Pair of Hands and there's a difference he said my father was a great example he was a big Sadiq he also taught me to be a mensch for mokum my father was at Sadiq and had great influence over me today we see Orthodoxy prospering but when my father was a young man Orthodoxy was dying and my father was the one who kept the Orthodox alive in Boston the business was started by his father Henry feustine he came over to this country in his teens and he read in the forwards Yiddish newspaper that there was a factory for sale in Malden he went to see the factory he knew nothing about knitting Machinery nothing about sweaters nothing about anything any product he said there's a place where I can go to show I'll be my own boss and he bought it and The Business CrossFit and by the time I got to the business the modernity Mills was ranked Triple A one for credit and they were worth millions I asked him about the employees when they returned to work at Malden Mills after it was rebuilt The increased productivity by 40 percent without a wage increase just as an expression of gratitude to Mr fewerstino what he had done we had good employees many of them couldn't even speak English but weren't treated like human beings they they were just terrific they wanted me to succeed and they increased employment without a wage increase then I asked them a very difficult question I said Mr feuerstein I know that eventually your company went bankrupt do you ever feel that had you not done that good deed and spent the tens of millions of dollars on the employees paying them while the company was being rebuilt do you ever feel like he would have had the money to continue going no you have no right to defame God's name with your business or with your family whatever your Enterprise is lost a hollow shame coach even Nick Dusty was opening Israel I was too enthusiastic I should have gone slow I wanted to go rapidly and so I paid for it something he was really proud of was the building of the show of Young Israel in Brookline in Massachusetts and he kept telling me make sure you go see the show a beautiful piece of architecture I remember as a young man it was a fight to get a minion in the show I wanted to have a shoe that was not in the basement I thought that was a book of addict for God if you want him to dwell in the house you have to make a nice house so we put together the money and we built an orthodox Jewel and it's something that God could walk into I feel like some of the Jews who went to the basement this years ago I'm in the presence of God I couldn't help but feel the entire conversation with Mr feuerstein was just an incredible experience I was sitting in front of a giant he didn't look to sound good or to look good he just looked to impart the wisdom that he had gained over the years and that he had lived by and finally I asked them Mr feuerstein bless me bless my son I'm in awe of what you have done what you have accomplished the decisions you've made [Music] God bless you and make you secure may God I see you through a security intellectually the most important foreign the Divine objective the spread over my son and I will never forget that interview that experience I said my goodbyes we wrapped it up went back to LA shortly after we came back to LA we got a call from the family Mr feuerstein had passed away I thought if he hadn't given an interview in 25 years why did he agree to do it now I couldn't help but feel that [Music] Hashem sent me to Boston to do a story before he passed so the world could know well I was like hello Israel I always kept in my mind that I should make it a kid is Hashem and not a full Hashem