Amudim Event 5 15 2016 Part 2 Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein

toita thank you for your wonderful words before I introduce the next speaker something that the r said really touched a chord and tonight there's a uh I'm going to say a memorial I don't know the right word to use what we uh use for a legend in this field Rabbi Ronnie greenw and someone who I have spent the last eight with in cam Sternberg and many years before that in a very unique relationship that we had who personified a lot of what the RV said on the level of the educational standpoint whether it's the rebi the Moa the minahal the camp director the camp counselor these are all things in clly that have an impact and for that I say I'm lucky that I live in Queens and I say this because we have I think Dr simmerman tell me from right or wrong but I believe the first from community that as a kahila the entire school systems in the Queen's Community was the first one to welcome the safety kit program from Debbie Fox and many other initiatives to really help keep our children safe so I see that we have the manum here from our yeshivas Rabbi May Rabbi Kesler Rabbi wael Bam um I don't I guess there's others that I may not know I apologize but I see that the MIM are here so a big thank you for personifying those words and helping to uh keep our children safe and educate them in the right way both bmas and so thank you for that um just trying to see so the our next speaker was uh sort of with timing worked out a little differently but I would like to welcome someone who I have grown just like with Ria brudney another R who I've grown to call Reby in this field who has really taught me a lot and Contin used to teach me a lot in dealing with these extremely sensitive issues and a very professional and tries as hard in a diplomatic way um one and only RAB zakara wallerstein thank you um I apologize to RAB budney I was supposed to introduce um the R I didn't have this I was supposed to be here earlier but I was coming from a shabbaton in Connecticut I could just say mes um m nees means when you give from brne I I had this of of learning about and he gives away so much of his time of sitting and learning which is really what he wants to do to um to the cloud in this in this PR and in Shalom Bas and really really helps clol in a very big way and um it's a very big it's would have been a very big to introduce you and it's a very big to to share to share the podium Dr schami Zimmerman um there are certain jobs that people do who are that are very covic jobs to be involved in this in what amudim does um is very very hard because a lot of people try to as we know put it underneath the carpet when you come out and you have to prosecute Jewish people because of what they're doing not everybody is so happy about it so anyone who's involved in this you don't get the thanks it's a it's a very tough job and that um that Zimmerman Dr SCH Zimmerman is so involved says very very much about him I want to talk for a few minutes about about Amud I wasn't here when spoke but I'm sure that spoke about um I don't think people realize that when a child is abused it's a it's sometimes a death sentence but it's always a life sentence it's it's a struggle for life and the ultimate loss which we have been going through this year and last week and in a very big way losing a losing a a child or a person in classr the ultimate loss is when a person thinks that nobody cares when somebody thinks that everybody gave up on them I want to tell you I believe it's from pink which is V that I live by it says by Y in his hardest moment of his life when there was nobody home but paa's wife he was the of the he was he was Yu's son who was the a that would destroy asov the says that that moment was the War of the Worlds had yadik sinned says the world would have been destroyed because the side of the world which is y would have broken how did Joseph refuse he had all the excuses sold by his brothers to the lowest place in the world and according to Rashi to the lowest person who bore bought him as Rashi says for himself in the lowest House of the lowest place abandoned by his family why didn't he sin how did he by Y how did he refuse the trop the musical note on the word by yose is a shes when the B reads it it sounds like a siren the true refusal it's hard is a chain a chain connects two things is connected to what say Pinkus we have to look in that para for another and there is one the brothers came to yov to be our brother died yov shut the door they wanted to make him feel good they came all of them together brings down the maim they came all together so that yob wouldn't feel so bad look what you do have so you lost one son you have more and yob said no one son the 11 more don't help when you lose one son's you can't not sit Shiva you can't say I refuse to sit Shiva how could yob say that yob said to his sons you brought me a coat full of blood T I don't know what happened I lost my but you didn't bring me his body I put so much into this child he was my talid M he was the destruction of asov if you think that I'm going to give up on him because you brought me a coat dipped in blood but your mindless no is in the worst place in the worst time of his life he knew that his brothers could not have brought his body he was alive he did not know what they did but he knew something about his father my father yakob Ain will never give up on me until I'm dead and until they bring my body in front of him I know that far away I have a father that refuses says raim Pinkus if you know that there's someone in this world that refuses to give up on you you will never give up on yourself says old the what did he see not some magical face showed up in the window he saw his father he was so far away but he knew that my tanty will never give up on me and he turned to her and he said I'm out of here and he ran away by yanas he ran that's what amudam is all about everybody before amudam showed up people who went through sexual abuse thought that it's a secret it's their secret there's nobody to help them nobody wants to help them they didn't have they didn't have the people who refused to give up on these kids whether it's therapy or rehab whether it's money or personal health they know that if they go through something there is an organization and there is a person to go to that did not give up on this thing that used to be totally hidden and that gives these kids a chance an ideal with so many of them doesn't even know I was on a shabbaton this week I did not sleep I went to sleep at 5:45 Friday night and the whole night I'm not talking about children children weren't even at this people were coming over to me women my brother my uncle my father my marriage is ruined I was like what's going on here and these were 30-year old women and 40y old women and 25y old women who didn't have an amudim who are suffering silently because there was no one there for them and it's a life sentence they don't have the marriages they don't have the head they're always going through what they went through bar hasem whoever he came here tonight we have this organization and we need to support it and we not we need to stop hiding what is going on is not fear when I opened up BCA Bai Academy my high school specifically 80% of them went through sexual abuse they're out of school they were thrown out of school because they weren't learning totally misread because anyone in the field knows that survival and student cannot happen at the same time if you're an abuse victim and you're trying to survive and your head you're thinking I got to go home and who knows what's going to happen there and what happened there you can't learn so when these kids stop learning they threw him out of school totally misread it so the first year we opened up we made a deal with the Jewish board whatever it was they said we could have 15 girls in the school so I sat there with r Max and my principal and we interviewed and we interviewed and we interviewed and we had 14 of them and we only allowed to take one more and there were three left and number 15 came to sit down in front of me and I'll make up a name we'll call her Sora and Sora sits down in front of me her father her mother sit down and Sora sits down in front of me she is so high she is so drugged up she just came from three days in the mountains called ju stock instead of Woodstock it was Juck three days of drugs and music and boys and girls and don't ask she came straight to the interview to get into my high school and she sits in front of me and her head just hits the table she's out interviewed rabert wal to get into my school out and her father shakes her and says Sarah you want to get into the school you got to pick your head up she picks her head up or is like I'm like hi Sarah and Ezra Max sitting next to me I'm like there's nothing we're not taking this one she's not even here comes to an interview like this he says Sarah why do you want to come to my school uh I don't know I think I want to I'm not sure I don't know she was higher than a kite so I'm a mench I don't want to parents should feel bad whatever it is so I'm like it's nice meeting you um we'll get back to you at the end of the week and I'm like going like this to Max I'm like cross that name out we not Tak this girl into school runs the world and as this man and his wife get up they were very tall and she gets up and they're sort of carrying her out of the room I turned to the man I said by the way how your other kids doing and he looks at me and says this is my B I don't have any other children of wste I said this is it this is it this is my Sarah I said you know what you don't have to wait till Thursday she's in really I'm like you don't have to wait if that's all you got and the next two we took them two we didn't tell the Jewish board every day there were two kids absent so we only we had 18 but we really only had officially 15 and I walked away and I said we took her because she's B and I realized I made the biggest mistake of my life not that I took her in but my reasoning was so wrong so if he had eight other kids he wouldn't have taken her no I wouldn't have what do you mean every child is to every child is a if you have 10 kids and one is abused or one is of the D that's your that's your every child is a b every child that goes through this trauma he and and we're going to have to answer and I said that that go convention four years ago and I got a lot of flak and I said at the end of the day it's on our watch raikim us regular people everybody and I took out of and I read y came in front of hasem and Hashem said you're not allowed into my and Y yahu said why and Hashem said you were the Navi on the watch when my children went through this destruction and yo said but I was the only one for 20 years that stood on the corner and screamed and yelled and mustered and begged what do you want from me and said you failed you were supposed to take care of my children and this happened on your watch out of my I read it from inside ladies and gentlemen it's on our watch to be a God or R it's every person in this room it's on our watch how are we going to answer that hashem's b went through abuse our answer will be we had an organization we put something together call Amud we did our best there is no other organization that does this so I want to end with a br and I want to tell you that one of these girls wrote to me from a rehab that she's been in for a very long time because of the abuse that she went through and I'm not going to read it I'm not going to read her whole poem and her anger to Hashem and then how she change it's I don't want to take this I'm supposed to just introduce somebody I want to read you the best line I've ever heard in my life and this is what she wrote and the reason that she's in that rehab because and amudim raised $330,000 a month for four and a half months so far and here's the line sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried but actually you've been planted that's what amudim is doing we're not burying children but we're planting children to watch their growth amudim everybody that's involved and everyone who came here out tonight because care we should have the to watch these beautiful plants grow and flourish and give payis thank you very much [Applause]