Silver Lining

[Music] i want to thank gabi uh for putting this together and uh moved in for giving us the um the forum uh to be able to to talk uh in this kind of way this is not the first time that uh myself and review have had the opportunity to to talk through zoom thank god we don't have to do it as much as much anymore um but yeah i wanted to i i wanted to start uh this this little session just to give uh everyone a uh a sense of how how this started so um i won't say which organization but there was an organization that shall rename remain nameless um that decided they were going to do a uh like one of these songs the minion man song right and they got different rabbis to do different clips of the of the minion man song i want you to stay with us for shopping the truth is i actually didn't even know it i had to like i had to like learn it um but either either way everyone sort of got a phrase to do and um the idea was that like okay shul is closed it's covered it's depressing so we figured i guess they figured they want to make people more depressed by listening to rabbis with questionable voices and um i took it really seriously and uh and i did my my thing and i whatever and then sure enough like i don't know like a minute later everyone's posted i think sam sam has started this mission post minion man group and they all started making fun of me well morgan the world now is post minion man in so many ways that that was sort of like the pinnacle of the covet experience being stuck at home and being so desperate for information that like even a bunch of rabbis singing minion man was interesting and i feel like a lot of us you know that was sort of the moment when i realized the world has changed so fundamentally so but thank you for that i think we had a good time reacting and now like it's a post-minion man world and it still makes me laugh so it's got to be worth it but i'm not sure everybody knows here who we are so we should probably introduce ourselves by all means congregation eighth time in livingston new jersey young israel greyneck jonathan morgenstern young israel of scarsdale i have the the three uh major food groups represented right like westchester long island northern new jersey so that's uh that's the center stage area or something like that i love it the center of the world obviously well yeah so um i remember a lot of time we spent a lot of time chatting online virtually and now thank god as jonathan mentioned in person uh during during covet because you know we idea sharing and and struggle sharing but also uh kind of inspiration sharing and uh i want to thank youtube for really helping me get through because it's been you know it's rabbis are people too apparently and uh you know we've had our challenges but thank god we've shared a lot of good things so this is a great opportunity for us to talk about kind of some of the things that you know what worked for you what what what was your uh highlight so to speak uh when there are many many low lights um i i you know with the funerals and the shivas and the virtual everything i can bring a person down so there were so many times when we the little bit of inspiration really really helped so um you know what what worked for you guys uh you know i i gotta say uh the the one thing they left out not just inspiration but also just laughs the ability to stop and reflect on what's going on in the absurdity of it all and uh particularly in the positions that we were in in communal positions where we're faced with things we've never really had to do before you had uh rabbis doing minion man songs and like we were throwing spaghetti at a wall and trying to see what sticks programming was nobody had ever had to do this before and just did a song you did a song no i didn't yes oh i did i did it with the guitar yes i did i did i did it i did like like a hanukkah song an adam sandler style hanukkah song for my show and granite it's available on youtube but but you don't you know whatever it's there it's there but honestly thank god i edited that unlike yours um where i'm not sure who edited i'm okay yours is great yours was great but the humor and the ability to reflect uh with others about your experiences and bala bottom and to sort of try to brainstorm what the best solutions for things that was that was invaluable to me and there were a lot of big groups right there were a lot of big groups of rabbis that had formed on whatsapp and and unfortunately like you know whenever you ask a question there you're kind of in front of the masses it's like asking the question in the big audience but amongst the few guys it was it was so beneficial to be able to just reflect or vent or to ask and so like you know i was really appreciative of that yeah i agree that that's actually what i was going to mention um dadafka like for me i remember probably one of the best moments for me in the most difficult times of kobit was then was when i i exited a certain whatsapp group no offense to the whatsapp groups because it was i was getting it was just it was crazy i cuz i you know you're right it started in rochelle right and we were like right next door and we had we had a covered purim already and and we were doing this and i was consulting with like rabbi willig you know literally like every step of the way and and i'm like you know i'd post on this on this what's that for wow let me i'll just to be helpful you know here this is what we're doing and people were propounding what what you're not having a full a fully uh you know regular mcgill reading what what are you what are you some what are you crazy but it was just it was nuts it was crazy and i remember uh not a rabbi on this group it was a great great guy and he just said john you need to exit that group immediately and that was that was like the best thing for me but the reality is i was still so i was very much on my own until minion man post minion man came around it's been it's it's it's just it was it was extremely extremely helpful and it's been amazing so if we could speak in the lush on like hr of today's day and age was this our safe space is that is that i think it really is it's i found that those lift serve groups and the whatsapp groups are for people that have way too much time and i think that when we got together we had an immediate understanding of you know we have very different schools we have very very different congregations very different but a lot of the same issues and it doesn't matter how religious or more religious how traditional not traditional whatever it might be how big or small that we found a lot of common ground and for me one of the highlights is actually when we were able to bring our respective leaders together to study together um i thought that was great we had a four week zoom session with erica brown and i really i really enjoyed that because it was nice to see nice but it was good to see that other leaders kind of had the same struggles and the same uh you know grappling with the same issues and you know we focus really on what brings us together as opposed to you know why you have this policy of that policy or whatever but uh and like you said you know we could always laugh about it so that's the that's the great part about our group and you know sometimes we we chat a lot of the group sometimes you know we could go radio silence for a few days um but uh you know it's like it's like having a best friend you haven't seen in 25 years and you can pick up right where you're left off so that's what that's what i appreciate about the group about you guys right i mean there was also that fundraiser that uh that we we did uh pretty well the fundraiser for loader morgenstern's idea brought it to us i'm like hey this is a great thing uh one of one of the wonderful things about our schools uh is that they're they're in three different regions and you don't have any of that unfortunately like you know this competition and and there are different schools in different neighborhoods you don't want to do the exact same thing and you want to be identifiably different and and innovative on your own and and here is like a safe space in in a lot of ways so i was always appreciative of that and uh yeah there were comments that i could make in this chat that i couldn't make anywhere else i'm always nervous like somebody just the other day said oh i bumped into ravi morgenstern he says he knows you and i like what do you say like what do you i'm always a little bit nervous like what do you think space small safe space oh yeah i know i know i know i know so like that that's very reassuring for me yeah you know it's funny also i remember one of the first thing like there was there were a bunch of things that that we ended up it's more right it's like min hog or how this works or because it's because we're in such uncharted territory especially as we we we kind of came together i would say closer to the the reopening so to speak and dealing with it like the several reopenings right that that you kind of that you had in these stages how it worked and it was and it was really helpful and it's you know you were saying with the big the big what's up groups there's more there's judgment there's judgement and everything it's like oh why are you doing this right i remember we would one of the first things we talked about i think was oh we're diving outdoors on a friday and we're like oh should we say bye should we say um sorry should we say you're judging me i remember you quote he brought in some uh you brought in a source and it was it's really helpful we talked about also what are you doing right yes no no no right it's uh our own or not you know that that kind of thing are you gonna go down for it and you know it just sort of it continued along i remember actually you told me sam you reinforced to me that you i think you said that growing up did you do the mass elios when you were growing up or something where you were for sincere yeah and and that's what we ended up doing for someone by the way we did it this year also i love it i love it the guys that want to have like their own minion and you know and drink a lot and whatever they didn't they didn't love so much but it's it's awesome and it but again you never would have known these things yes there's mr brewery yes there are post kim but you know our bay lamoni teammates have you know our our our buddies right next top right that's the way it goes i think i borrowed your your seder if you remember you you did a concise seder this was must been really early like the first time yeah it was very early because i borrowed your seder and i remember using it for some people who i really needed it and it was great you had put it together and and that sharing was was uh was very valuable and what would you guys say was the what were the harder things that you're you're going to take away from this in your shoes like what what are the what are the takeaways i i struggle with this all the time you mean like what did we do that we're going to keep or well i guess the question is twofold what program programmatically i have a few things that i'm whether for better force i'm stuck with and and most of them are for better and they're good and you know it means what it means to me but i'm trying to figure out also from the other side not just programmatically like we as people we as a shul you know sort of what did we learn um you know i don't know you guys speak to either of those things like what what programmatically and what lesson wise do you think we're going to take away i mean i think that the zoom is kind of here to stay every share that i give i you know that's not on travis i do both which is very accommodating in one way but it's super annoying in another way because i you know it's hard to start to teach black boxes for some reason people don't want to put their screens on it at least at least put your your camera on and pretend like you're listening while you're doing something else you know the favorite story you know there was like a fail it's an infamous story in a place somewhere in bergen county early on and sorry i interrupted you but this is funny early on in in in like whatever and they did these those zoom kabbalah shabbos the pre-kabbalah chavez you know whatever and let's just say someone's scream was on that should not have been on and all of a sudden one of the rabbis gets up and it was like that it was bad and the rabbit just goes stop trying my god yeah two words i learned very important you fall but but i would look at the longest you know this there's nothing like teaching in person even so when you're doing a hybrid group so you're looking at the camera and then you're looking you know it's kind of you know just this morning i had a show like that so it's it's valuable because look honestly that people are not ready to come back i get that um but at the same time you know it's and i don't know about you but talking and teaching on zoom is unbelievably exhausting it's like i would i could give if it's in person you can give a shear for an hour like nothing like i'm probably also getting old i am but um when you're on zoom for a half an hour i just feel like white do you guys feel that yeah it's very it's like a mental it messes with you just this morning i have an early morning that's on zoom it's like the zoom it's on my phone in the middle of the table and i asked the question to the guys who were there and then suddenly i just it's like as if god is speaking it was the funniest thing a voice answers the question and everybody like jumps because the zoom people never speak right they never speak but they're unmuted they're totally fine it's only a few people and then suddenly the answer comes from amidst the table and it was such an experience so the fact that more people can come is great i find that my classes are now differentiated in that way but it's difficult to really pay attention to teach in a classroom setting with both in both facing both directions um i find it very hard what else do what else what else are you going to stick with i started a couple of programs that i start writing at devart every friday which i i think some people read and therefore i feel like how could i stop and i never did that before and some other things that i i guess it's good you know we were able to test ourselves do different things uh in our schools and we were forced to adapt and and you know hopefully some of those are positive and long-lasting but like i wonder about the has your school changed have the people changed was this once in a lifetime event uh life altering or not so no comment um we've we've learned a lot we had to learn new skills like i got i learned how to use youtube um during like writing was always but we i what during the height of height of coving when you think back to sort of march april 2020 and i get hives you know like um but uh you know i was doing video communication every day sending out a video because not everybody wants to sit and listen to you so i'm like you know what if you record it a less than 10 minute message every day then and and people will will watch it or not watch it watch how much of it they want by the way the analytics on youtube are great it tells exactly the engagement how many who have gone for how long um and when they stopped listening yeah exactly what it was that you said um and also the great thing is what i was able to secure sponsorships so we actually use it as a fundraiser for sure but that kind of morphed into um i had this feeling that you know believe it or not even in the show it's not the size of your shoes uh to have such a large school on the simple humble shule in livingston but um we there are a number of congregants who don't know one another believe it or not and they're even more distant now so i started this sort of interview thing and we we took it off and it's it's called riding with the rabbi so i drive people and it started because i was like filming something with my kids in the car but i just take somebody in the car and i do an interview with them and people are like lining up like they can't wait to do it and i did it not only with people in the show i did a couple in israel we we once sponsored a fire truck in israel and i found a fire truck and i got a ride on the fire truck with a guy in israel in hebrew and we did this interview in hebrew which is hysterical uh we got hat solo now in west orange of livingston so you're like by the way you know we've made it we have it's allah just you need guys with keys and then uh you'll be fine do you have a pizza shop that sells sushi because like then you know you're you arrived nope no no we have a pizza shop and a chinese it's terrible actually it's one of the things that happened over kovid was there someone who like kind of took over like trying to bring trying to show that kosher can actually work in westchester and has brought in ever i mean we have a seasons which is you know that's fantastic but and whatever and like little little things um so he brings in actually every uh every night there's a different uh restaurant that that delivers you know somewhere from you know in the jewish civilization not westchester um you know that that brings in every night they deliver it to our shul and people get they get burgers they get chinese blah blah blah all that stuff but i also also um better than by the way i grew up there so what you have now is still better than what i grew up with yeah yeah no thank god we're getting over there we're getting there but it's funny that's what covid will ultimately that will morph because the idea that this guy did to bring it in was to look it works people want it and i think it will ultimately turn into us getting something more something more than just just pizza and uh you know eating no offense to pizza needed walking some bagels but i also did the uh the video stuff i did it i did something called the daily dose it was like a what's we made these whatsapp groups me and ours my associate right klinger and people signed up whatever i had like 200 people signed off for the whatsapp whatever but i and i dropped the thing every day it was like three four minutes kind of like you know like what sam said and i found that that i did not want to put it on youtube because it was making me crazy right like oh my god how many people are actually listening how many because i was checking on whatsapp you could see a little bit but the truth is people i had this little like it was almost like like a pot you know a podcast starts with like some weird music whatever so i had a little like matissio whatever now that's rjm's daily dose my daughter made this little you know video stuff and i would have literally like a little kid a four-year-old kid saw me and he started singing that song because his grandfather every morning was was downloading those which was really nice but it was impossible i remember you told me also you're doing something daily right and it was it was killing me it was great i did like and i did it i did it that it would be finite so i didn't want to make it so it was like olive through tough i did a different vidcom kind of mama all the way through and i i did several you know series of those and then eventually we kind of just i just can't do anymore but i think people enjoyed it so maybe i would do a three week something or whatever but we did morph and i think this is here to stay we're going to do we call it the short board every every friday afternoon because we're too lazy to type um like a three a three three and a half minute uh vort on the par show and that we put on youtube and you're looking at still like 50 60 views every week we felt like you know it's worth it 50 or 60 people want to obviously want them to come to school and hear us but it's a really nice thing and we're going to get it not just on youtube we're putting it now hopefully on instagram and twitter whatever and you'll never got it and we'll start a new website you know like that's the thing it's not yeah it's no longer just for people who are at home i mean these were sweet spots we just hadn't realized that there was a desire for um and this forced us to do that similar to what sam's doing for bar mitzvahs like bar mitzvahs were terrible during code if you had a bar mitzvah i mean forget it forget it nobody nobody got to do the whole spiel and the whole bar mitzvah boy in front of everybody batman says none of this stuff was really happening and so i i we i had like 15 bar mitzvahs last year tremendous amount the most promises we've ever had in a single year and i figured like what am i going to do for these people they have their own side mignon and so i started doing this interview thing with the kids and it ended like i edited it so it'd be a little bit more funny and you got like 65 year olds who were just sitting and reading this because they're entertained by it they never would have taken any sort of paid any attention to this kid but now they are so that's like here to stay because we get we figured out other ways to magnify people and make a big deal about events that we we had no choice um and so in a way i know i think it was a great experience i i don't speak i don't speak from the pulpit anymore that my my thing is like in my shul we used to like lift up the pulpit and you know you're sort of like locked in behind that pulpit and i always wondered like what would it be like to to give a speech like a ted talk where you're walking around the bema you know i'm not at the pulpit so i said like how am i gonna do that it's weird so i used to like walk to one step here two steps there and then when covey that happened so like the rules were like you know you can't give a drusher yet first there's only shul and then there's only a two minute rush and then there's only a three minute charger not exactly sure scientifically what the difference was between the two minute and the four minute russia other than like i guess nobody's got patience for a four-minute address when we're just starting out and so i never picked the pulpit up because i was signifying this is a short drusha it's not a regular thing and i haven't picked it up yet i just haven't picked it up and so like i'm walking around and it's it's people tell me it's like it's more engaging and and and they get to like track me around it's harder to fall asleep because they don't know if i'm walking their direction or not it's like a whole different uh nobody's asking to pick up the public yet right nobody has asked nobody has asked nobody is that that's the worst is when like like you don't do something or like you gave up something and like nobody asked for it back right like kiddush anybody's doing that really okay it's like you stop you stop giving a certain shear and like yeah nobody said yeah how could we not i mean i really missed that oh yeah nice i had one guy i had a guy who's i had someone who got rid like we stopped or we're gonna go on a summer break for three weeks whatever and and like there's one like there's one person just like really upset by it you know and for someone who's really upset i was like no you know it's okay that happens it's like it's cool but no one else was really it was just one guy you know yeah yeah yeah but what you mentioned about about you know you the there is a lot of anxiety surrounding sort of the pressure of getting the production out of putting out the material keeping up with it and almost especially like who's really engaging with it because we can see i've learned to kind of tune it out you know you think of uh cilantro you know like even if you think you're gonna change the whole world all the other you have to change yourself i use it as a great tool for self-deprecating humor anybody who's on there i'm like listen you have to go on my show because tens of people are going to watch this half of the views are my mother i go to i go to my mother's house and somehow she figured out how to just play arshel's youtube channel on a loop so i go in and she's in one room and in the kitchen it's just i hear myself talking like what's going on but you're not patting the numbers padding them because that's what it's about does that work you gotta have a fan oh wow i didn't i didn't know you could do that i thought there's like cookies or something they know which computer it is and amount of time but you know but you can't get hung up i get it look no we are human and we're vain and we have egos and when you know what we think is great and not the whole world doesn't think it's great it hurts they don't recognize our greatness you know it's it's it's hard but um in reality that's not what we're in this for so there's another thing too i mean it's not all about vanity it's also you know we you have a certain amount of time and you want to make sure that your time is focused on the most effective uses like you know to have the class that only two people are listening to is probably not as effective a use of your time as the class that you have a hundred people at um that's what i found with my podcast like with a 10 minute podcast i'm reaching more people than i'm reaching with any class that i give so it's definitely worth the investment even if there's a sacrifice the ability to do something else so like that was my that was my thing you remember a few weeks ago we were talking about shabbat shiva georgia about moving into chakras right as opposed to minha because like the reality is for me and i think jonathan said the same thing you know you'll just get a better audience at chakras and and because i remember early on when i was smarter than anybody i knew more than anybody and i had an unbelievable visual rusher that had seven people attended and i felt like what that's that's an awful feeling but then again it's a little humility it's good to learn awesome but you know you have to you have to roll it you have to learn to feel like kind what works and know your voting so um that's also where this help this is helpful you know when when someone else has the same issue um you know we always have a i spent my younger been a career let's say when we go to conventions and things like that and everybody's sort of like looking over their shoulders the older guys looking over the shoulders to see who the young up-and-comers are and the young guy's always looking saying like okay who's going to retire next if i can take his job you guys don't know what you're doing right and i'm just kind of like doing my thing like you know because i'm not an establishment guy i kind of had a different route but uh you know so you learn you learn uh you got to do what's right for your people i don't i don't i don't need to be the rabbi for claustral i need to be a rabbi from my congregation so that that's the thing about us in particular we you asked small like oh what did someone say when he said morgan says he knows you know and it's and it's not just my father-in-law but like i say like no somebody else too i say like we're there aren't that many we're alike we're all we're all alike i said sam small we're all i don't know i thought you're rabbi sorry but you're we're we're alike and and and look at the end of the day that's who there's an it's an affinity group it's it we're naturally aligned you know sam you said our communities are they are they're different they're different great great next is different than scarlet garden and livingston but but we're like we have the same kind of hush coffee we have the same we don't take ourselves too seriously we have the same kind of outlook on like we want to make an impact and you know and and and do it right in a in a normal real human way and all of that stuff works like like you know you said uh i remember um [Music] what was it shibuya's time reliable mayor you did uh because i go mill remember you did you did like uh mass because i go mail for people who had coveted or something right i did i did a lag like uh a zoom gomel event yeah for yeah yeah so i did i did that around chaboose or something like that and and it was beautiful it was amazing and like you were saying by the way bar and butt mitzvahs i wanted to throw out an idea because this is not just to help the future great idea we came up with an idea you know about us really but he's running with it which is great um we're doing uh uh for all those who are at a bar but mitzvah during kovid we're having a big simcha kiddish like on uh actually shabbos hanukkah and uh so anyone could you know jump in and the kids who want to speak usually our minute is that you know these the the boys will speak during dob and then girls will speak you know after davening whatever if anyone had a chin wants to speak i had a chance to speak or didn't have a chance to speak because they had a small neighborhood minion here sign up you get the two three minutes of our torah you know and we're putting together uh kind of a a log of you know vichabas and you know each other to give give them that forum yeah we had a we had a baby kittish all the babies born nice during kobe during the summer we had one big gala kiddish and everybody you know whatever it was it was a beautiful thing everybody finally got to celebrate which you know how important the kiddush is for uh a baby girl wait do you not have kid it you don't have kiddush yet i'm sure we we did it took us a long time so we did we we're still outdoors our kiddushes are still outdoors our conditions outdoors also what about you we're transitioning we uh we're inside got it yeah i mean we've had a few events where people have made outdoor finishes but uh we're we're inside everything's inside now you know and a small thing that i just popped into my head now uh you know talk about positives after kovit do you can you remember the first time after all this that you shook somebody's hand i remember specifically when it was and it was like almost taken aback like are you ever like watching i mean constitutional we should watch television straight but imagine if you were watching a television show or a movie and you see people like you're like each other and the first time and that made you realize is how much human beings crave personal interaction um and the handshake has taken on a whole new meaning you know when you say good jobs to somebody it really it really means something different now to me um and even if there's still people who are fist bumping or elbowing or whatever chicken wing things that they're doing um you know i i i look you know i guess it's one of those things that we you take for granted you do it all the time but um here we are so so much of this was like relearning all of these things like and also watching how we ourselves you know how anxious were we about covet how many just were we about handshaking and then once i did my first handshake and i'm like i could never have imagined doing that again but now i'm doing it again and then this other person can't imagine ever doing it again like i promise you'll get there i was i was the same you know we're all living through this absolutely unique experience all at the same time and i can't think of another experience in my life like this that we're all learning everybody at their own pace everybody's adapting at their own pace and unfortunately or unfortunately we're in the middle of managing all of the people at the same time trying to figure out as a community uh what we're going to become comfortable with altogether but it's been super instructive to like watch that process happen i know i i don't know what you do like if you have the good shabbos line coming up so you you kind of get a sense people are are they clenching are they hand out and and very often there's like the awkward i happen to love fist bump i i wish fist bumping would stay first of all you get you get both hands so your guys to your left i i got that i got i got a left fist i heard it great actually this patch up is a great uh handshake story so there's a famous chuva in igris moshe where and it's it's based on a shul in the southern part of long island in the south shore and the child of the main player is actually a member of the original ravi esma and the the minute was is that if you get an alley you had to shake the rabbi's hand and there were people who were bragging which ultimately led to a breakaway so the the person who has promoted the shia said is a person can you get an elite if he has earned sight if he doesn't want to shake the rabbi's hand for a motion of wrote back he said not only do you not have to give him a lease he's not allowed to have an aliyah not allowed to have an aliyah because you don't shake that steps nemo that's the that's the the matter of the shul you can't you can't violate that now the funny the side story that the funny thing is that when they wrote the person who wrote the show when they published shruva they wrote the wrong name they wrote gitzluck instead of israel so for his 75th birthday uh his family who happens to be in clothing production they made t-shirts that had chuva written with his name on it like that anyway so in the same shul i just heard recently that somebody there was somebody who's an anti-vaxxer and the shule has a very know a strict like if you're not backs you can't have part of them you know you have to mask whatever didn't wear a mask went gotten a leah somehow and then he went off gonna shake it around by his hand and the rabbi was like [Laughter] like it's the reverse shot like what do you do that goes around comes around right exactly i actually didn't it's funny you guys said it right like i actually didn't think we'd go i was like oh i like this elbow thing this is nice i i don't think sh i remember saying like i don't think that you know handshaking is coming back the truth is i'm a hugger i always say i would always say like all right no germs we're going to wear whatever i'm like you know but you know yeah it's it's it's very interesting coming back uh john i'm sorry like i'm not sure if that's coming back oh they're full on hugging yeah we all are we all are you guys maybe incredible guys just don't like each other that much we're too uh i don't know every week after the presidential makes announcements and he steps down we give himself like a high five a hug and a president of the other school was here for simpler and he came to me afterwards he's like where's my hug i don't get the hug on the people what's going on he was actually jealous um you know it's good it's good uh you know it's good it's good to feel uh close to balboa um it's good to also have distance but do with that what you'd like remember you guys remember remember the first time we got together uh in person since like cover remember we were first we were doing like uh whatever we would hang out you know online a little bit on zoom or whatever then we got together remember yeah we went la mare outdoors they because my wife would only go let me go outdoors it was a very big challenge whether i could go or not you guys were you were always okay sam to go were you okay to go initially you were good you're good yeah yeah and then the guys didn't want to set us up outside remember the llama ray guys are giving us the moves i called i had a reservation uh and then and then we went more recently to uh tabernacles of our question you were allowed indoors and you were late um and um we uh we had but you know what they actually i think we closed the restaurant because we were just wait we even out we out ate and outlasted the facilities next to us they had like the giant tomahawk steak you know they're busy taking pictures of instead of eating it they're like i think they were talking about their pulpits as well you know i think uh this is that was the conversation for the evening listen there's so much to talk about because we we have all these stories because uh you know every everybody's a story uh and everybody constantly has i remember at one point you know somebody defined this so well for me the whole past year and a half where after he got back so this person was very very mocked that he wasn't coming to shul or anything like that and then after um he got the vaccine so i said so like this is great you know you're you're immune you're immune right this is before delta and all of the sphakos et cetera i said you're immune he said but i'm not immune from michigan and so like you know he he still had his shtick and he still had his thing and there's so much of that people adapting in their own way and people reacting completely completely unique to them and i i don't know where your schools are at with this um we're not we're not out we're definitely not out i know other communities you know covet is a a far distant memory and it's interesting because the way they're living you would think that that would be like a a visual aid for communities who are not there yet to see hey look they've been pretty okay for for about a year you don't find that people need to deal with this themselves they need to develop that comfort themselves and until that happens i don't know when it will um you know we're still living part of this that's a lot no so yeah yeah but i i was you reminded me what i was going to say a few minutes ago which was that in our what the community what what people sort of want from us or need from us is the ability to engage with this stuff and to show and to try to help and and model and preach like what's what's normal how do we move forward how do like i've had unfortunately in my in my pulpit life i've had some major major stop like tragedy type of communal stuff and i found that like the community is looking looks to the leadership to the rabbis like okay usher us through this usher us through the morning experience usher us through the recovery experience right because when is it appropriate to feel acts or when does appropriate feel why and i think in in in kovid in particular we're all dealing with that and they're they really are looking for us what's normal and i think for i don't know for me personally i could say i probably speak for you guys too like when we have that placed on us to be able to have a reality check from from you guys right and be like yeah this is that's normally that is crazy when a person says xyz if a person jumps right that is great or that oh i get it i hear it's really helpful to be able to sort of have that and give us that that sort of mind check and and move forward you know with our kahila and be kind of like the best leaders that we could be so it's like uh yeah and that's the hard part because you know trying to find that sort of space where you can cover everybody or as many people as possible you know people on the on the extreme edges i think we're never going to get in any situation covert or not uh but trying to have that broad reach that big umbrella and look and thank god there are places that we could turn to also besides one another you know you like like hamuddin for instance that's a that's a great uh that's a great resource where you could have things like this so we can even just kind of just talking about it i feel like i feel better what about you but also i'll say this you know that um you know uh jonathan can relate that the fact and they can't relate but uh both schmoe and i we lost we lost parents and we were not available during this and you know almost i don't know if you you had it was much worse when when you had your wash mold because it was like the height i had no no i remember speaking to an air shabbos then and uh but i remember like you guys brought me a lot of comfort um even though we had a shiva and i had shul and i had kaddish and whatever but um you know at certain times i guess in our position you can't feel like you even have the ability to mourn fully because you're too busy like taking care of other people um i don't know if you felt that small um so it's like let me let me celebrate my sim card let me have more my availas so that's why this going back to the word safe space this is very very helpful for me um as you know i'm not getting through it so and i'm not going to you know have feelings so let me know that yeah that was uh that was very unique that was very different um but there's there was value in that too you know the people be discovering what a simcha means people will be discovering what you really need for availas for it to be meaningful like you know or how desperately we really do need people a lot of these lessons i you know i hope they stick i hope they stick i don't think the backyard weddings are coming back but uh that hasn't been my sense so far things have pretty much reverted right back to normal but we'll see hopefully at least we've internalized some lessons that we'll be able to share with our kids and our communities we'll be able to share with others as well um you hope you hope a once-in-a-lifetime event has a once-in-a-lifetime impact you hope and maybe maybe there's more of it than we even realize small weddings small weddings right i could talk to you about that yeah yeah but you're really getting left 150 people amazing the takeaway the takeaway is like like you know gravity there's gravity that brings you know that brings things down to earth there's a gravity that brings people together people want to be together people need to be together and uh hashem i was about mitzvah by the way you made a bar mitzvah last week i made it about mississauga it was the fullest the show has been in close to two years and everybody was commenting everybody it was amazing wait well nothing right wait they loved it it was amazing it was the fullest also rabbi i haven't been a troll intruder blah blah blah okay maybe they weren't there for five years either no i'm just kidding they're all there here's the question did you acknowledge it did you acknowledge how full sure it was my i started my dress show which was weird it's like there's never been like i'm the rabbi and the kid's dad right like it's an awkward position i started by saying i did i like i had forgotten that we had this many seats in this room like like that was my opening line like every it was packed a total capacity and it was just so nice like there was this overflow all the talking was back the decorum was terrible but you know what in a way this is great this is good i miss that problem i miss that okay we'll deal with that we'll do with that next week but but it was having people together it's a good problem to have i'll just tell you ivanovka didn't say anything i didn't comment how full it was because i didn't want to sk i didn't want to ruin it i didn't want to scare anyone i didn't want i was just like all right this is normal like anyway look guys keep fighting a good fight you know what we uh i'm glad we have one another and i'm glad we're able to express this uh even for others to benefit so mom thanks for watching and i'm i'm really working and uh now really guys i just i really appreciate your your the cover shaft and i appreciate your your understanding and professionalism and uh bring us together in all these different ways so we should just continue for many many years to come in good health amen [Music] you