Inside ArtScroll Episode 4: Rabbi Yaakov Feitman

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to inside art scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today we are privileged to be joined by Rabb Yako Fightman, the longtime RV of Kihilas Base Yehudi of Cedarhurst and the author of the brand new art scroll book blueprints. Thank you, Rabbi Feman, for joining us. Thank you, Rabbi Hinger. It's a pleasure to be here in the land of arts. First of all, I must ask, how is the Revan Rebbitson, how are the Reverend Rebbitson feeling? Hashem, we're all postcoon can still use a reformer. So uh for her and thank you for coming out to beautiful art scroll headquarters for this conversation. We're very excited about the release of your new book blueprints. So let's start there before we delve into the background before we talk about your blueprint. What was the goal in writing this book and how did you compile it? So the truth is that this um goal as you say and the book itself has been germinating somewhere in the back of my head and my heart and other places for many many years probably decades. I I've always felt that there's a para it's mentioned in the introduction to the book. Everybody knows the line. Hashem created the world. But before he created the world, he wrote the Tyra. Then he looked into the Tyra and he created the world. So what is that? That's a blueprint. Made the blueprint and then he looked into the blueprint. So I've always felt that there are many many daily examples of that that you can look into the Tyra and all of a sudden a light pops up a light shines and you're you understand something that not only you never understood before but most of the world has never understood before and and that's really the essence of the book. The entire book is all about blueprints that will help us to understand the world. Now you are currently also a Yat columnist uh where your column appears every week and the style of the book kind of mirrors the style of your columns where you intersperse some very deep thoughts from Yuri Rashiva Rabi as well as other Gal and you share stories and vignettes and insights. walk us through how you compile your articles and in this case the chapters of being able to balance sometimes heavy material with really light and enlightening and easy to read type of stories and anecdotes. So the truth is that that a good deal of the book but not all of the book was um published already not in this exact form because there's a lot of kush in the way that the book was published and under the opaces of art school it got kept getting better and better through various editors especially Mrs. writing for merit Israel but very wonderful people rabbis ladawitz of course so when they began some of them began in um mishbaka some of them as you said in the last couple of years and then there's others that are totally new so what really happens to me is I either read about something or I hear about something either on the radio or some other medium now that I've published very often in all of these media and People send me things. Sometimes now my own children send me things and when I see something I say h the Tyrus talks about that and then I try in my mind to come up. Usually it's a the gives birth to the give birth to the on that subject and all of a sudden bingo there's an article. So the the key over here is that articles have a certain limitation. You can't write more than, and I'm sure you've heard this from Rabbi Lipchitz often, and your own articles are beautifully short. Mine are unfortunately a little bit longer, but they tend to be around 1500,600 words. So each one of the chapters or of the the subjects, the columns are about that long. They try to examine a a world phenomenon that uh everybody's talking about. If you want to give you some examples, sports for instance, music, other things in the world and what the world philosophers or theologians say about it and then we try to look with Torah eyes at what the Tyra says about it. Now, what I liked about the way the book is formulated is that you start each chapter with a blueprint and then an application. So before the reader even attempts to read the chapter, they know kind of what your direction is going to be and that kind of helps them navigate it. I think that's something that I learned actually from the at and wonderful places like that. There's a teaser and and it's supposed to be a little bit of a foresh, an appetizer so that people will want to read this and the key is that it's practical. It's pragmatic and hopefully helps people in their lives. Absolutely. So, speaking of blueprints, anyone who's read your writings, and I want to tell you the other day I was somehow looking through some old uh archived uh articles from years ago, and I see Rabbi Fitman an article from the 1980s in the Jewish Observer. And here I am, I'm thinking to myself, I was probably two, three years old when that article came out. And can I know you're still writing so many years later um using the medium of writing? I'll I'll get it one of these days. I'm working on it. One of these days I'll I'll get there. You'll get it rightem. You've done a wonderful job. Your blueprint of your life. People who have read your writings know that you're a very prominent of yeshiva in Berlin. Many people may not know how you got there. Could you provide some background where you grew up and where you spent your formative years before you got to Hutner? Well, I I was actually born in Germany um almost right after the war 1948 and um my parents Alasham sent me to Berlin and eventually I actually went to yeshiva Eastern Parkway for a while for Mifa but even yeshiva of Eastern Parkway which was an outgrowth we've recently all been also commemorating the yard of Rabbi Silber Zets out so Rabbi Sila was also a town of the rashiva and when the yeshiva Eastern Parkway missifa began And the rasha unlike he went out of his comfort zone he never spoke outside of the yeshiva he said a mimemer in the yeshiva and it changed my life he he he said one of the that's printed in the was called and it changed my life I had to get to know him and then we wineberg zatsal was also my rashiva and my rebi and at eastern parkway at eastern parkway and he sent me to go talk to the rashiva in learning. So I was petrified. How old were you at the time? Uh 12. Well, 12. Okay. 12 years old. 12 years old. 12 year olds should actually not go to see Rafna. It was probably not a good idea. I was petrified. So I'll just tell you one funny story that I've never actually told. But that gave me a taste of what was h going to happen for many many decades afterwards. So I said and I was very proud of it because I said on top of but I didn't say I said and I remember the said to me so so he he knew exactly what I was saying. But the the edge in his voice told me that first of all I should have said the Mishna and the garra and maybe a rishin and then got into ribbkup and second of all who do you think you are saying over ribskup. So I got all that instantly. Uh but but it opened up a doorway actually a passage that really hashem still continues in my learning from ravuts. So you meet Rahutner at age 12. You make your attempt at sharing a rip. What was the next step? So the next step was that he called me back. I I was just supposed to say something uh that weber wanted me to say which was in in uh but then the receiva called me back. I I was astounded and um somehow or other almost the ne I was a little bit older then at that time I I was a teenager and he was also asking me already to translate my mimm and to submit them to him. He was already at that young age. Yes. Yes. So that so that when I was when I was a little bit older then in mid20s. So he was he was asking me to translate things that he either told me privately one-on-one uh and then um the the real part of that connection and that relationship was when he spoke to the manal that was the famous nonholocaust talk because he didn't like the word holocaust but he said the kurban wasn't even a mimer. was a a a teaching moment for all the and then Rabbi Fman and I translated it. But then gave it over to me to edit as per the rashiva. So I want to get to the Holocaust piece which is a a historic seinal piece from the rashiva. But let's go back again. You're a teenager. You joined Kim Berlin, right? Ninth grade, right? No, ninth grade. Actually 9th through 12th. I was in in in Eastern Parkway and then I went for one Zaman after but you had spoken to Ra Hutner at age 12 when you were still when you were still at at Eastern Parkway still at Eastern Parkway right so it wasn't until till later that you finally joined Berlin right then how did know that you had an ability to put into writing to his satisfaction hisra that's a wonderful question I don't know the answer but but we conversed and we conversed in Yiddish but every once in a while he would throw me an English word and then I I had to respond in English because it was the way that he was speaking to me was uh required an English language response and then I I I am assuming that based upon that he derived or deduced that I could write um and then much later he he gave me something it was a very difficult thing to do um he gave me something that somebody else had translated and um I knew this wasn't his style. So he asked me, "What do you think of it?" It was very difficult because I I was much younger than the person that had translated it. And I said it was very accurate. So he said, "Yanko, accurate is the correct word, but um I believe he he he may have used the word poet poetry. I don't I think that was the first time I heard the word poetry from him, but is it also poetry?" So I said, "Mr. Mhm." And then he asked me to rewrite the whole thing. So he told me at the time the line was he he didn't even look at me. He was like I think um talking to himself I think but but he was too smart to just do that knowing that I was listening. So it was for me also said and and he didn't want that. It's obviously the the mamurim are beautiful poetry poetic and and by the way the letters if you go through the igress of the rashiva zatal when he was a teenager he wrote like um I don't want to say rebuild I don't know if if that's the comparison but he wrote like an elder poet wow it was incredible and he was just writing letters to his parents and he didn't want that to be lost in translation that beautiful poetic style but what's interesting is that he critiqued your writings in English even though English wasn't his mother tongue and there's a story in my family that it's told over that my grandfather Harry Hiziger who was an East New Yorker when he heard that the Rashiva came to America the first thing he did was make a beline to his in-laws house the Rashiva's in-laws and he walked in and found Rav Hutner holding a dictionary teaching himself English so I think it's fascinating that Dashiva had that ability that knack for language to master a language that wasn't his mother tongue as I mentioned and to be able to critique it and he knew what he was looking for you know the sal this this may be famous I don't know but maybe a lot of people don't know this the rashiva wrote a perush on raenu hill on safra and and um not only a perish on it but but parts of it that were almost not published maybe they weren't published so he taught himself an Italian script it was written in an Italian script and he taught it to himself. So I remember once he said to me, we were talking about I asked him if I could go to college. My parents wanted me to go to college. I was the child of Holocaust survivors and they were all worried. So he said it's not necessary. An autodidact he said if you go to college you won't know that word. So that was he he an autotoact for those that don't know is a self-taught person. So, so, so he was telling me basically that you don't need college even to be an educated person and uh and and that that he taught himself that Italian script and I think more than that I think he may have actually taught himself Italian at the time I don't remember just to be able to publish the Rabenu Hill on Saffro now how often was he asking DV to write his writings in English how often did that come up so so so in the early years not that much but but much later I I I think it may have begun in the um 1970s. I published a translation of a safari cafer on the esamakus. So it's called out of the iron furnace. I believe it's out of print, but uh it that people spend a lot of money for some some reason. It's a translation of rebel ben Davidid. and I gave one to the rishiva and after that he started calling me a lot and um that led us to the um the holocaust uh one that you you alluded to that we'll talk about later and other things as well that he asked me to translate. Now the seminal piece on the Holocaust was really the uh Rashiva's view on a period of time that I guessed people of that generation were grappling with to understand to understand the Tashkafa to understand how it should be taught. What was it like when you sat down with the Rashiva and he first presented to you what he wanted and what was the process of putting that together? Well, the the process actually was was initially easy and then it became much more difficult. Dshiva spoke. This was a spoken thing and as I said, Rabbi Foyman Zatal took excellent notes and he gave me his notes and I had my own I really did not take notes. I was just listening very intently at the time. Um so Diva wanted some something more a little bit more poetry as I said and also he wanted to add some material that was not in the original. So he said to me, um, your uncle come to my house in such and such a a day. It was I forgot what day it was, but I will never forget we spent seven hours on this in a row. And it turned out I was very sick that day. The Shiva told me when to come. I had a very high fever. And somewhere along the way, he said to me, said, "Rebby, I don't feel well." So I said gay. So after the seven hours, so I came back a few days later when I was feeling better and then we did more and there was a total of probably I would imagine like at least 10 hours of of of total discussion about it and I um he had me asked me to submit a manuscript on this which he critiqued both on substance, style and language as you mentioned. What year was this? What year? What year are we talking? 1970s. Um Mhm. probably 77 something like that. So it's only four four years before his petira. Yes. It was it was a couple of years before the Petira, right? 77 I believe that's what it was. And um and then it was published to um some acclaim and to a great deal of criticism and a great deal of emotion because the Rasha didn't pull any punches and he blamed who he he felt had to be blamed and he defended the Gali is in fact he told me privately but then later on we printed I'll tell you in a minute how that happened that the whole reason that he said that mimemer to all the manim was to defend the cover of the Russ and Rabonim and and Adim that did not tell everybody to leave Europe. So was that give us a synopsis of the that was his goal in writing. What's a synopsis of that particular piece? Well there are many parts to it. I I I'll I'll focus maybe on one of them. So one one opinion of the so-called you know holocaust he didn't like that word and I'll start with that was because his thesis and his dash tyra was that you can't give an event in Jewish history a name of its own and he said nobody ever did it before there was takat there was the uh Spanish inquisition and expulsion the crusades but these were secular names our name for everything is and therefore there's is a continuum a connection between all the so he said if you want to say holocaust and that's this particular 39 to 45 years so you have to also say and and by the way he was ple he actually accomplished what I I won't say everybody but many of the schools that afterwards started teaching what's called holocaust studies switched it to all the good the better basakovs and the the yeshivas that that dealt with us. Not the Showa. The Showa was No, he didn't like either. Yeah, because Showa also, in fact, the reason that he didn't like the word Showa, because Showa, he said, is a sudden eruption. It's like a an earthquake or a volcano. It's it's it's a it's a tempest but it's not a continuation of events that the brings upon his his line was which I wrote and translated as leaked of so results in if we don't listen there's there's of course and so his point was and and he felt that this is such a that Everybody has to know and live with. And he said fathers have to teach it to their children. Mothers have to teach it to their children that we have resting upon our shoulders this and therefore there's no blame. You can't do blame. And in this he was critical but we didn't say names of those that said kind of like he didn't like the even though that's what the tyra says but said that we're not to pinpoint which a is the results in which in which punishment. So therefore his point was that there is in Jewish history a a moment that we we we all of a sudden run decides to uh it might be a cumulative effect to bring upon us something terrible but you can't blame that generation necessarily and that went against many many other very wonderful people. He didn't, you know, he didn't have anything against them other than he disagreed with them on this point. But the problem was that some of the survivors did not take it well. Even though he he never blamed them. On the contrary, he told me when I started going into and then on the verge of going into Rabanas, I I I didn't actually go into Rabonus when he was alive, but I was toying with it. And he gave me guidelines and rules and regulations. So he told me never talk to survivors about this because because they they can't handle it emotionally and just cuddle them and love them and give them. So this was for the next generation to understand the proper hashkov of it. Then once it was written and the Rashiva approved it now you were going to disseminate it. How did you do that? So so what happened was like this. to be it it it was an article in the Jewish observer and um by Rabbi Khim Fyman and Yakov Fightman and and it went all over the world. It was like what what they would call today viral. They didn't say that word in those days. Now it means everything else but it went all over the place and there was a great deal of criticism. Mostly people did not did did not understand it. They reacted viscerally and did a khazar what he called a khazar on the mimemer and that I think by then rabbi former wasn't involved and then I I translated and wrote that so like a rebuttal almost like a rebuttal to the didn't want it to be read as a rebuttal so in the process of and he said he said to me and and there's new things so then that I wrote up by myself when Rabbi Walpin published this in the book which was called um a path through the ashes and it's a wonderful book forget about this I mean it's the but it's also rag gift is in there and many many other wonderful gdali Israel so so the rasha's piece is not separated from the um khazara it becomes footnotes so that that and the rasha proved that that that d and he looked it over and he he gave his approval and and he gave me a big I just want to tell you one little vignette. So he wanted to pay me back. So he called me in and and he liked the whole thing. He said, and I started to babble because I I I I I didn't, you know, so he told me um a mimer basically for myself which I don't think he ever said publicly in appreciation for your efforts. Right. Right. That was his payment, so to speak. That was a payment and I've used it many times. A private mimer to private mimer on what topic? Um the topic was in parl. So it says it says in parl I'm just tell you the vignette the the basics in parl it says um uh well it's really on and it comes from reviews many things in so when it comes to it says that means that the punishment for the moragum was basically golus he said it doesn't say any place in so he had ahat he had a mahal he told it to me and to my knowledge he's never said it publicly because it was my gift but then when I was finished I asked him can can I say it over he said it was so amazing because he understood that I'm going to need it in raises and and because it's it's a very beautiful of course so that piece that that the Rashiva told you privately did not appear in any of the I don't think it's any place wow to my knowledge and To's knowledge, how many other people in the world were to get a private mime with Rahutner? I I really don't know, but I was and and I I cried I cried tears of sim. Wow. That that I was to this. It's definitely a reflection of the aava besides the appreciation but the aava that the Rashiva had for you was obviously extraordinary and you were too spent so many hours with him you know oneonone getting a glimpse of the rasha that many people maybe were not too and that's a segue to something that I wanted to ask you if if it's okay sure please people talk about the rasha with a certain mysterious nature a mystique there was a mystique people who knew Rav Hutner all talk about it but the to see what we'll call a human side of of Rav Hutner if you don't mind spending a moment talking about that and maybe even a story or two that really reflects uh that persona of Rav Hutner that maybe wasn't as publicly recognized well there there are there are numerous stories um I I personal uh personal experiences with him where where he he shed the the the mystique the mystical persona and it was just um guiding me through my personal life. Um he he knew that both of my parents had been nifter before he passed away before he was nifter. So, so he knew that I was a Yasum and and which which I will not go into all of that right now for many reasons, but but but he um acknowledged my my Yasmos and spoke about what it means to be a Yasum and how to overcome the um uh the the the down the downsides of Yas of Yasmos and how to turn it around. And I'll never forget later I I heard that this was one of his I wouldn't say the word mantra to to apply to the rashiva but one of his his themes one of his light motifs was so I think we're in art school I have to be very careful but he translated different than art scroll because that's not the so the usual translation of is that that despite the fact that sadic fell down seven times he'll get And the told me once you've fallen and you did get up, you're better than before. And and he told me that in in in in very personal ways that I I don't want to say it's nas it was pas and it was it was but maybe there was a kaidish there because he told me things that I've used since four decades ago. He told me this and I continued to use it and he he told me once something I didn't understand. He says more in the beginning. So I I I I probably let's let's let's talk more but his would you say that's consistent with the gor of that they reach a place that absolutely that was consistent with that that that message. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and one of one of the things that I've heard from many other people but I certainly saw in my lifetime was that he had the ability to pick people up and he said that's because because he experienced this. So there's something in the zikarim the rabbits and David wrote over which is so extraordinary. It's just a line or two maybe not even two lines one and a half lines. He said that when he got up from Shiva, I believe for the rabbits in Allah. So he came out and there was a tree that it was springtime that had just blossomed. He said he said that that was sent for him to bring him out of his his almost and I think he said the word depression even but certainly his aus and it was put there for me. Wow. And that was one of the lessons that I learned from him is that in life we we are sent messages by the rabbi and we have to know how to figure them out which which by the way I I I think is in the blueprints a lot you know things that I got from the kind well the rashiva is quoted in the book no less than what 25 times something like that writings and thoughts permeate all your writings so that's not a surprise at all. Um, has the RV ever considered doing a work solely on Raud's Tory and his outlook and Ashkafa? Anything of that sort? I have and every time I start to do it, my hand trembles. Thank God I don't have tremors, but I have tremors every time I think about doing it. I have talked to various of the in Berlin and they have encouraged me to do it. Uh, as they encouraged me to do this book and the rashins and encouraged me very much. But I I don't know this yard site, we talked about this before a little bit, is the 40th yard site coming up in Kisl Kisl, the 40th yard site of I wrote about him on the 30th and now I've been asked to write about him on the 40th and I I don't know if I'm any smarter than I was 10 years ago, but uh but maybe maybe maybe around around now maybe I'll I'll consider it a little bit more. before when we were speaking privately the revoluted to a story about the Rashiva's hat. Yes. Will you take a moment to share that with our viewers? Tell the story. All right. So I was a a young bucker. I was not yet married and um I I discuss of driving the rasha around a little bit. So I drove him to a a bris and when we got out of the car he gave him a hat. Carry his hat. Fine. No problem. later on I won't say who right now but one of also the um I told him the story he said so let me just explain what that means now you have become asha because held and he writes it in a number of my murmur and sh and other places in various letters in the igris that a talmid it's not enough at all to learn from the rebi the the if you'll you'll permit me I'll tell you a tremendous shot that that he said and um I still don't understand it but I I say it over. So he said it's a it's a paramei was going to go up to so Alicia was chasing him and Alicia wanted a little bit more from the reb so so told told him so he he he said something very cryptic very enigmatic that doesn't seem to make sense go what have I ever done for do what kind of a thing is that to say to your Talmud and he had done a lot for him. So the Rashiva said you see that the relationship between a Rebi and a Talmud has nothing to do with quit proquo. It's not what you give. It's not what you've taught. It's essential and it's elemental. And I it took me a while to pick that up and I I hope that I did among other things because Rhiva told me this part privately also. And what he meant was that the relationship has to be one of Hano. And just to go back to the the uh question that you had asked me about um going with the rasha and being with the rashiva, the rashiva wanted people to enjoy him. I I'll tell you just a line. I used it in in the garra the other day in and dy the last some of the last gumaras are about in Shabas. We just finished Shabas are about masped. He hated his spamm. He hated them with a passion. He felt that they were very often false, overblown. He said that it's not good for the masid. It's not good for the the the the the person that was nif. So I didn't hear this myself, but I heard it secondhand from somebody I trust. So uh he was at a leva and the uh the the the maspid the person that was speaking he he waxed very eloquent but he forgot about the nifa and he was saying gumaras and madrashim and beautiful stuff. So dshiva in something of a stage whisperer which knowing how smart the rashiva was knew would be heard by other people. So he muttered to himself, you're not allowed to benefit from the corpse. So so he was very very tough about those things. Did you find that the rashiva was tempered in his praise even of let's say his rebi let's say alteratka or others or was this just uh something that he felt about? Absolutely. He wrote about the altar and and if if one reads it these days you can see that um for instance he he wrote to his parents a beautiful moving letter about the altar but he said what I mentioned before about he didn't say at that time he said after the rebi is nifty brought all sorts of ras as a very young man he wrote this that after the petira there's an opening of the tsino there's an opening of the shamayan and the rebi is ble to infiltrate you so to speak and and and get into your heart and get into your soul and he said that happened to him so that after the altar was nifa he now understood things that he never understood and he explained some things at that time and over the years many many times but he never mentions the altar in in I don't think maybe maybe once maybe once gdolum from previous we saw salante mentions by name mentions very very few by name I think because he was very careful about all these golum not to overdo not to underdo just he called it to be exact on a personal level you've been in Rabonus now for decades you've seen you've been witness to the change of the world you've been witnessed to the growth here we're sitting at art scroll the growth of art scroll in terms of haba satra that we've all benefited from what do you see the major difference in being a RV today anaman and having been a magucher rebby today from even just uh 20 30 years ago. That's an excellent wonderful question and I I I I can only speak for myself. I I I don't speak I used to be involved with Rabonham you know training younger Rabonam and and things like that but I I haven't done that in a while so I don't really know but but I I I can just tell you my you know my sense of it and that is that there was a time when Rabon could get up and give Muser and that was their job and in fact we find that many of those that wrote about Rabonus over the centuries and even millennia said that we're like the Naveian of old and you know there's a Yeshai He does this and there's a we also have to do things like that today. We have to be people and through the and through the um the and through the the we help them they hopefully will grow but the straight oldfashioned powerful muser because the r is such an eloquent speaker doesn't hold anymore. The had a line on this by the way it's very interesting. He said that um he he lamented a little bit that there's no more great speakers anymore. But he said baz is so he he told me privately and he mentioned he knew everything that went on in the Jewish world. So he mentioned two of the famous who did he mean by so he meant the reform the reforming ortors. He mentioned two of them to me. I was shocked that he he knew who they were but but he he had them right. He understood them perfectly. So he said that um there's a mahalik I I later found it in reptic I think that's what he was referring to that there's always an equation between our enemies and ourselves. So when there is uh um for instance there's there's a mishra there's going to be a bum and vice versa and by the by the tanoyim so there were the great great philosophers and and we had the but but each time that there's a diminion we lose something also so so he was talking about in in in Rabonus that's not the point anymore to be the godlad to be the god it's good it's very important But he told me Mudafashain mentioned and he told me in an incredible line. I believe it is printed someplace but he told it to me. What did he mean hashtain mentioned? That we have to understand people. He said I'll tell I'll tell you I'll tell you exactly what he said. He said that um mentioned there are people that learn a cyer and there are people that learn you know whatever it is learn ash that means to understand a person and and his understanding his we can call it psychology but psychology of human beings was incredible he just understood people way beyond um any visible um uh let's say psychosis or neurosis or or or or symptoms. He he went down deep into their and then did what was good for them, what they needed. And so he decided that there's um uh there's a a story I mean I I think it's made the rounds of the Kim Berlin group but I I don't know if the rest of the world has heard it where um there was somebody that was planning to go into uh Kyo and he pushed him into and um and it turned out that he had a very bad stutter and he didn't think that he he could go into because he could not articulate ate and and Shiva very clandestinely and and and um surreptitiously um got somebody to do speech therapy with him without the person knowing that he was getting speech therapy and he they became a crackerjack superstar rebby but he said that in Ko and he w he wanted desperately to go into kle learn for a number of years like everybody else and then but he said he would have gotten lost and he would have been I think he said the lion was he would have been ruined for life and knew what he needed got it for him and I don't I guess by now the person found out but that's amazing that Rahuna had like his own rebi yes to channel the talents and abilities of every talmud in their individual way sending this one to Rabonus this one to this one to etc etc and that's something that we definitely miss that uh to be able to direct youngsters. And with that, I'll I'll come to our closing question. I think we could speak to the RA for hours. I know I could. I'm enjoying talking to you. I we could go on and on uh with about Rahuda with stories. I'm sure there are many we didn't get to. Maybe we'll have to book the RA for another session. Be my my honor. But just about Ravutnner. Just about Rava. We appreciate you making the effort to come down here. Me out of the screen. But whether it's from Rahutner, whether it's from Ra M Weinberg, from Bing Rabonus, if there's a message that you could give over to those of a younger generation, and I'm including those who are already married with children, those who may have married children of their own, maybe brim, single girls growing up in a tumultuous world. What guidance, what piece of advice, what insight could you offer to us having seen what you've seen, having experienced what you've experienced? It's a tall order. It's a tall order, but it's a very good wise question. I wish I had as wise an answer as the question is, but um I would say that um none of the people that I learned from had easy lives. And Dasha always this meaning raises always bemoone the fact and this is in print that when we write even art scroll biographies sometimes skip the part that um uh would illustrate and would uh help the younger generation to know that everybody goes through ups and downs. So, so the um the line that the Rashiva said was and I I've published this myself but in the Rashiva's name that the wrote his classic cafer to when he was in his 20s I believe 25 27 something very young so fast forward 70 50 years now is in his 70s he's still writing so you would say wow and if you're very from oh look at that he was so brilliant when he was 25 that when he's 75 he's still writing great swarm No, he's so much better at 75. It's an insult to say to somebody the 50 years doesn't do anything for you. The term, I think, is heographies, right? That to where where you're skipping over the portions of growth and maybe even trial and tribulation. And I think that's what the right exactly. And he said this about the I remember people didn't like it at the time. He said this publicly by the way in a mimer. He he alluded to this that who knew what the's own struggles were not to speak how could you say such a thing no on the contrary so that is a very big I think to everybody that's struggling because that struggling he said this so many times struggling is a sign of life no struggle is a sign of unfortunately of death and destruction we appreciate that we appreciate this book the book is a masterpiece it's a blueprint for aliyah, for growth, for self-improvement. It's it's gives it gives a person a good feel when it's read. Each chapter is easy to read on its own, which is also what makes the book so appealing. The book shuts out well. The should continued guiding people, influencing people, raising them up. Thank you again for joining us. Amen. Thank you, Rabbi Hik Lamar.