Inside ArtScroll Season 2 Episode 17: Interview with R’ Eli Stefansky

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Inside Art Scroll. Today we are privileged to be joined by Reb Elli Stfansky of Eritis. Thank you Rebelli for joining us. Thank you for having me. Famed Dafi mager among many other accomplishments. So, I'd like to get right into it. Your Dia Mijir, which is now worldrenowned, recently ran some kind of promotion of some sort, giving out art scroll Gammoras to get people to join your shar. And since we're in art scroll territory here, we'll start off with that. What exactly did your sheer do? And what could you tell us about how your offer of giving people free garumas for them to join your shar compelled people or propelled people or influenced them to join your shar? Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Thanks for the tour. An amazing facility. Beautiful. Um, there were a bunch of guys from the shar that wanted to do something to give back and uh bring more people into learning. They came with they came up with the idea to um give them an incentive, give them a gamarra and uh it was basically a guy by the name of Yasi Klein from my Nano Gans helped him out a lot and a bunch of other guys they got together and um started promoting this idea. give a free gumar, come join the shir, you'll enjoy it. Free gumar and that's how uh it took off. And Bar Hashem, I believe we gave out close to 1,800 gumaras. Wow. We gave out over a thousand art scrolls and then different other gumaras as well. But tremendous, it was a tremendous uh push and uh we're getting tremendous feedback. And these are people who committed to join me. You have to commit. You have to watch two three shir I don't know exactly the amount but you watch the sh and if you don't like it you move on you like it you continue and bashem you know 30 days after that promotion most of these people are still on so it's amazing we're seeing tremendous jump in numbers but it's unbelievable your shar has experienced I would say since really since the cas an unbelievable growth both in the people who are watching you now live and those who listen to your recordings. I don't know if you remember, I didn't speak to you about this before we did the, you know, started the interview. I spoke to you a couple of years ago before you were so famous. Do you remember? I reached out to you before the CMAS. I was putting out the magazine for the CMAS asked me to do it and I reached out to you at the time because I came across your 8minut Khazara. That was you. That was me. Oh, okay. We didn't even make that connection. You remember? Yeah. and we had an article and anyway we we so at the time you weren't as famous as you are now I guess a lot of promotion and advertising helped and also the tremendous increased interest in Dafomi in general has brought many more viewers and listeners to Major Magir including yourself um and it's amazing to for me to watch I remember when I first contacted you a couple years ago till now how much uh your popularity has grown and it's a big for you to be able to be Marbit's Tyra on a daily basis to so many people and uh we'll get into certain signature characteristics of your sheer and things that you do to really people's interests and keep them engaged. Um but before we do that I'm sure I want to I want to jump in here because you mentioned there's uh so the name of that publication is a so I want to tell you a beautiful thing. Um, so we were discussing. I I didn't realize it was you and I was all excited. I remember I was on in the safari. I was in the middle of the jungle and you called me and I think I was there. Pretty sure. And uh I was like, "Wow, I'm going to get a free advertisement in this ham and it goes out to the 100,000 people on we printed 150,000 copies. 150,000 copies. Unbelievable. How could can't get any better." So I was all pumped. Wow. the eight-minute daff is going to take off and everything and then the the public you I spoke to you said the publication is way too big and you had to take out all these things. I called it my father and I said, "Okay, listen. I understand if I have a monetary loss because and everything, but how do you explain a loss over here? I could have gotten from I had a thousand uh viewers on the 8minute d and I could take it to 10,000. How do you exp how do you how do I deal with that?" And my father told me, he said, "Whatever that number is supposed to be, that's the number you're going to get. It's not going to make a difference." And so because I wasn't in the publication, I said we have to do something else. And it turned out to be a big braha. The numbers they grew. It was it was unbelievable. So I mean you just it goes to show that you think it comes from here but it comes from another place has plans. It it is true that we cut out a lot of material because the magazine. Now you have kota, don't you? I'm not sure but but apparently you forgave me because you came anyway for the interview. So, but it's you know, it's beautiful. It's nice to see the growth and what you've done. You mentioned next time. You're going to get me next time. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. If I have the to do it, great. No question about it. Um and it is true that you despite the fact that it didn't make the katim, you went ahead and you did all these creative types of things to try to draw people in. Um you mentioned your father. Take us back to your youth. Where did you grow up? We know that you live in Ramat Chameish now in Aritzel. You weren't born in Aritzero, were you? I was born in Lakewood. Okay. And uh there's not enough time in the interview, but basically we lived in Long Beach in Farway. I did a I did the Dora thing. My father's a Rebi in Chayash um Boro Park, Flatbush, Kensington, Eritis, a few trips to Israel back and forth. I learned in uh yeshivan in Israel which is a high school in Israel. Then we made our way back to America. So when you say you you you learned in yeshivan that's ma initel right now I was told tell me if I'm correct that you learned by the left correct absolutely one of the right what grade what equivalent grade would that have been? Uh that's 11th grade. He was the sheer gimmel of uh panovich and that panova they put the words and uh lemon was the parallel share. So they gave the two. I was lucky to have he was Did you realize at the time that your rebi was one of the No. No. Lean was considered from the then was considered the best mag. He was he was older and everything but he wasn't pictures sort of but people didn't go to ask that sort of thing but he was a phenomenal mager. It was unbelievable to learn by him. Would you say that formed your in any way or was that did that happen? I was I was younger. I was younger than everybody else. He picked on me a lot. Mil goki, you know, I was younger and not as good as the rest of the guys in the year, but uh it was it was a great experience. Even though you were an American kid in an Israeli yeshiva, you were able to acclimate well. I was yeah I picked up Hebrew pretty quickly and uh and it wasn't easy and I wasn't from the better guys in the shar but what happened then for bass medish what happened the next I learned in pic for two years by mayor stern and then from there I did something crazy I went which is not acceptable really but was great for me I went from pic to Berlin and then the mirin to so and at that point would you say that you had a a tremendous Kishmak and learning. Did you see yourself as a majir? What did you view yourself at that point? So my father my father is a is a big massman. He learns all day night. Um he wears tal and fill and you know he's a serious he's from from the from a very young age what two three years old whenever I remember he's always with the gar learning all day long. So I obviously I wanted I looked up to my father and I wanted to learn but I um I have a different personality than him. um a little a little bit wilder and you know the ADD or whatever it is and it wasn't I tried I tried to you know I learned in Kylo for six years it just wasn't it wasn't where was that where did you learn I learned kerlin I learned in stroll for three years in the mirror mh um it just never lasted you know I tried and I pushed myself and I I wanted to do this but I didn't find my niche you know it wasn't at any given opportunity, if there was a ski trip or something, I'll just I would book out of there and run, go skiing. So, and I realized, hey, maybe this is not for me. So, my father wasn't very happy, but left Kyle and uh went to work doing in the beginning, I was doing catering, dabbling in real estate a little bit. Uh rent, where were you living at this at this moment in time? Moved to Chicago. Okay. moved to Chicago and uh started opened up a a catering business and uh was doing renovations. I learned how to be an electrician, a plumber, you know, I was doing physical labor. The the idea was to eventually go into real estate and know the business from the bottom up. So, can I ask you a personal question? At that Sure. At that point in your life, were you were you committed to any serious Tyra learning on a on a regular basis? Um, yes. At that point, I was giving a shar. I actually did the Afiami cycle as a majir. So, I did eight years, but the shar I don't want to tell anybody, but the Shir only had about five to six people for eight years. It was very stagnant. By the way, most Amal used to be like that. It's only a recent phenomenon that people have hundreds, thousands watching, viewers, listeners, right? It's a little shadas and uh my brother-in-law's father uh came over to me one day and just said, "Hey, Ronnie Shabbat, you want to give us a shar?" And I was like, "Shir, okay, fine." You know, prepared an hour or two. Wasn't, you know, didn't take up the day. Mhm. And uh yeah, so I was but I I really was hoping for more and learning was always in the back of my mind, but okay, it didn't work out. Maybe one day. So this is how many years ago are we talking now that you're giving this year? You're you're running a catering business. This was uh at least 15 years ago. About 15 years ago. Okay. And what was the next step in your journey? So then um I grew a successful real estate company, bought a lot of real estate and managed it and you know that sort of thing. Had a lot of employees, built a lot of homes. How did you go from being a caterer to owning a lot of real estate? I imagine there's a I want to go into that. There's a transition there. Well, so I I was flipping a lot of homes. I I was good at renovation. I was renovating, buying uh dilapidated homes and renovating them, flipping them. And um it's a long story. I don't know if you want to go into it, but a guy came over to me during one of the weddings. I was running a wedding and he said, "I have uh 2,000 units in Indianapolis. Are you interested?" And uh I said, "How much?" He said, " $65 million or something." And I was like, "Are you crazy?" You know, like I'm doing a couple, you know, $65 million. I'll see you later. And you know, I just kept on asking people how their chicken is and you know, and uh that night I went home and I was like I I rehashed that conversation and uh I started talking to myself and like why not? What's why can't you do 2,000 apartments? You know, you could do a 100, you could do 200. And I started going through this whole thing, this um basically thinking out of the box of how I could do 2,000 apartments. And the idea was to if I could do a hundred, it might be difficult, but I could do it and I could borrow money and get a loan and um why don't I just treat the 2,000 as a hundred, you know, just pieces, another 100, another 100, and um I started working on that. I called up the guy, said, "I'm interested." Drove down there with my minivan. The guy looked at him, he says, "A guy in a minivan? He's going to buy this property." He says, "No, he has other cars. Don't worry about it. you know and uh we um so basically I went around to people sh you interested in 100 units in Indianapolis sure what's your experience I don't really have but I'm done you know and I started selling it off and I had to quit my catering job I took a big risk quit worked it worked it for three months and it worked out so you you move into real estate and you ended up in at some point. What how did that happen? Okay, so we had we built a very nice home in Chicago, 12,000 square ft. It had the elevator and had, you know, I don't remember it was like 12 bathrooms, maybe. Crazy stuff. My wife is an interior designer. Um, she designed every bathroom with different granite and my guys from my company, they built the house. was incredible house, 12ft ceilings, the whole thing. We moved in and I started thinking about it's like what are you doing? You have this big giant house, you have all these fancy cars, successful business, but where what do you have to show for up there? How's your bank account doing up there? It's pretty weak. and you know rehashing this and like a midlife crisis kind of thing. Mhm. Pushing 40 and um I have nothing to show for it if I died today. So I have all the stuff I'm not going to benefit from it. So I need to start investing in my bank account up there. Spoke to my wife. My wife said uh I said something about Israel. She said Israel. I I don't remember. And I said, "Okay, let me check it out." And I came downstairs like an hour or so later. I said, "I bought tickets. I'm going to Israel." She said, "What?" "Yeah, going to Israel. I got to check it out." "Okay, see you later." Came back a few days later. I said, "Uh, I was inabh and uh I like it. It's cool." I saw some throwing a ball with his son, guys. a beard that sits is hanging out, but he's playing ball with his kids. It's like well-rounded people. It's a great place. Only to find out later, Simka told me he's never played with his son before and never after. Anyway, so a couple weeks after that, we were on a plane, we moved to Israel, left everything behind. We came with 12 suitcases to Israel. Most of our stuff is still in Chicago now. Yeah. Never. I'm just curious. You felt that whatever rous growth you were seeking, you couldn't tap into that in Chicago. You had to move to Tisro for that. You know, Chicago is a great place, but I felt that I was in some sort of race almost like building another house, building my this friend is building a house and this friend is driving that car. It's a struggle when it comes to these things. Everybody lives in an apartment building. Not everybody, but 95%. You know, we live in an apartment building today on the fourth floor in a apartment that could fit into one bedroom in our house that we had in Chicago. And that's how people live. Nobody's showing off. Oh, my apartment is better than your apartment. It's just nobody cares. You know, we're talking about Nakman Seltzer. Nakman Selzer came over to me when I first moved there and he says, you know, Ellie, I got to tell you this Camry that you bought and it was a 10-year-old Camry. He says, "It doesn't pass here in this neighborhood. It's too fancy. What are you doing?" He was serious. I was shocked. They said, "What? I left my Lexus. I had the newest and the top model. I left it in our stroll. I could have brought it here for $2,000 and you're making fun of me driving a Camry that every kill guy in America drives." He says, "It's not the way to do it here." So I said, "Okay, fine." So I went and I bought my Lexus. I just You're going to make fun of my Camry. Might as well drive a nicer car. Exactly. That's But he's right. In in the neighborhood, people are not driving, you know, nice cars. It's just not a thing. Corola this old so the focus is a little different over there I'm not saying it's perfect and every place has but in terms of learning like the way the shar grew so these guys from the neighborhood they came over to me like I was doing this synopsis 8 minute uh was really I was doing all seven daf in you know in 45 minutes on a Thursday night and the guy said hey why don't you start a shear so I said okay but who shows up to this year guys that knew how to learn good learners sat around the first day we had seven guys more than I had in Chicago and then the second day was 10 and it grew very quickly you know people are thirsty for learning and this was how long after you moved here to h probably three four years now just before we move on I'm intrigued to to learn how did your wife deal with the move to adjustment culture cultural differences and so on and your children how it didn't impact that's a very good question Um, she's not adjusted yet. In her mind, we just had to buy a house in Chicago to pacify that. You know, she want she wants to feel like she has something in America. We never met Aliyah yet. We're there for eight years and she thinks she's coming back one day, you know, and we might, but right now we take it one one day at a time and it's very very difficult. Her whole family is in Chicago. She has one brother Rashiva and Sarin Mishi Freeman and so she has one brother she has cousins but you know her parents excuse me her parents are are in Chicago her sister sister-in-law or brother you know so they're mainly over there so it's an adjustment and your and your children and and those type of yeah some did better than others they picked up the language and um the ones that we thought would have the hardest time have the best time they still they all miss America they you know you come you come back for time we come back every summer for a few weeks and every pes we're back besides during co but yeah so you're there you you start a year and at that point it's bigger than what it was in America but it wasn't what it is today so what what happened in the interim what happened was that I I decided to to start if we're going to start a share I might as well use some of my business experience with the shear. So I came up with you know different ideas and I have to say that one of the biggest nissim is that the guys in the shar till this very day so many of them are such a big part of it. The the original guys they all have full-time jobs but they they give over hours every single day. So it's a really it's a it's a team effort and they all bought into it from day one. They saw the potential and they saw. So I would come with charts. I would come with pictures. Try to make it interesting. Good coffee. I figured, you know, the guys need to have a coffee. They So we went and bought a nice coffee machine. Anything to make learning more fun, more exciting. And you were giving the share the same time every day. Every day. And till this day, we do the same. 7:15. 7:15 in the morning. And you were giving a full length share, right? Plus your 8minut. Plus the 8 minute khazar. And the 8minute khazar. you were doing privately recording and then releasing that. Correct. Right. And editing. I would edit the 8 minute and I'll do it in Hebrew also. And we should mention a lot of the posters and pictures that you use which you became famous for are diagrams and charts that you yourself made. I know you didn't bring any of the paraphernalia with you today, but anyone who has ever seen your shar has seen how you really I'm not very artistic, but I try, you know, little I use word document and I put some lines together, you know, whatever. Anything to make or if there's a funny picture I find on Google that has to do with the do or, you know, anything interesting that will wake the guys up a millshshire something say, whoa, why do you bring the picture? Oh, interesting. You know, giggle a little bit and we we go right there. Good morning. Today's shar is sponsored by in honor of our I got to show you what they ate in those days. It's galdica galdica. Unbelievable stuff. I don't want to ever forget this kout. It's big stuff. It's very very stuff. And we talk about it a lot in chass. We're only going to do this once. I kept milk for over six months to get it to the right consistency. This is sour. Should be sour. I have a piece of bread. That's mish mold mold. Unbelievable mold. And now we're going to take we're going to do this. Yeah. Volume. The smell. Let me let meing brings here the invice. It says that the the skull was floating. So it's a little bit not too much. At what point did you feel that the shear took the leap to the next level where it's wow this is this is something bigger than I ever envisioned. We prepared a lot for brahas. We knew that the beginning of shas a lot of guys are going to come on and we wanted to be ready for that. So it a year before we already started going into preparations for brahab. One of the things we did is we built a building just for the dafim. It's called measy. It's a large room with TV screens and and good coffee and different machines and stuff. It's like a man cave for Tyra. So but it has regular minion all the time or is it just for the shear? It's all based around the shear. the minion chakras before the shar main chakras after the shear and eventually we have a kyle mdy kyle which is going to move in there we can't use it right now we gave it to yeshiva but as soon as they move out we're moving in there's a she at night you know it's all about that we have the art scroll shassim right in the front cuz we didn't have room for bookcases the bookcases are next to kaidesh so you have araidesh ars on this side arm Now you moved to Israel. You're basically giving a share. What happened to your real estate business? What happened to Parnosa? I'm sure uh people are curious to know what's the secret to right to doing that. Well, I I used to fly into America every every month for three four days at a time. And as I got more involved in the DAFF, it became less frequent. It was every two months, then every three months. And Bam. I have a great partner, Beny Friedman. Not my brother-in-law, but he's a guy from Chicago with the same name. And he does a phenomenal job. And it's I have I've been talking. I really believe that the less I mix into my business, the better off the business is. But it it took time to build up. I you know, it was an hour a day, two hours a day, three hours a day. I was learning four. built it up until the point where there's hardly any time for the business. I'm on top of it somewhat. You know, I speak to him I try to speak to him once a day for a few minutes just to see what's going on. But he he he runs the business. Now, I'm going to play the role of cynic for a second. During during many of Yeshu that I've heard, you're you actually watch watch listen. Really? Yes. I listen on a daily basis. I listen to Borenstein here. I'm a me member of the Kabur but I love I love him. He's a great guy. Repurly is phenomenal. But uh you got to learn the daf several times. So we get a taste of MDY. Is he going to be here also? We'll see maybe if he sees you're here. Rurley knows he's invited. So each year she like rips yours and so many others each have their own flavor and are accomplishing the ultimate goal of getting people to learn more. That's at the end of the day, which actually is a perfect segue to what I wanted to ask you. You on your sheer unabashedly almost plead with people to learn more. You tell people to learn more. You encourage them in a in a phenomenally positive way. But the cynic will say rebell. It's very nice for you to say that you know you have a successful business is there. It's very easy for you to tell people spend more time on learning and less time on business. Meanwhile, many of the people watching you and listening to you are thinking to themselves, "Are you serious? I'm barely making ends meet. I'm trying my hardest and uh I just don't have more time in my day." So, what would you say to that cynic who says, "Rebelli, who are you to preach to us to learn more in your mat if it comes easier?" It's a great question. So, let me ask you, during CO, we were all locked in our homes. People weren't going to work. What were they doing? They're sitting at home. What were they doing? They were learning. They don't have where to go on vacation. What are they doing? They're not busy with alasa, but they're not learning. Why not? Here's the situation. You're like Ellie Stfansky, so to speak. He he doesn't have to earn a living. So, why is he learning? But the point is, really, you don't have to learn all day. there. Everybody has those 45 minutes in the day that they could they could sacrifice so to speak. They could dedicated to Tyra. Why not another 45 minutes? You don't have 45 minutes. Anybody that's that busy with that doesn't have 45 minutes, there's something wrong. That means they don't they don't really believe. If you think you have to work 15 16 hours a day, then you don't have it right. You have to work. I'm not saying it shouldn't work. You have to earn a parasa, but there must be a time in the day. It's better if you do it before you go to work. If you can't do it after, but there has to be 45 minutes. But yeah, people tell me that big. So that same guy that tells it to me, I'm looking at him. I said, you didn't you didn't you weren't at work for a year. You didn't go to work. You're taking the check from from the government. So did you sit down and open up a gumar once during that whole year during co So it's easy to it reminds me of a m you know a guy came to I think it was the somebody came to said I'm a water carrier it's not fair these guys are in k they earn as much as I do sitting and learning so says what do you know what could you do what could you learn no so what could I could read okay here take it to him and read so he went to the medish and he started reading and reading and after an hour he got sick and tired of He said, "I'm done. I want to do my water carrying." But listen, the point is not the whole day. Another half hour, another 40 minutes, another hour, hour and a half. Take it slowly. There's always time in the day. Always. You could always instead of watching those YouTube videos, whatever it is, or these interviews, learn Tyra 100%. Now, as far as your preparation, how long does it take you to prepare for an average year? All day. Really? So it's constantly on your mind the next days do constantly. Constantly. I get up somewhere in the three area cuz I give it a share at 7:15. So before 4:00 I'm up and I go to sleep at 1. All day I'm doing the DAF, but I sleep in the afternoon. I take a quick nap. Uhhuh. And that carries you through that. Yeah. and's commitments, other events. Do you just cut those out of your life because you're committed to the DAV? Yeah, a lot of it is unfortunately not there. I don't vacation anymore like I'm supposed to restaurants with the wife, you know, a lot there's the sacrifice because there are a lot of people uh relying on it and it takes me I'm not that good. So it takes me a lot of hours to prepare. When you say you're not that good, what do you mean that besides you're being No, I don't. I'm who I am and I'm not I'm not the biggest bishian in the world. I'm not the biggest learner in the world. I'm a bal boss at the end of the day. I'm a ba boss. I'm a real estate guy. I just decided I want to do this. So for a real estate guy without a lot of background and you know I wasn't the best guy in Shiva. I wasn't the top learner that sort of thing. So it takes a lot of time and preparation. So in in preparing you open up the Gumari. You've you've done the da yi cycle in the past. Do you you have recollections? Do you feel like you're preparing from scratch? Take us through that process. 3:00 in the morning. you what's the uh well 3:00 in the morning that's so yeah uh no by 3:00 I'm basically prepared it's the final steps um my memory is terrible that's I believe it's bad so most of the time when I open up the dah it's brand new brand I mean there's a lot of sugis and a lot of ideas that we have uh through the you know through shots that come up over and over so I'm familiar with those but just the daft the way it is now you know so I I learn it by myself I have a phenomenal kusa Kramer who knows Katar is a tremendous bishan I go over with him afterwards for about an hour and then I'm on my own for the rest of the day does play any role in the preparation it actually does Hebrew English both English I have the I have a few arts school shassim I own two, I should say a couple. I have two shassim and uh I use the art school every day. Every day. Um first of all, I need some translations in the words, you know, just because the in English and my, you know, because I grew up in art stroll for a bunch of years, the good years, my English is not the best. So I go to the art school. I love looking through the notes. So I'm not just saying it because I'm here in art school. I I know it's a bush. the art school and mag looks art I look at the art school I'm sure the many of the participants also do and many and you know many actually come with the iPad they're looking at the the digital you know the digital art I was just speaking to Rabi Kescal Danziger who works here he's the editorial director of the Shanstein Talmud and he mentioned to me that the Fuian and arts scroll the art scroll gumar the Shanstein Talmud have a symbiotic relationship The Dapyoi benefits from Shaenstein Gomorrah and the Shanstein Gumar benefits from Dyomi. It goes both ways and both of them have grown kind of together. It's really an incredible thing to watch. Art school took it to the next level. There's no question. I mean Rome Shapi brought the idea out and Art School I believe just took it to the whole to a whole another level. Brought to the masses. It's unbelievable. It's a that's unimaginable. What would you attribute the the growth of the of Diamurim specifically like these shurim over the last two years? What do you think that's attributed to? Is it the technology? Is it the fact that someone mentioned me the other day that it was all due to corona because people were were using Zoom more? What do you think it is? It's combination. I mean before co the the beginning of shots was was crazy. We had we built a base measure for 80 people. We had aboutund and something people per year just it was people were standing. People are excited. People are excited about learning. They are. And if you give them the the right formula and it's it's understandable and it's easily accessible. They just go on their phone as they're driving. They're watching the share. They put it down on the dashboard. I don't know how much they're watching. It's depends if you're a New York driver or not, but they're watching, they're listening. Today, you have it's on everything, you know, you have um the podcast and the and YouTube and if you don't hold of YouTube, you have Torah anytime and and call and websites and apps. Everybody has apps today. It's it's unbelievable. When I log on to your shar, I'm always amazed 12:15 in the morning hour time when the time discrepancy is seven hours and I scroll through on Zoom and I see the number of people from different time zones. So in 7:15 in the morning, but you have people 12:15 at night, it's a kas that they're logging on. They want to watch it live because it's a special experience. It's very interesting to see. We have almost 100 people logging in 12:15 New York time from New York, right? It's it's unbelievable that they'll stay up 12:15 a.m. till about 1 till about 1 one o'clock or something. Yeah. If you had to make a 60 second elevator pitch for your share, people are watching. You want them to join your share. What would it be? What what's the overall without thinking? You don't give me any I'll give you a little time. No, it's okay. I'm sure this I'm sure this is something that you think about because you've I've done it a few times. It's always different. It depends on the person but the idea is first of all the daft entire benefits you by learning the daft become a better person. So that's number one. You become a better person, a better husband, a better father, a better business person and you feel good about yourself. That's the main thing. You feel good about yourself and you're doing ruts in Hashem. It's the best way to connect that. And there's really I think I believe every single person I bump into really wants to learn at the end of the day. They want to learn Tyra. They just feel they're not you know first of all a lot of yeshiva guys we learned the yeshivas and all the lumbus and we're pounding lumbas for so many years and and some people are like well I'm going to learn for but for the amiratum. By the way, I I I think that that may have been the prevailing notion at one point. It's not that way anymore. Um, but nevertheless, you have the real the real yeshiva guys, the real they're still looking for that lumbus for the for the raid, for the this, for the that I need a kusa. I need a this. I'm going to learn that with with a guy with charts and charts. Come on. But at the end of the day, Tyra is here and everybody wants to learn Tyra and it's and it's it's fun. It's it's it's it's Gishmak. It's a it's a family. I mean, I don't know about the other Shiran, but our Shir is is literally a family. People are there for each other. They look out for each other. They know each other on a firstname basis. Uh people go to different cities, countries, they they pick each other up from the airport. They they get together. They they go out together. It's it's it's it's mishbah. It's really mishbah. I know when you've been going now in your time in America, you've been going city to city and giving sharim in Chicago and the five towns and I know you've received a tremendous uh reception from so many of the people who listen to your share. What's that been like? It's incredible. I went to uh they asked me if I could come to Miami and I said, "Okay, fine. When?" Tomorrow. Okay. Tomorrow. So, they put up a WhatsApp. I'm going to be in Miami. Couldn't believe it. 80 people showed up. 80 people from Miami, you know, all walks of life and this and that. Ellie, Ellie, you know, people asked me to sign their arts schools. I had auto autographs. It was funny. Um, five towns again without a lot of notice. 1:00 on a Tuesday afternoon, over 100 people showed up. So, yeah, it's people are into it. They they feel it's changing their lives for the better and you know so you're saying besides for the learning part of it that uplifts them but they feel like they're connecting and they belong to something. Yeah that's an important part 100%. It's it's they they feel they belong they the camaraderie it's unbelievable unbelievable camaraderie. Going back to your share for a second when you prepare how do you decide what you include in your share? There's Gumar Rashi there's Tyus Rishim. I see you're selective about what you sometimes you'll throw in a tidbit. How do you decide what you want to include? Do you have a a mahal as far as going? It's a style. It's uh I I if something is boring, so to speak, even if it's important, they probably won't even say it. You know, this yes or no. If there's something exciting, something that will like people say, "What?" That's what I like to say, you know, something shocking, something interesting, something that's something that can bring home to the family to to to to learn Pes to say their night. Did you know you have to do a SA only like this, not like that? People just, you know, go like this, but there's a certain way your head has to be prepped. You know, certain things that you bring to suka to whatever it is, yiff. So any any kind of like that I'm I'm very big into and anytime I could stick in a little not like that but you know like something they could take home and uh be a better person. Is there a particular majer who you've heard or seen who you say wow you know there's an aspect of his delivery or his content that I'm going to try to incorporate or or someone who you model yourself after. I don't model myself after because I'm very unique and different and weird but I I did listen to Borum. I did I do you know I don't listen as much as I would like to. I don't have the time, but if I had the time, I would listen to him. It's a very different style, but he has some very good uh raid there. And uh so he's one who else doesn't come to mind really anybody, but there there are a lot of talented people out there, a lot of very good mager. Do you feel intimidated that you're the mager? You're sitting in a room. You mentioned many tell me from around the table and here you are kind of under the spotlight. You ever feel like you ever feel intimidated? When my comes to my sh I'm very intimidated. I don't get out. If my father came but yeah I mean it's you get used to it after a while but I have what to be intimidated by you know I'm I make mistakes all the time you know. I was going to ask you you ever get stuck in the middle of a garra? um you don't have chat or someone asks you a kasha and uh kind of stomps you um I just had in Chicago one of the first times it's unbelievable um an 11-year-old kid asked me a question I didn't have an answer worse than but no I take it in stride you know I said valdic unbelievable look at these Chicagoans a tremendous kid asked me kion and they told me oh lair asks a good caution but it happens worse than that is when you literally say the wrong share. You make a a mistake of a 2-year-old. It happens. One day I was I was saying a shir. This is going way back like three years ago. And in the middle of shar I said something like like a chicken was pregnant or something like mom or something completely didn't make any sense. You know like it happens things happen you know you you let it roll. You got to let it roll. You laugh you make fun of yourself. That's part of the thing I you know I'm big into making fun of myself during share. So speaking of a little milika that you have at the beginning of Yeshir, you started at some point reading emails. You make you make a a light comment, a joke. What what possessed you to do that? Because that also became part of your signature uh style. And I should mention I sent you an email a few weeks ago. Before I know it, I'm getting messages from people, you know, Rebelli. Uh I said, "Yeah, yeah, I saw it live." when you read my email on here or our friend Ribari Marrison right here at art school you pulled up his picture and everyone here had a good time with that but you do a lot of these creative types of things totally out of the box right but obviously it's part of what makes that kind of that camaraderie that feeling of a family exactly not so formal well it started you know in the beginning of somebody sent an email so I took the email I said you know it would be very interesting if every year I could read one of these, but nobody's sending emails. So, I read it and I kind of alluded to the fact that there are more and that, you know, sending more and it took off. You know, there's a day or two that we didn't have, but from that point on today, we were getting 30, 40 emails a day. Wow. And just yesterday, two days ago, I read three incredible emails. One of them literally made me cry. I had tears coming out of my eyes. Just crazy stories. a guy was is in the ICU and he's isolated from his family almost died and he's he's just with the Gumarra the Gomorrah is keeping him alive and and a guy that's not religious that with the archum a guy that's not religious I just read this two days ago maybe he got an archa and he's he's a funny guy he's he's in Los Angeles and it's bringing him back to Yiddish and he says that every night you take some sort of thing that's legal in Los Angeles to cut the the edge off. But now he doesn't have to take anything. He just learned from the art scroll. Wow. I'm serious. You know, the vert of the email is first of all to loosen everybody up. It loosens me up. Start off with some with a mil and uh some sometimes it's inspiring, sometimes it's funny, sometimes makes fun of me. It's just it's good stuff. But also you don't mind being self-deprecating. No, not at all. It's all part of its kishmach. Um, but it we get to know the different people. There's a Mendel Mitz from Bonosirus that writes in. There's a guy from from uh, you know, the Los Angeles, Harry Shalom, and then the from Williamsburg. And it's just and people start recognizing these names. So, it brings them together, you know? It's what's the hardest gum that you've ever learned? What's the most challenging gum that you've encountered? I don't know. But I do know I I can't recall off hand. I do know that on at least two occasions right before I went to sleep. I said, you know, I don't know this gimbar well enough to give a shir. And I stayed up the whole night. Just the whole night just seeing if I could get it a little easier, a little bit better. And uh it was very satisfying. After she somebody said, "Wow, you said it was a hard gamar. It was so easy." Like, okay. If you would have only known what what it took, right? Do you ever get nervous before you give this year? Every year before I go, there's a little bit of uh not anxiety of of you know, apprehensive. Yeah. Maybe like I hope this goes well today and you know, there's only 5,000 people watching and I got to make sure it's good. You know, it's one thing. I'm I'm a perfectionist so it needs to be right. I was going to say it's one thing if you're recording it privately. You could edit it. You could redo it. There's no editing. Well, there is a little bit of editing afterwards. But not we don't take out words and that sort they the editor puts in pictures and stuff like that. So you you have other people do that or you do that yourself? We have an incredible team. No, I don't do the editing. We have a guy Yseph Biliac who sits there and does editing and he does the editing on the 8minute video. It's like there's a bunch of I have a guy Gary Beosha. He sits there every single day. He doesn't get paid. He he has another full-time job. every day at least two hours he puts into the share just the tech stuff. He sits in a booth above the share manning the cameras and the this YouTube and the zoom and and feeding it in. You know how it works these days? There's the whole six screens and different things. It's one guy after another. You ever have a day where you wake up and you're just not motiv you don't have that motivation. You're not interested. It just it's not going and you don't have a choice to take a day off. Um I didn't have a day that I'm not motivated. But there are days that are very very difficult. My son got married. I had to do the daf before the after the during the brahas on vacation. There you can't just say okay I'm relaxed. There's no relaxation. You have to get the same try to get the same quality share out every single day 365 days a year. Any final message to our viewers? encourage them to join the eight minute to learn more for people who are going through uh tough times that even so they're able to uh spend a quality amount. Literally just yesterday, just yesterday I read an email. A guy was suicidal, suicidal, depression, got got divorced from guy, got divorced, decided to leave Yiddish Kite. He became suicidal and then he found the DA and he this is what he writes. He writes that the Daf saved his life. He's no longer suicidal. He doesn't have these thoughts. He's he feels like a new person. He doesn't know how long it lasts, but he's been doing this for a month. And even the daf will change a person's life and all you need to do is try it out once. Try it out once at least the fansky on to anytime at least the fans on YouTube whatever try it out once. Well, thank you Rebelli for coming in. Thank you for giving us some of your time. Just my humble braha. You should continue to inspire people by what you do, how you do it with the gishmak that you bring every day. and uh continue in your September. [Music]