Bill Clinton's Unforgettable Encounter With A Rabbi - Rabbi YY Jacobson

Thank you. You know, uh, a woman once asked me and she said, "Rabbi Jacobson, could you find me a perfect man, a perfect husband?" So I I said, "I could try, but give me the definition." You know, perfect is a very relative term. What's the definition of that perfect man you're looking for? And she said, 'In my book, the perfect man is someone who wakes up 5:00 in the morning. He makes his own bed. He makes breakfast for himself. Yeah, he is scheduled, principled, disciplined. He only surfs the web seven minutes a day. He only takes two calls a day. He does his own laundry. He doesn't see his wife as a slave. He makes his own food. He exercises and reads daily. Most importantly, you always know where he is. You're never secondguing where he is. He's stable, consistent, he's in the same place, and finally he goes to bed 9:00 at night. She says, "Rabbi, that's my definition of a perfect man. Where can I find such a guy? And I said in prison. You know, which is actually true. There was an American family. They were very proud of their lineage. They traced their lineage back to someone who came here on the Mayflower and they decided to write a book about the family history so that the continuing generations would know about their great ancestry. But in the middle of the research they got stuck. They came across a great great uncle by the name of Richard Smith III who was a petty criminal, a vicious criminal to the point that he was executed on the electric chair in Sinkync prison for his maim toim for his criminal and horrible deeds. Now, if it was a Jewish family, it wouldn't be a problem because we always make biographies about people and families and when we don't like the facts, we just delete them. They never existed. They never happened. We just know how to do that. But for that, you need a yakab. This family didn't know about that art of reinventing history based on your needs and social pressures and expectations and shukim and seminaries and schools and yeshivas and a lot of things that go on in Jewish minds. Not all present company excluded of course, but you know what I'm talking about. So what do you do? So they go to this expert and he says, "I'll write it the way it's supposed to be written, loyal to historical accuracy but not compromising integrity." And with baited breath they wait for the publication of the book and they fetch the book and they go to that page and they read the following paragraph. My dear friends, great great uncle Richard Smith III occupied a very important chair in a central governmental institution. He was tied down to his position with the strongest of cords. And despite many attempts, he could not tear himself away from this important position where he remained with the profoundest of shackles and cords linked and connected to this important cheer until his last breath. His death came as a sudden shock. Friends, you got to know how to tell a story. There's telling a story and there's telling a story. And in many ways, this month, the next month is a story. It's a story that we tell every year. But you have to know how to tell the story because it's how you tell the story that makes all the difference. You all know about the three Jews in Palm Beach, Florida. They lived in New Jersey. They retired in Palm Beach. They would go golfing every morning and then play bridge, drink gin. And they would tell each other jokes. Now, how many Jewish jokes are there? Do you know? How many Jewish jokes are there? Huh? I'm an expert. This is my field. So, there are 300 Jewish jokes. That's it. There are. Okay. 100 of them about rabbis, 50 lawyers, 25 doctors. The rest is about food, wives, mothers-in-law, husbands, and that's basically it. And then they're recycled in different ways. So what do three Jews in Palm Beach do? They tell Jewish jokes. And they're plotting and laughing and giggling. After 10 years, they got a little bored. So they decided instead of telling the joke, they'll number every joke. And they just say 43. And you know what joke 43 is? Everybody will laugh. Any one day a fourth guy joins and he sits down. He doesn't understand what's going on. Joke 120, everybody's laughing. Joke 69, everybody's laughing. He feels like an idiot. And you want to be part of the click. You don't want to be an outsider. So he tries his luck and he gives a scream. 89 stonefaced. Nobody's laughing like the guy in the back there. Nobody's laughing. Stonefaced. He says, "What's going on? Why you not laughing? When you guys do the numbers, everybody's laughing. What? What's wrong? They say, "Listen, you have to know how to tell a joke." It's always how to tell the story. There's a story that we tell. We tell the story through rituals, traditions, customs, prayers, services, community, mitzvah. But how do we tell the story? How do we understand the story? A number of years ago, a man by the name of Mosha Erlanganger, an Israeli Jew, went to Germany for business before Yam Kipper. Because of weather problems in Germany, his flight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv got delayed and delayed and at some point they notified him that Bengurian airport is closed for Yum Kipper and they cannot make it home for Yum Kipper. Disappointed he called home shared with his wife and family that he won't be home for Yam Kipper. the first time since his wedding that he would not pray yum kipper in the shul where he moved his yeshiva his yeshiva community. He loved the people. He loved the caner. He loved the rabbi. He loved the worshippers. It was just his it was his lifeline. And on the holiest day of the year, he felt very isolated and disappointed. But you don't always choose where you are at a given point in life. curveballs come our way constantly although we try to avoid them and he booked a hotel near the great shul of Frankfurt he walks to the great shul moments before Yam Kipper he had his talit his prayer shaw but he didn't have the prayer book for yam kipper he didn't have the white coat which we call the kett slippers he comes into the synagogue the gaba the assistant of the synagogue comes over welcome to the great sh of Frankfurt where you from? He says, "I'm from Israel. I got stuck here. Unfortunately, I have to be here." Yam kipper. Can you give me the attire I need? He says, "Absolutely. Here is your attire. Here is your prayer book. And here is your seat." I don't know if any of you have been to the great sh of Frankfurt. It's worth a visit. It's splendorous. It's an architectural marvel. And it fills up on Yumkipper. He's sitting there in Yiddish. The word would be fak. How do you say fak despondent, dejected, frustrated, annoyed? You know that feeling? Not in this, but you know the feeling of people sitting and you just you're not in your natural habitat. You're out of your comfort zone. He really felt, you know, just like completely out of place. And then the caner went up and started. [Music] I call today. The caner's name was Soduk Greenwalt, also a Jew from Israel, who would fly in every year for the high holy days to Frankfurt to serve as the Kazan as the caner in the great synagogue of Frankfurt. And he led the congregation few thousand Jews with passion and enthusiasm to the point that the middle of Kidra the caner broke down sobbing and Mosha from Israel never heard such a kidre. He never heard such emotion. He never heard such passion. He never saw such concentration. He himself was moved to tears. And after the davening, after the services, he went to thank the caner and they got into a little schmoo. What are you doing here? I got stuck. And the caner says, I come from Israel too every year. My parents were Holocaust survivors. So it's very meaningful for me to be able to lead the services in the reestablished Jewish community in Germany after the second world war in this great synagogue which was remained from preholocaust Germany and republic says maybe God wanted you here so that you should appreciate yam kipper he said I'm asking myself the same question, but I'm also asking, what made you so emotional by Colidre? What was it? What's the story? And the caner looks at him and says, "Maybe you're here just to hear the story." And he heard the story and he shared it. And tonight I share it with you. And he says to him, "A few years ago, I prayed." And those of you who are caners know yum kipper is not an easy day. It's not an easy day for rabbis, but it's a much harder day for caners and morning and the afternoon musf and was doing everything. And at the end of that day, he was knocked out. hunger pangs, but more importantly the thirst. A parched voice after singing the whole day and the voice resonating in the great synagogue of Frankfurt. He was really ready for a cold drink of water, a nice Jewish bite and a good night's sleep in the Frankfurt hotel. Getting ready to go back home for the holiday of Sukkot in the Holy Land where Soduk lived. He walks out of shul. He puts away his cantorial garments and attire. The lights are off. The janitor is already finished cleaning up. You know that feel, right? There's three people left in Shul. You know that feel. And he's the last one. Janitor shuts the lights. He goes out. He has to walk a few blocks to his hotel. He's really looking forward to the meal and drink that awaits him in his hotel room. And as he walks out the front gates and he closes the gates which lock, he sees a Jew bewildered standing in front of the gate. He looked like in his 60s and with a mixed accent of German, Russian and Yedish. He says in this German Yedish Russian broken vocabulary Why are the gates to the synagogue locked? Is Kipper? Is tonight not Yam Kipper? Sodic understood immediately. He says, "What do you mean?" He says, "I came here for Kidra. I came here for Yam Kipper. It's usually packed. There's usually 2,000 people. Why are the gates locked? So the Greenwalt says, I didn't have a heart to tell him. I was quiet. He says, "Enter for me. Answer me. Why are the gates locked?" At this point, the Jew is very agitated. He's nervous. He's somewhat frantic. I have no choice. Sodic says to tell him the truth. And I say, "My dear Yidala, I'm so sorry. Yum Kipper was last night. The gates are locked because the kiper is over. I'm going home. The Drew breaks down sobbing. Oi. Oi. Oi. Oi. Says, "Why are you sobbing? Why are you sobbing?" He says, "You don't understand. My parents barely survived the Holocaust and then they assimilated. They did not want to have to do anything with Judas and Judaism. They suffered too much. But one thing my father would do, he would go to synagogue on the night of Yamiper and before he died, he said, "We are an assimilated Jewish family, but we're Jewish." And he says, "How do you know that you're Jewish? When you go to synagogue on how you know you're Jewish and you're connected to 4,000 years of Jewish history." And he looks at the caner and he says, "In my life, I never missed Yamipper. When my father was alive and after he died, this year is the first time. At last, I'm not Jewish anymore. That's why I'm crying." What would you do? Saddic Greenwald knew exactly what he has to do. He put his hand on the Jew's shoulders and he said, "Come with me. Come with me." He opens the gate, takes him into shore, opens the lights, puts on his talis, his kittle, his khazen hat, goes to the caner, goes to the pulpit, puts this Russian German Jew right near him and he says, "We're going to do kitre, you and me, God." And he starts singing comid and suk says I'll tell you the truth. I'm a professional caner. Usually when I get up there's 2,000 people. You know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking a little bit about God. But what am I mostly thinking about? I got to impress the people. I want to impress the board of directors. I need a contract for next year. I want to get some compliments. I need some validation. I want to do a good job. I want to be liked. I want them to have a meaningful experience. But here I was alone. There was not one person in the sh. There was an old Jew, an assimilated Jew who knew nothing. Who was I singing for? But I felt God's presence with this Jew and I broke down crying and I sang Kidra and I felt all of Jewish history coming to life at that moment. I finished the Kidre. Send them my love. They probably want to hear. I finished the You can put it on vibrate, please. I finish the kidre. We we say the schma together. I give him a big hug and a big kiss. And I say, "My Jew, we just celebrated." The Jew looks at me and he says in Yiddish, "You will never know what you did for me." And he went home. And I went home. The next year I come to synagogue. He's there an onion kipper sitting in the front comes over to me he says you remember me I said of course I remember you says what you did for me nobody but me and God will understand says every year since when I say kidra I go back to that moment and it's so moving for me it's so emotional for me I cry that's what happens I heard this ribo shared this. He heard it from Kaz and saw the green walt and I thought to myself, you know, this story is so applicable not only in Frankfurt, our mine at the Ry River. How applicable this story is in the United States of America at the 21st century. Even for all of us good Jews who come to the synagogue, but we find the gates closed. No, I don't mean the physical gates. I mean our emotional gates, our spiritual gates. We often feel unmoved, uninspired, alienated, sometimes angry, dejected, apathetic, indifferent. They once asked to Drew, "What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?" And he said, "I don't know and I don't care." We often feel that the gates to our own heart, to our own soul are locked. Yeah. We go through the ritual. Your grandmother will kill you if you don't show up. Yum kipper. We have our seats. We have our tickets. We go through the roads. We have the prayer books. But my inner soul is often locked. I'm indifferent. There's a certain lifelessness, a numbness just doesn't speak to me. I may be there in the right time in the right place but emotionally I don't feel present and this is where this sh sodic taught me such a profound lesson and I think I'm not going to explain to you the lesson myself I'm going to allow former president of the United States Bill Clinton to explain to you the message. You see, some time ago, I got a call from a man named Rabbi Michael Paley. Right. Michael Paley, who's a reconstructionist rabbi, shared with me the following experience. It was the end of 1998. Bill Clinton was going through a hard time. came close to being impeached because of certain maim toim certain great deeds that involved Rebbitz and Lewinsky. If you remember the end of 98, the beginning of 99 and Bill Clinton traveled to Cincinnati to have a special evening with clergy. You didn't know this. I'm telling you who was invited as Jewish clergy. Michael Paley who shared the story directly with me. And Michael tells me says, "Rabbi, Rabbi Jacobson, you know, I decided, you know how it is with clergy and the president. It's about the picture, right? You get the picture, you hang it up in your office, it goes viral, and for three moments, you fell on top of the world. But I decided I'm not one of these guys. I'm going to meet the president. I don't just need a handshake and a picture. I'm actually going to tell him a meaningful message. And as Bill Clinton walks by and he shakes my hand and I introduce myself, I say, "Mr. President, it's time for you to do Chuva." And I'm about Chuva means repentance. And I'm about to explain to the president of the United States, what is truva? I want to explain what it is. But as I trying to continue the sentence, he interrupts me. He says, "Rabbi Paley, that's so interesting. But I have a question. When you speak about me doing chuva, do you mean chuva from the perspective of Rabbi Solivetic? Or do you mean chuva from the perspective of Rabbi Cook?" Which chuva do you mean? Now, I have to interrupt the story cuz when Michael told this to me, I said, "It's fictional." He says, "I swear to you these words." I'm like, "What'd you do?" I almost fainted. I said, "First of all, how in the world do you know about Rabbi Salvich and Rabbi Cook? Second of all, how in the world do you know the difference between the chuva, Rabbi Salvich, and Chuv Cook? Third of all, you know about Chuva more than 98% of American Jews. That's pretty good, Mr. President. Still got to do Chuva, but you know a lot about Chuva. So here I really have to take a break in the story and I'm basically going to give you a lecture to explain the sheer of Bill Clinton. I'm explaining what's the difference of Rafuk and Rab Salvich when it comes to truva. Rabbi Svichek as many of you know Rabbi JB Rabio Devi Salvichek of blessed memory passed away 1993. Rashiva of Rabenitz Khan of Yeshiva University from the famous Salvetic dynasty of the great Lithuanian rabbis and sages known as the brisket dynasty. This was Rabbi Salvichek. Rabbi Cook passed away a few decades earlier in the mid 1930s. The first Ashkanazic chief rabbi of Israel at that time it was called Palestine. and Rabbi Mutko. They were both Lithuanian Jews, but there was a difference between them. Rabbi Svet was a proud product of the Lithuanian and an analytical Talmudic dynasty. Rafuk was also a great hikic authority, but he was also a poet and a philosophic. Ravkuk wrote a lot about Jewish mysticism based on the teachings of Makova and Kabola andic spirituality. And they speak about repentance in two different ways. For Rabbi Salvetic, the primary component of truva of repentance is about accountability, remorse, confession and accepting and resolving to change your behavior in the future. It's a very halic systematic rigorous process. Accepting responsibility, expressing regret, not only internally but verbally, making a resolution for the future, changing your behavior. The system of chuva in Jewish law articulated in my manades laws of repentance and other similar works of Jewish law. For Rabbi Cook, the focus of chuva has a little bit of a different twist. He always writes based on the teachings of the Balmp and his students primarily that Shuva actually is about returning to the untainted self. It's the discovery that the core self has never been alienated from truth. that my core soul is a kamimal is a fragment of divinity and therefore sin is essentially an aberration of my internal spiritual chemistry. Chuva just means reclaiming who you always were. Discovering the positive core that was never tainted and never tarnished and just rembbracing that which was never detached or alienated. So Rabbi Rabbi So President Clinton Freudian slept President Clinton wants to know which chuva do you mean? Do you mean the chuva of Rabbi Sivvetric? Do you mean the chuva of Rav Cook? Michael Py was pale was clever. He says Mr. President of course the chuva of Rav Cook. Clinton says that's interesting. Most people I speak to believe that I got to do the chuva of Rabbi Salahek, not the chuva of rough cookook. He's smart. Michael Paley says, "But I say that you should do the chuva of rough cookook." He says, "If so, we should talk. If that's what you believe, we should talk." And after the official meeting with the clergy was over, he said, "The president asked me to a side room and we spent time conversing together privately about how Judaism looks at Chuva." And you know beyond the humor of the story there's a very profound message because very often we look at this month we look at the next month and there's an element of dread an element of fear we call it yim an element of awe and it's true there is an element of awe but underlying the story of awe is a story of profound and infinite love. It's a story about the ultimate belief of Judaism that all of my toxicity, all of my trauma, all of my insecurities, all of my pain, all of my jealousy, all of my depression, all of my agony, anger, all of my issues that I have to bring up to my therapist every week. All of the issues, they're true. They may be true and real and authentic and cause me pain, but they could not constitute your core self which remains wholesome, powerful, confident, optimistic, sacred, positive, holy, and no experience in life and not even mistakes that you have made or that I have made and not even abuse that has been done to me by others willingly. willy, maliciously or even unwillingly can snuff out, can obliterate, can compromise, can even dilute the truth of your internal wholesomeness and holiness. And thus the main process is to really work through the debris. Not to allow myself to be defined by external layers but to excavate and to find that core powerful divine self. Who am I? I am an ambassador of God in this world. Who am I? I am an ambassador of love, light, hope, healing, love, and redemption. Are there other voices in me that give me other messages? Of course, there are. But who am I? And what are things that attach themselves to me through various voices? You know, the bait boy who comes to his mother and says, "Mommy, I want to speak at the Bitzvah about our ancestry." wasn't the Mayflower, but whatever the ancestry was. Mommy says, "Ah, I'll tell you." And mama gives him the picture of where the family comes from. He says, "No, no, mommy. All the way back in the beginning. Where do we come from?" Oh, God created heaven and earth. And then he created Adam and Eve. And Adam and Eve, for whatever reason, decided to have children. Mistake. And the rest was history. Or rather, not history, but her story. And then there was Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leia. Here we are. Wow. Comes to daddy. Now, daddy was a proud graduate of Oxford University. Daddy, where do we come from? And daddy says, well, 15.4 billion years ago, there was a prebiotic soup, which we call a prebiotic chant. And one day, it exploded. And ultimately from the combination of amino acids, the first bacterium developed. And after billions and billions and billions of years, evolution happened. And the chimpanzees one day experienced a cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago. And here we are today. The boy comes back to his mother says, "Mommy, I'm confused about my bar mitzvah speech. You tell me that we come from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Adam, and Eve, and God. Daddy tells me we come from bacteria and gas. Who's right? What am I supposed to say? And his mother looks and says, "Son, there's no contradiction. Your father is talking about his side of the family, and I'm talking about my side of the family. We have two sides of the family. And that's why Judaism addresses both. On one level, there's the chuva of Rabbi Salvetk. On another level, there's the chuva of Rafkuk. They're not contradictory. One is talking about my father's side of the family. One is talking about my mother's side of the family. I hope my mother is listening. So when I come that night to Yam Kipper and I feel that I'm late, I feel that the gates are closed, I must always remember that there's a relationship that could never be locked. There is a relationship that could never be compromised. There is an authentic spiritual connection that every single person has which nothing and nobody can ever compromise. And how fortunate each and every one of us is when we can listen to that inner cry of every one of our brothers and sisters the world over yearning to be able to find somebody who can open the gates not of the synagogue but who can open the gates to their own soul because it's within each and every person and the incredible work of Project inspire to be able to open those gates physically and mentally is inspiring. It's the call of the hour to be able to teach every one of our brothers and sisters. You are always connected. You are forever connected. You will forever be connected because who are you? You are essentially an ambassador of love in this world. Thank you very very much. [Music] Thank you. This class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net. Please help us continue the classes. Make even a small contribution at ww.theshiva.net/donate.