CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #135 Rabbi Mendel Berlin - Believing In Yourself & Others

what what should you be doing with your life really it's an intersection of three roads you know in Queens you have the 73rd Avenue 73rd Street like Boulevard you get lost easy right there's three intersections one is what you're good at the other is what you like and the third is what the world needs once those three roads meet that's what you got to do the key is to First identify in every child and every teenager a talent something that they're good at and just keep building it up and just keep promoting and just giving them that compliment that praise when you do that then they could start feel feeling like that's what their talent is and they could do that with the world and they could really expand it out [Music] there and welcome to Tor talks kazak's Tuesday night programs with special guests we have with us all the way from Sten Island welcome thank you for having me on the show big pleasure big honor you you read the names of people who've been on the show I'm so flattered invited me thank you thank you very much for joining us thank you for all that you do for clra we're going to be talking about believing in yourself and others but before we do that we give a little background about yourself and the great work you're involved with sure so I was born in Ukraine that's they used to be in the news until Israel um and I immigrated in 1992 I went to a Jewish school my grandparents said we really want to send you a public school but it's very dangerous from what they heard from their friends so they said we'll send you to a Jewish school yiva Sher Israel it was on Ocean Avenue in in Brooklyn but they said to me like you know in the morning there's Jude classes just you could space out you could sleep you know relax and the afternoon is really when you know the real stuff happens and of course um over the years even as you're blocking out all the judaic content um once I got to high school and I started like thinking a little bit about life and I actually started paying attention by accident um so um I got inspired I went to S Academy which was um you know it's just a great school also in Brooklyn uh for Russian kids as well and uh once I went to college and I kind of got uh out of the uh you have to not listen mode I started to think to myself wait maybe they were on to something so I started going to shabbat tables U from different rabim that I had my rabbis and bit by bit I started to get inspired and then 911 happened and I was like okay the world's ending so I got to you know be meaningful over here with my life so I started keeping Shabbat and kosher um and that's this pretty much my background once I started becoming observant wow and today you're involved with so many amazing projects if you could touch on yeah so I I I used I I went for journalism degree in college and I figured that it's something that's really good for me like it's interesting and and that when I got a little bit older I started to think to myself what am I going to do with this so I started writing about celebrities before I was observant I started writing about you know the the shenanigans of the celebrities and then I realized maybe I could use my writing ability to do something more inspiring meaningful so I started writing I started Jewish newspaper at Hunter College um for the the hill L over there and basically you know that's that's how I started my career in in writing and kind of like Outreach and kiru uh bringing people closer to their roots to their identity that's uh that was the beginning of my writing career and today thank God is H is a beautiful newsletter yeah yes and and there's a seph which is the book that we have right over here as well if you could tell us a little bit about it yeah sure so about um 12 13 years actually 13 years ago mitvah yes Bar Mitzvah 13 years ago we um I I there was a two people in our community got into a little bit of a dispute and my mother-in-law Shalom she said why don't you write um a letter like Aron aen to kind of bring them together Shalom I'm bringing peace yeah and that's exactly what I did I said great idea so I sat down I wrote a letter I said how much the community needs the togetherness and the and um I've sent it to both of these parties who were very much involved in this community and one of the parties wrote back to me and uh the other party didn't write back at all but the other party wrote back to me and he said you're a good writer why don't you write run something on the paraa every week and I was like okay that wasn't my point you know they they never got uh together but but you know what Hashem when you do something good for the for the Jewish people Hashem might not exactly apply it in that situation but he might apply it somewhere else so the guy believed in me he said why don't you write something and so the next week I took a book theot I think it was I copied and pasted plagiarism 101 just you know wrote seven uh sentences and wrote my line commentary sent it to seven people who I thought would like it and um that was that's how it got started and today 13 years later I kept going we have uh you know thank God we have seven writers wow you have thousands of uh subscribers and you know people are inspired there's humor there's there stories there is M Hala a little bit of everything it's like a schorg you know it's like a buffet it's a different flavor for whatever you know speaks to you and Torah that's basically what we put try to put out and try to get people inspired and uh you know educated so from these newsletters all these years uh it evolved into a book yes so you know a few years ago um basically somebody came over to me again and said why don't you put a book together I also didn't believe in myself that I could put a book together it was a dream a pipe dream this is our topic believing in yourself and then you have somebody else who comes over and says to you you can do it and all of a sudden I'm like okay I can do it you think I could do it let me try so uh we put together something called sweeter than honey which is about 600 Pages wow um and it has a lot of the best articles that um that we put out over the years and also was able to sell you know a few thousand copies going around different communities and uh you know again believing even being rejected some people say oh we don't want it but just if you have a message that you believe that you can bring to hashem's children you have to be able to deal with rejection and you have to be able to know that you're going to have to you know Hashem is has your back you just keep pushing and keep doing the right thing and somehow some way Hashem is going to reward you and going to give you that opportunity to to build clra and help his children 100% true it's so important this message is very very strong and you see yourself others believe you you believed in yourself and you're trying to get others to believe as well so let's discuss that for a moment talking about believing in yourself how does it apply to uh children you know as parents or as you know you're a re with and a teacher as well uh how how do we give over you know self-esteem I guess they call it you know believing in themselves to do good things for Kal with the Jewish people so today that's an excellent question first of all um it's a question everyone struggles with uh especially growing up in today's generation ation where everybody's trying to get uh the kids attention because you know this is like you get the kids when they're young um then you know they become like basically promoting you uh whatever your cause is you see now with with Kamas and all the colleges and all that stuff is happening it's the IND indoctrination started many many years ago right so everyone's trying to get to the children and trying to really get to their fragile mind and the reason why they're so successful is because the self-esteem nowadays is so low it's so like really down in the dumps and what I do in in masal Day School where I'm the dean of students is basically you know as to teach English and then I started teaching public speaking and people said oh wow it's really cool public speaking persuasive speeches debates this and that I'm like it's really exciting I said it's not really about public speaking public speaking is just a a vehicle of really it's called self-esteem class confidence class because you're going to get up like a famous comedian once said that you know there's the fear of public speaking is worse than the fear of death so at a funeral it's better they rather be in the Box the guy is giving the the the the eulogy right so it's it's such a fear because people have such low self-esteem they're being judged so what you're doing here is that you're giving the kids this opportunity to say you know what get up there build yourself up speak present yourself and those people who know how to speak well present themselves they have an unbelievable self-esteem but you got to push them and you got to believe in them you got to tell them you can do this um so that's really what I started and I love doing this now I do it with the eighth graders with the seventh graders and it's funny they walk in the fifth grade they're these shy little kids and then they stand at the graduation and they're speaking to hundreds of people and they're laughing and they're confident and that really is such an important skill that you can you can build within children is that having that belief that listen you can do it you have talents you have abilities go for it you know um RAB barl grinfeld Shiva of makak the that I went to he said your what what should you be doing with your life what should you be doing so he said really it's an intersection of three roads you know in Queens you have the 73rd Avenue 73rd Street like Boulevard you get lost easy right but um there's three intersections there's one three streets one is what you're good at the other is what you like and the third is what the world needs once those three roads meet that's what you got to do what you're good at what you're what you like and what the world needs what the world needs put it all together and run after it that's what you know so you have a talent God gave you a talent he gave me a writing ability I go come up there after 120 said well I wrote a lot of lar a lot of trash about celebrities that that's why God gave me the writing ability right and I'll be i' be answerable for that so you know use that if you're social then you know like you could just be there shooting the breeze hanging out with friends or you could go to the hospital and there are people or nursing home people who are lonely and you could do that way and you could build you could help people skill a person has they could use it for good things right so the key is to First identify in every child and every teenager a talent something that they're good at and just keep building it up and just keep promoting and just giving them that compliment that praise when you do that then they could start feel feeling like that's what they their talent is and they could do that with the world and they could really expand it out there beautiful powerful true true one concern that comes to mind is that if you build so much quote unquote self-esteem and beleving in others and making them believe in themselves we might fall into the issue which is you know they might become uh showoffs you know in judis and we're not big fans of G and G and all that stuff in the mus the the holy books they tell us about you have to be you have to be extra careful with that how do we answer such a question or concern absolutely actually it says in right it says very very very very right that doesn't say anything about any other Mida any other trait it doesn't say humility like it's really top of the top of the line um and it's true it's it really is true sometimes people feel you know I was speaking to a professional mental health professional about you know children and this and that and I said what if like exactly your question what if a child or somebody feels like you don't want to make them feel like they're too great right right so he says you know he's he deals with a lot of people who have issues he says when you get to that level I have not seen people at that level nowadays oh wow nowadays there people just struggling to get up in the morning and do something productive and meaningful with their lives so they're lacking that uh self-esteem and positivity yeah they're lacking it and even people who are showoffs right missim the path of the just which we discuss every week in the Torah Suites you know it's it's a one of the way low self-esteem is people who are showoffs it's really they have low self-esteem they have to really puff themselves up because on the inside they're so empty shall right so it's not like the Gava is not even coming very often back in the you know in the day people had that feeling because they felt they're too great they're too amazing today people feel they're so low I really feel it's not so much of an issue nowadays now if a person gets to a certain level and it start to feel like you know I am the most amazing person so he had that famous line that you have to walk around with two pieces of um paper one in each pocket right shouldn't have for me the world was created exactly and then yes but but the nashes um and the other the other pockets for the world was created for me so once you get to that level when you feel like you're so amazing and the world's created for me and you start being selfish then maybe it's time to take out that but first let's work on the you know getting ourselves to that level because way too many people unfortunately see are just not feeling that they they matter and what they do makes a difference and the opportunity that we have in the short life to really really make uh this world a better place there's so many people use their talents for evil let's learn from them let's learn from them how to use our talents for good right um and I think that's really what it's about at this point in the game very inspiring 100% true and that's with regards to believing in ourselves I guess how do we Inspire others to believe in themselves how do we give it over so the power of words that's really very That's Where It's At You know um I the words that people told you they said you could do it you should do it and and that encouraged you so absolutely and and then there were people who were nay and said oh you have to know all of Shas all the all the T before you start writing anything so like we really should like eliminate all these influencers nowadays like if you have a talent you know the difference between and Torah really believes um that you need to you you know Olive teach Olive yeah right and felt like you know that was the real dispute over there is that it's like a kdes cup you you fill yourself up keep filling yourself up and once you get to the top it's going to overflow and automatically you're good character and your inspiration is going to rub off on others but nowadays like the ISA Tor mindset there there's so many kids who are lost and you know this firsthand that are in public schools you know something teach it to someone else right there's no waiting for that perfect moment until your perfect and now now you're ready to go no you you you got something go out there and Inspire so um you know believing in others and saying the right words is really what it's all about um you tell people you have a good Soul you have you have uh you know these abilities you're funny you're charismatic you're special you know like and really mean it them find something good about them you know I was telling you earlier but it's really the rice experiment you can look it up online um basically there was this um science experiment that was being done take two jars of rice and one jar basically close it up put them on the shelf for a week and every day come up to each jar of rice and give them a different message and that's what somebody actually did many people did this so you can check it out and then one uh one of the things of rice he say you know you're amazing you're beautiful I love you you're so Del delicious or Etc or whatever it is and you keep saying that every day for a couple of weeks and the other one you come over and you say you're ugly you're disgusting I hate you negative stuff like ew you know whatever it is and what they found and this is unbelievable this is rice right this is rice they found that the the one that you talked badly to they talk down to it started to rot wow after a couple days and and right do last time I checked rise doesn't have feelings right so how much more so human being that has feelings and is is is a creature who like is a soul inside you give them that support and that wonderful wonderful compliments you'll see how much people can start believe in accomplishing beautiful amazing very inspiring it reminds me of the fact that on Shabbat on the table we have the Kal we have the bread and we cover the bread what's what's the reason we cover the bread because we shouldn't embarrass it it doesn't have feelings what what does that mean not to embarrass it usually we will make hot the blessing for bread first but because on Shabbat you have to be kidish you have to you know M you have to make sanctify the day so we do it on wine first so in order not to embarrass the bread we we cover it so how much more so if we are worried of the feelings of inanimate objects in a sense the bread how much more is with regards to Ben between man and his fellow man so beautiful words mandal Berlin very very inspiring amazing you know I got to get the book a while back and I remember recently the rabbi came to speak in oura charm Circle thanks to shout out to him my student yes and uh we have a minaga custom you said so many beautiful messages uh one final message of for our audience wow final M there's so much to say um and if anybody's interested you can actually sign up to the new how they sign up so it's a ts@ gmail.com t o r a s we TS gmail.com or you could sign up by going by um texting 718 675 9370 718 675 9370 Z you could also get videos is going to be on hopefully shortly inspirational short videos for the Shabbat table and and it's very interactive like I said before it's a it's a buffet of Torah thought and there's really a lot of good stuff that you could extract longer pieces shorter pieces deep deeper lighter whatever we try to cover all ground amazing amazing so um I guess I'll quote something that um we wrote In the book RAB Daniel gladin he said he overheard Barrel wine kak so he overheard wine give a story he said when he was younger he visited um the Yem right the Holocaust Museum and you know he um he tells a story based on this parot which is you know we're going to read theot um moso right he's called mosha that's his name why does hasm use use that name for him the daughter of paru pulled him from the waters but was that his Jewish name though it wasn't his Jewish name right his Jewish name he had the vior and tuvia and all these names right so and even when the burning bush uh the whole story with the burning bush Hashem calls him Moshe Moshe so why mosha why is that why is that his name so we know that the whole story of mosha is that he really could have been you destroyed he could have drowned in the in the in the N River but he was saved so when weel wine he says as he says when he was in that Yash he walks into a room and there's this uh candle and names are being said Hill Cohen H3 vilna Miriam Goldberg H7 uh this place right and he hears a name names names until you can't take it anym you run out of the room there a single single candle over there and orera wine he says that he he's of the age and you he starts thinking to himself that it could have been him he could have been there right and he runs out there 1.5 million children who were murdered really in in a holocaust Nazis right it's it's terrible and he he was he survived D he survived so he comes out he says what am I going to do with my life Hashem didn't just keep me alive for nothing so that's exactly the message that Hashem was telling Moshe Hashem was telling him Moshe mosha you you could have been eaten by the alligators you could have drown in the a I saved you do something with your life just build make a big difference in the world you have that ability Hashem gave you those talents use the maximize them and you'll make this world a much better place to live in m things that come out of the heart enter their heart and the positivity is 100% true we feel it and we are forever grateful and thankful to you for your great work that you do for K on the Jewish people on behalf of kazak we appreciate you joining us we want to thank 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