CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #180 Rabbi Gedalia Miller - Struggling Children

but especially a lot of times you have Ultra Orthodox communities that they can't even stay within the community because now I became the the children saw all of a sudden this guy walking around without a a yamaka without a beard without pis without anything these kids identify this particular boy as a non Noni you know not Jewish and he said I can't live like that all of a sudden I became the guy when we see a child in the street that acts and looks like this we have to know how to approach them with kindness and and a good V it's always going to help a warm smile to these children and being there for them that could really be a turning point in this child's [Music] life and welcome to Tor talk kak program with special guests we have with us rabie Galia Miller from Brooklyn bab welcome thank you very much for joining us we're going to be discussing the important topic of struggling children but before we do that if we get a little bit background about the rabbi and the great work you're involved with so I have a family of 10 children I'm above I was very successful in the insurance industry for many many years had this on the way here to stop by in Williamsburg to D shakas on the corner where my office used to be on Berry Street New York Life had almost 100 agents working for me wow have since gone on a journey building different organizations businesses different types of uh opportunities and 10 years ago Hashem took me through a different Journey where is the topic where we're going to end up now talking about struggling children of where we are well wow wow wow wow so with understand also the organization you're very much involved with and understand founded isi and and that's all through because of what uh transpired I guess so RAB what say is the right Outlook that we should have in our lives so basically haven't been on this journey personally for the last 10 years I basically come up with an idea of going from being over the somebody that basically does what hasem iss him to do which is the regular daily activities praying praying every day putting Onin learning keeping a schedule keeping within the frame of uh running a normal Jewish Home and also we always have a picture in our mind of how we want our family to look like so basically you want to have all the kids dressed exactly the same way if you cish you want to have those curly payers they all walk the same way all the Ducks are lined up and we hope that they're going to go through the they're all going to marry the same type of families and as they say living happily ever after and that's going to be your legacy what hasem taught me over the years in business and and gmas which means basically in doing and physical and spiritual I've realiz that hm wants me to do a different journey and that is called being an Ever theem what is the purpose what does a wantem wants from me today I call it when what's important now important and I realized that if I take that as my M on a daily basis I will always have things that I can take that same struggle and say what can we do with this struggle today and trust me it's a very very painful struggle having children that are are struggling in yish kite and and a lot of them are suicidal ideation and what we're seeing in Cloud these days and having to look at that in front of you is extremely painful and taking that into account and saying to yourself when what is what's important now what does AEM want from me now that I believe is really on the Forefront of CLA of what's really happening now and that's why I believe the work of kazak with helping these children today it's not care of it's care of of helping what where we are in CL at the moment oh wow wow so so so let just say uh we have a family that has a child that's struggling what can we do to help them so as a Outsider is the first thing that I shared before was that how do we look at this child what do we see in front of us now the street will see the kid with tattoos for instance piercings at the 7-Eleven or the at the gas station or or a lake or around the lake and look at this child as a rebellious child what we have to see is what is the underlying reason why would this child act this way at least outwardly look that way that they're seeing in front of them and what I've realized is if we go back and heard from z w very dear friend ofak spoke for us many many times so one of hisas was on we'll go back a couple of weeks but hasem is Abino to leave his family his neighborhood his friends to leave everything that was dear to him especially if we know that did build a whole organization around him right and thenm says to him andan a challenge of going to different location and I'm going to give you wealth I'm going to give you health I'm going to give you children everything you want fame everything that you want why is this part of the 10 tests that Hashem gave to of Rino it would look like if anybody would be offered this glorious opportunity to move to a place where he will get everything that he wished for why was that considered a test and he shared with us nobody wants to lose their environment nobody wants to leave their environment nobody wants to give up their friends the neighbors and the culture whatever they're used to iFish laich or Lish orades whatever you are especially you want you like your food you like your culture you like your community you like the songs that you're used to why would somebody give all that up what we see with our children and every Community is different but especially a lot of times you have Ultra Orthodox communities that they can't even stay within the community they can't even stay not because the community is spitting them out I had one boy say to the father T we have to move or I'm looking for a way how to kill myself because now I became the because the little kids that are walking around and it's not here in Williamsburg and it's not I'm not going to say say where it was but basically the children saw all of a sudden this guy walking around without a a yamaka without a without a beard without pis without anything walking around m in his underwear whatever way this boy was looking walking around outside these kids identify this particular boy as a non Noni you know not Jewish and he said I can't live like that all of a sudden I became the so the father actually was a g a very prominent person sold his house and moved to a different neighborhood and started from scratch for this particular child so when we see a child in the street that acts and looks like this we have to know how to approach them but with kindness and and a good V it's always going to help a warm smile to these children and being there for them that could really be a turning point in this child's life we could really have a major positive impact in Claus Ro just by being nice to them 100% you never know how a good word or a high and I've seen this many times with the work of kazak we see these type of children whatever it may be and just being befriending them makes the world of a difference I give them my number I'm like if you ever need anything any time feel free to call and uh surprisingly they call and and they ask for help or whatever it may be uh what is the urgency of this matter of this situation um of uh of to be honest with you're coming in here I was not prepared I understood we're going to be talking about the work that Kashi does however the interview is taking us into a place where I did not really want to talk about it however the on the Forefront right now what's happening in CL Isel which is something that's not being spoken about and I'm making a disclaimer that I hope nobody's going to go into Trauma from this and if you do hopefully you have a therapist that can help you get out of it in clro right now just New York New Jersey California and Florida we've had from the age 16 to 30 documented by Amud the organization that does work in this field we work with and it's coming fromal and from atala that we had 280 overdoses and suicides CL Israel 280 last year Alone 2 2023 and we have all the charts I can show you the chart the unfortunate part about it is that every family today will not want to talk about it they'll say it's co they'll say that it was carbon dioxide they will say there was a cold they would say they took the wrong medication they say a heart attack seizures I've had all these different conversations with parents and they will deny deny deny because for for other reasons they don't want to talk about it and I respect every family however the work that we've seen that what we're doing and especially not going to say the community but one of the communities that we went into which we had some opposition till we actually said and get them to understand that we're not coming here to talk about we're only talking about crisis going in there and they allowed us to come they reviewed all our PowerPoint presentation beforehand and basically gave as what we're doing that community the numbers are going down so that's why it's so important the work that we do in the early stages when the child is still in school the child is not taking off his L yet when the child is struggling not being able to get up in the morning sleeping all day being up all night cutting off with friends that's what we see so when you see that I I guide c i counsel parents um I'm not a license therapist but this is what I do I sit with parents as a coach um meetings between two and four hours and all I want is that to understand the child not what you do what you do most parents on their own once they take a shift as we said before from being to what's important now and they understand the child as a parent as a normal healthy parent you will know what your child needs right now and what you should do I always tell parents you have to have a that understands they have to understand what the children are going through which means um depression suicidal ideation things that the children are going through even though from outside they look perfect they look like they're having a good time they look like they enjoying themselves and uh we have to know that this is the underlying [Music] Factor what's underneath why they don't are not able to tow the line and do the things that we all know hasem through the T brings us brings us joy brings us happiness and they're not doing that we have to know what's beneath it and we know that it's severe trauma that they went through which we don't know what it is and most children will not see what they went through or they don't even know just know that they are going through a hard time so this is what we're dealing with amazing deal with children that are that are broken and we have to be able to help them so we usually don't do this but because of my curiosity and wanting to understand the work of cash and offy if you could elaborate just a a little bit of the different services and programming right so first of all everything that we have done in the past all the recordings are through Ki you can go in and see it's no charge for that it's open there so you need training on on going deeper and understanding your children or as a sibling I've spoken by many other organizations in the past um we have different shum top therapists top professionals top ronam speaking in yish and then English where can want access to sh lectures you go to previous lectures you go to videos it's all there it's all yeah so it's all on T any time as well through through our website not directly on T any time because of um we're not looking for every child that wants to hear how to get a free TV to go to our website to listen to our our things that we we train parents so we have it under this direction but uh hopefully one day maybe it's going to go out all over the place um CLA still all want it and agree that it should be all over but I don't think any child ever went off the D because the parents are nice to them so let's go into the work that we really really do and what we really want to accomplish and I'll make it very brief because the time is valuable to everybody we tried hit five different or six different pranks when we go in so number one we're available to every community that wants us to come we're very time limited to Russell has a four-year waiting list to see clients and Kat doesn't see new clients only through um consultation basically type of basis um my meetings with him be 5:00 a.m. when I meet with him on the phone on the zoom so and it's usually a couple days in advance till we actually fit in between appointments that I get in we try to get into every Community we want the community to have boots on the ground that want us to come we're not looking to push ourselves into communities but fine staying where we are um we just went into England we went into Toronto Canada we did LA this year we did Chicago meaning programs lectures speaking so the five PRS that we try to do when we go in which is what really should happen all over the place is hitting raon to be on board so it's not a full training for the ronam when we come the first time it's getting them to realize what's really happening with these children awareness bringing the Tyra into it where the Tyra values are why we do what we do how we can do it where they can access the information um and also we have afterwards training for the B of with questions and answers so who they can call and to go through thoroughly of what is really going on that's what they bom mental health professionals a lot of them are coming from from a different background in the learning from college and everything else not of them not all of them have an opportunity so many years of experience as 35 years working with cl started 35 years in Lakewood I'll give you just a little back background he was a he wanted to stay in the toy World unfortunately he saw and K was not doing well for six months he said we have to do something to help thisan and the person took his life so he went to ra to go ask for guidance ra said tell we have enough in Lakewoods we need somebody like yourself to become a licensed therapist so he went back he got R he basically became an alumni of BMG because as a person in BMG at that time going to college was definitely not something that they wanted to have and he got the blessing actually walked him out to the car and say is doing what you are going to approach and do is Holy work and you should be doing that so we hit every time we go in and make sure we make a for all the principles parents teachers R they should all come to a session each Place varies how much time they have could be between two and four hours sometimes six hours of training for the ra and then we do parents we do a whole shabbaton where we have parents get together different speakers come ra from the local area come and give them over shabas just did one in Toronto I sent them the information I'll can send you a copy of it so you'll see how it really works it's a 4-day program and then we do a full day training for parents besides that we realized how taxing it is on siblings of the family to have another child going through this struggle so we right now have licensed therapists that are sitting with girls old siblings age 14 to 21 at the shabat we now minimize it only 16 to 21 we had older ones it created a little bit tough part for the parents to have all different ages they want the time for themselves so we cut it down to a 16 to 21 program we have two hotels over there in the Aman hotel which is now the halan and the amen together we have a separate program really for the last three years it's a huge cause to us all the shabas cost us a few hundred th000 after what parents are paying we still have to be able to cover them but this particular thing we feel so important I'll give you an example that in Toronto we made only a Thursday night session for the girls they said we have probably four girls that are going to be willing to come we had Thursday night 15 girls They begged us to do for them so somebody offered their home and we offered them a beautiful program for for Saturday night they're crazy over it many of these girls want to come now to the next shabbaton which happening the end of February um it's going to be in the Crown Plaza armor hotel in Connecticut it's the weekend of February 27th through March 2nd and they gravitating for this they need this so we're basically covering in Claus R something that nobody did in addition just to be aware when not here to change anything in the system at all we're not saying the system is broken or something has to change within the system what we do see is that when theseal come principles come they want to know what can we take from the crisis training to use in the classroom so what we did offer in the past we still offering that and everything for St has to be timing and financially to be able to cover it is R Russell goes into a school okay let's say we just did the same thing now in England Stanford hill we had him different times all by appointment for a couple of hours each school they bring to him the challenges they have for their specific School how can we do things differently within our school system so we don't change and I personally believe what I've seen over the last 10 years that they're doing an unbelievable job the school system they're working with these parents that have struggling children like I said before last three years we've gotten parents that are coming with the children are still in school a lot of them are struggling children emotionally physically academically different areas of struggles and we're keeping them in the system the schools are willing to keep them they're just having a hard time how do we keep them what is they to do better for these kids and that's why R Russ is going in each School takes about two to three hours individual they come with the questions they've heard his speeches before they know what he's about and they have challenges within the school how do we actually take a r which the school system is designed and help the the that's challenged problem said this many years ago that the school system is a thing which is but for the Y aor because he doesn't fit in so we have to be able to make sure that no school leaves any child behind and I'm sure that's what your work that you're doing at kazak make sure not one child is Left Behind we want to make sure that within the system they should be able to stay there should not ever be a place where a child feels left out within their school system their environment they should be able to be happy and be able to live Tire life to be able to have the future of Cl I mean how does one learn more about the kavi so all this is online kav's k.org it's there's no fee for this Cas she is an organization that we want to help want to go into more and more organiz more and more communities um doesn't make a difference the background of the community so wherever you are all over the world whoever is interested in such programming such amazing work please feel free to reach out to K G Miller you know such an amazing job that you're doing I'm so happy to get to meet you in person and uh we have aak t talks is a final message for our audience Brad audience final message as follows every person that is in struggling position that is struggling on on their own we've met unfortunately many parents that are struggling with yish kite with everything they're going through just be aware Hashem is with you Hashem is with you in this struggle don't give up with you in the difficulty yes we see it B every time the fact that Hashem gave me this opportunity within the struggle of my own struggle with my own children to take being to be em to take this struggle to open organization and we've had many facilitators and many parents that are opening more and more groups like we have in bar Park and Williamsburg and Flatbush and Monroe and Chicago and la and Toronto there is so much out there that you can do with your struggle the best therapists the best professionals today are people that had their own struggle been there and done that you're not alone you have people to reach out to reach out to us we're here to help and Hashem gave you this struggle because he knows that with this struggle you can do a lot with the struggle andem today there is help out there when I started 10 years ago there was kamat no help out there there's help out there the therapists know what they need to do the professionals know what they need to do the RA are on board on board and with this that we can do what we are doing I believe this will [Music] bring amazing work continued continued success we want to thank everyone for joining us in kazak Torah talks uh Tuesday nights 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time a special guest so much amazing feedback and it means a lot to us you know to know that people not just listening but they're giving feedback and uh and and questions and uh and there's constant suggestions for future guests so we appreciate that as well special thank you to the various different platforms so many platforms that host kazak Torah talks with a specific thank you to our friends at Torah any time and also a special thank you to our friends at Daily giving and a special shout out to Natan bear behind the camera and the media director of kazak does amazing work and the entire kazak staff and board and volunteers and supporters we're forever grateful uh amazing things are happening uh lifechanging things are happening and we're going to continue with hm's help God's help and we want to do a lot more please be part of the kazak Revolution uh visit us at kazak org c ha a z a q.org uh learning more about the organization be part of the massive raffle that we have right now going on and uh be be a partner with the work that we do and to see like the RAB said the Redemption [Music]