CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #86: Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel - Empowering Change in the World

[Music] foreign [Music] and welcome to Torah talks khazak's Tuesday night program with special guests tonight we have with us a very special guest a very dear friendly classes you've been asking me for a couple of days already to try and come on actually a couple of days stretched back how many years it's been a while it's been a while and we have to scoot the Mary to have the rabbit over here at the Kazakh headquarters it means so much to us and uh the rabbi is involved with the good of the Israel of America we all know the great work that the rabbit in the organization does but maybe you give the audience of the background about the rabbi himself and uh well the rabbi happens to be also a an attorney by professional so I I um you know I I'm a lefty and righty hitter I can go either way either way right um and uh and I spent a couple of years in Cola went to law school I graduated as as part of the first graduating class of the Cardozo law school which is part of yeshu university Network and I was the editor-in-chief of volume one of the law review which was at the express for me at that time I got a job at a very prestigious law firm in Midtown Manhattan and was there for about four and a half years and and but I decided to leave after about four years there went on Rosh Hashanah I was walking home with my son from show and I turned to him and I said sender what did you have in mind by davening right what were you driving for sure so he said two things titley I said yeah what were they he says the first thing is that mashiach should come oh which is kind of beautiful just wait to hear the second one the second one was that your office should burn oh wow now this is my eight-year-old son who is telling me that that you know I don't see where that shot is I wouldn't be seeing you wow so I said to myself is it really here I am I'm for Hashem earning some money to support my family but I don't get to see my family oh wow I don't get to see my family so I said to myself is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life was kind enough and sent to me a a message through the offices of Rabbi schmoobum who at that time was the Executive Vice President of the number two persons rather Elijah share as a friend of the world right of course and Robert came to visit me in the in the office where I worked in the law office and we wish he was he was there to raise money and to give him a contribution and think about coming through here go to Convention and we started schmoozing so he asked me so you know what are your plans I said you know the truth is I just had a little little Incident That's why I should sign up with my son and I'm thinking about the right welfare comes up that I want to leave and do something a little bit less consuming than what I'm doing the next thing I knew a day later I was invited to run by sharer's house in Borough Park wow and he said would you like to work together you offered me a job in the Agora and they wanted to bring in a lawyer to there was another lawyer on staff at the time they were looking for a second lawyer or maybe a first lawyer whatever the case may be and um and bark Hashem that goes back to early 1984. but not more than 40. so right so we're we're headed up to there you know and I just want to say one one other point over here which which describes the difference between our world and you know the world out there when word came out that I was going to be making the move from this big wall for Paul White's freaking Wharton and Garrison to the to the Alberta so my friends at Paul wise at the law firm said wow what a great perfect job for you this is exactly right up your alley it's perfect for you and then when they heard about this Borough Park where I was living at the time the action was versus and the answers both are true a little bit so in in the interest of full disclosure as we always would say you're looking for some background about me um I'm a little bit crazy but um the luckiest man in the world to be able to spend my days and coming home at night with a sense that I'm actually accomplishing something meaningful and I'm I'm serving Claudius through wow it's an amazing feeling and that's exactly what we're going to be speaking about is at the gym today but the question after you're up is you bro working for a good uh give you an opportunity to see your kids or you saw that I was like I'm involved with the club so so in all honesty about a year or two after I joined the Aguada there was a fire in the archives oh so you know I'm not sure there was ever a fire back at Paul wife but there was a fire in The Archives of the Agoda and shortly after I joined within a year or two and I knew of course what the source was and why it happened nobody else did but yeah now the world knows okay so the top of grabbing to be speaking about is empowering change in the world talking about the world we want to change the world we want to bring the ghoul out we want to make a difference we want to you know finally with that machine so in order to do that we need movies and takers like yourself so we might think that who am I to get involved and make a difference in the world get involved with the club get involve the community can we please discuss the mentality of how it can be uh you know for one to jump into the waters okay it's a it's a great question and a very important question uh you know we in in the Torah Community we know that no person lives just for himself right that's why there's such an emphasis on on marriage in the Jewish Community right it's it's not good for a person to be on his own right he's got to be part he's got to be part of a unit and he says if Hashem loves poor people right Hashem loves everybody right he said he loves poor people too so how come he doesn't give them food and sustenance why are they poor right good question so let's turn this Rufus this week of evil to the surface was trying to poke Rabbi Akiva and say look at you know this is a crazy religion you have because you believe in a God who loves it loves everybody then why does he why doesn't he feed the poor so maybe Akiva answered you know why it doesn't feel support you know why Hashem makes people poor and they should have to come on to us in order to save us those of us who have Hashem is blessed with money let's say right so Hashem we we you know we're going to burn in gehenna for the others that we do in order to be safe from gehen and to have the privilege of having a the the great rewards of the world to come in order to do that we have to have earned it how do we earn it by taking the blessing that Hashem gave to us in sharing it with others so Hashem made you poor poorper was laughing at my door and asking for for a contribution why not because there's anything wrong that you did but it's because he wants me to have an opportunity to have his clothes to have the privilege can you imagine what you're sacrificing just so that I can have a privilege can you imagine that but that's what it is that's the teach us this is this is a very important principle and the truth to matter is that every single one of us every single person is both a pauper and what the the wealthiest person in the world every one of us has needs right you know I mentioned before about a good husband and wife it's a good thing I married my wife because I have no sense of direction I still you know I came here in the studio tonight I probably would have been who knows where right if not for her and in general she does so many things I can't do I can't do shout out to the wives yeah that's what it was right so I'm I am a poorper and she's wealthy because she knows how you know she knows how to deal with these issues right and she's a wealthy person so she's giving of her wealth to me at the same time I'm I'm a very wealthy person I'm a very wealthy person I have certain skills and talents that Hashem blessed me with I have certain wealth that Hashem bless me with whatever it may be something Hashem gave to me that makes me uniquely qualified to help others right so therefore we have to recognize that this that we are all interdependent no person is an island unto himself we are all interdependent police sirens you know the word means responsible for one another a raven also means intertwined with one another right you can't say that something that happens to a Jew over here doesn't impact the Jew over there because we're all intertwined I raise him and then also the word means sweet all Jews are sweet on one another so we love each other there's a special love that exists between chronics within the members of chronic Souls so yes here we are in this world Hashem put us in this world and he has made us Super Rich what for so that we should be safe for the purely selfish reasons so that we should be saved from the punishments that would otherwise Come To Us by not using the riches to to to help the poor people right and that's using it the talents that a person has to help to help call you through all right and everybody you don't have to work for the aguda to have to you know to help client Israel I mean you can work for that that's right no it doesn't have to be part of an organization every single person you can you can be involved in a project that relates to the immediate your immediate Community to the local neighbor to your local school to your local Yeshiva wherever it may be you can get involved they always need helpers and so on or you can get if you don't like what's going on around the corner so so look around the world there are things going on around the world today where where the the kitchen of people is is necessary the talents and the skills of people and the time and the money and all the things that are blessings that Hashem gave them those are intended to to for their use in order to help others so that so that when the time comes they'll get the rewards and not the opposite beautiful babies we've all very inspiring amazing so uh jumping to a Wii which is uh how does one change their mentality for being an individual who only cares about their own needs into a person who looks beyond themselves for others so you know taking care of us you know if it's good my kids go to Yeshiva we keep go like have it well you know this is a question that probably has a a dozen or a hundred thousand answers yeah so how does one change one's nature of one's nature is um to view the world through the lens of himself and and be selfish right so first of all that we just quoted with what we learned in the talmud right we see that the rabbis are telling us those those you you have selfish concerns you want to make sure that you're going to have Allah don't you don't you want to have the reward of the world to come well the beautiful and wonderful things that hashanah's promise to those who keep the Torah right you want to do that right right you want to do it you know how to do that I'm speaking to you selfishly now be kind to others be kind to others when you're kind to others then you are racking up points in your own scorecard and of course it but and as that happens and as you keep doing it then your whole perspective changes and you say it's not just for good for my Allah that I'm doing this I'm doing this because I have to help my fellow too I shouldn't he's my brother he's my sister she's my sister right and and I have to do what I can't help and because they're my flesh and blood right this is a a an amazing thing in this week's partial Parcels where we learned about how yaakovino and our forefather yaakov as he's lying on his deathbed he calls in all of the his sons all of the shabbatim the shifter right the tribes and they all gather together and he gives each one a blessing when it comes to the second and the third Sons shimana Navy right so he said Schumann and Levy are going you know they they were they were tough guys yeah they were tough dudes they should have been a lady and uh and they made a lot of trouble together they had a lot of trouble together and yankovina said I'm gonna spread them out and call you so I can't keep them together they have to be separate from each other when they had they hang out together they just gotta make they go make big problems so I'm gonna spread them out and you know what they're going to become for shaving chimney in particular where she says I'm going to turn them into teachers teachers teachers they're going to go around and go from place to place and they will be teachers of children right now nowski asks what what in the world these these these guys have you know anger management issues right you want them to be your teeth your kids teachers right you want you want a reviews mellow it's kind of soft you want to swim in there and you know who's going to come in and turn things apart so you know he says it's an amazing thing he says yeah he wants him and to be your sons wherever you know why because Sherman and Levy when they saw what had happened to their sister Dina and they saw how she had been defiled and taken by Shem because and they went and they killed out the entire city right that had done this to their sister and yakovina said how can you do that how can you killed him out you're going to get me in trouble shipment and lady said we're going to allow our sister to be treated like a harlot right like a Zona right when I was they cared about her and that's why they were called The Brothers of Dina and Jim and Levy really cared about her and they went and they killed out the city can you imagine until that an entire city and and yankovina wasn't so happy with this but then he's but then they came back and they said hey can we allow our sisters to become like us aren't I never they cared about their sister and that's that's the one who wanted to be your child's ready when they're curious woman says that we're all brothers and sisters and you gotta care about them and when you care about them you can't just see their problems and say hmm But how sad pass the ketchup please right I mean again you can't do that you kind of actually go and do something to help them as we say in English it's amazing very inspiring your English is a high level vocabulary okay all those rumors about you are not true I mean give out ignore the guy I've been learning well he's not very inspiring Rabbi very very powerful points we need people that care and we have to get them involved in the very beautiful and there is the selfish aspect to it all right so much right yeah but besides that she's our sister she's nice about caring so Rabbi once someone is involved in the community's needs they want to empower others you know as one that's involved with the club we're always trying to get more people to be part of the army I always see that all the conventions you know everyone should get involved one way or another uh how do we Empower others to get involved with the community rabbi well certainly those of us who already are involved you know the people who work for the Agoda the people who work for Kazakh the people who try and make a difference for the broader Community we will recognize how flimsy are are um our our troops our troop level is it could be and should be so much larger right definitely we can definitely we need yeah we definitely need more manpower honestly as I said before not necessarily people are going to devote the entirety of their day to working for Quality so like I'm privileged to do like your privilege to do like I'm sure many of our listeners are privileged to do but there are lots of people who are not so privileged and the norm is not to be able to do it the entirety of the day but to find time to set aside some time to get involved in an area of interest to you in the area where you have talents and skills and so on and there are ways to do it the organizations that are out there are looking for people who can be helpful volunteers supporters and so on so it's I think it's important for us to spread the message that we need you oh yeah you know we need you there was right there was a time that um the President John F Kennedy I'm old enough to remember is okay you've heard rumors that they were such a person I think there's uh there's a air airport over here now and yeah or something is that what that stands for oh no look at that okay so so President Kennedy said something which you know he said a lot of silly things in his life also but this thing that he said he was trying to get people to sign up for the Peace Corps America had something at that time called the Peace Corps where you go out into the young idealistic college students would go out into the broad world and spread you know good peace peace love throughout the world peace the Peace Corps and so in making the picture of the Peace Corps he said ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country right and if that's good enough for John F Kennedy ah it's surely wasn't good enough for us oh yeah we ought to be able to plug into that mentality of asking not only what's good for me and what others can do for me but what we can do for others and as I said there's such an urgent need there's such a tremendous need and you know what there's no we spoke before about there's no greater Allah and the satisfaction sure that you get 100 this is this world is in this world where you really feel it I come home now at night I used to come home when I was at the law firm many moons ago right and I remember thinking to myself so so what what exactly did I do today I helped company hey fendorf a takeover and effort by Company B and and I helped companies see again with who has been charged with an Anti-Trust violation or something like that it wasn't fulfilling and you know and to my clients these things meant millions of dollars and so you know that was important but I said but did I really impact the world did I do anything which makes this world a better place no no and now I come home from the Agoda at night most of the time I come home at night and I think to myself what did I accomplish today and you know I'll remind myself of one frustration and another frustration because this claw work is definitely there's a lot of frustrations but then I also tell myself I can't look at what I accomplished I helped protect somebody who is having problems in in the in the workplace in terms of leaving early on Shabbos during the winter months you know I just for the record good has been very helpful with that on the personal prefer our Christian students over here we reached out to the to the office into the heaven were amazing we helped we helped set up a government program which is going to relieve the tuition burden on some parents I I had a hand in that today I wrote a legal memo showing why it's constitutionally convincible New York what okay yeah I'm just speaking in general that's amazing tuition relief will be used I know there's been many things but these are the kinds of things that we need we need profession channels and we need people who are getting kids who get you know get to get involved and you know we speak about lawyers my own profession now we have a network of a couple of hundred lawyers that um you know that are part of our database and when a case comes in which requires representation or requires the filing of a brief or requires uh helping a an organization become tax exemptive and all of the things that are part and parcel of our community then we'll reach out to this network of employers and they you know many times they're not able to help but but very often they will say yes I want to I want to do work pro bono the the profession encourages it and what are the what are the point I know I'm going to love it one of the reasons I decided to come to the I go to after four and a half years at poor wax was because at poor Weiss I was involved in a case like that helping a a Jewish Community institution in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and I felt that it was well fulfilling meaningful I'm doing something with my life that really that really matters you want to fit you want to have that feeling get involved color is whoever is involved with communal things with faith will pay us back off topic a little bit you mentioned John F Kennedy and I know good is very very much involved with political advocacy okay on a personal level I am zwang and uh sometimes people that are not so much involved a question who do you I have a picture of you here with this person and with that person and they you know degrade the fact that we're politically active if we could just touch on that topic about the importance of it on a first level the amount of Yeshiva and the amount of organizations individuals that we've helped through our context in government offices have been tremendous but I know there are good is on the same page as well you've answered your own question beautiful okay silver it guides me a lot you know shout out to him about these topics a little bit on the topic of government so since you changed the topic slightly let me do the same yeah please and just you're Jewish right questions there you go and and and say the following that please don't listen don't even drop because I'm speaking to your listeners now not to you okay okay okay and and what I want to tell you listen is is that we look for talented skilled people to help us in the work that we try to do and there are a few people anywhere who can can hold a candle to my friend who's not eavesdropping out what I'm saying let's change the topic seriously right it seriously right but it really is it it really is tremendously helpful when you come and when you bring along some people to our Albany missions yeah so so you know this is this has always been one of the Hallmarks of uh the Jew and boas right and the Jew and the diaspora right and and the the the relationships with the local governments or the national governments have always been very very important and some of our greatest and Russia Yeshiva and hasida kravis and and and all you know the the the greatest leaders of our time were also what we call studlon and Advocates and they would develop relationships they would Point people to develop relationships with the government leaders because you need to come on to the government leaders and you know it's interesting um people ask me how how can they make a difference in the in the political work that we do right and I said did you vote in the last election and sometimes the answer is nah because you know what difference does it make anyway what's the big deal what's the big deal what's the big deal we get that all the time right now there is an assembly woman in the Far Rockaway area um who is who is involved in in an election campaign and the voting took place in the early November and here we are we're in we're into January already right right and as of this taping of our program uh she hasn't been declare the winner or the loser because there's a difference right this is the square root of between her and her and her opponent but one vote wow this particular assembly woman who's incumbent is somebody who has made a world of difference for our community for the community the Jewish community in Far Rockaway uh and uh and more broadly as well yeah and you know what can what can you do you can do the minimum that uh you could always throw tell us what we should do which is to show that you care so either you'll be that one vote that's going to make a difference in an election or even if if not even if the difference between the candidates is 50 000 votes or a hundred thousand votes or a million votes it doesn't matter because when when the when the politicians look at communities they know how many people vote they know what percentage of the community came out they pay attention they pay attention right because uh you know I'm knocking at your door and I'd like you to listen to what I have to say I once was early on in my career at the aguda I testified in the United States Senate over an important bill that was it was being introduced at that time which could have had a very negative impact on some of our yeshivas so I got there as you know I and I was before the Senate to labor and education committee and I gave a 10-minute speech about why this bill is a dangerous bill and I spoke about the Supreme Court precedence and I spoke about the civil rights laws and I spoke about all the different things a very nice lawyerly presentation and when I was done I was very proud of myself I you know I said since this is what I used to do with Paul weislerian right and then senator metzenbaum from Ohio who was the chairman of the committee says thank you Rabbi for your presentation tell me how many members does your organization have but Senator medicine man was not interested in the Supreme Court president or the Civil Rights or the statutes he just wanted to know do you represent a community that I should pay attention to why should I pay attention to you right so the answer is if if we vote in large numbers or if you join our organization as a member in large numbers right which we try to get membership right that enhances our ability to get the senator Mets and Bounds of the world to listen to us to hear what we have to say and to address the concerns that we have so anyway we need people to get involved even at that minimal level but there are so many other ways to get involved and and start a time you taste it and you'll see it's great 100 definitely you should just invited to Senator to the CMA shots that I'm gonna put together about a hundred thousand people it's unbelievable but uh very very inspiring Rabbi I appreciate you uh reitering the importance of being active uh politically active and that is you're close so I'll speak to you off camera we'll work on it a little bit we're working it together okay very nice amazing Rabbi um we haven't been having a customer talks which is one final message uh that you can give over to us one last takeaway so many amazing uh insights and we appreciate it so so I guess my final message is this I I told you how it came to be that I joined the agura right and I came to visit Rabbi moshershar and he offered me a position at the Agora and so but I told them before I accept or anything you know I'd like to come and see what the convention is like I've never been to a convention before it's what I go to Convention so I came to the convention I was sitting in the audience and there were a couple hundred people around sitting in the audience right and people with um you know with with wearing hats and some of them wearing good big black velvet Yama because uh and some of them wearing kipotsu got a whole gamut you know and I looked around and then and then I looked up at that table at the Deus right and then I saw you know Russia Yeshiva as and you know again the the full range on display of people who are the dollar Torah who are people who are who are great I've had this and married to be there many times and I witnessed it myself and and people who and people who we look to for leadership these are the true leaders of the world but if there was I'm sitting over there within this audience this crab looking up at a day is filled with these great rabbis from all different backgrounds and I said to myself you know what I'm part of quality so I always knew it intellectually that I was part of quality so but it was at that moment when I had this job offer dangled in front of me he said come to work for that good I gave up the nice salary I was earning and they and I said you know I'm part of quiet so it's much more than my immediate Circles of family and and uh school and so on in a neighborhood community it's that it's that sort of very much it's a very very great extent but it's much more than that it's Colony sauce everything it's everywhere and if you're part of it right this is your family then you have to give back to it a little bit right and that's why I decided to take the position so I wish I wish you I wish all of the listeners uh the Watchers right please recognize your part of Claudia through you're not an island unto yourself quality Throne needs you and you need Holly Israel get involved amazing what an amazing inspiration to get involved to empower change in the world let's Empower others let's Empower ourselves and we want to thank you for all that you do for class over the Jewish people for everything unbelievable yeah guitar and uh we want to remind our amazing audience every single Tuesday night because actor talks with special guest 8 30 p.m Eastern Standard Time uh special shout out to the kazak team over here rabi Natan the other Natan and mayor and Izzy and the whole everyone involved really appreciate the supporters and the board of members of the and the staff volunteers shout out to touring time for hosting this amazing podcast along with all the other podcasts uh you know platforms dailygiving.org at the Holiday goes a very far away want to thank them as well and the business complete Redemption I mean it's feeling our days