CHAZAQ’s Torah Talks #23: Rabbi Pinchas Landis - Summer or Slumber?

Welcome to yet another Tuesday night Torah Talks. Tonight we have with us a very special guest all the way from Cleveland, Ohio. Rabbi Pinchos Landis, welcome Rabbi. How are you doing? Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to be here. All I got to say as somebody who grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and lives now in Cleveland, usually when I cross the Verrazano Bridge, I just like start getting depressed at that first person that honks at me. But just being able to come to Chazak and be with you and be with the staff, it's it's it it uplifts me. It makes me happy again. So it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. It is our pleasure as well. Thank you for all that you do for quality Torah and the partnership that we've had with all this sharing programs and lectures. Y'all get Torah reality we should continue spreading Torah all over the world. And uh we're going to jump straight into it, Rabbi. Tonight's topic is summer slumber, but actually before we jump into tonight's exciting topic, maybe you can give us and our listeners a little bit of a background about yourself, Rabbi. Sure, it's my pleasure. I can talk about one of my favorite topics, me. You know, I always love talking about it. So as I said, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. I am the middle of three children and we are our family is so deep in Atlanta, Georgia that right now we have three generations alive, my parents, me and my siblings and my my children, my nieces and nephews. And every single person in the family in those three generations lives in Atlanta except for me, my wife and my children. So we're like the black hatters, I mean the black sheep of the family that we live outside of Atlanta. But being as me, I'm sorry, four generations. I have a step grandmother Zlata Zonis 101 years old, she should live and be well. So so but and we're the only ones that live outside of Atlanta. And what happened to me that I ended up getting kicked out of the city, I mean, leaving the city was that when I was in high school, roughly 16 years old, I was your average public school kid like many of the children that Chazak helps along and and helps to transition to Yeshivas. And I wanted to go to Yeshiva. Now, in those days, you know, there wasn't Khazak and there for sure wasn't Khazak in Atlanta, Georgia. So, I suffered my way through the Not suffered, I did okay through public school, but learning as much as I could, connecting with the Atlanta Kollel. And once I finished high school, I went on to Yeshiva. I studied for 1 year in Yeshiva Yeshiva University in New York City, 2 years in Ohr Sameach in Eretz Yisrael, and then many years in Ner Yisrael in Baltimore, where I eventually was able to fool them into giving me Smicha, and married my beautiful wife, had a bunch of kids in Baltimore, moved on to my first job in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the way, if you think of Cincinnati as just a sleepy little Midwest town, you're 100% right, because Mark Twain himself said about Cincinnati that when the world comes to an end, he wants to be in Cincinnati because they find out about everything there 20 years late. So, you know, that's Cincinnati for you. I was I worked in Kiruv, I worked in Jewish outreach there, and had my own congregation. I was a congregational rabbi for about 4 out of the 8 years I was there. And towards the end of that time period, I really missed just frontline Jewish education. I really did not like the politics of congregational life. So, I had an opportunity to move to Cleveland to establish a branch of Partners Cleveland. Partners Cleveland is a program connected to Partners Detroit. That was the original program in Detroit, Michigan. And the idea is that we offer Jewish learning opportunities to Jews all across the city, and now really with virtual programming all across the world. And one of our flagship programs is we have people learn one-on-one, but not with educators, not with professionals, with lay leaders. So, we have a group of 100 volunteers right now who learn with our students. So, it's not only our rabbis and our educators providing the education, but we empower lay people to become makeshift or or temporary educators through our through many of our programs. And we run programs all over Cleveland. We now run virtual programs all over the world. And you know, for the most part, that's what keeps me off the streets and out of trouble. So, if anyone like to know anything more, you can reach out to me at rabbilandes.com or torahcleveland.com, and I'll tell you anything you want to know. Rabbi Landes, wow, that is so impressive. Unbelievable. Yad Torah, continue spreading the Torah. You continue doing this amazing work Partners in Cleveland. And uh it's it's amazing to have you on the program. And you know, tonight's topic is summer earth number. Uh we are right now in the middle of the summer season. Rabbi, what does this topic mean to you? So this is such a complicated topic because, you know, you have the ongoing issue of a Jew. And and this is it is an issue for Jew no matter where they are on the Jewish spectrum, that how do we synthesize who we are as a people with the land that we are living in and the country we are living in. So, you know, as you said, it's the summertime. Summertime means summer vacation, and it means it's usually, if you live in most places, it's warmer than usual. There if you live in Cleveland, there's actually no snow on the ground for a few days. And it's it's a culture of getting outside, having fun, going to the beach, going on vacation, going to I think in New York you you go to Six Flags. Here in Cleveland, we go to Cedar Point. But whatever you get out there, you do things it's it's whether you're a student in school or a professional, it's all going to be different in the summer. And that actually, if you think about it from a Jewish perspective, is very complicated because what does the summer really mean to us if we think about it? Well, we're holding now by just a few days after Tu B'Av and a a week plus after Tisha B'Av. So, we had the three weeks of mourning where we focus on Jewish history, which is one of my favorite topics, uh and and all the tragedies we've had, and how we're supposed to grow from those tragedies, and how we're try to be better people, and and become a better Jewish nation. And then like as soon as we end that, we begin what's called the seven weeks of comfort, the shiva shiv'an nechamta. The seven weeks of comfort as we climb up to Rosh Hashanah. And three weeks into it, just another week and a half or so from now, we have the last four weeks of that, which is Elul, which is like Jewish self-help month, like Jewish development month, where we start blowing the shofar, we say, "Wake up from your slumber and become better people and think about everything you've done wrong and think about what you want to change and how you want to become a better person, etc., etc., ETC." AND THIS JUST DOESN'T work with the summer theme in America. Or in Canada, or in Australia, or in Zimbabwe, wherever you're listening to this today. It just Now, it it's actually winter in Australia, but that's that's a different point. But uh but you know, it doesn't make sense because the summer concept is summer is the time off, leave me alone, Rabbi, why are you giving me such a hard time? Like you're going to start blowing the shofar in my ear and I'm still hanging out at the beach. I mean, you think about it, Rosh Chodesh Elul, the first day of the month of Elul, the month where we start blowing the shofar and start preparing for Rosh Hashanah, is August 8th. I mean, if you if you are in New York, like you know, I think it's considered a issur d'oraita, it's a Torah prohibition, if on August 8th you're in the city and you're not in the bungalow colonies. I mean, it's the middle of the summer and you're blowing the shofar? As as as people often say, "This year the holidays are coming very early." To which I always answer, "They're never early or late, they're always right on time." But uh but you know, we we have our loony solar calendar and I get it, it's early on the secular calendar, on the solar calendar. So, it it it it's a conundrum, it's a contradiction. That from a Jewish perspective, we're really in the most And the Vilna Gaon explains this, we're in like the most serious time of the year, going from the three weeks, Tisha B'Av, the mourning, which, you know, I'm sure everyone watching participated watched the amazing chazak Tisha B'Av program with so much inspiration and like you take that inspiration and you want to become a better Jew but America is telling you to go to a baseball game. Right? Like what's that all about? Or like basketball is still going on which I haven't figured that one out yet. Maybe someone can explain to me why the basketball season still going on. They're going to have something to do with the coronavirus but again, I don't get it. But you know, so Judaism is telling you serious introspection become better and the rest of the world is saying like like like go go get on a boat and water ski. So it's it's a conundrum and as a rabbi and an educator and as caring sincere Jews, we really have to synthesize this because we don't believe in sheltering ourselves, not living in the world that's around us. We believe in being an or lagola, a light into the nations and improving the world around us. You know, it's not to go too far aside but it's the difference between Noach, between Noah and and the flood story and Avraham Avinu, and our father Abraham. Noah believed that he could try and improve himself in the world by just bottling himself up in an ark, right? Whereas Abraham went out and tried to make the world a better place. So therefore, that's what I that's what I really struggle with this time of year, that that the the contradiction, the conundrum, the the the discrepancy between what Judaism what what our people, what our Torah says we should be focusing on this time of year and on the flip side, the reality of the fact that it is warmer outside that if you want to go to Six Flags Great Adventure, this is the only time it's open. If you want to go to Bungalows, this is the only time you're allowed, etc. etc. So it's it's a it's a challenge and and that's really just to you know, sum it up. That's what the this topic means to me tonight. The challenge of what it means to be a Jew and many ways comes out during these months of the year. Amazing Rabbi and we're going to discuss this further and as we all know, we live in a fast-paced world where we rarely get to to down and especially during the summer, we have a you know, we have a little bit more time on our hands. So, maybe you could please delve into the importance of using relaxation for a constructive purpose. On a personal level, I I I I I don't relate to this question. We don't understand the concept of relaxing. We are Kadak, and maybe you could shed some light to our listeners and all those around the world. Yeah, beautiful. And you know, I'm with you because especially with the introduction we just gave as a as a Jewish educator, like this is crunch time. Like we went we all went off of our huge Tisha B'Av programs, which which we didn't sleep for days leading up to it to prepare it. And then the day Tisha B'Av ends, we're working on the Elul programs now, and it's it's forget about sleeping. Like it's it's crunch time. But, you know, I'll give you just a personal a personal example because next week the Landises are going on their first vacation in over a year. Right, we didn't because of the pandemic last year, we didn't we didn't leave Cleveland. We really didn't do anything other than hang out at home. And and now we're getting ready to go on a family vacation. God willing, my sister-in-law is getting married in August August 11th, and we're going down to see my parents in Atlanta. The wedding's in Miami. We're going to go to the Smoky Mountains, a whole 12 days away, which will be which will be very nice. But, you know, we we have to remember what the point of all these things are. You know, there's first of all, you know, as a as a father and as a parent watching for all the parents out there, I'm sure you can relate to this idea, that there's a big difference between a trip and a vacation. Right? We all get that difference, right? Maybe for those of us who who are listening who don't have the blessing of children, you might not get the difference yet. But, it's it's there's a there's a trip and there's a vacation, right? And we Baruch Hashem have five children. This is everyone's home. As of yesterday, my daughter came home from camp. Everyone's home for the first time almost we had a few days before they left for camp, but the my daughter is in her extra usually during the year my son's way in Yeshiva during the year. So we have everyone home. We're going on a trip and it's going to be exhausting. We're going to pack up in the car and we got to and you know, I for those of you in New York who aren't familiar with the Smoky Mountains, it's not like the Catskill Mountains. There's no glatt mart. There's no dougie honest dougie still around whatever there's you know, you don't have all the like I was the funniest thing when I as a as a Cleveland Atlanta Jew when I go to the Catskills and like you walk into these mountain shacks and that's really what they look like look like they're about to fall down if you blow on them and you go and you feel like all of a sudden you're in Brooklyn, right? It's it's just as nice as any grocery store restaurant in Brooklyn on the inside. They don't have that in the Smoky Mountains. We got to schlep our own food and our meat and our and our and our everything and our cheese and our milk and and and all this all this stuff to and back in the car we had to bring car seat carrier for the kids. I mean for the luggage and and it's going to be exhausting from beginning to end. So so what's the point of it all? The point of it all is is I'll I'll tell you what I believe it is as I'm I'm speaking as a father for for kids listening may have a different idea, but for I guess probably the same idea for anyone in the family. It's about creating memories. I mean I think back of my childhood and I think back of my whatever it is 20 years I've been a parent and that's how we looked at our trips that they're not only about getting away, getting out of the environment, doing something different, change of scenery etc. But it's about creating memories because you know, let's face it. If you do the if you do the same thing day in and day out it does all blur together. You know, it all it all becomes one big mush and all the same. You don't remember yesterday from today and as a family you want to build bonds not only a husband to a wife and a wife to a husband, but the parents to the children, the children to the parents etc. And that's therefore what it's all about. I think that's how we should look at the extra time that we have that we're going to do things whether it's going on a trip or a barbecue at the bungalow or a baseball game outside or whatever it is, that it's it's time to build memories. And that's really how we should look at it. And And by the way, this is really a word of caution. Because if you go into it thinking that everything's going to be perfect, that none of your kids are going to fight, that you're actually going to relax, um that uh you know, forget it. You're you're you're going to the wrong place. But you should embrace all that knowing that, you know, God forbid, you're going to get a flat tire. Knowing that your kids are going to after the 6 hours into the car ride, there're going to be a few fights that might break out, right? Knowing that you'll get to the cabin and uh I don't know, the Wi-Fi won't work. I don't know. You know there's going to be issues. But if you go into it with the mindset you're creating memories, then you turn all of those incidents into part of the memory. And it's all as you as the trip leader, as the counselors, the parents, whoever it is, it's all how you deal with it and you deal with these experiences and you deal with these things that that really define if you're creating memories or positive memories or not-so-positive memories. I I I once heard from a friend of mine, I think it was um Rabbi David Markowitz from Olami, who told me who, you know, Olami is a big uh big campus. Right, exactly. Great friend of mine, too. So they do a lot of campus outreach and young professionals outreach. And he used to work for an organization here he's with Aish HaTorah and before that an organization in Los Angeles. And he was telling me once that when they when they would run trips to Israel, one of the best parts of the trip was when the bus would break down. And you would say like, "Rabbi, you insane? I I Maybe the Kotel or I don't know, Masada, but when the bus breaks down, that's the best time?" He said, "100% because his staff would go into action to help use it to build bonds, to have conversations, to get deeper conversations that they could usually get with that that they were hard to get in when you're running from place to place and doing things. So, in short, I think that's how we should look at the summer. There's more time on our hands. We're going to do things with our kids or our family or our friends. Make sure that you go into it with the mindset of I'm building memories, number one, and number two, whatever doesn't go along with my plan, that's okay. I'm going to use it as a building block in these memories. What a powerful lesson, Rabbi Landis. I love it. Uh wow, you inspired me. I I you know, I can definitely relate with the children and going out and and and stuff like that. But uh that that is really really really powerful. Uh moving on to the next question, Rabbi Landis, is that one might feel that during the summer, I might not have to be as careful and one can be more lax and quote unquote, you know, slumber about our Judaism until, you know, like the rabbi mentioned before, Elul comes. Uh can you please discuss this phenomenon and how we can tackle this? The summer is not a time, you know, of course you could relax like the rabbi said about going to take the family out and building memories, but it doesn't mean that a person should miss out on Yamin or miss out or not God forbid keep kosher. Rabbi if you could shed some light on that topic. Sure, excellent question. Thank you. So, you know, I'll I'll I'll share with you a piece of advice that I was once given but from one of my teachers. And this was in the context of Yeshiva, being a a rabbinical student. And but it it's a I think it's a lesson that can apply to anyone. And one of my teachers would tell us before we went home for the vacation from Yeshiva that while we're on vacation, he said, "Obviously you're not going to learn as much. You're spending time with your family. You're resting. You're catching up on your sleep, which is important, uh etc. etc. But make sure that when you're home, that you learn at least a little bit every day. And that that learning is different than what you do in Yeshiva. In other words, when we're in Yeshiva, we usually are focused on uh you know, when were doing rabbinical learning. we were focusing on certain areas of Jewish law, or before that on certain tractates of the Talmud. But he said, "Take the opportunity to learn something different." You know, everyone is has different things they enjoy. You know, some people like like the philosophical Hasidus and Kabbalah and Maharal and that stuff. And other people like more practical Jewish law. And other people like the stories of the Bible of Tanakh. And and during the year, let's say you don't get the time to do it because of your regular, let's say classes you go to, you have your Khazak programs that you watch, you have your your you know, whatever it is, your Torah Anytime programs that you watch. But, you know, now you're going to be on the trip. You're going to have 4 hours in the car. You're going to have you know, 6 hours, you know, whatever it is. So, let's extrapolate this idea from my teacher and say, "Do something different." In other words, take the opportunity when you're when you're in the car as opposed to listening to I don't know, Uncle Moishy tapes and and NPR or whatever it might be. Uh, listen to something else. He said, "You know what? I always wanted to listen to that guy Landers of Torah Anytime. I think he's he's pretty quacko. You know, he's a quack and a southern boy. He'll he'll throw in Yiddish every now and then. I'm going to check out this guy Landers." Or or or whatnot. But, you know, I think that's one way we can look at it. Yeah, we might think we have to it's it's you know, we don't have our if you're a student, you don't have school. If you're a parent, you might not have your weekly classes, whatever it might be. So, you might say, "Okay, I can be lax now." So, so approach it because of course, we never want to be lax. We never want to slumber. Life is a I was given the example, life is a down escalator, right? So, it's like when you're a kid and you're at a mall or a hotel or something had this big escalator. We all did the same thing. We would try and walk up the down escalator, right? And if you were strong enough and persevered, you could get to the top that way. But it took a lot more effort. Or the way that you know, if you're if you're used to boating or kayaking or these type of things like going downriver or up versus upriver. Have you ever noticed when you fly to Eretz Yisrael, you fly to Israel, it it's like I forgot which way is which, but one way takes 10 hours, one way takes 12 hours, right? And all depends if the headwinds are with you or against you. So, so, you know, life is always such that the headwinds are always against you, the escalator is always going down, right? You're always going upstream. That's just life. So, if you sit back and do nothing, you're going to lose traction. So, with the the way that we can I think combat being in a different environment is say, "I'm going to do something different." Learning. I'm going to find something different to learn, right? I can give you some suggestions. I I'm a big fan of He's actually there in Queens, are you guys? Rabbi Laiman, the Rabbi Dr. Schneier Laiman. I'm I'm For those of you who follow my stuff, you know, I'm very into history. So, Rabbi Laiman has a book on on like the on Tanakh, how Tanakh was organized. I've been waiting to read this book forever. I'm taking on vacation with me. There's a great biography that came out recently from from from Rabbi Nosson Rosenthal, a biography of Rabbi Nachman Weinberg. I'm taking on vacation with me. And And I don't get time to sit back and read, but on vacation I'll get to. And that'll be something different. And look, the where where it gets complicated, obviously, is is like you said with things like prayer, with kashrus, with with with keeping kosher on the road, with with praying on the road, praying with a minyan on the road, which are all very important things. So, here's the one piece of advice I'll give on that. We know it's important, right? We know there's never an excuse to be lax in whatever our level is, we want to maintain that level and keep that level going in the right direction. So, this point will apply to you, whatever your level is. And that is that yes, if you don't anticipate the down escalator {slash} down river {slash} headwinds, then they're going to knock you over. But if you anticipate it and you prepare for it, you'll win the race every time. So, for example, if you're somebody like I have a very very very close friend, he was he actually was the MC at my wedding, Yaakov Lieder in Baltimore. So, until the pandemic, so he's about my age, I'm about 43, let's say maybe he's 42. So from his bar mitzvah till he was 40, 41, however old he was last year, he had never missed a minyan. In other words, he had never never ever, right? He had never missed praying with 10 men, shacharit, mincha, maariv, morning, evening, afternoon, ever from his bar mitzvah till he was whatever it was, 41. Almost 20, I'm sorry, 30 straight years without missing a minyan. Cuz he was somebody who took minyan very very seriously. Now did that mean that he didn't GO ON VACATION? NO, HE OBVIOUSLY WENT ON VACATION, but he planned it out and he only went on a vacation where he was sure he wouldn't miss a minyan. I remember when we went down to my wedding from Baltimore to Miami, we it was in June, so you know, the sunset was like, I don't know, 8:30 or something like that. So there's going to be plenty of time to daven in the afternoon service when we pray the afternoon service when we got to Florida. We were leaving like at Baltimore at 12:00 or something like that, but he made sure that that we prayed in the airport so that we wouldn't miss the minyan. Even though we were getting to Miami in like six or seven hours to go. He said, "We're all going to pray in the airport cuz that's the only way I'm going." Now, that's because he would plan things out, right? He said, "I'm going on this trip, want to make sure I don't miss a minyan, therefore I'll daven the afternoon service here, the evening service there, the morning service there, and I won't miss anything." And that's what it boils down to. If somebody is is is careful to put on tefillin every single day, do you think you will be successful on your trip in putting on tefillin every day if you forget your tefillin at home? No. But if you prepare just like you're going to remember your your I don't know, your suntan lotion and your camera and your flip-flops and whatnot, you're going to pack your tefillin. So whatever your level is, treat vacation like that, too. You want to keep the same level, prepare, think about it, and just like you're you're going to AAA to get all the best deals and Dan's Deals and what's not to make sure that you're planning on awesome trip, plan it out spiritually, too. Say, "I don't want to slip while I'm on vacation, let's plan it out and make sure I stay on my level. Great suggestion, Rabbi Landes. Love it. We have to be prepared. We have to get ready. We have to know what we're getting into. Amazing, amazing, amazing. So, that leads us to the next question, Rabbi Landes. How can we use the time period of the summer to uplift those around us and to show them the beauty of Judaism? How do we use the summer to, I guess for lack of better words, bring those that are far in? Beautiful, beautiful. So, you know, I I one of my teachers always says that, you know, don't learn from what I say, learn from what I do. Now, that doesn't mean that he doesn't say what he does. What he means is he spends time trying to explain certain ways on how to do things and and how to grow and how to be better. And he's an and he's a really an ish emes. He's a true person, true to his word, that he's saying that if you don't get it from my words, from my teachings, look at how I do it. You know, I take prayers very seriously. So, I I'm going to teach you a class on prayer and teach you all how to pray and this and how to shuckle and then all the good stuff. And uh but uh but you know, it's one thing if I teach it and I don't act it. So, I think first of all for all our watchers, all our all our listeners here tonight, just look at Chazak, right? They they're they're they're always 24/7. I I get the emails. I have to say the Chazak emails are the longest email I get all week long. Like, it takes you literally, I think, about 45 minutes to scroll through the whole thing in a normal scroll because they're doing so many amazing things all the time, 24/7, 365 or 354 if you're on the Jewish calendar. But but they're taking the opportunity, especially during these time periods that we said are so serious, the three weeks going on to Elul, and and and bringing out the inspiration of this day and these days. And I think that's what we have to do as we talk to our fellow Jew, might be not as connected, might be more connected, wherever wherever it is on the spectrum. We have to look at all the opportunities to bring out the amazing from a Jewish perspective, the amazing ideas, the amazing concepts that are that are literally right here in the summertime and not miss the boat so to speak. Rav Dessler, the the Michtav M'Eliyahu explains that the world when the Almighty created the world, the Torah predated the physical creation. So, therefore, there's a concept of Histaklut Reisha d'Araylima, the Almighty had the concept of Torah and then he used Torah to create the world. In other words, the Torah was the instruction book, the Torah was the blueprint, and the world was created as a as a fulfillment center for the Torah. So, the way that that works is there's certain flows of holiness that come into the world on every single day, week, year, and specific season. And therefore, when we come up now to the month of Elul and and the the Yamim Nora'im, the Days of Awe, and Sukkot, etc., those that's not just like days on the calendar. It's not like the butcher shop came up with that when they made the Jewish calendars and just stuck it on there. No, that's intrinsic in creation. God himself, THE ALMIGHTY, WHEN he created the world, he put these flows of holiness into the world at these times. And they're there. Now, we can just miss them. It's possible. It's similar to back in the day before we had smartphones, internet, computer, all these different amenities we have today, we had this thing called a radio. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's a little box you could turn on, it had noise come out of it, people talking or music. So, the way that the radio worked is that it was a uh it would catch signals, what's called radio waves, the radio signals, and the box or on your car or wherever it was, it would transmit those into either song or or or talk radio or whatever it was, and you could listen to it. Now, whether or not you had a radio, those radio waves were in the room. And and I'll I'll even take it one step further. Radios still exist today. And therefore, those radio waves are in THE ROOM RIGHT NOW. But we're not hearing them. Why? Because we're not tuned in. We don't have the box turned on. We don't have the radio turned on. So, right now these flows of holiness are coming in the world. Right now it's the seven weeks of comfort building up from from Tisha B'Av to Rosh Hashanah. So, it's the theme of comfort coming into the world. It's a time period of comfort. We read this past Shabbat in the haftarah the words of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Nachamu Nachamu Nachamu ami." You should be comforted my nation. And every one of these next six weeks we're going to talk about the idea of comfort. Comfort is a time period of comfort remembering the Almighty is with us. Remembering that no matter what our struggles are in this world that someone's got our back. The ultimate someone has our back. And that's the flow that's coming into this world. So, whether or not we turn on the radio the flow is there. But we got to just turn on the radio. We got to take that moment to turn on to the radio and plug in because that's what's happening in the world right now and we don't want to miss it. Wow, what powerful words Rabbi Landa is amazing, phenomenal, great. My staff and listeners because we're all enjoying so much, but time has come for the final last advice which is a final message that the Rabbi can give all of us which is timely, something that potentially is connected somehow to this amazing topic that you can leave to our broad audience. Awesome. So, I'm going to give you one last idea. One last idea of some of the things we said about summer time, about not missing the amazing opportunities, opportunities for growth, opportunities for connection that we have in the summer. And and that is another thing that just was, you know, kind of blows my mind how it works out. But in the summer time we read the book of Deuteronomy. We read read the last book in the Torah. And what is the last book in the Torah? The last book in the Torah is different from the other four, right? The the first four books of the Torah are all the record that the Almighty told Mosha to write down as to different things that happened in our history, as to the commandments of the Torah, etc. That's the first four books of the Torah. The fifth book, Deuteronomy, is Mosha Rabbeinu, our teacher Moses' last will and testament, his last speech to the Jewish people. It was a five-week speech. It was the last five weeks of his life and he gave over just the you know, if you know what a last will and testament is, it is life's purpose. It's like the ideas, the final teachings to the Jewish people. And I believe it was Recham Levitz who said that if someone wants to learn ethics and Jewish philosophy, all they have to do is look at the book of Deuteronomy. And we take out such amazing things. And and I'll share with you one of those things that just always inspires me. It was in it was in a last week's Torah reading. It's going to be in a few weeks again. It's a few times Mosha brings this up in the book of Deuteronomy. And it's the idea that for us as Jews that there's always somebody there. There's always someone there who's looking out for us, who's taking care of us, and no matter how difficult the road gets in front of us, the Almighty has our back. And no matter how much we push him away as we were apt to do throughout Jewish history. And by the way, Mosha in his infinite prophetic wisdom talks about it. He says, "It's going to be a rough ride for you guys. You know why? Because you as a Jewish people are going TO TRY SO HARD TO PUSH THE ALMIGHTY AWAY. YOU'RE GOING TO YOU'RE GOING TO YOU'RE going to go into land of Israel and you're going to worship idols and and practice the way of the nations surrounding the land of Israel and you're going to end up you know, the Almighty is going to give you every chance to change and to improve and you're not going to take it. You're going to get kicked out. You're going to be scattered across the world. The nations of the world are going to try and destroy you, but through all that and one of the most amazing prophecies of all time, Mosha says, "Through all that you're going to survive. You're going to survive it all. You're going to beat them all and in the end you're going to return to the land of Israel." Now, we my friends are the first Jews since the destruction of not the second temple, since the destruction of the first temple to see the majority of the world Jewish population living in the land of Israel. Amazing, right? Like Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb from Or Sameach once gave a mathematical probability that like if you take the prophecies that Moses lays out in the book of Deuteronomy and say at the time when he said them, what's the mathematical probability of these coming to coming to fruition? It was like one in 16,000 chance of these things becoming true. Yet, we all see every single thing that we read about coming true that we're going to return. The Almighty always has our backs. And just like we see those things and we know it's true that through these times of the summer, which we said we got the conundrum that summer time yet Judaism and how's it all reconcile and what's it all how's it all come together? And through these challenging times we're having, we have to remember that just like we look at the story of Jewish destiny, of Jewish history, and we see that's all come true as Mosha told us it's going to come true. So, too, the Almighty loves us like it says in there. The Almighty's there for us. He's rooting for us. And no matter where we where we succeed or where we fail, he's always going to be there to pick us up and he's never going to forsake us. And that's the idea we have to take as we're going through these times of trying to figure things out with summer and being a Jew. The times of the challenging times on the calendar and what's happening in the world, and we have to remember that he always has our backs. Sometimes all we have to do is reach out and turn on that radio. Thank you so much for this opportunity. This is awesome. Rabbi Landes, we want to thank you. What inspiration. Really, really, really amazing. Really appreciate it. And these are there continuing spreading throughout. Thank you very much for all your partnership, all that you do for the quality Israel. It was my my very, very inspiring, Rabbi Landes. Well, thank you. Pleasure to be here and anytime anytime you want me, I'm always I'm always it's it's a pleasure to jump in your studio and to be part of your show. We really appreciate it, Rabbi Landes. And uh we will definitely be one reminder to all of our viewers. Every single Tuesday 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, we have special guests, various different timely Torah talks. And looking forward to this edition continuing these great talks. And Rabbi Landes, looking forward to seeing you in the Yeshiva of Miami. And the blessing of complete redemption. to feed me your days. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much and look forward to seeing you again soon. Okay. Thank you so much. I hope that's what you wanted. Wow, that was really good. I'll tell you a funny story. When when I was when I was in Yeshiva, I did a seed program in Sydney, Australia. And I was in this like office building giving a luncheon learn and I tend to be a little loud and excited as you see. Afterwards there's a lady who's sitting there like like this. And I said I said, "Are there any questions?" And she said, "YOU'RE REALLY LOUD." ANYHOW. Being really loud could be a good thing for the speaker world. I try. I try. But thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Very our appreciation to you Rabbi and in regards to DJG. We'll I will send. You know, it's impressive. You actually know his last name. He told me most people in New York don't know his real last name. No, they think it's Joshua. He actually he had somewhat of a cashier. And he's he's really correct me if I'm wrong. He's the one that really introduced you to the turning time Kazak. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah, he was he was pushing me on a long time to get involved. He kept he didn't let Shimon and Reuben, you know, they they they now have officially a moratorium on letting new speakers on because there's so many, but he he pushed them to actually give me a chance. So uh No, no, they don't have What did he say to they're not still on? They they they they're not they're at least when I went on to 3 years ago or something at the time they weren't accepting new speakers. Oh, they still don't. I have people reaching out to me all the time. Yeah, we we we can see them here and there now, right? But uh yeah, I'll tell you Robbie, one of the things we're doing now is I don't know if you saw this Torah any1 program. So Yes. I heard of it. Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, we're we're working hard on that. Rabbi Landa is like spearheading that, no? Yeah, I mean yeah, whatever. I mean they they had put it this way, we separately had the idea. I approached the Koyakubs about it. They had had the idea, but they're doing 15,000 million things. And I basically said, "Well, look, I'll run with it if you'll let me." And they said, "Fine, run with it." So, so that's what's happening. And and and the Rabbis they love with the Rabbis in Cleveland. Yeah, yes, we are. Amazing. Over a thousand Nishamas already saved, Rabbi. In the last four years, more or less. We got we got one in and one hopefully in progress. It's a you know, it's a tough one, but they're all tough ones. And and then we're figuring out how we do uh how like Rabbi and I were talking and Rabbi Rubinoff making it a making it a thing here. So. Are you ever in the New York area, Rabbi? So, I keep telling Rabbi I got to get up there one of these days. So, I will and and he knows that uh I was I was supposed to be up there for a Chasna in the early spring. I ended up not making it, but uh I will definitely let you guys know if I'm That is known in advance, Rabbi. We'll put some stuff together, you know. Rabbi and uh we just had the who's here. Rabbi Yossi, your neighbor. My neighbor. My neighbor. I Yossi been to your house? Yossi lives about three houses down from me. I could open my front door and yell at him if I wanted to. That is funny. Okay. Yeah, he's uh and then we're doing something uh we're doing a live event together. It's We haven't done a live event together in like forever. We've done We've done a lot of these like, you know, pretend live events. We're doing a real bonafide live event in a in a few weeks together. But yeah, it's going to be in Cleveland. It's going to be part of the for It's going to be part of Torah Anyone on the, you know, for the live stream and all that. But We're doing a uh we're doing a a TED Talk type thing. So, with me and him. Beautiful. Okay, great. Amazing. Good stuff. Good stuff, Rabbi. The community in Cleveland is uh is growing. It What What's the market there? Yeah, oh, it's growing like crazy. It's It's uh it's um it Yeah, it And part of it is there we have uh we have school choice here, which means school vouchers. So, so you you get uh you get about uh I think for elementary school it's like $5,500 and for for high school I think it's $7,000. Exactly. Exactly. So so you know, even before you have to start with the tuition committee, you know that it's that it's you're already ahead of the game. So so it's you know, that's attractive. I feel cost of living is much less than the East Coast. Yeah, exactly. And and it has a lot of people just for that because word gets out about it and they you know, cuz like you said tuition is you know, I mean you know, it's the I could get a new Tesla every year with what I spend on tuition. So but the guys like me and you we have to we have to go out and raise the money for it. Guys are on the workforce it's very hard because like like I mean again, I won't say fundraising is easy but at the end of the day I I look at the budget. I raise the money we need and I raise it. But when you're talking about uh and I do that for my staff cuz I know everyone has has has kids in school. So but when you're talking about a ball bust, let's say if a guy has like a regular job making I'm going to say 70, 80,000 dollars a year, you just can't live on that. So you kind of place like Cleveland where where they're at least covering some of the tuition for you and houses are you know, you can get to a house with 200,000 dollars. It's a And they even just opened Grove here. Like we have a Grove here now. You I mean it's like unbelievable. Do you know what Grove is? No, 200. 200,000. Yeah, you can get in a home for 200,000 dollars. That's a small home. That's a that's a small home but still, yeah. But that's um We thank you for the opportunity and I look forward to seeing the final product.