Cory Booker @ 2011 Colel Chabad Dinner

there is no greater way to show our admiration and appreciation than by asking for more cory booker addressed us last year and we are privileged and delighted to have him with us again tonight corey is the classic lamplighter whose mission in life is to bring light wherever it is most needed to say we are blessed to have him with us this evening is an understatement ladies and gentlemen please welcome the honorable cory booker good evening i i feel like i need to wake everybody up good evening for crying out loud i came up this morning this evening and i saw a red carpet and the lights flashing and all of this and i said finally chabad is getting it right all the press was all lined up but i walked over to the tom cruise movie premiere but i will tell you this this is the better place to be now good finally somebody made me feel like i was in my home church i got an amen in the back corner there i think i might have heard of hallelujah from up front look people lose their way in life and we're in a world that is being distracted with narcissism and meism and materialism over there they have celebrity here we have significance over there they have popularity here we have profound purpose over there they have the mission impossible here we have the mission meshuggah now i say the mission with sugar because what kind of audacity is it for a group to come together and say you know what let's heal this world sounds crazy it sounds insane but this is the rebbe's vision this is what the rebbe saw so many years ago that chabad would not be simply a movement of jews that the calling of chabad was to be a light unto nations to heal this world i love it it was during the crown heights riots that a mayor then mayor of the city went to see the rebbe and and went to the rebbe and said rebbe we must bring together our two communities and the rebbe is said to have said no and the then mayor looked a little upset a little shocked and the rebbe leaned forward and said we must bring together our one community what gives me pleasure to be here why why i am standing here today is because what i have found is so many people in our day and age you hear it amongst politicians they're so good about preaching about their faith about talking about how holy they are but what this chabad movement is understanding that talmud torah is so important but ultimately is more important to live it than to study it here thank you you all keep trying to bring me back to church i am so proud to stand here today there's an aligning to me of of coincidences of of circumstance uh i think it's a bit of destiny a bit of bashert that i stand here tonight on the eve of hanukkah where tomorrow i will gather together with some dear friends who are also here uh rabbi block who's a dear friend of mine who's here and and the burger family and we will stand before city hall in newark and we will light a candle for the first night of hanukkah but that's just the first of the line and then a few hours later i will be rushing to the second best airport in the new york metropolitan area thank you for applauding for number two i will go to laguardia thank you thank you i'm wondering why the halperns aren't jumping up and down their jersey family i figured i'd get more jersey love here and i will get on a plane with my mom and my dad and we will fly to israel and and so for me this is a wonderful opportunity to hear to talk about the rebbe's vision to talk about kala al-shabaab and then be over in israel and see the power and the wonder of their works but the second reason i'm here is very selfish because i want to give honor to a family uh if i can and it would be a a a mistake if this gargantuan left this podium and did not talk about the torah portion of the week and and the parsha you guys thought you would get away without the parsha tonight why did why was i invited if it wasn't to do the mayoral rabbinical duties here we just finished the parsha of joseph and his dreams and he was interpreting the dreams and he interpreted the dream of the butler who was pulled out of prison forgiven by pharaoh and he forgot the torah says it twice and he rabbi give me a shake up your head up and down and grab my block because if i had to get this wrong rabbi block will punish me back in newark he won't let me light my own my own candle my own manure candle but it says it twice it said that the butler forgot about joseph and and then it says it again did not remember and and this is to me a sin there is a there is a phrase in hebrew we must remember the good tonight we gather to remember the good to celebrate to recognize not to forget not just the good of this organization but to recognize and remember that all of us are here not because of our own doing yes we have worked hard yes we have sacrificed yes we have struggled yes we have made ourselves who we are but ultimately if we think about it all of us are gathered in this room because we are the result of a grand conspiracy of love the back in our ancestry there were people who did not give up who fought for us who sacrificed for us many names that we don't even know who were part of a movement of people through kindness decency and love through courage sacrifice and struggle enabled us to live the lives that we are living now and we must remember the good i have a father who tells me all the time son do not forget about that conspiracy of love when it was time for me to go to school my father was born to a single mom who couldn't take care of him he he he was poor he jokes with me son i wasn't poor i hate when i hear you say i was poor corey i wasn't poor i was just po po i couldn't afford the other two letters it was a community of people that were there to see that he got food to see that he had a roof over his head that raised him and took care of him people's names that i will never know but but for their love i would not be here he was then on his way to go to college but couldn't afford it so he was going to put college off he might not have never have gone if it wasn't for people that i don't even know their names who put dollar bills in envelopes and gave him his first semester of tuition so he could get off to college when he got to college and graduated it was blacks and whites who came together christians and jews that provided opportunity for him to get his first job at an oil company first job at a department store his first job to become a sec his third job was to become one of the first blacks excuse me at a department store oil company one of the first blacks hired in a wave of of new blacks going into a company called ibm when it was time for us to move into a new neighborhood here in new jersey my father went to buy a home in the town i grew up in harrington park they wouldn't sell it to him a group of people came together and sent a white couple out behind him and the house was still for sale they put a bid on the house on the day of the closing my father and a jewish lawyer showed up to confront the real estate agent for his housing discrimination the real estate agent after hearing the lawyer present his his remarks stood up and punched this lawyer in the nose sit the dog on my dad a fight broke out eventually a court case and eventually we moved into this town of relative affluence in the northern suburbs of new jersey and my parents would sit around the dinner table and said do not forget the good they didn't say it in hebrew i don't know why they did not say that but they knew those ideals so i simply want to say to you tonight that we must not forget the good that we must remember that we are here because of the profound love of others and we must continue it we have a meshuga mission we do but it was crazy dreams that have gotten us to where we are throughout history and it's only these impossible dreams that will have us be successful if you will indulge me for one more moment there's a couple in my life who really to me are heroes of hesed they are soldiers of sadaka if i can rabbi block maybe tomorrow we can think about a new award in newark we call it the newark noches award because this is a couple that has given me as mayor of the city great nachos they've made me so proud because they in every way are living the ideals of their faith every day through their work and their goodness and their kindness they are living that tradition that started with abraham who was said to be god's favor because he kept his tent open on four sides that wherever you were approaching would always feel hospitality and warmth i love the fact that this couple they're in the hospitality industry and they own the best hotel in the city of newark called the robert street hotel they are being honored tonight and they are my friends and i want to recognize them for the inspiration they give me through their goodness and most importantly through how well they live every day their faith and their values through how they embrace the newark community i would just like to give my congratulations and thanks to the burger family and to mr mrs berger right now and so again as i conclude i want to encourage this organization i look forward to being in a matter of hours in front of the hotel and giving prayers of thanks to what this organization is doing not just for some but for so many and i want to conclude just giving them two words of encouragement simply this joshua thank you