DAMOJO Spotlight: Rabbi Shlomo Farhi, Edmond J Safra Synagogue

Good evening. I'm privileged tonight to be sitting with the one and only Rabbi Schlommo Fari, a rabbi who needs no introduction to anybody watching this video. Rabbi, I'm privileged to know you now for a few years. And I see someone that brings tremendous charisma and passion to everything he does to the community. My question to you, Rabbi, what fuels that passion? What gives you that energy and that love for the Torah and the community that we see in every single class that you give in every single speech that you give? The puk says [Music] I have my thoughts and my ideas that I want to say but how it comes out and the passion or the charisma that you have that comes from Hashem. Hashem decides how each person speaks. But if you want to know where the heart comes from, where the comes from, I was raised by two people that are literally angels. You know, I have a mother and father that are the most lash Shamayan people that you could ever hope to meet in your life. And I'm sure you know them, so you can concur. My father is Anav like unbelievable. It was never ever about his own honor. It was always about the community and about teaching the Torah. My mother always uh did everything she could for every person that she ever met. So that's the heart that I was that I saw growing up and that was what we were raised with. So this passion to teach, to give to the community, it's it was what we were raised on in our family. I can't take any credit for that. Um, I'll give credit where credit is due to uh to my parents and obviously the community we we're similar in age. So obviously the community we grew up in is not the community we live in today. Tell me what you attribute the growth of Torah just in general before we discuss Yeshua. What do you attribute that growth to in the past 30 years or so? >> So I'll tell you something that I find very interesting. I think in our community, we have this incredible blessing that the rabbis are very relatable and they know how to joke around with you and they know how to seem like they're your best friend, like they're just like you. And it's made learning Torah incredibly approachable, incredibly um relevant, exciting, and like anything that changes in a healthy way, the community was basically building year on year, decade on decade on what came before them. So the way I see it is it's not that we're very different now than we were then. Rather then they changed a little and then after they changed a little then they changed a little bit more and then they changed a little bit more and then we changed a little then we changed a little bit more then we changed a little bit more. Healthy growth, sustainable growth looks like that where it's not radical. You shifted from zero to hero overnight, but rather over time the community became much more shame Shabbat. Over time, the community became share kash to the point where if something is not kosher, people go nuts. Right? If there's a Shabbat party, music on, people go crazy because slowly it has become something that has been made important and feels real to everyone in the community. And I have to give the credit to that number one to the rabbis for being able to to bring that and slowly, you know, unfold piece by piece, step by step a road map for people to grow with. But I also have to give tremendous credit to the community. You know, you go to other communities in the world. I don't need to say what, when, where, who, but the cavod that the people have here in our community generationally, the cavod that people have here is unbelievable. Almost on a daily basis, I'll give a class and there'll be two or three or four cups of water, coffees from different people that wanted to be the one to bring the coffee to the rabbi. When people have that level of cavod for the rabbis, then the rabbis are able to communicate, not fighting with the people, they're inspiring the people. So I think that this combination is a unbelievably winning combination and that's what we're seeing in our community over time. Excellent rabbi. Um we're sitting now in the heart of the Edund J Suffer Synagogue. The rabbi has been the leader of the synagogue the last seven eight years or so. And Rabbi what you've done I mean I'm not here often. I live in Brooklyn obviously but every time I come I see more and more. There's somebody learning in the hallway. There's a class going on downstairs. I was here the other day and there's kids now learning tamim. >> How did that happen? What do you attribute that to? >> There's a beautiful line. It says a person who loves money, he can never get enough money. The tell us that the word which means silver could also indicate the word like means yearning. So let's read that again. When a person loves yearning, they don't ever stop. They don't ever get full of yearning. When you touch the soul of a Jewish person with Torah, it's a love affair. You know, they said, "You had me at hello." That's what Torah is to a joke. When you communicate to them in their language, they can't get enough of it. And I think that's what we're seeing. Each time someone starts to learn and starts to grow, they'll come and say, "What do you have for my husband?" Because what's so beautiful to them, they they want to share with their loved ones. My husband and I, we're both learning now. What do you have for my teenager? Oh, we have the team. We have Cody's class. We have this. We have Rabbi Misra. He's teaching a Mishar class. That's amazing. You have anything for my uh my 12-year-old before? I have a bomb mitzvah classes. But I want him to learn about what it means to be a Jewish man. Of course. What? We've got everything. But it comes from planting and then nurturing a hunger and a love of the study of Torah says it in this week's para he says the Torah when a person tastes the sweetness of Torah the the how much it draws them in [Music] they go crazy and they run after it. You know, at this point, if I decided we wanted to give less classes, they'd kill me. >> That's amazing. >> That's that's the connection that the Jewish people have with the Torah. And all it takes is to feed the connection, nurture it, give it a little bit of love, attention, and then it becomes this all consuming fire, and the soul is a light, and the heart is open. It's a special thing to see. >> Rabbi, I'm spending a couple of days here now. We're working on the Tora Center project. Tell me a little bit about this project and why people should support the Edmond J. Safer Toa Center. >> You know, Joe, uh, a lot of people are asking me before Roshana, it's a crazy year. It's a scary year. What do I do to get into the book of life? I want to be in the book of life. I said to them, we say it all the time. The answer is right under your nose. The Torah is the tree of life to those that support it. There's nothing else that you need. Hashem tells you, you support the Torah. It's a tree of life. It will provide life for everyone in your tree. All the branches, all the offspring. That's what it comes. That's what comes from a person that's maki Torah. And I always think to myself, you know, we are one community and it's there's so much interaction. Our people here give charity to every institution in Brooklyn, to every institution in deal. And the same thing when we are having something finally here that is so beautiful and needs the support of the wider community. I hope and I pray that they'll recognize as well that we need their help too to be able to water this tree, this tree of life and it should be a big for them and for their families um that they supported the the beginning of a beautiful growing enterprise. We are now just a few days before Rosha Shana the high holidays and the Edmund Jaffa for synagogue is preparing to run its annual campaign for their Torah center. Uh we were involved together last year. It was a tremendous, tremendous success. I am personally amazed at what I see this year. I spent a couple of days here. Now, every nook and cranny in this building is filled with somebody of any age, men, women, child, learning Torah, enjoying the the the words of Torah from the various rabbis here. And this is only the beginning. There's going to be promo videos to come, short clips. This is only the beginning of this tremendous campaign that's going to last throughout the holidays. And I could tell you firsthand, an expansion is needed in this building right now. There are, like I said, classes everywhere. There's excitement. There's passion. There's love of Torah and it should continue. There is more to come. There is a lot more coming. Stay tuned for a lot more. Rabbi, I thank you very much. It was a pleasure speaking with you. I know this is just one other project, the first of many more to come. We should always work together to better the community as best as we can. Amen. And I should be continue I should be able to continue to learn from you. >> Amen.