Mekudeshet - Full Event Coverage

I need uh somebody from Kobe's team to come up please ladies and gentlemen it gives me great honor to ask everybody everybody that's in the back please come forward find seats it is a beautiful beautiful evening the weather is gorgeous no no I see what he here bring it down I don't care bring it down put it on the people do whatever you want hey I didn't see you in a long time how are you Jennifer and Isaac you want to come forward and come sit down please it's better if you're closer to me thank you Jen good evening everybody we promised that we were going to start at 8:30 it's 8:30 and we want to get the program started everybody in the back everybody in the back please come sit down I could speak louder but there's no need good evening everybody tonight tonight is the first and I don't get to do many first because usually an organization in our community has been rooted embedded five years 10 years and much more in some cases but tonight I'm proud and I'm pleased that I am a part of it has a name but the theme behind mesit yes there's a name that's the header and the theme behind it you will hear a lot more about tonight to me my wife to everybody I think in this community there's a sensitive area that we can do a better job we could do more and we haven't done our fullest to be the greatest Community sapharic Jewish Community the world over I've traveled I've spoken I know there is nobody like us we are the dynamic people and we want to try and work towards solving the issue of marriage within our community we need more weddings we need more girls and boys to get married to find each other we have the greatest matchmakers in the world and my cousin Kim and US husband Solomon conceptualized an idea a dream that they brought and made a reality out of called mes and it has a tremendous tremendous ability if we back it if we support it and we have to allow it we have to allow it meaning we must pray pray for that that it's successful that it accomplishes dozens and dozens and dozens if not hundreds of marriages of girls meeting boys of going on what I call that first date go on a date you never know but till you get to that point till you find who may be good for who there is an incredible tremendous amount the work behind the scenes that needs to be done or it will not succeed and Kim and Solomon and the team at madesha which you'll hear more about tonight we have a short video they've thought this through Kim has been in my office three or four times in the past nine months she's pretty much put everything on the side in order to help and you know of course every every marriage is precious every couple but I and Rabbi zeri have spoken and spoken time and time about the ones that get a little older the ones that could fall by the wayside think there's nobody out there for them but that's not true there's a pot to every cover and we need to uncover that and bring it to the fruition of couples dating loving each other and we have the rabbis ready to marry them and let them be on their way so my dream that we and this is a statistic I didn't count it so don't hold me responsible but I pretty much know what I'm talking about we are way north of 80,000 people today as a community by 2030 I have no doubt we could be close to a 100,000 people we thrive in every area I know because Hashem has blessed me to be there in some cases to watch and see but this one area we could do a better job and I believe you back us if you support us and if you pass the word if you pass the word a friend to a friend to a friendes meses I don't want to spend more time right now I'd like to call up our host of the evening Isaac his wife our Hostess of the evening Jennifer to please come up Isaac's gonna want to say a few words to us and we'd like to call you up right now yeah so I'm going to put this down in a minute and uh I actually didn't pick it but I picked the concept because Kim and I were talking and what should we get them and we talked about silver cups we talked about candlesticks and I got to tell you there is no better whiskey glass in the world here the City Florida whatever you want this is a small gift from Mees for you for opening your home so thank you thank you I'm going to let you and your wife stay up here you go put that down and we will take a proper picture later with Kim Solomon know what when you my wife um would rather I speak first um so welcome welcome everybody uh Kim approached us about having this event and touched our heart um there is no no greater cause no better celebration um than seeing our community come together uh with it is the Bedrock of our of everything that we do uh having the family bonds and having our community grow it's all dependent on um on marriages so she's made 90 matches in the last year I think that's something unbelievable unbelievable um and that's just getting started people never heard of it I had never never heard of it my wife had never heard of it um it's just getting out there and to have that kind of success that early that's something we need to get behind she's proven the concept over the last year she she provided the seed funding um to get it off the ground and call a Cav to her her family and to Solomon and to the entire family and and and getting this off the ground what is a to to do something like this that's always the hardest part we get the easier part of helping out to take it to the next step and hopefully it'll go to hundreds of matches in the coming year so I ask you to open your hearts and uh your wallets and help out everybody welcome and Tim I want to thank you for introducing us to this program and everybody knows Tim knows she's an incredible woman and I thank her for introducing us and welcome everybody and thank you now the video now the video [Music] ladies and gentlemen this is what we call a crisis the need in this community that has developed over the last number of years has become tremendous it's literally graduates from every single School School in this community I would tell you that any Rabbi that is involved gets requests every single day Rabbi do you have someone for my daughter Rabbi do you have someone for my son back in the day 50 60 years ago matchmaking this community was easy it was enough to have one Matchmaker in their home working while they're cooking thinking up ideas they call someone up they match them up today the community got so huge and now that's not enough anymore the world has completely changed there's so many different levels of religion so many different levels and styles of families today believe it or not you could study the numbers there are hundreds and hundreds of girls over the age of 20 21 23 25 28 and even older into their 30s that are not married today to expect people to get married by accident when they meet on a street corner or accidentally at a wedding or things that have to happen through a friend that may have known this one or that one that's nice it happens it's happened before and hopefully it will continue to happen but ultimately what are we doing what am I doing what are you doing got married to a girl from haran they sent a Matchmaker they sent elzar to do the work elazer came back the next day with the right girl Hashem chose shim to be his agents to make shim happen you know what's incredible is that the bigger our community gets the more alone so many individual people feel you have a girl who's 20 years old 20 is not old and she'll go to a wedding and come home and cry hysterically but if you know the pain that the girls go through they come to me many of the older girls in their mid 20s coming to me and feeling so lost all their friends are married all their friends are engaged and there's a sense because our community has so many different levels there's a sense that every girl and every boy on every level has that I'm alone on this level many people think the dating issue is specific to girls what we found is that really it's not that way maybe you'll say okay girls I know girls that are getting older if you think about it honestly you'll realize that there are many boys that are also getting older and they're not focused enough on getting married mared maybe they're worried about finances maybe they're worried about finding the perfect person for those whose children are getting married or got married thank Hashem that you were able to marry off your children but we cannot forget there are so many people that need to get married some are young they need help for sure and the people who got older they also need help we all need to pitch in to make sure that every single person that needs a shid has been given all the opportunities possible [Music] that is so critical to alleviate so much of this pain and you know how I know that you understand this pain because if you have children of age you know what I mean we can help by being in contact and supporting [Music] mes amazing video amazing video incredible so uh we've got probably and we'll be brief we'll respect your time of course because a few people asked me we've got a lineup of uh four of the greatest rabis in our community in our generation that are giving all of their life all their heart all of their soul everything that embodies the good that comes out in this community they represent so uh I'm not going to come up each time because I want to try to keep it going we're gonna have Rabbi Shaul abber who was a co-founder of Mees together with the debas and others that helped build it after that Rabbi Joey Haba will come up to speak to us then Rabbi David oeri will come up and give us his view of what he sees going on in our community and then Raba mayid and after that I'll give you some statistics and we'll be on our way tonight and hopefully we've changed your lives we've changed the lives of others especially what you saw in that video these young people that need a little bit more a bigger push than like Rabbi mayia said on the video the natural ones those are going to happen but we can't let the ones that fall by the wayside be on the Wayside we've got to pick them up we've got to get them to their destination and that's to the hoah uh RAB please come up you could see Harry by every event and you'll never get tired of seeing him a story rakov galinski a well-known Rabbi was once he was known for his wit and his wisdom and he was once going to fund raise in Mexico he had a big deficit in his yiva and he was going to fund raise he showed up at a home a very large home he was given the address he knocked on the door they opened the door and they tell him Rabbi he tells them what he's there for they tell him Rabbi perfect we are having a we want you to come to the backyard and give us a speech he wasn't prepared so he's walking in the backyard and he's thinking what he's going to speak about and suddenly he falls into the pool and now he's drenched he's embarrassed he's drenched he gets out of the pool and he stands up to speak with his Long Black Coat all wet and he gets up and he says it's the first time I went to the mve before I got up to give a speech and everyone you know laughed and they appreciated his words his speech and he fundrais raised his entire deficit at that one moment at that one event and he commented after he said usually I get small embarrassments and small amounts of money I go to an office you know they ask me questions I don't want to answer I get a little embarrassed they degrade me a little bit and I get small amounts of money he said now this time I got a large embarrassment but I got all the money I needed in this one moment and that's really if you think about it that's the way fundraising is for many organizations you get embarrassed you go to offices you feel uncomfortable you have to sell your cause people are not really buying it but I think for us at Mikes the fundraising was in fact a relief we didn't really feel what we were expecting to feel and what we were nervous we would hear from people instead of this is really this is is this really we expected to hear from people is this really an important cause we heard unbelievable it's so needed and from every part of the community every segment of the community we went to nobody said why do we need this is it really something that our community Needs Nobody reacted that way instead of hearing from people matchmaking is not for us it's too out there too heavy we heard wow that's a perfect solution to a problem that we all know exist we were expecting to hear why can't everyone just meet at potties why do we need matchmakers instead we heard from people put down my niece take my daughter's information and set her up in fact I kept calling it an issue because I don't like the word crisis I feel like it's too depressing and when we went to people and I'm calling it an issue they're telling me Rabbi it's a crisis andem the funds as well matched the words that the people said but of course we always need more when we approached the same thing when we approached Isaac and Jennifer sit to use their home we expected to hear our son's wedding is a week before your event it would be a very nice thing if you came back next year we'll be happy to open our home instead they were gracious from the beginning they said as long as it's not on the wedding day we're good and they and they supported us and as you see they're gracious and I think that the first home that an organization does their event in is is very important because it sets the tone for the organization for future years one of the first people we went to in fact one of the first people I ever fundraised from in my life we went to him and we asked him for $10,000 we said we thought that that was a nice amount to get from him he said instead of $10,000 I want to sponsor 10 matches and then he said not 10 regular matches I want to sponsor 10 special matches knowing full well that the word special would cost him and I think the reason we got this kind of response from people is twofold number one because every single person in this room and everyone we went to and everyone in the community knows a single that's waiting to get married and everybody knows that in today's day and age it's not enough to just walk up to a girl by a wedding or wherever it is and just meet her and date her you need more information you need to know about background the world is too complicated for the old way if it works for you here and there great but in the general sense I think more information is better and secondly it reiterated to me something that my father impressed on me and that is that this community is not just a good Community it's a great Community because in a good Community you would see a boy or a girl at a wedding and say to yourself I wish I had someone for them and then you would go on your way and you'd forget about them but in a great Community you'd put their name onto our database and you would follow up and Hound us do you have someone for that person do you have someone for that person and that's our community in a regular Community a person would see a boy who needs a little push a little encouragement maybe they would go over to them and push them maybe even bother them but in our community in an unbelievable Community like ours they would fund coaching for that boy through our mes through our organization in a regular caring Community where they care a little bit someone would approach a Community member and ask them to start an organization to create a network to solve this issue and that person would take it on but in our community someone approached Mrs Kim Dava and asked her to start and I'm not crying my voice uh goes and ASA to start an organization and not not only did he she start this organization with a beautiful database with privacy for every person we don't even let matchmakers on unless we vet them and even they sign a a release where they're not going to say anything she started this organization with a beautiful database of singles who enter their own name but also funded it herself for an entire year to the tune of several 100,000 and then when we approached Solomon daa to get involved with the fundraising which is always the most fun he said I'll do it and we kept pushing him and he kept doing it and every day I would see a text so and say so and so 5, 72800 from Solomon DBA in a regular Community if you invite people on a Tuesday night to come to a fundraiser to take care of an issue like this they would say I may I may not have any nicer to be than this backyard but I have places that are easier to be and will cost me less but look at all of you who came out on a night like this to support Mikes many of you already have your children married why did you come out because you're all amazing because our community feels that with hashem's help no one should remain single single just because we didn't put in enough effort and no one should sit at home wondering when the phone will ring because no one cared enough and no parent should feel alone thinking is my son or my daughter as good as I thought they were and that's how parents feel when they don't get that phone call that they were expecting I want to end with a piece of a as wrote special for for our organization fores and I think what other organization can say that they have their own Tia he said in his TI to be hashem's will that he should find for all the singles of the Jewish people their proper match easily because with that a person becomes complete and they can serve Hashem with happiness and they can build a home with Holiness and Purity that should be fulfilled in everyone that's here and everyone that was willing to give up a Tuesday night where we know the husbands don't come home every night of the week they're willing to give up a Tuesday night for us and to show the community singles that they care thank you thank you very much for being here father J record that is my brother I take all the credit no really RAB sha that was beautiful words and beautiful job and Hashem should bless your work and everything that you're doing we're going to be brief I'll just share with you this last last night I gave two girls classes and not a lot of boys in town on Monday nights so at 7:15 we gave a pretty large class to regular to single girls of all ages and then at 8:15 went to someone's backyard there's about 50 girls there all of them 26 and over 25 and over and if you would look and see their faces and see their loneliness and see their feelings from every single school there's not one school that is immune from this problem there's not one group that can say oh we got it covered because we do it this way or we do it that way every single demographic in this community has the same frustration and looking at them I ended up giving the class for almost two hours because of what we're trying to accomplish tonight and here's what we're trying to accomplish you know the writes that the first book of K is root says but why is that the case I according to some happened first says because I is all problems it's all put on and we don't want to start with problems so the but root also has a lot of problems the story of Ruth is a sad one they left the community they became poor they came back he said yes but root has the right to be the opening book of K beim because root ends with hope tonight is about hope tonight is about looking at every boy and every girl in the community and saying we do have your back we do care about you there is hope every single day every Rabbi here will tell you the same thing every single day we get a few calls Rabbi do you have a girl for my son literally walking into here tonight I opened up my phone and this was the text message Rabbi do me a favor do you have Rabbi I need a good reference on a girl that Joe is interested in just now and it's all day and it's every day you know we have an organization keser we're dealing with all boys and girls every day Rabbi you know my daughter find someone for him and they become desperate at this point so young once I had a meeting with a girl the girl was hysterical crying she had every single thing going for her hysterical crying because a few of her friends got engaged I said one second how old are you she says 18 I said you kidding you're 18 because they know how desperate it becomes and how fast it happens they start to worry so early if this organization succeeds and you could look every family in this community in the arm and I don't care their background I don't care their school I don't care their religious level I don't care their age group I don't care their financial bracket I don't care who their parents are I don't care whether they're the cool name or not a cool name I don't care every single family is struggling with this from a young age if we're able to support this tonight we could look every family in the eye and say we there for you we have your back I'll tell you the truth I sat there with the girls and I said I care I really do I understand and try to give as much encouraging words as I can but I don't know if I really could say I'm putting my actions where my mouth is and tonight is our chance to do so and I'll tell you as organization we literally gave our rabbis and teachers and said go participate with mesit take the girls you know find them boys take the boys you know find them girls because everyone wants this idea this is not something that's only for a certain style and a certain School certain school of thought certain religious level maybe that would have been the case 15 years ago today every single person I know is feeling the desperation way earlier than you think they would tonight's our chance to show them we have their back thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen like to begin with a short story hiic Jews the way they get married is the parents go out on a date and they talk a lot about their children and if they like everything the children are engaged boy and the girl don't see each other till the wedding believe it or not okay so there was a wedding that took place like this and at the end of the wedding of course the boy is on the boy's side and the girl is on the girl side they're on each other at the end of the wedding cidic Jews take down the and it's just family left and they sit there for the meal and this New Groom is sitting next to his father-in-law and all of a sudden the Bride Comes Walking In she has a terrible limp and the broom is shocked he whispers to his father-in-law dad you didn't tell me she's a says you don't have to whisper she's deaf also that's what happens when you don't know what's going on we know what's going on on like I said for years we have a crisis as Carrie we've gotten up in public and screamed for years there is a crisis in our community hundreds and hundreds of girls are not getting married Rabbi Haber just described to you that wherever he goes I could be at a wedding a b Mitzvah a bris a Pon a class a funeral a bet every single place I go Rabbi I need somebody for my daughter I had a man come to me says I have three daughters 26 24 and 23 not one has gotten a date yet he has no money nobody calls he thinks nobody cares this is what is going on and finally finally they have an address to go to Mees let me tell you a little about me mesit is not the brainchild of any particular individual Kim daa God bless her visited many communities to see what do they do for their singles and she created and she hired and she built a website particularly for our community tailor made for our community to accommodate this community in particulares is proven that singles from our community can be set up with the help of matchmakers now that M that word Matchmaker sounds like fiddling around the roof like where where where 300 years ago back in Theo no our match rakers are very different our matchmakers are woman from our community who understand the girls and and the boys they are women who are up to-date women who knows what who who know what is going on and I got to tell you something before mes many of these matchmakers were burned out I'm telling you they were burned out they didn't have any help they weren't getting paid it was very very difficult for them and the same names come to them over and over again they needed a data they needed somebody to report back to in walks Mees Mees let me give you some of the stats 3,000 Community singles are now on our app 3,000 some simple stats 51% of those 3,000 are girls 49% are boys shocking huh shocking I wish I could tell you how many eligible singles there actually are in this community but I really can't that we know of 3,000 there's probably 6,000 7,000 8,000 we don't know we're building the data Bank we are building ladies and gentlemen on this list of 3,000 as you have heard some are young vibrant some are apprehensive about this process others have been forgotten yes forgotten there are girls out there 28 30 32 35 they have been forgotten older girls despondent and alone I'm sorry to be morbid but it's true it's true we can't hide our our face in the ground and just walk away and say okay it's nice we go to a lot of weddings we're invited to a wedding every night sometimes two sometimes three but when you talk about a community of 880,000 people it's not enough in in less than 10 months does this system work in less than 10 months 93 buzas were made less than 10 months why what makes it happen it wasn't discussed tonight how does it work what do you need so much money for Matchmaker closeup girl Matchmaker closeup boy send them on a date Kine these matchmakers are paid for getting a girl a date mes has all their banking information they are screened they are welcomed to be a Mees Matchmaker we have their banking information they go on the App they inform us that they made a match girl a with boy B a girl over 20 years old for example I don't know if the numbers are correct she wakes up in the morning after they had their first date and the Matchmaker has $150 in our bank account they go on a third date they may have $200 or $300 more in their bank account there's an engagement they may have2 $3,000 in their bank now you know where the money is going now they feel appreciated these matchmakers now they want to work many of them need the money these are women who are Homemakers who they could spend hours every day on mat shaking with no re with no renumeration but now they have it ladies and gentlemen finally finally the Syrian Community has a Dr to go to to marry off our daughters and our th and our sons thank you Kim daa thank you for all coming tonight and one last thing we need money desperately this thing is going to grow it's going to catch on we need money thank you very much thank you every oeri thank you to Isaac and Jennifer Sith for opening their beautiful home like RAB sha said I didn't believe when I got the invitation that was actually happening being that their wedding was last week but God bless them and bless all of us that were part of this unbelievable community that we're so fortunate to live every day with so many people that care for each other we truly love each other sometimes there are things that get between people but in truth all of us will be there for each other no matter the time and no matter the need need and tonight is an example of that thank you very much also special thanks to Mrs Dabba I know she was mentioned but I have to give my own mention people sitting here should know people in the community should know and I'm not doing it to talk about Kim I'm talking about what one person can do I could tell you with absolute 100% there's no way this would have happened or any of this would have taken in place if not for this woman single-handedly working day and night to get it off the ground and she's working it never say what could one person do tonight is a testimony of the greatness of one person and what they can accomplish of course today there are more people involved but really Mrs you're amazing Hashem should bless you and we should continue to learn from you in how you put yourself out for this community there's really not much to add you know it's so obvious it's so simple we understand it I'm just here for cavod I think for honor to want me to speak but once I'm here I'll just say something you know in life sometimes a person can take care of the need by themselves so there are poor people in the community well you know if I had enough money I could pay for it all I can cover everyone's tuition I'll write a check for $40 million because I have a lot of money if I have a lot of wisdom I speak well I could teach a lot of people a thousand people could be in the room thousands can listen online I can reach so many people and educate them but tonight is one of those things that makes us all humble it humbles every single one of us no matter how big of a rabbi you are no matter how popular you are no matter how wealthy you are it makes no difference how many connections you have there is no way for one person to solve this issue even if you had all the gifts that God can give a person you just can't do it this project is unique because it could only happen with all of us together if we're not going to unite together with to does there is no Mees this cannot be done by any individual and therefore it is a calling to the of our community it is a calling for the love that we have for each other to come together and do something really for ourselves you know I'm sure that your donation is tax deductible I'm not sure that you could write it off of maer I think ultimately you could but this is an investment in your own children this is not giving to somebody else's children this is your grandchildren this is is for you this is for me it's for all of us yes you can count it as Master don't be afraid to give but really we should look at it as an investment in our own families and tonight's not only about giving money sign up your children sign up somebody else's children the database can only grow when people put names in the database so so please me.org that's the website put in people that need to be on this website and they will be included har I say the wrong thing okay good the rabbi has already said so much of what I wrote down in my card so I'm not going to repeat myself excuse me repeat what they said I will tell you two things that you're doing tonight that maybe you didn't think about number one you're helping rabbis you have no idea how many enemies I have and I don't blame them I love them but I understand them Rabbi oeri has a Target on his back many rabbis get the attack of so many frustrated people I don't blame anybody believe me but I know sitting right now at home there are hundreds of families that say how come Rabbi yid doesn't give us a boy he knows so many boys I mean he teaches so many people how come he just doesn't give us the boy like why does he just hand us you know it doesn't work like that but that's not the point the point is so many people are getting hurt from each other the matchmakers are getting attacked cuz how come you didn't mention my daughter what about my son you bring not only a community you bring a you bring Shalom to our community and last and not least there's auk in meat that talks about the great man M and it calls him an isi ishi means he comes from the tribe of Yehuda but then the end of the P calls him is which means he comes from the tribe of bamin so the midash says I don't understand make up your mind is he from Yehuda this this m or is he from bamin says the midash that biologically he's from bamin so why are we giving him the cavod that he comes from Yehuda it's not yehuda's child the midash says that when Yehuda stepped up in front of ysf and took responsibility for bamin Hashem says to B to Yehuda Yehuda all of that comes from that boy that you stood up to help and save will be considered your own child you know how proud We Are when we have beautiful children because they're our children could you imagine Yehuda is in shamayim and they show him all these beautiful children thousands of them and they show him hey there's that M he was like the gador you have no idea who m is still today they're talking about him and yud says why are you showing him to me he's not from my children and they said no no he is he's your grandchild because you saved bamin it's called your own child my dear friends there are so many children that are going to be born so many families are going to be created and tonight and going forward when we invest with Mees they become our children they become our family I wish you all and me myself included that we should see tremendous happiness in our lives we should see peace of mind and in the Merit of helping other people find their match May your children and grandchildren always have it easy to find theirs have a beautiful night