Speech at Yeshivat Lev Aharon

those kind words. I really didn't prepare to speak. The rabbi just gave me like uh two minutes notice, [snorts] but I just want to I really want to just say something from my heart. Sometimes the the things that come out best come from the heart. Um the rabbi touched on our experience with him, but I could go into it in a little bit more depth for just one or two minutes. We were boys just like you guys. We weren't fortunate enough to have a yeshiva run by rabbis from our community. And nothing wrong with Ashkanazim, but we were it was a different time in the '9s. We went to a yeshiva. It was a yeshiva called BMT. I was straight out of the yeshiva. It was very very challenging to get to get acquainted to to to get used to everybody and everything going on. I had my friends of course, but it wasn't really a community institution. And really from Shamim, Hashem sent somebody. The Yeshiva was in Ban. Rabbi, you still live in Ban? So down the mountain from where the rabbi lives. The rabbi came down purely lashem shamayim. He knew there were boys in the community. He came down. He he brought us maza. He invited us for Shabbat. I cannot tell you my first real experience seeing somebody Shamay at work. He he really had nothing to gain in the in sense of just doing good for other other boys from the community. We went up to his uh to his apartment, his house all the time. We had Shabbat there. He started to give us shirim and slowly but surely a relationship developed. So much so that when we came back past Abl like he said he came back with us and made sure we wouldn't we would stay learning and stay focused and so forth. But the real thing you have to know about what you have here in this yeshiva is that is that it's run by somebody who really puts his heart and his soul into into the boys into you guys into everything that that that that you see before you. It's not easy. I know I was involved with the rabbi in certain projects on a few years ago, helping him fund raise, helping him grow, and now we talk every now and then about I know he's trying to expand and build the building and so forth, but really you have to know the rabbi is not doing this because he's uh, you know, making a lot of money and he just wants the prestige. He he he really inah he could have both, but he's really doing this really just to help uh [clears throat] every single one of you. I was just by the chief rabbi a few minutes ago and somebody was in his office crying and the rabbi told me something that I want to share with you told me and I think the rabbi lives this also he goes you know you can look at everything as a ceur but when you help one person a man was sitting there he didn't know the man man's telling him his son is in prison for something he didn't do whatever the story was right or wrong that's that's not the point but the rabbi said you know what in life sometimes we worry a lot about the sib and we really want to worry about and we we worry about everything going on but sometimes Sometimes if you zone in and just focus, you know, all of you are one SE board, but really you're made up of a lot of individuals and it's very important to realize that helping each one of you individually is sometimes more important than helping all of Kalis before you even meet them. So I know the rabbi very well. I know that he's not just looking at this as one yeshiva with 120 boys. He's looking at he's looking at this as a yeshiva of of 120 individuals. Each of you are are a yeshiv in itself and you have a tremendous potential to learn from the rabbi to absorb his wisdom, his everything that he brings to you for the next I don't know uh 9 10 months as long as you hear it. I'm really I'm jealous of all of you. I wish you could I could go back and have a yeshiva and the same type of of an atmosphere that that that the rabbi is giving you. So I really again you have a big responsibility. Rabbi taught us he's as you know he's doing he's on the fifth puk saying that not just women but great people are like ships and one of the things that ships have to have when you're the captain of a ship you don't have uh you know it's not like being on a on a on a road you have to have foresight you have to see a mission ahead of you and you also know that you're carrying a lot of responsibility on that ship so that's a lesson that we learned so all of you should know that you have a rabbi that cares about you a rabbi that wants you to grow. He's treating each one of you like his own yeshiva. And in turn, you as as boys here in the yeshiva have tremendous potential and tremendous responsibility. And you should use this opportunity to grow and really better yourself and to not just learn, but to learn how to learn and to commit yourselves to a life full of Torah. This year, next year, you'll build families and for many years to come, you'll be very successful. We have this.