Habayit Event - Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

Of course, we have to start by thanking Antipy family. And you know, our roots go way, way, way back. Where are they? Are they here with us now? Albert and Shel. They here, >> huh? They're inside where the smart people are. You guys are stuck out here with the heat. Oh, here we go. Okay. You think about, do you remember me coming to your house when I was this big all the way in Hatheraway and we would sit there singing and I still remember your husband saying Jojo and Bali, Phillip, Phillip, Flum, Flum. Remember those days, how time flies. So there were people who welcomed everyone into their home. And how appropriate it is that you are welcoming us here today in your home. You're welcoming a welcoming into a home organization that is next level. That is meta macro level uh fulfilled in your home. Today's speeches uh have been dedicated Ralph and Gloria Herrari. And of course as well we want to share our rat that the words of Torah should be as well to the Cass families to the Gerata family and as well to the Shelby family in Zatashem. You know, we think about Msiach, many of us think about the beta mikdash. But for families that are dedicating things in memory of somebody, they're thinking about being reunited about holding that baby again close to our hearts and watching it develop with being reunited with Leslie. Shalom with Ralph and with Gloria and the name of the organization is called which literally means the house. Now I want everyone to understand in Hebrew when you have a hey in front of a word. Does anyone know what that's called? There we go. We have a couple of students of dikd of grammar excellent of Hebrew. Hey in front of a word means the but notthe with a uh lowercase t the with a with a uppercase t. So as an example if you say he's the man lowerase t he's the man. If you say he's the man that's the man like the kids would say today he is him. You understand that guy is the man is the home. And that idea of made me think about something that I want to share with you today. You know how tells us that as so eloquently was said by Elliot Mikdash is destroyed for we all know that. But the gim actually brings a specific story that was the precursor for the destruction of our holy temple of the house of God. The And where did this come from? From a story of Kamsa and Barakama. Let's review. Uh, you know, like at the beginning of a little episode, you get the the playback, you know, previously on previously on Kamsa Baramsa. Both invited to somebody's house for a party. Well, the person who's supposed to get the invite is Kamsa instead of goes to Baramsa. Guy shows up. The guy who's running the party looks and he sees his enemy and not his friend. He goes over to him and he says, "What are you doing here? Get out." He thought that he wanted to make up. He thought he wanted to make shalom. He was now inviting him to the far. He came to be able to make shalom. He says, "What are you doing here?" He says, "What do you mean? Get out." He says, "Please don't embarrass me. I'm willing to pay for my meal." Guy says, "You think I care about your meal? I don't want to have you giving me indigestion even looking at you. Get out of my house." He says, "Please don't humiliate me like this in front of everybody we know. At least," he says, "I'll I'll pay for half of the whole wedding. Get out. I'll pay for the whole wedding." Look, my friends, how sensitive it can be for someone to be excluded. I'll pay for the whole wedding. Picks him up with his hands and he throws him out. says the Gimar when that happened that was the beginning of the end. This man winds up going to Rome, winds up getting the emperor involved, winds up bringing the destruction of the beta mikdash. My friends, I want to point out the language of the Gimar what did he say to him? What are you doing here? You don't belong here. What we're learning is that the of God's house happened because someone said, "You don't belong here. There's no room for you here." And he threw them out of a house. My friends, Ravk writes in his or he writes something unbelievable. He says if the beta mikdash was destroyed with this the rebuilding will also happen in the same manner. So today to be having an event where we make sure that a person does not feel that they don't belong where a person walks in in a place that is on the opposite side of the world to their house and everything is prepared for them. It's not a hospital room. It's not an impersonal hotel room the size of a shoe box. It's an apartment. There's games there. There's food there. I was thinking to myself, in the destruction story, the man says, "I'll pay for the food." And in our rebuilding story, we put food in the place. In this place, the man doesn't belong. And over here, there's a mat right in front. It says welcome home. There's 17 Abay apartments when I came to speak a couple of years ago and I mentioned that next to the next to the hospital by Sloan where people come from all around the world um to be able to get treatment in one of the premier hospitals for cancer in the world. We're struggling to find a place to put people. Someone was at that speech. Then they came forward and they gave their apartment to Habay to be used. My friends, we went from 17, which is very good, to 18, which is life. I'm going to come up with a good gimatria if we have 19. Don't worry about it. Yet, which is the initials of yum to it will be a holiday up in here. If we get a new, we need near NYU. We need near Sloan. And what happens is sometimes we get an apartment that was rented, but then the rental contract ends and we're down another apartment. I don't have to tell you from them that Habai needs more places. I know it from myself because I get the phone calls saying, "Rabbi, I called this one. I called that one. They have a waiting list. There are no spaces." I get emergency phone calls from Hatsah. phone calls from 24/7. All these organizations calling me to tell me that there's a lack in this space. Every dollar you spent today, I know you were thinking about the prize, but the true prize was not what was on the table. You have this package and you have that package. A package for him and a package for her. But my friends, the greatest package is Shamayim. I almost think that if you had your head screwed on straight, you should think to yourself, I hope I lose the raffle so that I do not get rewarded for my act of saddaka in this world. What a crazy thing. You know, the nature of a person's home, of a Jewish home, is what underscores deciding if he wants to stay with us. And I can't share this enough. My mother used to say all the time. We would bring people home from the Kise, someone that didn't have a place to go. I had it in my home. A guy is sitting there. He comes in. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt on Friday night. I go over to him. I say, "Shabbat shalom." He says, "I'm sorry, Rabbi. I'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I wasn't supposed to be here. The flight got delayed. I got in last minute. I said to him, "You got in last minute? You came straight to the sh?" He says, "Yeah, my suitcase is downstairs." I said, "Where are you going to eat if your suitcase is downstairs?" He says, "No, no, I'm good, Rabbi. I'm okay. I'm going to go home. I'm going to eat in my in my apartment." I said, "What are you going to eat in your apartment?" He says, "I have cereal. I have some crackers, tuna fish." I said, "Bettermin, you're going to eat that Friday night." Captain Crunch is not for Shabbat. Sorry. tricks are for kids, but it's not a Shabbat. You're coming to me. He said, "You didn't even ask your wife." I said, "You don't know my wife." I learned this. She learned this from our parents. My mother said it and she said it a million times to us as kids. If there's room in the heart, there's room in the home. And if ever there was a message that personifies what Habi does, what drives the engine that drives the place, what drives the volunteers to set up the apartments, and if you don't have the money, and if you don't have an apartment to give, and you don't can't even buy a raffle ticket, don't worry. Give them your phone number. I'm on the chat and I see when they say last minute a couple is coming in. Last minute someone's bringing their child for treatment. We have an apartment available for them but it's not been clean. Can anyone go into the apartment? I see uh your messages. Uh Mrs. Jama, can you volunteer your time? You sell linens in your store. Can you donate linens? You sell disposable plates. Give disposable plates. Sponsor the disposable plates for a month for 18 apartments. The linens that they need, the games that they're going to put in the cabinet. I see people are raising your hands. I'm not doing an auction over here, but you speak to the right people and they'll set you up. Who wants a piece of this mitzvah? You know, the puk says in Misham, if there is worry in the heart of a man, the gim says, what does that word mean? If you're worried, if you're afraid, what should you do? Says the page 75. First opinion, he should push it down in himself. You're worried about something. Don't give that worry oxygen. You know some people you're worried like this. Your worry is like a seed. You're worried about something that's this big. But then you have people, it's like they like their anxiety more than they like vacation more than they like their children. If your anxiety is ruining family time, and you all know who you are, you like your anxiety more than your family. But it's not that you had an anxiety pill this big. You know what you did? You took out a shovel and you dug. And then you took your little anxiety pill and you planted it in the ground. And then every day you go out and make sure you water it. You're revisiting it in your mind. Says the you know what you should do in your own mind. Make it small. Make it low. Don't bring it up. You're thinking about it in your mind. You know what you do? Change the channel. You know what's great? I'm going to ask everyone to do a thought experiment with me right now. Can I ask everyone to think of a pink elephant? Everyone got a pink elephant in their mind? Yeah. Pink elephant in your mind? Do not think about the pink elephant. Is anyone not thinking about the pink elephant anymore? Everyone's still thinking about it. You want to know how you erase the pink elephant? No problem. Easy solution. Ready? I want you to think about a light blue and dark blue panda bear. What are you thinking about now? You can't think about both at the same time unless they're playing together. You understand what I'm saying? Change the channel. First answer, you're worried. Change your channel. Think about something else. Second answer to talk about it to somebody else. two ways of understanding it. I always say that it's not that the Gimar didn't know if it was one or the other. Share your burden. Talk about your worry. Talk to a friend. Talk to a a parent. Talk to a therapist. Whatever you need, my friends, listen carefully. The Gim is not offering this or this. It's saying do the first one. Salvage yourself. But my friend, what if you come with a worry and you can't solve it? You know what you need to do? And this is hard especially for typea people. This is hard not only for alpha males, but for alpha females, for people who hate asking for help. You ever see someone walking with 42 items in their hand? You're like, "Here, let me get that." They're like, "No, no, I got it." Then they're opening the door with their foot right now. They open the door. It's a, you know, they're hopping because it's closing. And they kick it and they kick it more. Yeah. You understand? No. No. I got it. That's a mashal for how they deal with everything in their life. Their finances. No. No. I got it. The issues with their kids, no one's going to help them with their marriage. No one. I don't need anybody's help. Second answer to Gimar is you can't solve it yourself, honey. Lean on somebody. But you know what the worst thing in the world is? When you go do one of those trust falls and the other person didn't get the memo facing the other way and there's NO ONE THERE TO CATCH YOU. You flew in from Panama and you have nowhere to stay. and you figure, I just need to go because we need the surgery. We just need to go because we need to get treatment started. We'll solve it there. And then you find out that hotels in the city are $1,000 a night or more. You find out that, God forbid, the husband and the kid and the other one can't stay in a room that's that small. and they don't have a roll away because you can't get a uh uh embassy suites in the area. Sometimes our worry is not solvable by ourselves. So we lean on the people around us. I have to say as someone who lives in the city, who gets these phone calls, who refers people all the time, who hears afterwards what it meant to those families, my friends, we are at a very holy event indeed this morning. And I think that's why Hashem is blessing us with this wind. Because when I left my house, I was like, there's going to be nobody there. I can't even walk to my car without sweating. How is anyone going to sit there and listen to a speech? Hashem knew. My friends, I must say from the bottom of my heart. And this is something that I feel when I go to these events day after day in the community. I I I can't I feel almost overwhelmed with emotion. Thank you Bor Olam for making me part of these people. Thank you, Bore Olav, for making me part of a people who not only have room in their own heart and in their own homes, but are ensuring that homes are available for other people outside of their space. Now, if I could ask you, I want to ask you to join me in this little thought experiment for one second. maybe to try and communicate one idea. You know, the crazy thing about Habitat is that unlike a different organization, we're not solving the problem. We're not curing the cause. We're not giving the person the baby with bonam. We're not uh helping someone get a prosthetic limb with the next step. We're not doing any of those things. But what we are doing is we're giving a person a respit in the most difficult time in their life. And my prayer and my thought for every one of you is that in the merit and in the zoot of being there for someone literally in the darkest moments of their whole life when they walk in and they turn on the lights and they see what we built for them with our love with our care and with our concern and they say God bless these people. My prayer is that every single one of the people here should lose the phone number for and never need it for themselves. My blessing to all of you is that every bit of worry or fear that we solved in them should say, you know something, he's worried, she's worried. Let me take a little bit off of their package. You know, one of the most beautiful things that we say in the Jewish nation is that you carry in the weight of somebody else. Carrying the weight doesn't mean that we got rid of it, but it means that you're carrying it with somebody. And sometimes the only thing that you need in those times is to feel that you're not doing this alone. The is described in the book of it is fascinating to me to notice. You're talking about the destruction of the temple with the worst possible things happening. But let's look at the opening words of that book. How does she sit alone? Worse than anything in the world is the feeling of being alone. And my friends, if that is the nature of destruction, then think for a second about what we are building here. I had a fellow come to me in my sh. He came for the uh to pray. And I have to tell you, as a rabbi, it's not always so easy when you see a guy sitting there in the shul that you don't recognize and he's got one of those tags on his wrist and you go over to the person and I don't know how else to say it, so I'm just going to say it. There's no vanilla in this situation. It's either the happiest day of this guy's life or the worst day of this guy's life. So, you're kind of walking up to him. You can't smile. You can't frown. You kind of have to look like you just had a fresh treatment of Botox. No expression whatsoever. Shalom. what brings you here? Very par of language. The guy holds up the and that's when he tells you. But one day there's a guy sitting there in the front of my sh 10t from my seat. I see he's new. I walk up to him. I tell him frozen face. Shalom. What brings you here? Welcome. And the man tells me that unfortunately it wasn't the positive one, it was the other. I said to him, "Do you have a place to stay? Where are you?" And the guy looks at me and he says, "You know, you'll never believe it." I said, "I never believe what?" He says, "I came here, I had no place to stay." I was like, "Okay, I'm seeing where this is going." He goes, "I'm looking at the hotels. I can't afford any of them. Bizour. Bizore. We could afford the flight to get here for the treatment. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was actually thinking of sleeping in the shul. Had I don't know. This is not Israel over here. There. No sleeping in the shul allowed. The only sleeping allowed in the sh when the rabbi speaking. Anyway, the guy says, "I was even thinking of sleeping in the jeul." I said, "And then what happened?" And he said, "And then someone told me about this place, Habite." I said, "Oh, I never heard of them sketching." Guy's like, "You never heard of them?" So, he didn't know I was sketching. So, I went with the bit. I'm always committed to the bit, by the way. I went with the bit. I'm like, "No, who who are they?" He goes, "These people are angels. I didn't know them. I called somebody to ask which shoes if they're open all night. Is there any place?" And someone gave me this number and they took care of it. I don't even know the guy's name. He came here with his son about two months ago. You could find the look who go back afterwards maybe three months ago, one month. Exactly. About maybe between six and 10 weeks ago, the guy sitting there, he came alone with his son, the guy said, "These are angels." And he I said, "Tell me." I should have recorded it. I'm such a dip. And he's telling me and he's pouring it out. And you know what he said? He said to me, "I have to tell you, I came from a country that belongs to the Jewish people from Israel. I thought, "Where am I going to go? I'm leaving home." And he says, "And I came here and I felt like I never left home." And I looked at him and I said in Hebrew, he says, "Ma, what do you mean that's like?" I said the slogan is as much as home as anywhere in the what a gift to be able to provide that to someone my friends and that is what we have done over here. I was thinking if that's what Habay does, it makes you feel like someone's holding it with you, that you're not alone, then it is no wonder that the gimatria of habit is exactly 417. And the of doing something and being together with someone is exactly 47. The nature is that we are doing this with you. You are not alone. What a gift to have been able to be part of that. My friends, I have lost now nine pounds in sweat. I know you think I'm taking my glasses off because I can see. I can't see. Maybe you think it's because someone's not sua. The rabbi is very holy. Doesn't want to see. I'm taking off my glasses so they don't slide off my face. Okay. But let that be my contribution to sweat for this beautiful thing to work for this holy organization to be there for Israel when they don't have so we could be like Hashem says may Hashem bless us that we should be saved from what we are saving others from. May Hashem bless us to always be from the ones that are giving and not the ones that need to receive. And finally, may Hashem bless us to be in this incredible mitzvah, the mitzvah of the gift that keeps on giving. We would like to introduce Anat is here with us. One of the guests of Abay here from Israel to share with you why you came today and how it feels to have received the great gift that we are bestowing on people in these moments. There's steps on this side.