The Jewish Secret to Becoming Extraordinary - Charlie Harary

You know, we just took in two incredible presentations. And I want to share with you what's going on in my head and I'll just sort of share with you what I'm thinking of right now. It reminds me of a conversation I had in 2007. So, I'm not a rabbi. What I do for a living is what's called private equity real estate. It's real estate, but it's private. So, you have to go out and raise money. So, sometimes I have to fly to different parts of the world and do what's called investor presentations. So, in February 2007, I flew out to Pasadena, California. And I made a presentation about one of the funds that we were starting. Presentation was over and a guy made a beeline for me. But, I wanted to describe to you what this guy looked like. 6'5 all muscle. He was like an American like military hero. I could look at him. He had like it was like super American. You know, like blonde hair, short blue eyes, tight cheeks, muscles bulging out of everywhere. Right at me. And I was like, I don't do like to duck or whatever I was going to do. Comes right out to me and he puts out his hand. You know what those hands they're like massive hands. And you know, you shake it, you're going to break a knuckle, but you can't What are you not going to shake it cuz then you're not a man. You know what I'm talking about? Like, "Hi. Hi." Looks at me and he goes, "Great game last night." The night before I happen to be from New York if you couldn't tell yet by my accent. And my favorite team is the New York Giants. Any Giants fans in the room? The night before, the New York Giants in a miracle victory beat the New England Patriots. Remember that game? As the game came to an end, the quarterback, Eli Manning, was getting pulled down and he spun out of the way and he found a jumping David Tyree who made a miracle catch. That was last night, so I was on a glow. So, my new friend Jim, the military man, comes right at me. Sticks out his hand. Says, "Good game last night." I'm like, like as if like it I'm like, "Thank you." No, we played really hard and it was a great game. I you listen, it was hard for me personally but watching it, but you know, thank god. So, he goes, "You know what I loved about that game?" I said, "What, Jim?" He goes, "It had the hero's moment." Now, he said it in a way that he wants me to say, "What's the hero's moment?" I had a plane to catch in like 5 minutes. But he was 6'5" and 210. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, "What was the hero's moment?" He goes, "You have a minute?" I'm like, "Yeah. I'll catch the next plane, Jim." So, I sit down, me and my new friend, and he explains to me the hero's moment. And little did I know it was going to literally change my life. Jim says, "When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was be a Marine. So, when I came out of high school, I immediately listed in the Marine." I'm like, I'm shocked. "And I wasn't a good Marine. I was a great Marine. And I went on one tour and two tours and three tours. And after going back and forth to Iraq and all these different places in the all over the world, I was a celebrated military hero. And then I got injured. And I got back out of the hospital and I turn around, the doctor says, "You're discharged." He goes, "Discharged from what?" They're like, "From the army." They're like, "Why am I discharged from the army for?" Like, "Cuz you're injured." He goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not going anywhere. I'm an army man. I'm an army man. This is where I belong. I don't care if I'm injured. Find me something to do." So, they put me in a cat in an academy. And I was training young soldiers how to become strong military men. And over the course of my training, I found something. That I found that there are three types of soldiers. There are good soldiers. And good soldiers follow rules. And you tell them to wake at 6:00, they wake up at 6:00, and they make their bed, and they run their drills, and they position the gun exactly like we teach them, and they line up in formation, and they're good soldiers. Then there are great soldiers. And great soldiers are one that wake up when you say wake up at 6:00, they wake up at 5:00. And when you run 5 mi in the morning, they run 6. And when you say make your bed, they make their bed and they clean their floor. And when you go to battle, when you go to battle, you go to battle with the great soldiers cuz they go beyond. Cuz but then I discovered something. That when you get to battle, there's always a moment where everything goes wrong. There's always a moment where all the plans get thrown out the window. There's always a moment where you're taking a hill, but something else happens. And when you're in the heat of battle, and the plans don't work out, the good soldiers are gone, even the great soldiers squeam. But in those moments, there's always a soldier. There's always one or two that decide that no matter what, they're going to take the hill. No matter what, they're going to save that person. No matter what, they're going behind enemy lines cuz one of their comrades are behind, and they're not leaving without them. No matter what, they're going to dig into some place inside them and go to the unreasonable, the unthinkable, the unimaginable, and because of that, they take out something inside them that was always in there but couldn't come out. And at that moment, they become a hero. Cuz heroes don't say die when it gets harder than they think. They're beyond. Anybody here know heroes? You know heroes like this? Your grand Your grandparents maybe? How many of you have grandparents that came from different countries, ended up here, can't speak the language, had terrible growing Anyone grandparents survived the Holocaust, showed up here, and had to somehow do the unreasonable to lift something How do they do it? Anybody know heroes in the Israeli army that have to go beyond enemy lines every single day and protect us? NO? >> [applause] >> EDUCATORS THAT FLY AROUND THE country that move their families, what is it that makes a hero? Heroes are those that are around us. They make us. And between me and you, if I'd have to guess what we deep down want in this world, what you deep down want, I believe what I deep down want is that I could live a life to 120. At the end of my life, I want what we want more than anything in the world is for someone to say that she was my hero. What we really want in life is to become the hero. So, how do you become hero? He said to me, "That's what he saw in Eli Manning when he rolled out and he found David Tyree." So, I turned to him and I said, "Jim, you know, like how do you become a hero? Are they made or are they born?" So, he goes, "It's a long conversation." I'm like, "Well, guess what? I guess you're missing your plane now." Now you work for me, Jim. So, he sits down. So, then he looks at me and he goes, "You know, by the way, that I'm not Jewish." I'm like, "I know." He goes, "How do you know?" I'm like, "Jim, you're 6'5". You know what I'm talking about? Like Like God doesn't make us that big. You know what I'm saying? Like We're never on the field. You may own the team, but we're never on the field. That's not how it works for It's a different thing. We're We're a different nation like that." So, I said, "Jim, let me ask you a question. Mr. Expert in heroes, are they made or are they born? So, he gives me an answer. And I respond to him with the following statement. I said, "It reminds me of a great rabbi named Rabbi Akiva." He goes, "Who's that?" And me and Jim sat in Pasadena and I gave him a Torah class for 30 minutes on Rabbi Akiva. But before I get there, I want to just take a step back for a second. I want everybody to just pull back for a second and understand where you are. Why we're sitting here in these chairs today. Because you're not just in a conference center in Europe. We could have found lots of conference centers. We could have found lots of places to bring you. You're sitting here because you're sitting on hallowed grounds. What you saw a minute ago was a small little bit of a time where we had 300,000 Jews. In one moment, they were all put to a heroism test. What you're about to experience in the next week, and if you take this in, it's going to change you. And I want you to understand that last time we thought it was this number, but now it is. This is the largest contingent of Jews together to be on Spanish soil since the Spanish Inquisition. Understand. I want you to I I want you for a second to understand that in heaven, they they chose a delegation of Jews from around the world to represent what it means like to show to humanity that Jewish people will never die. And you have been chosen to be here, to see this, to travel around this country and to represent a concept that the Jewish people will live forever. Heroes. But it goes one further when this all come to an end. Just give me a few more minutes. This is a period of time that we're in. See, Judaism is about spirituality. People think that Judaism is like we have like this invisible God in the sky and like we do stuff for and like hopefully he likes us and gives us gold coins. That's not how it works. Judaism is the science of spirituality. God created a world and what he did was amazing. He took an animal and he raised it on its two feet and God took a piece of himself, the divine, and he stuck it inside you. So, if your eyes are open right now, what's powering your body, what's powering your mind, the energy that you have inside you is a piece of the divine. And I speak to people all the time they go, "Man, I'm into it. I'm not into it. I'm religious. I'm not religious." I'm like, "Stop. You have more spirituality inside you than you will ever need for the rest of your life. You never have to become spiritual. You have to reveal spiritual. And the way you reveal spiritual, the rabbis teach us this time means this and that time means this and this thing means that. Judaism is the science of how to take that spirituality inside me, how to connect it to the real me. This period of time has served spirituality and the king, if you will, the rabbi of this period of time is a rabbi named Rabbi Akiva. The rabbi that now is now Jim's new rabbi. Rabbi Akiva is the the model of what it means to be a hero. And the story of Rabbi Akiva is the story of a man who had who became one of the greatest rabbis ever to walk the face of this earth. The Talmud tells us that when Moses himself was given a vision into the future, he saw Rabbi Akiva teaching a class and Moses turns to God and Moses is really hooked up. Moses is like Hall of Fame level. When you bring down the Torah, you're Hall of Fame. And he turns to God and says, "Who's that Rabbi? I came to follow his class." The Rabbi Akiva. That's how big he got. Rabbi Akiva at 40 years old didn't know how to say aleph or bet. Which means everybody in this room, if you're under 40, is ahead of what Rabbi Akiva was. The greatest Rabbi ever, all of you are ahead of him in terms of your Jewish knowledge. And one thing changed his life. He was a shepherd and one day he was walking around and he saw a brook and the brook ended by a rock. And the brook had like a little it's that's stopped by like a dam. And underneath this rock moisture started to fall, form, and it dripped onto a hard rock underneath. You can imagine, a little drip, drip, drip onto a rock and Rabbi Akiva walked over to the rock and looked down at the rock and saw that this huge rock had a huge hole in it. And he asked himself, "What kind of strength does it take to make a hole in a rock? What kind of sledgehammer do you need to make a hole in a rock?" And he looked up and he realized he only needed a sledgehammer. You don't need a hammer, what you need was just a small drip, drip, drip. And that one thing changed his life and he looked at it and he said, "Wait a second. If water which is soft can bore a hole in a rock which is hard, then the Torah which is fire can bore a hole in my heart." Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says, "What did he see?" How do we become heroes? You have it inside you. It's built. Each of you have a piece of God. How do you bring it out? How do you have hero moments? >> [snorts] >> How do we live lives that no matter what you do, at the end of your life, someone will look at you and say, "That man, that woman was a hero. How do you do that?" It's so big to be a hero. It's so hard to be a hero. I'm going to now become a commando? I'm going to now become Rocky Frye? I'm going to now become and change my life? I'm going to now come and do crazy things? I can't do it. I'm nobody. I'm little. Rabbi Akiva looked over and said, "How in the world can I be I'm 40 years old. How in the world can I become a big rabbi now? I'm 40." And he looked at that rock. And he looked at that dripping and said, "Wait a second. If it took just dripping if the if the thousandth drip bored the hole in the rock, that means that the first drip did, too. That means every drip, even if I didn't see it, even if I didn't realize it, that means that every single [snorts] drip actually changed the rock. It may have taken the thousand see it. It may have taken 10,000 to actually have a hole, a hero. But the first drip made a difference, too. And all I got to do is be a hero for one day and worry about the next day. Micro heroic moments. Rabbi Akiva said, "I can be a micro hero. I can stand up tomorrow morning and say I'm getting up at the right time. I can be in a conversation if someone says something and say, "I shouldn't say that." And not hold back once. I can discover a little bit more about my Judaism for the week that I'm here and try to ask the question that's been on my mind. I can dance a little harder. I can smile a little brighter. I can pray a drop. I can't do it forever. I don't know what it'll be in the future. But I can be good for a day. One drip. And if I can just focus on a drip and be a hero for one drip at a time. You know what will happen over time? Crazy stuff will happen over time. What does it mean to be a hero and why are we here? Because what does it mean to be more? It means to wake up in the morning and say, "I know there's something inside me that's great. It may not have manifested, but I'm a piece of the divine. I am more. I don't know what I'll be tomorrow, but let me tell you something. For today, I'm a hero. For the next moment, the next drip, for the next drip, watch what I got. And when we live our lives this way, we wake up one morning and we don't even realize it, we just act heroically. The people you saw on stage, people you're going to meet this week, people that you can see on stage here, do not get lost by thinking that they were born this way. Every single rabbi, mentor, teacher that you're going to meet, every place you go for the next week, do not get lost in the glimmer. Everyone was sitting in your chair. They just made a decision to be a hero for a day, and then the next day and then the next day. And my challenge to me and my challenge to you. We have 1 week. With God's help, I'll be up the stage in less than a week saying goodbye. We just got here and we're almost leaving. It's going to go fast. When you get on that plane, be exhausted. When you get on that plane, say, "I left everything here cuz at least I was a hero for a week." And if together, all of us can have a few drips of heroism, do you know what kind of Kiddush Hashem, do you know what it sends to the world? That the Jewish people not only came back to Spain after you kicked us out, we came back stronger and prouder, and we're getting stronger every single day. So, let's raise up our hands. >> [applause] >> Let's realize who we are, make every Jew count, and for all of us, let's be the heroes that we are. Thank you very much.