I Spoke To A Room Of Police Officers

This Torah class is brought to [music] you by tora anytime.com. [applause] >> I would like to call an individual today. We know that you can find anything out in a few seconds of an AI, but we see that as that's as technology. I want to pull up by Rabbi, a person that you'll hear him speak. The amount of information, the wealth of knowledge that he's going to be able to give over tonight, his comparison to AI. I would like to ask for a hill, please say. >> Thank you very much for that. I don't think all my introductions have ever been compared to AI ever because this is a crowd that does not measure time emotionally. They measure it accurately. So, if I go one minute over, I probably will hear radios. And I go two minutes over, I will probably see cones set up and someone calling state prosecutor. So, I'm not even going to try. Here we go. I'm not going to go with the story. And I'm still going to go there. There was 65 years ago two shoe companies who decided to explore investing in Africa. and they sent two executives to go explore the region. They went around to the same cities. They met and they both came back around the same time. And one executive comes bursting into the CEO's office. He's all sad. He's depressed. He says, "CEO, waste of time. Nobody wears shoes there." The other CEO comes running back, burst into the CEO's office, and the executive, he comes back. He says, "You're not going to believe this. Nobody wears shoes like that. This is a gold mine. This is right for the taking. And lo and behold, they opened 10 stores and dozens of stores and hundreds of stores. And today they have netted hundreds of billions of dollars from that decision. Two people saw the same exact country, came back with totally opposite conclusions. We live in a world very similar to Africa without shoes. A world full of problems. A world of vulnerable people. A world of unprotected people. A world of evil lurking everywhere. And most people look and say, "Too difficult. I'm not interested. Not enough money for me." And they off. And they go live to life making money, chasing comfort. But there are some people who see and say, "Hey, it's Africa without shoes. There's opportunity here. It's a gold mine. And they recognize that at the end of one's life, God does not care what you accumulated. He cares about one thing and one thing only. Were you part of the problem or were you part of the solution? That is all I care about. Were you part of the problem or were you part of the solution? We are in a room of people who are very much part of the solution. [applause] We are living in a world that respects the wrong things. We are living in a world that conditions its children to respect money, to respect titles that are hanging on the edge of someone's mahogany desk. We are conditioning ourselves to respect the landscape of somebody's lawn. We live in a world where the CEO of a company who inherited the job from his father who from all metrics is a bumbling buffoon who wouldn't know morality if it slapped him in the face who cannot zip up his own pants is [laughter] given just as much respect and just as much awe than the CEO who's an immigrant from Romania who slept on beds who ate rejection for breakfast for 20 years and to claw his way up to the CEO position They get the same amount of respect, the same amount of standing ovation. That is the world we live in. But here's where it's important for us. Because that's the world we live in. It means all the more for you. All the more for the people who want to be big when everyone else wants to be small. All the more for the people who want to look into the face of evil and dispense good and not wither away into their bedroom. Of course, it's hard. No one's saying it's not hard. It's not sugarcoated. It's not easy. standing outside a dinner hall that's honoring a 26-year-old who by accident invented an app at age 18 in his college dorm room in his underwear eating a methal sandwich and then sold it to Google for $75 million is getting honored and I'm out in the cold making sure that a woman doesn't get hit by a truck. It's not easy. No one's saying it's easy. It's not easy to wake up at 3 in the morning to go make sure that someone doesn't get killed or that some kid gets home safely and then I go back to sleep. I wake up with a pounding headache and turn on the radio. They're interviewing someone who won the lottery and is installing a $6 million fish tank in his bathtub. It's not easy. Of course, it's not easy. But greatness follows people who roll up their sleeves and choose good. Precisely because so few people chase good means the dividends for you are greater. Here's another story. In Wales in England, there was a heavy snowstorm and there was a woman who was walking with her baby and was caught in this sudden snowstorm and she was going to a destination and she never got there. And the next day, people are starting to figure out, okay, where's this woman? People say, you know what? I don't know. Probably found a hotel, a motel, somewhere to stay. Not sure. Who cares? But there was one man who said, "No, no, no. That's not how I'm operating. I'm finding this woman. We're talking 10 ft of snow. We're talking visibility of 5t. We're talking frigid temperatures." And he goes down. He's looking for hours. He goes the entire length of the road that she probably was walking until she f he finds a mound that shouldn't be there. And he starts digging and he's digging more and he sees a dead clothesless woman. She knew she was dying. She took off her clothes. She wrapped her infant in it. He opens up the b the pile of clothes. He's alive. That baby is alive. That baby turned out to be David Lloyd George. Went on to become the prime minister of England. led the entire World War I essentially became one of the most consequential figures in politics in the last 200 years. Who also led the way to the Balffor Declaration, paving the way for the entire state of Israel, which can be traced back to one no-name man who the world will never know about, who went out in the night in the freezing cold when everyone else said no. And he said yes. That is who you are. Chasing a life where no one will thank you. little money but dispensing good into a world desperate for it. Which brings me to Lakewood specifically. We have become slightly desensitized in Lakewood. We think it's normal. We think it's normal. Help is you're in a you have trouble. Help is in the way immediately. We think it's normal. You're lost. Someone's going to come out and find you. We think it's normal. You know, someone collapses and ambulance isn't there in 90 seconds. We think that's normal, but it's not normal. I was somewhere recently. I won't say where because I don't know who's connected to which state prosecutor here. And I walk out to my car. I see all four doors of my car open. I go inside my car. Every single valuable thing I own is stolen. Gone. I was in the middle of moving from place to place and everything was in my car. Laptops, money, clothes, shackles, smart filling, gone. I'm standing there. I start calling everyone I know. Nothing. Zero health, zero. Jump in the lake. So then I feel I see that this community has a community watch. Okay. This is very far away. A community watch? Great. I call the community watch. I say, "My car, THAT THING WAS STOLEN. HELP ME." "NO, SORRY. We don't do that." I'm like, "You're a community watch? You don't you don't do so. What do you do?" We mostly help with missing cats. I'm like, "What? We mostly help with missing cats. Give me a break." And then I realized that's what normal looks like. That is what it looks like when people in your city aren't big enough to step up and fill in. I was in Hanoi, Vietnam a few weeks ago. I don't know if you ever been to Hanoi. It is insane. It's chaotic. It's crazy. It makes Manhattan look like the cascus. And I'm walking there. It is hotter than hot. I'm not sure if it was 175 degrees or 176 degrees. I'm not sure. it. I wasn't sure if I was walking on a street or if I was swimming in a crockpot. It was that hot. There's air conditioning companies who are filming their advertisements there. I'm walking along with my wife and two kids and I see there is a woman on the floor having a seizure of stroke. Now, guess how many people did anything? Zero. Now, this wasn't like a little quiet street. This was Hanoi, Vietnam. This is the most jam-packed place probably you'll walk. I wasn't sure if I was on a street corner or if I was in a can of tuna. Nobody. So my wife and I run over to this woman who's on the floor literally passing at diet. And my wife, who's a nurse, says, "She needs juice immediately. Get her juice. Quick, quick, quick, quick." So I look around and I see that there's a guy who has a a crate of oranges who's sitting on the side of the road and he's squeezing the oranges to make orange. So I run over to I say, "Guys, sir, Mr. Duke, she's dying. He's literally dying. Can you give us a couple oranges?" No. No, she's dying. No, you pay me. I'm going to pay you. You charging seven Vietnamese gong. That's the equivalent of like 4 cents. You like Starbucks charge $19 for a lavender infused rosemary oatmeal forever. You shook squeezing oranges. She's dying. No money, no juice. No money, no juice. I walk. I go collect money like a beggar. Uh, the American terrorist is collecting money for the Vietnamese. Go figure out that look. I go I get juice for this. I We save the life. [applause] Okay. I burn my food now. >> Would anyone in this room act like that? >> Would anyone in this room even think like that? Would anyone in this city even think like that? >> No. because we're not normal. Because we've developed a culture where there's a problem, you step up and you fix it. I want to conclude with a story. One final story. A few months ago, I went to check out a school that I was considering sending my son to. It's called Ortha Stein here in Lakewood. The first time I met her there, I walk into the parking lot and all of a sudden I'm walking to the administration [clears throat] wing. I see 15 cops come running through the parking lot. There's 12 room members just running through the parking lot. Okay, that's one way to introduce your school to me. Very nice. What happened was there was a hit and run on the corner street over there and the guy ran through this parking lot and they thought maybe he was armed and they're coming to check out the situation. Now, this was in the middle of recess. There's six or seven million kids who are playing outside and for a moment the showroom remembers the police officers huddled together to sort of like regroup and three million 8-year-olds come running to gang up on these police officers and showroom members and start belting out with confidence. They know exactly where the guy went. He went left. He went right. He's on top of the bus. He's under the bus. He's wearing a blue shirt. I thought he was wearing a black shirt. He's bald. He has a ponytail. He's wearing an afro. Can you give that bus an afro? with complete and utter confidence. >> And the show remembers the police officers just look at the kids, get a little smile, and they turn on their radio to listen to their chief, and they run off into the direction. Life is sort of a microcosm of that parking lot where there's a million people pointing in a million different directions who are essentially children dressed up like adults. who are saying go this, go that, obsess over this, cancel this guy, follow that guy, do this, donate all your mental space to this, that, and the other. Lucky are the people who can tune them all out. Lucky are the people who can say, "I want to do good. I want to be a solution in a world filled with problems." So instead of just me being here to tell to wish liquid's thanks to you all, I want to personally tip my cap because when I was four years old, my father was climbing up a flight of stairs and he collapsed. He had a category 4 cardiac arrest, which basically gives you a 4% chance of survival. Not 24, not 14% chance, 4% chance. And it is only because of people like you who step up, who run towards chaos, who run towards the problems. The only reason I am not an orphan is because people like you see a problem and choose to fix it. [applause] I leave you with the following quote. There's a quote that was very popular amongst soldiers in World War II. It's become very popular amongst Navy Seals right before they head out into their missions, before they drop from those helicopters. The quote is the following. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. Yeah. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. Evil in this world does not survive, does not win because it is strong. It is because people get too comfortable and get too weak, get too complacent and chase the wrong things. Triumph will be received by good when good people dispense it. So, we tip our cap and I represent all of Lakewood and the surrounding towns. To thank the people who are never thanked, to thank the people who never get awards, to thank the people who prevent crimes whose victims will never know about. I tip my cap to the people who are living in a world filled with problems very much stand tall and become the solution. Thank you very much for listening. You've just experienced another Torah class brought to you by tora anytime.com.