Inside ArtScroll Episode 14: Great Jewish Journeys with Rabbi Moshe Bamberger

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Inside Art Scroll where the books you read and the people who write them come to life. Today we are joined by Rabbi Mosha Bamberger, the author of many popular art school titles, the great Jewish series. And Rabbi Bamberger is also the Mashki Ruhani at Besla Talmud Landers College for Men in Queens. Thank you, Rabbi Bamberger, for being here. Thank you everybody. It's a good We're here to celebrate and talk about your brand new book, which is the great Jewish journeys book. And I'd like to talk about that, but talk about the great Jewish series in general. How did you come up with that idea and how has it changed as as it it's evolved? Yeah. So actually in 2008 I was giving a VAD which is a Muser class in Lander College for men and every year I give a different topic and one year I just chose to speak about the letters of Gdel Israel and every week I would photocopy a different letter from Arishan from Anah. Um and the guys were getting extremely into it. They really loved it and you know became like the most popular sheer and uh at the end of the year one boy came over to me a sweet boy and he said Rebby I think you should publish this. This is great. This is really inspirational and touching and moving and powerful and historic. And then I had that light bulb moment and I started typing out, translating the letters, uh, introducing them, gathering pictures enough to produce a a sample of what it would look like. And I sent it to Rabitz, who I had a relationship with because I published two other books with Arts Girl at the time, Hal and Shvraas, which we have here. We have them there. and um and I made a meeting with him. I came into his office and uh he said that he loved the idea and in fact he even thought of the idea himself at an earlier period in his life and he thought that this would be a great concept but he never had somebody that would actually put it together and do it and he was extremely excited about it and if you know Rabbi Zlattoitz uh if you knew him he was always a perfectionist and he was a visionary and he didn't want to do it halfway. He wanted to do it the whole way and we were planning on doing it very lavishly as a coffee table book, full color. Was that his idea to do it as a coffee table type book? I think it was sort of uh we both agreed that that was the way it should be done. If it would have just been a regular book without any photographs, without any original letters, it would not be the same book. It would not be as powerful. And you weren't concerned that because the price point would be higher that maybe you're kind of everybody's audience I'm sure was concerned about that but um I wasn't concerned I was I was the visionary without the price tag and he was the visionary with a price tag but he basically was very much on board about it and he was very excited to do it and uh so we started the process and uh we had at the time some really professional in-house uh artists that worked on it and they were wonderful. Rebe Ladawitz used to call uh the the Arts Girl team the genius cluster and if you read his biography, which I'm sure you have many times, uh it really captures what goes on here at Arts Girl, um you have really the greatest professionals each in their own field coming together in a small area and producing results that are unfathomable. So you finished the book on letters which contains the actual letter and then a description of it and interesting insights and background. What was your next volume and how did you decide on what you got to address next? I'm sorry. I got a letter from a rabbi of mine who uh he wrote me a beautiful uh letter and he he complimented the book his Rashiva in uh in Long Beach actually and he told me that I can only imagine the next ones in the series. Mhm. And at that moment I thought about yeah maybe there would be a you know a future here. maybe we shouldn't just stop at letters. And the next thing that I thought of was speeches and uh the great druss and uh speeches of of Hespadim and of good times and tragic times um summ and uh and major addresses at Kia Gdoas at great conventions and I started gathering that and we did a year's worth of VODs on that in Lander College and again it was very popular and again I approached Rabbi Zladawitz and he was very much for it. Bar Hashem and then it just evolved as you put it. We uh we went on from there to put a a small book um which you have there also called great Jewish wisdom just quotes from Gdali Israel uh superimposed on beautiful photographs and a little biography about that particular god on the other side of the spread that became a super bestseller because it was at more of an affordable price point and you were able to give it out at dinners and atas and graduations and I get I think I'd say I probably get the most positive feedback from that particular volume because people become more firm from it. People make sturum minute. Girls in seminaries in Israel learn this at night. It's just a very powerful medium like a very it's you don't have to have a very long attention span. So it's perfect for our generation and you get a a really powerful dose of inspiration and wisdom right away in a second. From there we went on to uh great Jewish treasures which happens to be my personal favorite. It's artifacts of Gdel Israel. I went and gathered from the whole world uh from Risham and whatever we could put together beautiful priceless historic artifacts. Each one that sort of gives you a new angle about the gut. It's each piece is customtailored to that particular gudle. So it really brings that's like a show and tell of the godle himself or herself. A fascinating fascinating exploration of gdelm. And how do you even go about collecting those artifacts? Did you call museums and curators or or everything? Everything. There are private collections that are astounding. Um there are public collections. Uh there are libraries. There are uh just the more you dig the more you find. and you network and you do a lot of detective work. You find that you heard somewhere that that the BashMto of safer tire is here and that you know the uh the Viln uh that is here and and we just like started the process and until we found them so it's a lot of investigating ton of investigating a lot of searching calling people were you always into history and and and factf finding was that in your blood um so I I have to acknowledge my father a friend of RA who um he was nifer around eight years ago and he was he loved history and he was very proud in particular of our we come from the wartsburg bamburger who was the godladar in Germany pisadar and he put out many great sarim and my father was just in love with him I mean he was nifer you know in 1878 but my father basically lived his life around his legacy around the bber's legacy and he collected every manuscript every sitter every everyit everything that he could get his hands on and he himself actually produced uh two volumes of his gathered manuscripts his gathered uh and he got me into it he we we went to Wsburg together in Germany to visit Kit Sadikim which is probably where the idea of the current safer that we just produced today uh Jewish journeys came from. But a lot of my influence in terms of history, in terms of uh Judeaica, in terms of the love of Saram, uh the love of Gdam, I would directly um trace to my father and uh you know, I'm hoping that in Shamayim he's looking down and shopping a lot of right now. I'm sure he is. Now, I I do want to talk about Great Jewish Journeys, the new the newest book, but let's talk for a moment about your journey, where you grew up, who influenced you, and how you got to where you are today. So I grew up in Long Beach uh the city of the famousra to a certain degree uh because it does have a world famous yeshiva there where I attended um high school in one year based medish and uh long beach was a very very uh important city in a certain sense there besides for the yeshivas that they have and the wonderful schol and raanim there were a lot of lay leaders that as a child I didn't even realize who they were but they it turns out that they were of tremendous importance to Kalisrael in different ways. So there was a lot of of nourishment that I got as a child from that village of Long Beach, a small city but a very influential one. Uh after I finished learning in Long Beach, I went on to a yeshiva and shalam called Cultyra which was under the leadership of Arab. I were you in to be in it was a lifealtering experience. Um I always tell my tell that I didn't learn too much that man because what would happen was that he would come into Shir and he would take his glasses off and he literally looked like a malakashem it was and I wasn't able to I I capped some of Shir but not all of it but what I took away was how a mortal could become angelic And to be able to be in his shir was such a that you know I can never ever repay the rabbanum for for guiding me in that direction and uh the just his his royalty and his sweetness and his brilliance all combined in one human being just was uh off the charts. Did you have any personal interactions with him? I did I did have some personal connection with him and I I I had some sheimush by him as well. You know, I I had a certain job that I I was able to get closer to him through and just I was just enamored by him. I was just in awe of him. And then when you were done at Culty, did you come right back to the United States? I did. I came back to the United States. Um I went to Araim in in where is where I met I learned under Rabbi Lander in Queens. That's Queens. And uh from there I went to Berlin and I stayed there for about 12 years. I became very close with Shakar Shiva should live and be well and I'm still close to him to this day and um yeah so I was uh I spent a long time in in in the yeshivas and I loved every day every every minute of them. And at that point what did you anticipate doing? Did you think you're going to go into Was that the route that you that you had planned for yourself? No. No, not really. Um I my problem wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted to do. My problem was that I wanted to do everything. I had varied interests and I was uh you know I wanted to do everything. But unfortunately in life, you gota, you know, you got to try to focus. And the reban shalom just basically um I I I went in different uh paths, but we were we were living in Brooklyn uh right next door to after we had my bkarmen. So I had a very big tya to get into and I called uh the manal who I had somewhat of a cesher with and um and he just happened to have a job that was opening up. It was puradish when I told that I became a 12th grade rabbi in Brooklyn without any you know experience and without really any connections. I didn't have to marry somebody to get that position and I didn't have to know anybody. I just basically the on was like he couldn't believe it. always and that was the first you know year of that I had which seagull used to say that you should actually pay uh to get your first job that's how it is to you know to enter the field of kin it was a wonderful year and I loved the talid there and the other there who each incredible nisha kinets and rabbi seagull the the famous no the the rabbi seal you talking from cominates from cominates. He was also he was a tremendous tremendous person. I was very close with him Zelinger and Rabbi Liner and uh the whole there was unbelievable and then in the middle of the year Rabbi Lander you know who I had learned underim he heard that I was doing a good job in in in cominates and and the there was this brand new yeshiva that opened up in Queens called Lander College for men. I was 2 years old and it was still getting off the ground and they needed a mash and so I went and I spoke to Dr. Lander and Rabbi Lander together and uh and I decided to uh to move on and so what what is the role of a mush on a practical level now in in such a institution? So on a practical level uh first of all you know when I first came there there were about 30 talmid today we have about 250 talmid it grew and the quality of the boys and the the ruas is amazing. Um my role personally is to of course I give vaden I give schmoozen and I and I'm the ro there on shabas in the base mish and on yantiff but my main my main role there is one of giving direction and to the uh to the talidim it's a very pivotal time in their life it's a time that they have to make very very important decisions about what age group of boys are you dealing with primarily primarily 19 to 23 Three. Soimid, career, career decisions, yeshiva decisions, yeshiva decisions, that's the epicenter of a person's life. The decisions that people make at that age are the decisions that pretty much they live with until month. Think about it. I mean, you know, the who you're going to marry and where how you're going to raise your children and what type of hashkafa you're going to have and uh the whole dating process is very very important. And if you're getting advice on dating from people that are not people that should be giving advice, it could alter the entire trajectory of a person's life. So we give vods on dating and then we give vods on shalom to the kyo and we give vods to uh we try to really hammer home all of these special points that uh that the talidum need and and it really hashem they appreciate it and it and it works. Now besides for your role as Mashk and you're also writing books I know you're involved in other endeavors of Saty and spreading messages of just take a moment to speak about that because I know you're touching a lot of people out of just this sphere of Lander College. Thank you. So I I started uh within this year and you were an important part of it. Um, I started something called Great Jewish Broadcast, which is obviously a play on the title of my series, The Great Jewish Series. So, what a broadcast is is for those people that have WhatsApp, and that's not a recommended thing necessarily, but many of us unfortunately have it. And it's a it's a medium that could be used LAR, but it could also be used lat if it's used properly, like everything else in life. And what I did was I used my my love of gdylum and history and and my creativity if I might say so to spread the dvarashem through messages about aud I I send out to close to 5,000 people and growing a message like it's almost like a choreographed short message. It's not my face. You don't see my face in item for the for the viewers, but you just see um you just see videos and uh and and different graphics that are very powerful with the music in the background and it really has hit home to many thousands of people every week. And then we have on our status which is also a component of of WhatsApp that you're able to put up short inspirational messages in a very creative way. Um we're able I have a podcast great Jewish podcast which I'm able to feed into through uh through the status and uh every Friday my shar goes up my schmoo that I give on the para in lander goes up immediately on that. So we have we're using dashem technology to further the dashem. You've definitely used creativity and kind of thinking out of the box even in the written word you instead of just printing a book you've thought of ways to enhance it with beautiful pictures and like you said before artifacts. Now in your latest book ra Jewish journeys which I'm enjoying myself very much. I'm going through it. I actually just uh looked at the piece on Rav GIFter with his desk which I found fascinating and I would love to ask you in first give our viewers an overview of what this book is about and then if you could share one or two highlights of things that you found most intriguing as you compiled the content of this book. So the the next step after treasures I happen to have written another book called great Jewish classics. I just want to give that, you know, I don't want it to, you know, can I interrupt for a moment? I want to let our viewers know that the book is right here and you only just saw the book about 20 minutes ago when you came here. You had never even seen the new volume. So, it really is brand brand new. We had a couple of copies here in the office. So, uh you know, you could make your now. I'm sure it's a feeling of tremendous fulfillment to see the book after you put in so much effort and time and toil. But uh just you know I wanted to mention that I'm sure that's a tremendous feeling to be able to sit near it. It's almost like you know when you go into a hospital and you see your baby for the first time and and I saw it behind glass until now but now I'm able to actually hold it and like you said make a shakan and the pisk do say that when you put out a new safer you should say a shak without shameus and uh and that's I feel it's a tremendous not everybody gets a like this to be able to not just have a concept but actually to bring a concept to life and to be grateful to the ravenish for giving me that ability and to uh and how could I repay him? It's impossible. After the great Jewish classics on the sarim so somebody came to me and said a big scholar and he told me that you know Raisha you know I loved great Jewish treasures which was the one about the artifacts but you left out so many treasures. I said really where you know I like to think that I sort of captured all of them. So he said, "No, no, no. There's so many treasures throughout the world that you missed. There is the shuls and the yeshivas that are still standing throughout Europe that the Nazis didn't get to. And then we have the maravla and then you have all of the sadikim. Think about it. You have the you have a place where the vulner is buried and sadikim that were there when he was reinterred from one bum to another attested to the fact that his his his face and his cheeks were rosy red 100 years after he was nif there sadikim that are still they're literally here and and you missed that whole you missed all those artifacts you missed all of the there's so much more that you missed and I had another light bulb moment and I uh I said to myself okay fine That's another book. And I of course contacted Gdalia who should live and be well. He's wonderful. He's at the helm of uh of Arts Girl Scroll. I I happen to have known of Gdalia way back. We went to Camp Monk together and then we were in Long Beach. We over overlapped together. He's a few years older than me, but he's uh he was always tremendous and he signed off on it. And I started collecting a lot of uh a lot of information about about the makadeshim the sadikim the terror landmarks around the world in Israel in the Middle East in in Europe in America and it's been an amazing journey. It's been an amazing journey. Any specific part of this book that was really intriguing to you or that you didn't know before you started digging? I don't know anything. I'm a I'm a big amarit. I'm not I don't I don't claim to be a big a big scholar or a big historian. All I am is somebody that has a curiosity. Mh. And when you have a curiosity about things, then you begin to explore and you uh and you find out new things every day that you didn't know the day before. And that's what life is all about. Waking up and and saying and saying, "I want to I want to try to really absorb something new today." And so there's so much that we could go through. I mean it's it's really an endless uh endless journey but suffice it to say that there's so many stories that I tried to bring out not about their sarum that we did not about their treasures not about their letters but specifically end of life foundations that we could take from each god. So either something that sort of a a huard if you will like something that really defined them and that is their legacy or something that happened at the end of their life that was very powerful with sidebars of of actually diver that they said concerning death. Like for example, Misha Feinstein writes in one of his sarum that the word matsa which is the tombstone the gravestone comes from word comes from the word nitsa that standing because when you die a person becomes stationary a person can't really move in a certain sense in a physical sense but also you all the mitzvah sort of stop and the terror stops obviously through through your children you're able to and through your talidum and through all the good that you brought to the world you're able to continue on a certain level. But a mace is uh is is standing. He's an imid. And so it's a says when you go to a mata, you're supposed to say you're supposed to really be inspired and be motivated that I'm a mahalik. I'm able to move. I'm able to to I'm able to grow. I'm able to expand and and do great things with life. And and when you walk away from mats, you shouldn't be depressed. You should be galvanized and and empowered to to take life by the horns and really just do what you were meant to do. Don't be afraid. Just just try to figure out what it is that the wants you to do and then just do it. There's no question that a lot of the stories and anecdotes that you include will give people a whole different feeling and experience when they do visit Sadikim and understand the greatness and the depth of the people who they're asking to beseech on their behalf to there's no question about it. I know you included maps as well. I saw very interesting and and it must have taken it must have been a yman's job just compiling that putting it together guiding people that if they want to find certain kavarim that they'll be able to do that with the aid of the book uh but I think it's important to note that while it is a journey into yester year and into kavarim it's not a depressing book it's a very uplifting inspiring book that will inspire readers hopefully to try to emulate the people who are described. Yeah, it's uh it's interesting in in all of the other books, I don't think you'll you're going to find more than maybe two three pictures out of thousands of pictures probably in these four of the books. Um I never put Matsavis in the books because I didn't want I wanted it to be purely alive. I wanted pictures of life. I wanted to get you know and I colorize the pictures. I try to improve, enhance every picture to make sure that the reader really feels like they're getting pulled into history. And this book was an exception because it is about sadikim. I'd say 80% of his kadikim, 20% of it is the landmarks that still exist in the world. But I try to make the sadikim not depressing. I try to make it user friendly if you can do that. And that's what the tadikim themselves would want. They want you to come to their Kev and Davin and not to them but to the should uh stand in goodstead for us. I must point out that Nasen Sherman who is you know he's been called Hersh of our times and you get this to see him every day and to work with him it's unbelievable and I I've known him for many years since since he edited myal and he's always been so wonderful he wrote the overview of this book which is also a tremendous and he specifically wrote about what kit sadikim are and how you're supposed to approach a a kev and and about the different fine details and the hashkafa behind sadik and what it's supposed to do and how it's not only uh in order like you said for to daven and to beseech that that should should rise up to the covet for us but it's also to inspire us to do chuva you know you see that life is finite that we're all mortals and there will be a day that this will all come to an end and we're supposed to it's supposed to make us do chuva which is not also it's not a down theme it's a it's an up positive thing and also he said a very interesting that like by K it says that when he visited the mara he got a he got almost he tapped into the spiritual of the when he walked away from the marus ma and he dav that he shouldn't be trapped in the in the in the in the plot of the moragum of the spy eyes. He had a he took with himself the sadikim all this of the and he didn't leave it at the ke he took it with him and that became part of him. So when we go to toad or to Europe or even to America, which is something that I point out in the book, you don't have to you don't need to go. I live in Queens like you said before um 10 minutes away from my house, you have tremendous, the first chief rabbi of New York and the last chief rabbi of New York, you have Raam, you have the second rabbiton. You have people that people if they wouldn't live in qu if they would be buried in uh in Barus people would be would be running there but like we could go get into our car if we live in America and and visit them and we could get that ourselves. We're able to take a piece of the of the the inspiration of that with us. So the point of the book is that when you go to the kevver or when you study about the kev to each each god has their own unique niggan that they brought to the world if you will they all were different at the gdm we sort of sometimes just you know say okay they were all and that's it every god brought to the world something special and unique and the takeaway from every kev from every legacy is uniquely different and that's what you're going going to find in this book every single God and their unique journey their unique takeaway lesson that I think if we would dive in by their kev and we let's say take a our own guided tour of the kibate sadikim with this book we would be able to read it by each individual kev and like you said we have maps that brand new maps that I designed that will point out exactly how to get to every one of the difficult to find sadikim's kevers and you'll be able to like be your own um tour guide and and take away an important makaba, an important Muslim from each god. Now, before we end, I have to ask you, and I'm sure you've gotten many, many suggestions over the years once you started with the great Jewish themes. So, tell me some of the suggestions. What do you have on your agenda? And then I want to share my own if I can, or should I do that first? Do that first. How about great Jewish melodies? And I'm not talking about necessarily contemporary songs. I love music that we sing by almost every I would love to know the history. I've asked around I've seen I've met musicians um when I would talk to Ren and Shanker who I was know I would ask them where did that song come from? I don't know. Um the song that uh Cayanum singing it's an age-old niggan that goes back generations but I wonder really weird what's the origin and things like that. I I now putting melodies into a book is a little difficult. Maybe you could accompany it with a CD. I'm just giving a suggestion, but uh that's my contribution to the Great Jewish series. But what what ideas have you contemplated and what's next for the Great Jewish series? Great Jewish retirement. Um I get this question every day. It's so funny. Like just today I was speaking to a Talman of the Base Medish and he asked me like, "Okay, Rebby, what's next?" And I was like, can't you just like buy this book and enjoy that? Why do you have to worry about that? That's the way we are, right? And in fact, on my on my broadcast, I actually put that question out to the thousands of people that were watching. I said, "Please, you know, send send me your suggestions of what the next great Jewish uh book should be." And I got some really good good suggestions. Um, personally, I I have a lot of I have a lot of plans for the series. I could still go if if Abdalia, you know, would agree to it. I the the next in the series is probably going to be something called great Jewish inspiration which is a a very motivational book that I think our dar needs and buff specifically now during co when we're all at wits ends and and and worried and and we need a really healthy dose of of energy and power and phys. So this book would hopefully accomplish some of that. uh it would be a small book and uh but a a very very important book in the series to bring to light a lot of the oneline messages of of Israel and then a little commentary on the other side of the spread of my own. Um I actually wrote a book called Great Jewish Poetry which is sort of on the uh you know touching upon your music idea. Uh Gdel is aim which is the period that I really love the best. uh they wrote right pism but but even regular poetry that are dripping with inspiration with your shamayim uh and I translated many of them in in rhyme and um uh we basically uh you know maybe someday that would be a book that would be uh worthy of of entering this uh the series but uh you know the stipler poetry the Kazinish wrote poetry or mayor Shapiro poetry Um there's so much out there you know there's really uh and the somebody suggested on the uh broadcast that I write great Jewish women to put it serious just only about women today somebody suggested to me a great Jewish balabatim great Jewish layman people lay leaders or regular ordinary people that really changed the face of Israel which is very inspirational I always say that my favorite biographies are not necessarily biographies of gdylum they're biographies of regular people because you can relate to them and they called him Mike I think might be my best my my most you know there's a book called Joseph by Joseph I don't know if you're familiar with that sadam from the Syrian community regular Balabas who was such a sweet soul that gave and did so much and you know that might be something to consider but we just have to if wants more to come out he will give us the kayak to do so. They all sound like great ideas. So, you definitely have me intrigued and I guess we'll wait with baited breath for that. But for now, Mazotv on the new volume, we're very excited about it. I'm sure many people will buy it and enjoy it and study it and review it. And uh we want to wish you continued in your satra and in sharing the greatness of our Jewish heritage and the different components of Jewish life that maybe sometimes we overlook that you're bringing out in such beautiful fashion. Continued and thank you for being here. Thank you. I really appreciate your time and I love your your show is uh is tremendous. I you know one after another I don't know how you are able to uh just do it with such uh skill and such love and talent and you're clearly um super qualified to for exactly the role that the put you in. Appreciate it. Thank you again. Thank you. [Music] Heat.