Inside ArtScroll - Season 3 Episode 12: Rabbi Heshy Kleinman: Praying with Fire and the Power of ...

[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 I am joined by Rabbi Heshi Klyman, best-selling author of Praying with Fire, Yearning with Fire, other wonderful works. Thank you, Rabbi Klyman, for being here. Pleasure to be here. Now, we'll get into your amazing books which have impacted literally thousands of people all over the world, changing the way they davin, changing the way they yearn for the gula and really changing their perspective on Roas and their connection with. But I would love to hear just for a couple minutes a background. Where do you come from? Who influenced you? And how you got into the business so to speak of writing and influencing people. Okay. Uh the story is a very uh ordinary story. Uh I grew up in Borough Park. I went to Terrace Elementary School. Uh I was a Pier boy 14th Avenue. Uh Rabbi Tran uh Rabbi Label Catz. Uh I grew up with uh in fact we even went to camp uh with some of our per leaders who were counselors. Uh this was a very tight-knit group and uh I my older brother went to the mayor in Brooklyn. So I followed suit and the mayor for me was a wonderful wonderful place. Uh my sort so to speak rebby I all the rabbim that I had were wonderful but the one that I really uh I connected with the most I think was Brun. Oh wow. And Rashu Brun in the yeshiva you had to be there two years. I stayed in extra man and I would have stayed there longer had they not kicked me out. Mhm. And uh I was very fortunate to have a kesher with uh my rebby. Uh although I lived in Burough Park and I had a car I chose to dorm and uh one day after uh Shia Reby's walking home and I saw him I speeded up jumped out of my car. I said, "Rebby, maybe I can take you wherever Rebby wants to go." N. And he said, "Well, you know what? Can you take me home?" And after that, we had a casher. And uh 10 days later, he had to go to the doctor. He came over to me and he said, "Oh, Esa, I can take him to the doctor." I It was a wonderful, wonderful casher. His sheer was sublime. It was It was a mad, you know. You mentioned Rabbi Tran. Tran was famously a very very close of that is correct. And afterwards the lumbus and the just the uh the love of oozed out of him in in everything that he did. The famous story with was he would not mada before the end of sedar. Sedar ended the next day. It was 8:00 at night and by my I had the have the rasha being mada and but the ka was 8:30 to accommodate a schedule. Absolutely. You want the rasha there you have to accommodate him. So I grew up in Borak went to the mayor and um like you know like everybody else I was a pier boy learning in the mayor uh specifically into how did I get into writing? Uh, I had a kabusa. Uh, I I needed a kabusa during the day. Bashem I was able to spend my time during the day uh doing things other than uh kind of running to uh to Manhattan to work. Bashem I was uh learning up a storm and um I I needed to get a kabusa during the day. So I saw somebody left a flyer in a shul of a phone number. I was learning with my he was a rub big we were learning the and it wasn't just learning that was couple of hours that I invested there during the day and uh when we decided okay we both have to go to the next step whatever that might be so I needed to get a kabusha and I saw there was an ad for in hanging in a shul for a phone number and I called the guy and he wasn't for me and then I said by the way do can you recommend? He said, "Yeah, my kabusu who I just broke up with." Uh, he's available. Give him a call. I gave him a call. And uh, you know, you talk about things. I had called him the whole summer. Did him pick up the phone. I said to myself, "This is the last time I'm calling this fellow. If he doesn't pick up the phone, it's not for me." Of course, he picks up the phone. He was an anti. And we have been the closest of friends ever since. He's at Saddak. He's unbelievable. And we would learn during the morning until about a quart to 12. Could you reveal who it is? What? Could you reveal who it is? Uh my great friend Rabb Morai Gilber who heads Hakl people that know Hakl and Flapos and I mamahatic. Those that know him. Unbelievable. I don't know if he'll be too pleased that I mentioned his name. Sharia Morai. But uh he's an unbelievable individual. And when I would drive him to the train to go to work, for him to go to work to Manhattan, we would always have these discussions about what's going on kind of in the world and in in Claw Israel. We both had an affinity for like let's try to do something for Cla so to speak. He had his own and I had my own. And one of the areas was tila. So he being an attorney and he knew how to write and I knew how to write a little bit. We put together a proposal for flappers. This is the true story. And we went to a rashiva and we sat down. I knocked on his door. We sat down. We said rashiva. He was an old god. Uh we and he says sorry I can't do anything. What do you mean? He says I can't tell what to do. go to Rav so and so in Flawush, sit down, talk to him. I went to Rav so and so who I happened to learn with in the mayor many years before he knew me, I knew him. And when we showed him the proposal, he says, "I'm telling you upfront, there's not much I can do." And I said, "What? How could that be? Somebody needs to do something. We need to be mazak." So my kabus looks at me and says, "So why don't you do something about it? Why don't you write a book?" I said, "You know something? I think I will." So I had been giving sewer and people said to me that your style is it you make things sound so like easy to understand like it's so straightforward why don't so I wrote the book in Hebrew and then somebody said to me no one's going to read it so I had to write it in English one of my kids said to me aa who's going to read your book on and he was absolutely right he's 100% right But then of course I needed an editor. I went through three editors. They were all very good, but they weren't my style. I I I ride with a tinge of irony, a tinge of humor. Kind of a little bit, you know, out of the box, if you will. Sure. And then my Ramorai Gelva said to me, there's a book, there's an editor, uh, she edited the book for Shmere Salos. She's wonderful. Her name is Kana Nisslebum par excellent. She is unbelievable. Mrs. Nesslebum is fantastic. And she she everything. And I reached out to her and she says, "You want to see the way the Aster works?" She said to me, I'll never forget. She says, "You know, you called me just this morning. I just finished editing my last book today. I now have free time. What do you want me to do?" So I said I write a lesson a day which I need people to read it and to process it. My my wife is the therapist. It's like you need the time in between to read it, gain the inspiration to say, "Okay, take a step back. What am I going to do? Internalize it." Uh she said, "Send me a couple of days." I did. She sent it back and I looked at it and I said to myself, "Where have you been hiding?" Unbelievable. And she this she helped you turn the lessons into a book. Uh yeah. What what year are we talking about now? Uh this goes back what? Uh 2005. Uh yes. No. Yeah. Around then. 2005. The truth is it took me four years to write the book. We're talking about your original Praying with Fire, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the truth is I already knew in my head what the book should look like, but every time I wrote it, I put it down going what? Why am I doing this? like you know and then then I would pick it up again and pick it up again and then finally I realized that uh someone's got to do this. How how did you compile it? Were you going through classic works on the cither? Did you have certain sources of inspiration? Was it your raim? How would you say you did that? Throughout the years when you learn certain things I always again inspiration to me is a wonderful thing. Rnius is a wonderful thing but the sus the root of rrook is ru you got to do something with it who's I I loved sodic they're all up there they're like my hall of fame list if you will rabbes writes when wasel imagine everybody from the towns went out to greet them it was literally I'll use the word laabdul a parade and they were going and they were playing the instruments and clies Israel is coming and and they come to you. Can you imagine a there's the migdos and what's that sound? Oh, that's the levim with the and what's that? That's the kahan the carbon what's that where we see I mean there's like everything tremendous inspiration and the pusk said you got to bring a carbon what do you mean look at the inspir I remember when we had to see mashas just driving up to giant stadium and coming in and and looking at the seats and the place is filling up and you see the gdam and you see you see everybody coming and it you're filled with with the love for for the a totally like this is unbelievable This is mindboggling. I can imagine or maybe I can't imagine what the inspiration must have been for anybody who was egel but what do you got to do? You got to bring a Corbin. Why said to me inspiration alone is not enough. You have to be co you have to take that inspiration that you have do something be coined through a ma that's the ram the actions that we do it enabled us to internalize it the thought and the feelings that we have that is really like ephemeral it's it's kind of like in the loft it's ruach it's the wind the next day the wind stops blowing I don't even remember that yesterday the wind was blowing so what I would learn things. I would kind of say to myself, okay, so what am I going to do with this? How is this going to impact on my life? And when I would go through and again, I kind of knew in my head what I thought needs to be done, let's say for I would keep index cards and I would work out the chapters and the details on the index card and I would just slot in what I read. If I read this, I'd go, "Yeah, this is the strategy how to have kabona." I I I knew kind of I knew the what the book would look but everything was in if I can just open up my head and spill it out on the paper I wouldn't have to take the time to write everything. How would you summarize your what you think has been your effective approach to why do you think your books which have been very very wellreceived all across the well received because I must tell you Oshko does a great job my seriously my editor my Mrs. Nestlebound Mrs. Judy Dick over here in Art Scroll. Sure. No one's know him better. Are you kidding me? I mean, again, these are this is the hall of fame of of of Jewish philosophy of of of Yiddishai throughout the ages. You know, we marvel at Ravena and Raashi. Ravina, Ravashi, they were Msada Digmores, right? So, they are the ones they're the Hall of Fameless. You've got the arts scroll people and the editors, they do unbelievable things. There is tremendous amount of credit to those who make it happen. Absolutely. But ultimately, you're responsible for what's inside the book. Okay. And uh like I was saying before, there's something about your approach. It's very down to earth. You bring stories to buttress your point. Um and you're offering very practical advice. But again, is that how you view it? And why do you think people connect to that? Okay. Two things. Number one, I'm a regular two feet on the ground individual. I'm a regular regular uh Brooklyn kid. Grew up in Brooklyn. I went to camp. I played sports. Regular guy. You know what I mean? It happens to be for some reason the aish to put me in a situation to be able to have the time, the ability uh and the connection. As I mentioned the story, it's interesting when I started to write the book, I became a rub of a shul in I was kind of drafted in. ended with a shul. They had a RV. The RV left right before the Yamnim and they asked me to come and I were the RV for Yam and they said, "Oh, would you stick around?" Mhm. And I stuck around for about a year and then I realized I can do much more. I can accomplish so much more because it it took up too much of my time and I don't know if it was the right decision. You know, everyone does not learn from, you know, you need a specific rub that that connects with you. But I found your was a RV as well, right? That is correct. And that shul is where your son is now the that is correct. Correct. And he's doing unbelievable unbelievable work. Yeah. Yeah. Hashem and we're very proud of him. Um so there are two things. It's got to be down to earth. It's got to be with clarity. A lot of people are familiar with a lot of things in Yiddishite. uh whether it's Shuva, whether it's Amuna, whether it's Tila, whether it's Gula and we kind of know uh the headlines, which is very good, but people have a lot of questions and I get emails all the time and I get questions on the phone all the time. I'm sure you get questions. So people people tell you people probably tell you, listen, I Davin have tremendous amount to cover and I'm trying my best and it's just it's not coming right. That's why we wrote a chapter uh uh finding answers to unanswered prayers because you know when I write a book I don't write for the things that I'm thinking about. I write for the things that I think everybody else out there is thinking about and and it it I kind of like get a sense and I don't know how I don't know why and how it works but I I kind of get a sense of you know what's what's bugging people. What? Let let me interrupt you for a second because we're limited on time. We can't go through all your books. Give our viewers one tip. The biggest most profound effective tip that you think people could take with them that will transform their daily prayers into a whole other experience. What would you say it is? Okay. So, let me expand that in all areas of Yiddish amuna. Make things real. The difference between amunes and amunichius amunes is experiential. Amunus is intellectual. Rashi tells us why because that's the disciples and says there's the difference the old we know the difference. It's it's it's it's it's like from one end of the world to the other. Make things real to you. Everybody knows we're all mamina. But the difference is how real is it? How vivid? If it's real, it becomes relevant. And if it relevant, it becomes something that I feel that I need to do to enhance my life and therefore it's something that my heart tells me I got to do. The heart rules over the person's lives. In a practical sense, how do you do how do you do that? How do you make your real? So, so take the situations that a person has when you say you should also called si and think about the things I woke up this morning. Stop uh uh be mindful of the fact that it's real. The aish is the one who actually gives us the kayak to be able to come here to be able to sit in a chair and to speak with you to be able to do all the things that we do. When you have a moment and you feel wow, whether it's something that you saw, something that you did, something fortunate that happens, and even something unfortunate, if you feel that this is out of the norm, take that moment, stop the frame, stop for a moment. It takes a couple of seconds. Internalize the way you felt. That's what mindfulness is all about. Get not into what happened. Get into the feelings and then keep a list of those things that will help a person to build slowly. I remember the old Polaroid camera used to take out the film and see the dots connect 60-second land camera. The dots are the incidences, the experiences that we have eventually this experience and that and the others will all start to connect to create the picture that the aister runs the world. The aister runs the world. I will have a I will have I want to connect. I want to have a relationship. I'm looking forward to the I want to do chu. I want to get closer to him. Everything now falls in line. Interconnected. Yes. If you can connect with him, if you make it real and gain clarity, then wow. Yiddish guide is an unbelievable experience. And that's something that we can in fact now we're going to be doing this Chuva initiative because when Lol is in September and everyone back from their well-earned vacation it's an opportunity to get everybody to grow. If if we're doing Chuva at 58% another couple of percent let's get it into the 60s and if you're doing it in the 70s let's get it up into the 80s and if you're doing it at 15% let's get it up to 20. Who knows what that little extra percentage means in terms of more panosa more shalom more gaz more for the world what we do impacts on the world it's real it's actually happening we are the one through our loves us he's saying give me an opportunity to give you braha open up the channel to new give me the so-called ability if you will to be able to be mash to you come closer the muscle that I give is you go to a restaurant they're going to charge you and if I have a a big event they're going to charge me but what happened if the restaurant owner is my father and I'm making discussion he's not going to charge me we are born he wants to give is and and it's not going to cost a lot. He just wants us to get close. He wants us to feel that we are as close to a parent that we are close to the Aisha. Now, I want to get into this cha initiative which you're which you're launching which is actually incredible. You know, usually as the years go by, people slow down. Rabbi Hasheshi Kleinman, you seem to be picking up speed. You're not slowing down. But you know the older we get the bigger braha that the aisha gives us that we get to live another day and therefore it's all the more reason why we need to do more. The aisha gave us life for a reason. That's an inspiring perspective and and definitely a healthy one to have. Can you imagine if we get hundreds of thousands? I'm a dreamer. So let's let's uh for our viewers here get back to this. You're launching a chuva initiative. Yes. Where did you get this idea and what's your endgame? What do you want to do with this? Okay. So, years ago about uh 12 13 years ago uh it dawned on me that and we got Bashem uh from the art scroll book praying with fire. We got tremendous positive feedback and everybody kept on saying it changed my life. It changed. So I fig one second. So then every single Shul a Rabbi Yaka friend called me up one day and he sent me an email going every SHU should be doing this and if it's good for Rabaka friend and Ramatio they were all on board were small that I figured you know what let's try to get every so we launched initiatives I would go down to cities and anybody in any cities out there if you want four years ago we did it in Dallas and when I go to the city I spoke 13 times in every school and on what topic is this on whatever it is. So we did it on Chuva then we did it on Twila northeast Philly in the Kel we did it on Chuva last year this year we're doing it on Twer and Ll uh we've done initiatives in uh over 155 shoes uh we've done uh let's see if I can look at my list over here uh Baltimore 12 years ago we had 24 shs 2,000 people we did a seam on a Monday night Willy camees we had close to a thousand people. Uh we did it in Toronto, Seattle, St. Louis, Dallas, parts of Miami, Philadelphia, Great, parts of Brooklyn, Bergen County, uh Zebone with the first shul in Chicago. So if we can get other cities to be makazic, can you imagine a shul everybody would be doing a lesson a day? Pick your own book. Great. I don't care whose book it is, but let's be mazic. The gula comes through. This is our lifeline. It's like a golden opportunity. Could you imagine somebody said, "I got a tip for you in the market." I'd run and say to tell me where do I need to read it? Send me the newsletter. It takes five minutes a day in English and and I can understand it and people have read it before and they say they really love it. It connects with them. Tell me where to do it. So we started that and I used to go to different cities and and I would do the the lecture. Okay. And then we started to do the Chuva one and then other communities found out and they wanted to do it. So Hashem Dallas was a beautiful experience. I I'd walk around literally on Shabas, you know, I told them I need to bring my roller skates literally, you know, I I walked six miles to one part of of that was in St. Louis. It was great on Shabbat. So this is a 40-day project. So since L is in September and L is a time for Chuva and everyone's going to do Chuva. Why not just maximize the power of the tuba that we're going to do? So the 40 days we're going to make it available. I shouldn't say we. Artscrow. Unbelievable. Artscrow is going to make give us the ability to send out a lesson a day in their inbox through the apps. You want to get the book, uh we'll get it to you at a discount through the Vanit Foundation. Uh no shipping char. It's like it's all set up for success. This is win-win for everyone. And I know you're going to be recording video clips also. Whatever. Right. I'm going to be doing Zoom lecture for northeast Philly. That'll be on. Hey, whatever somebody wants to be makazic. This is unbelievable. Could you imagine? We got everybody incling the ante doing chuba connecting. Wow. The a shama must be going wow look at it. This is why you guys are great. I I'll bring you bra. It's a huge head. Tremendous. I I mean no I I I can't think of a better way to usher in the new year. Why do you think people have that feeling of inertia or feeling of fear or you know very often Ella will come around and people will say you know they won't tune in till it's close to the rush on kippera sometimes we're standing on yam kipper and inspiration doesn't hit till then why do you think people procrastinate especially when it comes to this topic that you're going to be focusing on now it's called the reward the closeness is so wonderful. It's so meaningful. It's so powerful. In order for there to be, we must have an equal weight on the other side. So therefore, the created lenu I'll give you herle. And not only that, I'm going to hide behind the curtain. Why? So the reward should be tremendous. In other words, if I said to you, I want you to get into a car, no air conditioning. It's going to be a bumpy ride. We're going to have 15 people. You're going to have to sit on someone's lap, but the ride is for five minutes. But you know where we're going? We're going to a bank and we're going to but but it's going to be a tough ride for five minutes. You want it or not? I think everybody almost everyone will say yes. Yeah, but for five minutes, oh, ow, I felt that bump. Oh, boy. I'm sweating. But there's another three minutes to go. And and you know what's at the end at the end of the five minutes everything that I ever dreamt of we don't feel we don't feel that connection to the we don't feel this true we don't do mitzvah for this but the rajb said that's why what's the reward no you'll have rain fact let the tyra talk about nobody's felt Nobody experienced it. If I want to give you an incentive, it must be something. Goes back to what I said before. It must be something that I can experience. You know why there's inertia? Because we're kind of confused. One more last thought if I may. I hate to bore you with all the because once I get started, I'm sorry. I can't stop. Classma. Unbelievable. I mentioned before they were regularly inspiration. Could you imagine and what happens the next day? What's going on over here? How is it possible? Not only that, that's not the style. He doesn't go from zero to 100. He goes a little. The worst thing for a Jew is to be confused. Is he alive? Does something show wasn't alive? Oh, no. He's not. Wait, I thought Mo I thought he went to get the Ty. He's not coming down. Wait, wait. So he got the Tyra. He did. He did it. Mass confusion. I deserve the worst thing if there's confusion. Chuba. So, so what what what exactly do I need to do? I mean, do I say I'm sorry? Do I feel bad? Can I? I mean, but I really don't feel bad, but I say I'm like, what are the You know what? Let's all going gain clarity. five minutes a day in English in your inbox. It will help to bring braha to you to your family to cla it'll bring the gula and we don't have to go through all the source to wake us up. It'll bring the gula chuba and the chuva is not on the generations of the past. It's our generation. Last last last vortio. You get into a dark room and you get into a light room. A room like this well lit. You light a match. No one's going to see it. It won't illuminate anything. You won't even know that it's been lit. You get into a dark room. The smallest match is the greatest illumination. Our generation, dark generation. If we all light the match a little bit stronger, a little bit lighter, a little bit brighter, you know what the illumination can be for the world? You know what we can do? Could you imagine? They'll say on our generation, we were the generation that brought the we were the ones that recognized we need to do chuva the right way. We got the the encouragement. We know the is five minutes a day. We do it together. the aus the chuba the rrook the aisha well listen this you have so you have such a because you're all don't you all do it together we all do it together without art school I can't do anything without my editor I can't do anything without the person doing the lighting here I can't do anything without the aister we can't do anything but we all have our job we all have our arayas if everybody does their little piece we can create the tapestry of this big beautiful picture beautiful and that brings the glory. On on that note, as we conclude, could you provide people who are watching, people who are listening, if they want to join this initiative, they want to tap into 40 days of inspiration virtually. Okay. The website is the anitfila.org. Victor A. N. Norman I T E Fank I Larry Larry Aapphy.org. Okay, that's the website. you'll be able to see all the things we do. By the way, we do programs in the elementary schools. I'm not going to give you the details now about that. But for the Cuba thing, 40 days, as they used to say, for a limited time and a limited time only. Okay, this is the opportunity now. It doesn't come around every single day of the year. The aster is close. We need to, you know, move our game up a little bit. Well, thank you for Thank you for doing this. Thank you for the inspiration. should be the last uh the last engul and together with your inspiration we should be to see what you described before together with all our inspiration. If I said this to me and to you it would be great two people would do a little bit more or better chuba but we need everyone because everyone whatever anyone does don't minimize the impact what any individual does. But with our collective inspiration, there you go. Thank you. We should see the kahanim you mentioned before that incredible scene with the coming of Msiach and we're transparency. Okay. Oh, I didn't know you had an agenda there. There you go. Uncover as I always say to my guests. Yes. Continued with your wonderful works, with your wonderful initiatives for many, many more years. You've been very kind to give me up your time. I very much appreciate it. Thank you so much. My pleasure. [Music]