Malcolm Hoenlein

mr holman thank you so much for joining us it's great to be with you charlie it's it's we're talking about being an ambassador and there are a few people that i know in my life who represent that more than you uh you've spent your whole life i guess feeling the burden the privilege and the responsibility of sending our people share with us a little bit if you can um what that's like what that's like um always thinking about the jewish people and some of the things that you've encountered as the power of each person along the way first of all uh i'm glad that you're addressing this topic because it's a time when we need to enlist new people new leadership young people to get involved to be inspired and that's a full-time project for all of us to get to get the next generation to understand their sense of acharas of what's at stake you know we learned too often in our past from the failure of people to rise to the occasion to understand the opportunities that they have and each person and i've seen it repeatedly over the last 50 years that i've run jewish organizations way beyond my professional life starting in my early teens with soviet jewry and with many other causes and starting witches in north america and student activities that it is calling it's not it's not a burden but it is a responsibility but above all it's a privilege because when you look back in your life and you can say i did something to save soviet jews iranian jews ethiopian jews syrian jews iraqi jews iranians what what is of greater value that you made a difference in people's lives whether it's an individual or a community or a country when you can look back and say i left some a world a better place for my children my grandchildren and their grandchildren you know you the wealth you can't take with you you can have great accomplishments in business and finance and other things and it's wonderful and it's important so you get stuck and you can improve the world but more than that it's how we affect people's lives and how we engage in improving the world and making it a better place for everyone and so i have to admit honestly i never looked for a job in my life every job happened to me and i believe that i have a contract with god which is why i still work 18-hour days on the jewish people because i believe as long as i live up to my end to live up to his end but if i fail he fails me so it's it is um it is a sense of mission that is so fulfilling and so important you sacrifice a lot i you know i ran umbrella organizations my whole life and people always ask me how do i keep 50 jewish organizations together i tell them i give them a common enemy me they can all focus on that but i think that that honestly you know the at this time when we have such serious challenges and people mo both internally and externally in israel and here in the united states of the cove so many other layers of of dangers the rise of anti-semitism yet there are immense opportunities and great things nobody would have predicted abraham accords and you just had ari discussing that many other things so we have i think a unique opportunity to to really improve the world for future generations if we look back we understand all the people who made the world and left us a better place our job is to make it so for future generations you know it's interesting that you the there's so many so many nuggets here that i think we have to sort of extract out and make sure we hold on to this idea of a contract with god is very powerful for each and every one of us to realize that we all have a contract with god exactly i think i think people may feel and i know you've i've heard you speak about this and i was very moved when when you would say this and i've heard your speeches since i was you know yeah for my whole life i mean that i can remember um and you speak about the power of a jew and what it means across the world and how we care for each other and each individual matters when when when people look around and they say to themselves i'm not i'm not that type i'm not that's not my that's i can't be an i can't do anything what would you respond to those that are thinking that they agree for someone else everybody can do something no one can do everything and each of us is given certain talents and if we're privileged then we get to use those in our lives look how many people are dissatisfied because they have to do something from nine to five that they don't really care about and then from five to nine they engage in communal stuff where they get the real super connection they get the real satisfaction i was privileged to spend my whole life my my days and my nights and therefore i think that after tuesday i'm a volunteer because i put in my 40 hours by tuesday and then the rest of the week i feel that i can i'm on the equipment but i can't dancing right i can't do virtually anything but i'm able to use those talents that god gave me in organizing and speaking whatever to and it gives me the satisfaction but i realize i don't i try not to see myself as others see me uh you know when they talk about jewish leaders i think that i'm in a privileged position but that puts on me that extra layers of of um of responsibility to to know and to identify what are the things that i can bring to the jewish equation you mentioned power power is like a muscle if you exercise it right you build it up if you abuse it you destroy it jewish power is a sacred thing america has imposed on jews jewish power we were able to play a role in bringing soviet jewish jews out who everybody had written off to history the same thing with syrian jews and i negotiated and you know i went to see assad and and with president of the united states who first turned me down and then finally on ethiopian jews and because of our persistence instead being in the position sitting in his office and not leaving until they gave me a yes to have the boschwitz mission which led to the rescue of ethiopian jews the power is not in your mind power is in how you exercise your responsibility and if you view it as something really sacred previous generations didn't necessarily have it you know jews in germany in the turn of century had an apac they had a lobby they were very powerful but they didn't know and they ended up because of their internal divisions etc fighting each other rather than fighting against the enemy we have to look that the one condition that god set for all the great miracles that happened to us was jewish unity was the one precondition to getting the torah at c9 to the rescue of russian jews and ethiopian jews if we look at the story a purim that we're going to celebrate what was the answer to the threat esther says can also call you go and gather all the jews she didn't say the north or south shoshan or those all the jews because it's in the collectivity that we have our power when we bring everybody together and realize what we have in common far outweighs our differences and that each of us brings something to the equation each of us can make a positive contribution to the future of the jewish people wow i think it's such once we we recognize that it is the responsibility that we take that allows us to create the power i think it changes the equation for us um i i just want to thank you i know we're running out of time because it's almost nine o'clock i just want to thank you for on behalf of all of us and and i i hope we get the opportunity to have you on again to really delve into some of these things as you're saying them i'm sure i'm sure each one is a show into itself but i just say one thing that to the listeners because of poor i know it's your favorite holiday and my mind too i heard that from your introduction that you know the law is that if you read the miguel as if it's something describing something to have an ancient history then you haven't fulfilled the mitzvah if you don't understand the contemporary significance if you don't live porn if you don't understand look at anti-semitism hammond said i'm ready to give everything up all the power wealth everything just because that one jew wouldn't bow down to me that we learned the lessons for today so we look back to look forward for us history is so important because it gives us the context to understand how we meet the challenges of today amazing amazing mr holland thank you so much for joining my pleasure i hope we get to do this again and next time i hope we get to open it up to the to the crowd because i think a lot of people want to be asking you questions maybe we can work that out and thank you for shining your light in this world and inspiring us to do the same my pleasure good job thanks so much for watching for more content like and subscribe and be sure to tune in live every thursday at 8pm eastern at the shabbato.com or right here on youtube