MindFlex - Harry Rothenberg, Esq. - "Harry the Jew:" Judaism on Trial in the Workplace

harry rothenberg you're now streaming live on project inspire mindflex thank you so much for joining us looking forward to hearing your class thank you very much thank you to to you and to everybody at project inspire i always appreciate the opportunity um so wanted to talk tonight about uh judaism on trial in the workplace what it's like to be jewish or in my case very visibly jewish with this uh fashion accessory on my head pretty much wherever i go whether i'm in court or meeting with clients or mediations in front of judges defense attorneys and insurance adjusters uh and the like um before i get to the the workplace though i'll tell you a quick story from my youth that i think sets up a lot of my my jewish identity um so i was around 11 years old maybe 12 years old and convinced my mother that i was old enough to take my two next younger siblings to 7-eleven on my own so to get slurpees so she gave us whatever we needed back in the day a dollar two dollars to buy a few slurpees had across two streets which we did successfully on the way i'm wearing my yamaha my brother is wearing his yamaha or with my sister as well some teenagers older 15 16 17 year olds start teasing us and it became obvious that they were teasing us because we were jewish and then they started throwing pennies at us which is very weird um but we made the 7-eleven got the slurpees looked you know both ways many times on the way back to make sure they weren't there and we made it home we got home and my mother said you know how did it go i said fine and my younger sister said you know tell her about the you know the pennies i was like just just don't don't don't you know uh just don't say anything okay what are you talking about it's all right there was some some uh some teenagers and they they kind of were starting up with us and yelling stuff at us about being jewish um they're throwing pennies at us her mother had a look on her face i've never seen before and she said look it's um you know you've heard about it before people don't like jews it's anti-semitism and i said well why are they throwing pennies out it's like what was what was that all about and she said well for some reason and i never understand a lot of people say the jews are cheap so they throw pennies you know show you know the cheap jews so i didn't tell her this i don't know if i ever told this or maybe she's heard me tell the story uh many years later that um i just had the type of personality maybe because it's me because i take after my father maybe there's something from philadelphia that if somebody starts up with me i can't i can't help it i want to i want to give it back but there really wasn't any way i could give it back to these older teenagers or i would have gotten pounded into the pavement so the only thing i could think of doing to show them up was that i picked up the pennies and i put them in my pocket you know to show them thinking i was showing them up when in reality i realized that's why they were laughing even harder because i had proved their thesis that you see those jews are cheap looking picking up depends so it was terribly embarrassing um but i remember it's always stuck with me that that horrible feeling of being singled out because i was jewish so now let's skip ahead to the workplace i had taken off two years after graduating from columbia uh as in to get my college degree i had gotten accepted to harvard for law school but decided that i needed to make up my mind about my judaism because at the time i wasn't particularly serious about it i had grown up in an observant home i go on day school but at the time i would say that my my relationship to judaism was that i didn't let it get in the way of a good time and there were certain things that i did didn't really know why i was doing them certain things i didn't do maybe i should be doing them so i decided to take off a year with my parents permission and support which turned into two years in yeshiva in israel during the second year i got engaged to a young woman that i had met while i was back in college and we got married and i started law school so the first experience i had where i felt that potential conflict between my religion and the public way in which i've chosen to express it and my career could not have happened at an earlier time and and when i say publicly expressed i should be clear i don't people think okay here's a yamaka you know i'm a woman i'm not wearing a yamaka or i'm a man i'm not wearing yamaka but i have you know certain rituals that i do being jewish in the workplace can mean a lot of things it can mean looking jewish you mean having a jewish name it can mean yamaka it can mean dressing modestly it can be leaving early for shabbat or for a holiday it could mean eating kosher it can mean um a an unwillingness to do something because you feel it's unethical or immoral communal sorts of things for me it's more obvious because it's visible because of the outcome so first day first class at harvard law school i am sitting in class and professor wilkins young dynamic professor is probably now a an older dynamic professor at law school comes in introduces himself he says how many of you have seen the movie paperchase every hand in the room goes up is how many of you have read the book one l every hand goes up paperchase is a famous movie later turned into a television show about harvard law school and the star was this authoritarian this tyrant of a professor who would humiliate the students and it was a very popular movie and tv show because what's more fun than watching other people get humiliated 1l was scott terrell's first book before he became famous as a writer of legal thrillers he wrote a book about his 1l experience a 1l is like a freshman in college your first it's a first year law student and in that book there are these heartwarming scenes where for example the professor would come in on the first day first class and he would say to the students pick three students and say i want the three of you to look at each other because by the time we get to graduation only one of you is still going to be here because two out of three are going to flunk out so we all knew about this we had read or seen these these depictions of how scary you could be at harvard law school and he said i want you to know there may well have been a time when it used to be like that here but it no longer is we are not here to intimidate you we're not here to harass you we're not here to embarrass anyone we're here to educate you and at times we may even entertain you so i want everyone to relax and you like feel in the room like okay that sounds much better than what we've been led to believe is however we are going to use the socratic method it's named after socrates the greek philosopher i'm going to ask the question and then i'm going to call on a guinea pig i need a volunteer and that person is going to answer then i'm going to ask another question so question answer and i'm thinking to myself after two years in yeshiva i thought the rabbis invented that back and forth but fine i'm not going to argue give credit to socrates great she says okay let's begin your legal education and he gets ready to start asking the first question now in college for those who haven't been to law school or other graduate schools or maybe similar in college your first day first class is a meet and greet you're not expected to do anything you come in you talk about the summer vacation you go around the room everybody says their name and and where they're from maybe and what they did over this or what you know their their plans their major uh that you go through the syllabus there's no serious questions on the first day in college but in law school it's very different in that you have been expected to read and brief and be ready to answer questions on 40 50 60 pages worth of cases there were professors for example one of my favorite professors my third year um would walk in i remember her walking on the very first day there was no hello she started calling on people by name um you may have heard of her name is at the time she was known as professor elizabeth warren she has gone on to uh greater fame not a big fan of her politics for whatever that's worth but i was a very big fan of her as a professor fantastic professor so here he is professor wilkins about ready to ask the first question and i'm thinking to myself i don't want to be the first dude called on i've been in yeshiva the last two years i'm a little out of practice in my secular academic career so i know what i'm going to do i'm going to make sure not to make eye contact because if you look at the professor when he's asking a question you look too eager you might look like you want to be calm on so i am looking down at my notes no way no how am i lifting up my head to make eye contact because i do not want to be called on and so he starts pacing the room and he says all right who can tell me what did the smith court say about non-mutual defensive collateral estoppel and he stops and i can see while looking down that his shadow is right above my notebook i'm sitting in the second row in this beautiful amphitheater and i'm thinking well and sure enough he says how about you mr jew and it was like the earth open that i fell in like i can't believe he made that whole speech he's not going to embarrass anybody and he calls me mr jew because i'm wearing a yarmulke in my head like i i get isn't that discrimination how's he even allowed to do that i don't think like i don't even know what the question was i'm having a complete meltdown when all of a sudden the guy sitting directly in front of me in the first row starts answering the question the asian fellow thomas jew j-o-o now i admit that during the two and a half seconds that it took tom drew a great guy by the way to clear his throat and start answering the question i absolutely regretted my decision to be visibly jewish in my chosen career i am sure that i was thinking to myself why did you have to wear your beanie you could have warned i'm from philly you could have worn your philly's hat your sisters had your flyers had your eagles hat what were you thinking and that was the first and the last time that i ever felt that way ever in my career this is going back that was the fall of 1990 i do not remember even a second's worth of regret over my decision to publicly represent the jewish religion so i will tell you that it can lead to certain moments that can be a little awkward um but that's fine there are all sorts of moments in life they can be awkward we only grow when we leave our comfort zone for example uh when i first started work before i joined the family business representing uh victims of catastrophic injury i worked at a big firm and i was working on a corporate deal and i realized that i ought to remind the senior partner whom i was working that i have to leave early on friday because maybe he's going to need somebody to replace me so i went to his office i said it's tuesday or wednesday and i said you know i'm working on the such-and-such deal so i'll remind you that i have to leave early on friday because i'm a savage observer he said sure um what time do you have to leave i said well it's the winters the sabbath begins around 4 30. i live in passaic new jersey uh so i like to leave myself two hours you never know what's going to happen with traffic you're trying to get out of manhattan and you know i'd like to get ready so i probably leave around 2 30. um he said when does it end i said it's about 25 hours later so it'll be over about 5 30 saturday night i can come right in saturday night and resume work he's let me ask you this i'm thinking that that deal you see based on where it is today i think it'll probably go another few days and it probably will end this friday night in the wee hours so could you stay in the office until say three in the morning we'll send you home in a car you can start the sabbath let's say 4 a.m friday night saturday morning and then keep it until saturday night at 5 00 am so still the same 25 hours you'll just shift them over now i've been a lawyer for about five minutes at this point this guy's a senior partner i'm thinking like how am i going to explain this to him the only way to explain them was tell him the truth and tell him what's going on i said um i'm sure you're familiar with the with some of the opening scenes in the bible he said yes i said where god creates the world in six days he said yes and then he rests on the seventh day he said yes i'm familiar with that i said well that's when i have to rest it's not negotiable i can't shift that over because god rested at the end of the sixth day so at the end of the sixth day when it gets dark that's when i have to start this out so his demeanor instantly changed he said i'm so sorry i feel guilty that i even answered the question i would never ask you to compromise your religious beliefs i said you don't apologize happens to be an ingenious question there are certain areas of flexibility for example i don't like to ever enter a non-kosher restaurant you know first of all i don't like when to be in a room or somebody's having a better time than me it's just uncomfortable but sometimes i have no choice something from traveling there's no other place to meet somebody it's a conference that have to go along so that is why god invented baseball caps and diet coke a fruit plate because that's what you do you could have some flexibility can't eat the non-kosher food whereas here there's no flexibility so i explained them that here there's no selection he's fine i totally get it it could also be awkward with co-religionists you could have somebody who's jewish and who's who's you know observant in different ways than you are i always like to say that we're all observant i hate when you get into these categories i'm observant i'm not observant um you know i once was in a room with somebody people going around the normal person said i'm servant one person said i'm conservative one person said i'm reformed one guy said i'm retired from judaism it's ridiculous we're all observant what do i mean did you if there's somebody out there who considers himself non-observant did you murder somebody today i mean did you bow down to an idol there are all sorts of commandments did you observe today okay so we're different levels of observance but we're all you know holding somewhere in terms of our in terms of our judaism so i was at the holiday party this is a month or so later in the same big family that it's really the xmas party called the holiday party it was very nice they got kosher food for me and the one other fellow who kept kosher and um while i was there a a partner more senior person who might have done some work different fellow have to be jewish he says to me how you know i need to run to the restroom can you just hold my plate of food so church i start to reach out my hand there are very few types of food that are recognizably not kosher shrimp is one of them he starts handing a plate filled with shrimp and my hand we coiled in horror actually step back i said i i can't hold that what's the problem i said it's shrimp it's not kosher he's like rothenberg i'm not asking you to eat it just hold the stupid plate so i could go to the bathroom so now i have to explain to him there's this concept called calmarus iron that there might be another jewish person and they might see me wearing my yamaha holding a plate of shrimp and they'll assume oh that can't be real shrimp it must be mock shrimp since it's fake shrimp it must be okay for me to eat it so i can eat he's like you know what spare me to tell you to lecture i'll find somebody else to hold it so it can be interesting awkward amusing it's fine explain yourself and people more often than not will respect it particularly employers who are more interested or most interested these days in honesty and loyalty and responsibility and intelligence and creativity and ingenuity and not you know you're you know fifth generation or whatever 20th generation from the mayflower you're just fine being being visibly jewish in today's you know increasingly more diverse workplaces um and sometimes it could be funny i the first very significant case i had when i went into personal injury practice uh involved the fellow who was uh rear-ended he was stuck he was trapped between two cars ended up getting 23 surgeries he was crippled horrifying case so we tried to settle for trial had a significant offer but not enough went ahead to trial before trial the judge said i want to held the settlement conference he forced the adjusters all the lawyers into the courtroom we spent two days and eventually we settled the case settled with like six million and uh six and a quarter million dollars so after the first day of negotiations when the offer had gone up from like three to four million dollars we're walking out of the courthouse out of the courtroom and the main defense lawyer whom i've been litigating for the last couple years he had noticed something in the courtroom he had noticed that of the approximately dozen people in the courtroom there were two people who had yarmulkes on their heads i had one on my head and the judge had one on his head we were in brooklyn new york he was an observant jewish judge so this fellow irish attorney says to me harry to tell you something if i had known that the judge was going to be wearing one of those beanies i would have worn one also i said jim that's the difference between me and you i did my homework why do you think i can wear this thing on my head all the time so it can be amusing as well but you have to remember that you you represent something i always tell this to people who are sabbath observations be very very careful if the winter you know comes around and you start leaving work friday afternoon at two o'clock 2 30 not not i'm leaving a little early i'm leaving at 4 45 you're supposed to be there until five or six you're leaving at 2 2 30. that's really early you don't make up that time that's an outrage when my first year in big firm practice you had to share an office with somebody so i was sharing an office with somebody who wasn't jewish and i always made it a point to announce thursday night oh it was going to be a late night because i wanted to make it clear that i have to make up those hours and i'm going to be missing the next day the fact that you're observant doesn't give you the right to only work four and a half days out of a work week and not five when other employees or not sabbath observers are not jewish et cetera are working longer that is that is that is a way to not to to make the jewish religion look good um but to disgrace it and on that score um i will point out that there are constant temptations uh there are temptations both in the workplace meaning that i can tell you all sorts of we'll have to do another class and all sorts of different cases i've had there have been enormous temptations where had we cut corners or played games or done things that were unethical or illegal we could have made a lot more money and i don't mean an extra 10 grand or 50 grand or 100 grand you know we had some cases with millions of dollars in the balance have even had we've been willing to to break or or skirt the law which we're not willing to do and what's so important to always remember is that like it or not you represent the jewish people and um no matter what situation you're in i back when i was traveling which you know i assume at some point in time i'll start traveling again uh it's interesting we've been doing conferences and meetings etc as lawyers all over zoom just like this class but but usually they're in person my entire career in person and for some reason there's this weird thing that lawyers and people in many other professions like to do their conferences in the middle of the desert so you get on a plane and you fly and the next thing you know you're looking outside all you see is sin and then all of a sudden you see the neon lights of the las vegas strip because so many i would say the majority of the conferences at least in the personal entry bar or in las vegas and las vegas is a place but still on the strip is you can't go outside your room you practically can't you can't get off the plane without facing temptation after temptation but you're representing the jewish people and you're and you're especially if you've you know made a commitment to make that representation i remember years ago back when i was in college starting a conversation with it with a friend you know when this conversation happened two in the morning with a few people if not on the you know the lounge and the floor of the dormitory and a fellow jewish student woman said to me you know i'm jealous here so why are you jealous of me she because you're religious first of all i wasn't so religious at the time but i was running out okay i said why don't make you jealous of me because you don't have any desires so every time it's just well you're religious you don't have any desires i said oh you know you're right but you really shouldn't be jealous of me because i can't sleep at night why can't you sleep at night i said because i'm an angel so you know since i'm an angel i have wings so you know i can't sleep on my side because then i kind of crush the wings i can't see where my back isn't extremely uncomfortable what are you talking about you she thought that being religious means neutered like you couldn't possibly be religious if you had desires and i explained to her oh contraire last time i checked i am i uh the same desires that any other guy has and i can't say that i'm that i'm perfect you know we we do our best but it was interesting that she that you saw things in that light that that you know you can't possibly be telling the line on these various different commandments that you have if you have if you have desires and what i always try to point out to people is that you know as i said before that we're all observing just a matter of degree you're all jewish that's not a matter of degree i don't care how much you run from it how little you talk about it you do something wrong and when the story gets written it's going to be you're a juju juju juju so give an example i'll um i'll read this to you um there was a um a really two articles because it's just you know to show you how often this happens um when um not too long ago i don't see what it was for we know what it was for robert kraft the jewish owner of the new england patriots was arrested um on a particular charge it was a very unpleasant experience for him was very embarrassing moment so i was traveling and i and i got the the copy of usa today newspaper it's very common in hotels and they have the following article uh robert kraft accuses of soliciting we know we know what he was accused of gave hundreds of millions to charitable causes it's like a really weird article from writing by the defendant that he gave money to charles very nice interesting and here we go just weeks before just weeks ago before robert craft won his sixth super bowl as owner of the patriots he was awarded perhaps a greater honor the genesis prizes given the leaders of jewish heritage who have attained international renown in their chosen professional fields that have made a significant contribution to improving the world it's sometimes called the jewish nobel prize a democrat he's a longtime friend of president donald trump he visited the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh last year following the mass shooting there that killed 11. why is that relevant to the fact that he got arrested in florida for something a vocal supporter of israel kraft has taken nfl players to the jewish state on trip sponsored by the league israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is scheduled to present the prize to craft it comes with a million dollars to be doing the jewish causes spokeswoman for the genesis prize did not respond to our messages and then later craft also supports judaic studies programs at brandeis university the alma mater of his late wife myra and his supported jewish programs at columbia university his own alma mater neither school responded to requests for comment so i sent this outrageous smear job about craft uh to a friend of mine who's a huge patriots fan who i knew would be as outraged about this as i was and he copied me on a letter that he sent to the reporter who wrote this article so here is his response to that article nice job of revealing yourself as a classic anti-semite next time make it easier just write quote bob craft accused of soliciting you know what it was is a jew choo choo choo choo i think that would do the job just as effectively and require fewer words keep up the good work because that's what it was it was an article basically just to talk about the fact that the guy who was arrested was jewish and it gets worse michael cohen now craft you could say you know he is more outspokenly visibly jewish you know he gives a lot of money to jewish causes but michael cohen trump's lawyer who was jailed i don't remember reading any articles about him going to synagogue or wearing a yarmulke or wearing his villain or any other indicia of of his visible judaism when it came time for him to go to jail better believe here comes the article about how joey jimmy jewish trump's lawyer was the title of the article this is a reuters article trump's former lawyer heads to u.s prison that offers matzo ball soup and a full-time rabbi oh it is going to be just great with a menu that includes matzo ball soup into filter fish as well as a full-time rabbit a chance at the occasional visit home the u.s prison for donald trump's formal personal lawyer will spend the next years is unique in the federal system the 52-year-old cohen will be housed in dorm-like accommodations at the facility's minimum security camp which prison consultants say has become a destination for jewish inmates due to its proximity to new york city's jewish and upstate new york's orthodox jewish enclaves quote he's going to what i like to refer to as jewish heaven and they quote some some knucklehead who spent some time there it goes on uh a former manager to prison who now runs a prison consulting firm said the camp was quote a great place for white-collar jewish guys where do i sign up i should do this as a trip you know it's one of my friends it sounds fantastic unlike most federal prisons which periodically bring in part-time contract rabbis otisville has a full-time rabbi another thing that sets otisville apart is the food the availability for culture food is much greater the commissary manual notice those website advertises matzo ball soup gift filter fish and rugelach alongside doritos tortilla chips whatever and diets right soda kosher writers are marked her out with the letter k my mouth is watering now this is ridiculous what is the point of this article part of the article was to show a jewish guy did something wrong and he's very jewish jewish he's going to be in jail with all those other jewish jews so we do something wrong i don't care abs up the orthodox reform conservative reconstruction is retired whether you like it or not and people see me well i don't want to represent the jewish people you're jewish you're representing the jewish people there's no way that there's no way to uh to get around that and i want to tell you another story that's a painful one to tell over um but it really picks up on on so many of the of the issues that that surround the question of what's it like and what are the benefits of of showing practically you're wearing your judaism proudly in the workplace so back in the um 1970s there was a radical group in philadelphia called move they had a building that they had barricaded themselves in they would let anybody in or out um they would walk around wearing like like armywear or carrying assault rifles uh they would use um megaphones to scream obscenities and all sorts of stuff at all hours of day and night you know basically terrorizing the neighborhood so frank rizzo who is the mayor at the time sent in the swat team the swat team you know kicked in the front door went door to door and they arrested them and there were there were a few broken bones there were some brutality lawsuits and it was it was very unpleasant situation for everybody uh ten years later they're back it's moved to i don't know if it was the relatives or people who read about it said this is a great idea so it's the similar um radical group and they've got apartment building and they're not letting anybody in and they're not letting anybody out and they're walking around their combat fatigues with their with their assault rifles and their terrorizing neighborhoods with their bull horns and shouting obscenities etc and the um mayor at this time is wilson good and good uh instead of sending the swat team to kick the front door on he kind of like has them lay siege to the building and results in a shootout a crazy situation and there's some controversy with respect to whether he or someone else located but somebody okayed plan b which was to send in a police helicopter uh filled with explosives to drop the explosives on the roof of the building in the hope that it would start some kind of small fire and then the people will be forced out of the building and it's easier to arrest people who are fleeing a burning building than it is to kick in the front door and go door-to-door in hand-to-hand combat with people who have assault rifles so they okay the plan and the helicopter drops the explosives and it works perfectly um starts a fire the problem is that several people in the building don't get out they end up getting killed incredible tragedy you know they didn't they were they were radical and they they were difficult and they may have been crazy but nobody deserves to be burned to death like that and the fire burns down 60 adjoining homes adjoining buildings in the neighborhood it burns down a neighborhood so at which point in time the mayor is probably thinking like why didn't i go to any other plan but that one so in our philadelphia office we start getting many many calls from people some who were injured and some who lost property because they they lost their belongings in the fire typically we won't handle a property damage claim somebody calls me up and says you know i had a property damage loss i might refer them to a colleague but it's not typically something that we would handle but we realized you know we're getting so many of these calls and some of them are clearly cases because the injury cases um and let's take the proper damage cases also you know instead it's the same lawsuit instead of having five plaintiffs we'll have 50 plaintiffs we end up taking many many of these cases so we had dozens and dozens of plaintiffs and we put them all into the same lawsuits to the city of philadelphia in some instances for injuries and some instances for property damage and some instances for both so the cases at least the property damage cases got assigned to a young lawyer in our office named david who happened to be an observant jew who would uh finish law school a couple years before do you figure he's i don't know 26 27 years old early on his legal career and he's assigned to he and his paralegal to set up the file to prove the case so for example if you are handling a property damage case you can't just say that i had a vaz and it was worth five million dollars because it was from the ming dynasty you gotta prove it up you gotta have pictures receipts or from from bed bath and beyond whatever whatever you gotta you have to show something you can't just you claim that you lost a hundred thousand dollars worth of items in a small apartment you know that doesn't sound realistic so he was working with the clients to try to prove up their claims now of course we love all of our clients for all i know i can't see who's watching this maybe some of my clients are watching um some of our clients we like even more so um one of these clients is calling david once a week once every other week when am i going to get my money and david would say to him to to ernest bost mr bostic you got to be patient and the next week when am i going to get my money he would say ernest i i told you this last week and the week before you have to be patient we have we alone have 50 clients all together there are probably like 200 claims it's against the city of philadelphia um you know these things take time it's going to take time we're going to go to court you'll have your depositions and then go when i'm going to send them and eventually i'm confident that we'll settle your case and what's their defense going to be they burnt down in your neighborhood but you have to you have to be patient so one day a few months in bostic calls david and he says i said on my case give me my money david says let me just have your case i'm your lawyer how can you sell your case he says i called so and so the assistant city david says the assistant city solicitor he goes yeah that guy and he tells them the name and sure enough that's the guy it's the it's david's counterpart a young lawyer at the city hall city of philadelphia who's representing the city of philadelphia so bostic gets pogba don't they say sarah's case so david says okay i'll call them up by if you settled it i'll get your money fine so david calls the assistant city solicitor introduces himself he says i'm uh you know i'm dave from rothenberg's firm um says yeah how can i help you he says i understand you spoke to my client ernest bostick and the guy at city hall says i i could do i i can't believe it i made such a mistake i have to apologize he called me himself so i thought he was one of the pro se litigants pro se is latin for knucklehead it's actually latin for self-represented that means that's the person who thinks that lawyering is a do-it-yourself job you know i have this sometimes i remember years ago i had a friend who was uh you know was very proud of himself because you know he didn't hire me and he you know he settled the case by himself and he was telling me and they paid you know i did it myself they paid me you know i don't want to wait twenty thousand dollars i never had to tell them if they had hired us they would have paid them you have two hundred fifty thousand dollars you know but some people think they know better and it's like going to home depot it's a do-it-yourself job so he thought that because bostic is calling him directly he's pro se he's self-represented otherwise his lawyer would be calling so he spoke to him had he known that david was his lawyer everybody knows anybody who's ever picked up a book or watched a tv or a movie you know uh the movie or tv show knows when somebody's represented by the lord you can't talk to them so he should have checked his list and then said i can't talk to you represented by brother's friend he didn't do that he made a mistake he says david really apologized i really made a mistake david says listen there's an honest mistake he did call you uh you should check your list but he did call you he says listen he said he settled his case with you can i send you a lease and you'll send me his money somebody's talking about i didn't settle the case with him he said well what do you mean he told me that he sell those cases and even told me how much he said he started with you for ten thousand dollars because i don't believe this he says every time a pro say plaintiff calls me i always ask them how much are you looking for and i figured maybe they're gonna be tough to reach i want to note it in my file or maybe they're gonna change their mind and claim a different number so i asked him how much are you looking for and he did he said ten thousand and i wrote it in my file david says can i send your release for ten thousand he says dave you know how this works we're gonna litigate for two years in two years we're gonna have a we're gonna have an algorithm we're gonna have a matrix we're gonna have a graph we're gonna have a spreadsheet this is before excel and we'll figure it out like we'll put numbers next to each name and we'll settle the case but i can't sell the case now david says he did make a mistake you shouldn't have spoken to my client is there any way to make an exception can you get permission to sell us one case he says i wouldn't even know where to go this is city hall we got like 10 levels of bureaucracy my supervisor supervisor supervisor there is no possible way that i could pull one case out of the 200 cases it was no way there's absolutely no way okay so now david has to give the bad news to earnest he calls him up he's earnest there's a misunderstanding um he didn't settle your case the lawyer just wanted to know how much you were looking for so he didn't mark down he noted that you're looking for ten thousand dollars and i hope that we'll be able to get it for you but as i've said many times before you have to be patient it's going to take time there can be depositions there might be motions they're gonna be court appearances there'll be settlement conferences you gotta be patient plastic hangs up to follow david and decides oh yeah and it's out of my case i'm gonna go kill the lawyer at city hall so he buys a revolver but he sought off serial number and he goes to city hall and he signs in the police later have the sign-in sheet in the waiting room and it says ernest bostick in 12 10 p.m and he's waiting the assistant cities lizards out to lunch so he's there 12 15 12 20 12 25 12 30 sitting with a gun in his pocket waiting to kill the guy who's out at lunch and finally after 20 minutes he decides you know what i'm not waiting any longer so he signs out the police have it 12 30 bostik out and he decides instead to come to my office to our office because he figures that you know what my lawyer is probably in on this anyway so i'll go kill him instead he comes to our office he knows which floor david's on because he's been there before and he gets off the elevator and it just happens that as he gets off the elevator they recognize each other because david is walking by the elevator as bostick's getting off so they they they lock eyes and bostik reaches for the gun and david turns around and starts running and fastik empties the gun he shoots david six times six entry wounds in his front and six exit wounds in his back he collapses and pulled blood the the police the paddy wagon arrives in front of the office before the paramedics my father's in the back of the police wagon holding david's head above the metal floor so it won't bang on the metal floor as they rush into the hospital they rush him into surgery with the chief trauma surgeon in the city of philadelphia he does something like 14 hours worth of micro surgery and saves his life he lives it's absolutely unbelievable so at the time um maybe i'm gonna guess i'm about 18 or so uh i was my parents firm and i had met david a couple times not that much older than me and i must have been home one on break i don't remember what time of year it was it was in the fall but i'm not sure and so i said i'm gonna go visit him i i had a car so i drove to the hospital he asked my parents where he was i drove to hospital and when i went in his parents were there in the middle of the day and they thanked me and they said oh harry so nice to come visit do you mind staying with david we just want to go out and get some footage no problem at all so i sit with him and he says he's very very weak so it's two days after it happened and he says i have to tell you a story i said um you know really i just came to visit like just you know tell me your story it says no i have to tell you a story okay he told me that the day after the incident which was the day before i i got there the doctor who had done the surgery came to visit him david says like you know he walked in he told me he was and i said like i don't know what to say to the person who saved my life because they don't have to say anything so i'm just doing my job he said i want you to understand why i'm here visiting you because i never do this he says i've been doing trauma surgeries for 25 years and i've seen it all i've seen you know beatings and electrocutions and and explosions and stabbings and shootings like i've seen everything okay at least i thought i did and i do the surgeries and sometimes the person doesn't make it you know they die on the operating table they don't make it and other times the person does make it like you and when that happens a different doctor takes over like i'm not your doctor anymore all i do with the surgeries is as you know dr so-and-so is following you i'm sure he's been in the city it says yes he said so i just want to explain to you why i'm here because i don't do this so i'm here because you took six bullets as you probably heard and one of them grazed your spinal cord and one of them grazed your heart and had either one been any closer you would have been paralyzed and you would have been dead and when i say any closer i mean any closer if you had moved differently if you've been wearing any different clothing more or less anything would have changed the trajectory of those bullets and even better paralyzed six bullets in all my years i have never seen anyone with that close to call who made it and you were going to physically you're going to be fine you were good and you wanted it was fine okay mentally obviously i'm showing you counseling etc physically you're going to be fine so i just wanted to tell you young man you had a guardian angel watching over you so and they left so david said but there's more to the story i didn't tell him because he's not jewish but i want to tell you i said yeah like a pretty crazy story already what else he said that morning i left my house and i got into my car and this was many years ago so you know i have to explain this for the younger crowd out there it used to be that when you wanted to start a car you needed something called a key and you would actually put the key into the ignition and twist it or restart the card now obviously you know we start the cards with our phone or we just tell scotty to start the engine she says i went and got into my car put the can turn the ignition on i put the car in park and i put my phone in the accelerator i was about to drive away and all of a sudden i said to myself wait a minute did i put my sitzes on today because i went like this and like fell down my shirt i was like i don't believe it i forgot to put my scissors on so i said to myself dave you could go to work one day without your titties on so i put my foot back in the accelerator i was about to drive away and i said to myself dave how can you go to work without your tits is on he says i put the car in park took the key out took off my seat belt went back into my apartment keyed him took my jacket off took my sports jacket or suit jacket off took my tie off took my shirt off put on my heavy wool pair of senses put my shirt back on my tie back on my suit jacket back on my coat back on and i went to work he's like harry the doctor said to me anything different in your clothing i was like dave i got it i got it i'll tell you two things number one there was no doubt in my mind that although i was wearing my yarmulke when i went to visit him i had no way i was wearing my senses i just was not something i was particularly careful about when i was 80 when i was a teenager i could tell you number two did after hearing that story unless and this was many many years ago unless i am in the shower or the swimming pool you can come check like the rabbis used to do in these schoolies to come you know pretend they're giving like a little affectionate you know a pattern back when they're like you're going like this check if i was wearing sits if you can come do that test i'm gonna be wearing my senses now i'm not telling is a dangerous story i'm not telling you the story to suggest that guys you put your senses on kevlar body armor you are protected it's a crazy world out there you know it's like captain america's shield i mean nothing's getting you'd be laughable tell you that there are obviously israeli soldiers who have been killed in battle while wearing their senses there is there is really um and other civilians who have been killed in terror attacks go look at pittsburgh it was in it it was in shore look in california so i'm not suggesting to you that if you put your citizens on you automatically have protection what i am suggesting to you what i'm introducing is the following concept which i think fits nicely with respect to uh bringing your judaism into the workplace is that it's very possible uh that just as dave to david it was clear as day that he did something extra that day for god and god did something extra for him so it's very possible that that's the case that when you do something extra for god every one of us is is is on some issue every again forget what you call yourself observant not observant there's some issue in your judaism that you are you're on the fence about every every one of us there might be somebody out there thinking i'm thinking i might want to you know start keeping kosher somebody else might i think i might want to start eating a friday night dinner somebody else would think you know i think i want to start you know uh studying jewish texts somebody else might be thinking i want to start you know the the laws of family purity make fits like everybody's thinking about something and who knows maybe you do something extra for god and there's something extra for you and i ask you is it crazy to suggest that is it like imagine i would use this example because to me it's it's compelling you're you're walking wherever you're walking you get outside your house you know everybody should be able to get out soon i hope you know post covet and back to normal although although i hope each of us doesn't go back to normal i hope we've improved as people and got closer to god but you're out you're walking and while you're walking somebody's carrying one of those you know is really one of the big real duffel bags and they're not paying attention they're they're testing and they're they're what's happening they're live streaming on their phone they're not looking and they knock you down to the ground with their back as you pass by them so as you get up you turn around and before you even say anything the guy who knocked you down turns out i was like you got a problem you get a problem with that like starts off with you what's your i know what my reaction's gonna be it's a fist fight like dude you knock me down and then you mouth off to me that's getting pounded so now imagine you get your destination wherever it is you're going to you're going to the office you're going to a class you're going to to to a meeting you go to wherever you're going to dinner you finish it's an hour later it's eight hours later whatever it is and you're walking again and somebody else is distracted and they're pulling another one of these wheelie bags or they got a big backpack over one shoulder and they're texting they're not paying attention and they knock you down to the ground so this time first of all as you're falling you're like what's going on today what is what uh you know uh why does everybody keep knocking me down today but this time remembering what happened before you already got your fists ready as you jump up but in contrast to the first guy the second guy who knocked john's like i'm so sorry runs over helps you up he's like i'm such a clutch i was bringing i feel terrible i hope you're okay what's your reaction gonna be at most you're gonna say did you just be more careful next time you might not even say that you might just say dude you know it's fine don't worry about it now if somebody's watching both these scenes it's a silent movie right and they see you first time you get knocked down you get up and you pound the guy into the pavement second time you get knocked down you get up you're like they're looking you're like what's going on schizophrenia like well why the why the massive difference in reactions and we know what's going on for those of us who have sound you're just mirroring the first guy was obnoxious and was aching for a breaking and so you gave it to him second guy acted perfectly appropriately so why is it crazy to think that if somebody does something extra for god a picture in that scene with david god's up in heaven okay david's saying to himself i can go to work one day come on baby you go to work one day says you know what no i can't i can't go to work without my senses so i'm going to get out of my car i'm going to get undressed i'm going to get redressed again and god's up there in heaven going like to the angels gabe bike did you see what that guy just did that guy just got undressed put his senses on got redressed back into his car for me later today if he needs me even if it's six bullets i got this and so i asked you is it crazy to think that that you do something extra for the man upstairs who loves you more than anybody loves you more than your spouse more than your your kids more than your significant other more than your bubby more than anybody and sees you doing something extra doing extra things for him he may well do extra things for you so um i wish everyone the best of luck in their jewish journey i don't mean to make it sound easy um as i said there can be times that are awkward there could be times that are uncomfortable there will be times that are embarrassing um there'd be times that are funny um there could be times that are that are horrifying um and these times can often push us out of our comfort zone you know it's maybe uncomfortable especially for those of you who are growing and maybe you are getting more visibly jewish and that creates more questions etc and you don't need all the answers it's perfectly fine if somebody asks you a question you don't have the answer to say that's a great question you know let me research it and i'll get back to you people will respect the honesty and i know it sounds weedy telling you that you're representing the jewish people but you are and so like it or not i want to wish you the best of luck because each one of you is representing all of us so let's all represent uh together in a in a respectable way in a dignified way um in a way that brings honor and respect to the jewish people and to god and thank you very much for listening and be well everybody and stay safe