My Rebbe, R' Yaakov Wehl (Ep. 328)

Hi, this is the Rabbi Alon Avsky and welcome to the Rabbi Alon Avsky show. >> [applause] >> BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. AND WHETHER YOU'RE WATCHING WITH our friends and producers over at Torah Anytime, wherever you watch or listen to your podcast, as always, it's wonderful to have you along. And a special mention of our new merch store. >> [laughter] >> I have to say I think I'm the only Torah personality with his own merch store. I might be wrong. I might be the everybody does it today. I don't really don't know. I'm I'm old. >> [laughter] >> And [gasps] in fact, I just turned 67 and all my grandchildren are like six, seven. Like I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. But anyway, but uh so you want to go to the virtualrabbialonavsky.com, go to merch store. We we have a number of items for sale and if you have suggestions of what else you would like to see on the Rabbi Alon Avsky merch store, just let us know cuz we like to be accommodating whenever possible. And we have a sponsor for this week's episode, Jeffrey Bolduc. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. B O L D U C. Bolduc. I think that's how it is. A message from the mixed-up multitude. I have listened to every podcast you've given, including the question and answer and parsha and five. I am not a Jew, just a guy who wants Torah to spread. I would like to sponsor 10 episodes. God bless you all. >> [laughter] >> Jeffrey, thank you so much. I I you know, somebody had written me once because it was the crocodile island thing that I had mentioned. They said, you know, my kids were in the car and I felt a little uncomfortable. Who is the podcast for? I said, "The podcast is mostly aimed towards uh from adult Jews." I know there are non-Jews who are listening, like Jeffrey. I didn't know that you listened to every question and answer in parsha in five in every episode. Uh because that's got to make an impact on you. >> [laughter] >> I know it makes an impact on me. And uh and I know there are non-frum Jews who listen. I know there are children who listen. So, I try to make it something that I think will be accessible to everybody. And Jeff, I hope you'll let me know whether or not you feel that it's more or less there. I try not to speak too much sprach. This is what Yeshivish Jews speak among themselves. It's a combination of Hebrew, Yiddish, and English spritzed together. So, um So, a guy in Yeshiva will say something like, "L'chaim, it's taka a problem." And thinks he's speaking English. >> [laughter] >> Epis. Norton. So, um anyway, thanks. Thank you so much, everybody. Uh I actually have had a couple of requests to talk about um uh Although, I feel like I've talked about it in the past. And uh I mean, we don't have a seventh year, so I must have talked about everything already in the past, but I guess people are late comers to the show, or maybe they don't remember. Uh that's works to my advantage, you know. My mother was a great audience. She could never remember a joke, so I could just keep telling her the same jokes over and over again. She'd laugh each time. She thought it was the funniest thing ever. But uh they People have asked uh several several different people have asked, "Did you ever tell the story about how you became from?" I thought I did. But I guess it's particularly poignant now because base Sivan is the yard site of the man who I credit with making me from by extension probably my entire family. By extension my children and grandchildren. Has a tremendous amount of cushion. And Rabbi Yakov Weil. And I I guess I have to give my background and a little bit of his background so you can put this into context. I grew up in a family of six boys of whom I was basically the quietest at the time. My other brothers were into sports. They would have rock fights with the kids down the block. They were doing all kinds of things. I would read. I was a nebby kind of a kid. I was picked on by everybody in school. And you know I was uh I was shy. I was socially awkward. I wasn't successful in school because of all the learning disabilities that nobody knew about when I was going to the school in the 60s. So you know it was just a recipe for disaster. And um you know I I was never really anything this big of. I had a number of brothers who were very smart. I was always considered very smart. I just had all these learning disabilities but um my my brother Gedaliah was on the track team. He used to go out and run for miles. He was the the head of his debating team. Um and so I had a I had a lot of talented brothers who were all pretty successful. But I had one brother who was considered a genius. >> [snorts] >> And uh uh he got into a fight with one of his teachers about Constantine, which I know is a an emotional topic for most uh teenage boys. Oh, he wasn't teenage, he was in sixth grade. And he challenged her to a debate, and like an idiot she accepted, and he won. And so, the principal called in my father and said, "Listen, this kid is too smart. You have to send him to a private school." Now, my father dropped out of school in ninth grade. He grew up in a house where they only spoke Yiddish. He didn't learn English until he started going to school. And uh and after ninth grade, it was during the depression, he had to leave school and go to work to help support his family cuz there was no food. I When I say no food, I mean that literally, not figuratively. When a kid comes home from school and throws open the refrigerator and it's packed to the gills and they go, "There's nothing to eat." That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about there was no milk for the children. I mean, nothing. It was uh very difficult. So, he left out of school. So, the principal tells him, "Send your kid to private school." What does my father know from a private school, you know? He never He never went to high school. But, he grew up in Brownsville in the old days. Khayim Berlin was in Brownsville at that day. Uh he used to sing in the choir with the great chazzanim. So, he knew a private school must mean a yeshiva. Not that there were too many of them around when my father, he was born in 1925, there weren't too many options for Jewish education, and if they were, my grandfather wouldn't have paid for them anyway. So, he hears the kid goes to private school, he figures, uh means a yeshiva. Now, unbeknownst to him, Rabbi Mayer Fendel had come out to Long Island some years before, and had started the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County. He started with a kindergarten. And he had built it up by point. Eventually, it was uh it went up to ninth grade and you graduated. And then you had to go to high school. So, they made a push for you to go to one of the local Yeshiva high schools, but if not you and a lot of the kids went to public school. That was just the way it worked. So, he convinces the fellow says, "Send your father your your kid to a private school." So, he goes to Rabbi Mendel. And Rabbi Mendel says, "Okay, he's going into seventh grade in general studies, but he's going to have to start in first grade in the Talmud Torah cuz he doesn't know anything." Okay. By sixth grade, he was in eighth grade in both. And he had skipped ahead. He was very very smart guy. But Rabbi Mendel convinced him to send the other kids. Now, my brother Jason you know, was was older and and my brother Gedaliah was already in you know, fifth grade or whatever. They felt they were too old to go. But, my brother Mitchell was very was in first grade. He was going to go into second grade. And I was ready to start school. And my youngest brother wasn't quite ready yet, but they they were ready to make accommodations. So, so he had to send three kids to school. He didn't have the money. He was bankrupt. He was just getting back on his feet. And he had to take a scholarship, which was very hard for him cuz my father had never been in that position. He he never liked to take money. There was a generation my father my father-in-law where it was business to take government money. And if somebody was in a situation they had to take welfare, they paid it back to the government cuz it was business. Today, you try to get onto HUD. You [laughter] try to get onto these programs. Back then it wasn't like that. It was like that I would need public assistance, you know. So it was a different different kind of a generation. So my father had to take a scholarship. And I was five. I'm a January baby. Now the cutoff is December 31st. And I was January 12th. So they brought me in for an interview and they decided he was smart enough he could be moved into the first grade, which of course made me one of the youngest kids in the class. So like I didn't have enough going for me at that point with all the learning disabilities, and my shyness, and my depression. >> [laughter] >> So now I'm also the youngest kid in the class, yeah. Fine. So I started first grade. Mrs. Gaia. And they had a principal at that time. It was an educational principal called Ivrit Ivrit. The idea is all of the limudei kodesh would be in Hebrew. So you'd spend the half a day immersed in Hebrew. And so not only would you learn Chumash and Navi and Halakha and Dikduk and Chibur and you know all these other things, you'd also learn Hebrew. Alternatively, you didn't learn Hebrew and you learned nothing. And that was the track that I was on. So that by the time I was in seventh grade, my vocabulary consisted of kein, lo, shachakti babayit, ani rotzeh latzet. And that was it. I basically slept the entire morning. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't ever pick up Hebrew. >> [laughter] >> It hurts their ears. So I never picked it up. I wasn't alone. My brother Mitchell uh made a video for his shul uh Anshei Shalom at to show at their dinner. And throughout he they would have different foreigners speak in their native language about Anshei Shalom and they would put subtitles on. So they had a Korean guy and a Spanish guy and an Italian guy, you know. And then they had an Israeli. And at the very end she says "And if you need the subtitles to understand this, you must have GONE TO HANK." >> [laughter] [gasps] >> SO I WASN'T ALONE, you know. I remember for the Hebrew regions, you know, I had to I had to take the Hebrew regions. I had to write like a 100 300 word essay or something, you know. So luckily I had five brothers. Yeah, yesh li ach, yesh li od ach, yesh li od ach, yesh li >> [laughter] >> For those of you who don't speak Hebrew, that means I have a brother. I have another brother. I have another brother. >> [laughter] >> You can stretch that out, you know. So um uh some of you don't understand what's going on. And around fifth grade uh I started to come out of my shell a little bit. My brother Gedaliah actually he he said, "Why are you always so unhappy?" And I said cuz everyone picks on me. He goes, "Why don't you answer them back?" I said, "I don't know how." And I remember we were we had gone cross country at the end of fourth grade. Two weeks to get to LA in two weeks to get back. And uh and he was studying in Georgetown uh University at the time. He was on a special program during the summer and he met us in San Francisco. And nobody wanted to sit in the back back cuz you didn't get the air conditioning. And he says, "I'll sit with you in the back back." And he spent those two weeks teaching me how to insult people. >> [laughter] >> A skill that as it turns out I had a natural talent for. I just needed somebody to help me develop it. >> [laughter] >> So I go back in fifth grade and they start up with me and I start cutting people to pieces. Chop chop chop chop. And now that of course buys you a lot of street cred in fifth grade. >> [laughter] >> So by sixth grade I was starting to become so popular that I decided to start to become antisocial. I bought bell bottoms. >> [laughter] >> I had love beads, you know. By seventh grade forget about it. I was burning incense in the back of the classroom, you know. They sent me home cuz I wouldn't get a haircut. I was I was really antisocial and that really helped. And I had a really bad attitude. That all helped. It helped to have a bad attitude especially in Long Island. So in seventh grade we moved to the junior high school which was in Mitchell Field. I'd been going to West Hempstead Hank until then. So they moved to Mitchell Field. I had a friend of mine. I don't know if I want to mention his name because we really haven't been in touch for decades and it could be he's gone on to live a very successful life and why should I dredge up these, you know, unpleasant memories, you know. So it was in the minyan in seventh grade and I don't know how who whose idea it was but we were going to have a Torah kissing contest to see who could kiss the Torah more times before it got to the ark. And we're both going >> [laughter] >> Anyway, we thought this was very funny and this hand comes and grabs me from the back of the neck and pulls me out of the room. Now at this point when I came in in seventh grade was already a legend, Rabbi Weil. Rabbi Weil was very large. He was a large man. He was tall and very heavy. He was a large and he was bald and he wore these thick black glasses. And he had this voice like this, "Ah, what do you get down there? What do you mean? So, everybody impersonated Rabbi Weil. And he was the fanatic of the school. He lived in Borough Park. We didn't even know where that was, but we knew it was like to the to the right of Red China. You know what I mean? Like he's he he kept saying fanatic and he was crazy and he would yell, Anyway, it's Rabbi Weil. He pulls me out and he puts his face right in my face and goes, "What are you doing? You think this is a joke? You think this is a joke?" And I'm like, That was my introduction to Rabbi Weil. >> [laughter] >> It's seventh grade. And I was still pretty antisocial, you know, seventh grade. Um My friend, I don't want to mention his name anymore either because the last time I checked he was in prison. So, I don't know where he is now and I don't want him to come and get me. But uh um the Houston thing this thing called Razzles, which were a candy and after you sucked it, it turned into a gum. And they had this commercial. Razzles is a gum. No, Razzles is a candy. Razzles is a gum. Razzles is a candy. >> [laughter] >> I saw this kid had some Razzles. I said, "Give me a bunch, you know." Now, this this rabbi would go crazy if you chewed gum in class. You're not allowed to. It was seventh grade, you know. And I start chewing up the Razzles until my mouth is full of it and he goes, "Take that gum out of your mouth." And I said, "Razzles is not a gum. It's a candy." And the other the other guy goes, "No, no, no, it's a gum." I said, "No, it's a candy." "No, it's a gum." Anyway, he lost complete control of the room right in there. I had to come in and restore order. >> [laughter] >> So, you can imagine at this point I was finally starting to make it socially. >> [laughter] >> Finally totally counter uh uh In eighth grade, I'm put into Rabbi Wales' class. Now, I had had one encounter with Rabbi Wales already, and I really wasn't looking forward to any more, but okay. So, um everybody comes in the class, and he walks in. And he says, "Okay, boys. I know you've all heard of me already. As you can see, I haven't lost any weight from last year. And as you can see, I haven't grown any hair from last year. And my views haven't changed either." Now, this was a uh this was a uh paradigm shift for me for two reasons. First of all, he was speaking English, and for the first time I understood what was going on in the holy codex. Second of all, every teacher was into kavod. And kavod, you do not talk to the rabbi that way. You don't talk this way in class, and that and that. And this is the first teacher ever who made fun of himself. I never seen such a thing. That a teacher could be self-deprecating? I was shocked. So, we all sit down. He had to stand for the introduction and sit down. And uh somebody he asked the I don't remember what the question was, and some kid raises hand, one of the probably the West Hamstead kids. >> [laughter] >> Cuz, you know, they they were better in school than than us uh foreigners, you know, like from North America. Anyway, he goes, "So, how are you, Rabbi? How are you, Rabbi Sholom?" He goes, "Hey, you speak English. We're in America. You talk English here." >> [laughter] >> I was ready to stand up and cheer. I couldn't believe it. Put the wise guy in his place over there, cuz he could show off, cuz he doesn't have any learning disabilities. >> [laughter] >> I could do that if I was normal and came from a normal family. >> [laughter] >> Anyway, as it went on, he he would speak so incredibly down-to-earth, which nobody ever did. Everybody talked in theoretics, and and he talked down-to-earth. So, he says, "When you come to a red light, why do you stop?" So, everybody gave their answers, you know, because otherwise you could cause accidents. Ah, you're in the middle of the night, there's nobody there, you know. He goes, "Well, you can get a ticket." There's no cops around. You can say there's no cops around, you know. You know, so he says, "Cuz there's a law. And you understand that you follow the law. You understand that that was set up for the sake of everybody. And and you have to keep laws. It's the same thing with the Torah." I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this guy's actually making sense." Well, already by eighth grade I had styled myself something as an intellectual, and although I wasn't able to uh destroy a teacher about Constantine, but I was able to hold my own in almost any argument. I was really pretty smart. I thought fast on my feet. That's why my father wanted me to become a lawyer. When I told him I was going to become a rabbi, he sat on the floor, he tore keriah, lit a candle, you know. He was not happy about that decision. Cuz everyone knows that a rabbi is no job for a nice Jewish boy. Anyway, [snorts] so I started arguing with him. And every time I argued with him, I realized he was making more sense than me. Now, we were supposed to be covering material. I I remember everything. I wasn't like I said, I wasn't a great student. But every now and then, we knew you could distract Rabbi Will by asking him a question, and he'd go into a rant. So, someone would say, "Come on, Rabbi Will, who says the Torah's true anyway?" He goes, "Ah, what are you talking about?" And he'd go and he'd go and go and people would argue with him, fight with him. I found out later, that's all he wanted to talk about. But he knew that he had to teach, so until one of us asked one of those questions thinking we were outsmarting him. That was exactly what he wanted to talk about. And he talked basic hashkafa with a bunch of uh apathetic Long Island kids uh in the early 70s. We weren't in our early 70s, but it was during the early 1970s, yeah. And um and he kept pushing and pushing. It reminds me that it says the sha'air the rishol ad ptsachlo. The kid who doesn't ask, you have to open him up. Why? Cuz he doesn't care. So, you have to come up with ways to get him That's what That's what Rabbi Well would do. He would come up with ways to get us crazy and get us crazy. This happened later when I was already a whale boy, you know, if you were if you were if you were converted to Judaism by Rabbi Well, so then you were came known as a whale boy. I reached the point, I remember in ninth grade I was actually having a little pin that he gave out saying, "I am a Ben Torah." >> [laughter] >> And I wasn't beaten up on a regular basis, it's just a miracle. But anyway, I lost all my cool, by the way, when I became frum. >> [laughter] >> It all disappeared. So, uh so I would keep fighting with him and he kept being right. Now, I would go and speak to uh conservative rabbis. I'd speak to reform rabbis. I'd speak to this one, that one. I'd get all kinds of questions that I could ask and he just chopped me to pieces. And in the back of my mind I said, "Oh my gosh, what if this is right?" Now, I knew this wasn't right cuz everyone knew that Judaism was outdated and didn't make any sense. I mean, I you know, I I when we went to synagogue on the high holidays, it was a conservative synagogue, you know, it made no sense. I knew everyone knew it didn't. You know, my father would come home from work, whatever time it was, my mother would light candles, my father would make kiddush, he'd make hamotzi, you You we'd have we'd have chicken soup and brisket and then everybody would watch TV. But but we you know, we had a tsura. We had a Pesach seder. My dad could go from kaddish to shulchan aruch in 20 minutes. It was really very impressive. You know, and to this day I still remember cuz he had this old English, you know, "How do we know that there were five 50 plagues in 10 plagues in Egypt 50 plagues in the sea? How do we know there were 50 plagues 40 plagues 50 plagues 200 plagues 350 plagues? So, you know, and it was just like you know, and we were running through it. You know, get to the meal. So, so we had the trappings. We had the electric menorah in the window and everything. I'm like, you know, we also lit candles on on the table. But but we had we had trappings. My parents kept a kosher home cuz otherwise my grandfather wouldn't eat there, you know. So, uh the problems I had to deal with uh later on, you know, Luckily, I was not home the night that my brother burnt down the kitchen cuz my mother was sure I was behind it. She was trying to figure out how I did it. I went to pay a shiva call to a girl lost her father in my class in Levittown. I had to ride on my bicycle from North Merrick to Levittown. It was like 6 miles, you know. I come back and the whole place is like burnt. My brother who accidentally set the fire was like cleaning up cuz he didn't know how to cook and wanted to watch the baseball game. So, he went to make blintzes. So, he filled up a frying pan to the top with oil and turned it on and then he went to watch the game and then eventually he saw the smoke coming into his room. And this thing is boiling and boiling and so he threw water on it. Now, you don't throw water on hot oil. This is, you know, something that you learn the hard way. >> [laughter] >> And then my whole the kitchen and the whole place burst into flames, you know. And I said I wasn't here. So, "Why weren't you here?" I said, "I went to pay a shiva call, you know." You know he doesn't know how to cook? I What do you want from me? I went to the baby sitter called. He didn't ask me to make blintzes before I left. I would have made them before I left, you know?" I said, "But now that we have to redo the kitchen, I HAVE SOME SUGGESTIONS." >> [laughter] >> TALK ABOUT leban gamor, you know what I mean? Like a blowtorch the whole place. Anyway, but um uh so they kept the kosher home. There were trappings. And uh my father went to work on Saturday. I stayed home and watched cartoons in my pajamas, you know what I mean? Um and uh you know, I I I So now I'm being confronted by somebody who's trying to convince me that Torah is MS. And I'm arguing with him arguing with him and I'm losing. I wasn't used to that. So I said to my friends cuz I you know, I had guys who were friends there many of them were normal, you know, and and smart. And I said, "We have to argue with this guy." And they said, "Ignore him." I said, "But what if he's right?" They said, "Ignore him anyway." And I said, "I can't do that. Either he's right and I'm wrong or I'm right and he's wrong. And I'm going to follow this through." And at some point it dawned on me, "Oh my gosh, this is true. The whole thing is true. God, Torah, you know, Shabbos, kashas. Oh, what do I do now?" >> [laughter] >> Now, I was a TV addict. Uh I always was cuz my parents went to work and the babysitter was the TV. I sat in front of the TV and that's why when other kids my age were memorizing Mishnayos, I knew the theme songs to basically every TV show from the '60s. Listen to him my story about a man named Jed, a poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed, yeah. Sit right back and you'll hear the tale the tale of a faithful trip. Anyway, I don't have to show off. You know, just just just believe me. >> [laughter] >> This is what I did. I I know entire episodes of Get Smart by heart. >> [laughter] >> This is This is how I spent my time, you know? So, Friday night the best shows used to come on, you know? And uh and now I'm becoming from, what am I going to do? So, I put my the TV on a Shabbos clock. So, I could watch the shows and then it would turn off. And slowly slowly I had to introduce all of these things into my life. So, I would turn off my light in my room. I can't sleep with the light on to this day. Well, now it's easier, you know, cuz I'm always so tired anyway. I just pass out almost anywhere. But especially as a kid sleep with the lights off very very hard with the lights on. And invariably somebody would come and get something from my room and they would turn on my light and leave it on. And I know I couldn't ask them to turn it off, you know? So, uh I started taping up the light switch. And I remember we were sitting there having our brisket. And my brother comes in and says, "You know, someone put tape on your light switch?" >> [laughter] >> Sure enough he take it off and turn on the light, you know? So, um So, I had to unscrew the light bulb. Now, I had one of those mod you know, this was the late '60s early '70s. I had one of those mod, you know, kind of things with six giant globes. >> [laughter] >> I had to unscrew every Friday all six globes and hide it on the bottom of the closet, you know? So, it was a it was a process. I was going through a process over here. So, by the time my bar mitzvah came around cuz you remember I was I I was a January baby, so everybody had had their bar mitzvah already in seventh grade. I had mine in in eighth grade. Um this was a surreal experience. I will never forget this experience. Yes, my bar mitzvah was in the Conservative Synagogue, the East Meadow Jewish Center. >> [clears throat] >> Heavenly Father, today I am a man. >> [laughter] >> That was my bar mitzvah drasha, by the way. And I was more or less keeping Shabbos by this point, you know. I remember I was walking to shul with a friend of mine, and relatives kept stopping to offer me a ride. And I said, "No, that's okay. I you know, I need the fresh air." And I get there. And um Yeah. Memorized my bar mitzvah portion from a tape, you know. Yeah. And uh but I'll tell you why it was surrealistic, because my grandfather, who had been shomer Shabbos all the time, and after my grandmother died, it was before my older brother was born, he remarried this woman my father wouldn't allow us to call her grandma. We we called her Aunt Lena. And um and they were coming for Shabbos. And so we had to keep Shabbos in the house. This is the first time ever in my life that I had 18 Shabbos in my house. And I invited over some of my friends to sleep over. And uh they were coming to my bar mitzvah. Now my grandmother had died. We were still within the shloshim. And um so we couldn't have a party. So instead, they made a kiddush in shul. And this you know, meant that there wasn't going to be a big party. We were just going to maximize as much chillul Shabbos as we could. >> [laughter] >> I sure there was a big I think it was a big uh aliyah for the neshama up in shamayim. They didn't have a party. >> [laughter] >> And um uh they brought in some entertainer, some woman. She was doing a Moms Mabley imitation. I had no idea who she was. It was the whole thing was ridiculous. But um you know, but this was the first Shabbos I actually kept in my house. I remember my Aunt Lena, a night I was going over the parsha, you know. And uh I see her outside wearing a wearing a tichel saying Tehillim. I think, "Wow, I've never seen anything like this." This was amazing to me. So, um that was the first Shabbos I had. And I would go to shul. They had an early minyan where only men came, so it wasn't a problem of it being mixed. In the morning, it was mixed seating. And by I would come back for shales shudes. And um only the old men came to shales shudes. It was like all these old men and me. Mizmor L'Dovid. Mizmor L'Dovid. Mizmor L'Dovid. They used to put out this box of Stella D'oro assorted cookies. >> [laughter] >> If you're from America and you're old enough to remember, the Stella D'oro is like it was like 17 different types of cookies and they all taste exactly the same like tichel. And I think this one they had it out by Masada. I think it was about 300 years old. They had passed it down from Europe from Stella D'oro in Italy. They had bought it and they kept passing it down, you know? Cuz every now and then somebody would try one and they were like, "Oh, this is terrible." >> [laughter] >> We knew that already. And uh it was uh I was the only one. So, by Pesach time, I found out they opened up an Orthodox shul. Um the Israel Jewish Center was less than a mile away, but this one was a mile and a quarter away. I started walking to the Young Israel of North Bellmore. And uh I started going to an Orthodox shul. It was uh it was an an amazing experience. Really amazing experience. And uh and then in ninth grade um I was again in very Welsh year. And uh and I at this point he had gotten me. I became from because of him. He knew it, you know? There were there were a bunch of us that that were like I said, we were known as the Welsh boys, you know what I mean? That we uh we he he got us he got us into it. It was absolutely amazing. Yeah. And um >> [snorts] >> it was uh uh a process process. Now my parents like I say went to work on Saturday. So I would you know go to shul by myself. I'd come back. I'd have Shabbos lunch by myself. And uh it's uh it's it's it was such a difficult experience to sit there and keep Shabbos by yourself. I'd sing zemiros to myself. I'd make my I I would uh I would uh you know have cold food, you know, and and that was it. You know, uh cuz everything was a fight. Everything was a fight. When I wanted to get a Shabbos urn it was a fight. When I wanted to put on a blech my mother said I'll burn down the house. When uh my mother asked me to get something from the refrigerator I said I can't cuz the light goes on. That was a major fight. So eventually they unscrewed the the light bulb. Then she asked me to get something from the freezer I said I can't when you open the freezer the the fan goes on. My father would fight with me everything everything would be a big fight until I got them to tape up the freezer, you know. I had [clears throat] to get them to switch butchers. I had to get them to switch bakeries. I had to get them yeah. Everything was a fight, you know. We fought we fought over everything. By the end of 10th grade now this was what was very interesting. Rabbi Gottesman who was the assistant principal he was the touring director in a camp in Israel called Stay Chaim Amed which was um uh run by Eli Teitelbaum and that year Boruch Scheidt was the head counselor, Shaya Cohen was the learning director. Saul Fromowitz my learning rebbe, Jerry Shore from Chofetz Chaim was my No, not he was the second year. First year was I think his name was Yaakov Kugel. He was a Satmar Chassid, you know. This was So, he convinced me to go to the summer camp. He didn't convince me. He told my my parents sent me to the summer camp in Israel. The end of 10th grade. I'm a Hank kid. >> [laughter] >> I said and we're with all these like frum kids, you know. And it was amazing. I I remember I someone took me over to to Geulah and bought me a hat. >> [laughter] >> I came back to Hank with a hat and jacket. I mean, forget about it. >> [laughter] >> This was a culture shock like you can't begin to believe, you know. So, this was this introduced me to a whole different world, a world I'd never seen before. And I slowly started getting more and more into things, obviously. And I come back. So, originally, my plan was like to go to YU and get smicha and become a rabbi. But since Shaya Cohen was the learning director and um and so from which was my learning rebbe, they basically convinced me that if you don't go to Chofetz Chaim and become a rosh yeshiva, basically, you will never go to olam haba. And I was like, "Okay, cool." Now, to to their surprise, they recruited a guy who doesn't know how to learn at all because of all his learning disabilities. I didn't know that either, you know. And uh and that put me on a whole different path, a whole different trajectory. And it exposed me to a whole different world that I didn't even know existed. And I actually um was trying to convince my parents to move me out of Hank, the co-ed high school, and put me in Mesivta of Long Beach. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, that was sort of a no go. >> [snorts] >> But um I'm I'm moving along. I'm moving along, as you can tell, you know. I stopped putting my my uh already after my bar mitzvah, I stopped with the TV on the um on the uh Shabbos clock. In fact, I became what was known as an FBT, which is a flaming baal teshuvah. >> [snorts] >> You know, so like I had a pullout bed in my room, and I would pull out the bed, which was very uncomfortable, and sleep on that during the week, and then put it away, sleep on the other bed on Shabbos. Well, I asked baal teshuvah. Anyway, >> [laughter] >> I did this little nightlight that I would put into my room that I would keep there after I had screwed all my light bulbs, hid them in the bottom of the closet. [laughter] And uh you know, this was this was a process for me. Yeah? And then I um in 11th grade, they made me go to Rabbi Warmanshire. Rabbi Warman, you know, I couldn't I couldn't follow what he was saying most of the time. So, I did sit there and uh had a Gemara and everything, but uh I didn't really gain too much. But, Rabbi Warman was a adam gadol. Just uh just have a casual with him was a tremendous thing. And um and that was it. So, then I graduated after 11th grade, and they had a 3-year high school, but you still needed an English credit. So, I went to public summer school to finish my one English credit to get my diploma. Well, >> [laughter] >> I had never been to public school in my life. And um in fact, after 6th grade, I was so turned off by the whole experience, I wanted to switch to public school. My father convinced me to stay. It wasn't shomer Shabbos. He had to pay tuition. He convinced me to stay in yeshiva for 7th grade. So, I could burn my incense at the back of the classroom. >> [snorts] >> But, uh but that that was a tremendous Besides the fact that he was paying for my education all these years, the fact that he convinced me to stay in Yeshiva, yeah. So, 11th grade I start to get ready. Anyway, so in my mind I'm going to go to Chofetz Chaim. So, I went to Chofetz Chaim in Forest Hills for a fair year. And um and I uh I didn't pass. Because I really can't read and I couldn't learn. So, he suggested instead that I go to the Israel branch. Which was in a little apartment building in uh Rechovos Sanhedrin Shesh. Rabbi Chait was the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Kenarik was the Mashgiach. And it gave me a chance to meet an entire array of people to whom I'm zocheh to have a good relationship with to this day. My roommate was uh Rabbi Eliyahu Rabovsky. Not then, yeah. Then then we call him Bob for reasons that were unclear to me. I finally got someone to explain to me why. He says, "Well, his name was Rabovsky. So, we started shortening it to Rebo, and then Rebo became Robert, and then Robert became Bob." But now, you know, he's uh you know, Rabbi Rabovsky shlita in uh Boca Raton, very chashuve fellow. And they basically put me in his room. He was second year to be a good influence on me. Uh Ari Rodin, Rabbi Ari Rodin, uh who is in Dallas, he was one of the best madrich guys. He was there also to try to have a good influence on me. He really tried. I give him a lot of credit. He said, "It's not your fault." [laughter] Trying to be positive, you know. Uh the two kollel guys were Rabbi uh Chait's son-in-law uh Boruch Chait, well, Boruch Chait, and Rabbi Mark Harris, Moshe Dov Harris, who went on to become the Rosh Yeshiva in Neufeld, and um uh they were the two color guys, and it was like an amazing an amazing uh uh exposure for me. And again, I'm learning 10 hours of Gamara a day. When I was in Hank, I wasn't learning the hour and a half that we had. Now for 10 hours, this was this was grueling. The good news Well, the bad news is it was an over year. It was an extra month. The good news is around Tubishvat, I got hepatitis. And I was out of commission for 2 months. >> [laughter] >> I had it really bad. You know, if I concentrated, I could move my head from one side of the pillow to the other. And then a friend of mine, Ricky Seplowitz, who uh probably the funniest guy in Yeshiva, he um he got it, too, and we were locked up in a room together, and so we couldn't move, so we wrote the greatest Purim play in Chofetz Chaim history. >> [laughter] >> And uh it was really it was really very special special time. That's what really got me through this mind. If I if I stayed healthy, I I probably would have had to kill myself, but uh but uh made it through, went up for Pesach, came back, and um and uh and uh yeah, it went this this this took me, like I say, I became a Yeshiva man, uh so to speak, gave me an exposure to these things. But back to my story, uh Rabbi Weil, um uh I like I say, we were slowly getting to know him. We knew he was a fanatic. But in eighth grade, that Purim, he invited the entire class to his house to a Purim Seudah in Borough Park. I had never I've never Borough Park in my life. This was otherworldly. I couldn't even relate to it. I didn't know such a place existed. And this is Borough Park in the '70s, it's not Borough Park today. You know, it was still there was still modern Orthodox and non-Jewish people there, you know. And well, we lived on 52nd Street. And he brings us to his house and I see kids in costumes walking around. I see people delivering shalach manos. I mean, this was I had no frame of reference for this whatsoever. This was this was a completely different experience. And we're sitting at his table and he's giving us wine. I mean, we're you know, 13 years old, 14 maybe. You know, I think that's a crime. But, for him, you know. And then he took us outside to dance in the street. I tell you, I remember this as one of the pivotal moments in my life to have experienced this. It was just beyond belief. So, I was developing this casual very well and I I knew and he knew that, you know, he's my rebbe. >> [laughter] >> I would ask him questions. We would discuss things and >> [laughter] >> all kinds of different experiences we had together, you know. So, then I went off to Chofetz Chaim. I went to Chofetz Chaim in Eretz Yisrael. I went to Chofetz Chaim in Rochester. Um, I went to Chofetz Chaim in Far Rockaway. I went to Chofetz Chaim back in Eretz Yisrael when the Yeshiva came. And I just wasn't making it in Yeshiva. It just was not happening for me. I didn't know it was because of my learning disability. It's because I was sure that, like everybody told me, if you cared enough, if you worked harder, if you But, I knew that I was banging my head against the wall. I knew how hard I was working, nobody else did cuz people didn't know about learning disabilities back then. And eventually I went to the Yeshiva and I said I can't I can't do this anymore. You know, I've done this for 3 years and I'm terribly unhappy and I'm not succeeding. And I think I should leave. So uh So Rabbi Henoch Leibowitz looks at me and he goes, "I'm so impressed. I couldn't spend 3 years doing something that I didn't enjoy." And like that he took a broken kid and gave him reason to keep living, you know. He says, "For sure you should go back. If you can go into that but if you sit there you should. You're very talented. You should do something." I said, "But Rabbi I can't go back now. It's like I just got here. My parents will go crazy." So he says, "Well, you could do something for me." Because the Yeshiva had moved into their new location, but they never had more than like 20 25 guys in the Yeshiva. Now they were feeding 200. And it was a disaster. The the kitchen was an absolute disaster. They had a menahel mitbach, an Israeli guy. He had two cooks and two assistant cooks. The three Arabs were spending a lot of their time in the dining room. The executive director and the secretary were spending a lot of time, all of them trying to cut the I should untie the Gordian knot that the kitchen had become. And it was terrible. It was a disaster. I mean, I remember they used to take 20 loaves of bread and drop it on a table with a knife. You know, and they'd put out a gigantic can of jelly and like 10 10 bars of margarine and it was just people were fighting. There weren't enough plates, weren't enough silverware. I mean, you see bally mussar elbowing each other to try to get things. You know. This was a disaster. So he says, I'd like you to take over the the the dining room. I said, I've never done it before. He says, I think you can do it. Okay. So have a camera over shalom was exactly director takes me down to the kitchen introduces me to the two cooks introduces me to the as road walks around this is the mixer this is the you know the potato peeling machine this this the refrigerators this is the freezers these are the ovens good luck. I said, what the heck what am I supposed to do? He says, it's a position of responsibility. If anything goes wrong you're responsible. >> [laughter] >> Anyway, it was just before Yom Kippur and right after Yom Kippur you go into the Bain Azmanim and it's a balagan and things are coming and people going and people are yelling at me and there's not enough food and they keep making the same thing every single day and people are yelling terrible terrible. And I'm really just you know uh flying by the seat of my pants trying to get this done and that done and handle this I'm peeling potatoes at the last minute I So I really don't know what's going on and everyone's yelling at me the people the tell me the way you're yelling at me the cooks are yelling at me the as road are yelling at me everybody's yelling at me and I'm trying to figure out this job. Anyway, at the end just before the news man they went on a tiyul for 3 days. So every camera sits me down and says, okay, what should we do? I said, first of all, there's not enough silverware you know there's not enough silverware. He goes, well, I have it in my car we have to toivel I said, then let's go and toivel it now while everyone's away. Yeah, and I said, um there are work study guys they have to come down before breakfast. He says, it's mission Berura Seder. I said, they're getting money cuz they're on a work study program they're going to have to miss mission Berura Seder. Yeah, and I need you to buy me bread baskets. Uh we're going to have the the work study guys slice up the bread beforehand and put it in the bread basket in front of the table. I said, "Then I need you to buy me these little like dessert cups. We're going to put them with jelly and we're going to put put them with margarine and someone's going to be in charge of the jelly, someone's going to be in charge of the margarine, make sure they go out. Someone's going to have to make sure there's enough this, I have to put this on and that on, you know?" >> [snorts] >> And I said, "Then we have to sit down with the cooks and we have to vary the menu. And we have to come up with different menu ideas." And um my parents used to take me away to Grossinger's. And one of the great things about going to a Jewish resort in the Catskills is you learn the art form of writing a menu. And I would write a menu. I would put it on the inside of the glass of the dining room every morning so nobody could write on it. >> [laughter] >> Make comments, you know? Um uh >> [clears throat] >> So I said to I said to the Yeshiva, I said, you know, normally in far as I know they give them orange juice. He says, "Well, they don't have orange juice here." Uh I said, "Give oranges." He says, "Oranges aren't in in season." I said, "I'll give grapefruits." Yeah. So they would cut the grapefruits in half, put them out, you know? And they made oatmeal, we had dry cereal, you know, and had hard-boiled eggs. Well, we we worked out. So I wrote the first of the thing. Um half sun-ripened grapefruit fresh Israeli rye bread um choice of cereals >> [laughter] >> hard-boiled eggs and they did this. I'd come to lunch. Soup du jour. >> [laughter] >> Uh this day we'd come up with different kinds of dishes, different kinds of things we'd make it different things and vary it. And uh it reached the point that like at the beginning everybody ran in and they're like everything's set up? And they would go day after day until finally there was no more pressure. Now I had to fight with the suppliers cuz I don't know about today, but back then they would send you a case and only the stuff on the top was nice and everything else was yucky. So, I would sort through the boxes and make them take back whatever I didn't want and they they never did this by Israeli suppliers, but I would yell and scream in my, you know, I would scream at them and say, "I never said it say." >> [laughter] >> Whatever I could come up with. It was great cuz the Russian cooks didn't speak English or Hebrew. She spoke Russian. She knew a few words in English and Hebrew. I knew a few words in Hebrew. It was like but we managed to work it out and we got everything running so smoothly that it mamesh changed all of Yeshiva. And then I was done. I had nothing to do. It was just maintenance. I found that boring. So, uh so I went back to um so I went back to America and my father said to me, "We let you make your own decisions and you messed up your life. So, now we're going to take it over. You're going to go to YU. You're going to get a degree. You know, you're going to do this, whatever it is." And I just like was okay. And he says, "You'll work in the floor store and that we have we just bought this Lindeman floors. You'll sell the Christmas trees." I didn't sell one Christmas tree. Every day I would schlepp them out. I would stand there Christmas tree nobody bought it. I think it might be a mistake to sell Christmas trees in Flatbush. That's just me. But uh I would schlepp them out and bring them back and I had like, you know, one of those uh you know, plaid um coats jackets and they would use like uh you know, lumberjacks, you know what I mean? I had, you know, I I think a a fur it was uh you know, ski caps, you know what I mean? And I was going back and forth doing my thing, you know. Couldn't sell one. There happened to be a From drugstore in this little mall. One day the guy calls me over he says, "Kid, can I give you a piece of advice?" So, I said, "Yeah." He says, "You're going to sell Christmas trees, tuck in your tits. >> [laughter] >> I said, "You know there is an idea." >> [laughter] >> Anyway, it turned out that Los Angeles, they just opened up a branch in Los Angeles, Shaya Cohen, who everyone knows from Zichron Aryeh and uh you know, his many many activities. So, um he had just taken over the high school and all the guys who were floating around from Chofetz Chaim, they sent them out there to LA. You know, for Shaya Cohen to like rebuild them, you know. So, I went out there. I remember I tried discussing with my parents and they said there's nothing to talk about. And I said, "But this is different than what I've been doing." He says, "There's nothing to talk about." I said, "But if you just say it." He goes, "You know what? Do what you want." So, I said, "Okay." Now, when my father says that, the implication is do what you want, but you're out of the will. You know what I mean? Like >> [laughter] >> He says, "Do what you want." I said, "Okay." My father slammed on the brakes. My mother said, "Apologize to your father." I said, "Why?" He says, "Do what you want." So, I took the money that I had earned from running the kitchen, I bought myself a ticket and I flew out to LA. And uh you know, I learned a little, I taught a little, I helped a little. And um uh it uh it was uh you know, um an amazing experience for me cuz I was on my own. I had taken the road test in New York four times and failed. Anti-Semitism. Uh so, I went to LA, I I took the road test, passed away. People would lend me their car. I don't know why they did that, but people would lend me their car and it was like I became a mensch. Like as soon as I came out there, it was amazing. I rented an apartment for $215 a month, a two-bedroom, two-bathroom furnished apartment with utilities. And I got a roommate, Reb Moshe Schmel, whose son is in fact uh goes to the comes to the shul and watches the podcast a little shout out there. And suddenly I was living in in LA on my own. It was a whole adjustment period for me to get used to this this sense. Cuz I didn't have any of the reputation that I had from back in New York. I could make myself into whatever I wanted. And that summer Rabbi Gottesman's brother ran Hilltop. And he says to me, "You'll be the assistant director in the day camp." So, I would drive my '67 Buick >> [laughter] >> through Beverly Hills. The cops wanted to stop me just for driving an old car, you know. And I'd go out there and I would I had the oldest group, which were the five-year-olds. And uh we were running the little day camp out there and stuff. And uh it was a whole different experience. And then uh to the next year, I was recruited to teach in Hebrew in the Hebrew Academy. It was like a real job. And um uh and I got tricked into taking an NCSY chapter. And it turns out that I had quite a closeness. Anyway, that's it. Then the rest is my NCSY career and then moving to Israel and everything that went with that. But um But that was the journey that I went through. And it was all because I was attracted to the intellectual honesty and the humility of Rabbi Will. And we just knew him to be this fanatic from Borough Park. And that's all I ever knew. But as I got older, I started to figure it out. And I got the backstory. He wrote a book about his mother, House Calls to Eternity. She was a doctor. She came from Germany. They were they were Yekkes. Came from Germany. And she was a woman pediatrician in Borough Park. Which is the fact that there was a woman doctor back then was like an amazing thing. Yeah. And um Reb Well himself went to NYU Law School. He was a lawyer. And he left he was hired by some Jewish firm. He lasted one day, he just said. He says cuz the first day the boy said, "Well, go to the go to the luncheonette and get me a cheeseburger." He says, "Sorry, boss, I can't." He says, "What?" He says, "You're Jewish, I can't buy you something that's not kosher." He says, "Well, either you go and get me that cheeseburger or you're fired." He says, "Can't do it, boss." He said, "I'll fire you." That was his law career. He went to law school, lasted one day. So, he says, "Well, I'm obviously not going to make it in the legal pro- profession and and be a firm Jew." There was no like culprit back then. There was nobody to defend your rights as a firm Jew, you know? So, he went to Lakewood to learn by Reb Aaron. And uh that changed his trajectory in life. I didn't know this. I found out years later that in Borough Park he was considered a bleeding heart liberal. And whereas we looked at him as a fanatic, from Borough Park, in Borough Park they looked down at him for teaching in a co-ed high school. And someone said this to me. I was I met someone from Borough Park. I said, "Oh, do you know do you know Reb Well?" He goes, "Yeah." So, I said, "What?" And this was amazing to me cuz again, he was, you know, he was holier than God, you know? So, "What do you mean?" He goes, "What's he teaching in a co-ed school for? They they they offered him to teach over here in in the in Bais Yaakovs and in and in and in Yeshivas and and he insisted on going out and teaching these non-frum kids in the know, in a co-ed environment. Why is he doing that? One time I heard him making fun of somebody who was attacking one of the original schools in Borough Park cuz it wasn't firm enough and he gave it to them over the head. He says, "Who are you to criticize? These people were building in the dirt, digging with their hands when there was no Borough Park. They were building Torah institutions and you have no right to talk down against them." I was like, "Oh my gosh. This guy's like a bleeding-heart liberal. I couldn't believe it." >> [gasps] >> His wife, who was an absolute delight, um had a master's in English. >> [laughter] >> They were very educated couple and uh very very involved in in Besides that, he was a massive Talmudic scholar. Now, this is totally lost on me, but he wrote a parish called the Igvay Aron and he wrote it on on Shkalim. He wrote it on uh on Hurriyus. He wrote it on a number of mesechtas that he wrote it and it's marvelous. How much he knows is amazing. He gave a daf yomi in Borough Park for many many years. And uh And he chose to do this. I remember he would always get frustrated. And one time when I was already running NCSY, and I would come by, he'd say to me, "Ah, Reb Dovid, I don't know why I stay here. You know, they offered me a job to be principal in Bais Yaakov of Borough Park. Maybe I should do that." And I said, "Very well, who are you kidding? You couldn't hang around from people all day. You'd go out of your mind." >> [laughter] >> And he starts to laugh and he goes, "Ah, I see you figured out your old friend very well." >> [laughter] >> I I I don't have a number of how many people he made frum. But starker frum, not like, you know, a little bit frum, like yeshivish frum. Like people who today are rushing Yeshiva and people today were my giddy Yeshiva people today were Rabonim. And there were people who hated guts. They they Oh, he turned me off from Judaism. I said there was never anybody who was turned on to Judaism and got turned off cuz right well, maybe he didn't turn you on. He never turned anybody off. Because he had a principle and the way he would express his principle was you can love me and you can hate me, but you'll never forget me. >> [laughter] >> Cuz shalom alichem you have to be extreme. You have to do things to open people up. And I find a lot of things I say were things that were very well said. Only I I say them a little funnier. He was also very funny, but he had he he did in a a little rougher way, you know, I I try to to say it. I mean this is this is me being nice so you can imagine, you know, how very well was. >> [laughter] >> But I was drawn to that cuz it was MS. It was truth. And he wasn't trying to whitewash it and he was trying to all all the Judaism I've been exposed to before Rabbi Weil was the Torah says this and it's not necessarily wrong. The Torah says this and we can fit it in. Uh I I read once on the show the introduction to uh Koheles from the Soncino. What we had was Soncino. And the person who translated this the Soncino Koheles he starts off by saying who is the author? There's a legend that it was King Solomon, but we know that's not true. So who was the author? This was an Orthodox publication. Now, uh Reverend Cohen who was the overall editor he wrote a rejoinder saying it could have been uh King Solomon. You don't have to say it wasn't King Solomon. So um uh that's that's what I was growing up with. It was all this apologetics. I wasn't interested. Either it's true or it's not true. Had I stayed if I'd never met Rabbi Well, and I stayed in the East Meadow Jewish Center, I don't think I'd be religious today. I didn't have enough motivation. I'm a black and white kind of guy. I always was. Either it's true or it's not true. And uh that's helped me in certain areas of my life and hurt me in others. But uh I remember my father would always say, "Everything in moderation." He'd say to me. >> [laughter] >> It's okay to be a little religious, but you don't have to be so religious. So, uh so I was I I it wouldn't work that way for me. I'd either keep it or I'd give it up completely. Yeah, if it's not true, I'm not doing it. I don't I don't get a thrill out of eating latkes and then playing dreidel, you know. I don't I don't need a ritual that doesn't speak to me. But if it's true and there's a God and everything is meaningful, then that's a that's a paradigm shift in existence. And so, uh I and I started working in NCSY. I'd go to Hank and I'd speak to the classes and hand out flyers, you know, for upcoming events. And he'd always introduce me to his class. He says, "This is Dovid Olawsky. He wasn't a very good student. He wasn't very academic. He didn't make great marks. But he's the biggest success because of where he came from." And I said, "Rabbi Well, please, I don't know if I could take any more of your compliments. I think it's too much for me. It'll go to my head." >> [laughter] >> And then he would always say, "Reb Dovid, I'm getting into Olam Haba on your back." And I said, "Rabbi Well, we're both in a lot of trouble." >> [laughter] >> But that was uh Rabbi Well, who is an individual who set out to change lives. And and the genius of Rabbi Fendel is that in a in a school where almost everybody came from a conservative background, he brought in an extremist like Rabbi Well and gave him the freedom to be able to teach. He also brought in people from YU to be teachers. He brought in Lubavitch. He brought in uh a shaliach from Eretz Yisrael. He brought in all kinds of different people. And the brilliance was he could make everything fit together and make it look like it made sense. He said to me once, he goes, "Do you know how much grief I got? How many times people were demanding I fire Rabbi Well to to uh back him up?" So, Rabbi Fendel and Rabbi Well are the reasons that there are so many Orlowskys today who are from and uh the contributions that they made. And uh base uh Sivan is his uh is his yahrzeit. And he should be a merit to Yoshe v'Klal Yisrael. He's up there now in Shamayim screaming at somebody. >> [laughter] >> He's the nahnem he's in the shchinah. He's one of the Kadosh Baruchu's top people. And uh I am only one of the many recipients of his beneficence. And I'm merited Hashem we should all be able to enjoy uh to go on and have truly meaningful lives. And good people like this should continue to influence us. And now some appreciation comments. Hi Rabbi Orlowsky. Hi. I came across your video. >> [laughter] >> People talk to the screen sometimes. They don't always realize that I'm not live, you know. In fact, my doctor feels the same way. He's surprised I'm alive, too. >> [snorts] >> I came across your video of YB Jewish and I was absolutely blown away. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Me, too. I have given that sheer probably hundreds of times and I laugh each time and I'm moved each time because it's not me, it's Mesillas Yesharim. It's the first two lines of Mesillas Yesharim which he calls the Yesod and the Shoresh of everything that we do. So, it's just and he says the only benefit of this safer comes from khazering it. So, you know, I I appreciate it. I decided to share with a friend of mine who is struggling with Yiddishkeit. I didn't think she'd have patience listening to a sheer. So, I told her to listen to the first 10 minutes and if she wants we can close it but guess what? She was riveted to her seat the entire time. Yeah, I find also if I want people to listen when I rivet them to the seat. You know, you or even crazy glue, you know, then I know they'll stay till the end. >> [laughter] >> My brother-in-law, Rabbi Dovid Lichtman, who should have a khamei just lost his mother. Um he gives shiurim in prison in Israel. So, talk about a captive audience. Anyway, um she was riveted to her seat the entire time. She loved it and she can't stop saying how it changed her entire view on Yiddishkeit. So much that she shared it with her own friends that are also struggling with Yiddishkeit and that girl too was totally blown away. Thank you for the video. Isn't that great? I have to tell you to all of my loyal listeners, there are every week I meet people who didn't even know I had a podcast and they go back to the beginning and listen to a years of this stuff. Yeah? And after that you have to go into detox because it's rough, you know? And uh if you think there's anything worthwhile we we've ever said here and you want to share this with people, please you you help a lot of people. You don't even realize it. Okay, first of all, every one of your shows and shiurim are enjoyed and appreciated and yes, I have noticed for years that you get in the serious stuff without within the comedic backdrop. I appreciate that. I had somebody who said to me once, "You know, I've been listening to your serum for years and it finally hit me. You say a lot of deep stuff." I said, "What are you trying to do? Kill my parnossa? Just say he's funny. That's why people listen to me." But yeah, I managed to slip in some things. So, thank you if you notice. I have a tremendous amount of hakaras hatov. All that I've heard, learned, inspired. A number of years ago at a project inspire Shabbaton, I bumped into you in the parking lot. And as a somewhat amateur speaker myself, I asked, "How is it you can say over certain jokes many times and still say it and laugh like it's the first time?" You responded, "It's easy. You just don't remember SAYING IT BEFORE." >> [laughter] >> IT'S TRUE. I HAVE A TERRIBLE MEMORY. WHO SAID, "How could you laugh at your own jokes?" I said, "I'm also hearing them for THE FIRST TIME." >> [laughter] >> AND THAT'S it for this week. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website rabbiorlovsky.com. You can leave a comment. You can sign up for an online [music] share. You can sponsor an episode. We're starting to run out of sponsors again. We need your help. Um you can sponsor parsha and five. You could sponsor question and answer. And that's it for this week. I am Dov Orlovsky and this has been the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. Torah and Simcha, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlovsky Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to [music] rhyme, though we know it. It's the Rabbi Orlovsky Show. rabbiorlovsky.com Torah anytime. YouTube [music] and more. It's Rabbi Orlofsky show. Torah and Simba, ready to go into the Rabbi Orlofsky show. Till next time, till we meet again, the Rabbi Orlofsky show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky show.