Bernard Heitner asks "Are you a spectator, or a player?"

good morning olamide [Music] [Applause] I don't know listening to me after such an introduction of you guys dancing it's like this is a big letdown for you all but I'm sorry I have to start off by saying um I'm so moved and touched and um to watch you all see together I wish my parents would be able to be here to see it but I hope to introduce you a bit to my family my history and explain who I am what I am I know one thing I am I believe today that none of you are and I'm actually a kiwi I'm born in New Zealand anybody else born in New Zealand in this whole Hall no there you are I'm unique [Applause] but I have a very fortunate a tremendous story it's a story that starts my parents both Holocaust Survivors my father survived the war because he's enlisted in 1940 in the Russian army and came back home to see his whole family wiped out every single member of his family wiped out my mother also came from a similar area in Galicia or today Ukraine both of them came within like 100 kilometers of each other and my mother survived hidden in the forest and her whole family was wiped out and only had one sister who also passed away unfortunately very young by parents had their faith and I was very fortunate to have parents that wanted to continue the Traditions that they saw in their homes my parents were in Vienna right after the war and through the Red Cross they were sponsored they found an uncle that moved to New Zealand before the war and he sponsored them for the Red Cross New Zealand is so far away and so unknown when my father arrived they asked him what religion he was and he said Jewish and they said is that Protestant Jewish or Roman Catholic Jewish that's how much they knew about Jewish people but my father came to a new land he worked hard and established a business and very involved in the community and he actually was involved in fixing up the Mikvah 1954 and unusually four years ago I got a request and I personally knows me from Canada zail Newman who's very involved with ncsy and he says Benson I've got this call from a person in New Zealand I'd like to know whether you could help out in building their Mikvah I said why do you come to me he says well you're from Australia Australia New Zealand you know it's the same thing but little did he realize that it was the same mixer that my father was involved in many many years ago and my father made a commitment for Education he had started up a business he had an active business and he realized that New Zealand was not a place for a future for Jewish children he got up packed his bags and moved to Sydney Australia is where which is where I grew up and just to explain my history I I think I really grew up in the shadows of the Holocaust and I just bumped into somebody last night and they said to me for the first 40 years nobody spoke about it and that was true I grew up um yesterday Charlie Harari was talking about the heroes the true heroes and you have this image of this GI Joe or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dwayne Johnson The Rock that's that they were all talking about the heroes but those weren't my heroes My Heroes was a shul It was 95 Holocaust Survivors they spoke multiple languages you'd hear Hungarian polish but they were my heroes they were the people broken guilt-ridden and having families wiped out and yet continued their lives continued in the ways of their father and their forefather and the shul resonated this Unity despite how much suffering they went through and they didn't talk about it I think only I only appreciate it now when I look back at the time I used to always wonder what are these people always breaking out and yeah but one thing I heard all the time was Yiddish which I grew up in my house my parents spoke to me Yiddish all the time and being from they spoke this all this horrible English how do you know I am from Hungary like you know um they all had this terrible accent spoken a broken English but they rebuilt Judaism they put efforts in to make sure there were schools they did everything possible to ensure that the kids were educated properly and my parents are the same thing they sent me when I finished high school they sent me away to Yeshiva to herits Israel and it was the time my parents were very comfortable I didn't see my mother once for a stretch of two years I wrote letters every day I don't know if you guys know what they are aerograms these things that we used to send and I don't know what I wrote for three three four aerograms a week sitting in Yeshiva when I don't know but I seem to manage to fill them up my father wrote these beautiful long letters and he had a beautiful Hebrew and a beautiful Yiddish that he was proud of and um it was something that he appreciated the importance of I went to a Yeshiva called yeshiva's called Torah it was a Yeshiva which had the leading of its time which is one of the the biggest most famous people in in the last century who lived in Israel an amazing individual and I had the going there and learning in this Yeshiva so I always had this strength I went back home I qualified as an accountant and I again went back to learning after qualifying as an accountant went back to London or I met my wife from Vienna Austria and I've repeated it many times but I always say I told the Matchmaker I wanted to go from Australia and he thought I said Austria so um today we're married and have work Hashem five lovely children and 30 plus grandchildren [Applause] and continuity is everything and people ask me what's it like to be Jewish what does it mean um I think the words that always come to me is is you see which means dedication to become you know to be committed to something I met interestingly a few weeks ago a man that nechama Wilson recommended to me Elon Cosman he has a massage in Israel called schlavim and like always when the people meet me what's my story and what's my accent and and I told him the story of my parents and he said bencino I have to tell you something very interesting I went to yeshivas like you but I also went to the Israeli Army and I think part of he said of their cursed synonym their offices course they had to go to Zebo care to see him visit the grave of David Ben-Gurion and he said we've been seeing I went there and I noticed something very unusual only to on the tombstone of David Ben-Gurion there were only four simple lines David Ben Gurion these years that he lived Zion to touch in Hebrew the Hebrew years under that was another line 1886-1973 and then 1974 and then it said went up to Israel in the year 1906. that's all it said and he went up to the person that you have I think a whole museum there and he asked him how come that's all that they have written on his headstone he's a man that built built Israel the first Prime Minister he basically single-handedly brought about the existence of the state of Israel and how come that's all they can put on his tombstone and he said the lady didn't have an answer he said I don't know maybe it's less is more or um he didn't know and he said bension I'll tell you what I told her and I think is true the most difficult thing for an individual to do is to pack up leave your background Where You Are and go to another place because of a Cause that's what defined him everything else he'd done he did after that he considered to be easy the most difficult thing is change what you're doing out of the routine you have he lived in plants in Russia his family lived there hundreds of years pack up move to Israel because of his belief in the state in the country of Israel that defined David Ben Gurion everything else making the state prime minister really falls in the background is insignificant that's and that's something that I think all of you should be able to take that message after you go to this you meet people changing your life in the direction that you're in is one of the hardest things to do and that's what defined him um I was introduced before about my business I see it as really insignificant what happened I borrow Hashem I came to I came to Canada on a job offer I worked for an accountant for a few years and one of the clients Sandy hofstadter or people might know in Toronto is a very well-known individual and he said to me better you're not an accountant you're a businessman I took up his advice and the first business I started which he actually invested in failed did not do well but what does one do when one fails one continues I started another business in 1992 Cambridge Mercantile literally two people in a room selling precious metal foreign exchange or this little piece of paper and I always dreamed if I could fill the number of trades on this one page landscape I'm not talking portrait I'd be thrilled and that little business of two people grew to a 400 people with offices across Canada across the U.S 50 people working in London in Europe two offices in Australia Sydney Melbourne and ended up becoming successful more than my wildest dreams I'm asked was that my goal when I started off no um but Hashem I think I had siata dishmire I always believed in helping other people and going out of my way and I think this is a privilege and the other question I always get asked is um do you regret having sold your business and I say no it's the best thing I ever did I have the ability now to pay back and give back to the community so that's what I'm trying to do I don't know how long I have up here but I I think I'll finish off with a story that I've heard in different forms Ralph herzka who actually is also very involved with follow me he told me this story and it's a story with the LA Barbara and it resonates with me tremendously I'm not a concert of Lubavitch but there's a story that a man came with his son was becoming Bar Mitzvah to see and he came there for a blessing and the rabbit gave him his Blessing and as he was leaving the rebbe called back the boy and asked him he says do you like sports and the boy said yeah of course I do he says which sports do you like he says of course New York New York Yankees he said and what do you learn from the game of baseball for Judaism and little boy looks up to the rabbi and he thinks the guy's nuts what I learned from Judaism is the New York Yankees sucked last week besides that I I can't apply I don't know anything so he says I'll tell you he said you went to a game last week he said yes he says how many Spectators were there so I don't know 45 50 000 people and he said how many players were there so I know there's 26 players on a baseball team so that's 52 players he says in life do you want to be a spectator or do you want to be a player in Judaism do you want to be a spectator or do you want to be a player I think that's the message which resonates with me and I think should resonate with you unfortunately a lot of people just want to be Spectators I don't believe the group of people that are here are spectators I believe you're a bunch of players and players that will make a difference to yourself to your community and to Claudia Israel thank you very much thank you