Rabbi Shlomo Farhi at the Olami Siyum

thank you so much Charlie or Airy thank you so much to the entirety of hola me for putting together this magnificent evening amazing I have to say I'm very very happy with my job but every once in a while actually my job makes me sad because they asked me to come for Shabbat and what a historic Shabbat this was and I was unable to be there because I have a job in a synagogue and they don't let me take off Shabbat so tonight I was I'm a little bit jealous I'm not gonna lie but I have the opportunity to speak to you for a short amount of time and I'd like to make the most of it if that's okay with you my friends opportunity is dead at least that's what NASA would have us believe well there we go and we're back yeah having that voice yes I do okay 15 years ago January 25th 2004 NASA sent a little tiny Rover called opportunity they sent it all the way up to Mars it was supposed to be there for 90 days it was going to capture images of that reddish planet that sits right up there in the sky and in our imagination and you know was amazing this little Rover that was supposed to be there for 90 days winds up out living its mission by 55 times and it is in operation for nearly 15 years and it is only in the past year in 2019 where this rover died and the reason why is because it was powered not by batteries not by Everlast not by Duracell it was powered by the Sun and every time in the freezing climate on Mars this thing stopped working and the Sun disappear from you the Sun would rise again and again it would power this little Rover and it would carry on taking us to new sites on that distant planet but ladies and gentlemen or very few ladies mostly gentlemen really I did ok I'll take that all right I'll have it I'll take what I can get random clap all right yeah thank you thank you if you could just laugh now like I told the great joke that would also be awesome thank you thank you thank you thank you I prepared that one earlier guys what's amazing is that this Rover finally stops and doesn't move on any longer because eventually enough mud enough dust covered its panels that when the wind would blow across the desolate expanse of Mars it couldn't get the dust off the panels and those panels were no longer exposed to the Sun and I was reading this article and I was shocked by something it made me think that all of us are exactly like this little tiny Rover with the Torah and the mitzvoth and our heritage and its wisdom is an eternal Sun it shines through the darkest of times but sometimes it doesn't animate us and sometimes the Jewish people loses its way and sometimes people are disconnected but it's not because the Torah is any less relevant in fact those images that I saw of you guys studying in the yeshiva just now they made me cry I'm 41 years old but when I was 5 years old every morning my parents would stick me on a yellow school bus and I would drive the 40 minutes that it would take to get here from deal New Jersey because this was where you got a Torah education so from the age of 5 until eventually I got married and I studied in the same holes that you studied tonight to see what I saw tonight was magnificent sometimes we get covered by a little bit of that dirt and we are not accessing the power of the Sun and the question is why there was an elderly Russian gentleman whose name was Xia this shoe was a caretaker in a synagogue called Landau's it's a place where you get a minyan anytime of day or night and this caretaker he was noticed by one of the gab eyes of the synagogue and a man whose name is hi I'm stroll awaits he sees this man and every day he's there he puts on a tallit but he's not putting on his tefillin every day same story he doesn't put on tefillin and one day he walks up to me he says I've noticed you're not putting on the tefillin is there any reason why and the man says in a broken Russian accent he says I don't have to fill him I don't have I am says to him don't you know there's extra pairs you could borrow one of the pairs in the room it's right over here and the man says yes put the tefillin are very expensive and I'm nervous maybe I'll drop it maybe I'll ruin it I'm too nervous to use them I am he hears this man who clearly prays every day of his life he doesn't have a pair of tefillin he goes around quietly to a few of the rich men in the synagogue he says we have a Russian gentleman here who doesn't have a pair would you mind they chip in and they buy a pair of tefillin that morning hi I'm walks in and he says sucia a few of the guys in the shul they noticed they put together a couple dollars and he has a pair of tefillin and the man starts to cry and he says that these for me the time says yeah they're for you do you like me would you like me to show you how to put them on and sister says no thank you he takes the tefillin rolls up his sleeve puts on the shell Yad makes a blessing fluently he puts it on like a champ then he gets the shell rajesh the one from the head he puts it on again he's Ashkenazi makes the blessing on the head one puts it on fits it perfectly and time is wandering he says to him you don't have to fill it when was the last time you put on tefillin that you put them on so guys listen to this and this sure says roughly 60 years ago on the day of my bar mitzvah I was in Siberia with my father we'd been banished because we were practicing Judaism in Russia it was the day of my bar mitzvah I put on the TV lean that day and that day was the last day I saw the tefillin and my dad I haven't put on since then she said so how do you know how to make the blessing so well and this she says because every day since my bar mitzvah in my mind I put the tefillin on I say the blessing I imagine it I haven't missed a single day since I was 13 but now and he starts crying again he says now I'm putting them on for real guys I've been doing this for a long time speaking to people about Judaism trying to inspire to wake up a dormant spark trying to get a little bit of dust off the panel's so that the light of the Torah can can ignite those solar panels so that the machine can work again none of us none of us rabbis we don't make you into wise Jewish people all we do is kind of dust you off a little bit expose you to the light and then suddenly something which is your birthright kicks in but for so long for so many people they have the words of Torah in their heart they've been putting it on every day since their Bar Mitzvah it just doesn't manifest in their brains as the words of a talmud bava kamma or brock heart it doesn't manifest as the words of the parasha but they deeply proud of being Jews and if you ask them why they can't even explain it to you from the moment they're born those words of Torah in their heart like Sitia but maybe over the last few days you've been able to put on an actual pair of tefillin so to speak and study the actual words there was a woman whose name was nina ostrov she came from the Soviet Union to Israel and she would take her granddaughter Katya to school every day because her son and her daughter was so busy working that they could to support the family that they couldn't take Katya Katya goes to a school called Shu vu and one day Nina Ostroff walks in with her granddaughter Katya and she's jabbering quickly speaking Russian and nobody in this in the school knows what she's saying but she seems to be very agitated so they said to her Nina can we help you calm down is everything okay is there an emergency should we call 911 over there $1.99 whatever it is Israelis do that just to be difficult by the way well though either that or that they just don't want the Americans to survive you were a sadistic bunch of clappers by the way Nina I don't speak I don't speak Russian so I can't do an impression but Nina's chattering away in Russian and they say is everything okay and she says she says I want to speak to the principal I don't know why I did a Russian accent in English she was doing it Annie whatever you get it the principal comes in he says is everything all right and Nina says everything is fine I just came here to thank you you see I did grow up with any religion back in Russia and grow up with any religion but my grandparents were fiercely proud fiercely proud Jews when I would go to their house my grandpa my zai he would sit me on his knee and he would say to me Nina don't ever forget these words shema yisrael adonai elohenu adonai echad and he would say them to me and he would sing them shema israel hashem l okay no he would sing it every night and I promised him and my grandmother when she would like to Shabbat candles and I would go there for Shabbat even though we weren't religious she would make me promise you would say Nina promise me you'll never forget these words shema israel i sat with her and nina says and i tried so hard I tried so hard over the years to remember it but as it faded from life afraid it from flavor it excuse me as it faded from our lives as we stopped saying Shema and we stopped praying i forgot the words and at night i would sit in my bed and try and remember them and then last night I took my granddaughter Katya home from school and I put her into bed and I read her a bedtime story and I said sweetheart goodnight and Katya said oh grandma we just learned in school that something was supposed to do before we go to sleep and she covers her eyes and she says my Israel and Nina says I found myself mouthing the words with her the Torah does not belong to me as a rabbi or two rabbis with longer beards than myself it is your birthright it is the language of your youth it's what your grandparents studied and what many of them begged with tears in their eyes as their children were pulled from them in a pogrom in Europe or by the Nazis in Germany or by the by in Russia by the people by the Communists they said just remember one line we've had the chance over the last few days to speak their words we must remember to never let it fade from our collective memory you know we say in the Shema that Nina finally remembered this some time at the Variety Li please God says place these words I'll live up him on your heart and the Vilna got on rabbi le our Cramer used to say that it's a strange expression surely you shouldn't put the words on your heart you should put them in your heart and the Vilna Gaon explained he said of course that would be better but for so many of us we have so much going on and there's so many distractions in our world that not every time someone is trying to teach us something or someone is telling us to remember words - those words actually enter into our heart so the next best thing is to pile them on the heart because then in a moment of inspiration when you're sitting in a ceiling my shots and 90,000 Jews are celebrating something and it speaks to you well you're in an accident and you pray to God or you're suffering because you can't pass a test and you turn to God and you make it deal with you make a deal with God in that moment your heart opens and all that that's been sitting on that open heart for so long just Falls in it was a man whose name was Rabbi Moshe Shapiro's and in 1950 he was walking down a street in Tel Aviv called Allenby Street some of you may know it he notices that there's a little kiosk and there's an elderly man standing there big keep on his head long beard stuck out in Tel Aviv and he sees him running this kiosk he runs up to the kiosk and he says what are you doing here but you look very religious Jew in middle of Tel Aviv selling cigarettes and soda on the street he says where you from he says I'm from Minsk what's your name he says my name I can't even pronounce it robbed properly he says my name is Yank Allah ostrog or something like that and I wish I could pronounce it properly I've sinned crook or something like that of course cuz of course right I'm gonna be taking some of this with me by the way just to use for later my name is yang kala oxen Krug and he says and where are you from he says I am from America you're from America he says do you know he says our Allah sis Levitch ur cuz of course and Ramona Ramona Shapiro says actually I do how do you know him and this old man says when I was in Minsk I used to be a show that I would prepare animals to be kosher meat and every time I would make a ruble I would put aside one copic one penny eventually those pennies added up and I wanted to put them towards someone learning Torah I found two boys in Minsk that seemed to be very wise and very studious and I thought you know what if I could sponsor these boys to go to yeshiva maybe maybe I'll support Torah maybe I'll do something good he said and I sent two boys I can't remember one of them's names but the other one his name was our Allah sis Levitch er what a special boy that was what a clever boy and remote is shaking he says I know our Allah from America he says he's known in America by a different name in America he was called rabbi our own cutler the man who built the yeshiva that you all just learned in let me just rephrase the place you just learned in was one of the rooms of the many rooms that are huge dominated by what is the biggest you Shiva and them in the world he rebuilt Judaism and Torah Judaism in America and who saved this man who made him Rob our own color some guy who didn't even know what happened to him he put a couple compacts aside a little while later Rev Moshe Shapiro's returns back to his job as a rabbi in Florida and who comes to visit him on none other than rabbi yaakov kamenetsky one of the other greats there of the leaders of Jews in America he was the Russia Shiva of a magnificent yeshiva called Torah Vedad and he says you know I know rabbi you were closer than our own cutler let me tell you a story and he mentions the story of young kala and the cop X and the train ride that sent the boys to study in yeshiva in Slovakia and Ravi Akko kamenetsky said I already know the story I was the other boy this little man in a forgotten kiosk on some Street in Tel Aviv selling cigarettes and coke not that kind all right iron it was his cop ex that saved Judaism in America that built the yeshiva that I learned in and many of your rabbis did guys tonight you were sitting here with people who have also spent capex you're sitting here with people who also spent of their time they invested in you they sat and studied with you and shared their stories with you they supported this magnificent trip that you are on because we don't know if one of you might not be the next Rev our own cutler or revi akov kamenetsky they were two regular boys and someone sent them to learn a little bit to study in yeshiva to spend a little time learning that language of their youth what might become of any of you if you were to do what you just did for a couple of days for a little bit longer who knows but guys it doesn't matter if you become rob our own Cutler's it doesn't matter if you become Ravi Jakov kamenets keys because there's something that I want to share with each and every one of you if a person experiences joy excitement in their Judaism if they feel alive when they are Jewish if they think I'm you sir hi and they jump up and down if they hear of a terrorist attack in Israel and immediately feel a sense of kinship or what happened last week in Muncie an attack in the middle of a Hanukkah celebration only because the person was Jewish if that fuels you if that speaks to you then you are Jewish identity your own personal Torah that which makes you a Jew is alive and kicking under your skin you don't need to be a Russia Shiva to claim the heritage of Torah the language of your people there was a young man whose name was Yakov and he decided that he wanted to be a scribe if you've ever seen a Torah scroll you'll know that it must be handwritten it takes ages to write a Torah scroll you have to pull the ink each bit by itself shaping the letters it takes a very long time so new scribes they don't start with the Torah many times they start with the mezuzah one little square or they might start with a megillah' the little scroll that we read on Purim and Yaakov this amateur scribe did exactly the same he started drawing letter by letter he was finished it didn't go as he'd hoped the letters were uneven it wasn't exactly straight lines they didn't end on the same part of the line it looked like it was a first attempt but he'd worked really hard so he wanted to sell it but no one would buy it they found someone who sold Judaica and they said maybe you come into more contact with more buyers would you put it on the market for us and the guy said sure he goes to the house of a wealthy man and he starts showing this wealthy man one magnificent Magilla after the next each one is more perfect than the one before it and the man says no that's not it no no no and then he sees that there's one more scroll sitting on the side he says what about that one and the guy says no you don't want that one he says no no let me decide and they unrolled the scroll and immediately he looks at any smiles and he says this is the one that I want I'll pay you two and a half thousand dollars for it and the seller says have you not seen the other ones why do you want this one and listen to what the man told him he said everyone that I looked at was perfect not one bit out of the lines it looked almost like it had been written by a computer perfection but this Magilla no letter is the same size as any other letter nothing fits exactly the way this looks like it was drawn by hand it looks like it was made by a human being I want this Magilla guys God wants that Makela you see what makes it beautiful is the fact that it looks human I grew up my whole life I'm a rabbi I'm the son of a rabbi I was always going to do this but what you did tonight in the same place that I studied when I was becoming a rabbi was so much more beautiful than anything I've ever done because it was messy and it wasn't even and you didn't quite know what all the words when god looks at that Magilla and he says this is the one what you did was beautiful I'll end with the words of ravish Lomo Frey Feld rev Frey Feld was talking about how each Jew must know all of Torah all of shots and I'm sure at the SEMA show some of you thought that as well and this is beyond me how could I ever do this so he spoke about it and everyone was fired up and everyone said I'm gonna start learning and they will open their books and one boy said to the rabbi he said please can I speak to you and the boy he could see that he was emotional she said sure he steps into the officer of and he closes the door he didn't want anyone to hear and he said rabbi it was so nice what you said but it doesn't apply to me I have a really really bad form of dyslexia I can't even read in English ascendance I'm learning now how to read Hebrew you know how long it takes me everyone else you're telling them to finish books I can barely read if Frey felt said I hear you don't worry whatever you do is fine whatever you do is great come back tomorrow to my office the boy leaves the next morning he comes bright and early to Rabbi Frey Feld's office as he walks in rabbi Frey felt hands him a gift-wrapped package it's a thin it's skinny and it's long he opens up the package and inside he sees Talmud Bavli a leather-bound Talmud Bavli one of the books of the Talmud bra hawt he opens up the book and inside the book is only one page rough rifled had removed all the other pages in the book all that was there was one page refresh filled hugged his student and he said finish this and make assume it is not about the quantity of what we learn it is the quality of our engagement of how excited we are how switched on we are to understand that we are part of an evolving Jewish story you know if you're Jewish and something happens to you it's a story that happens to be Jewish if your story is Jewish that's part of the Jewish story my father ran away from Syria when he was 17 years old my grandfather ran away from Germany when he was 8 years old and here we are living in countries around the world we're in every one of these countries we have the most magnificent up Unity's the only question for our uneven Magilla of our onepage Gemara the only question that all army is asking of you is the question that God Himself asks of you give me the best you got I promise you that is good enough I promise you that is beautiful I promise you that is what your great-grandparents would look down on you now see and be so proud of may God bless all of us to make the people who made this event tonight to make them proud to have invested their compacts in us may we one day be people who our grandchildren will look to for true Jewish wisdom and guidance and then we B's okay and may we merit to experience that joy that vigor that effort that you saw in the seal mushafs where the cheers and the screams will louder than any I've ever heard in that stadium may we once again celebrate the beauty of Torah as ever it was celebrated before thank you so much shabbat off [Applause]