Caring for Klal Yisrael in Times of War - Opening Remarks

past five months we have all I think every single one of us put our heart and soul like we always do into caring for CLA cell and this is a day that is designed specifically to beaz one another to strengthen one another to support one another to better Empower us and position us to continue to serve clel during these difficult times and it's a great scute to host you all here there'll be many many other colleagues that'll be joining us throughout the course of the day and we appreciate people taking the time to be here and to be a part of this special community of those who care for kist so thank you and your Shak to all of you I want to begin with a few thank yous first of all I want to thank the incredible staff here at Mish shim who have been incredibly helpful today in terms of getting everything set up I particularly want to thank our dear dear friends Esme and cman Bookman whose generosity has enabled us to be able to put this entire dat together they're are are silent Partners but are very kind and sweet friends and for many years now have been Partners in everything we do here at OU Isel so we thank the Bookmans very very much I also want to thank our dear dear friend Rabbi David fine my dear friend and colleague who um the minute that I reached out to him and said we're thinking about this does barai have any suggestions about how we could do this so Rabbi F who heads the barai Institute we thank you for everything you've done to put this day together and for all your help not only this day but always so it's say Shak for being being such a big part of what we do I also want to thank uh he's not here because he's traveling to America Ira prco from get help Israel you'll notice in your bags there's a special booklet from get help Israel which is a network of English-speaking mental health professionals throughout all of Israel I proa from God help Israel was instrumental in setting up this entire day selecting the topics that we're going to discuss today helping us F identify many of the outstanding speakers we're going to hear from throughout the day so we thank Rabbi fine and Ira and we thank get help Israel barai for being our partners as well in this day lastly of course want to thank my incredible U Isel colleagues for everything they do they put their heart and soul into everything every single moment and especially today so thank you all and it's my honor to introduce my oo colleague the executive director of o Israel Rabbi AI Burman for S braa and to introduce our speaker after that as well everyone and uh thank you and for being here literally everybody sitting here for taking time out of your busy and important schedules to be while I'm sure that uh we're going to gain tools today that will help us on a personal level I know that each and every one of us are here to gain tools to be help able to help CL the reality is is that we have a major task in front of us um as the this is our we're right now on a mission as Rabbi Howard is here with me this is our 28th Mission since October that we brought to Israel and I think that uh as time goes on every individual we meet with whether it's families whether it's B families whether it's hostages families politicians Mayors Etc the word that keeps on going over uh being repeated again and again and again is the mental health uh the stability of the community the stability of the families and um the fact that we're Gathering here today is coming and saying we want to do something about it but it's gigantic it's absolutely gigantic and the question is are we able to do it is the fact that we're sitting 50 people 60 people in a room learning tools is that going to do it in order to be able to make sure we're going to make a change and now look in this week's para and this week's paraa tells us that the day that the mishin was built he came with Mish worked hard on it you know to build a mishkan to pick up those gigantic poles to put those yot on top of the mishan it didn't happen on its own tell us that and couldn't have picked up those PO on their own they couldn't put the OT up on their own was the one that gave them the ability to to make it happen but it's them that put in the hard effort that was standing there picking up the poles and once they were doing it themselves they had the to make it happen and I think that there's no difference in what's happening in CL today the fact that we're standing here today and saying we are going to pick up these polls but we can't do it without you and we need theay we need you to give us the right words to say we need you to give us the right thoughts to say we need you to give us the to be able to deal with hearing the most horrific things in the world but we promise you as Leaders of that we're going to try our best to make it happen and and our hard work we will do it I want to thank Rabbi mosah how is the Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union worldwide for your endless work in guarding CL Isel both in America Israel and the world and uh RAB Hara took his position as covid started um and I don't think that when he decided to take the position in the OU he would knew that know within the first four years he would be dealing with two major crisises but um this is my opportunity to thank aesu for making sure that he put the right person in the right in the right position at the right time thank you and thank you RAB har for everything that you [Applause] do thank you Ravi for for the kind words of introduction but but more so for your uh you're working day and night day and night um and and I have the WhatsApp messages to prove it so um your your mut for K Israel and the mut of your team of your magnificent team those present here in this room and and Beyond is something which is inspiring to all of us salant famously said that relative to ourselves we're supposed to be MIM we're supposed to believe in God and relative to others we should act as if there is no God that it's completely in our hands and so just to be a partner to my partner aavi who spoke of theay I would like to turn in a certain sense in a certain sense to ourselves and I think that that's what the purpose is of this day and maybe to Perhaps Perhaps frame it by a half PK a half verse in millas Esther which deserves to be up in lights because it's the core in a certain sense of the story migas eser when it introduces us to the isi to morai and it says he was he was taking care of Esther because she had no father or mother when her father and mother died Mor took her for himself for a daughter the gorah says strikingly that right after Esther was conceived her father died and right after she was born in childbirth her mother died in a certain sense this is a an expansion on the heritage of her family she was from shet bamin and binyamin was born his mother gave up her life in in childhood and Mori is the hero of the story is he he the hero of the story because he did didn't bow down to ham is he the hero of the story because he called upon Esther at some point in time and to say this is your moment you have to step up is he the hero of the story because he was there at the right moment when aash awoke he was the hero of the story because when Esther was there without a father and mother he stepped in to take care of her that is the moment the defining moment which everything else just unfolds that was the defining moment we may even be so bold as to suggest that when we have this rich rich tradition that it's the tears of RA that bring us the G so what does that mean so we're we're used to the right the T that we read on Comforts her but think about it Benyamin was born and he didn't have a mother that was that was that was Ra's ache benari Ben onlyi benari what's going to be with my child and hey Ben Yan grew up just fine he grew up just fine we don't have took him describing the trauma the difficulty that bamin carried through his life because he didn't have a mother why it wasn't just AES who told who told R everything's going to be okay it was Leia and bah and zilpa who said this child is not going to be our child and that's the key to the Future to Redemption I don't have to tell you where where the people of this country are where the children of this country are where the families of this country are in many it's literally in many cases in other cases it's not literally BOS but it is fig atively the level of insecurity the level of the loss of a sense of support of a support system of confidence in a support system whether October 7th or you know the people yesterday who we spent some time with from kirona who feel like their support system you know they they've had the why do we have to leave and then we have to leave and okay so there's compensation with you like like there's so much and it's not just it's everywhere and our role as individuals to just look around us into anyone who's in our Sphere not of influence but of care our sphere of care and to step forward to take everyone everyone everyone we encounter as our own child it's difficult takes a lot takes a lot to give a lot and should help a lot I also believe in God don't worry should help us that we should we should rise to it and we should find the resources to be able to do it and Hashem should give us the strength to do it but there's so much that is upon us and it's a beautiful magnificent thing that that uh we're coming together today to get some both some practical tools and some strength from each other to be able to do it [Music] well