Torah Efrat Opening Remarks- Rav Shlomo Katz, Rabbi Sam Shor & Rabbi Avi Berman

before we say anything we first of all our hearts our are continue to be every single second for for the immediate return of all everyone will come and join us so welcome to Welcome to our to our sh here inat we see many familiar faces but it's also very beautiful to see people here that um for the first time so it's very very much very very heartwarming and I want to give a tremendous tremendous yes it's a it's such an honor for us to partner with u Israel our dear it's by now it's it's really M that she Israel connection and I also want to thank everyone from the sh itself that worked very hard behind the scenes and I specifically just want to mention our dear friend Josh caner for working very hard on this evening I really appreciate it very very much and since this is the first time that we've had a uh an evening like tonight in this format every time we'll have the opportunity to will keep on learning and growing and getting it better and better and better so before I call up my dear friend who's sitting right over here next to me there's one statement in the gamar that R cook I figur it's such an such a beautiful way if we could start with the light of the K of the one who who knew how to speak to our hearts his words continue to speak to our hearts in such a magnificent way of cooks per on a statement from the gar andan whoever Mourns over so he merits to see it in its happiness and Rook points out the obvious question should have been said whoever Mourns over should Merit to see it rebuilt what do you mean why does it say that it sees it and it's and bless you that you see it in its s shared that many people see y being built and it doesn't necessarily fill their heart and soul with s we see a lot of good things happening to us even though this year was very very difficult to see it but even within that boy did we see am Isel this year are we seeing am Isel this year but the only way to see big things happening and for it to fill you with s is if you were able to cry over the things before they were rebuilt and before they were fixed if you know how to cry then when good things happen you'll know what it means to be this evening we're privileged to have here in this building a number of besides just being very very special people and tremendous Educators in their fields we have people that know how to cry over yam they know how to cry over Brokenness and there are also people who know how to be when things get rebuilt and that's such an amazing thing to go to tonight or to put our focus on learning how to cry in order to learn how to be we should all Merit to have that part of our all of us should learn if we still need to for the moments that we're in right now we should learn how to lead because what's waiting for us the we're all waiting for it so desperately like we wrote in the title broken hearts waiting for the G it is such a dear for me to introduce my friend of kimat 25 years who have the privilege of working on so many different projects with RAB Sam sh is the program director of the OU Israel Center and it's a to have you here in our home and hopefully it's the first of many [Applause] so so first of allra I want to thank you and your entire incredible Kila for opening your your home to us and I also maybe I'll share just as a part of an announcement I'll share my most embarrassing moment in rabanus the story of my most embarrassing moment in rabanus I was a 25-year-old young Rabbi intern and the senior Rabbi the mardas in the community was on a six-month sabatical away from the community and there was a very sweet old elderly gentleman who passed away and I was called into action to officiate at his levia and I sat with the family the night before the funeral and I prepared a what I thought was a very a very Hur sick very warm uh personal tribute to this fine gentleman and in those days in those days the only people that had one of these were business Executives and rabbis okay rabbis ha in case there was God forbit an emergency or if you were involved like us in many many things in terms of communal INF infrastructure for Co you if you had to checking a product for kous so you had a you had a you had a cell phone but very few people had cell phones so I get up in front of this packed house to speak about one of these pillars of our community who have passed away and all of a sudden we hear a cell phone ringing and I knew it was my cell phone not only because in those days no one else had cell phones but because I had a very distinct ringer on my phone was an Asian jingle it's a Gong was going off and I ever since that embarrassing moment my most embarrassing moment in rabanas to my wife's sh grin my phone remains on silent and vibrate 25 years later 20 28 years later and so I encourage everyone to check their phones right now before we get started and make sure that our phones are indeed on silent and vibrant as mentioned our theme for this evening is broken hearts ready for Gula three times every day when we stand and Dav in and say theid we DAV that should be rebuilt speedily beu in our days now the re of retal rets he say that that opening bra that of those words the wordu can mean either speedily in our days or beu with our days through our days the way in which we spend our days says the rebbi of Retz can contribute to building the Bas mikdash orom preventing the B mikdash from being built one of the many interesting associated with Tish and challenging associated with Tish is the fact that we don't say the saddest day of the year and we don't say and those of us that are familiar with this know that the reason is that hopefully one day soon TSH will be transformed to be a moade tshav in its Essence is a day of Celebration not a day of sadness so rosha Wilson side he say F he says we can see this idea even extended to the fact in terms of the practice that we have not to put on Fillin on Tab morning how can it be that we wait all day literally till the end of the day to the end of the afternoon to put on so Cesar mosha will say the most beautiful idea he said we wake up on T shabab morning and we're still hopeful we're still hopeful that some point during the day we're going to be blessed to greet mhu and this day will be transformed to a day of Celebration to the mo it's intended to be it's only after we go through the whole day and we see that sadly tragically we're still waiting for mashia that we finally realize we have to put on Fillin that this day is not yet a mo my BR for every single one of us as We Gather here tonight for this awesome evening of and inspiration and is that as we prepare for Tish on one hand yes we're ready ifom remains a day of Brokenness and sadness but please God we should be to sing together to dance together on the mo of it is my to introduce my dear colleague and Friends AB AI Burman the heart and soul of U Israel oh is's executive director to share a few words [Applause] of to to to all those that worked very very hard to make sure that this evening is going to be an uplifting and inspiring evening for each and every one of us because we are all in desperate need for this evening to be an uplifting and inspiring I stand here as uh the executive director of the OU in Israel thanking the fun family for giving us a task I believe seven eight years ago of putting on an event that's going to be K Torah in memory of David and Norma fund their parents that event was thank was thank God a major success in Yim last year we took it from to and mod and this year we're taking it toat and the fact that two incredible Jews David and Norma who had the tremendous honor of knowing and being friends had the vision of English speakers coming to Israel and becoming a source of Torah a source of doing good and a source of changing the country really is uh so for this Torah to be in their memory so I want to thank family for doing this in their memory last year remember before October 7th the woods of world so last year I was approached by our director of marketing and director of social media Leia and Mina and they said to me AI how about we put together a video for fish so well that sounds pretty boring because everybody's watching either Rabbi weinreb or Rabbi berson or Rabbi wild or Rabbi Howard you know all the different OU platforms and all people want is kinot and they say to me like no but maybe there are many people that are not in Yim and they want to connect to Yim because you know Yim is where everybody wants to be on Tish so they convinced me to do this video and uh to be quite honest I I I was very skeptical at the beginning uh but because they yes I went along with it and we were successful literally few hours before tab to get it uploaded to YouTube and by the end of tab we had 46,000 views for 28 minute video talking about what we had inash and what we're going to haveen mikash and I was taken by surprise I said to myself really there are 46,000 people that wanted to watch a 28 minute video about bet mikash is that incredible that's amazing and I'm I closed my eyes the end of that Tish Le year and I Tred to ask myself if we would have gotten 46,000 views two or three or four years earlier and I don't think it has to do with YouTube being more popular or less popular or us having more followers on the OU Israel Channel or not but when I stand here and look at 400 people in a room that I hear saying very clearly to we want the end of this we don't want to sit on the floor anymore in Tish we want to dance in bet mikdash that comes and shows me that we're getting closer you know we all know I didn't say anything for the last three weeks and I don't want to be but we all know that the three weeks are always three weeks that we all have to be extremely careful and unfortunately K Isel has known many many tragedies during the three weeks over the generations and unfortunately we had today another tragedy where a 20-year-old yonatan was killed in the bik but when I look at these three weeks and I didn't think sit down stati with Statistics and graphs Etc but my gut tells me that these past three weeks clel has destroyed more enemies than any three weeks definitely in recent history and I try to think of what has happened the last three weeks and I say we've had a lot of good accomplishments we still have a lot more to do but we're getting close to Tish and the Theory comes and says the following if Tish itself like RAB Sam said is is supposed to be hopefully very soon a a day of holiday then the 3 weeks before are supposed to be the preparation for that holiday which means they themselves are also supposed to be much happier than when Tish is a said that so if we're just finishing now three weeks and they've been a better three weeks than we've ever had that is sending us a sign that our hearts are Desiring what be is going to happen we're not just ready for the Gul we're anxious for the G we are excited for the G and us sitting here today coming and listening through an entire evening full of Torah talking about the and talking about how ready we are for the shows that it's going to be hopefully very soon Nina convinced me thank you Nina convinced me to do another video for this year I told her on condition that we have the chance of not putting it up because is going to be a y so hopefully you won't see it and Nina worked with zei for nothing but I want to thank you all for showing a k how much our desire is our passion is to see that mikash hopefully very very soon [Music]