Welcoming Remarks - Rabbi Sam Shor & Rabbi Avi Berman

arov and welcome everyone it is my great to kick off this incredible evening of akut and kuk my name is Rabbi Sam Shaw and I have the great honor to work with the incredible OU Israel team and I want to just begin the evening by saying thank you to my entire o our entire oo family my incredible oo colleagues who literally put heart and soul into everything we do for CLA but particularly for this evening so I want to say thank you to our incredible [Applause] team marra I also want to say thank you to our incredible friends here at Kil Nim a little over a year ago we'll talk more about Nan in a moment a little over a year ago many of us spent the afternoon together here in this very same besset also learning and preparing for rosh and little did we know the year that lied ahead of us and shortly into that incredible incredibly challenging first few weeks of the mil our friends at Kilim open their doors to the ooor the oo community and we have forged an incredible partnership throughout this entire year one one that already existed barem but that has become even strengthened throughout the course of this year and every Tuesday Morning the evidence of that of that partnership is here every Tuesday Morning where literally dozens and many dozens of individuals come to learn Torah every single week and we thank rshi and the entire Community for opening your show once again this evening and for your sweet friendship and Leadership [Applause] I mentioned a moment ago my incredible o ISO colleagues so last week in modin we we we did the first round of this and our fearless leader um was actually representing us at a at an OU staff conference in America and wasn't with us so it's a great honor for me to be able to introduce and welcome Rabbi Avi Burman the executive director of o Israel literally the engine in the heart and soul of everything we do and without further ado AI thank you Rabbi Sam and thank you bit the entire U team for uh putting together this and the other evenings together of t t tat to Rana to come up when I stand and I see Jews coming to learn how to connect to connect to the Torah to connect to the holidays to connect to meaningful days days instead of doing many other things that they could do it shows me CLA Isel is thirsty CLA shell is looking for more and more and more and I want to take this opportunity to thank the fund family David and Norma were very dear friends of the OU Mish family of the OU and to see that these events are happening again and again and expanding every single year um dedicated in memory of David and Norma is really warms my heart to no end so thank you to the entire fund family for making sure that this can happen when I was a kid learning in uh High School here in Israel we learned by Rim jman in oron and I remember him teaching us a song the first shabas who were in Yeshiva and those of you that knew R Jan's voice he wasn't exactly the uh best singer in the world he had many talents and a giant tal but his voice was not exactly uh that of uh a famous singer but I remember him standing and teaching us this song of [Music] and I remember sitting there and asking myself what what what is this song about if I had the I would go out to the that's what I was thinking about then sure kids from Tel AV were think about shuk car and what does that mean if I had the k you then scream out well people don't know shabas is today but then that song built up with me and I remember enjoying sing it singing it every single time because I said in life gives us opportunities to be able to tell the world what's important to us what we believe in and what is em and every rashash Shana we stand and we say very similar Pim not about chabas but about [Music] understanding what we want in this world and I feel that in 72 hours when we going to be standing in our shs on Wednesday night daving the first Fila of and we're going to be saying the exact same words we said last year we're going to all realize that we received a boost to be able to say these words in a much more impactful way in a much more meaningful way and the words are as following we're asking we want to live in a world where every creature in this world is going to acknowledge and understand that you are the Reon that you are the king of this world and our job coming rash is to be to Crown again with the crown of of kingship I happen to have been in the United States last week like Rabbi Sam said I went to the senior staff Conference of OU and I was I landed in the United States the day that for some odd reason beepers were going off in Lebanon and while I was in the United States exactly a week earlier what I saw there I'm sure everybody here saw as well is that suddenly the color came back to the faces of CLA Israel we suddenly saw Jews that since were asking themselves where's that Israel that I knew and the fact that Israel is not taking claim that we did it but that suddenly 5,000 beepers go off and then everything that we've seen since to manage to get 85 one ton bombs to fall in the exact same spot within 15 seconds of each other without one plane being scratched or any single soldier being hurt if anybody can come and say that that is not a miracle and that does not show aesu is the king of this world then I don't know what does when the Iranians send 331 missiles on clis with one goal of harming Jews and not one Jew is scratched not one Jew is scratched we are able to stand Rashana and say every single Creature if they just open their eyes today could easily see that AES is the king of the world how lucky are we that we get to be his Nation to learn his Torah to celebrate his holidays and to be able to inspire all those around us and that's what we're doing here today we're filling up our cups so we can go back to our Yan of tables shabas table we're going to have whole bunch of those meals in three days and sit at those tables and Inspire those that are around us we'll be able to have the greater cavana during DAV we still have a lot to achieve this year and hopefully by the time rashash comes we'll all be able to take off our pins and we'll have our brothers and sisters back with us and we've been through a lot of hardship this year but the ability that we have to focus on the greatness KES has given us this year is what makes us CL and what Ena abled us to overcome 2,000 years in Exile to and to put us in the place where we are today where we are ready for the Third [Music]