PIC2024 Keynote - R' Sampson - Share Your Love of Judaism With Other Jews

[Applause] ladies and [Applause] gentlemen without further Ado I introduced I reintroduce to you the founding director of project Inspire Rim [Applause] Samson a good to you all I hope you all had a wonderful shabas as wonderful as I had at first we would like just to thank my whole teamm they are such a wonderful Team all of them working in unity under rasi's guidance and Leadership I thank you all you are incredible I was once sitting with rinberg my Reby and it was during l m AR and he looked to me and he said to me you know what there's really one joke the joke said really one there's only one one joke the joke and he went on to explain to me a story which I was familiar with there was once a fellow his name is abam Cordes he lived in Baltimore he was a student an athlete he was shot in shot in the back when he came around in hospital he realized he was paralyzed from the neck down and he asked himself well what am I going to do now and he said I don't know and then he asked himself well what's life about what should I be doing and he said I don't know and he thought I've never asked that question before what life is about and then he laughed and why did he laugh he said all the time that I could move my hands and my legs I never asked the most important question of what is my life purpose and he laughed see what is laughter laughter is when you see a paradox when you see the guy with the bow tie and the bowler hat and he slips on a banana peel he thinks he's so but a banana people people can take him out it's a paradox it's funny what's the ultimate Paradox that Thea was teaching me the ultimate Paradox is when we miss the infinite because we're distracted by the finite he missed the point of existence cuz he could move his arms and his all the time he could move his arms and his feet he couldn't he never even thought of this question and that's all of us that we can walk around and say poor me when there's an infinite being that loves us every second and is pouring every moment of existence goodness with an infinite love and we can walk around saying poor me that's the joke we miss the infinite goodness we miss the fact that we hear to take pleasure in the almighty this is the greatest pleasure this is the greatest of all pleasures to have a relationship with God and we have a Torah that gives us an instru instuction manual for living how to get that pleasure and we miss it that's the joke you know we had a tragedy in our people and we suffering we know at the music festival at Nova it was a tragedy of great proportions and we're suffering and people say if they in who are in the know that a lot of these people that were there actually came from from families and they came from from families and they weren't from anymore and some people even say you know what maybe that's why it happened and we say shalom these were nishas that were looking for spirituality they were looking for connection they were looking for for meaning they were looking for it in Judaism and they didn't find it they couldn't find it our job is not to judge we're one people these are our arms and our legs our job is to spread the light and how do we do that oh heus the Torah love people and bring them the to to Torah and as Rak Weinberg used to say you can't skip the first step it doesn't say marar Mator it says oh hey was Abus love people first because that's the necessary pre PR prerequisite and Rasha Weiss explains it doesn't say o bre cadant to Torah don't love people in order to bring you got to love people independent of whether they grow or not because I love you because you're me we're cells in the body of the Jewish people and I love you no matter what you do that's the first step we have to have un unconditional love for our brothers and sisters and when they feel that unconditional love and the be open to what we have to offer and what is it that we have to offer it's that infinite pleasure it's that infinite love of the almighty that he loves us ladies and gentlemen let us share the beauty of what we have what we know that we have with our brothers and sisters in an uncond in UN in a in a way that's nonjudge judgmental that's loving if we we just do that and care about our brothers and sisters with that kind of love that they our family that they're us we share what we what they have will see Mia one of the ways that you can play your role and there are many many ways that you can play their role we've spoken over shabas but one of the ways that you can play their Your Role we' spoken about the three-day trips that we have we'd like to show you a little bit about what those things are and we look forward to your joining us thank you very [Applause] much so a project Inspire 3-day Retreat there's a mix of Torah learning prayer there's ton of fun activities ultimately the goal of project Inspire is to connect you a little bit closer to your roots to learn more about Judaism and help you grow as an individual the 3-day trips of project Inspire are designed to bring people together from all different backgrounds those backgrounds could be usually more observant less observant Safar ashkenas every lab that you could think of within the Jewish world are brought together into this 3D experience those walls and those um borders are totally broken down people that probably would just bump into in passing but now we're making friends and getting to know each other on a deeper level it is a mix of fun a high energy enjoyment activities and learning and taking away lessons that you can apply to your everyday life it's a third just hanging out a third of group activities and a third of learning so I I grew up secular the one-on-one learning has been a fascinating experience to me because it allows us to kind of find my own Clarity when I can actually understand where it comes from not only do I understand where that conclusion came from but I may actually have a different take on it project Inspire 3-day Retreat is all about Brotherhood and bonding and opening up yes we drank a lot yes we ate good food and we did some cool ziplining but it's all about the guys and the relationships and the [Music] connections you feel like you truly are one Brotherhood and people truly feel connected to each other without any labels the idea that we're all Jewish I think that's such a huge piece of it that really is that's what we're all a part of that's who we can all really congregate to and feel like we're a part of something bigger [Music] me