Project Inspire Convention 2026 - Meaningful Minute Interview with YU Team and Project Inspire

Ladies and gentlemen, this past summer, this past summer, I had the great honor of interviewing a group of guys and specifically the leader of the group. No, it wasn't the guy they called Mike. It was Zebie Sam. And and what started off as a story of a basketball team and its road to a championship turned into a story and an ongoing journey. Not only a team, but of communities around the tri-state area and beyond. This journey was is an individual journey for everyone on the team. It's a journey of a man, a young man named Zebie Samit who has who has who has created leaders and has created men of boys and people ready to take responsibility further in Cla. Ladies and gentlemen, just a short clip of this past year's Tishabove film from Project Inspire. Fall away three for the lead. For the lead. Time out. Farmingale. Oh my goodness. Debbie Summit. Zebie is our third out of five children, Leinhara. Ever since he was a little child, we noticed that he had a lot of energy. I just looked for what can I do to help channel this energy? What can I do to help nurture it in the best way possible? I would teach him how to play catch and how to throw. And very early on we noticed that he had some talent, a lot of natural talent. >> Learning wasn't that easy for him. We went through a number of schools during his childhood. But all the while we tried to still build that sports ability. My parents found a school in Tene which is called TABC, Tour Academy of Bergen County. Every single class was 40 minutes. My parents thought that it was amazing for me for my attention and to be able to sit still and and they had sports teams. We actually have a lot of appreciation for this incredible coach that Zevy had throughout high school. He really believed in all of his players and he really believed in Zevy and Zevy felt it. He at one point even told Zevy that, you know, Zevy, you express that you really want to be good at basketball. You actually have the potential to be the best >> Yeah. >> player that ever stepped on this court. It's in your hands. And he loved that. He loved that motivation. Basketball did prove to help him sit in class, focus, grow as a student and grow as a person and it proved to be a very healthy, productive outlet. >> After TABC, he went to Yeshiva called Rishid and Zabi really adapted to that inspiration. Really caught on pretty quickly. They also have a nice gym over there in which he could continue to practice. >> Then it came time after Sha Alf to decide what he's going to do for the next year. My husband said to him, "Zei, you should be thinking about is not where you're going to be learning more, but where you're going to be happy learning." That helped him make the decision to go to YU. >> Coming into YU, first day I met the guys on the team, I see one guy with a red hair, afro with earrings, see another guy with tattoos. A lot of these guys were not affiliated at all. I created a whole organization called Beyond the Court, which is the initiative of Beyond the Court stuff to help these guys just have an awesome time in Yiddish to do team bonding, but to show them that Yiddishkite is not a bunch of rules and not a bunch of dos and don'ts, but it's just having a good time and how to make a good schmuck in Yiddish. >> We saw a lot of transformation of the guys on the team throughout the years and they themselves shared how much they have grown learning from Zevy and learning with Zevy. >> Zevy's secret is he leads by action. He doesn't really tell us what to do. He just does it. And that's how we kind of follow him by his positivity and his actions. This past year when YU started, they came in as the number one seed in their conference and that was really the time to shine and try to get to that championship to win it and move to the next level. A lot of anticipation up to that game. We knew a lot of people were going to come. The championship was a roller coaster. We came to the locker room down 14 and we were very down. We were just in the same situation the previous year and it was uh heartbreaking to lose. I had two fouls. So my coach saw me out and I go into the locker room. I put my head down said Hashem if we lose help me try to accept it but if we win I said I never promise but I said Hashem I promise I'm going to use my platform to inspire many people. And I just started making shot after shot. We started coming back and one by one we made shots. They missed shots. Everything happened in our favor. This was like the biggest nace. I saw it in front of my eyes. >> Come up with play after play. Zebie flo three. Are you kidding me? Falls back FOR THREE AGAIN. COUNT THAT ONE. >> There were 30 seconds left in the game and they were up by one. Zebie just he dribbled across that court and uh and he trusted the work he's put in and we all trusted him and uh we trusted God too. FALL AWAY THREE FOR THE LEAD for the lead. Timeout Farmingdale. Oh my goodness. See seven with a four away three to take the lead with 15 seconds to go. After the championship game, we all go into the locker room and I get in there and I'm like thinking like these guys are going to all be playing rap music. And I get in there and they stop and they look at me and they go, "You ready guys?" And they all go in together. >> On the bus ride afterwards, just playing music, having a good time, but they're all wearing tits. At that moment, I realized basketball can inspire not just tens, but thousands of people. He took the opportunity to look beyond himself and to look at the team members that he's playing with and to inspire them and to help them grow and each team member did grow and they loved sharing with us and with Zebi areas that they did grow in life and in Yiddish kite and getting closer to Hashem. >> Now I keep kosher. I keep most Shabbats. I try my best and I want to do kadush every Friday night and keep all the holidays. We might have different backgrounds, different past, different shortcomings, different experiences, but we're all Jews. We're all yidden trying to do the same thing. Coming closer to Hashem, each in our own way is ultimately just be yourself. You have to be yourself. You have to try your best in your own way. But then to always look out for opportunities, ladies and gentlemen, what a beautiful story. What a beautiful story. However, as we learned this Shabas, an inspiring story is just simply not enough. It's what we do with it afterwards. I just want to mention before we go further that Zevy Samit's parents and grandfather are in the room. Want to welcome you and thank you for joining us here tonight. Inspiration itself is not enough. So how can we make it practical? How do we change the lives of the team with our community? And so we decided to make a beautiful Shabbatone because Zevi reached out to Project Inspire knowing that if you want to utilize the single most powerful tool in outreach, our Torah community, Project Inspire was the way to do it. And so we searched for a place where as Zevi put it, where could we get the best food and the most food and how could we make an amazing experience? And of course the answer was Lakewood. And so Project Inspire and Zevie Sammon and the team embarked on what turned out to be a life-changing Shabaton together. Ladies and gentlemen, a small glimpse into the Shabaton in Lakewood. Only as a community, you don't realize the people that you're dealing with on a day-to-day. They're actually searching. All you have to do is open a conversation. >> We had the great opportunity to bring the YU basketball team together with Zedi Sam to Lakewood. It was an amazing Shabas. It's so beautiful for these people to see the beauty of a Shabas, the beauty of who we really are. You know, these are not guys who do care regularly. It's a really nice opportunity to get involved on a on a little small scale. So proud of that. We wanted to give the boys the best possible experience, the most authentic experience of Lakewood. A shop in Lakewood. >> I couldn't tell you where Lakewood is on a map if I was asked in ever since I got here. It was the most incredible experience ever. It's absolutely incredible that a community that I'm not really a part of. Like I didn't grow up religious at all. But they took all of us in without any hesitation. They fed all of us. They took us into their homes. They met their families. It was it's really really meaningful to me. It's it's you can tell that it took a lot of a lot of hard work and a lot of preparation and we're all very grateful for it. >> This Shabbaton makes me makes me understand truly the power of the Jewish community and how our roots are so deep. It really just inspires it inspired me. It will keep inspiring me and I will keep remembering this weekend. I think if there there are religious people out there, I think, you know, small acts, it doesn't even have to host someone who maybe is not religious, but even having a conversation with someone who came from a different background, if we all did it, it would change it would change our our our community and it would really like change the world. Go all in. Make a difference in someone's life because we're all one nation. Someone asked me, "You think they're going to keep Shabas? They're not going to keep Shabas. It's irrelevant." The fact is that we gave them a taste of Chabas. You may not see it right now. I have no doubt that this Chabas was has as impactful on them and their future and their full their whole life. There's no question about it. If this opportunity comes up to you whether you can host a shabaton together we can go all in and bring back as many namas as possible. Ladies and gentlemen, as we heard little tidbits over Shabas about the power of that Shabas, it is my absolute honor to call on members of not only the YU team, but also the Lakewood community to have a special interview. And to do that, we call upon the king of Jewish podcast, the from podcast. We have with us tonight, Naki Gordon from Meaningful Minute is here. And I'd like to welcome up on stage Zebie Sammit, Tom Valdman, Roy Izzkovitz, Ari Saltz, and Barack Zaditz who who made a special trip from Lakewood tonight who could not be with us on Shabas. And the interviewer of course our the the world famous now, Nahi Gordon. Thank you, Nahi. What's going on everybody? How was Shabas here? It was good. Come on. Come on. Zebie, you want to know what's the most Jewish thing about me? I think I got to turn these on. By the way, guys, they ain't turning on for you. Can you imagine? Most Jewish thing about me is I feel like I could beat you in a 101. You know, like what? Like what's why do I think that? Why do I think that? It makes no sense. It's so yesish. I don't know. I just I think I could. Next year, Project Inspire is gonna show a video of me beating you. Sorry, you know, but we're not going to talk about that right now. I'm joined by some awesome people here on stage. Got to speak a little bit to Tom and Roy before we came up here. Met you guys for the first time. Tom, I'm loving the hat. It fits you perfectly. Yeah, there we go. That person who clapped is from Lakewood, right? Um, I want to start with you, Roy. Tell me about your upbringing. What was your background? >> So, um I'm from non-religious family. Uh we celebrate all the holidays and uh we pretty much like the most Israelis in uh Israel. Um coming to Y and then I looking I left Israel when I was 15, played high school ball in Northern California uh for four years, then look looked for colleges to play and then chose YU. Yeah. >> And then uh come and then I came to YU. Didn't really know much about, you know, uh Judaism at all. And then I met Zevy and uh I got the honor to meet this uh amazing guy and kind of taught me a little bit about Judaism and and kind of um shared me the the love that he has for Judaism and I kind of picked it >> Yeah. >> from him. So now I really enjoy it. that really do a lot of different things from start picking from in the morning to b to many more and >> wow I want to ask you specifically growing up what was your I guess when you thought about from Jews you know what was the thought process like >> so as I can speak for myself I think uh didn't really know much about them >> there's always like a bad kind of connotation or like a negative uh feeling about them because, >> right, >> I guess I didn't know much, >> right? >> I saw, by the way, sidebar, this is how my brain works, guys. Sorry you're going to stick with me. You took a dig at the red afro. You don't mess with the red heads, man. We're good. Come on, Zie. Not cool. Tom, tell me a little bit about about your background, where you grew up. What was your background? What's what's your upbringing like? >> Um, same. I grew up in Israel in same non-religious uh family. Uh, we do keep uh all the holidays. We do pesak, we do shot, everything. Um, also when I came to Yu, I didn't really know uh how to put filling on. The last time that I put fill in was my bar mitzvah. So it was a long time ago. And uh I mean when I met Zev, you just everything changed. Uh he just knows how to come the right way and just kind of like get through you and go to your heart and just um do it do it with love. >> Yeah. So, you know what we saw in the video, Zebie, was nice glimpser. So, I'm curious what your coach was thinking when you took that step back fade away with 15 seconds left. He He was no way he was happy about that. Right. There's no way. >> I think he I think >> you're good. Yeah. >> I think he's posted something afterwards saying like sometimes coaches coach and sometimes you got to let players play. >> Yeah. >> Said as long as it went in, he was okay. >> Yeah. As long as it went in. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Obviously, you've had a real impact on your teammates throughout the year, you know, talking about just the story, getting them more involved in Judaism, but specifically, I want to talk about where the shabas came into the play, right? Tell me a little bit about that from your perspective. >> For sure. Um, it's really like first of all, before I go anywhere and I say anything, this is the first time I'm publicly in front of people. >> Let's go. Give him a round of applause. Let's go, everybody. Come on. make him feel comfortable. >> I just want to thank Project Inspire for everything they've done from the >> picture everyone in the crowd wearing a stray like Show them and everything will be easy, right? Yeah. >> But it really all started by is really all Desmaya from A to Z from how it all started from getting them to put on fill in to having a minion to doing Team Shabatones and I said to myself, listen, I can raise $1,000 and do a team Shabatone in Yu. We'll get Chant. We'll have to warm it up somehow. We'll figure out that stuff. But I said, why don't we figure out a way where we can have Shabatones in communities for people just to go all out for these guys and show them how Gishmak Shabas is. >> And it was really all started. I was in touch with Charlie Arari and he told me, "Why don't you do Project Inspire? They just did a Tisha film of you." >> I was like, "I didn't know they do these things." And we got in touch again and they said, "We're all in." And I said, listen, I remember calling her by Samson over and over again. And I said, "Unlimited food. Unlimited food and more food." He goes, he called me a few days later. He said, "Okay, I'm working on getting a couple people." I said, "Did you tell them unlimited food?" And I said, "The more gashmas," which really is rnas that you throw in, >> the more rnius we can throw into them. And they went all in for the food. >> Liquid has good food. I liquid. Where is that? It's Is >> a great job. >> Jersey. I don't know. I think I've heard of I'm not sure Arihi Barak, right? You guys are in touch with Project Inspire. You're like, "Okay, we're going to we're going to host this Shabas. We're going to bring an entire basketball team." All the mothers out there, I want you to understand how much these guys probably eat. So, when Zebie says unlimited food, it's not the same as your family, you know? It's just probably not. It's a basketball team. But you took on this challenge of like, we're going to host this Chabus. What inspired you to do that? So, I'll start off saying that Debbie said everything was Seattle desaya. The message of unlimited food never got through to us. >> Oh man. >> I'm I'm serious. Legit, it probably never would have happened. >> Um, >> it's just a regular language. It's unlimited food, right? >> Regular. So actually I had the privilege of learning by Rabius in Asia and I met uh the rashiva and he always told us you know we got to do something with our lives and we got to do kir and we got to inspire people and to be honest I never really did always felt a little guilty about it and so when called up and said hey we want to do shabaton can you help arrange it just flash of inspiration I said, "Sure, no problem. We'll do it." And I remember being in the car. I was on my way back from a meeting. And that was it. It wasn't It was no hesitation. It wasn't like, "Let me think about it. Let me ask my wife." Cuz, you know, sometimes you just got to just jump right in. And that's what happened. >> That's wild. >> Yeah. >> But it didn't end there. It wasn't just a beautiful shabas, right? That's not where the story ends. If it did, we wouldn't be here up up here doing this. Tell me a little bit about what happened next. >> Yeah, so the guys really kept in touch like you know sch smoozing and they came back actually for a second chabas a couple of weeks right after which was amazing. And then at one point um one of the guys Schlleming Bird said hey if you guys keep shabas again I'll take you out to reserve cut and >> that's liquid baby. That's liquid guys keep shabas or go to reserve cut. Nice. >> Yeah. And they were, what were you guys like 15 guys went out or something like that? >> 12 guys. And just things just kept going. It was like one week, let's do another week, another week. And you know, we're the guys are still in touch. You know, I just was smooing with Tom and I said, you know, what's your peso plans? And he said, oh, I'm going to be in the city with my mom. I said, in the city with your mom. Come to me for the seder. And he said, okay, great. And that's it. Just like that. Easy peasy. >> That's crazy. That's that's that's literally the project inspire ways. The second things you think are over, it's to keep it going. To keep it going a little bit more and a little bit more. And Bar, you were there. You were involved in the Shabbasim and I heard that maybe the Shabbasim did a lot more for you than maybe the voice. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, I think that I think that project I was part of the project inspire where project inspire is the project transform. I was kind of it was said over and over, but we went away with a lot more than I think they went away with because if you think about it, how much do we really change in our lives? We go through life, we hear. How much does the average person that was born from change in their lifetime? >> Yeah. and to watch people that they're not people that were seeking necessarily. They weren't necessarily seeking. They weren't people that had a life event that made them look at something. They just transformed their life one step at a time. And I I was just amazed. I started off going to one event and I went to the Kesh. I went to every event there and then Ari had them come back again and I was I was just more part of the inspiration of them than they were. >> Wow. Roy Tom. So what would you say your life is different before the Shabas and now post the Shabas that liquid chabas? Um mainly the the main difference um before and after. So before I felt like um how Shabbat could be like very serious thing, very serious. You have like a time schedule of like you have to do this this and that. You have to do kadush at a certain time. You have to um um you know hear speech and and go through all that and and after that lakewood uh Shabbat I felt like everything is much more calm. >> Yeah. >> And Shabbat is really like at least time to rest and and kind of gather your thoughts and and kind of prepare for the the following week that you have after. So you kind of it's like a kind of like time to relax like >> Yeah. Tom, besides for the hat, what has changed in your life? >> Uh, >> guys, can we get him a a Borcelino brand deal? Bigger size. Borcelino. Let's go. >> Um, I mean, after Shabbat in Lakewood, um, just everything changed. I saw a different a different religious community and it's just it it changed my whole life. I kept eight Shabbats in a row. Um, wow. And after these eight eight Shabbats, Zevi was like, "All right, like I'm going to reward you." And I I got something for it. But after that, I did three Shabbats totally for uh for myself, for God, and for Zevy. Yeah. And uh now that's uh my 11th Shabet that I keep. >> Wow. >> Um I feel like Tom of two years ago would never believe that it's it's going to happen. and and it it's actually going to be me. But I feel like after this Shabbat and Lakewood just changed my life. >> Wow. And it didn't it didn't end there. There's a lot of programs. I know you guys are, you know, incentivized. Keep Shabas and eight Shabbas and that's eight meals at Reserve Cut. Like I'm in like first of all, where do I sign up? I got to meet the Schlam Inber guy. I've been to Reserve Cut once. I've been keeping Shabas for a long time. Um I got to speak to that guy. But Zebie, bring it home. you know to wrap up the message about what you experienced this whole story. What's your takeaway? >> It's a good question. >> You know, it's really hard to just explain it in word. It's very hard to just explain it in words because >> I feel it like I don't really know how to explain it. It's just the fact is that I've been keeping Shabas my whole life and we have guys here that are like I'll just give one small example for Tom. The other week I told him right before Shabas, I said, "Tom, why don't you keep Shabas this week?" He goes, "I already did the challenge." And I said, "Please, just just this is the only time you're going to really be able to do it for God." Threw his phone across the room. He goes, "You're my Hashem." I said, "Don't say that." >> But um >> we actually had that once. It didn't go well, Tom. It It was bad. Not a good time. The idea was cute, but I but he told me Friday night, he said, Zevy, I didn't tell my girlfriend and I didn't tell my parents that I'm keeping Chabas. What do I do? I said, Tom, they're going to, you know, they're going to panic a little bit, but they'll be okay. He said, you know what? I'm going to do it. And after Shabas, he called them and they panicked and then they were okay. And he just feels good. And I think the message for all of us who are involved and are able to help out, it's try your best to be real yourself because when you're real yourself, the people around you see it. And go out of your way and try to do something extra. For me, I'm with them and Hashem just throws ideas in my mind and I just do crazy things with these guys and hashem it's working. >> But everybody here, try your best to go out, reach out and help out one another. >> Amazing. Thank you so much, guys. Listen, that's the power of project to inspire. Progynous fire getting people and empowering people. Everyone in this room should want to let you know just to wrap this up. This could be you. You can do this with somebody. Whether it's a neighbor, a friend, a family member. I promise you these guys probably never thought it would be them. And now it's them. And it could be you, too. Thank you all for listening. >> And Zebie, I will beat you in that 101. I'm just saying. Okay. Thank you. Bye.