Project Inspire Convention Sunday Full Show

[Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] and welcome back everybody to the project inspire convention the sunday night edition of project inspire convention 2021 and what a weekend this has been from the shabbat show with charlie hirari thursday night to the program last night where it was wonderful watching myself on camera we had over 50 000 viewers who were on board to watch the project inspired convention and so as my intro went last night wondering if this was the right thing to do it was the right thing to do i want to thank all of you for tuning in and spending the weekend together with us and we have a spectacular program planned for you tonight few announcements before we begin this evening's program first of all how amazing were all the breakout sessions the concurrent sessions before this program started it was literally like being in a hotel and running in and out of different classes and running you know catching a cookie in between of course but ladies and gentlemen we have a spectacular program tonight and a few quick announcements firstly tonight's session is dedicated by mrs adelsero hornig and family in loving memory of their uncle zalman ben arendov bear on his ninth yard site this has been a tradition for mrs hornick to dedicate this sunday session this year is no different thank you mrs hornick for that made neshama having aliyah additionally tonight's and the project inspired convention is sponsored by uh in memory uh sponsored by heshi and lei and leah mendelson in memory of leah's mother hannah bass of rum pearlstein on the upcoming first yard site on gimel nissan nissan iii of nissan mayher neshama have an alia as well i would be remiss if i didn't mention some of the people that actually made not only this weekend happen but project inspire happen overall um stuart and andrea heitmann from toronto canada thank you thank you for everything that you do for project inspire thank you for being behind this convention we really appreciate everything that you do for the organization isaac and edie gross well we didn't have a body in seoul retreat this year we didn't get to see you live at the convention but we know you're rooting for us and doing so much for us throughout the year i want to thank you as well nachman and judy you are driving forth behind this virtual convention for the sake of getting the many thousands to be able to be part of our convention that aren't on a normal year thank you for that additionally to mendel brockville the frying burger yeti guttener jeff schachter other board members of project inspire and of course mrs sandy schiff who i believe has watched every minute of this 11 hour weekend programming and has sent us continuous feedback sandy you're the best thank you very very much and i hope your husband is doing well out there in denver colorado thank you again also one more thank you before we start the program you know over the course of the past couple of weeks we've been editing videos and recording videos dozens of videos as you know and i want to give a special shout out to michael apfel michael actually returned to london from new york to be i don't believe it's london i think it's leeds england to be with his brother his brother had a liver transplant uh with cut with the covet complications and all and he's been there at his brother's side the entire time and throughout all of that has been there to edit the films that we needed up until this program tonight and i want to dedicate this this show for reforest lamba for his brother for michael's brother azaria jonathan shimon shmuel ben leone a have her for shalem and recover quickly ladies and gentlemen it's 4 00 a.m here in jerusalem and while it's not ideal to run a program at 4 00 a.m i do feel that it's a real convention right 4 a.m walking around as if it's the middle of the day almost like a casino with no lights and not knowing what time of day it is because that's what it's like getting lost in the project inspired convention but i have a special guest here with me this evening because i'm sharing the hosting of this program with a dear friend of mine rabbi pesach friedman right pesa friedman is the ceo of hayenberg is an organization that has become a big brother to americans english speakers to anglos living in israel i want to thank you raj pesa freeman for joining me and i want to tell the audience that the reason you're on the hook for this is because i wanted to fly to new york to be there for this convention and i told you that if you couldn't get me to new york you were gonna have to join me here so here we are welcome at 4am to the project inspired convention pleasure to be here and i'm happy that you uh didn't make it out to new york the reason i'm happy to make it out to new york ladies and gentlemen is because i'm afraid that if jesse friedman would have flown out to new york he very likely might be uh spending the upcoming holidays there well i you know that that's actually an incentive at this point being that my kids have been closed out of school for the last year so you know being stuck in america might not be the worst thing all kidding aside pesach why don't you tell us a little bit about what it is you start an organization to help us anglos who are or uh in israel tell us a little about the organization sure so we started back in 2015. there's a huge english-speaking population here in israel as you know and israel is a wonderful place to be but sometimes if you're not native it's a little bit challenging and when serious challenges come up it's even more challenging serves in pre-covert days as a resource for english speakers here in israel for every area of difficulty crisis that could be navigating the bureaucratic system that could be helping the hospital medical systems special education mental health and so on uh but a big part of it is basically trying to help english speakers who are not native understand how things work here in israel and help them through that system no time uh pre-covet has anything been so needed as these challenging times when rules and regulations change by day the government themselves is stuttering and stammering difficulties come up life life-and-death situations whether illness or people needing to enter the country leave the country and so on and we're we are here for them it's amazing you know i know myself what it's like to navigate the system i'm living here in israel for the last 20 years um but tell me you know it must be you know it's a time where so many of our participants are watching this they've been to israel numerous times on programs with project inspire people are chomping at the bit to be able to come and stay and be here in israel for any programs that we would that we would provide um and just for the opportunity to be here you know even for a few minutes but i'm sure throughout this entire crisis of covid there have been times where sort of like you had to take off your hat of being the ceo of and really be a brother you know to so many people who needed your help as an individual you know does anything strike you as an incident that was like you know where you had to step in as an individual and really you intercede on behalf of uh the anglers living here in israel unfortunately that happens quite often and most of the time i'm sorry to say it's usually uh kind of dire circumstances but we've got to be there for people then as well uh just uh over this weekend we're dealing with a patient here in israel who's actually deathly ill and we're trying to get her brother and sister to come and enter israel at this time when it's impossible to enter israel basically to say their last goodbyes unfortunately i've lost track of how many deceaseds we've had to deal with whether here in israel or bringing someone to burial here in israel but it's good to know even those kind of situations that there's somewhere to turn to well hey you know whether whether you're looking out for the physical or spiritual needs of the jewish people you're a hero of the jewish people i want to thank you for being here i know it's 4 a.m and counting but i want to i want to thank you for being here ladies and gentlemen don't go anywhere as we have a tremendous program planned for you tonight we have videos galore we're going to be joined by the rosh hashiba of yeshiva satora rabbi yitzha berkowitz with an amazing message we're going to meet special people and hear their stories their involvement in project inspiring how project inspire has touched their lives we're going to find out you can share purim with anyone in the u.s with the easy outreach gifts and then we're going to be ending off with an amazing interview with ramen ahmed seltzer together with rabbi yitzhak david grossman who's known as the disco rabbi those of you who got who had the opportunity to meet him when he came to the project inspired convention those of you have not stay tuned we have a terrific show i also want to mention that we would like you to tell us about your project inspire moment or your inspired moment at radio projectinspired.com we have operators standing live to collect the emails and we can mention you on the show as well that's radio projectinspired.com as we go through this evening's program ladies and gentlemen almost where we started last night to give people a short glimpse into the programs that we've run during the covet period we went virtual we had to pivot in so many ways so many ways that we'll get to further on in the show as well ladies and gentlemen a little glimpse into the programs during the covet era at project inspire [Music] wow and that's just a glimpse into the programs during the covet era at project inspire ladies and gentlemen you're watching this live at projectinspire.com forward slash convention you're watching this live on yeshiva world on matsev on tour anytime on so many different live feeds as you're watching this once again people have continuously been donating to project inspire to be able to help us continue bringing you amazing programs feel free to donate you won't lose your program it'll pop up over your screen and and you'll continuously be able to donate throughout the show thank you very much for those who already donated and thank you for those who will ladies and gentlemen project inspire went viral yes you saw it but our short commercial message about the virus called project inspire if you will ladies and gentlemen i want to tell you about a virus no no no no not that virus a virus for good i want to tell you about something that's been spreading for thousands of years something so contagious that it infects everyone in its path but this contagion isn't the problem it doesn't shut down the world rather it illuminates it the good virus i'm referring to is your jewish identity and the host that is spreading your jewish identity throughout the world is project inspired project inspire instills in us all the responsibility to unify the jewish people by sharing the beauty and wisdom of our common heritage with our fellow jews by empowering each one of us as a leader project inspire is unique in that it's about inspiring you to inspire the world this has created a movement which has the ability to reach so many more it's viral to achieve its vision project inspire provides thousands with inspiration and opportunities for shared experiences that bring jews of all backgrounds together as a community to grow learn and share with one another to make this viral we need super spreaders like you it's on us to make our jewish identities go viral spread share connect inspire join the project inspire movement [Music] today okay guys what does the word inspire mean [Music] um but i don't understand the question inspired means to be like like liking like you want to be like like inspired [Music] sparta is something that happened or that you see that makes a big impression on you it means to help elevate a person i'll bring a person to higher levels you learn about something and you feel like i can do this thing and this will be a very good thing to influence someone to do something like influencing someone do something good when you see someone doing something really nice really kind you look at them and you have that feeling in your heart like wow i want to do that too it's a word that gives you feeling and you can really feel it's like a bomb that goes inside you and then it explodes onto the outside to be inspired to be in awe of something and make it want to become a part of you i mean it's like encouraging to do the right thing like do whatever if they do something wrong tell them to like how to do something that happens it's very joyful and i would say that i want to do that too and i feel like the biggest guy in the world sparred means once someone takes a bad shot in basketball on the ear balls and someone comes over to him and say nice shot and to inspire him to come back into the game let's see you see some someone doing something that you want to do so you'll try really hard to do that i was going on the same track as him and then of course were uh some of your kids being asked what what does inspire mean you know to everyone mean something else but yeah it's like like like like ladies and gentlemen what is project inspire what is project inspire uh you know pesach here we are at the uh the project inspired convention and there are many people who are tuning in for the first time you know usually the convention is sold out pretty quickly there are only 12 or 1300 people that are able to come and this year we're able to inspire so so many more and so there are many people that are watching including yourself they really want to know and get to the round of what is project inspire right and so interestingly enough we had a dinner number of months ago where we honored ravi samson the family director of project inspire and it gave us a great opportunity to make a film that really took you through the timeline of project inspire how it was created why it was created and how it has come along over the years and so for your sake and for the sake of the viewers who have really never really been involved in project inspired programming before let's take you to the story of project inspire well i'll tell you called me when i when we started and he used to call me quite regularly and he said hayan you're going to get a lot of reward for this right and i was used to say rebbe but you know i've been working for asia toro for a long time he said no but this is different if you can get the layperson to share the beauty of total with his fellow jew that's all something altogether different he said i think we just need a few kasirim to come and sing so i said i'd love to i see this guy long here he's wearing a leather jacket and jeans [Music] he was waiting for me to basically start learning with him [Music] he was looking for a kosher restaurant because he was about two or three weeks into keeping kosher [Music] all i was doing was just you know let me just try to do something you know my rebbie ravnochuaima told me this is something you should try so i tried we were young people we were passionate we wanted to do something with our lives we were young and we were idealistic and we met a man who gave us a vision how you can change the whole world so we started very simply with what we called easy outreach gifts right they were gifts that you can give to someone before a festival before rosh hashanah a little bit later came the the incredible films of the inspired films that it's greenman put together and i said to him listen you put out the film we'll do the follow-up colorful characters guns of glades and others who got involved in yiddish kite and and the whole message of the film was they became involved in yiddishkai here you can share this with with people and they will respond and thousands of people started doing it but then they came back to when it says right you know ruby sampson this is all very good but what happened they asked me a question you know i got the relationship bit and i'm doing that let's start doing care of training programs we went to from shore to shul in in five towns brooklyn queens all these different neighborhoods i would go to schools i would speak in uh urbana muncie they let me come and speak and instead of their shabbos speech about so advertised cure of training are you interested to know more about kirov do you need some training and i thought i probably need some training we decided to to meet at rabbi daniel corrin's house we had a series of meetings and we came up with a fascinating idea which was you can actually train our people who've got involved to actually give the seminar we had mrs reifer from boro park an orthodox housewife with 13 children now she was teaching and in fact she started teaching internationally she was so good people coming up who really bought into the mission and felt this is important i want to be a part of it wherever samson pushed me to a wall every time i used to meet him so mary you got to do something you got to do something and many of them came up with their own ideas so during the shabbaton there wasn't much sinking going on so i was sitting with my friends friday night and after the event after the keynote speech we were singing and there was a rabbi philadelphia next to our table and he said hey that sounds like maybe come to our community and do just what you're doing i said yeah with the traveling [Music] so we had people you know who would come queens that went into the shopping malls and they would give out colors and cuggle to the israelis in the kiosks we created partners these partners are doing things in all these different communities and not only they're doing it but they're working together it really became a sense of of movement that we're in this together that we spent on the road with project inspire were fascinating and something that i'll never forget the chavez in cincinnati the shabbos in baltimore and the bethesda hopefully more as time goes on here we are the master chavez program for many years yankov solomon was saying you know what we have to do a convention and it was like a dream we never thought we could an amazing showers obviously and multi-shops they gave up sign-up cards they got people involved with the project four weeks later i got a phone call and they said hello it's the decline so i said yes uh yeah we found you achabrusa so i said i'm not in yeshiva i'm already talking about i'm not looking for havoc i said remember a few weeks ago you were in project inspire shabbos mata shabbas you signed up she said oh yeah i had that momentary lapse of sanity so i said okay fine get me the guy's number i'll call him she said no we already gave him your number and he's gonna call you and really project inspire became really a byword for inspiration in general [Music] you know there was a the idea of a holla bake you know everybody likes to eat color they fantastic and in brooklyn for example we did a hula bay for 2500 people [Music] what would have noah say to me now he would say fine you've done well we've got a lot more to do we're just getting going [Music] rabbi sampson the king of kirib has got us involved in momentum jwrp we now take thousands of women does it affect them yes does it affect us yes we've developed the means of how to how to bring this much further this will bring inspiration to the whole from community and to the non-firm community 15 years we just have to appreciate where we are today compared to where we were 15 years ago [Music] [Applause] the next step for project inspire is just to continue on the work that that they're doing just to expand the programs and and bring the message out to so many more of a hindu banana there are so many more that are not informed i once asked noah you know if we could get the whole of the orthodox community reaching out to their brothers and sisters right but they're just not really moving them they're not really getting that involved you know is that worth doing and he said if you can do that nishik will come tomorrow does that tell you the story incredible unbelievable what's really remarkable is really just just looking at the pictures the backgrounds of the varied backgrounds of different people from obviously all different walks of life getting involved it's a beautiful thing amazing it's amazing and we missed we missed the live events you know we'll take this because this is what this is what god has given us but we can't wait to get back to the those live events that you're describing pretty remarkable to see all those people dancing together around 60 people in a room of uh once upon a time people used to do that right that's right it's about the same time that airplanes used to take off you know yeah okay yes you tell me unbelievable work what does project inspire raise money for where did the funds go for amazing who invited you anyway that's a great question ladies and gentlemen those who have been involved know that project inspire is actually a model that from the outreach world and what we call the keyword world is actually a the most efficient model out there why is it the most efficient model because really in general outreach organizations are set up by rabbi inspiring a community right and so you got to run programming for but there's only one rabbi right so how many people can can you reach in a community can you reach 100 people could you go to a college campus and involve 100 people as an organization what we're doing is we're training leaders you know you saw in that little film estee styler i don't know if you know who she is but she's iconic in the project inspired world right does it affect them yes does it affect us yes that's what it does it it really allows more religious more committed jews to step up to the plate and decide that they could that they can make a difference they can make a difference and they can and they can involve their community and they can really bring thousands of people around so essentially what we're doing is we're training leaders now of course we have to make programs that people can facilitate this work so like you know uh mr styler mentioned in the video we've gotten you know over 2 000 men and women to go on trips to israel which when they come back from israel they get followed up on learning-wise community-wise social programming from the communities itself and we're putting this together we're putting together conventions and weekends of body and soul retreats and one-on-one learning and online programming and of course kova just uh you know shifted a lot of the things online where we'll have uh you know like you saw in that film you know the taste of taste of shabbas where the women are cooking for shabbos online they're baking kyle online we were learning online running classes online all this is what we're you know we're raising money for to be able to inspire uh you know the next year of project inspired participants unbelievable yeah and it's really um and what we're seeing and what we're seeing is also is that people are are getting a satisfaction in in the reaching out community wise it's changed the community you know it's it's a it's been a revolution because all of a sudden it's not us and them it's jews of all backgrounds coming together and i think you'd be surprised how much religious jews who have grown up all their life with torah mitzvos are inspired by the commitment of jews who might not have it's really amazing you'll see because thinking back as you as you described that 27 28 years ago i actually used to hear speeches from ronald weinberg and he would actually allude to the missional which discusses how back in the day before these kind of technological advances that we have the way they would send the message out to uh to diaspora when it was rosh chodesh would be to light a torch on from mountaintop to mountaintop to mountaintop until the entire diaspora would see it and light their little candles and everyone would know about it he would describe how that's what his vision is for outreach that just one would pass the past the torch to another light up a little more and you're really describing that happening it's amazing and i know once you're describing torches you know and passing it on to other people you know i had the great honor to make you know obviously many films and many film productions for for with project inspire but one film sticks out in my mind as being something that brings out exactly the point that you're describing we had we made a film and in which i'll tell you the names of the people on the film you'll see it momentarily we had a fellow clive clive lipschitz clive is a fellow living in teaneck 25 years ago he met a fellow michael eisenberg on campus i'll tell you the story and invited him for shabbos michael became more connected and then down the line he met a fellow named mike couple and he brought him into the fold and connected him to judaism but clive from 25 years earlier could never have anticipated that the effect that he would have a michael would not only go to michael eisenberg but it would go to michael koppel as well and so we made a film in which we actually wanted to introduce mike koppel was the third wheel in this in this story to clive lipschitz just to get give people an idea that when you do something that brings a jew closer to judaism it doesn't go unrewarded we might not see it but it doesn't go unrewarded unrewarded and so let's take you to the what we call the clive video that spark the tishabha film that we made i believe it was 2016. [Music] i had the opportunity to fly to los angeles and meet with a very special family and that's really where our story begins today my koppel his son levy beautiful family i learned about their road to yiddishkeit i'm at 35 years old i was a trial lawyer living in west hollywood i had the kind of practice where i like to be in front of juries in court so other lawyers would bring cases that they thought needed they wouldn't settle or they had potential real value and they would bring them to me to do trials and my little brother who had become a balchuva about five five years earlier um told me that he knew an attorney it was an employment lawyer named michael eisenberg and josh koppel was uh one of our favorite guests to have he was uh at a local college and uh he would tell me oh you got to meet my brother mike goppel he's like this hardcore philosopher philosophy major very intense trial lawyer you got to talk to my brother he's like tough as nails on this stuff and he could he could really use it and he comes walking up with this robe and a big furry hat and i don't know what the look of my face was but i see my little brother he gets his panic attack well i followed up with him probably about a day or so later and we had lunch and i tell him you know i haven't lost in three or four years and he says his trial lawyer just inherited tons of money and he's gone so he's not he's not working anymore so he needs a guy who can do that perfect good yeah yeah and but within three or four minutes he goes you know what what are you doing for dinner friday night and i said that's that's the shabbat thing i said nah that's it he's come on for a meal i said nine o'clock i'm really and he had this look on his face that um like i was a mark like he was like grinning at me and i was like what are you like i can see the way you're looking at me what are you but he was he was so unrepentant about it was kind of funny really yeah he was like a fox so i came for a shabbat dinner the meal of their house that friday night changed my life that meal changed my life [Music] wow incredible michael eisenberg extends an invitation my couple says yes and the rest is history but the story doesn't end there you see michael eisenberg was not born with a streimel on his head so i asked him what was your upbringing like i mean i grew up in a conservative synagogue and you know my impression of growing up in a conservative synagogue is the judaism is defined by the holocaust stories and israel bonds i went on a summer abroad program at tel aviv university and my grandfather rest in peace my grandpa lou he was fighting cancer for a couple years and when i left that summer for that summer semester i knew that that was gonna be the last time i saw him and uh when i was there i got the news that my grandpa passed away and you know my grandfather only had two daughters my mom and my aunt so i was on campus that next day that when i heard that night next day it's a friday i'm on campus i see a guy walking with the yamaka this guy came up to me looked approximately my age and he came up to me he said do you speak english i said yes i do he said are you orthodox i said yes i am i said can i help you he said that his grandfather had just passed away and he wanted to know if he could say kaddish and where he could say kurdish and the reason he wanted to know if he could say kurdish was he said that his parents are still born hashem alive can he say kaddish i said you know i don't know the answer to that question it's friday today why don't you come to my this evening and we can ask the rabbi that question and you know what why don't you come eat dinner with my parents tonight it was the first shabbos that michael had kept in his life and it it it was a powerful experience for him so i i i really don't think i did very much do you know this man no you could you look again real closely and tell me if you know [Music] do you know do you know the child sitting next to him no looks like a firm kid but i i don't know that family you know this man that's michael he took and he took me under his wing and uh like i said really made like my problem his problem and tried to get to the bottom of it so him you know sure well mike koppel yeah and michael eisenberg right are very very close friends okay very nice if not from michael eisenberg mike koppel who you see in that picture would not be there and if not from michael eisenberg that little boy sitting next to my couple would not be there okay because michael eisenberg right was the clive lipschitz to mike couple wow this passes on that's unbelievable that really is incredible are you getting a chill yeah i am right now too wow [Music] and of course that's a story of clive michael and michael but pesach that really is the story because here we were able to follow this story that took 25 years to play out sometimes you don't get to play out that story for 25 years but what we but when we reach out and we include people in judaism we might not know the effect but it definitely has that effect and you saw that in that story i would say on the contrary michael clive and the other michael were lucky enough to just have project inspire connect them on that little ipad like yaakov solomon did but i'm sure that there are thousands of other instances where someone maybe just said a word head that wants shabbos imitation didn't follow up and who knows what kind of products are down the road right you know so many years later it's true and i think that when people they get a little discouraged you know because they don't necessarily see that the you know they're having any type of impact we don't know that and you know who knows when 25 years later the uh it might play out and they saw up on the screen the big productions logo so i want to thank g ormond at big productions for that masterpiece as well as so many other project inspired masterpieces thank you gee ladies and gentlemen once again once you while you're watching this you can continue to donate on the page so many have you have already you can watch your name come up on the bottom of the screen as you donate to project inspire pesach i understand that uh the rashiva vegetara beats the berkowitz was your rebbe you studied under roy brook woods and then you created the center for jewish values together with rory berkowitz can you tell us about that as well as the experience with rory brookwoods sure back in around 2000 i studied under ruby brookwoods for a short period of time together with my dear friend and colleague rabbi sv mueller and berkowitz as you all know is is really world's expert in all areas of the torah but one thing which particularly stood out was his expertise in what's called mitzvos being adam lechavero the torah's guidelines for interpersonal relationships and that was an area which is really one and very crucial to judaism but often is not studied something maybe we imbibe with our mother's milk or we should but sometimes there isn't necessarily a focus on that and svea and i decided that there was a need to sort of bring this you know the study of these laws you know to the forefront and robert brooks was the prime person to do that it turned into a whole movement of dozens of study programs colos learning programs books in both hebrew and english which we put out and really spread the message of her and the knowledge of the torah's guidelines and what's particularly you know visible in ray brookwood's teachings and really is his very embodiment is his love for every jewish person and really his his recognition that every jew is unique every jew is important and the way to reach him may be different you know whether it be the language or the the message but really just that one message the value of every jew it's amazing because we as students and and even employees of asia torah worldwide get to hear from rory brookwoods and get to have this you know imbued in us you know the message that you're describing um rabbi brookwood's had a special message for the project inspired convention along the lines of us being selfish people let's take you out to the reshiva veishea torah of izol berkowitz who of us hasn't experienced that beautiful feeling of being able to help another human giving care and sharing there's nothing like it so what do we give financially physical assistance [Music] we have to be able to share the things that are most important to us [Music] and if meaning our values our heritage if these are the dearest things to us [Music] then unless we share them we're still selfish [Music] you can help the poor you can volunteer in the hospital they'll let you in if you're not willing to share your soul you're not there yet and every one of you has experienced sharing your spirituality sharing your values and your meaning you know that there's nothing that comes to us there's nothing nothing that is more meaningful than that to give your fellow jew meaning in life what to live for what to get out of bed in the morning for [Music] meaning that encompasses every aspect of his life when you give that when you see how people are just building themselves there's nothing like it you're here you're here to share you're also here to help develop that momentum that will get others entirely in sharing their heritage sharing meaning sharing what is the dearest jews are a beautiful nation we love the creator we know the creator loves us and we love one another [Music] project inspire is all about sharing the warmth and the love of judaism with every child and that's really the message that roy brookwood's had for us is that you know you could do a lot of no pun intended but sometimes we will visit someone in the hospital it will help someone in need but when it comes to spirituality we just keep it for ourselves and i broke it with his message is that why be selfish when it comes to spirituality make sure that you're sharing your spirituality and your judaism with other people as well that really was his message 100 percent that was the message we always heard from represents that if something's really valuable to us if we love something rambam says that ava if you really love judah if you if you really springs from abbas hashem if we really love our god we love our religion we want to share that with others right and that is clearly where we work with his message so i guess if we can walk away with anything today it's not to be selfish and to share our judaism and spirituality with others ladies and gentlemen you can continue to share your inspire moments with us at radio at projectinspired.com radio projectaspire.com we love to hear what your project inspire or inspiring moment was what does inspire you [Music] tell me something that inspired you my grandfather inspired me every time i see my grandfather i want to be like her we've seen the wonderful world that hashem created all around us when i dived in the wood-burned shoe which is over 100 years old you see somebody doing something and he didn't have to do it he's just doing it because he's a good person and it's a nice thing to do inspires me is when people do miss with and then they have stories to tell that tell me how to live my life um when somebody has a big smile you see an adult thinking on something and then when they finally get it you could see it spread to all different routes if you think of others untested what inspires me is when someone does something and they thought that they could have not done before but when they got inspired they could do it i get inspired when i see my dad helping other jews dad is a role model for me he was always there for the learn with me the coach my team's growing up he always managed to find time for all of his kids father because he always inspired my mother she never thinks about herself she's always helping other people my rebellion they inspire me because they're such a hate chick for learning torah and they help all to meet them and it just inspires me so so much my rabbi and tashbar because he said when whenever i need something i can count them i really get inspired by the way that a jewish person is very kind to other people very caring and thinks about other people i am inspired when i see other people inspiring others what inspires me is all of you right i'm pretty inspired myself yes even at 4 30 a.m that's right it's hard it's harder to be inspired at four almost five o'clock a.m definitely but again meaning like i said when we're at the project inspired convention live there is no day or night anyway it's straight inspiration for three days so here we are as well you know it it's interesting because where we started to speak about the chain of events that happen when you know you inspire somebody and it goes on from there we showed a film about it but really that's the story of our judaism overall is that you sort of plant the seed you do an act somebody sees you do something they become inspired by it they pass it on there's so much of that that has been happening you know that we've actually showcased at project inspire conventions as well where people have done something other people caught on messaging why is able to pass it on and to inspire so many other people and we have um we have you know a story that we had i actually had an interview with the family uh almost everybody watching this will know tova and jay begun you know they've been partners of project inspire since almost the very beginning and they've uh and they've you know the star between the shabbos queens that gave out the bags in the malls to the you know the israelis who many of them didn't even know shabbos was coming they got to know shah was coming from those colors and kogals that were being given out in the in the malls from way back but jay begun has a story where he actually grew up in a very traditional home and he went on to learn yeshiva and became a balchuva and then his mother you know he took the tradition that he grew up with you know and inspired other people and then it started to work backwards and where his mother and family took the inspiration that they got from project inspire and pass that on to so many other people and were able to involve them especially during the covet era when many people were stuck at home so let's show you a little clip of an interview that we had with the begun family if you will grandma joan and aunt liddy followed by jay begun we have amazing guests with us here from florida we have uh grandma grandma joan and aunt linny from florida two sisters um we're very familiar with project inspire with the two of you of course because um tova and jay begun are very involved with us and so uh this is jay's mom and jay's aunt jane tova's aunt joan and lily if i can ask you both you know just first to give me an idea of the your background where you grew up where you're from give us an idea jewishly how you grew up okay sure basically we grew up in brooklyn we called it flatbush but it was not the old it was not the orthodox flatbush that everybody knows my father was was very very jewishly oriented in every which way he used to give bar mitzvah lessons he was very very versed in in torah believe it or not even though we didn't keep specifically a kosher home but we we didn't eat trade either i don't think as as far as i can remember anyway he always we always had jewish music you know in the house you know and obviously you know we would listen to it you know that that was really part of our upbringing talk to me uh joan a little bit about jay uh his journey a little bit in terms of you know him going off to yeshiva etc give me an idea growing up etc yeah well basically jay's journey started his jewish journey i should say started uh at the university of pennsylvania he would bring boys home to our house for shabbos because i guess for some reason i was having a friday night meal when he was in college so these boys that he brought home i thought were oh ultra ultra religious i said what are you getting yourself into jay i would say that these boys were so religious but the rest is history these were only conservative boys and i thought they were religious but uh they were wonderful kids and that's that's his journey it started there at u of p he would go to the hill and it was not stimulating enough for him and he worked his way up into uh orthodox talk to me a little bit about uh the last year um you know specifically tova and jay have been involved in project inspire for a long time they're one of the most special couples that i know and you should certainly be very proud both of you talk to me about what it means to you what it meant to you over the years to see their involvement and their openness to being able to spread jewish values so far and wide i thought it was just a wonderful thing that they're so involved with that and they they certainly are knowledgeable both of them are very intellectual people and they uh they did they did what they had to do to make to spread judaism to people who were not really so involved and i thought it was it was beautiful they opened their home to everybody i mean it was like a revolving door you know every shabbos and young there were always people sitting at the table people sitting at the table besides besides the family you know project inspires message is not only that it's important to to to spread judaism to individuals who weren't you know as connected or didn't grow up with that much of a background but not not only that but even to give over the sense to people that they too can and should share tidbits because so many jews are really interested and they might not be connected and somewhat of a connection to judaism might do a lot for them how important specifically in these days do you think that message is i think it's very important like i try to to give you know people that are in my where i live you know the project inspired for the shabbat show you know i i know i've given a few people that you know the link you know tell them to to uh tune in you know i think it's very important and there's really always room for everybody to grow i think that and project inspire does inspire people and they live up to their name of project inspire they are doing that all over the world no matter what your background is you you could be orthodox conservative reformed whatever you know they open their hearts to everybody oh there he is busy boy hello jay how are we doing over there jay i i appreciate you joining us here together with together with that with your mom and your aunt i asked your mom how important it is to her uh that you embraced your background and used that to grow from to continue to be connected to and to be able to spread judaism you know how important was it to grow up with those values and to take them further to what you're doing today oh my mother and my father oliver shalom taught me and my brother very strong family jewish values and so be only natural to want to bring them into the growth that i had experienced in yiddishkai so it was really a you know very easy decision to make to embrace them as they embraced me for so many years and bring them along for the ride so to speak and not only have they come along for the ride but they've taken their individual strengths and have been a vehicle amongst their community and their friends to spread yiddish kite and spread knowledge and and and jewish values and it's only natural that people will come and embrace it and want to be part of it the message that i would have is just you're never too old to learn and i've been learning for so many years and i hope god willing i will continue to learn as long as i can and have everybody by my side and inspiring me especially project inspire they're wonderful people every one of them anyone no matter what level no matter what background avail yourselves of the resources of project inspire there's always a learning partner available to to be involved in your life there's always a shabbos program a shabbos experience now virtual experiences throughout the week and you know open yourself up don't be afraid we don't bite that's that's the idea that that that just if you give a little if you open your heart you open your mind a little i think seeing the message of project inspire and seeing the message of what the ambassadors of asia torah and all the individual people in our communities throughout the united states throughout eretz israel people are there they want to teach they want to share the message and they want to get people involved and they want to share the beauty of our religion and our heritage so joan and and uh grandma joan and aunt lenny out in florida and dr j begun i want to thank you so much for for joining us here and hopefully you'll continue all of you will continue to inspire many many people and for you were there for many many years to come it's a shame thank you america thank you very much thank you thank you speaking to you all what a special bunch they are and indeed may they continue to inspire each other and so many more uh i'd may have asked for a main ladies and gentlemen you have an opportunity right now as at 10 p.m new york time today easy outreach gift purim gifts will close online as we're just about sold out but for those who still would like the opportunity to purchase the easy outreach gifts the gift that you can give to any jew no matter what background they'll appreciate it we have we have them available right on the screen right where you're watching you can click and order that gift you can go to projectinspire.com and order them as well but again sales for that will close at 10 pm tonight we hope to still be able to get them out in time for perm later this week so again if you click on it you will not lose the program it'll pop up above your screen as will the donation page if you still didn't donate yet you can on the screen while you're watching you can continue to donate ladies and gentlemen organization like project inspire needs sometimes crazy people who really believe in the in their gut that the jewish people are the solution to the world and that it's our job as individuals to spread that light and so you've met some of them already tonight but i mentioned them earlier in the show and truth be told stuart and andrea heitmann and specifically stuart does not let a day go by where he's not thinking about how to do more for claudius for all he's constantly pushing us as an organization we speak all the time in order to be able to push and to produce more as an organization when coveted hit it was all about getting one-on-one caruses and we were able to get over 500 cabrusas and that was mainly because stuart was pushing every single day to make sure that we were doing more people were home they had a little bit more time on their hands they were more open to learning whether they were open more spirit open a little bit more spiritually and it kept pushing us all along recently unfortunately stewart's mom gloria hyman passed away and if we want to dedicate tonight's show as well as really all the activities and all the inspiration that comes out of project inspire in memory of rifka sima bas mahal may her nisham have an aliyah and may stewart's family stu and andrew's family continue to be a source of nachos to her which i'm sure they are and will continue to be ladies and gentlemen a special message from the chairman of project inspire dr stuart heitman hi i'm stuart heitman chairman and founding partner of project inspire along with my wife andrea our mission has always been to create a grassroots movement of committed jews who are connecting with other jews of all affiliations and to unify together under a common goal of sharing the meaning and the beauty and the relevancy of judaism torah and our common heritage we've done this by organizing israel missions where we've taken hundreds of men and women to israel for an experience in which everyone has had tremendous growth when our partners have come back they've taken a responsibility of organizing programs learning programs such as cabrusa programs they've organized them themselves they've organized different seminars they've invited people for shabbos for circus they've done gift campaigns we have literally affected thousands of jewish lies over the years but then covet hit we couldn't get together anymore we couldn't go to israel we couldn't organize joint sessions where we would build relationships and connect with each other in projects fire they immediately went completely to online program and created a shabbat show you had up to and beyond 10 000 viewership per show from that we've created one-on-one learning partners almost 600 of them there's also other seminars that we've had we've had uh mine flex where if hundreds of people they come online and then they are divided up into zoom rooms with one-on-one cabrusa's mentorship this has been tremendously successful and continue to affect thousands of lives even during the covid pandemic these are all the things that we've been involved with and which you have to wonder what has it been that has created uh our success over the years and i believe it can be epitomized in a very well known a famous medrush and that's the medrush of the sun and the moon during the days of creation so the madras goes like god created the sun and the moon and originally he created them at the same size the moon came up and said complaints goes he says hashem everything you've created in the world is in twos you've created light and darkness and light is always great in the darkness you've created water and fire water is greater than fire you've created heaven and earth heaven is greater than worth every time you've created something in twos one is greater than the other so you've created the sun and the moon the same you should be creating one greater than the other implying that god should make the moon greater than the sun god answered back to the moon goes because you spoke against the sun it's you who i'm going to make smaller and make moon smaller than the sun that's how the madras goes and ravi eliah destler says on that that this teaches us a tremendous lesson about unity whenever you have two different people two entities by definition there's a drive that one should try and be better than the other one is a competitor to the other you could only get true unity when you unite under a common goal together both benefiting at the same time that's really what project inspire is all about it's about both jews from all affiliations all benefiting by uniting under this common goal of sharing the beauty and the meaning of judaism and their heritage that is truly what has been our secret and if you ask our partners our partners feel that they've gained as much if not more than the people the jews that they've connected with and that they've mentored this is the true secret of project inspire and this is what has brought us our success we are blessed with great leadership in rabbi heim samson rabbi yossi friedman and the entire project inspired staff so i ask you please join us be a partner with us join us in our mission to unify the jewish people through our common heritage through our common love of judaism the meaning and the beauty of judaism and torah and if we do that i believe together we can truly unite the jewish people thank you thank you so much stuart for that message um and and really the you said that the uh the secret of project inspire is the people and the leaders stuart i believe that you're the secret to project inspiring thank you for all that you do uh and your support that you give us as well as the constant pushing to make sure that we're accomplishing as much as we can at any given time you'll see i'm looking here at the schedule i see the next thing up is kentucky trip intro did i read that right you read that right kentucky kentucky boy you know it's nice to explain to an outsider of project inspired the kentucky the kentucky model but uh let me jump in you know pace off there's there's so many trips and programs that connect jews there's you know there's obviously the momentum trips and many many different israel trips but we found the project inspired like you know stuart mentioned that we got to do more we got to do better and so we were looking for more and more opportunities to be able to bring jews together religious non-religious didn't matter what background they were from and so we decided what if in addition to the israel trips that we were running we can do trips that would bring men and women together in on separate trips to connect as brothers to connect their sisters and so we came up with this idea and jacob vinegar you don't see him on the screen but he's running every bit of this program came up with this idea we should bring men to kentucky to the bourbon trails of kentucky and that what man doesn't want to go to the bourbon trails of kentucky and so we quickly put together a trip and figured like how many people can we get to come to kentucky with us in about three days the entire trip was was sold men were lining up on waiting lists to come to kentucky now most of the men actually don't remember the trip to kentucky being that we were on the bourbon trails they remember very little of that trip they maybe remember what they ate not necessarily what they learned it was fun watching people go on hikes and zipline after the bourbon trails it was truly spectacular uh but nevertheless really we spent the time in a in the woods really in kentucky you know far out where really we would sit in the mornings we'd we daven together we learned together we connected and of course we had a blast of a time myself and now we're gonna go take care of the grill and of course the carving stations nobody went hungry on that trip and uh why don't i just show you a little clip a little clip of the kentucky trip and by the way i should mention before we go to the kentucky trip is that we took the women a women's trip to fort myers beach florida same purpose it's easy it's a three-day trip it's not necessarily going to israel it's not the expense of israel israel beats everything hands down works but not everybody could just get on a plane at any given time as as you know right uh and and if we ran a trip in fort myers beach and post covid um we as a staff have been working on a major plan to launch these shorter trips to launch these you know shorter programs that are let's say a little bit more affordable and shorter uh you know shorter distance from home shorter trips so let's get a little clip um i i hope at least to the carving stations of the trip to kentucky and bringing jews of all backgrounds together take us to kentucky [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] alright so pesach i think you got that right in that people people went to the bourbon trails and then went straight to the shooting range you know with the rifles it was a perfect combo for our group to go from the bourbon trails to the shooting range especially in kentucky it was a fabulous trip and interestingly enough the there was a fellow on the trip greg sokol along with his father steve sokol i understand that steve's mother-in-law passed away and so our condolences go out to the family uh greg is actually getting married in two weeks he is now post that kentucky trip as well as being an age for a stint is studying in sharia shivashiva in farah amazingly enough we had a chance to catch up with greg sokol how's it going everyone it's greg sokol uh to all my brothers on the kentucky bourbon trip two years ago it was such a fun time uh for those who don't know i was lucky enough to be on the trip with my dad steve sokol it was an amazing father-son bonding trip got to meet amazing amazing guys from really all walks of life different religiosity as well at the time i just come back from asia torah and my dad said hey greg come on a kentucky bourbon and learning trip it was incredible the rabbis were absolutely amazing and uh the learning was great the uh the outdoor activity was great and uh and the food amazing amazing to top it all off i'm really hoping to do it again i definitely will be signing up the next time i hear about it and i hope you do too and uh the really cool thing is that we've actually had a group chat going on for basically two years now um different topics uh and we've been able to uh to listen in and uh keep in touch with everyone and a number of people i actually got to see in new jersey last year it was a bit of a reunion uh at the hilton hotel it was massive massive events but uh looking forward to seeing you all again and uh if there is anyone with questions about this program feel free to reach out again it's greg sokol i currently go to yashi of yeshiva and i'm sure if you get in contact with some of the vam part of this program they will give you my contact info take care everyone and so that's greg sokolad and shariash of yeshiva can you imagine what a bourbon trail can do to a kid his age amazing straight to yeshiva after the bourbon drive i think if we can get out of israel you'll see i want you to take me along i came here at 5 00 a.m in kentucky you got it we'll take it to the uh to the big vats of bubbling bourbon out in uh out in kentucky it just wouldn't be a project inspire program it wouldn't be a project inspired program if we didn't have with us the guy who has really carried project inspire in so many levels over the last year of course the shabbat show and basically every other program including the virtual dinner ladies and gentlemen none other than charlie harari in between in speaking engagements charlie you there i'm here it's good to see you both i'm missing the party i wish i was with you guys well you wish you issue over here i know i was telling people i'm sitting here with that what you would give to be able to come back to israel and how you end your shabbat show every week if we're not in jerusalem next week you know then we'll meet you back here also you don't have to tell me about a month ago i was actually in the five towns that's right with a dear friend of mine and charlie called him he said i can't talk because i'm with a friend from israel charles said i got a sunset to israel send them to me and i just wheeled around the corner pulled up in front of charlie or i was right i can't send myself so i'm going to send a little pizza man and i appreciate that and thank you and i miss you guys you bet you bet soon enough soon enough that's what they're telling us here right yeah charlie charlie we're speaking about israel uh you yourself have run momentum men's trips to israel for many years uh you've been you've run so many different programs where sort of jews of all backgrounds come together and are inspired together what are some things that you could tell us about um in general project inspired programming to bring people together as well as trips to israel specifically was what is it about the inspiration of having that connection to jews together that makes it so special yeah listen project inspire is a leader in this area um we have the opportunity to momentum to run trips to israel uh we've been doing we do them you know we get three trips a year for the men so it's somewhere around 600 guys we've been doing it for a decade and i have to say that everyone that comes is wonderful um there's something special about project inspire the way they they're able to bring people that are uh they're motivated they're interested the time that we have together is amazing and the follow-up is great and i know a lot of the guys are watching right now and it's really something very special to to take somebody out of their home out of their environment spend the weekend israel with them uh there's no matter of background there's no matter of the nomination nobody is interested in in where someone comes from they're interested in who they are and how they want to grow and when you put that all together uh you know the good people and the inspiration that project inspire has it really leads to something very special and just an honor and i'm humbled by it to just be able to be part of that and just watching what project inspire is doing every year is really really wonderful amazing charlie i mean obviously we look we look forward to being able to do that again very soon but what have you found with regard to all the virtual programs that you've run i know you do the daily boost and the shabbat show and many other things what have you seen in terms of people's willingness to connect sort of with plan b in the virtual world in the covet era you know it's interesting you know you know you know this just because of how involved you are in the shabbat show i remember when we first thought about it you know and with with robert ginager and you and we really sat around you know in april and said listen let's do something for shabbat and then after that one time we're like do you think people are going to really like watch this thing because this is so not what we were used to and one thing that the things i think that we're seeing and and your inspire is seeing this in all the programs that they're running is that people are looking to connect in any way that they can and connection um is something that is of utmost importance to each other what's fascinating that i find that people always tell me that one of the most inspiring parts of the shabbat show believe it or not i think it's like the content i think it's because of all the things that we're doing the work we're putting in it's the shabbat shalom it's that when somebody hears that someone's tuning in from johannesburg and from california and from maine in toronto they feel like they're part of something beyond themselves we have this need this internal human need to connect to things beyond ourselves and and the ideal we'd like to connect you know sort of you know face to face but one of the things that i'm learning from this new world is that the ability to connect through the screen if it's done properly is still something that's very very very powerful and in fact and sometimes even more powerful because you can do it much more of it and i think people from all over the world are getting used to it now they'll never replace a live connection it'll never replace being somewhere as many times as i watch a video of jerusalem it'll never replace me touching the stones but inspires ability to keep at it and just the ability to actually wanted to ask you that how much of this do you see continuing in the post covered era which we hope we get too soon i think a lot of these beautiful things that you're describing can really continue and be new tools in our toolbox uh after this is behind us oh yeah i don't think doom's going away i don't think these programs are ever going away now um i think once kovit starts to clear up and we get to travel again we're going to go back and i believe with a vengeance once it's all done and they'll be a lot more sort of live but i don't think we'll ever see a time in my humble opinion where the virtual space will go back to what it was pre-covered i think the virtual space now will be with us for from now on it'll get better it'll get um it'll continue to evolve but i think we've you know god has given us a pathway here that we never really i don't think would ever have stumbled on with on our own um and because he sent us to our rooms for a very long time and we never stopped connecting to each other i think we we have now a new way that's here for good charlie we believe that to be the case we're seeing that here in israel for sure with that type of virtual connection actually one of the families who have really taken that journey with you with momentum with project inspire and the continuous program with the virtual programs as well is of course you know the mandelman family of course and uh we have we're gonna we're gonna play with for you a clip and with that we're gonna say goodbye because we're we if we feel like you know if we could go from now until the shabbat show you know straight through you know and that would be totally fine by me it's already five you know 5 30 in the morning over here we're we're totally fine over here but charlie thank you again for joining us and with that i want to take you to the journey of the mandelman family 2014 my wife went on the first trip to israel and that really began a you know a process like many other families as soon as michelle came back from that first trip of course i was being you know pressured to go on a trip myself i said you know this is all this learning and spirituality that's great for you i'm very busy with my practice um this is if this is something that you're interested in that's fine for you it wasn't really for me and then i got invited to go to a project inspire lunch and learn and heard uh rabbi hyam samson speak and it was really just a mind-blowing experience you know we started infusing more religious practice and spirituality in in our everyday lives kid-ish every friday night lighting candles every friday night making cola michelle got very involved with the great big holla bake and then i took back that whole experience and brought it to our temple and taught about 30 women once a year for the last three years not only about making bread but about the spirituality of each ingredient and showing these women that there's more to judaism than they've ever experienced [Music] you know very involved with project inspire we started going to body and soul shabbaton's and then i went on uh the first men's trip in october of 2017 and that was you know everything that i thought it would be it was an incredible experience we made our house kosher in 2018. just so happens i went on a momentum trip in 2013 and i came home the night before the hanukkah party i remember myself sitting in the living room saying michelle you have to go on this trip it was made for you [Music] mark and i have had the opportunity to go to israel our wine whiskey and wisdoms that we have mark is always maja russo i purposely match him up with me because i enjoy so much learning together with him and drinking a little whiskey with him michelle and mark you are not only our cousins you're our friends you are our role models um your role models to both the from community to the secular community to people in between to everybody you just look at you when i look at you i just smile and say both of you you're our role models and we're honored to share this evening with you and we're happy to be on the journey with you we're going at baby steps so we can achieve the um the long marathon of life and judaism thank you for all you do thank you for the learning that you do thank you for making torah relevant uh it's a beautiful message and we want to make sure that everyone hears it thank you and that of course is a story of the madly continuous story of the mandelman family one of the special project inspired families thank you again mark and michelle for being who you are and what's interesting you know about about that video about the little video about about the mandelmans is how many people were involved with the mandolin family because that's the sense of community that you get is that we're sort of all together we're there to share with you to experience things together and it's not us and them and it's not teacher student it's there's a lot to be gained from everyone individual everyone together exactly my thoughts y'all see just you see the the circles the concentric circles of how one family gets involved and they involve their friends and those friends involve their friends and it's just again just lighting the light inspiring so many people it's amazing amazing thank you again mandelmans ladies and gentlemen again you can email radio project inspired.com with your inspire moment as well as continue to donate while you're on the page while you're watching this live you won't lose the page donate to project inspire to help us reach our goal over this weekend we asked your children again just one more time not only what does inspire mean not only what inspires you but also what inspires you specifically about chavez [Music] i love about travis it's not like any other day of the week i could spend my time with my family and not go to school on shabbos i just love sitting with my parents and my family just eating the meals we have time to talk to each other and just spend time with each other it's just fun my favorite thing to do on shabbos is take a walk with my family right after the meal what inspires me is the whole the whole situation of shabbos like before job is getting ready for showers preparing for shabbos when shaoli's finally comes we go we get involved go to school friday night walks with my friends and like we just go out and talk about everything that happened that week what i like about chavez the best is learning on show this afternoon you get together with the whole family the whole family's home there's no distraction sit down and talk about your week i like the food there we go perfect hummus is really good i like cookies spicy olives my mother makes the mascara probably potato girl any type of potatoes election job is it's a game changer challenge there's nothing better than challenge garlic dip garlic roasted pepper dip tomato when every single person is on a different key and it just blends together i believe the technical word is a cacophony that's exactly what i understand what the word he said distracted me so my favorite part about travis would have to be the ability to disconnect from the world it's right now tuesday and i'm ready for shout outs there's always a feeling when you walk around you see guitarists you see people but there's something to it that you just don't know oh that inspires me about shabbos as well so here we are we're uh pesach we're about to hand this over to rabbi nachman seltzer who had the uh opportunity to uh interview rabbi david grossman the disco rabbi nobody watching this is going to want to miss hearing from the disco rabbi so i learned a lot from tonight one is i got to take you to kentucky when this is all over the second thing i learned is that i got to take you to a real project inspired convention when this is all over what else do i need to learn listen i think you guys got to keep up the amazing work i've certainly heard about project inspire before but at risk of being soundly cliche it's really inspiring and there's nothing like seeing it uh live and up front and we hope everyone's going to get back to the in person you know getting together whether it be abroad or certainly looking forward to welcome everyone everyone back here to israel but until then like i said just keep it up and like we talked like we discussed with charlie it's really amazing how we've just jumped a different platform and in certain ways been able to do stuff which was previously unheard of because connecting jews from all over the world at all times a day during all sorts of different time from all different time zones i think it's got to continue and just kala kavod amazing thank you very much and i want to thank you publicly for joining us now 5 30 in the morning you know so this was uh this is really going above and beyond for us for project inspire to be able to be here and to have this show together with us so i want to thank you again for being here for all that you do and i guess when we all come back to israel for uh the trips or from the shia you'll be uh you'll be waiting to join the project inspire clan we'll be here to welcome you thank you okay ladies and gentlemen we had an amazing opportunity to have raven ahmed seltzer now the reason it was specifically amazing is because rabbi nachman seltzer as you know famous writer is writing a book that is soon to come out entitled living legend yes living legend the story of rabbi italy grossman known as the disco rabbi uh is coming out into shelves in your book stores very very soon and so we had the opportunity at one of the visits that nachman seltzer had with robert grossman to have an exclusive interview for the project inspired convention with the disco rabbi it's almost as unbelievable as it sounds so here we are ladies and gentlemen nachman seltzer sitting together with the rabbi of migdal r amygdale amick and migdal r rabbi yitzhak david grossman hosted by nachman seltzer hello i'm with ravioli is the founder of mcdonald r and this is another project that came came to me unbelievable project through a long series of projects and each person that i'm meeting is just more incredible than the next and here we are project inspire it's all about obviously swirl it's all about people who love clay so it's all about people who they give their whole lives to classroom and when i met rav grossman i knew this is a person that probably more than i don't want to say more than anyone but the top percent of people who've given the whole lives of kaiser and it all started back after the sixth day war in essence what happened was that karosparko saved kaiostrol from a catastrophe the whole world thought that the country was going to be destroyed and a lot of people inaudible thought that they were it was really a terrible time for clay israel and but it was a tremendous miracle and khleisol won the war and at that time rabbits looked over grossman was a young man and he went to the kaiser maravi and he stood by the kaiser and he said shalom i have such a karasutov you saved claudius all you saved darth sram what could i do for clay straw and he said i want to give a year of my life to clay star i'm going to go somewhere i'm going to give a year passionate obviously all i love for claudia so i want to go and i want to give it myself for a year and that was the promise he made standing at the coast of my room at the western wall of east london a young man young rabbi went and he gave this promise baraku and he went to his rabbit the lullaby rabbits look david what happened makkara what happened when you went to louisville and you asked him you asked him where should i go what happened then the number says it should do it my name is itzhak david he used to call me ichidubit which you mean abstracts coming up is maybe you will go and take a look what may can do you make the laming i never hear me the lane in my mind i grew up in yerushalayim i go out from his room i ask people big delaney mcdonough aiming it's the worst place in this time it was the boss place crime and dogs can't believe what happened done but the rabbit says i decided to go so the rabbit says that he should go to big and he decides to go and he goes home and he says to his wife and his wife says listen don't worry don't get all nervous you'll go there you'll see what the rebbe says and then you'll and will decide now his wife grew up in a house of of rep when the rebbe says you go they will come back from the house and the rebel says you go you go so it took him the better part of the day to get there he had to travel bus after bus after bus and he finally gets to mcdella amec and it's like there's nothing of a town but full of crime and he gets off and now he comes into this place the rebels sent them and the question is where are all the jews where are all the bachroom where's the torah and he walks in and this is the funny part this is where it all starts and he says this guy meets on the street and he says to him excuse me where's the yeshiva right where's the yeshiva i i come for me every building is in shiva everything is a colon i come there i ask who is the issue what is she told to talk about who can i find the youngsters to send the disco disco i never hear this school in my life you may assure him you don't know what the disco i hear this girl maybe i think maybe it's a yeshiva i call this girl i go to the shiva disco i go in i say pull him in middle the name people dancing girls boys they see me they can't believe rabbi would build the imperium what did they say to you to the rabbi when they saw the rabbi what did they say to you in the beginning they're thinking maybe somebody died they look for minion for kadish but they say to me what are you doing here i say i think to come to leave you you're crazy you're living your life come you yeah you make brothers i you you you're a jew let's live together let's do together and from this first minute it became like a magnet between me and the youngsters and i used to go every night into the disco i have my mencanne mancone and they used to come and speak and ask then my home became a discord it comes to my home there was shabbat became all in shabbos night on friday night in this muslim i became very very involved in in in this youngster then somebody tell me my brother is in jail i say your brother is my brother let's go visit your brother i come to the jail chatter going fourth time in my life a jail 400 youngsters moshe yaakov i go to the head from the jail and say let's let me make a program from rehabilitation to tally so you have a program how many years is this program of rehabilitation in the jails and ericsson so how many years is that right now when i sit with you we have more than thousand prisoners right now in all prisons that sit and learn it all this program is going from 1973 till today and how many people went through the whole program would you say hundreds hundreds unders in the beginning last month was a big bosu bigger what you call a convention from the police in the system from the jails the ad from the jail says that from the program from program from all jails in israel prisons he says that the best program is the program that we have from tolling right because 70 80 percent don't go back to jail but the most important in the end then i decided and start to go to the jails not in stat but more important but you're going to the jails in in the streets in the disco let's take deep boys in the girls before they go to jail before they go to come make him a home and we started migdal in 1972 with eight eighteen 20 000 graduates i also wanted to talk about the cr the crazy story that happened when the rav was the raven migda amygdala emic and on rosh hashanah because it was an unbelievable story the rav is in shul in rosh hashanah and there's he gets tapped on the shoulder and he turns around what does he see svee alderati the mayor of migdal haimic is standing there taylor is a is a real character we're not getting into that but he he's tapping the rove on the shoulder on russia's shoulder morning and he says we have a situation over here code red and we need the rabbi to come and put it out because if not is going to be a massacre now what happened what happened was so the rough system what happened last night he said last night there was a party in the sagnut in the city for the new russian immigrants who came to migdal magdala amec and what happened was a moroccan boy passed by and he heard the singing we heard the music here he wanted to be in the party and he came inside and the russians said get out and they told him you have to leave and they forced him so what did this boy do he took a bottle and he smashed it down on a chair and he broke the battle and then he killed one of the russians that's what happened that's the background of what happened that night on rosh hashanah knight magdala emek so what happened i don't know the old story in the sestemium that right now the old russians make it the demonstration they come together and they're taking mama everything what they have to go to fight with them in the vulcan are going to save themselves going to be like a wall between the russian and moga and he says that he he goes there and they want to say something they're screaming in them they want to do they want to kill him the mayor then he says maybe you come you can help i live right away synagogue come there i see what happened all russian i started to speak to them in english and this time you know in 73 they know english i say him you must but my idea is let's go to make this demonstration in the synagogue oh so instead of them fighting what the rav did is the rav took them away from where they were going to actually fight and maybe kill each other to the shu to make the demonstration in the shul during washer solid average the rocket holds them to the surface i come in with the old people i think all the mother also from the boy and everybody in the house there the bianca jack rosenbomb for monsieur he is he has a beautiful voice he's a big cousin and he decided to come to mcdonald the inn is by bell he's staying rosenbaum is staying in play and certainly the old russian comes in became a balagan and he asked what happened let me tell him that somebody killed ifaldine he fainted fight it in the middle of that middle governing then i go after everybody's inside i go to the own kurdish open up their own kurdish and say jewish you need this jews of course of course a very hard thing what happened but fighting i tell you if you will fight he will kill somebody or you will not finish this year and who am i speaking i have helicopters you're a helicopter outside of the square this cable is coming the head from the police from the from the israelites the old group you hear what happened the fight comes down they see him you see the helicopter he says i can speak to everybody give me a delegation they take few five six people the russian it goes in the room near the synagogue and what is a moral khanna you don't speak english in they speak only only edith or russian it says that if i want that i will the rav is going to be the translator not the interpreter you must understand them they come they have not they have no apartments they're very poor and you come and the government gives you a nice apartment and this is jealous is i say to myself if i will say to them what he says he will be he will be in that i say he says that this boy will be forever in the in the industry what the rub is saying is that the chief of police was basically telling the russians things that the rev knew if the russians would hear these things they would not react well so the rav basically interpreted his words completely differently than what he was saying he was saying you have to understand the rob's saying we're going to put them away forever we're going to lock them up the newspapers wrote about the rub what was the line translated and made better basically everybody afterwards they understood that the rav understood exactly what to say and i like to say that that rosh hashanah was when the rav was kinder the robber acquired migdalaimek he saved the city from a massacre and that was muhammad the moment he became the love of the city today the two cities in israel that keep up shabbat hundred percent everything is closed when you drive into mig there's a there's a gas station in the in both sides of the city they're gas stations with signs that say we're closed on shabbos and you don't find this anywhere else this is fine gas station which is closed but i want to i want to talk to the rav for a second because the rub is not a you know he grew up in a charm he's not a person with the sports he was never into sports and yet somehow of grossman not just did he get at the sports he ended up being involved with one of the most famous sports teams in the world the new york knicks and that how did that happen where the rov ends up going to madison square garden on the parquet floor of madison square garden what was the story why did the rav end up going to madison square garden one day i was in my home in the old guys that you called it disco in the beginning what was your name for the guys from the disco what means the guys from the disco that's always called these guys on from the disco we call them so he's sitting at home and there's a knock at the door they come then i don't mind i open up the door and they take me out and they started singing yes sherlock yes a god and they put me of a kang in the street of the cow of the deck from the car in i think maybe meshiach is coming yeshua kim what happened this night was a game between maccabi tel aviv and russia russia in israel one with one point this russian in the the in television in the radio that he gives the news from the game because israel is his success his stake is screaming so the sports announcer who was announcing the game he was so excited he was so excited that israel won this game against russia that he screams out yay shalom kim there is a god now all over israel people went crazy and and they picked them up and put them on top of a car and they're dancing around the car screaming yes you're looking so what happened then after them one for you maybe three years after them one from the boys amygdala america very interesting boy sitting there learning learning he finished his decided to learning when he finished the whole chase that the boy not only give mariah i make a big big body and i say to the old people you remember the the the the screaming yeshua kim for this for the sport let's make a big party in singing yeshua kim for this boy i bought rabbi yourself to make that give us the cheap rabbi that was a see him that was a beautiful sea of yeah shalom came but then the rav had an idea and the idea was i just want to tell what the idea is the rav said look there's so many israelis in in america so many things and they have no connection to yiddish guy they have no connection to torah how do i reach 20 000 israelis in one shot how do i do this i want to i reach everybody and watch out so rather than a great idea tom brody was the guy who won the game against moscow and the rev had become friends with tao brodie so the rov goes to tom brody and says listen i want you to set up a game a basketball game between maccabi tel aviv and the new york knicks and i want i'm gonna come so what happened so tom what happened in the halftime show at halftime they say usually people stay up to date to do the same never surprise everybody sit they make darkness only middle delight then i come in me to microphone i come in all people says my name is rabbi grossman i come from israel to speak to you you israeli you remember are you what means you you never ever place that let's say together is together can explain the feeling for the old people they don't want to leave he's singing again many people in new york remember and then they started to call me sent letters and many many people became close to hashem from this unbelievable one game from one night wait a second but we have to say the best part of the story was that dr j right dr j said to the rev maybe take a shot now gross would never never shat a basketball in his life but dr james let me help you and he says okay hold the ball like this and bend your knees like that the ref said let me do it by myself what happened i said let me do then i take the ball i construct myself and i put in is it going in [Music] i want to talk about one other story i mean we commercially matter we could talk we could talk all day and all night hashem which we did when i'm the book the same the book that's coming out now from the from the rub it's called legend and it's and it's uh with art school and this is a book that's hours and hours and hours that i spoke with of grossman about his incredible life but just one more story this story is really one of the most amazing stories that the rov had in his life a life of amazing stories but this story was like akanesh marco speaking to the rav and this is going back to 2004 if i'm not mistaken when the rav signed i decided to build me build a beautiful a very big campus for the boys the sign is i signed for six million dollars i have maybe maybe 200 200 that's it that's it maybe more then when i signed you have a video that says i say the bonus i signed you will pay that's what i say okay the laughing in this after them i became the israel prize oh so at that time israel gave rav grossman the a very a very prestigious prize it's called the israel prize which is really it was for a lifetime of achievement that's what it was and therefore because he had the prize everywhere he went in israel people recognized this everybody knew it was a big thing it was a in the big in televisions right i come to elal to go on fundraising you received his surprise we want also to give you a price what you might upgrade near to the first class now rav grossman never used to go on first class because what i used to talking money for for the travel no no but now they gave him upgrade for free so okay okay i got in first class was six seat two and two into i see dell nobody is hell in the last minute comes a couple the american couple and sit down okay the flight is take out never i do this i don't know why i do this i stay up go to this man and say shalom my name is rabbi grossman i walk with thousands of kids they used to call it the disk rabbi tell them the story and i say maybe you want to see a dvd a video from my place knew he can't go anywhere he's stuck he can't go anywhere where's he gonna go he has to watch it say okay then i take the the dvd and put him take this table from the indian in a plane put us in and he used him and his wife right and his wife and then i take on eight minutes i see finished i come to take back okay slow down so let's let's get what happened here clear the rov gets off from a seat the rev goes over to this man and his wife to take back the dvd machine that he that he just watched very nice now what happens next but that man you know in this plane you have a battle here a button in the seat if you pull the button then the seat became like a bed i come i come but my one hand i want to take the dvd from the end i put my hand over the bottom of the unit and then i push the button i make him lean he goes from one second to the next from sitting up to lying down without knowing it he's shocked he doesn't know what's going on yeah you see his son you think somebody is very fat and he's put him in like i'm done i don't know what to do and i stay and then i i i is living like them i give him a kiss in his is okay so this is a very funny part of the story the grossman's standing he's towering above this guy this guy just went from sitting to lying down and with grossman he doesn't know why he does this but for whatever reason not knowing why he bends over and he gives the guy a kiss on the far end he doesn't know why he doesn't can i say and say no because i want to show you i'm excited and you feel bad for whatever excuse me excuse me then i take back i go back to my place and i speak to myself why are you doing things like why did you do this why i share me for myself two minutes later you stay up with his wife come to my chair he says rabbi i wanted you know i've been very close to bb and i've been very close to bielski bielski is the head from the jews exactly from the uga very blessed he says i put away a big amount from from for for building but i want to save kids like what you're doing they show me many things the uga and the the the homes that the jewish agencies agency in maybe in the show that i don't like ask my wife i make a sign with god if somebody will come in this walking with these kids from walking home often and he will give me like his eel this is the man that i need to give him the money can you believe that this is to make a sign like a crazy and it gives me a couple of million dollars to build this building unbelievable i just wanted to say we're going to finish off with with this interview and the mai said all started if we go back in the beginning it all started from the rove for the obvious israel wanted to go and save kalya's earl that's how it all started that's where it began with a love with a person a year who wants to give and save kaiser and that led to a lifetime of the most amazing amazing stories every day you say in the davonin i thank you god that you created me for you anna i say every time in my speeches in my daughter i say a story this was a father an american a son in america in two sons in israel one is rich he lives in kisarya and one is a pool lives in mcdonald in the merry office son of an american he to his son the big the richest in shekels say your brother is going to be your brother is going to be wearing i wanted to come to the wedding everything that you will spend for the wedding i will give you back and it says also please try that you say brother with this your formula for me the lamech will also come okay this son from kissaria save a letter that father will give back everything but he spent he's going to tel aviv in this golf center bought for his vibe a beautiful boutique you know boutique the nice clothes he voiced for himself beautiful wood beautiful suit everything for his kids but the mcdonald's is brother he sent them i have a ticket for you this in this day be flying to america but you don't go to buy a clothing in in in for his wife the brothers vibe and the children okay day is coming the two formulas come to airport loud they go in the plane to america in america in kennedy airport the father in the house in the mercury debating lender comes to the son from igalemic clothing very like like pool he became a shame what can he do okay day after he take him to tellton avenue in ballpark bought them a clothing finish the wedding was a beautiful body wedding in in bold of astoria it was beautiful after the wedding after the chevy bonus time to go home this sun from kisanya waiting their father to give him the back force where's the money send me the money i don't i sit down you go to his father father you know how much cost me the old boutique into all the clothing and everything the father says you're a big boy you will walk a little louder you will you will pay back he says hey i have overdraft in my bank you will pay me father what your promise mean that everything what i will spend you will give me back i promise you i have the letter okay let's show the letter let's take the letter let's read together everything what you will spend for my honor i will give you back the says to his son if you will think of mine you will try that your brother and his wife and it should also have beautiful clothing what you spend is for you anna i never promise you that i will give you for you right now what is the emotion if you try only for yourself that you're learning and darwining you keep obtaining this but if you do this only and you don't try that your brother also to have a little shyness and to give him love god says this is not for man that you lose for you right now in you need to take care of your brother's kids and then you know i grew up in a home in my father was the growing the bestrol grossman 10 kids in 70 matters in the 50s arrived in israel the yemenis my father go to washington speak it go on the eminence youths leave this time in in tense winter very bad it goes from 10 to 10 it says if you have a problem for your kids i have a place and they brought to my home i am i know about five kids yemenis i used to sleep in one bed with two yamanets i'll show you sure this is my nothing 70 meters 10 kids he has patience to go and my mother and father to take another five kids in the yumminess why this is going because you don't live for yourself you live for kurdish bowl thank you very much of grossman you're an inspiration for all of us [Music] literally literally no better way to end a weekend of inspiration than to hear from robert grossman just what a spectacular human being and again i'm looking forward to the book living legend that was set to hit the bookstores very shortly thank you again ahmed seltzer for a superb interview thank you for doing that for us ladies and gentlemen we're closing out the convention weekend believe it or not and it's usually around this time where we're piling up to go containers with lunch from the convention and i want to thank a bunch of people here first of all zk zama cappell who's working the production of this uh out of brooklyn new york not easy bringing it from jerusalem and back thank you so much for thursday night and for tonight for doing an amazing job i want to thank the jerusalem media group here in yerushalayim for hosting us here in their studios and doing an amazing job in the wee hours of the morning as we approach 6 a.m as we yes as we approach 6 a.m 11 p.m there in new york so thank you again jerusalem media group i want to thank torah anytime for being a real partner in this entire project to mayor yosef rubin for being on top of every ounce of this program from beginning to end thank you all for doing an amazing job kyla kaufman and the jcn and of course i missed uh kresge koftel a board member of ours who was uh instrumental in making this project happen as well and last but not least my colleague and uh buddy behind the scenes here yaakov ginager who's sitting in his own home with zk pulling this all off thursday night every piece of the an end tonight and every piece of the program thank you jacqueline for a splendid job ladies and gentlemen as we close out this convention weekend a final message and as i say goodbye to you at 6 00 a.m and you're shalom at 11 p.m we close with final words from the family director of project inspire robert hayem samson we hope you enjoyed the project inspired convention and you're still enjoying it and we thank you for being a part of our community the project inspiring community our community we describe as being a learning growing and perhaps most importantly sharing community and we're thrilled that you're part of it now the great rabbinic authority maimonides the rumban explain the beautiful reason why avraham shared his the heritage his our heritage with the people that he met and he says why did he do it because he was called avram o havi abraham my beloved because he loved hashem he loved god he wanted to share god and torah with everyone and he explains that that's a principle when you love something you want to share it with others you don't want to keep it to yourself if you have a tremendous recipe and you're a great cook you've got to share this with people because if you love it you want to share it if you know a beautiful piece of music you want to share it a great share it with others your parents come to town everybody should meet them while your parents came so the rambam says yes share share our heritage with our fellow jew because if you love it you should share it but more than that imagine a person had the cure for cancer and he didn't share it kept it to himself now is that a tragedy we have to appreciate that the torah has everything in it all the blessings everything is in the torah digging it digging it it's all in there all the blessings everything comes from a relationship and the beauty of a connection to god through the torah so let's share it with our fellow jews you know we're now in the times between two bishwat and purim and on tupes but i looked out the window when i said so i said to myself oh it looks gloomy looks dark so why are we celebrating this beautiful holiday of tubisma and the answer is because the sap is rising there's an internal change that's going on now even though it looks gloomy and dark but in two months we're guaranteed there's going to be flowers in blue or beginning to bloom budding spring will be in the air guaranteed the internal change necessitates there's going to be blessing coming in our way in a couple of months so what's that internal if we too make an internal change if we make the internal change even though it looks gloomy outside and what are you going to do with the covert but if we make that internal change as well and hashem is helping us get there that i'm telling you guaranteed we'll have that blessing will be coming in a couple of months why in a couple of months because the holy chasm sofa who was the great authority the leader of the european jury in the early 1900s he was quoted around rosh hashanah all the time and saying you know what a prediction that the year tough shin pay which we just passed was a bad year it's going to be a bad year and he could said this but tough shin pay olive is going to be great why because he says the letters tough shin pay aloe corresponds to the verse in the torah me ashpos yarin avion hashem is going to raise up the poor from the dung heap and and that's us that in touching the year that we're in there's going to be incredible wonderful things yeshua's that hashem is going to do for the jewish people he's going to redeem us and i ask myself where is it where is that redemption so i'm telling you my friends purim pesach are the times of redemption if we make that internal change now if we appreciate that we have an infinite being that loves us with an infinite love if we love the torah that he gave gave us and we cling to it and we learn it and we cherish it and we grow with it and more than that if we share it with the jewish people we understand we're one if we do that i guarantee you that blessing will come in these times to the times of redemption of puma and pesach let us all rejoice in the torah that we have let us love the almighty let us enjoy his torah and share it with our brothers and sisters and please god that blessing will come very very soon i thank you so much for being part of the project inspire convention and the project inspire community for the best thank you [Music] do [Music] like a light leaves a flame in the darkness in the darkness i keep calling out your name i know you're here [Music] under half a trillion stars i'm searching you are searching like we're light years apart but you're so near if you're in pieces and you're just falling down falling [Music] for you every time as you turn around [Music] on the [Music] together is falling down [Music] together we [Music] there is only one place we know [Music] [Applause] for you every time i will let you down [Music] me [Music]