Rabbi Klatzko Sefira Conf 2012

okay good morning everyone are we ready to change the world we are going to there's Hashem this is a this is not really a speech this is going to be a workshop and we're going to unveil a new initiative and nobody knows about not even project and inspired and I hope this is going to be the next big thing okay we'll build it up properly and I'm glad you decided to come here because you're going to get in at the very ground floor of something that hopefully will be a game changer they broke up this session into a few different a few different topics there you we've got uh Inspire yourself Inspire your family inspired client so I hope that doesn't mean that I know don't know how to inspire my family or myself and I think that perhaps they chose inspired quality so because I am what they call a quote-unquote a cure professional I reject that term I reject it simply because I never went to school for uh for kiruv I never went to classes I didn't even go to nerala for one of those kind of programs that teach you kiru you're a professional if you care and then as you do it more and more you learn what works for you and what doesn't work and that's really what a cure professional is so it's a it's a misnomer it's um I I just don't think it's that accurate even so nowadays I do get paid for doing kiruv and my primary job is doing kirov on college campuses my job is on the national director for for call knowledge Outreach to North America so primarily what I do is I travel from a city to City each week and I meet the rabbis at each college and that's what I do I try to train in the rabbis get them inspired I usually have a chance to speak to their students Inspire their students and that's pretty much my life my wife is a real sadakis you may know if any of your old Borough Park Flatbush people my wife is a gervel if you've heard of Tina gervel or Tova gervel or Rabbi gervel from the books and tapes that's my father-in-law that's my father so you see the big today's right so um yeah that's the that's the family that that I come from and my parents are klatz goes from Cleveland also eisenmann if you know any the eismann's from Baltimore laniado hospital and including that as Elias Bodenheimer and grunfeld which is all the yakish aside of my family I didn't start off as a cure of professional quote-unquote I actually was in coil for 10 years and while I was in Kyle I also had a shoe I had to show on Shabbos and borrow park for seven years and in Perth Amboy New Jersey you know that show that's in the news I don't know if you've seen the News That's that was my show the show that they're selling and there's a group that wants to buy it and there's a big Muhammad that was the show that I was there of in for many years there's something that happened which I'm going to be telling you about in this talk and that event made me rethink what I'm doing with my days here on Earth and I left the rub on us and I left it pretty cold and and I enjoyed being a REV I enjoyed learning I mean I learned how to do Mila and uh luciferous and like all the things we built to make for an area we did it all but at the end of the day people moving them from point A to point B to point C from fry to from from uninspired to inspired I didn't feel like at least there are abundance that I had was doing that for me and so I left and I moved to California and we moved on to a college campus called UCLA I was there for many years UCLA I was the rabbi over there I was called Rabbi K and for many years even the good Island that I would meet they'd say oh like no that was for my students were supposed to call me that I'm I'm just been seeing but then what happened was there was a young Rabbi in the University of Maryland whose name is karetsky and he started going around with Rabbi K as well so then it came a little bit more complicated and then to make it even more complicated one of my rabbis in the temple his name was Rabbi k-a-y and he started going as a rabbi case I just said you know that said well we've been seeing Clans Gunnison and um and for many years about seven years I lived on a college campus I brought up a mishbacha there and about six years ago I had the opportunity to move back to Muncie and take over the national position and I'm just giving you this bio because I want to when I unveil what I'm about to unveil you have to know where I'm coming from so we've been living for six years and months in New York uh a lot of people sort of thought doing cure of a Muncie is impossible like who's coming to mind see what our outside of RCC which is a little Community College where are you going to take care of the truth is we're doing more Cuban Muncie than we even did on a college campus because there's really nothing there so I have a 50 mile radius at my disposal I've got rage coming I got Emmett coming this week I had a group from Montreal next week I have a group from La that's actually flying in to join me and there's plenty of cure to be done if you just open your eyes and you want to do it the last thing that I would tell you and I think this is why they gave me this particular position is because um a number of years ago I began the website shabbat.com and that's the papers that I gave you shabbat.com began as a thought in the middle of sorry about that but uh that you know all the best ideas and I'm just thinking you know wouldn't it be great uh actually the evolution was that we have a lot of guests for Shabbos usually between 1500 guests each week my wife is a big sidakis again I take no credit for it I'm just the ringleader and um people would always say in the community why didn't you send the sum of your people now come on you know they they came to me oh even though you asked to come to me let me send you to the Grossman's so it's just it's uncomfortable and it's a little bit of a hassle to tell you the truth to start setting people up and a bait and switch so I said what if I just gave you a register that you could list yourself as hosts so we started that actually when I when I originally thought of the idea I had no money to start it because the website we put almost 400 000 into it and and we're coming out with a 3.0 version in a few months that's going to blow everything that you for those that are on the site it's going to be the most delicious thing you've ever seen it'll just push push in a way that no one's ever seen before but we're waiting for that to happen but I didn't have any money to you know I'm in care of you know the Cure doesn't pay all that much so um at that time we had a fire in the house uh fighting the house air of pesach and you know that happens happens and everyone came over to me with the funny joke I guess it did like that's the first time I heard that one everyone's coming over be your comments So eventually so it was we had nowhere to go for pesach we call up travelers insurance and we tell Travelers you know we we need a proper accommodations for pesach they said okay we'll put you up in the holiday in 79 bucks a night I said no no you're not understanding like we need a sailor we need a community we need to show we need a Pixar Hotel so they said sure how much is that going to be they said twenty thousand dollars for eight days so they nearly laughed themselves off of the phone which I didn't appreciate so I called them the big guns we called and um who is one of the heads of the aguda calls up Travelers and says listen one of our constituents they're in trouble they have a large family their house just burnt down we hope you will show them all the necessary uh accommodations that they need show them that courtesy they are they are members of Travelers and if you can't we will just have to tell our close to one million members to leave Travelers so four minutes later we get this very friendly phone call from Travelers you know what we had a change of heart never mentioning the phone call that they got we had a change of heart we're okay with you going to a pesach hotel so now we actually have to find a hotel that would take us last minute and most hotels were booked and we needed rooms that were closed to each other you know with all the kids so we found a hotel Rabbi Portnoy from from Queens and he said you're welcome to you're welcome to um you can come but I'd like you to speak four times you agree to speak four times I guess we'll be able to have another speaker I mean they had speakers another speaker then we'll make you know we'll Shuffle things around I said sure and we had the most amazing amazing pay section the food was amazing the food was absolutely amazing and everything else is okay as well a lot of Rook news a lot of goshmias I had never even thought of going to a hotel for pesach and it was a beautiful experience after pesach I get a phone call from Heim Sampson Robert Heim Samson and he says listen I heard you speak I'd love you to speak for project Inspire and I said sure So I spoke that much the Shabbos but it was during that week that I had thought of the idea of shabbat.com which originally was called anyone who used to be called cion Chavez so originally we called Theon Chavez so I announced to have the project inspired wouldn't it be amazing if every single person who wants to have guests were able to open their home and every single person who needs a place would be able to find a place so right after I gave the talk a young man by the name of La Vie needleman or Lee needleman who lives in Muncie came rushing up to the front oh and I said anyone who wants to help me with this I have the idea I'll implement it by I need help Lee Cameron La vid came running over to me and said Rabbi I'll be your fundraiser you can't even pay for stuff like that I'll be your fundraiser are you kidding me so that's how we got it off the ground and here we are a few years later and six thousand people a week invited for Shabbos six thousand that means each month more than Madison Square Garden Chicago the for those of you that are on the site that don't see the action and the 3.0 you're going to start seeing it's built in you'll be able to see everything that's going on in your community who just got invited who's looking for a shoulder who needs a place who just signed up we're gonna have a news stream which doesn't exist on on the current site so you we're going to push Oracle forward you're going to be able to see that so that told me that when you come to project inspire you have this amazing Forum amazing group of people that want to reach out and help so that was the idea years ago here's the new idea this is called Inspire quality so what I'm going to say now I don't think has ever been said in a public forum particularly in a project inspired kind of a form and it has to be said we are trying to be mechanically so to run out and do care of now I do care of all day that's what I do for a living I run to do care of there is something that sabotages my care of and there's something that sabotages will sabotage your care of and not only does it sabotage it that when we try to be my kind of people they end up falling off the Derek or they don't they don't come close but even people who are on the Derek now are rushing towards the exit and I think we are all aware of this I mean I have a radio show if you ever want to listen see that brute 97.5 FM every Monday and we speak about real issues and I take questions and I take phone calls and you have to hear that much of Chloe cell is in a lot of pain there's a lot of pain and part of the pain is that while we try to keep a positive outlook and put our best foot forward and and just put plaster a smile on our faces the reality is we have a crisis that's getting worse we have a parnassic crisis that is worse than getting worse and we have kids who are at risk and adults at risk and people who look on the outside from but inside there's a lot of hollowness and there's a yearning and there are questions and I've spoken recently in front of a number of very very crowds and you cannot believe the questions that come come to me after I speak you won't believe it and maybe in the back of our minds we begin to suspect or we worry that maybe there's something that is rotting on the inside and we're just trying to like put a little more makeup on the outside to make it look presentable I don't know if that's what you think but there are times that I think that and the truth of the matter is the following Claude Israel is really in good shape we're not in a horrible shape we there's a lot that there are a lot of issues but there's a lot that's going right the only thing is we never hear about it it's not heard it's not publicized we don't have PR it's very still but what has PR negativity and the negativity whether it's through blogs whether it is on television with people coming on and speaking about things whether it is through videos on YouTube there is this negativity that we're exposed to and it's not just from the fry island or from the anti-haradiolum but even within the from Islam we read you know it used to be if there was a scandal in pinsk you never heard about it in Minsk right each each little city had its rotten apple or its few rotten apples and nebuch that's what it is people have axr and that's how it is but today with the media the way it is we can take one newspaper one web page and on it we can collate every Sarah every Scandal every sad deed that a front person has done and we can put it that it looks like a list and each week we're exposed to this and it depresses us and it makes us question what's really going on do you agree with me okay I I wasn't if I feel it that's interesting because I spoke recently at our Nava and I spoke about the internet you know upcoming us even and I spoke about the three major issues and we spoke about the Beatles man we spoke about pornography and then I said the greatest issue of all I believe is the depression and the exposure to hashgraphers that weaken us and my wife turns to me and she says come on do you really think that's the big issue do you think that's the big issue I said there's no question to me but probably is terrible and it makes a person feel shock and it makes a person feel depressed but it is what it is but our scoffers they hit you from all sides there's no escaping them and it wears us away it whittles us down so whether right or whether wrong I gave my wife a brief 20-minute tour of the dark side of a computer and I don't mean uh images I'm talking about I said I want to tell you I want to show you a few videos and look how many people have seen them look at them I want to show you a few websites that are devoted to destroying yiddishkite look at this she said tilt it until now this was on Thursday Thursday night she said I couldn't sleep Friday she said I couldn't sleep last night she says I'm so bothered she said you're so right I said she said I was exposing it for 20 minutes and I felt a little something in my brain you know my wife is is a as big as sadakis as you can find her whole life is devoted but like the victim used to say that if someone says to you the Earth is square on some level it's going to make erosion maybe there are mountains at the Four Corners right and if a lie is repeated again and again and again the from they're not honest they're from they don't care about everyone else they're from they abuse their wives or the women are are degraded to from the from well you know what happens it's not just it's not just the the friar that we're trying to be Makarov who they come away from a shabathon expired they run to Google they do a few Google searches and forget about everything that we just said has become you know how many students I lost to this I'm going to Eric this around two weeks I'm bringing 40 Friar students who are staying in The Old City I plan on giving them the time of their lives they're going to hear the best speakers imaginable they're from Penn State they're from Las Vegas they're from Orlando and you know what I know exactly what's going to happen they're going to come back on fire they're going to sit in front of their computer and they're going to be exposed to yes but rather Clans could then tell us about this and even tell us about that and look at this send another patio file and another this and another abuse and another Scandal and another embezzlement and another and and everything that we say is going to go on and that right now is our greatest danger we as a from Community have not taken PR seriously we haven't it's like Israel you know Israel for many years did not feel PR was necessary they said you know what we we have um we have right on our side anyone who doesn't have the cycle to know that throwing a bomb on on a bunch of little children or blowing up a Bus full of innocent civilians is is a monsterly act anyone who doesn't know it there's nothing that we could say to them so Israel did not engage in PR guess what they were wrong because the Palestinians did engage in PR and like Gobles yamashimot from the Nazi regime said a lie that's repeated enough times becomes the truth that's what it is and that's what's happening what's happening is we have ignored this so on one hand we're saying go give charm to your neighbor go and say and then all of our hard work is going to go down the drain because they have no resources and the few videos that are out there that are supposed to be positive videos I hate to say they're preachy they're preachy they don't they they don't show normal people They show people preaching how great terror is so after much thought I've been thinking about this for ages I spoke to a few people we're putting together an organization and the organization starts right now and starting right now okay I registered uh the web domain still the light we are still the light we are still the light onto the Nations regardless of what the media says there's no nation that is involved in because like us there's no nation that is as caring and as considerate there's no nation that cares about life and dignity like us there are none and the world doesn't know it and even from Community doesn't hear it and what we need to do is we have to create in a PR arm and spread the word in a professional way we have to get SEO search engine optimization and get it at the top of Google so when you when you Google from it you won't get anti anti-semitic and anti-formalities but you'll get a wonderful a couple or 10 couples that are interviewed a husband or wife from hasidish to Lakewood whoever they are looking at each other with actors and with love speaking about how each one is the is a partner in building something beautiful speaking about themselves not preaching to the to the camera speaking about themselves we have to have a video with the tour of all the gamacham out there let's do a tour of a wedding dress come out with some amazing Stories let's take a tour of the summer because people don't know about what Sam was going to take is going to show it no we're not going to show it let us let us at least show the world I don't know what they're going to say in this office right but even if and I don't think this is the case but even if they were to ban even though they were to ban internet entirely that's not going to make the world stop watching that'll make them from hopefully listen to their good to the good Island but even so we have to create this arm and we're blind deaf and dumb if we think that it's going to happen on its own the only thing that's happening is we're becoming more depressed you know the rabbi Leaf got up and said wow such a big oil this is not a big oil I mean come on this is a small island honestly it's good you're the this is not a big island and the reason it's not a big island is because people are scared I spoke to a from Lady once she said you know I'm scared to do kirov because they'll learn the truth whoa whoa there's a from lady so we we have to take PR seriously right we have to stand by the city Gates and we don't have to not the preach just say who we are so anyone who would like in at the ground is the ground levels at the very bottom we could use help I don't have the penny to start this you could help financially you could help if you know a video person if you know couples who want to be interviewed take the back of the paper I give you the front of the paper you could be a host on the side cavallik but the back of the paper write how you can help out with this the light still shines we are still the light we are the Orla lossakan oil means that the non-jewish world the Jewish World the fryer world the from world has to know who we are and what we're doing it's not good enough we can't be behind times anymore we can't and I want to tell you that there is a group that did this very effectively not a Jewish group there's a group that did it it's the Mormons the Mormons actually did this exact thing except that to me it lacked authenticity so I could I could we could learn from that what to do but I saw them it was professional but it was too slick I want real I want real we are not we we don't have a fossil product to sell you speak to any ID how many people here have ever said a curse word how many people in this room have ever taken drugs how many we we were Serena people were so clean we're so pure we try so hard the world just doesn't know it oh The World Only Knows the scandals okay so that is the missing component in my opinion in kirov it's missing if we don't have that component we will not be able to do curve effectively and we're going to be spinning our Wheels we'll be building castles in the sand it'll just keep collapsing it's a big undertaking I have a a sister in Baltimore if you've ever seen her website rivkamalka.com she is a Powerhouse she is a new star on the horizon and she began using videos effectively to teach women how to cover their hair on and be proud of it she's gonna she's on board she has her videographer anyone who could help out with any part come join 10 times many people because there would be ten times many resources anything you could do put it on the back and you know whether it's financially whether it's yourself just to give yourself okay they asked me to speak about how to inspire others and they asked me actually on on the right parsham you see and I have to keep a keep an eye on the time are we over at 11 10. 11 15. okay this week's prior shows collection was My Brother's Bar Mitzvah Parsha and my brother his name was Gabriel clatsko was nifter the age of 28. he was a young man an idealistic man who changed the face of Johannesburg in a mere two years he was living in kiriat safer he had been working part-time or some mac he was a Rochester guy he got very into the inspirational part of yirushkaiah how to reach out he was amazing in our cement was learning in coil and part-time in in basis Israel in by vegan and then he went to uh to learn then then he went to Eric's Israel and he was living curated safe one of the first people to move in to kiryatse for caval he wanted us to buy a house we should have listened um and after after living there for a few years and working part-time in our samac or some ACT said listen we love you to work full time you're so good with the with the kids and he really didn't want to do that he wanted to stay in learning so they were opening up a coil in Johannesburg so he said I'll join and he and his family moved to Johannesburg they're renting out their house within 24 hours he was Mias at a shul he was greeted at the airport they heard Gabriel eclads goes coming help us run the show let us start a shul it'll be for young people and I guess he couldn't say no and that rule became known as The Sunny Road synagogue in case you're ever in Johannesburg you would know that the sunny road is now one of the largest schools in all Johannesburg there are many break-off shows of the sunny Road and he was the one who started the sunny Road synagogue and he lived there for two years and he had young people in his community that he reached out to and he had hundreds of people and they loved their young Rabbi he was essentially the same age as they were 26 years old when he started and two years later he was actually supposed to bring a group to Eric Israel that week a group of young students to learn about the Yiddish guide that Tuesday he was supposed to leave Mike's a Chavez he went to sleep and he never woke up and it was an epic tragedy tragedy for many many reasons and he was and his mama's which is very appropriate because people first begin to speak about his greatness after he was Nifty who is his remains were brought to Eric Israel and you expected there to be you know 100 people at the levia over 100 you know he wasn't even Living in America so all that so mishbach and friends right 200 people there were well over a thousand people there with with hours notice and the doylem came to his Shiva it was the most amazing thing it was the most amazing thing drove up you can't imagine who came to this young man like and everyone's everyone's looking at these these how did you know how did you know Gabriela why are you driving in and it turns out he was quietly secretly changing the world and the stories about Gabriel are now the subject of a book by Art scroll uh prozanski he's got a whole chapter devoted to him called The Incredible RAV gov there are books the Small Miracles have stories about him and every few days I meet another person who is a product of someone he was macarth he was going to carved hundreds and hundreds of people in two years and what I want to do is I want to finish with a few stories about him just to give us inspiration of what can be done first off I want to tell you the way he was mosh of his wife was the biggest lesson in kirov it was the biggest lesson when he started the sunny Road synagogue every Shabbos he would get up there to speak and hundreds of these young thirsty South Africans would be listening to their young charismatic Rabbi and you would get up there and his wife told me he never once forgot to mention her in his speech never once he would always say and my wife the light of my life and the one who teaches me what is good and true sitting here told me this amazing idea Amazing Story and I want to share it with you and she would sit there basking in the glow in recognition that he showed her saying you know you are part of me you are part of what I'm trying to build that's kirov and that's kirov there was a man who came to the Shiva and I said how did you know God he said oh I only met him for five minutes but it changed my life I said okay Story Time what happened I had begun writing down these stories because some of them were so Fantastical like you couldn't believe what you were hearing this guy said I met him for five minutes what's the story he said well I was sitting on an agate bus in Heritage Israel minding my own business when this young man hops on the bus the empty seat was right next to me so he sits down and he says like that's very friendly I don't like him he says what's your name so I tell him my name and he begins to speak with me after about three minutes he said to me I have a question he says my name is Gabriel clatsko then he says I got a question for you he's sure what is it he's what are you doing for the Jewish people he said excuse me he said look at you you're well spoken you're good looking you're charismatic you're knowledgeable we need people like you what are you doing for the Jewish people he said I didn't even know how to begin to answer that question and then a moment later it was just stop he said oh have a great day and he bounces off the bus and I'm there sitting along with this question rattling in my head all day what am I doing for the Jewish people so the next day I signed up for arachim and today I'm one of the lecturers for arakim I go around the country teaching Irish guide all because of a five-minute encounter with a person who couldn't keep his mouth quiet because he said what are you doing for the Jewish people a person came to Gabriel's house and he saw the garage they went to the garage the garage was full of dishes and when I say full of dishes I mean boxes piled 10 high eight deep you're talking about 80 sets of dishes so he says to Gabriel he's whoa were they having a sale on dishes Gabrielle says yeah they were he said so you you have to what did you buy every dish in the store yes he said why you're never going to use that because no you don't understand sometimes I meet people and they they're in the middle of trying to become from and they want to start keeping kosher but what's stopping them is they can't afford new dishes so when I hear someone who's coming from much deep kosher I got dishes to give them so he bought all the dishes and I can give them dishes it's the way he thought the way he thought Rabbi Becker once came to visit him in South Africa and he's visiting him and in the middle of the visit rather God says why don't we go you know you have time until you're speaking this evening let's go to Krueger National Park let's go to a park and we'll I'll you know we'll enjoy our time together I really used to do this to visiting rabbanum he used to give them you know a little bit of an interesting time he used to say come chill out a little I'll give you a good time so he said why don't you come so they went to Kruger National Park and they're walking along the park and and it's also a safari by the way so they go to Kruger National Park and they see these two africaners sitting on a on a big rock now you know what afrikana is Africana are the people kept apart going for so long that are like blacks they don't like Jews and they can be pretty scary so God says hey why don't we go over to them maybe one of them is Jewish they will kill us God is no you never know let's go over so God marches over Robert Becker's hiding behind him because he doesn't want to go even mute to this but he doesn't want to leave Gabriel by himself I got real goes over to them and says hi you guys are either of you guys Jewish and they both look up for them they look like skinheads they're scary looking guys and they're like let's let's get out of here either you guys Jewish they both stare at him for a few moments and then one of them says well technically I'm Jewish his friend was shocked actually he says you are he said well technically you see because my mother's mother was Jewish so technically that makes me Jewish so God gets all excited oh so do you do anything Jewish he's no no no nothing at all no Shabbos no Yom Kippur no Hanukkah no pay it's like no God looks at him sort of surprises I never met a Jew didn't do a single thing Jewish wow so the guy said well I mean to be honest there's one thing I do he said what do you do he said when the empty father began you know I since technically I'm Jewish so I began getting a little bit curious about Israel and I was curious I began to Google of course and as I'm Googling I end up finding a site which is sort of an ask the rabbi site and for about a half a year I've been having these questions about Judaism and I've actually been learning quite a bit so Rebecca walks around and says to the guy would you be Jonathan because are you Mordecai Becker he says yes from across the globe they were pen pals because when you reach out you have the ability to change the world when you're silent nothing happens now I'm getting the signal to end and I really want to tell you more my Salah I think they're kadai to hear but I think the initiative that we spoke about was even more kadai so let's see are we over yeah I think we're over so if you can hand it back if you have any good ideas about this idea come tell me we have the ability to change the world it's just up to us thank you very much