R' Shmuel Yakov Klein on "Live a Life of Value and not Counterfeit"

okay sh ladies uh not ladies and gentlemen I guess sh everybody thank you very much for coming to the community center we have a whole program ahead of us expecting more people also as well uh basically it's called malag presented by kako we have the honor of having theu KRA uh from Bar Park that came to uh join us uh the head by RAB CLE who will be giving us and words of inspiration uh we will be having pizza and Sushi as well uh to fulfill the which is the fourth meal so we're going to be doing that having that very shortly uh the program is that we're going to hear for Rabbi Klein uh some words of some inspiration after that we're going to be having uh small groups of learning uh with with the with k then we're going to have the malaa and the music and the dancing uh with everyone together it's going to be something very nice uh upcoming announcements uh is like this for the teens we have a new basketball league that we're starting it's going to be uh it's going to be in a gym obviously we're going to have professional referees it's official we're going to be doing it in fars High School which is a block away from me a professional gym obviously uh we're going to have professional referees and coaches we're going to have personalized jerseys we're going to have uh your name and number on the jerseys you're going to have trophies for all the winners and much more including barbecues and exciting trips throughout the season so if you're a teenager if you know any teenagers from the ages of 14 to 17 encourage them to join us uh you could come see myself you could see Isaac you'll see the Flyers all over the building you'll see in the newsletters as well uh of how to uh get uh you know involved is there an announcement about the first session Isaac huh when the first session is do we know first week of February we start we start first week of February is when it's going to be started uh this new teens basketball league so again please come spread the word let everyone know about it um regarding other announcements I'm going do the announcements very quickly uh that we're going to be having the big kazak event 3 in Queen college for over 2,000 people this year March 15th save the date details coming soon with regard to the speakers and the entertainment part as well whoever want to sponsor that please come and see us as well tomorrow night rabi will be giving a lecture at 8 in Garden Hills and Monday night for ladies if you have your wives or your sisters you could let them know that we have a class over here uh for ladies every Monday night and and also on Monday night we have a a lecture in qardan Hills in Rabbi gladstein sh messages memories and miracles from the harof massacre everyone knows what happened in harof unfortunately so the rabbi was actually there Rabbi Travis and he's going to tell us about this uh subject that's January 19th 8:00 p.m. at tus again you can see all these announcements in the pink newsletters that were handed out U many upcoming events and programs will be uh happening so uh we'll keep you in the loop again we are really honored and privileged to have Rabbi yov Klein who's from and he's also involved with Torah very big Jewish organization that helps schools and and and and teachers and re uh do their job well so we're going to be hearing some words of from him and uh thank you very much to RAB and everyone from for joining us today as well so without further Ado please rise and give let's give a nice loud Round of Applause [Applause] [Music] for it's almost a year almost exactly year that I stood here for the first time to speak to a kazak event in fact um after my little speech I last year I remember learning with a group of boys I'm not sure were you one of them okay good to see you again I enjoyed that so much yes now now I do okay so we're going to focus we're going to focus on the Torah that we're reading last week this week next week the week after that these are the paros the Torah portions that deal with the Exodus from Egypt [Music] and I don't know since I was very young kid I was always bothered by the fact that we seem to be so busy with MIT with Egypt now what's what's the scoop with Egypt first of all you should know the Torah itself obligates us to remember the fact that we left Egypt every single day when we say in the morning then we say it again in the evening we say it when we go to sleep we mention and remember the fact that we left Egypt a few times a day in we say Etc we remember all the time why is this so important why am I so obsessed with the fact that we left Egypt and then of course we have this yum this festival called pesak and for many people this is the highlight of the Jewish calendar pesak we go to the Seder we eat matah we're spending time with relatives so one ful time PES what are we celebrating in pesak time the fact that we left Egypt like enough already with the Egypt you know what I'm saying what's what gives with the Egypt on top of that you know the ramam my monties rambam says in connection to PES the rambam says that in all generations not the rambam we say it in the sages before the ramb he just changes the wording a little bit but we won't go into that in every generation every single Jew has to see himself as if he left Egypt now I don't know about you but I've never been to Egypt and for one I have a hard time thinking about you know that seeing myself as if I left Egypt if I was never there to begin with so again the question the big question is why are we so preoccupied with MIT RAB guys over there in the corner do me a you might learn something try to listen try to listen thanks a lot by the way I do I do feel a little bit of empathy here for for people because well let's say in in my career I've had many times to compete with other speakers speakers speak before me speakers will speak after me and I sort of managed to do that it's a lot harder however when you have to compete not against a speaker but against boxes of pizza because that sometimes is really like an insurmountable kind of of a challenge where people smell the wafting fragrance of the pizza coming from the boxes and here there's this guy wearing 19th century clothing standing at the front of the room trying to share some words of Tyra you know it's almost like a no brainer there's no no competition so this is my life you know we have to put up with this it's okay we're going to make the old College effort so again we started with this major question why is MIT such a major Obsession in our lives with pesak with remembering it all the time I'll ask you another question when we think about the Exodus a lot of us think about some sort of a cinematographic or whatever the word would be description of The Exodus ofas MIM and we imagine that we understand what being in Egypt was all about we think about these emaciated broken Hebrew slaves and the mighty sunbaked Egyptian taskmasters standing over them with whips and whipping them into slavery and that's the and and of course we think about the fact that Jewish children were killed where in fact there was an edict there was a decree by parro that all Jewish children who were born male children should be thrown into the yor into the Nile River so we think of this constant terrible description of what it meant to be a Jew in Egypt back then now I want you to consider the following there is a verse there is a puzzle which we'll read in a couple of weeks that says when the Jewish people left they left Kim they left now the literal literal translation of means that they left with weapons they were armed but the sages say well you know it's it's not really that the sages say it doesn't mean that they were armed it means that only one in five left others hold it was even less than that but I want you to consider the idea that the majority if not the vast majority of the Jews in Egypt stayed they were given the choice there's the door you can step out of Egypt go on to being free people or or stay and most of the Jews and MIM said I think we're going to stay that does not Jive doesn't fit in doesn't match the concept that we have in our minds of Egypt being that terrible terrible place I don't know about you but if I were a slave and I were being beaten and I had an option to end that all to walk out and be a free man I would leave I think we would all leave so how are we to understand what Egypt is all about on the basis of the fact that most Jews decided that they want to stay there I'll ask you another [Music] question a similar kind of question years after the Jews left those who did leave right we know the story they were for 40 years they were in the wilderness they received the Torah at the beginning of that time than they were wandering around for 40 years there was a point at which the Jews said you know what we're sick of this we want to go back to Egypt now I'm asking you again the same kind of a question if we are considering that Egypt that mitzraim was this terrible terrible place then why in the world would the majority of the Jews in the wilderness almost 40 years later say we want to go back it's like somebody saying you know I was being snowboarded we know about snowboarding it came up a lot in the news lately I was being snowboarded day after day but you know I sort of liked it I want to go back for more I mean that's totally Preposterous it's ludicrous so you know the the long and short of it gentlemen is that we have this greatly difficult time understanding what MIT is all about why are why are we concerned with MIT the key to understanding all of this lies in a single word and the Word was or is in the par that we read this morning you know at the Seder of pesak we drink four cups of wine those four cups of wine symbolize various things one of the things that those four cups of wine symbolize is that there are four Expressions four different expressions in the Torah which denote the fact that hasem is going to take us out there's different words referring to the fact that Hashem is going to extricate us from slavery in Egypt and therefore to represent these four different Expressions we drink four cups of wine it's one of the explanations the first of those four Expressions I'm going to share it with you is the word which means I will take out Hashem himself said the I will take you out from under the burdens of Egypt so the is the first of the four languages the key however is the word cot cot I just translated for you a second ago means burdens the sufferings and again we understand Jewish suffering the crack of the whip on the back the fact that constant work the loss of children sort of like a mini Holocaust if you want to look at it in that way what's interesting however is the choice of the word c usually to represent that which we are thinking about the Torah would have used a different kind of words such as let's say inim sufferings deprivation starvation Etc inim or maybe just or slavery that would have been the simplest expression or maybe even the word the misfortunes the agony why do we use the word c why do use that unlikely word c to represent the condition of the Jewish people in Egypt and I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you what it's all about the word cot means tolerance it means patience even in modern Hebrew in arur say sa be patient relax sa Hashem said to Moshe to tell the Jewish people that he's going to take us out I'm going to take the Jewish people out from a situation where they are tolerating Egypt where they are patient with what Egypt represents and this is really the bottom line raai the bottom line is that Egypt is not only a place the fact that we have to think that we left MIT wouldn't make sense if it were only a place because we were not in MIT I was not in MIT MIM is not only representative of the idea of physical suffering it's not only talking about the fact that Jews will be put to physical tests and they will be enslaved and they will have physical suffering and killing of their children c means that MIT is a situation which exists in our heads it's a situation that exists in our hearts and that situation was one of Tolerance the Jewish people in MIT for the most part yeah there was some physical suffering of course there was some of that too but for the most part for the 210 years of the Jewish people were in Egypt their lives represented a frame of mind of tolerating tolerating the corruption of Egypt tolerating the impurity of Egypt tolerating the fact that in Egypt human life had almost no value do you know that that they wasted about 10,000 lives just to build the Great pyramid at Giza that's how important the pyramid was then what was for them people died in the construction but that was no problem because human life had no value if you were a slave for sure but Jews tolerated that as well immorality we are taught that Egypt which is known also as the cradle of civilization was one of the most corrupt places on Earth people were bad to one another and our lives in Egypt were lives of tolerating that you know we we are Jews and a Jew when he sees something which is wrong in the world it bothers him I don't care right now how religious the Jew might be but that's just what the Jewish heart is all about when a Jew sees an injustice when a Jew sees bigotry when he sees hatred when he sees Prejudice when he sees that people do injustices to one another the Jewish heart suffers pain but it wasn't always like that because as long as we were in Egypt we fell down spiritually and emotionally to a point where we tolerated it all we were so Veil Egypt the culture of Egypt eypt was something that we were able to swallow and to live with and to accept and Hashem said you know there is not going to be any way of getting the Jews out of Egypt unless first they develop a sense of intolerance that doesn't mean that we become intolerant people what we have to be intolerant of is evil the Hashem said the first step that will need to be taken in this the first step that will need to be taken in extricating the Jews from bondage is that they should be taken out that they should not be able to tolerate the evil in Egypt they shouldn't be able to Fathom and to and to just to to Stand By and Watch The injustices in a place like MIT and that we are taught is the beginning of redemption the beginning of Jewish Redemption is when the Jew understands that life need not be based on evil when the Jew is made to understand and to accept that there is a higher level of understanding that there's a higher intellect a Divine intellect an intellect that ultimately comes down to us from Hashem himself the beginning of Jewish Redemption is when the Jew realizes that what goes on in the world around us is not the be all and end all there's something higher there's something greater there's something that we can aspire to that we need to Aspire to that we need to try to elevate ourselves to try to touch once the Jew has that then he is redeemable and therefore that was the beginning of our Exodus getting out from the C MIT as for what we asked at the beginning why are we so obsessed with MIT well I hate to be the one to Bear these sad Tidings to share the bad news but my friends we are always surrounded by this world that is so undivine that is so lacking in a love of truth that is so lacking in a passion for elevation for spirituality we're living in a world that beckons to us to go off in all crazy directions all the time and to worship different things to pursue different things which are ultimately meaningless I'm just thinking now a couple of examples one that comes to mind and I see that some of you like like me I have my cell phone in my pocket I should turn it off by the way it's called The Power of suggestion people by but I see that people have their smartphones their iPhones their iPods iPads I don't know I thought an iPad was something that you know that mosha Dian used to wear on his uh on that that was an iPad I didn't you know but people have you know they they crave the latest in gadgets and technology and the problem is that this is so sad because if I have this neat iPhone I know that in six months it's going to be oh it's p it's so 2014 it's it's obsolete you know why would you have something like that why don't you have something like this but the person who says something like this is bound to be disappointed himself 6 months later because the other guy is going to say you have that it's so sad I mean where are you you know etc etc and just one thing after the other the things that we worship and that we follow and that we believe in in this western civilization of ours are so ultimately disappointing they lead us down the Garden Path and we're never really satisfied comes to Fashion I don't know this is maybe more relevant to ladies perhaps but you have some guy let's say in Paris who 3/4 of the time is drunk or stoned on something and he wakes up one morning he says oh today we make the color of the year let's see I had a Frank last night we'll make it mustard mustard will be the color of fashion for the coming year and because he decides that in Paris don't don't want to mess around with Paris too much these days but he decides that in Paris then every lady in the western world who wants to be in the peak of fashion is going to be pursuing clothing in the color of mustard for the next 6 months it's crazy those are just two examples and ultimately we are led to be disappointed because when that lady buys the mustard dress she thinks that she is now the PE of fashion a couple months later she is oldsville she painted herself into an obsolete Corner that's very sad what we aspire to what we give our for what we give our efforts for becomes obsolete before we turn around vacations okay I want to go on really nice vacation I'm going to go to Miami this year Miami oh I did that last year this year I'm going to Orlando Orlando the other person says that's nothing I'm going to Acapulco or aapo that so pass say I'm going to Hawaii and then I'm going to Trinidad and I'm going to Tahiti I I don't know you know they discovered habitable planets in a different neighbor ing solar system I wouldn't be surprised to see ads in the paper in a couple years have Passover in whatever the name of the uh the the planet might be but they're always looking for what happened to Miami now I'm not saying it's a Mitzvah to go to Miami all I'm saying is when we live our lives in a way that our aspirations our Ambitions our goals are things of this world we end up creating a life of constant disappointment for ourselves that's what MIT is forget about that land in the Northeast portion of the continent of Africa the land of Egypt that's not what we're talking about but say the tolerance of Egypt means where we unfortunately will Embrace a a culture such as the culture of Egypt or the culture of Western Civilization that surrounds us and Hashem said I will make sure that the Jew always has within him the capacity to embrace something higher to give himself over to a higher goal so that he should not heaven forbid have to end his days after 120 years and look back on a life and say you idiot what did you give yourself over for what did you live your life for for pursuit of yet a fancier vacation yet a more expensive piece of furniture yet the latest in fashion or the latest iPhone this is what life is all about that's not what life can be about it is unfortunately for many people but we were in MIT and hasem said you want to be a redeemable people because I have news for you as hasm said to us you are going to be spending most of history in Exile that's just where we are Forest Hills beautiful as it is exile not sure about Bor Park but I'm just kidding Bor Park Exile we are a people who from the moment that we were created we were created in Egypt by the way we are a people who is an exiled people there will come a time when all of that will be over we hope that's soon but we have to be an imminently and an eminently redeemable people and if we are afflicted by the Civ such as what I'm talking about the tolerance the open-mindedness you know sometimes a person can be so open-minded that the brains fall out of his head to open minded he is in order for the Jewish people ultimately to walk into that final page of History which is called gah we have to be redeemable redeemability for the Jewish people refer to those Jews back in Egypt who chose to leave life was not bad and even those who left at one point they wanted to turn back and say let's go back because the tolerance followed them around until they gave themselves a stiff kick in the pants and they said no no no no there was a little battle that they had to fight but they realized that they have to walk forward into Jewish Destiny and not backward and that's what our lives have to be lives of not tolerating and ultimately that's what is all about you see we were given a legacy a lot of Jews sadly enough couldn't care less about the Legacy those are the 5 million Jews Plus in the United States and Canada who turn their backs on their tradition on their Heritage on the Torah that they were given it's not like the people in this room who care enough to connect themselves with this toyra and that's why you're here most of the Jews don't care but we understand that there's this Legacy those who hold on to it are holding on to a branch which is called an I heard the name aim mentioned here about a local school or something aim is a tree of life when you hold on to that a when they hold on to that Branch then you're guaranteed to be part of that Jewish people that will be redeemed otherwise what we're left with is very sad and very sorry and I'll just leave you with an example pardon me it's an example that I'm fond of using because it's so poignant it really speaks the the truth imagine yourself a person who does not have a home and your big ambition your big goal right now is to buy a house but to buy a house in New York I mean it's way beyond the limit of most people how can you buy a house cost so much but the guy says you know what I'm going to do I'm going to collect money slowly takes me Years it'll take me years and he got paid every week on Friday by his boss a small very small stack of $100 bills and every week he took one of those crisp $100 bills and put it into a shoe box and every week he knew he was putting away $100 doesn't sound like much But as time goes by the amount builds and it increases after quite a number of years passed by he figured by now I surely have enough to put a a down payment on a house so he got himself a lawyer he found the house that he wanted this that and the other and the time for closing came he didn't have a bank account with a big chap but he had this shoe box full of $100 bills so he brought the shoe box with him and they're going to the closing office the attorney's office and they said okay let's see what uh let's get the down payment down so he takes out the first $100 bill hands it to the lawyer with a feeling of confidence and security and the lawyer says oh great he looks at the $100 bill then he looks at it again and and he says uh this is counterfeit I'm sorry it's counterfeit so he put that away okay you know let's get the other money so he starts taking out $100 bill after $100 bill and to his total and utter Devastation he is told that all of the money that he had put away in that shoe box was counterfit here he lived for years and years with this dream and this goal of buying this house and he invested by putting these bills away for the down payment and it's not exactly the end of his life but near the end of his life he looks back and he says what I've been doing has been counterfeit that's a symbolic story it symbolizes often the lives that people live they live lives where what they invest in is counterfeit the things that they idolize and the things that they pursue these little goals that we take for ourselves we want to have this we want to have that materialistic goals usually monetary goals more often and in the end of time we look back and we see o they which is Turkish for oh no this has been counterfeit what am I supposed to do now when we live our lives we must not live our lives where we are are investing in counterfeit bills where we are relying on counterfeit notes to help us get out of the misery that we are in so a person has to be very very clever very wise very selective to decide on what things he should pursue in his life that will be of value things that will be worthwh so that after years he'll be able to look back and he will be able to Treasure to to to to feel the the preciousness so that he will be able to treasure the value of each and every single note that he put away this was worth it this Mitzvah that that I DED that yum that I celebrated that that I DED with extra kavana with extra intent this education that I gave my child every spiritual aspect that the Jew has before him in his life he looks back and he he swells with pride and he says this was a great investment that's the life that we have to leave so to answer the first question what is our preoccupation with Egypt and with it's very simple forget about the land of Egypt think about the state of mind that is called MIT MIT by the way the word means narrowness think about that narrow state of mind which most of the world is gripped by where we pursue things of nothingness and valueless we get ourselves out of that we Elevate ourselves to pursue Hashem and pursue lives which are higher that's what is all about my wish to you is that next year if we're still in this Exile we should be able to look back on a year filled with spiritual achievement with pride with things that we've done in the right direction with all of the real proper $100 bills that we have been able to put into our spiritual shoe box and we should all be worthy together to greet greet mashia speedily in our days amen