Rabbi Burg at Body & Soul 2018

I just want to start just a couple of words of thank you first of all to Robin I'm Sansom Jesse and grabber Ned and the whole crew this is really been I think just an outstanding weekend and this is something that really needs to become an annual event we really need to keep this going and we need to double and triple the size and bring all of our friends in the coming years I'd like to also thank my good friend Stuart Heitmann who's here who I literally speak to every day it's nice to actually spend some time in person together and for his vision and starting project inspire with the crew here I'd also like to thank my good friends Isaac and Edie not really friends really for more like family at this point for the last three years and Isaac's vision I know that he and I both saw something to Rabbi Goldstein you know who's one of my heroes and I'd been to South Africa a few times and this concept of the Shabbos project all around the world has been life-changing for so many people and we're happy to really be here this Shabbos and have this incredible turnout that together with everyone around the world on a very serious note you know you heard a little bit from Yossi before about what happened today in the shul in the Squirrel Hill [Music] we heard a little bit before about what happened to squirrel here at Hill today I actually spent my first nine years in it cease why in that neck of the woods with first and zsy Sheva tone ever went to wasn't Squirrel Hill and I know where that shul is and I have a lot of friends that are still there and now our hearts are broken and Rabbi Sol of a Czech famous incredible scholar of the last century he had an amazing talk he gave in 1956 called cold OD to fake my beloved is knocking and in that he tried to define what it meant for us to be a nation what it meant for us to be people and then there he gave an example a parable and he gave the example the story of that there was a man one time with two heads and the person's parents died and they weren't sure if you give it two portions of the inheritance cause he had two heads or one portion because there was one body so they said take a bucket of hot water and pour it over one of the heads and if the others head feels pain then you know either one being but the other head does the feels no pain than the two separate entities he said about the Jewish people and if something happens to Jews around the world and we feel no pain then we're not one nation and it really doesn't matter who you are we're all brothers and sisters and the fact that this happened when eleven of our brothers and sisters lost their lives today our hearts are broken and therefore we we mourn we cry and we need to do everything that we can as a community to make sure that these things never occur again like for a moment just to talk about this coming weeks parsha we started to read it this afternoon we'll read it next Shabbat and it's the story of the first up in the Torah sorrow passes away and her son yes needs to get married and abiram needs to figure out how to find him a wife so he calls in his trusty servant Eliezer and he says to Eliezer I need you to go back to the place from where I'm from and please find a wife for you suck Eliezer says no problem I'm there I got it walks out the door looks up to God and says how in the world am I going to do this Eleazar is a warrior he didn't keeps the house going it's not a matchmaker and so he decides to make a deal with God he says God if I go down to where I'm sending me and the young woman comes out and she brings me water and my camels water I'll know that's a sign that this is the right girl and sure enough he goes down and little rifki comes running out and she brings him water and they're his camels water and the match is done and that's how our great-great great-great grandparents met now I've always had a question on that story if you read the commentaries they talk about the fact that Eliezer did not come down there empty-handed he came down with ten camels Laden down with gold and silver and spices losing wealth let me put this an old perspective guy comes to town and stretch limo window goes down little hundred dollar bills go flittering out the window and an eligible Bachelorette offers the buy him a drink all right this happens in Manhattan every night how in the world did Eliezer know that rifki was for real how did she know that she wasn't just chasing the money the answer is if you look very closely at the verses you find two verbs that happen in the story over and over it says but see my hair she hurried but to us and she ran it wasn't ultimately about the water it was about how she did it when Eliezer saw on rifka was passion was drive that she went out and she wanted to to do this act to help someone else she ran back and forth Eliezer ran you feel like you're watching the whole thing in fast-forward he understood that she cared about what she was doing wasn't just a chore it wasn't just kissing up to someone it was passionate in her hearts how did he have to know that this is what he should be looking for well if you looked at this morning's parsha when Abram was sitting at his tents and he was in a lot of pain he it has circumcision and three visitors came angels came to his tents he jumped up and what verbs do you think you find there via my hair via Russ Avram ran he hurried the tent was in a frenzy preparing food for strangers and so at the outset Judaism could only work through passion Abram had his passion rifki had his passion all of our forefathers had this passion and the bottom line is Judaism does not work without passion that's what the body is all about in the body and soul it's that our heart gets excited we run to do what we want to do and it doesn't matter for all six 13 13 or one Mitzvah I knew a young woman in Squirrel Hill who used to go she's to work on Friday nights in the local movie theater me she said rabbi I just I can't keep Shabbos I work on Friday nights so I said so why don't you just light candles before you go to work and that's what she did and eventually she was able to keep more and more shops before she quit her job on Friday nights because whatever you do if it's one Mitzvah 10 mitzvahs you need to have passion because Judaism doesn't work without it I want to say a word about the soul about spirituality it was a number of years ago in 2008 when I worked for instance why if you remember there was a tremendous recession there times were tough a lot of people were being laid off and in the community that I lived in many people send their kids to day school and the schools were coping with an instant problem where donations were down and requests for scholarships were way up and they started to change the standards of who they would give a scholarship to and they started to say if you had a certain car that would count against you if you went away for paints off that count against you a certification that counted against you and then they said if you send your children to cam or to Israel for the summer we're gonna count that against you now when I heard that I was appalled and I started to push back very hard I wrote an article and the Jewish week called summer camp is not a luxury got me in a lot of trouble with a lot of principles but I pushed back hard because I knew that whatever happened this summer was magical to our children so many people formed the Jewish identities in the summer but I was having trouble articulating and putting my finger on the why so I decided that summer I would visit eight camps for eight shavasana I scheduled myself at the time in motion of a Moorish ah miss aura I went to Austria to an NCO I camp I was in I literally had my whole summer book now of course the first Friday night I went to Morris Shah and I solved the problem but I still had a schedule of eight more to buzz him to go to but I'll tell you what I saw that first Friday night I walked in the kids had gotten there Tuesday Wednesday were there for Shabbos and they come into the dining room on Friday nights and literally within 10 seconds they're all standing on their chairs singing songs with all kinds of hand motions screaming at the top of their lungs I don't think they ate anything and then they danced out and went on to the next activity and I started to think to myself that last Friday nights there is not one kid in that dining room that would have been caught dead jumping up on their furniture at their table singing at the top of their lungs what changed in a few days and that's what I realize that cynicism and sarcasm was not allowed in summer camp It was as if a cocoon a bubble had fallen on that camp and these kids that may have been too cool to do this back home we're freed to sing to God and for so many of us that is what gets in our way and God is aware of that because we say in Sean s ray that we Dobbins Valon a vote Republican Club a talk to them I will not be embarrassed because I believe in you we say in benching shallow devotion like oh I'm the lumber head I will not be embarrassed we open up the code of Jewish law the Shilka narc and in the beginning it says that a person has to be oz cut numb their bold is a leopard that if someone makes fun of them in their approach to spirituality you need to be bold and not care what other people think and so the opposite of being spiritual the opposite of in your soul is not not being spiritual it's the cynicism sarcasm that surrounds us that stops us it's the worry if I go and I do something will people think I look funny I act funny well people put it down when people say something this stops estrous of so much growth in the world and we have to have this double strength of passion to do what's right and to serve God and that ability to not necessarily care what other people think and even take it to the next step and change their minds and so many times we look around I hear this all the time oh I can't get my friends to do this no no they wouldn't understand like I know I'm here but they can't be here now I want to tell you some of you read this in my email this past week but I'll tell you the story was absolutely fascinating this past Sunday we had the Secretary of Treasury Stephen venusian at Asia Torah and we have a we have an amazing relationship with the embassy they use the Dan family Asia tour a world center for so many events now and they approached us they had a meeting with about a dozen high-level CEOs from tech companies in Israel Mobileye many of the ones you've heard of and so they said could we use a shutaura for that backdrop we're usually in government conference rooms we'd really rather be in someplace more special like that so of course we said yes and everything is protocol when you're dealing with the State Department you know we were walking the person in who was supposed to take care of everything we started talking at realize she's like mumbling to herself we're like waiting and we're like she's ago I had to count the steps from the car to the age to go it you know literally the Secret Service came five times everything was taken care of so what was supposed to happen was Stephen venusian was supposed to walk in stop by the tooling you all know the famous Julie we take our picture not more than one minute I'm stole that many times I'm more than one minute and then he needs to go straight into the CEOs who are all important and waiting for him well he comes up and of course there was a mix-up between the embassy and the Kotel plaza they had thought there were two cars coming there were eight cars coming and no one had told the Israeli at the gate so he shut the gate after two cars right on the Secretary of Treasury and the ambassador and a typical Israeli fast he's like no one told me like could you let one more crusty like one more car in the Secret Service guys are huffing and puffing running up god bless Israel I love them anyway they finally all get up Steve Manucci comes to take a picture and he spots right out the scene or balcony he spots the view and he makes a beeline for the view and he walks out and he does what everyone else does he takes out his phone he does Shiva's state he started taking pictures and we start talking to him I told him how this is the most romantic spot in Israel because everyone gets engaged on that balcony and the teal Golda who heads up HD Israel steps forward and takes out our app and starts to show him what the base image looks like we have an app augmented reality where you see it up there and we went to like 20 minutes on a conversation about the base of English the first temple the second temple that back and forth a whole conversation and he was asking question after question after question I mean interesting questions he wasn't being nice because he had a dozen top-notch high tech CEOs waiting for him his staff was giving us that but this is call and then then finally you know he took one last picture and he went in so here we are with a fellow Jew the Secretary of Treasury a guy who you never in a million years things would be interested is sitting there having a whole conversation about the base of English with the rabbi's adesh so please don't think that your friends don't really want to be in this room because no matter what they say in their heart and soul and their body and soul they want to be here with us so I want to give all of you a blessing that you should be strengthened you should have passion leaving here and then next year as I said before we come back with all of your friends all of your friends everyone here bring your friends because in their heart and soul they want to connect to the Almighty and that's what Asia tour is all about and that's what project inspire is all about and that's what this weekend is about thank you