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Rabbi Chanan Gordon,Rabbi Yisroel Majeski,RabbiDr. Dovid Fox&Rabbi Pinni Dunner: 2020 HindsightPanel
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um and we want to thank everyone for
joining us we have a very very special
event
i don't know maybe they're always will
tell us but i don't know if it's i don't
know if their app has ever been on a
panel together but
for me it's and uh just because they
have such
tremendous leaders um on one panel it's
amazing
um and we're gonna be um we're gonna be
talking about 2020
in hindsight so we know that this this
year has been a very
eventful um year and we're gonna be uh
looking back and alert and trying to try
to see what
what happened this year and maybe some
lessons and some
um um what we could learn from this past
year that that to help us
uh moving forward um our four
distinguished panelists tonight
gordon by penny dunner by
dr devin fox and rabbi strom majeski
um um just a short word about
each of our distinguished panelists but
is a
tremendous renowned speaker he spoke he
speaks for so many
tremendous organizations and um he's
he's he's a tremendous
uh community leader he's he's he's been
the chairman of the ghost
of so many conventions just to name a
few um uh go to sioux trail a job and
then it goes on and on
and uh he's really been a really uh
spearheaded fazak's
with a cute effort on the l on
in the west coast and i really
appreciate it regarding not only for
this event but
almost so much just for kazakh and in
general just for a kaiser
and uh penny dunner um is um
he is a tremendous leader and and
and force for the jewish people uh he's
originally from the uk he did such
tremendous work in the uk area
and right now he lives in um in
california
and he's uh he's a senior rabbi over
there and he does a tremendous work it's
a great honor to have him tonight
um and we also have her by dr david fox
um who is um who is
the director of intervention and
community education with project high
and he's one of the he's one of the is
one of the
one of the leaders of nephesh which is
the international association of
orthodox mental
health professionals and he receives
michael from finding that style and he's
a tremendous
um leader and uh clarissa turns them for
for
guidance on so many areas and uh our
last panelist robert is jealous
who is um majeski is a tremendous leader
and speaker and you've seen uh his
videos and his short clips all around
and um he's um he he educates
all all all segments of class of all
ages he's
during the summaries that he's he's one
of the hectic counselors of
campbell gooda and yeah and he's and
he's a rosh cola and he's a rob he does
so much for jewish people
and what happened in front of you you
didn't turn it you didn't tune in
because you wanted to hear the
introductions you tuned in
because you wanted to hear from the
amazing panelists so we will start off
uh with our first question but we want
to um uh we're starting off with some
questions that people submitted in but
if anyone wants to submit a question
you can email your question uh your
email your questions to events.org
that's spelled e v e n t s at c
h a z a q dot or g events dot org
and um we will get started so
uh we're gonna ask uh my first question
to rabbi rabbi gordon
um and um gordon as
someone who's one of the most active
lecturers who's looking for so many
jewish organizations
and gear organizations and you speak to
so many college students on a regular
basis
what is your sense of how the
coronavirus pandemic has impacted
primarily
younger people that maybe are less
affiliated to the traditional
torah lifestyle thank you robbie just
before
i respond i want to thank hazak for the
tremendous work
that you guys do uh and we've stuck
we're sort of extending your flag here
to the west coast and to my esteemed uh
colleagues
uh who each have contributed in their
own way tremendously over the years
it's a it's actually a relief for once
to be on a kazakh panel with someone
else
with a british accent so it's wonderful
to have probably done it
uh with me um so here's my
here is my observation we live
in the uh the internet social media
world most of the folks that i speak to
seminars campuses have been filled for
years with a sensory overload with a
stimulation
overload with distraction and suddenly
akaddish barachu
imposed this mageifa in the world and
one of the things that i've seen is that
it's forced people to to stop
pause do some introspection do some soul
searching
we live in a world where it's very easy
to be reactive
uh to be somewhat zombie-like and what i
see in the younger generation these the
folks that i'm
exposed to is what the quarantine has
done
is caused them to do some soul-searching
suddenly there's less noise
i've seen folks sort of for the first
time really
peeling back the onion if you will um
and and doing some introspection which
is very
which is very different to what you know
the
the whole momentum that i've seen over
the years
specifically amongst the millennial
generation and the questions
uh that you know that we can throw about
that
certainly would like to forget myself my
esteemed palace input is
you know rabbi why is this happening
now the innuendo attached to that is
that this is not happening by accident
so even the most disenfranchised and
secular
folks that i've exposure to on some
intuitive level
realize that it's impossible for the
entire world
to suddenly be placed on pause by by by
happenstance
and again even disenfranchised
jews are already got some intuitive
almost a primitive sense of there's
something that's going on here and
there's something that i have to learn
so i think the best way i can respond is
that it's caused people
to stop and pause it's caused some
soul-searching
it's caused people to to really want to
recalibrate
and think about their lives and if
nothing else i think that
um it's caused people at least in my
experience and the folks that i'm
largely exposed to to be a lot more
receptive
uh to the voice inside of them and to
you know the journey and what
what this is about so from a if you are
from igniting a pinterest perspective
from an
outreach perspective paradoxically this
has been
um you know at a time where we've seen a
higher level of receptivity
uh which which is uh a will if you want
to say there's a silver lining to this
very tough
and challenging year that may well be it
segues uh very nicely so it's a uh rabbi
donner so
so as we know you're you're rough of uh
of of ashore in
in the los angeles community so so
gordon was talking about maybe the the
the the the young millennial the the the
the college age and maybe
maybe uh college outreach what would you
say that
that maybe the pandemic has affected uh
maybe uh
whether it's your show particularly or
just your communion general
um the pandemic what would you say
i must preface my remarks by saying that
um
i speak here in many senses as a lay
person
i'm not like uh dr fox um
involved in psychiatry psychology i'm
not a doctor
um you know i'm not an epidemiologist
i'm not a virologist i'm not any of the
things that you might imagine i am so i
don't speak as an expert i simply speak
as a
rabbi of a community with experience
dealing with communal matters
and with individuals and families who
are part of my community
both in terms of being in my school out
of the wider community
and so i just want to preface my remarks
by saying that so that in any
i'm not in any way giving professional
advice i'm making observations as a
rabbi
and as a rabbi the community i can tell
you that um
everybody is profoundly affected it
doesn't matter if you're young or old it
doesn't matter if you're rich or poor
it doesn't matter if you come from los
angeles or new york or israel or
anywhere because this pandemic has
affected
every single person on the planet
everybody has been affected
and so it doesn't matter if you live in
a big beautiful house
you still can't see your children and
your grandchildren if you're in
quarantine
that has an effect on you and it doesn't
matter if you're living
um in a community in los angeles or new
york and you're used to going to shul
on a regular basis whether it's daily or
twice a day or three times a day or just
once a week or once a month
suddenly you can't go to school you
can't socialize
you can't spend the time with your
community with your friends with your
family that you're used to doing
which is so important it's such an
integral part of what it means to be a
jew so many mitzvahs that we do require
other people
or at least contact with other people in
order to get those mitzvahs done
and we can't do them at the moment so
now we have to find mitzvahs that we can
do
and ways of being jewish that we can
participate in
which don't involve us uh mixing with
others or necessarily seeing our family
we have to do for example if you're a
child of a parent who's on their own
kibbut of at this time is very very
different than it was
a year ago or if you are somebody
who has children and your of you are
obligated in their education
your obligations in their education have
changed dramatically
since last march but you've got to make
sure that you educate them jewishly
so that when we emerge into the light at
the end of this
quite long tunnel that they're going to
be as jewish as you'd like them to be in
terms of all the things that you would
have educated them
in had we not had the covet pandemic
that is so important and i've seen
people adapt and that's the one the
thing i'm going to end
my answer with i have seen the strength
of the human
spirit i've really seen
how human the human capacity
to adapt in difficult situations is
incredible
and we know from our history you know
the jews are the great chameleons
i speak with a british accent that's
something which uh that rabbi gordon
noted earlier on i don't speak with a
british accent because my family's
british for many generations
all because i came across from normandy
with william the conqueror or my family
i speak english because with an english
accent because
my parents were holocaust survivors and
one of them was from germany the other
one was from holland
and they ended up living in england so i
was born in england and i adapted
to the english environment and yes i may
have ended up liking monty python and
knowing who the beatles were
but that wasn't my focus my focus was to
be a good jew
in the british environment in which i
was brought up
that is the adaptability of the human
spirit and it's something which we jews
have excelled in
and once again our community has shown
incredible
fortitude and incredible strength of
spirit with open air mignon
in the snow in new york and you know
making sure that people are fed across
the community
when they can't get out because they are
in quarantine and frightened that they
may catch
covet because of underlying health
conditions etc etc etc
we have done everything that we can and
i think that that
is something that we should all
complement ourselves
for but of course we need to be doing as
much more of it as we can
in order to get through this sound of
heart
sound of spirit and sound of mind
very nice and definitely adapted it's
definitely
a tremendous uh um lesson and
things like that that's a definitely um
a principle that's come out of uh that
we can learn from
uh everybody rabbi dr w fox what would
you say about
so we talked about um from a communal
level from uh from a young professional
level what would you say
in um in your expertise of in the mental
health um area
what would you say that that as we know
that in 2020 there's been
increased levels of stress and pain
fears
uh so what would you say about i mean
the mental health area
how is the pandemic affected in your
expertise
i think dr fox could be on mute
he it probably helps to unmute doesn't
it
um so thank you again for including me
in this
important panel i'll
respond with a little glimpse of a davar
torah
not a lecture but
we have a familiar pasuk that we say
many times during the week in sheer
hamalos
so when david hamelech
is portraying for us the spirit of the
people
as they emerge from hard times
so he describes this as hayinu kukhomin
will be like dreamers when the
mageifa the pandemic is healed god
willing
when exile is over when the oppression
ceases
will be like dreamers and that's a very
difficult
phrase because it's the vision we'll be
like dreamers but
in technical hebrew byuno means we were
like dreamers
it's past tense so we have
a great argument between two
of the great commentaries
we have on the one hand
ibn ezra and radak who were spanish
rishonim and then we have the
iri who was from provence
so on the one hand we have the spanish
school of interpretation that hainu
kokomin
so what that means is when this is
finally over and the vaccine
works and we're better we're back to
whatever we're going to be back to
so life will no longer be taken
advantage
taken for granted that this will feel
like a dream that we can breathe we can
talk we can walk around without masks
we don't have to be so uptight we can be
more carefree and that will be dreamlike
it's a wonderful optimistic vision yet
meiri down in provence says
it's written in past tense and what's
going to hit
people when this is all over
is that it's been a nightmare
and we can't lose sight of that hyena
we're going to realize
this was a bad dream and you're asking
from a clinical vantage point what do we
see
i see the bad dream because we're
dealing now
with all ages adults
down to little children who
on the one hand as rabbi dunner
identified
they've been virtually deprived
sometimes for months at a time from
normal socialization
and so much of healthy development being
means being around healthy friends
whether you're an adult or a child and
that's missing
and it's really created a whole
not just in the spirit but in the mental
hygiene
of so many people that this essential
part of life
of being able to get together and to
talk to commiserate with to support
so unless you do it by text or phone
which is so artificial
this is a missing part of our mental
hygiene part of the
essential foundation for being a
wholesome person
and this is what we're looking back at
and we're feeling the pain of lost
opportunities to bond with others and
there's another
major plague psychological plague
that's been part of this pandemic and
that is
particularly children to a lesser degree
adults
we haven't been able to go to school we
haven't been able to continue education
and not just the socialization on the
playground
or the camaraderie of the classroom but
the whole part of our mental health
that's contingent on being
intellectually productive and learning
new things and developing perspective
that's been shut down that's been locked
down
and for the adults as well as for the
children
the decrease in synagogue attendance for
weeks or months of their time not being
able to participate in ritual
the ritual that involves a minion a
group of
like-minded people so with the closing
of the synagogue
and the closing of the school across the
continent across the
jewish world so we have major wounds
to our mental health and what do we see
clinically
because on our hotline in high lifeline
where we have a 24 hour a day
crisis line for people to call for
teachers to call for parents to call
so what are we hearing we're hearing
depression
we're hearing emotional and social
withdrawal
we're hearing escalated fears and
worries and anxieties and obsessions
about getting sick
and it's not baseless it's not without a
real basis
and for those who were shut in
domestically during lockdown and
quarantine
unfortunately there's been an increase
in increase in anger and aggression in
the homes
not because we're wicked people of cruel
people
but this is what happens when you coop
up a group of
persons in a family who really make care
for each other
but whether they live in a one room
apartment or in a mansion
knowing you can't go out and knowing
it's just you
day after day and seeing the same people
even without the food shortage and the
supplies and material difficulties
but we're seeing an implosion and we're
seeing anger we're seeing frustration
and we're seeing irritability and god
forbid we're seeing abuse too sometimes
so looking back at 2020 this is 10
almost 11 months
our young people have not been able to
socialize
and that's a wound and they haven't been
able to get
classical education because we've
learned time and again that going online
for schooling doesn't work
it's not a substitute for being in a
classroom and being real with real
people
and the diminution of our synagogue life
of just
being able to observe and celebrate
being jewish with other people
it's another wound to people
and we're seeing anxiety and we're
seeing depression
and we're seeing aggression and we're
seeing social withdrawal
and those are just the normal population
i'm not even addressing
that segment of the jewish world who
suffers psychiatrically
who suffers psychologically talking
about regular people
regular people and there is a major
uptick
uptick in our ability to adjust
psychologically and socially
so that's the bad news that's the hyena
cochonim
that's looking back at the nightmare
this has been
and we're struggling for solutions
hopefully before this evening is over
we'll get to the other hyena kokomin
we'll be able to talk about
the pleasant dreams that are waiting for
us
wow thank you for those very insightful
words and uh just
just um to uh finish off on this
theme um
you you you wear so many different hats
whether it's during the summer
at camp pagoda whether whether is there
being a rosh color
or rav a rebbe whatever it may be
what would you say that um that you've
seen uh maybe uh
difficulties positivities what have you
what have you seen that
uh from the over the last number of
months during the
pandemic why do i have to go after rabbi
fox there's no fear can you like uh
i don't know i don't know uh
so i mean i'll tell you the truth i you
know i
i i am i am a rebbe in a high school as
well
um as well as you know a revolution
and just being around different uh
different age groups
i think i think there's two sides of the
coin on one hand
you know we say by no after he was ish
he was
he was uh he was it he said sadiq and
then the puzzle says
and rashi says either you know it would
have been by avraham he would have been
even greater or he would have been
nothing
and the sperm say that really that's how
noah looked at himself he had two sides
of the coin
on one hand he said if i wouldn't buy
abram i would have been a nothing on the
other hand he said imagine who i would
have been
um i think it's important to look at
both sides of the coin here on one hand
you know look at what clyo cereal did
look what everyone's saying look at the
tested
that came out look at um
how so many people stepped up in
organizations and
and mothers turned into principles and
and teachers and
it's is just beyond uh on the other hand
you know i must say that i think you
really
it really you really had to dig very
very deep
you know i know just i speak to a bunch
of abundant regarding
going back to schule i'm sure uh robbie
dunder mary fox could attest
how many people just didn't get back
into the swing of things yet
just because you know for four months
you didn't go just to get back into
habit
of going back to minion or shiorim and
there's a difference between going to
share on zoom and and going in person
and i know people started giving daffy
on me again and
and it's just very hard i think it's
very very hard for people to get back
into things
um but you know on the other hand
this is really you know when you can
really see what you're made of it's an
it's an opportunity
it's a it's like any designer tells us
that you know the
bring out who he nacionals was i think
you're really able to bring out parts
about yourself
um that you weren't able to do in you
know so to speak
normal pre-mask the pre-mask era
um i think that's something everyone has
to realize this is a this is an
opportunity
i had a rebbe i remember when i was in
yeshiva and it was baina's mana
and he would say i don't know i don't
you have to tell me exactly where you're
going to go benezema
so do me one favor when you dominique
monastery in your hotel room
don't let it be that short you know when
you're dabbing in yeshiva so
which one yesterday could be a good four
or five minutes when that's right what's
your spell necessary like you know when
no one's watching
that that's the real sense of yours from
an estuary so you know what
what's it like when we when we do have
excuses and maybe you know there isn't
such a great kiddush now
uh and you know things aren't as
exciting you know so to speak you know
the
sony is part we have to dig deep to see
who we really
are and and what we're really made of
and it's a tremendous
opportunity uh for growth i know a lot
of couples who
uh who grew tremendously during this
time i know a lot of
boys uh in yeshiva who stayed during
this time
they were able to push themselves and
you know go into outdoor many other
things they wouldn't have done
beforehand so it's really an opportunity
but it's a double-edged sword
there are people that are suffering but
uh it's our job
first of all as as parents and and rabbi
milham
to do whatever we could to pick those up
we need because there are a lot of
people who need it
but for everyone out there who's
listening you know we can use this
as a good you know barometer of where
we're holding
and what and and how and how true our
yiddish guide is
uh when we're not just going with the
flow and you know we're not just you
know doing things by road so to speak so
to speak
but here's a chance to see what are we
doing when you know the tough really get
going
and i think claudia's thrilled to
respond uh responded in a major way
and i think as you feed them individuals
we all could take a good look at
ourselves
to see where are we holding and what
could i be doing more
uh on a personal level and you know even
behind closed doors
how could my torah might feel my own
said
uh where was i pre-corona where am i now
and
you know at the end of the day hashtag
wanted something from us that's the
bottom line
you know that's the bottom line and we
you know as someone told me i told this
i said it a bunch of times
on probably almost every speech i gave
in corona and i'll end with this for my
little segment is that
um i asked someone i said you know what
do you think hashem wants from us what
does hashem want from us
and he looked at me he said i don't know
what hashem wants from you i know what
he wants from me
i know it was a great line what do you
want from us everyone has an individual
take of what they what hashem wants from
them was hashem one from your marriage
and what does hashem want
from your tv and you're learning and you
as a parent
and you know it's not tough having you
know five six seven kids
three kids home and clothes and then
closed uh
quarters but you can grow from that uh
you could you can really strike and work
on your meadows in a way that you never
had before
that's the voda that's the challenge
yeah
thank you for your insightful words um
and just before we get on to the next
segment which one i remind everyone is
as
dr fox was mentioning about i'm saying
we were talking about the
the people went through different stress
and difficulties so
obviously um if anyone uh needs help or
whether they're going through stress or
depression or whatever it may be
hopefully you should reach
out to a tremendous resource it's just a
name like a few
project high of high life one is rabbit
doctor fox is part of and
and a mood him and etc tremendous
resources out there
um and um moving forward to the
um to the to the next part of the
segment and also just
um just to maybe uh look at the silver
linings
of the positives here um so so uh
by gordon um numerous of your of your
lectures you mentioned about
yeah you have uh you have lemons you
have to make them you have to turn them
into lemonade
so um so we know 20 20 was it was
difficult
stressful for for a lot of people maybe
people
they lost they lost loved ones or
or or they went through financial
difficulties whatever it's a lot of
different difficulties how do we see the
the the positivities the silver linings
from this year so it's a great question
firstly i want to just give a general
kudos to
hazak and to my esteemed uh panelists
because i think
as you mentioned robbie uh for the last
20 25 years
i i've had the the honor and privilege
i've been involved in a lot of different
initiatives and i think that
the cockpit started to get a little bit
lumpy uh you know for everything that we
brushed
under it and it's it's thanks to people
like rabbi dr fox and others
who've helped uh destigmatize
certain things uh in the jewish world uh
that is
that that is is are things that we need
to address and i
uh i wanted to uh just make that point
so i
i think that i want to focus on the
demographic that i've spent
a large part of my outreach involving
which is a millennial generation younger
people
i've found and maybe um
maybe it's because i don't hail from
america but it's it's um i've seen
a culture a pop culture develop over
over weeks months and years which is a
mile wide and a half
inches and part of it is a product of
of social media part of it is you know
keeping up
keeping up with folks that um the
how many likes you've got how many
sponsors you got but you know going to
this pandemic
people were sort of speaking in little
acronyms you know lol am i going to see
in shul jfk
and it just for kiddish and i think that
what happened
in the last year or so
is that i think people really hashem put
the world
on pause and here's my observation of
some silver lining
firstly i think that people have learned
to appreciate the owner emotional
resilience their capacities for grit
i think i've seen people that have
didn't didn't realize they had the
intestinal fortitude to go
through and manage certain things that
were out of their comfort zone they've
been forced out of their comfort zone
and it started to flex muscles that were
either completely atrophied or didn't
exist and i think that it's that it's
done well for a lot of people in terms
of their own self-esteem
they've been pushed out of their natural
comfort zone
i've spoken to a lot of people who
realize that they had to cut that they
made a binary decision the decision was
almost made
for them as to whether they should be
victims
or how do i become a victor and it's
i think it's helped people realize uh
that life doesn't owe them anything
that that that uh and i've seen people
really the entitlement uh sort of
thesis that is so ubiquitous in pop
culture being turned upside down in many
of the discussions
that i've had with college students um
i've seen people
recalibrate pivots um they've always
wanted to
perhaps take a different direction
be it vocationally i've seen folks in
dysfunctional relationships
that as a result of this sort of sort of
pressing pause
um have really stopped um
when the music stops um and they're
forced to look inwards
and think think through you know think
things through
i think that that's definitely been
another part of the silver lining and
you know
as we just come out of we're coming up
in a few weeks to clashes and
pasha's yesterday and that we talk about
uh
you know to have a parasha in the torah
named after you
is an enormous thing why are you there
obviously what was the goddess of easter
and amongst other things the
before him talk about the fact that
at the time of martin taylor the
greatest
national revelation in the history of
the world
as we teach in discovery and other
outreach seminars people don't realize
that these the noise the so-called
imparting of the of
uh of of the words of the almighty were
heard across the world
and the minimum fortune talk about the
nations of the world
obviously were privy to this billam
who's supposedly you know the
one of the the greatest prophets of the
uh the the other generations they
realized this is the the these are the
words of the lord and he's giving
instructions
and notwithstanding that they sort of uh
said you know
but let's kind of keep going this
pandemic i think has
forced people to realize um
that the person who wins a rat race is
still a rat
um we've had many we've had many
discussions with college kids
where we asked the question and then and
then after you undergraduated
and then and people realized that one
second we all know the very final
destination
i haven't had an opportunity here to
look at my gps and instead of
living and learning let's learn and then
go out and live and instead of doing
we'll have to recalculate
less and i think that i've never seen at
least my 20 plus years involving
outreach
um this level of introspection this
level of people
uh who are there's generally a
tremendous amount of liberty a whole
style of teaching
has been sound bites has been
entertainment with a bit of content
but i think there's a feel that people
realize that this is very serious
as dr fox and uh rabbi
all speakers mentioned this has been
this has impacted everyone um
so the silver lining is i think the
people have really uh
have really dug deep and i'll end by
saying the following at least in my
opinion
uh the the greatest commencement speech
ever given
uh and this is a personal opinion of
course was given uh
several years ago uh it was given to my
alma mater
the the keynote speaker centered up the
stage
uh at harvard university and came to the
podium
and basically said the following i had
failed absolutely miserably
i was a product of a broken marriage i i
was
as poor as a church mouse but i had a
dream and a typewriter
and let's say jk rowling started her
speech and she started
the the the thesis that she had which i
think is germaine to our discussion
is that when everything's ripped away
and it's you
and your raw emotions and a lot of the
exogenous things
um you know i looked away from you i
think that people are forced
to focus substance then form
and i think that there's been a
tremendous growth experience for a lot
of people
uh and while i'm not bulleting the pain
and has been tremendous
you know there's unfortunately been uh
there's been fatalities in our in our
community and people have really not
been well if you talk about silver
lining i think that
that is if anything um the redeeming
feature of having gone through this the
last uh this last year
so so continuing on the theme um
by so so um um
we know that we all lose have to face
whatever difficulties and challenges
with the moon and be talking with faith
so so um and we've gone through as we
outlined um um extensively tonight
about uh about the different stresses
and difficulties and
challenges that the 2020 has brought up
what would you say
in in um in your in your community when
you're
in your experience from this year would
you say that that people
would you get a sense that people um
are because the that people are
realizing
that maybe there's more of an awareness
that that maybe there's a higher power
that
there's a god there's a hashem maybe
that's that that we have that they get
maybe
realign any of their priorities maybe uh
they realign their priorities or
are people just set in their ways and
even though maybe there's difficulties
and
and uh that people are just setting
they're so stuck in their ways that they
can't
they can't maybe come to that
realization
well firstly before i answer the
question i i just want to
reiterate what the others have said
which is thank you so much to kazakh
for organizing this very important panel
and i think it's important for us to be
able to participate in this panel
and also for the many people who are
watching this live stream to be able
to listen to some of the things that
we're saying perhaps all of them
but in answer to your question i want to
speak a little bit more in general terms
not just about my community and i want
to do through do so through the medium
of a story that i heard from rabbi
grayden
who's a fellow great living in los
angeles
and he watched my eulogy my tribute
my husband for a former chief rabbi
lord jonathan sachs i gave a few days
after roy sachs died and he
called me up and he said i watched your
eulogy and i want to tell you something
that you ought to have said but of
course you didn't know it because
i didn't tell it to you and he said it's
a mitzvah of our same
we should tell people this because it
can act as an incredible motivator
as something to encourage people
particularly in this difficult time
as we all know um rabbi sax
those of you have read up about him or
watched eulogies
um about him since he passed away
tragically
from his sickness he was just 72 years
old
that he was very inspired he went on a
trip
during his college years he spent some
time with the
late la babbitt
and as a result of that meeting he
decided to dedicate himself
to a jewish pursuits in a way that he
hadn't thought about earlier even though
he came from a traditional
jewish home but of course nobody knew
that at the time
because he wasn't yet a public figure at
that time he was a philosophy
major at cambridge university i want to
tell you rabbi grading said to me
it is well known in philosophy circles
that
rabbi sacks as jonathan sachs a
cambridge philosophy
student got the best grade of any
philosophy major ever since the second
world war
we're talking about the 1970s so some 30
years or whatever it was had passed
he had a career ahead of him as one of
the top uh
philosophy professors at any of the top
universities in the world
that every door was open to him anyway
but you know they kind of lost touch
with each other they're
roughly the same age but they lost touch
with each other one day rabbi graden
hears
that rabbi sax had become the rabbi
of golda's green synagogue now i know
gold is green synagogue very well
because i lived up the road from coldest
green synagogue
it's a united synagogue a very common
garden variety
um synagogue of you know orthodox
nominally orthodox but you know
certainly many people there were not
shema shabbos and rabbi sax had become
the rabbi of gold's green synagogue
and rabbi grayden said it's not
something that you'll read in a eulogy
he said i take my hat off to the man
this man could have been
the most profoundly respected
philosophy professor and he gave
up his career to decide which type of
herring to have at a kiddish
and what you should say to people at a
shiver and to make sure he was on time
for mahev and what time mario should be
that really that's what he did that's
unbelievable
now of course at that stage he had no
idea that one day he was going to be
the chief rabbi and the world acclaimed
jewish thinker and writer
and a member of the house of lords he'd
given up everything
just because he believed in what the
laboratory ever had told him
and that he had a duty to devote himself
to ordinary folk
and to doing ordinary things with
ordinary people
what an incredible lesson this is in
he only became the chief rabbi in 1991
many years later
i want to tell you what's happened
during the past year you've got
ceos and you've got great rabbis
and you've got people enormously
successful as doctors and lawyers and
whatever it is their profession is
and suddenly they're cooking dinner and
suddenly they're sweeping
up their homes and suddenly they have to
engage with people around them in a way
that they've never
engaged before i want to tell you
that's a great test for many of these
people who used to having
help at home and having people do things
for them
or certainly not have to get involved in
domestic chores
or social interactions that are very
basic
but that is our duty as husbands
as parents as friends as rabbis i'm a
rabbi
you know i pick up the phone to people
and i'm speaking to people usually i
would meet them in school we'd have a
bit of a schmooze
during the kiddish suddenly i'm going to
call people
make sure that when it's their birthday
give them a call i could say to myself
really that's my job as the rabbi i
should call people when it's their
birthday
of course it's my job because i've got
to make sure that people
are positive and upbeat and
good spirits at a time when everything
militates
that and if you're asking the question
what spiritual lesson we can learn
during this time
let's take our cube from rabbi sacks
don't
imagine that it's you know the the
length of your shimano astray and i
don't say that the length of your
shoulder
is not important of course it's
important
but it's the wing with the people around
around you
your diligence in terms of the way you
behave at home
and the way that you behave towards
others in a time of profound
challenge and your dedication to the
things that you think perhaps are a
little bit below your
dignity that is something that separates
the men from the boys
that is a lesson i thought that with and
i i say it in rabbi grayden's name
hopefully
maybe to satan his name but it's a story
about rabbi sax
and his true greatness was not that he
was a great philosopher or great
you know rabbi a great community of
course he was all of those things
but he was a mensch and that he was
willing to forgo
the greatness that his education had
promised him
in order to dedicate himself to jewish
leadership
and to inspiring others even though he
perhaps might have thought himself i
could do better than this
wow beautiful story and you see
greatness personify while
unbelievable um and definitely um
this um should this entire panel this
everyone learning together should be a
great aliyah for his inshallah
um and um moving on to rabbit doctor fox
um
um i found the same theme of of a muna
and bitterslam
for having faith and um and trust um
can you um elaborate up upon the
connection of
of having a muna as we know we have to
have a muna
but on on the other hand um the people
that they feel overwhelmed
they have anxiety on the other hand so
how do you how do
you balance that
people very frequently
in our religious world get stuck on that
and we have an extraordinarily
unreachable ideal in our minds
of thinking that our faith and our trust
demand that we have no questions that we
have no doubts
the reality of dealing with catastrophic
trauma
such as this plague this worldwide
pandemic
is that it's normal
to have anxiety it's normal to have
fear it's not normal
for a person to feel nothing
it's not normal to have no emotional
reaction
when there's illness when there's death
when there's loss
it's not normal for the human being
not to be sad when dealing
with the stresses and the realities
of this pandemic so for a person of
faith
there's an ongoing process
of placing our trust in god
knowing what it is that a jew believes
practicing the elements of being an
observant jew
in order to develop a sense of closeness
to god turning to him speaking to him
praying to him asking him for things
expressing gratitude to him which is
what praise is
and this is what fosters a feeling of
connection
of closeness of devegus and that's a
lifelong challenge
and of course that's a goal we work and
we work at
but that no way precludes a reality that
people
are fearful these are scary times
this is a nightmare for us and a healthy
person
person a a god person or son
is one who's going to acknowledge her or
his stress and distress during this time
healthy people and that includes pious
righteous good
god-fearing persons are people who are
honest with themselves
and what that means is that if life
events around me are frightening
and i'm scared i acknowledge it to
myself
and if life events around me have
brought misery and sadness and loss
so i acknowledge that to myself i'm sad
i'm hurt i'm bereft
i'm grieving and honesty
for a god-fearing jewish person also
means that in addition to acknowledging
my reality
my internal world that i
turn to someone whether it's assaila
and you go to your rabbi or your
robertson
or to a teacher that you trust or to a
parent
if there's one that you're close to
or to some other trusted adult or
sometimes a confidant who's a friend and
a peer
but turning to someone and being able to
say i need to talk this through
i need to vent i need to express i've
got to process what's going on
inside of me so
self-awareness during this time of
course
involves the wish and the hope and the
yearning
to find a way to feel closer to god
that's our obligation as jews to put god
into the framework
to see his hand to acknowledge that it's
him
it's not us but
even for those of us who strive to be
bali
to have steadfast faith in hashem
we've only to look at our patriarchs
throughout the torah
and what the torah tells us that yaakov
was afraid
no one said to him you're not supposed
to be afraid and when we're told that
avraham grieved
no one said to him stop crying already
so there is a humanness and a
wonderfulness about a person being able
to feel because this is how we're wired
we're wired to think to wonder
to ask questions we're wired to react
when times are rough and to acknowledge
that pain is pain and hurt is hurt and
sadness and sadness
and so much of our challenge during a
time like this
is to listen to all sides of ourselves
and the things that we can't handle on
our own there's no stigma there's no
shame
of turning to someone who may be wiser
who may be more experienced
who may care about us and can
help us reconnect with our ability to
feel compassion to feel trust
but there is no conflict for a religious
person
to say that i trust god i have faith in
him
i believe in him and i'm struggling
right now
the talmud the roshami says
that something we try to avoid as being
someone who's called
the va eight be assuring the vai api
surim
literally means someone who kicks at
suffering
and one of the statements in the talmud
how do we
define how do we quantify a person who
kicks its suffering
so the talmud says it's a person who
works with the illusion
he tries to convince herself or himself
he works with the illusion
that the things that hurt don't really
hurt the things that i feel i don't
really feel
so we never deprive ourselves we never
disallow ourselves to have emotional
reactions
this is the whole concept of yes
surimusurim
the challenge of dealing with hard times
is hashem wants us to be shaken up
hashem wants us to be feeling something
but not just leave it at that not just
stay
stuck on the sadness and the pain and
the fear
but do something productive with that
work on introspection work
on self-expression work on creative ways
to channel
some of that angst and that existential
struggle
into something that you can help
yourself and you can help others
those people who came through this
interval of the pandemic
in a way that was self-healing
are those people who engaged in
making an effort to heal others
those who express gratitude those who
extended themselves
those who showered others with
understanding
and with compassion so those are the
healthier persons among us
who've made it through but in order to
be able to reach out to others
and not foist your unhealthy agenda on
them
do something with your unhealthy stuff
do something
with the struggles that you're having
don't stick with the anxiety don't stick
with the fear don't stick with the
obsessions
don't get ensnared in the compulsions
don't get enveloped in the addictions
whether it's substances
or other toxic behaviors
don't stay stuck in the depression and
the misery and the pain and the sadness
acknowledge it self-aware
identify it give it a voice find words
for it
and then turn to someone else who can
give you the support
help you develop perspective and then
turn to other people who are struggling
and
offer them the golden nuggets that
you've discovered
but that is my long answer to a brief
question how do we balance our faith
with our pain right now and the answer
is that we acknowledge
that both of them are important right
now
would you say from uh from a therap from
a therapist standpoint
that um it would be wrong for someone to
try to solve some of those
let's say he acknowledges the anxiety he
acknowledges
what's going through um would it be
wrong to try and solve some of those
on a batakin type of level
or can that be part of the process or
could that be
uh could that be almost uh damaging
meaning
is there there is is there the truth of
a person acknowledges that anxiety now
he says wait
this is all from hashem using that as uh
a calming and a real trust or and is
that
is that too dangerous and he and he
should only go through a therapy
um a therapeutic way
okay well i i don't see this as a
two optional member that it's either the
token
or its therapy there are plenty of
people who do
well without being in therapy and as i
said
it's a process of self-awareness finding
a confidante it doesn't have to be a
therapist
but finding a person to help you process
what you're going through
so again the option is not either you're
a person of faith
or you're a patient of therapy those are
not the two options but what i would
say about your first option in terms of
the leap into faith and to trust
so in my experience
and in my understanding of
the torah that we live by
and the hashkaf the worldview that
is for our generation and this is
something that
we see in the writings of muhammad and
the nephi shahin
and many of the others for him that for
our generation
there is that element of real-life
mortal histodus
that accompanies our
leap and to be taken into faith
that the majority of people living in
our generation
cannot successfully throw themselves
fully into faith and not make an effort
if a person's bleeding they're not going
to say
i'm not putting a bandage on it if a
person costs a showroom god forbid
has an infection they're not going to
say this
according to almost every one of
contemporary postgame
they're not going to say i refuse to get
the prescription filled
i'm going to trust that i'll recover if
i'm supposed to recover
this might have been part of life at a
certain
era in our history the majority of us
are not there
and so what i believe and what i
understand hashem wants of
us is to exercise our faith and to
develop our faith
but at the same time if there are steps
that we can take
to make this better we have to discover
those steps and we have to take them
thank you okay
and i think there's uh definitely more
to be discussed maybe robert jessica you
could just um end off for us tonight
about
uh maybe um um
maybe just just ending off on this topic
of a moon and be tough on and
and maybe if you could just maybe maybe
um questions maybe
maybe some of your students have come
with come to you maybe
how you've addressed them or maybe if
they haven't asked the questions but
maybe
what would you say to that maybe the
silent question would be that people
haven't
maybe didn't have this it was the
wow so
so i would i mean i i would say it's
funny coming after uh just ruby fox said
that the others
the other side of the coin as we're
saying um
i i i think and you know
and if you're listening to a lot of just
what rabona mcdoleum and people are
saying throughout the entire pandemic
i think so much of this comes down
to hashem teaching us one vital lesson
over and over again
and that is hashem kimba shamayim
that hashem is the one only in control
uh the a knight there's no one else
there's no one else but him
you know the vaccine is coming out which
hashem should be
a big refuara but you know we have to be
careful that we don't we don't
talk about this that we take the vaccine
but we understand that the vaccine
is coming through hashem that the the
this was a massive massive show of the
entire world
um of on every level
economics airlines sports everything
shut down
of hashem showing that you know i i am
in control over the entire world
and we all have to come to to a level of
understanding that
uh each you wherever we're holding each
one where they're holding
you have to come to that understanding
that hashem
is in control
uh that's the name of the game and i
read in the book that
uh there was a a woman who was married
to a governor
and um they were driving by and they
stopped off by a gas station
and he sees that his wife the governor
sees his wife is staring at the guy
putting in gas
and he says is everything okay why are
you staring at him she goes yeah i just
can't believe it you know that's tom
i dated him for a year in high school
and the governor looks at his wife and
says well you know imagine where you had
been
today if you would have married him and
she says yeah that's right today he
would have been the governor
uh and you know to to me that's like
you know we can't do anything with that
hashem there's
nothing that we can do without hashem
being there right behind us and
unfortunately
we can always fall into that trap of
kokhibo samyadi
i was mutually asking i made those deals
and i did this and i gave that to duck
and i gave the good russia
and you know i have the fanciest english
accent i'll be done remember gordon
could fight that out
and you know i have this and i have and
all the eyes and it's so easy and hashem
comes along with his little bacteria and
says okay
everyone let's remember who is in
control
and who runs the entire world and um
that that to me is is what this whole
thing you know was it was really about
and on the practical muscle side i must
say
is that for for me personally you know i
think it was two weeks into the pandemic
and i was insider conduction by a
wedding in the backyard
and i think it was the nicest wedding
i've ever been in my life there were 10
people there
uh we had a minion and the father was
under the chupa on his porch crying
and he gave a whole speech others his
dream to walk his son down to the
wedding and then
he company came inside for the first
course and there was some sugar sushi
there
it was great rolls don't get me wrong
you can't go wrong with sugar sushi ever
and that was the first course and i
think uh the second course was that was
some uh with some lava
and some shawarma we danced and that was
the wedding it was so beautiful
you know part of this whole thing i
think is just the the simplicity
the simplicity everyone was home for
pesach and we have to remember
that message that hashem was showing us
you know we can
run after luxuries i'm talking to myself
uh especially as we have you know four
panelists from la over here we got the
palm trees
uh i know it was about miami now miami
has the fake palm trees la if you really
want the real palm trees
you come over here and we'll show you a
robbery if you ever get to la
what it's all about but you know it's so
easy just to get caught up let's face it
you know i get caught up not these other
customers
and corona really showed us you know
keep your eyes on the prize remember
what we're here for
is back to basics we got to appreciate
our tila we gotta appreciate dominating
appreciate our families appreciate our
jobs
appreciate everything hashem gives us
uh and and you know if we take if we
take that message with us
as we go further we make sure we're
going to remember
what life is about remember the hashem
is in control
uh we're going to be okay and then if
you have any problems you call
me fox and and and they'll help you out
but we have to remember that hashem is
in control of the
talk and uh you know merced
next time this panel gets together uh
we're discussing the different ways of
you know what we need to do to get ready
for machia
you know should we how much of our
belongings should we pack
should we uh should we sell our houses
over here in america do we want to keep
them for a summer home
we're going to have a whole discussion
on on on getting ready for the big day
because
if we get the message if we all wake up
if majestic he wakes up
and realizes what hashem wants from him
and we're able to dig deep which client
shows so so holy i'm gonna leave you
with something that happened tonight
i was on my i went out with my wife
earlier to a restaurant
and there was a table next to me with a
group of boys a group of sparty boys
and none of them were wearing none of
them were wearing yarmulkes
and uh we were supposing you know like
we were and
at the end it came time for the bill and
the guy gave him the bill and the guy
the kid signed it was like eight kids
signed the receipt
and then i looked 30 seconds later the
kid took out his phone to bench
he didn't have a yamaga so he took the
receipt and he put it on his head
and he was pinching his battery i was
just watching him for just five minutes
you know and like the spartans know how
to do it
[Music]
he gave like a homie over there and it
was the nicest thing i went over to him
i said this is so beautiful
he goes yeah there's the 300 yarmulke
but it was like hashem look look at your
kindle
look at what they do they want a bench
you don't have a yamaha put to the
receipt that's how much he loves you
caillou charles so cavaldin is so
amazing with
so much good there's so much look how
much amazing things came out
and whatever we you know we could do to
just to just
fix those little things that we have to
do to look deeper hashem wants us to
change that's why he does this the
rambam says
something happens in the world you have
to look you have to change
um and then uh that's it i think with
that with that message
we would we would you know we would do
ourselves in the world
uh tremendous good if we if we could
take these two messages
uh once again thank you for everyone for
playing this together every fox
probably doner i don't know if i ever
got to actually meet one person i know
this counts
i guess nowadays this is considered as
close as we can get
uh and reverend gordon you know thank
you so much again once again maybe
someone else wants to leave us with some
final words um
i appreciate it i want to know what i
just want to know what referral p
robert majesk is getting from the new
patients throughout our fox
oh actually we have a big deal going on
but also
i get free therapy for every five
patients oh boy
i do want to share one thing which i saw
today which i think is absolutely
inspiring
it'll take me a minute but i think it
would it would be it would be a
wonderful
closing story it's a 20th yard site of
rabbi gifter
ramadra giftos or
and there's a talmud who's written i'm
on don't ask me why i'm on a tells
whatsapp group i never went to tells
i've never been
cleveland and i met rabbi gifter one
time
in 1988 at a gooder camp so i'm
not quite sure why i'm on the list but
this is he's published a 64-page booklet
which is a reflection it was a time of
gifter he tells the following
story and it's in if anybody wants the
book i'm very happy to share it they
sent it out today
just email me pennydunner gmail.com
um rabbi uh gifter went to tells he
went 1932 he was 16 years old he took
the
burn and garrier steamship which was a
pride of the cunard fleet and he took it
to europe
and included many entertainment options
on board
and at the outset of the voyage the ship
was suddenly struck by
a severe storm in a very short period of
time the party atmosphere
was replaced with enormous fear for
about 15 minutes the ship was buffeted
by the storm
struggled to retain an even keel then
suddenly the storm was over
and ahmad gifter this he tells over the
story he expected
the sense of solemnity to continue to
rain on the ship
and he was shocked to see that almost
immediately the passengers returned to
their party
we would tell this story very often when
he got older and he he went to ask
the rashashiva when he got to tells the
russia shiva rav
ramit blach who was killed by the nazis
rav gifter went to ask him how should i
respond to this
they were about to die and then the
moment they weren't dying they went back
to partying how's it possible that they
didn't stop even for a moment afterwards
and their shiva explained to her of
gifter the young mantra gifted explained
him
that the nature of a human is such
that true change is never achieved
by momentary inspiration but only
after serious effort i think it's a very
powerful muscle for the covered
situation
that we're going to get out of it
there's a moment when the storm is going
to stop
are we just going to go back to partying
or will we have learnt our lesson
beautiful that's a
powerful story on the twentieth yard
site of rav gifter
thank you thank you rabbi gordon
thank you rabbi majeski we will meet
eventually and thank you of course
to robbie thank you so much thank you to
all of our panelists
rabbi gordon i'm by donner and by dr fox
and ryan majeski
and um for for for enlightening tonight
uh for enlightening us tonight
and uh majeski hinted to us we've been
getting some requests um
that they want a sequel um hopefully
it'll be uh preparation for mashiach but
if it didn't come doesn't come yet
and then um then that means if next week
or if it works or if not
but uh definitely it's an idea and thank
you to everyone for joining us
and i forgot what one quick note um we
mentioned before
project high um and anyone can reach out
to that 24-hour crisis
helpline that by dr fox mentioned the
number
is
you so much 855-327-4747-855-327-4747
for joining us