17: A Few Words About Your Parents

Hi, this is Dovid Orlofsky and welcome to The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Hope you appreciate that in the ever-changing saga of the Rabbi Orlofsky sign There was so much interest that it actually Physically grew, so it is now much like this, this is not there is not a problem with your, you know, Feed, do not try to adjust your computer. This is Reality, the truth of the matter is that I turned 60 and my children made me a sixtieth birthday party and They made this very large Rabbi Orlofsky Show Live because this is really is not live. Yeah But it doesn't sound good to say Rabbi Orlofsky Show dead, right? That's depressing. But this is the gigantic sign they came up. They also made a video going around asking various people to wish me a Happy birthday Like this one? Hi, Rabbi Orlofsky. Just wanted to say happy birthday Yom huledet sameach and zei gezunt. And there are many others which we will be highlighting in the weeks to come Cuz I know you're as interested in seeing people wishing me happy birthday as much as I am So that's gonna be coming up in the weeks ahead, we still have sponsorship opportunities Available this week is being sponsored by anonymous as a hatzlocha and brocha for them and I happen to know them very well. I know that you're watching and You know my heart goes out to you with all my warmth and feeling and all my good wishes and brochas and Thank you so much for having the zechus of bringing this Whatever it is to many, many, many, many, people I don't even know how many people anymore because I keep meeting more and more people say oh, I just found that your podcast I just started watching, and I don't know how to track these numbers anywhere But I'm guessing we're well over 10,000 now by the based on the fact that that's what I think and there's no really no way you can disprove me either So, what the heck? So whether you're watching on TorahAnytime.com, or YouTube, iTunes wherever you listen, the podcast we're happy to have you along and This is episode 17 unbelievable...episode 17 and this is the this is going out Parshas Mishpatim and I want to, I want to share a thought and Maybe it's a little more serious than usual, but I'll explain to you why This past week was my father's yahrzeit, it was 17 Shevat This coming week is my mother's yahrzeit, which is 23 Shevat Shevat is a very important date for me, a month for me. I may have mentioned this already I was born in Shevat and My mother passed away in Shevat, my father passed away in Shevat, and I passed away in Shevat as luck would have it, I came back - but two major doctors told me I was supposed to be dead, and I remember I was very surprised because I had a heart attack on my birthday, and I said to my wife as the ambulance was taking me away, I don't understand, Tzadikim die on their birthdays, and I've worked my whole life not to be a tzadik. So it turns out I was right (laughter) And God didn't want me and In fact, you know My oldest brother who passed away in Nisan so my mother who was already well on in her 80s was inconsolable as a mother who loses a child can be and she would, I wasn't able to fly in, it was after my my heart attack. So this is five years ago It was after my heart attack, I wasn't allowed to fly to sit shiva with my family. I sat shiva here and... and... My mother would say to everybody, you know, why? Why did, why did Jason die? Why not me? I said to God, take me. I'm an old woman, you know, I've lived my life already, you know, why Jason? He's a young man, He has children yet to marry off, you know, take me, take me now What do you say to a mother? Who's, who's? Asking you why her son died, you know, and why she didn't die, and no one know what to say so I called them to make a shiva call, and my mom says to me, Why? Why did Jason die? Why didn't I die? and I said because God doesn't want you. You're a cranky old woman. Jay's a lot of fun. He wanted him up in heaven He'll get to you eventually Right now you can't answer why he doesn't take you, he doesn't want you and my mother said, that's the first thing anyone said that makes any sense, so Mom, I know you're watching up there For sure, that's why I have so much trouble calculating how many people are watching Because they, I'm sure they're showing this up in Olam Haemes. So gosh, I don't know how many people are watching it but you know, but people come to me these times when I'm sleeping people who've passed away They say, love the podcast (laughter) I'm just kidding about that anyway, but but, the fact the matter is that that there's a there's a There's something special about that, in fact, one of my kids told me they saw my mother towards the end I remember was I brought her into the hospital, I was there when she came in and The doctor, not her main doctor, the other doctor They said listen, the test results are are so bad that this is basically it You know, I don't think you're gonna make it now I think I should be thinking about hospice and my mother said, well, you're a ray of sunshine, aren't you? (laughter) But I said, you know, my mother has her 90th birthday coming up in November any way you could just keep her around until then, and the doctor was kind of surprised by this reaction It doesn't really work that way I said you don't understand, by Orlofskys it all goes by the parties, you know what I mean, so like, if you could just keep 'em around, you know Anyway, but when she realized she didn't have a lot of time left she told one of my kids, she says, I'm trying not to be so cranky so that God will finally take me...yeah so So 89 years that she lived in this world. When she passed away, they put up a poster of The great-grandchildren, of the 60 great-grandchildren. It's now over 70, all of whom are being brought up in Torah and mitzvos. I want you to appreciate this, yeah My mother's father started the Green Line Bus Company yeah, if you're from the New York area you might have seen the Green Line Bus Company, my grandfather started that with one bus and Then he brought his His brothers over from Europe he put them in the business and he built it into a major, a major bus company He, they were very comfortable and they lived in Laurelton which back then was considered a very fancy neighborhood, yeah Anyway, my grandfather passed away young from pneumonia. They didn't have the antibiotics and the other brothers got together and squeezed out my grandmother, so that I lost my bus company Whenever I go to New York and I see a Green Line Bus I say that's my bus To think, instead of a rabbi, I could have been a balebos. But anyway, But my mother told me That her father did not go to shul on Yom Kippur, nothing. Now so that you Appreciate the contrast Her mother was the daughter of a big Rav in Vilna Avraham Fishel Rednitsky. I once saw an article where they wrote up about him He was a big talmid chacham, and he also had pull with the government he was able to stop a progrom once, you know, and so mamish came from a rabinishe family and They explained, you know, back then you were lucky if you found a Jewish person to get married too, you know, and My mother grew up like that. My father grew up in Brownsville, poor. Poor, poor, poor, yeah, my My Mother when she first got married, so my father says ah, I always loved my mother's cabbage broig cabbage soup My mother tried every recipe by the way since this is part of the show I'll share with you My mother's cabbage soup recipe. It is one of the easiest things in the world to make. Yeah? You take a head of cabbage and you cut it up. You cut the... put it in the pot. Take a package of flanken, put it in. Put in I don't know, three, four cans of Hunt's tomato sauce and Add water and sugar, boil it up till it gets nice and good, yeah Three hours, I don't know how long you cook it for, it is out of this world. We always make it Sukkos, sometimes make it other times, but when you're sitting outside in the sukkah and it's chilly. You have it Anyway, so my mother kept trying to make a cabbage broig. Yeah, and whatever she made my father says it's good but it's not like my mother's, yeah So one day he was in the old neighborhood and she says to my father, Moishele, you want some cabbage broig? He's like, sure. He comes home and says My mother is a terrible cook. I must have been so hungry Anything I ate was delicious, you know, I didn't realize it. He says to my mother, you're such a great cook, you know So my father grew up dirt poor but he grew up in an Orthodox home, but he had no Jewish education whatsoever So when they got married they agreed to keep a kosher home because it was a My grandfather wouldn't eat there, otherwise. He made it clear. They kept a kosher home and and we You know, we grew up. We went to the Conservative synagogue, you know, and I have a brother who's a genius I mean all my brothers are geniuses, don't get me wrong. But one is like, you know, a sick genius. Yeah, and and They told him, listen you got to send him to private school so my father, he came from Brownsville, what did he know about private schools? He sent him to the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County and and Rabbi Fendel Convinced him to send the three younger boys who were just starting school and that's how we ended up in yeshiva, and that's how eventually we all became frum and that's how My mother when she passed away had 60 great-grandchildren being brought up in Torah and mitzvos and you can follow down other lines of the family Almost nothing. I mean, boruch Hashem a few, but for the most part, almost nothing from other branches of the family and I Remember I said to my father I said How'd you make the decision to, You know, to send everybody to yeshiva that must have been expensive, and my mother told me, she says, well, your father had just gone bankrupt. He had a flower shop and he was working with caterers and Evidently the expenses were more than the income and he went bankrupt He later paid everybody back. But you know, he had gone bankrupt and I said to my mother When was that? She says just when you were born, as every child brings their own luck, she says to me and and She says it was very hard to make a decision to send four kids to yeshiva. I said so what did you do? And she says, so I didn't get a new dress, you know your father didn't buy a new car, you know, we scrimped, we had to get by but To give our kids a Jewish education. That was something that was very important and All of this is leading up to what I really want to speak about this week my My father said, I heard this actually from Rabbi Gottesman, not from my father Who I had the zechus to speak about in an earlier podcast Rabbi Gottesman, he says My father said when he wanted enroll the kids he says, but I'm not shomer Shabbos My kids will go to yeshiva and they'll look down at me Which by the way, is a very serious consideration because We Rav Moshe Feinstein You know, somebody wanted to start with tfilas hashachar and brachos Instead of elu metzias like they usually did. He says no, It's more important that kids learn that if you find a lost object to return it and if someone, You should know what belongs to you and what belongs to other people And afterwards he told his son, this is another reason, you'll learn about something called, you know sof zman krias shema and sof zman tefila and they'll see that their parents don't do it and A bit of a contradiction, yeah You know. there is always that moment when when kids realize that their parents aren't Perfect. Yeah, I was learning Navi with my son, today is in his 30s, and we used to learn after davening and on Shabbos and we chazer over. Something came up in the Navi and I didn't remember it. It could be I learned it as a kid, you know, I didn't remember And I remember he looked at me and he says, how could you not know this, you're an Abba? I said because I didn't have the zechus to go to a cheder in Yerushalaim like you did and one day when you're a big Rosh Yeshiva I'll sit in your shiur and listen to you teach Torah I don't think the answer was satisfactory as I would have hoped it would have been, you know, because, you know We'd like to believe, you know, so he says what's gonna so that's why Rav Moshe says, you know You're gonna teach it to people about zmanim and they'll see their parents don't keep it. It'll be, the contradiction will be very difficult and that's what my father said to Rabbi Gottesman when he says I'm gonna send my kid to yeshiva and Then they're gonna see I don't keep Shabbos, then they're going to look down at me. And he said the first thing we teach them is kibud av va'em That's the first thing we teach them That there's kibud av va'em Rashi in Parshas Beshalach, he says at mora he gave them three parshios to learn this is Dinim, which is obviously this week, Parshas Mishpatim, and Para Aduma, and Shabbos The Gemara in Sanhedrin says also kibud av va'em Why didn't he teach that, why didn't he give that? and the Maharal says He explains why those three categories, but he says there's a fourth category of mitzvahs called mitzvahs tevios They're part of who we are as a person and kibud av va'em fits in over there Kibud av va'em fits in over there because It's natural to a person to want to honor their parents Somebody gave a shiur and claimed that you can learn midos tovos and all kinds of good behavior from goyim and He brought A raiya from Dama ben Nesina a famous Gemara in Kedushin where his father was sleeping and didn't want to wake him up to get the key to the safe to open it up to get the jewel to sell the Beis Hamikdash, and in return for that he ended up with a para aduma So he says you see from this that you can learn out midos tovos from a non-Jew Rav Moshe Shapiro quoted this story once in shiur and he says what you see from this story is That you can learn out kibud av va'em from a goy didn't say you can learn out anything from a goy and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find other stories of where we learn out, you know midos. I'm not thinking about Manners, you know it says, you know you learned how to eat properly from the Persians there. I know, you know, manners I'm not talking about manners I'm talking about in the performance of mitzvos, on how to do things from a non-Jew But by kibud av va'em, that you can do because that's mitzvah tivis. It's part and parcel of who you are as a person So you come to this week's parsha and it says the following: If somebody is tunneling into your house To kill you, excuse me, to rob you You're allowed to kill him. Why? This is a rodef If you catch him in the act of breaking into your house, he'll kill you out of desperation Says the pasuk unless it's clear as day that he won't kill you And what does that mean? If it's your father. If your father is sneaking into your house, he's not going to kill you But your son might Your son might kill you. Yeah, and I've asked this question to audiences all around the world, of all religious affiliation and I say, of all ages, Who loves who more: parents love children more, or children love parents more? And they all say parents love children more. They all say Because I had a student once who said to me clearly. I don't owe my parents anything. They owe me They chose to have me. Now, I'm their responsibility. They have to take care of me I said, well, what if your parent says I'm sorry, I realized they made a mistake. Let's solve it right now, you understand? No, they're not allowed to. Once they decide they have me, they have no choice now. They owe me I don't owe them anything because I Didn't choose this relationship Which by the way is a very, very powerful statement Because the nature of relationship is that it's defined by the person who wants it least. So a person says to a young lady I love you with all my heart and soul and want to spend the rest of my life with you And she says you are horrible and disgusting. I never want to see you again Okay, so we'll compromise and be good friends, you know It doesn't work that way. If if one person doesn't want the relationship the relationship will not take place. That's how it works this is the difficulty in our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu because Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us and so People have the ability to say like this young man said God chose to create me now I don't owe him anything. He owes me And He put me in this world. Yeah so Therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us the opportunities to do mitzvahs That's why we're in this world to choose. What is the choice? I heard this many times from Moshe Shapiro. The choice is not Should I have vanilla or chocolate ice cream? He says a cat has that choice Should I jump around in this garbage can, or that garbage can? That kind of choice we're not talking about Choice is one thing: will I listen to Hashem or not? That is the only thing that determines bechira. Am I going to Give my ratzon over to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, or not And that's why when it says we're only in this world to be mamlich Hakadosh Baruch Hu or as it says in the end of Pirkei Avos, kol amar shebara lichvodo everything created was kavod because kavod and malchus is the same thing the one thing Hakadosh Baruch Hu can't do in this world is Give himself kavod. If you give yourself kavod it doesn't have value. You get an invitation to a dinner. I'm honoring myself Come down, it's not for any organizations. Just me. I'm so impressed with what I've accomplished. I've decided to make my own dinner Yeah, I'm gonna present myself for an award I'm gonna have people come in make maudlin speeches about me, you know And I'm gonna get up at the end and say I am so humbled that I've been chosen for this award You understand, it has no value. Yeah, same thing with malchus. You can't crown yourself. And that was why when Napoleon Bonaparte who is a product of the French Republic Where they killed the monarch and were supposed to do away at the monarchy decided to make himself a king He felt like he wasn't gonna get the respect in Europe Unless he was a king. So he gets the Pope to crown him and just before the Pope crowns him He takes the crown and puts it on his own head so that the Pope shouldn't crown him And everybody laughed at him. You can't make yourself a king yeah, you can make yourself a Ruler, you could be a moshel, in the case of a dictator, you can make yourself a tyrant, you can force other people But a melech is only by people Wishing upon it, yeah I'm Arthur King of the Britons. I didn't vote for you. You don't vote for a king How do you become a king? The Lady of the Lake clad in the most shimmering sapphires brought forth from the bosom of the water Excalibur thereby signifying by divine command that I am your king Listen strange women living in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government Supreme exacting of a command can only come from a mandate of the masses, not by some farcical aquatic ceremony If I said I should be king because some crazy woman threw a sword at me, why, they'd lock me up! (laughter) Now the point he was making which I think is correct Is that monarchy is a matter that can only come from the masses. People have to decide to make you king You can't make yourself king. You could make yourself a ruler but you can't make yourself a king. To be a king You have to be chosen so only we can be mamlich Hakadosh Baruch Hu because Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us bechira. We could choose to give our bechira over to Hakadosh Baruch H,u or not But in order to do that We have to recognize avinu shebashamayim Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us and gave us this and that's why you should know it becomes complicated because people who have issues with their parents end up having issues with their With Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Yeah? Rabbi Orlowek told me about this girl, I do this with my kids, you know, when they were little, yeah I put them on top of the refrigerator and say, jump to Abba I'm afraid, I'm afraid, come on, jump to Abba and they jump and you catch them and after a while they, you know They enjoy it very much. Yeah They keep jumping up. By the time you're like 16 or 17 it's really embarrassing But okay, you know, but just gonna get a bigger refrigerator. But anyway But the but You know So this little girl had the same thing with her father, he says, jump, jump, jump to Daddy, she goes I'm afraid, alright, jump to Daddy, she jumps And he stands back as she falls and hits the floor And he says you learned an important lesson: never trust anybody So he says can you imagine the trust issues? This girl has, yeah, and then you carry it over to Hakadosh Baruch Hu because our Father in Heaven. Yeah so The Sefer Hachinuch makes it clear Yeah, we owe hakoras hatov to our parents because they took care of us when wewere children, when we were little Changed our diapers, and they fed us, they took care of it, and there was nothing in it for them at all Yeah, if you're lucky you get a smile there's that Mostly they ruin your life, that's what children do, right? Because when you want to go out they get sick, you know what I mean? and You know, they like to play with Lego but they don't really play with Lego they dump it on the floor So the pieces go everywhere, you know, and then they walk away and you pick up all the toys or they pull out the Lego encyclopedia and they say, make me this and you get down on the floor like to a father it's a Challenge you start making it the kid leaves, you know, and people come in and then honey The guests are here and you go careful, I'm looking for this piece, one second, you know, you can't finish that Lego horse, you know and You're making reports, you know, the kid comes in like, you know, nine o'clock at night, I have a report due tomorrow And so the parents are working frantic. Trust me I do much more homework now than I did when I went to school. I didn't do that much at school, you know You know, this much I did learn from my parents that the important thing of any book report is the cover, you know So you just have to spend a lot of time on the cover. Nobody really cares what's written inside of it You know, this story is, the main characters are, my favorite part was, you know, think you know And then sometimes I didn't buy the thing. I had a book and make up something You know, I had to write a report on frozen food I remember my mother got one of these snow sprays and put it on the outside to make the cover, you know And you know and I just made I took them from the encyclopedia I pretended it was a book and you know And the teacher said I didn't know that Tolstoy ever wrote a book about frozen food and I find this fascinating like I copied out a name from the shelf but You know, doing a homework, you're taking care of everything like that, you know, and I'm speaking now as a son not as a father. Yeah, but You know, as a child, you know, we grow up with this whole litany of complaints against our parents, you know My father didn't do this for me, didn't do that for me. He wasn't emotionally supportive. He wasn't here, he wasn't that you know listen, I should, you know I look at every day of my life today differently because two big doctors told me I should be dead Yeah, so every day is a gift But if I go back, the fact that my parents decided to have me is a gift My father had six boys Yeah he chose to have six children at the time when that was not so common to have large families and he felt this was a Imperative. This was something that was extremely important to him. It did not make his life easier We are expensive. Yeah, well, not as expensive as girls, yeah (laughter) But we're expensive, you know and You know He spent money on us. I remember he sent us to camp and the accountant said to him once you know he goes, I don't think you're in a financial position to send your kids to sleepaway camp. My father says yeah, but they need it they uh, you know, we'll scrimp someplace else, you know, the The amount of of time that goes into it. that they invested in it I didn't appreciate my parents when they were alive, for sure not. I was not a particularly good son. I wasn't Terrible, but I was okay, but you know if I could go back in time knowing what I know today Well the appreciation I would give my parents is unbelievable for nothing other than the gift of life and the fact that they took care of me when I was little and they and they took me to the doctor and they You know and the things that you know that I was given a truly blessed life Were they perfect? They weren't perfect, you know, but there are no perfect people Yeah, the fact that they chose to have me and to be able to give to me was an unbelievable thing the tragedy is and I don't know why this is but we write all these gedolim biographies and we write all these articles after they're dead when it's too late to do anything about it When a person's alive and you appreciate who they are Then you could go and spend time and chase after them and know who they are, you know Rabbi Pesach Krohn, who also recorded a little message for my 60th birthday. Yeah He said once he says one of the gifts that I give people when they're going to Eretz Yisroel is I tell them which gedolim to go and visit when you can go in and when you can go and see them A chance to be able to see them and to be able to speak with them Those of us who had the zechus to speak to gedolei Torah. Well, what an unbelievable opportunity and then they pass away and they're not around anymore and And we missed that opportunity We miss that opportunity we let it slip away. Why? Because we didn't appreciate what we had when we had it Same thing is true with our parents those of you who are or blessed that you have parents. You know, I'm You know when my mother passed away and I said this somebody said now, I'm an orphan orphan, yeah, and and that not that I don't have good friends and good people in my life, you know what I mean But there's something special about calling your mother, calling your father before Yuntif to wish a good Yuntif, to, you know When my father was alive You know, I always say this: as long as you have a father you can be a kid And once you lose that then you have to become the adult You know you fill in that role you become (singing) and who will be the zeide of our children and who will be the zeide if not we an amazing thing Amazing thing when we have an opportunity Baruch Levine just wrote a song with his parents' 25th anniversary about how we pass on to our children We got from them, by the way, he also recorded a message. We'll have him on as well. Yeah, but, you know the Amazing things that That the gifts are that we get from our parents that we don't appreciate at the time And so we have mitzvos in this Torah in this parsha. Yeah, don't don't hit your parents Yeah, that's yeah you're chayav misa for that yeah, I had this terrible situation With my mother towards the end when she was sick, and I was supposed to test her blood And if you prick your parents and you bring a drop of blood, you know, you're chayav misa for that, you know it's a Terrible situation. What do you do when you have a son that's a doctor? He's the master surgeon, you know, and his parents have to go into surgery difficult, difficult, difficult situations but I'm, you know, I wish that I had shared with my parents when they were still alive how much I appreciated them and and My I think my I had a chance to tell it to my mother. My father would have said, yeah Well, I wish you would have gone to college That's what he always said, in fact when they told me that it's almost the end with my father, I said, don't worry I'll get him out of bed. I'll tell him I got a ticket Watch how fast he'll get out of bed. But You know Perfect. Nobody's perfect But the hakoras hatov that we have to have for our parents the appreciation for it is something that is so tremendous Those of you who have this opportunity take advantage of it, those of you who don't you know Cherish those memories, you know It's not that there are no bad memories it's just Like we say in Rosh Hashana, kol harisha kashan tichla.All the evil disappears like a puff of smoke. It's not real. It's the good things we do that's real it's all the good memories of our parents that are real and all the other stuff is just It's nareshkeit, just make-believe It's smoke, it's illusion. Let's appreciate it that's it for this week if you want to find out more about This show you can visit RabbiOrlofsky.com/podcast If you would like information or make a comment on this particular show RabbiOrlofsky.com/podcast/17 Good golly, Miss Molly. If you want to find out about upcoming events RabbiOrlofsky.com/events And I can tell you now that the first Shabbos in February I'm going to be at K Rav Tunie and that Sunday night I'm gonna be speaking in the Monsey area and I still have dates available at the end of February. Those you who would like to Bring Rabbi Orlofsky to come and speak, it's not too late. Yeah, you don't have to hear me come and speak I can set up chairs, I cook supper, you know, I mean? Whatever you want I am available. You know, if you're making a simcha and you just need somebody to serve, you know, set up thechairs, yeah I do that too, magic shows. I'm available children's parties anyway if you'd like to contact me RabbiOrlofsky.com/contact If you would like to sponsor an episode you go to RabbiOrlofsky.com/podcast and click on sponsor an episode Thank you so much for watching and listening