52: Who You Can Become

[Music] hi I'm Deborah Lasky and welcome to the raviolo ski show my my goodness I didn't know so many people could fit into this studio which is essentially my living room and you'll slowly hear the audience as the podcast continues passing out because we had to turn off the air conditioner in order to not having a hum in the background so it could be that in order to encourage the air conditioner to go back on we're just all going a hum hum and see if that would anyway so yes I'll ask you shop if you're listening enter any time whoever you listen or watch your podcasts we are happy to have your lawn episode 52 we now have 52 episodes we are playing with a full deck and you'll have to work that out of the room so we have a dedication this week by the Gellar family little English Mize their father Yakov Leyva been Shull on his 25th yard site this week on your ello 25 years I'm almost there with my father it's it's amazing it's amazing when loved ones leave us the whole that they leave in our life so it should be an elite from the Samba and the entire family shouldn't get a tremendous horse and it's almost it's a nello as well what I have for you in - hello already my goodness time flies were they having fun or not yeah I just you know started a new Shire in might Beit Shemesh on Tuesdays and we just had the first one we're gonna have one next week next Tuesday the next Tuesday's elections we don't have on Election Day and then we have one more and then it Tuesday's Rosh Hashanah secondary sugar and then the next Tuesday is called indirect so so it's amazing if you're counting by Tuesdays time is flying we're moving along and I want to speak about something this week that really I wanted to speak about for a long time I was trying to see how I could possibly work this in on any decent level I finally figured it out now I have to say by way of introduction I'm going against the d'affaires Shikamaru Nevada's are I'm telling you that up front because my avodah Zarah asks Kaneda been tried yet who was one of the asaru game alphas one of the ten martyrs why did he die what was the crime in other words granted there was a meta historical force that took place that United these 10 people but each one had their own story that was going on that's one of the great things when your code is Furcal and you're God you can juggle lots of different things so each one of these people had their own reason why they died and yet it fit together into a meta historical context of the mercury Co safe of the sale of Joseph and all those kind of things it will fit together anyway so it says why did he die because he taught with the shame of Farish Brabham he taught with the ineffable name of God but you're not supposed to speak out it wasn't actually you came up K was a different form of the name and he did this in public and he was not supposed to and the Chimera asks why did his wife die says his wife died because she didn't stop him says thanks beloved's she hosts Musa I understand granted his daughter Bria we know is listed in the Gemara as a Tom Kha from a Torah scholar in her own right mrs. Kareena been trackin you don't find the same thing and even if she was to say that you're on the level of being able to argue with a ton of like River from the internment or I didn't you have to be somebody really exceptional who says that she was even holding in a position to be able to argue and listen to what Robert says cuz it's an unbelievable thing he says I could as Borough Hall give us a beanie a sailor to a wife to know whether or not what her husband is doing is right or not and he ignores her at his pair that is my introduction I used teaching seminary at one time I had the seminary girls over my house and I was saying something not different than I usually would say in class but my wife was there she says very lousy I don't think you should say that at the time of your last gay I don't think that's what you're trying to say or Arielle asked I don't think that's appropriate and this went on Filipe the next day in class I started to say something and one of the girls said if your wife was here she wouldn't let you say that I said you're right but she's not so um I'm about to tell a story that my wife urged me not to tell and I apologize in advance not just to her but to all of Claudius well because I'm gonna tell the story anyway even though it borders on the inappropriate and everyone knows how I struggle to be appropriate that's why everybody watches this because it's like watching a highway you know Walker without a net Miz then you're wondering what's gonna happen yeah now you could edit this out and in fact people have seen that sometimes in the podcast there were like little blips and they figure something was edited out we never edit out the content when I reached the right for the hum with you they used to cut out whole pages of my articles you know they they just said that this is too much for our people you know what we do is when I mispronounce words or you leave out that part where I say and I remember I was speaking to send me who was I talking to so the producer takes those things out because he doesn't think that that's professional and we strive for professionalism yeah anyway anyway so I want to tell you this and and I'll explain to you why I'm telling you this story I struggled because I really wanted to share this because I can't afford therapy and I just took out my problems in public so I really wanted to share this story because it was it was deeply moving to me and I finally realized how it could possibly be relevant to the greater community and I'll explain it as follows we spoke last week about the show friend of all of the chauffeur is to wake us up aru wake up the chauffeur hits us in a primal level and tells us to wake up and live our life because most people live life asleep and life passes them by and they don't realize they don't realize and the way I put it was most people live the life that happens instead of the life they want and this is so often the case it says that tsadikim are not affected by the aja of Jahannam because their age in this world what does that mean there is no fire obviously because you're in a shaman you can't burn a soul so what does it mean fire can never exist in a state of rest it's always kinetic and tsadikim a kinetic so what's the fire it's a muscle for embarrassment and we get up to the next world and they show us what our life was it's embarrassing and after you've finished watching your life then they pull out the second CD and this is what your life could have been and it's the contrast that's so difficult but for its addict they show the first CD and he's going to hold time I could have done that bet I could have done that better and at the end they see says okay let's see the second CD and he said that was the second CD you lived the best life that you could and that becomes the ultimate idea that we want to live the best life and people sleep through life they let things happen they don't they don't think about it they don't they don't decide is this the life that I want and so how am I ever gonna arrive at a destination I'm never going to arrive at a destination if I don't know where I'm going that's the biggest problem somebody stops you and says you know I'm from Long Island you know somebody stops me and says can you give me directions I said where you going I don't know I said that keg is take the northern state it's more scenic than long expressway and I know where you go but it'll be look nice you know go through go through fire really beautiful right over there a little it's good thing is gonna Park wait down there also go for a nice Drive go go up the Pacific Coast you know highway a beautiful but is it gonna take you where you want to go but people don't know where they're going and so people just live their life and at the end they turn around and they ask themselves is this the life that I wanted to lead and more often than not the answer is no because by pure chance you may have arrived at the most meaningful life but if you don't stop to think about it so you have to think about what your life is about and we saw so lanta says there are several steps you have to do in order to prepare for Russia Shana and one of them is to figure out who you want to be at the end of your life Steve and Kobe and his classic work the seven Habits of Highly Effective People he says every business has to have a business plan yeah and they they have a they have a motto they have a they have a direction they have something that describes the essence of their business and their and their decisions will be based upon that so you can often see what business really represents GM found out there was a problem in one of their cars and it was on a result in a certain number of deaths so they considered making a recall but they realized that the recall would cost more money than just paying the people who got killed this came out later and so they were fined and sued for no sign of money but you see what their their motto is you see what their purpose and meaning is to make money even if it means killing people it's obvious other people may have a different business plan he tells a story about this one hotel that he was in where people were so helpful they say he needed something you need markers or something and there was a worker who was on top of a ladder it wasn't that his job but he was on top of a ladder and he was cleaning something and he came down and he went to the back and he got me the markers yeah and I said to the manager afterwards he says I I teach I teach how to run businesses how do you do this he says we had a meeting of everybody now hotel from the lowest employee to the top management and we said let's figure out what the purpose is and we decided the purpose of our hotel is to provide the best possible surface to every guest and that was their motto that's how they lived and experienced their entire business so he says a person has to do this on a personal level how do you do that write your eulogy in other words what is the life that you want to have looked back on because everybody wants to have lived a meaningful life they just don't realize that in order to do that you have to live a meaningful life so people live an average life but they want to be remembered as having lived an exceptional life yeah so I'm sure we've gone to funerals where one person didn't get the memo and he tells the truth Harry love to smoke cigars that's all Harry didn't read the paper I smoked cigars drank scotch that was Harry's whole life and Harry's lying this thing there must be something else nope sorry Harry that was it there was nothing else there is a magician by the name of al flosso I was a magician my younger years I still AM I managed to make money disappear so quickly you can't even believe it vanishes before your eyes but but there is something called a silk flower production and the way this is usually done is you bring out a cloth and you reach underneath and you pull up this bouquet of flowers al flosso had a magic store in Brooklyn my father took me there it was a few years before he passed away and I'm talking to him and he says kid you ever do a soap flower production so sure Gus I do it barehanded I said really he says watch he goes like this and boom makes it appear he says that's my move I'll be remembered for that move and a few years later he passed away and I thought to myself al flosso figured out how to do a barehanded feather flower product slow clap was then that's how he's remembered let's say you wanna be remembered that was your main contribution the fellow who invented the Pringles can when he died every hispid said the same thing he invented the Pringle can he designed it so it should look like tennis ball can you know and he was able to fit in the Pringles and that was it that is how he was remembered he lived a very long life and that's all anybody had to say is that he made the Pringles can it's it's it when that's what you remembered for I forgot his name but the guy who wrote the hokey-pokey pairs the way it was a kind of tragic his funeral first they put his left foot in and then and then all the trouble started what if the hokey-pokey is what it's all about [Laughter] anyway but that's it that's it what do you remembered for yeah the woman who wrote happy birthday that song who by the way patented officially every time missing a key from Happy Birthday supposed to send her money yeah but copyrighted probably my pendant but it's what do you remembered for it so I'll tell you why I find this interesting I got sick a while ago a couple of months ago and I've been dying to tell the story I got sick what I suffered from was severe constipation the fancy name is impacted Bell it'll be the title of the next Rev eight of a Kaplan book anyway greatest impact but anyway I was suffering from an impacted bowel now this was pretty serious right it's it's embarrassing but it's pretty serious they were doing x-rays they didn't know what to do they were giving me this medicine that they said you might have to go to surgery you know so what do you do when there's something wrong with you you google it okay I looked it up and sure enough it can be fatal you can die for this my wife said you can die from everything they have to write that etc and I said I'm going to die from severe constipation I said that will be the ultimate irony and explain to you why I became from at the age of 12 I did it on my own I did it based on intellectual considerations not because I went some place for Shabbos was inspired yeah I battled learning disabilities my whole life a whole bunch of learning disabilities I was president of my youth group I made all kinds of different events when I was in high school I taught in a Hebrew I taught in Hebrew school kids had to read when I was in high school I became the chapter advisor of a chapter in Los Angeles which had six kids at the end of the year we had 60 paid members and many of them went off to yeshiva we made quite an impact I became law and director for nine years I started the region with one member at the end we had over 2,000 kids involved in all of our programs I then picked up my family and moved there itself which was not easy leaving family and friends behind I was much giacconi Shiva I taught in a seminary for most twenty years I taught in Asia Torah I taught in or Sameach I taught in Nevada lion I took many other places yeah I'm speaker that I've spoken in South Africa Australia England Canada the United States many different venues many different places and for an entire week my loved ones will be gathered together discussing my bowel movements that'll be it that's it Chris unless somebody dies of that what are you gonna talk about I'll talk about what he did but that goes did he try Pontius did he go here did he take this you know they're like and I'm just picturing my children and my wife sitting around for a week discussing my digestion and that's all that would be left man would be all that I would be remembered for I would come out and say you know I'll be different Lasky you know American rabbi passed away from severe constipation and that's it it's kind of ironic when you think about it because you know people have often asked me what do you want people to say at your Lavanya look he's moving okay we was eight what do you want on your tombstone I said if I could if I could write my epitaph it would be he tried and in context of this story it comes out with a whole completely different meaning anyway so anyway I share this with you because it's it was really pretty frightening he was pretty really frightening and when you are confronted with death and I have been confronted with death yeah after I had what was a heart attack and I did not know it was heart attack and they did an angiogram after the wire came out the doctor linked me and said I don't know why you're alive you're not getting enough blood to your heart to keep you alive and he wasn't really just doctor he said someone up there must like you and suddenly it hit me my gosh ah this doctor is telling me the Patera whatever I should be dead I just had this discussion with somebody the other day they say how's everything going I said can I complain every day is a gift I'm living on borrowed time but Derek whatever I should have died five years ago and I'm still here amazing thing in fact that Richard before that Russia shunt if somebody said so what do you want for this year you know I had a heart attack a bypass operation yeah I said just a better year than this year he says to me you ingrate you were supposed to die and God kept you alive and all you can do is complain I said you're right I want a year just like this yet Casta hm but when you're confronted and you ask yourself okay at the end of my life what am I going to be remembered as and it's a it's a scary thing when people look down and they stop and they look at their life and say is this the life that I want is this what I want to be remembered as I borrow from literature if I and Liam is Arab if you actually read the book it's a very very long book it's a classic by which it means it's about a ton no no that's an exaggeration about 300 pages too long that's how you know if you ever read Conrad secret agent that is a 10 page book that they dragged out for 125 pages I don't know how but they miss Arab goes on forever and the reason is because every now and then he goes off 80 pages on a tangent at one point he escapes into a conference where he spends 80 pages talking about the climate see things like this you know at one point he escapes into the Paris sewer system he spends 80 pages talking about the history of the Paris sewer system so but in this Jean Valjean who is so bitter and so nasty he's become so hardened because he stole a loaf of bread for his family that was starving he got sent to prison and he tried to escape twice and each time they added to his sentence because of that and so the time he comes out he doesn't know what his family is he doesn't if they're alive or dead he doesn't have anything he's just a very bitter miserable person they're miserable it's a miserable person and he comes in and you have to show you car that you're a convict so now in would let him in and no place would let him stay those is one bishop who let him stay welcome into his home give him to eat and after everyone went to sleep he stole his his silver candlesticks he got caught they recognized and they brought him back to the bishop the bishop says I gave it to him as a gift and he walks down the road and he is shocked by this act of such extreme kindness and he's sitting by the side of the road thinking about this because maybe my life is different and this kid is walking by and he's flipping a coin and the coin falls and Jean Valjean instinctively puts his foot on it kid says gave back my coin this is anything he says come on give it back my coin he says beat it little kid runs away crying and he looks down he starts crying and he says I've become so miserable and he chases after the kid but he can't find him in a you know and he dedicates his life at that point to changing it around and making his life into something meaningful there are people who do this for real they stop and look at themselves and say I can't believe what I have become sometimes people hit a nadir people hit such a low in their life that they can't believe it I had a buffer say to me once Rebbe I did the worst thing in the world I said I don't believe it he says no no I did I said you killed your mother and ADA so he says no I said no I said that's not even the worst thing I could think of that was just the first one that came to mind you know I mean I could think of even worse no he keeps missing Memphis but you know but to him that's the worst thing in the world but every person reaches a certain point where I just can't handle who I've become how do you get that way you get that way because you make one poor decision felt by another poor decision followed by another poor decision and at no point do you ask yourself where am I going who do I want to be says herbs or cilantro in order to be able to make the yum niyam meaningful you have to start by asking yourself who do I want to be at the end of my life what is my mission statement where am I going what do I hope to accomplish what is my epitaph what is my what is my eulogy how do I want to be remembered in this world and everybody wants to remember it is somebody good and Noble a mafia hit man doesn't want anyone to tell the truth then he he was a great killer he killed many people and often in creative ways but one time he was holding this guy over to buck hey I don't want to say that they're gonna say Vinnie was a good friend Vinnie was good to his mother now come up with something good because nobody wants to be uh remember it as a terrible person everybody wants to be remembered as great and as noble but if I want that King and we all know Kailash Emma maluca whom I shall Bogoria Hashem has the kingship and he rules the nations what is it in amela that emotion I'm Alex as a king and ammo shell he is a ruler he rules because he is forcing himself on the people and nobody has the power to stop him he's a dictator he's a tyrant yeah he's going to be in charge some to similar families you have to agree to make somebody a king it doesn't come from some weird thing I am Arthur king of the Britons king of the who king of the Britons I didn't vote for you you don't vote for a king how do you become king the lady of the lake clad in the most shimmering sapphire brought forth from the bosom of the water Excalibur thereby signifying by divine decree that I am your king listen strange women living in ponds distributing swords is no system for a basis for a system of government supreme executive command can only come from a mandate from the masses not from some farcical aquatic ceremony I mean advising I should be king because someone threw a sword at me why they put me away now that's true it's true from otago point of view that's from Monty Python the Holy Grail by the way but but it's true people have to make a king now what's shot in the King for real a king is a symbol lave Cola Hamas's the Rambam he is the heart of the people he represents what it means what do I mean I like to read history I have read some incredibly boring books in order to prove my dedication to the study history I look back at that moments now and I regret it but one of them was a Harvard professor who wrote a book about Andrew Jackson called Andrew Jackson symbol of an era and what is he saying he says there was certain people who were bigger than who they were as people they were there were symbol they represented something yeah so that Andrew Jackson we talked about jacksonian democracy he represented something Thomas Jefferson represented something George Washington Abraham Lincoln Teddy Roosevelt these people were bigger than the people who they were they represented something that was bigger than themselves people agreed that these people captured the heart and minds of their people and so you can go through history and find different characters throughout history who were greater than the position they held they were a symbol they were an idea for something bigger yeah everyone says that many stories that are told about deulim are not historically accurate he says but you can understand the person based on the type of story that they tell so a certain type of story is going to be told about reclaim Iser and a different type of story's gonna be told about reclaiming brisker and a different type of story's gonna be told about the Comets hyeme even though they all obviously encapsulated all aspects of a voter's hashem but there's certain areas and the stories the telling were able to capture that idea I mentioned King Arthur right King Arthur in the legends that were written during the Middle Ages that wasn't King Arthur no it was clear from historical records that he lived during that period of time when the Romans left England and the anglers and the Saxons were coming in to capture it from the Romans and the British who were there was Celtic people and the the conflict that went on there was a character there it's fascinating historically but it had to have been in the 500s it was no way that it was in the Middle Ages they weren't Knights the way we think of Knights in on all those kind of trappings it was they look more like Romans in fact I read a book once the search for the real King Arthur and he says where the name Arthur probably came from is since the Romans spoke Latin and the Celt spoke Celtic so there's reference in the writings of a contemporary fellow referring to this great leader who was called the bear so you know how you say bear when I was talking about the constellation the you know the bear is the Ursus Ursa Minor Ursa Major right and earth is a bear in Celtic so authoress would be bear in both languages putting it together in order to be able to capture this idea so but he was a symbol it doesn't matter whether or not the person existed the way the stories were told the point was that he was something bigger than himself a Mela means that this is the person whose picture with putting up on the wall that I want to be like and when I was growing up I will not embarrass myself by trying to draw from you know today's culture cuz I just I can't keep up but when you when I was a kid you know they'd be sports players and people would want to wear their sneakers that that particular sports player was using so once was so safe with him I'm going back a very long there was this great basketball player called Michael Jordan and he came out with his own fragrance now I don't know what there is about Michael Jordan that makes you think you wouldn't want to smell like him yeah but the point was I want to be like Michael Jordan's all by whatever whatever he sell it yeah and it was true about music people and it was true about performers actors they would come out and endure something and you wanted that because he wanted to be like these people on Russia Shawna clientele says you know who I'm putting up on the wall I could borrow some to similar family we're making him the king he's already in charge but I'm saying I want to be like you I want to emulate you I can't wait to be king and I said I want to take that in and make that my life you think about that you would give Omid ice we say the good give me dice it brings escapar we say it during sleeve host we said a lot on Yom Kippur interestingly enough we don't say it on Rosh Hashana all right we say it when we take out the toy rope but it's not the you'd given me days because it doesn't start with the value grow which the word brother says is an essential part of the you meet us but how does saying the good give amita's work the answer is not saying it trying to become it ah hoo ha no Barak home fat O'Connor around just like he is merciful and he is forgiving and he is truthful and all the good things that he has we try to emulate that in our life because we want when people see us to see a car oh you know those really nice stories with a covet I'm like really nice stories I had somebody wants to his commentary so he says can you hook me up with him a couple I said no mokou bottom I know people who do I could put gentle he said she don't go to Michael Pollan I said no he says but it's so cool I said okay I'm not impressed by that I said you know what I find so cool this boy came to the carpets fine for Shabbos and he had travelled through the whole night and he was falling off his feet so how does time said go take a nap he says I'm afraid I missed a burning he says don't worry about it I'll wake you up the boy goes to sleep he wakes up and he sees it's dark outside and he walks in and there's a kind of time sitting in the Shabbos table and and he says Rebbe I fell asleep he says don't worry about it you know I didn't have the heart to wake you yet such a long trip come dive in my roof and then we'll we'll eat anything Sean my life him it's just high oh and he says was the representing said she was tired she went to sleep it makes kiddush Masood ever since mirrors they retire and he makes sure that the boy is asleep and then he goes to sleep and the boy is tossing and turning it wakes up he goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water and he sees it's four o'clock in the morning and he realizes that the cover time waited a whole night tell close to dawn to eat his Sudha so that the boy shouldn't feel bad and eat by himself Wow full disclosure and for guest:this 15 minutes late I start getting very upset I know I got kids here eh all right wait well maybe everybody else could eat you could wait for him and make kiddush with him like the Cavett I am oh I'm sorry do I am I wearing a t-shirt that says Adi got it so the again where did you see one of these terrorist attacks you read the the the vignettes they're all big tsadikim not me I'm gonna live to a ripe old cranky age nothing's gonna happen to me but anyway but but yeah I hear a story like that I am so inspired and you know where the Hobbit time was so nice because he's a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow Borough Hall because he spent his whole life trying to emulate her courage Borough Hall so that when they had an ecumenical debate and for the benefit of my issue the guys who get upset when I use big English words when they'd have an argument about religion yeah and Rodney and they had Catholics and they had Russian Orthodox and they had Mustapha unfairly Protestants they Jews says the Jews always play their trump card they'd say show me your religion that ever produced a cover time and they would all quit because even the non-jews looked at him and saw a godliness in that person a Curtis Procol goes up on the wall that's why I want to be like I want to be somebody who's noble and good and kind and giving and loving and tolerant and understanding and when we look back in life and we look at those moments when we were small and petty when I'm proud of ourselves when we look at those times when we were great we say yeah the end of my life I want them to say yeah he strove to be great and you could see godliness inside of it and that's what we have to work on now with Rosh Hashanah coming figure out who do I want to be the end of my life when I turn around who do I want it to be so Crayola 5/8 but I am because they never say remember like in time I am still available for the holidays anyway remember us for life grant us life God of life we want life why because we want to live why I said I want to die because he want to be a life why anyone lived for him God has a terrific sense of him Yael appeared of course killed the joke but yeah they used to change the clocks here before Yom Kippur that's only we change back so we're sending they're pouring out our hearts Turkish where our grant us another more life give us life and God says okay I'm giving you an extra hour everyone says great I can sleep late this is that's what you might like for us so you can sleep you could be dead and do that yeah you can you could be dead forever I asked a group of teenagers once what's the greatest pleasure in the world they said sleep so I said that I bet you can't wait to your dad you'll sleep forever and they said no cuz I'll never have the pleasure of waking up and going back into bed I don't mind being dead if every few years I open up everyone's still here turn over the pillow is then then I'd be fine we want to be alive because we want to do something what is it we want to do that's what we have to define in your session that's that first step in our avodah coming now we have to wake up and decide who we want to be and that's it for this week if you want to find out more about the show go to every illowsky comm where you could add comments see my upcoming schedule you can contact me directly and like the people in this room you can be part of the actual podcast audience oh boy yeah and of course and if you want to sponsor an episode go to Reb you offski that come slash podcast click on the sponsor an episode button and you can be part of this unbelievable movement that's it for this week I'm Deborah Orlowski and this is the rubber Olaf ski show [Music] [Applause] [Music]