Pesach: Memory Test (Ep. 321)

Hi, this is Rabbi Alansky, welcome to the Rabbi Alansky show. And whether you're watching with our friends and [music] producers Torah anytime, or wherever you watch or listen to podcast. And don't forget to like and subscribe. And um comment. And um share. Got them all that time. And uh apparently there are people who are not subscribed, and not signed up, and they don't know when a new show comes out. They're just hoping that they'll stumble upon it, but um unless we push up the algorithm, there's no way of knowing for sure that you're going to know. So, it's definitely good to know uh and subscribe and be part of the program and process. Rabbi Alansky, Rabbi Alansky. Yes? The Alansky Pesach program still happening? Of course. My Pesach plans fell through. Do you happen to have any available rooms? Well, the truth is, we were totally sold out by Tu Bishvat. But because of the current situation, the skies over Israel closed, and there's a lot of people who had to cancel who were going to come in from outside of Eretz Yisrael. So, yes, we do have some rooms available. Is the hotel equipped with the proper safety equipment? >> This is very safe. We have bomb shelters, we have secure areas. I would not take people to a place that I thought was [music] dangerous. >> Rabbi Alansky, is there still going to be a day camp? Yes, we've got the counselors lined up. They're very excited to run it. I hope that they'll have a wonderful time in [music] our Pesach program. How about bouncy castles? Bouncy castles? We're going to have bouncy castles the whole Pesach. We're going to have animal shows, we're going to have magic shows, we're going to have all kinds of fun things. >> Okay, I'll make sure to tell my parents. That's great. So, tell your parents to click on the link below. >> [music] >> And we have a sponsor for this week's episode. Jeffrey Bolduc. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. B O L D U C. Bolduc. I think that's how it is. A message from the mixed-up multitude. I have listened to every podcast you've given, including the question and answer in parsha in five. I am not a Jew, just a who wants Torah to spread. I would like to sponsor 10 episodes. God bless you all. >> [gasps] >> Jeffrey, thank you so much. I I you know, somebody had written me once because uh it was the crocodile island thing that I had mentioned. They said, you know, my kids were in the car, and I felt a little uncomfortable. Who is the podcast for? I said, the podcast is mostly aimed towards uh from adult Jews. I know there are non-Jews who are listening, like Jeffrey. I didn't know that you listened to every question and answer in parsha in five in every episode. Uh because that's got to make an impact on you. >> [laughter] >> I know it makes an impact on me. And uh and I know there are non-frum Jews who listen. I know there are children who listen. So, I try to make it something that I think will be accessible to everybody. And Jeff, I hope you'll let me know whether or not you feel that it's more or less there. I try not to speak too much sprach. This is what Yeshivish Jews speak among themselves. It's a combination of Hebrew, Yiddish, and English spritzed together. So, um so, a guy in Yeshiva will say something like, "L'chaim, it's taka a problem." And thinks he's speaking English. Epis Dorton. >> [laughter] >> So, um anyway, thanks. Thank you so much, everybody. And I want to remind everybody that our merch store is open. You can go to rabbialansky.com/merch and buy all kinds of nifty things like your own Rabbi Alansky mug. Finally. People have been asking me for this. You know? Most places don't uh don't uh ask for merch. You know? They uh they're people are selling the merch. But me, people have been bugging me for merch. So, here's your chance. Um I'm telling you a story, it's an old story. You'd have to be one of those real political mavens to really remember this story. I think it goes back to 1984. It was either '84 or '88. Um I think it was '88 maybe. I don't remember. You can look it up. It doesn't matter. You get the idea. Um it was a Democratic primary. And one of the people running, his name was Paul Simon. Not the singer-songwriter Paul Simon. Rather, the senator from, I believe, Delaware. Paul Simon. I don't know what it is about Delaware. You know, Biden was also a senator from there, and he thought he should be president. And uh Paul Simon obviously also thought that he should be president. I remember there was this little scandal that took place at the time. Because uh he told the story about graduating first in his class. And he didn't. And it was easy enough to check it out and see that it was a lie. And it became a bit of a scandal. I don't know why it wasn't enough of a scandal for a Joe Biden who stole whole speeches. I remember he stole uh the the Labour Party candidate in England, his whole speech, his whole story. And um Johnny Carson at the time commented uh the people getting disheartened over the Biden campaign. But he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Now, for those of you who don't know, that was a famous quote by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The point being that he steals everything from everybody, yeah. Um but Paul Simon is said this, and uh it more or less more or less tanked his uh tanked his presidential run. I remember reading a piece in the New York Times at the time when you could still read the New York Times without it being really vile. Only mildly vile. And uh this fellow wrote a piece and said, "I remember winning the football game when I was in high school or college, and I made the touchdown." And somebody said to me, "No, you didn't." But I remember it. And he said, "That might have been what happened to Paul Simon." He believed that he remembered graduating first in his class. I didn't know if it was true or not. Because I don't know if this has ever happened to you. It happens to me. I'm sure of an event that took place. And I'm sure of the elements that took place. I've no question about it. And uh it comes out I was wrong. That's not what happened. But I was sure. I was sure I would if I was forced to take a shvu'a, I would take a shvu'a. Because I was so sure. Cuz memory is a tricky thing. We remember things that never happened. Counterintuitive. You remember something that never happened? Reb Wine, that's how he would famously say. Um all of my stories are true, it's just some of them haven't happened yet. And there was a whole question about telling a story that's not true. Ari Kahn told me once that Reb Zalman Auerbach said, "You can make up a story and tell it keilo it's true." Even if it's not true. Moses Isserles, Iyov. You read the story of Iyov and everything that happened to him. And there's a machlokes in the Gemara, when did Iyov live? Was it in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu? Was it in this time, that time? And then there's some and I remember says, he never lived. He was just a moshol. Which means there's a whole story in the Sefer Tehillim that never happened. And you tell the whole story. Why? Because it's effective to get a point across. And very interesting. And so, I know people who make up stories. And they tell them. I never like to do that. In fact, Reb Chaim Kanievsky, when he was young, they used to pay him to uh write keilo gaddol stories for a local newspaper. And he'd make up stories that sounded like they could be um you know, true about somebody. He said, "And one time I was at a shul shul shabbos, and I heard somebody telling over one of my stories, only they switched it to the name of a real gaddol." On that point, I I I got to stop this. And people are going to think that these are true stories and then use that as a basis. And it says after that he would never tell a story unless he had a masorah. I've said this many times. It's It's become almost uh comical when I say it, but I mean it. Yeah? I say I heard a story. I don't know if it's true or not. I'm not Pesach Krohn. Cuz Pesach Krohn uh checks out all of his stories very carefully before he says them. Cuz I don't want to say a story if that's true. I will never say over a story that I know for a fact is not true as true unless I indicate that I know it's not true. Or at least I suspect it. So for example, there's a famous story with Reb Gifter. And it's been written up. It's been written up. The story goes that there was this couple in Tels that came to Reb Gifter. The wife was very upset cuz the husband won't take out the garbage. So Reb Gifter said, "He's right. Ben Torah shouldn't take out the garbage." All right, the wife was disappointed. That Friday there's a knock on the door to Reb Gifter. So he says, "Rebbe, what are you doing here?" He says, "I came to take out the garbage. I'm not so chashuv. I can take out the garbage for your wife." It's a great story. It's been written up. Um Reb Avraham Chaim Forer who learned in Tels by Reb Gifter, his wife is the daughter of Reb Gifter. And um she said to me, "I saw this written up in one of the Jewish publications." And I said to them, "It's not true. It never happened." And uh I had heard the story. And I said it can't possibly be because the kollel lived on the other side of town from where we lived. And my father didn't drive. I said, "Mama, did you ever take you know, Tati and drive him across the other side of town on a Friday to take out the garbage?" She goes, "No, it never happened." So one time I asked my father about the story. He smiled. He said the guy said, "Talmud Chochma, I shouldn't take out the garbage." And he says, "Don't be ridiculous. Take out the garbage." But this story is a much better story. So I still tell over the story, but I add the caveat that it's not true. >> [laughter] >> But that doesn't matter cuz the story is still a good story. You know? So I'll add that caveat, but it could be I'm telling over stories that aren't true. I don't know. Um I've told over stories that I remember and people said to me, "That's not That's not the way the story went." But I remember it vividly. And the people say, "No, that's not how it how it That's not how it happened." So could I be wrong? Of course I could be wrong. I don't have I don't have a video account. >> [clears throat] >> I was on the plane once. Sichot HaSiyach in Yeshivat HaYom. And uh there was a movie called Denial. It was based on the true story of this woman called Deborah Lipstadt. She'd written a book called Holocaust Denial where she talked about the phenomena of people denying that the Holocaust ever took place. In the book she mentioned that there was this fellow in England who was a Holocaust denier. And that fellow sued her for libel. So this is this film is based on this. It's a true story. So she goes to England and she gets uh high-powered uh law firm. Um I don't know the difference. There's lawyers and there's uh attorneys and there's barristers, you know, but the guy who actually argues has to wear the little white wig in court. And um and they were defending uh what she said. And their entire concept of their defense was, "I don't have to defend what Deborah Lipstadt said. I'm just going to let you talk. And the more you talk, everyone will realize that you're in fact a Holocaust denier." And he kept saying things that would incriminate himself, etc. Anyway, at some point some Holocaust survivors in England approached her and said, "We want to be put on the stand. We want to tell our stories. Our story deserves to be heard." She agreed with them. And she goes back to her lawyer and says uh "I want to put these Holocaust survivors on the stand." And he said, "Absolutely not." She says, "But I gave my word." He says, "Well, then you're going to have to break your word." She says, "But isn't it my trial?" And the lawyer said, "Listen closely. The Holocaust survivors are not on trial here. The Holocaust denier is. That's all that matters. This fellow person who says it didn't happen. So you're going to put some Holocaust denier there and he'll uh cross-examine a uh a Holocaust survivor." She says, "Now this is 60 years ago, 70 years ago. Memory is a very tricky thing. And they'll say the door is on the left and it was really on the right. And they'll say it happened in January and really happened in February. And you'll impeach their testimony. I am not going to allow this miserable person to attack and defame Holocaust survivors. It's not going to happen. He's on trial, not you." And so she backed out and she won the case. That line stuck with me. Memories a tricky thing. You think you remember. And it's it's worse than that because you remember things that never happened. This happens sometimes and and Klal Yisrael to take away from the seriousness of these cases, but what happens sometimes in um child abuse uh cases, kids remember things that didn't happen. And you can sometimes destroy people's lives with accusations. I'm not saying the kids are lying. They remember it. Just didn't happen. And um I had people upset at me for things that I never did. And I could prove to them I didn't do it. And it didn't make a difference. They were still upset at me. I was speaking to a group recently of men. And I said, "You know, sometimes your wife is angry at you for something that you did in her dream. And you say it never happened." She goes, "Well, I feel like you did. And my feelings are legitimate." And so she's angry at you for something that you never did. But it happened in her dream that you did do it. And to her it became a reality. This is in the Torah what we call dimyon. Imagination. Imagination. Uh we've talked about this before. Uh when you look at a piece of cake, that cake can sometimes take on supernatural values. And you look at that cake and in your mind that is the most delicious piece of cake that's ever been made. And it almost never lives up to its expectations. It's dimyon. It's an imagination. It's not real. In the frum community, we check a very very long time before our kids go out together. Now this is to be fair in the Litvisher world. In the Chassidishe world, the parents do all the checking and all the work and basically the boy and girl meet. And unless there's some serious flaw, uh they basically go ahead with it. I I find this absolutely fascinating. Cuz my mother and my father said we'd learn to love each other. And that's what happens. So there's there's a the they they work it out. But by the Litvish and Reb Tursky once wrote an article in the Jewish Observer. He says, "I feel so bad for you Litvisher Yidden. Cuz you have to go out three dates, five dates, 20 dates and pretend to develop a serious relationship. It takes years to develop a serious relationship. So, by the Hasidim, we don't pretend. We're not trying to get you to establish a serious relationship. We want to see that you find each other attractive, you find each other interesting, you have the same values, the families are behind it, go for it. And the rest of your life to develop a meaningful relationship. So, it can sometimes take weeks to check out a shidduch. And they tell the girl all about the boy and about the boy's family and what he's doing, etc. And she moves into the oilam hadimyon. It's all imagination. Sometimes they start She starts writing her name with his last name to see how it sounds. Yeah. So, by the time they go out on this date, in her mind, they've already been married for 3 years. Because the the dimyon, the imagination, took over. So, when the boy says, "No." She's devastated. It's like she just got divorced. They had one date. But in your mind, you built it up into something that was just There there was no way. No way that piece of cake can taste that good. And so you you have to keep a healthy attitude and keep a certain distance when you look at things because the illusion of this world is so powerful. Somebody wrote me a question. Why is there sheker in the world? Uh and how do you deal with it? I said, "The sheker in the world is very simple. Because it's an oilam hashker. Everything you see is imagination. You don't see the real thing. The Gemara says Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai wanted to know who he was spending all of Shabbos with and Hakadosh Baruchu sends him to this town. And he meets these two brothers. There's no indication from the story that they're Torah scholars. He says, "So, what's with you guys? What do you do that's so special?" Nothing. You know, he says, "Really?" He says, "Well, when we see people who are sad, we try to cheer them up. When we see people who are fighting, we try to make peace. That's what we do." And that was on the level of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who revealed the Zohar. Now, would you look at these two brothers and think that these people are on the level of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai? Of course not. We live in an oilam hashker. And this was I've mentioned it in the past. And so beautifully illustrated by that social commentary that was written in 1939 called The Wizard of Oz. Where the Wizard says to the Scarecrow, "There are people who have no more brains than you, but they have something you don't have, a college degree." Gives him a college degree, he's a genius. All right, Charlie Kirk used to teach on campuses. And these people used to say, "Who are you? You don't have a college degree." He says, "What are you majoring in?" And then he'd ask him a whole series of questions in his field that he didn't know. He says, "I didn't go to college, but you don't have to go to college to be educated. I know more than you without getting a college degree." But that's why he says, "There are people who have no more brains than you, but they just don't have a college degree." And that's what it is. Jackie Mason said, you know, "Jews were going to college before there was college. Their mother would make them stand in a field and say, 'You stay here till they build a college.'" >> [laughter] >> And there's this fantasy that people manage believe that you can't be educated unless you went to college. As my father used to say, "If you're an idiot, you'll be an idiot with a college degree." Yeah. It doesn't guarantee that you're going to be intelligent. Yeah. Tom Lehrer wrote a So, he was a professor of mathematics at Harvard University, who of course is best known for writing funny songs. It's an interesting J. R. R. Tolkien was a uh uh professor of philology in Oxford. And in an interview, he says, "How will you best be remembered, for your academic work or for The Lord of the Rings?" He says, "Oh, for sure The Lord of the Rings." >> [laughter] >> So, Tom Lehrer is best known for writing funny songs. And uh he wrote one song about going to college, going to Harvard, you know. And the end it ends like this. And we'll sleep through all the classes, and we'll cheat on the exams, and we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest. I teach in Ohr Someayach as in the beginners program. I had a bunch of guys in my class. Uh all from top universities. And I was explaining what I thought was a pretty easy Gemara. And these people were physically pained, physically pained. I don't mean mentally challenged, physically pained. One of them was holding his head, says, "My brain hurts." I said, "You guys go to top colleges. Don't you have to, you know, work hard there?" He goes, "No, you have to work hard to get in. Once you're in, they have to pass you or they look bad." There are people with no more courage than you, Lion, but they have a medal. So, you see people with medals and you think, "Oh, he's a brave guy." Yeah. There's people with no more heart than you, Tin Man, but there are people who have a testimonial. So, you give them a plaque and then all of a sudden he's got a big heart. And uh that's that's cuz it's dimyon, cuz it's imagination. And people live in a world of imagination, live in the world of make-believe. The whole world is sheker. As the Gemara says as fellow went up to shamayim and he comes down and he says, "Olam hafuch ra'isi. I saw an upside-down world." And in truth, Torah and mitzvahs are the most important things in this world. How many people believe that? How many frum Jews believe that? Forget about people in the world. Torah and mitzvahs? It's scary. Because people we live in a world of illusion. That was the moshol that the Chofetz Chaim gave of the fellow who goes off to seek his fortune and his ship sinks and he lands on this island. And the beach is covered in diamonds. And he fills up his pockets, he's a wealthy man. And he goes into town and he orders a meal and he puts down one of his diamonds. They said, "What's this?" He says, "A diamond." He says, "It's a pebble. The the whole island's covered in with them." And you see somebody sweeping up the diamonds and pouring them in the garbage can. Yeah. He says, "What has value over here? Chicken fat." And he works very hard and he makes a lot of chicken fat and he fills up a boat and he goes home. And when he arrives home his wife is so happy to see him and she sees he has a whole boat. And he says, "Honey, what's happening?" He goes, "We're rich." And he opens up the boat and it's full with chicken fat. He says, "And by now, the chicken fat's spoiled." And she said, "Chicken fat? You were gone for years and this is what you brought back?" And suddenly he realized, "I I was so lost in their reality." And he pulls out his handkerchief and a couple of pebbles fall out of his pocket, which of course are diamonds. And that's what they lived on. So, so too here, we come down to this world and we know what's important, Torah and mitzvahs. And then people say to us, "No, you know what's important? COVID. You know what's important? Money. You know what's important? A big house. You know what's important? Fancy hotels, fine scotch, fine wine. Yeah, $800 suit, $600 hat. Yeah, the finest, the best best clothing, best food, best everything. That's what we think is important. We spend our lives chasing that. And we get up to shamayim and we realize we left all the diamonds lying in the ground. I had a girl in seminary, came from a nice frum family in in Brooklyn. And she said, "I want you to understand. My father's a frum baal habayis. He gets up early to learn and he goes to night seder and he works. He gives tzedakah. My brother's learning in kollel, my sister's married boys learning in kollel. And she was in my Mesillas Yesharim class and she said, 'If I go home and I say, "Mommy, Tatty, I've decided that every decision that I make will be based only what's on best for my avodas Hashem." They will lock me up.'" What, are you crazy? >> [gasps] >> She says, "What do I do?" I said, "If you want to do something religious, don't tell them I'm doing it for voters a sham. Tell them it's a Segula for parnossa. Before he said when he was a rub, you know, he found a macor for everything. Whatever he wanted, he could find a macor that it was a Segula for parnossa. >> [laughter] >> And get people to do it. He says, "We were once having a luncheon and nobody was singing zemiros. And I brought him a macor of singing zemiros as a Segula for parnossa and everyone started singing." Yeah. I said, "If that doesn't work, tell them it's a Segula for shidduchim. People will do anything for shidduchim." Yeah. But just a voters a sham? And yet if you ask people what's the most important thing in this world, they'll tell you in a second a voters a sham. But but that's not how they live. Then they all dimian. We want everything nice and we want everything fancy. I don't That's how we live our lives. So a letter once this [clears throat] girl was a heartbreaking letter. And she was dating this boy. And it got serious to the point that they were ready to get married. So the two families meet. And the boy's family decided that the girl's family wasn't giving enough money and so they broke it off. And the girl said, "Here's a boy who decided that I'm his beshert. That we should spend the rest of our lives together. Have children together, grandchildren together. And he broke off the shidduch cuz there wasn't enough money? What does that mean? All of them half a crazy. It's that's an amazing thing. That that we buy into that these kind of nonsense? Someone who is comfortable but isn't wealthy. A wealthy fellow came to him and said, "Could I borrow some money?" He says, "Sure, I got some money to lend." He says, "But what do you need it for?" He says, "Cuz all my money is tied up in different deals and investments. I'm not liquid. I don't have money here. And my daughter got married and I promised the boy an apartment. And in the meantime, I'm paying their rent in a very nice apartment until I'm have the liquidity to be able to buy an apartment. And last week, I got a hazmana to base din to appear in base din. He's suing me for his apartment. So I'm borrowing the money from people who trust me cuz I can't get out of these deals, I'll lose a lot of money. I'm going to buy him an apartment right next to his parents. And that's it. How does How does a person behave this way? How do you behave this way? My son-in-law had a halal. And the builder said, "Listen, you're the only one who really has access to this halal. It's right next to your apartment. I'll fix it up for you. I'll put in basic infrastructure, you know, and you'll pay me for it. And uh you'll open it up afterwards." So okay. In the meantime, there was a neighbor who had a machsan next to his halal. He didn't live there, he lived two floors up. And he wondered, "What's on the other side of this wall?" And he started drilling a hole in and he sees the the halal and he says, "Great, I'll take this for myself." So my son-in-law says, "No, no, the builder gave it to me." He goes, "No, the builder can't give it to you. I have as much right to it as you do." So they asked the shaila and the shaila was that you have to uh go around and uh have people in the building sign to that they agree to give it to you to be a voter. So this guy got a few people to sign for him and everybody else basically signed for my son-in-law. So this guy had out of the I don't know, 20 apartments uh four apartments. So they said, "Fine, he gets 20% of it." What's he going to do with 20%? He's going to have to knock down his wall to his machsan to get this tiny little sliver. But he insisted on it. It's mine. I have a right to it. I don't How's that going to play in the base din shomayim? My daughter and son-in-law are tzaddikim. They have not been fighting with him. Pleasant to him. Uh and afterwards he started making excuses. It was really my wife, it was my father-in-law, it wasn't really me. They How do you do that to somebody? Is it worth it? All of them half a crazy. An upside down world. And people think they remember things. And people live in a world of illusion. Motty Berger I heard him give this class once. Uh part of a discovery seminar. He said, "We have this phenomena called Holocaust denial. So now there are still Holocaust survivors around. What's going to happen when they will die out? How are we going to be able to keep it alive? The memory of the Holocaust." So someone said, "Well, uh get people to every single day to remember the Holocaust. Every day they should say, you know, remember that there was a Holocaust that took place in Europe and concentration camps and have them say it every day." One person said, "Have a holiday one day a year where you remember." Someone said "Make some sort of a ceremony about it. Do some sort of thing." And they gave all these different solutions. And when they were all done, he said, "You see, we had the same problem 3,300 years ago. Because when we came out of Egypt, we said, 'Maybe people will forget.' So we made a holiday called Pesach. And we made a Pesach seder. And we made a mitzvah to remember Yitziat Mitzrayim every single day. And we did all the things you suggested for the Holocaust and yet you still deny that there was Yitziat Mitzrayim and Matan Torah Sinai. You still deny it. So of course people will deny the Holocaust because all of your methods we used to remember going out of Egypt and receiving the Torah and apparently just wasn't good enough for you." It It's It's shaking. It's a shaking proof. Because every day we have a mitzvah to remember Yitziat Mitzrayim. And we have a mitzvah to remember the giving of the Torah. But one day a year we make a seder. And we're not supposed to remember Yitziat Mitzrayim. We're supposed to relive Yitziat Mitzrayim. Kol echad l'doros atzmo k'ilu yotzei Mitzrayim. Everybody has to see themselves as if they came out of Egypt. That's pretty amazing. We have to see ourselves as if we came out of Egypt. It's not even enough to remember it, we have to experience it. It has to become real to us. I remember when 9/11 took place and the Twin Towers went down. I think it was Newsweek interviewed many famous people right after September 11th. And one of them was the Novominsk Rebbe zatzal. And he had a quote. I saw it in the magazine. It said, "The world will never be the same." That was in September. Two months later in November, I was speaking in a prominent girls school in America. I don't want to mention where. And I said, "What should I talk about?" And they said, "Anything besides 9/11. The girls are tired of hearing about it." So the world was changed forever less than two months. And then everybody went right back to where they were. And you'd think something like 9/11 would make a dramatic change. 1994, I think it was. Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister. And Amnon Rubinstein from Meretz was the education minister. And there's a day in called Yom Hashoah, where they remember the Holocaust. And I remember seeing it in 1994, which is less than 50 years from the war. Said, "You can't keep talking about the Holocaust. You have to open it up to all human suffering. The Armenian genocide, the slavery of the blacks in America, and every tragedy that's going on. Cuz the Holocaust, uh it's not for ready. There was a big scandal here, where they sent the army, people from the army, to Poland to go to Auschwitz. See Auschwitz. And that night, they went out to a club for some indecent entertainment. That's how much of an impression they had on them. >> [sighs] >> There's a expression they used to say after the Holocaust, "Never forget." There's another expression. Easier said than done. Because that's the nature of who we are. We forget. We go on. We move on to the next thing. Shemini Atzeres? That's uh that's 2 years old. We're on to the next thing already. How much time can I spend thinking about that? And I I I'm not talking merely about tragedies. I mean, those are my good things. Kitzur Chaim tells this story, which means it's probably true, cuz he checks it out. About this doctor who was in the hospital, and there was a fellow who was visiting someone in the hospital, and he had a heart attack. Fell to the ground. If you're going to have a heart attack, a hospital's a good place to do it. So, a bunch of cardiologists ran over, and they tried to revive him. Tried to give him CPR, and they tried to do whatever. And one by one, they all gave up. And this one firm doctor kept going. He wasn't a Jewish fellow, this guy. Just kept going and going and going, and eventually he got a heartbeat, and eventually he was able to save his life. When he was making his rounds, he stopped in in the fellow's room to see how he was doing. The fellow said, "Doctor, I guess you expect me to say thank you. I'm not going to. Thank you is what you say when someone passes the milk. Thank you is what you say when someone brings you a coffee. But what do you do when someone gives you life itself? So, I spoke with my family, and we said, "Every time there's a celebration in our family, you'll be invited. And if you don't come, there'll be a chair set up in your honor. And tell everybody about the man who saved my life. And whenever we have anything in the family, whenever we do anything, you are part of our family. And if you don't come, we will remember you anyway. Because thank you is not enough for something this important." I remember seeing a bumper sticker, it was in the '80s or '90s, to God, "What have you done for me lately?" Uh life, uh big deal. You have to have faced down death to appreciate it. I did a couple of times. And uh when people ask me, "How you doing?" I said, "I got up this morning." That's it. Everything else is is extra. I'm still alive. So, what do you want to do? Complain? About the neuropathy in my fingers and my toes? Complain about this, complain about that? I'm alive. We're going into Pesach, and Pesach is a time when we have to relive that experience that happened 3,300 years ago, and make it a part of our reality. Shake away the clouds, shake away the mist, and see the truth. And that's what Pesach is about. Us, we remember all year, and on the Seder night, we actually live it. May it's Hashem we should be zocheh to have a true Yetzias Mitzrayim this year. And now, appreciation comments. "I so much enjoy this show. Every time I see an email in my inbox about another episode, I smile in anticipation." That, by the way, is a very good point, because everybody should be signed up. You know, you should uh um subscribe or or sign up or whatever you have to do to make sure you find out about it. People miss episodes cuz they don't know. They assume they'll find it. But I'm not always there. Yeah. "A big shout-out for the Mishloach Manos episode where you were poking fun. Uh I mean, reminding us about the ikar of the mitzvah." >> [laughter] >> "One small correction. Um Mishloach Manos does not have to be two minim with two different brachas. What is needed is two different minim. They can be the same bracha." That's true. And in fact, the Gemara Megillah even says you could send something that is two portions of the same thing, and it works. Um I misspoke. Yeah. Um uh regular people make mistakes. Presidents misspeak. So, I misspoke. "Hi, I'm a 50-year-old bochur in Lakewood." Ah, my target audience. "And I love your show. It's a podcast which doesn't sound like most other podcasts that need attention and aren't doing it lishma. Keep this in klal Yisrael going." I I got to tell you, I'm not sure cuz this sounds like a stira to me. First of all, you're saying it's not like most other podcasts cuz you don't need to pay attention to it. I hope that's not true. And then you say, "Other podcasts aren't doing it lishma." I guess that's why you have to listen to it. So, I'm not sure. But in any event, thank you for the kind words. And that's it for this week. If you want, you can go to my website. You can leave a comment. Uh you can ask a question. Uh you can go to my merch store. You can uh download the theme theme song. You could sign up for one of my online shiurim. You could sponsor an episode, sponsor parsha and five, sponsor question and answer. And that's it. [music] Until next time, I'm Rabbi Orlofsky, and this has been the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. >> It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode. And we don't have to rhyme. No, we don't. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Orlofsky.com. [music] Torah anytime, YouTube, and more. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Torah and simcha, ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. Till next time, till we meet again. >> [music] >> The Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlofsky Show.