Shabbos: Treasure It (Ep. 207)

hi this is damski and welcome to the rabbi alamy show whether you're watching with our friends over at ory time wherever you watch or listen to your podcast as always thank you for coming along for this experience I just met somebody the other day who says they've been listening to uh my podcast and I've been getting emails from someone who suddenly discovered the podcast and went back to episode number one and is going through five years of this so uh God bless you give you strength and uh it's just so much fun because every now and then I see they they're commenting on like ones that I did years ago and uh uh the messages remain uh hopefully uh um relevant no matter where we are what happens so as uh we're making this podcast we're uh still in the middle of this war with Hamas and uh already many people in the media and the world are turning against us uh some of them are not even pretending that it's anything other than anti-Semitism uh big rally in Sydney Australia chanting kill the Jews so it's pretty clear uh what's uh what's going on over here and uh the motivations so um uh so we uh have only a v that's all uh this as I mentioned last time this is an attack that is beyond our scope to comprehend and uh my son-in-law who is in the unit in the Army for collecting the Dead uh usually they go into a Battlefield and after people have been killed right the wounded or taken out by the but the people who been killed he's part of that unit that goes in to collect the bodies uh well everybody else has been waiting to go into Gaza and training he's been very busy he's been going from Village to Village and collecting all the dead um please have him in youris along with all of the other uh people who are on the front lines they're fighting and and dealing with everything is Mayor benora Alita so uh so I said to him how is it uh you know I said is as bad as everybody says he says no it's worse it's worse he didn't want to give me details and that's probably just as well because I'll sleep better at night but he said probably one of the most horrific things is that in all my years in the Army you collect the wounded on the battlefield you understand that you know this is a battlefield he says I'm working into a house where the table is set fanti a bottle of wine on the table you know and and everyone's dead it's a it's just a horrific contrast I can only imagine uh what he has to go through someone told me that when 911 took place uh in Savannah Georgia they had a uh canine um division that was there to search for survivors uh in the rubble and uh they sent the dogs up to New York to look for survivors and uh or to find the dead either one and he says after a while they just had to have people lying in the rubble they had to put life people there just like to lie down there because if the dogs just kept finding dead people they started to go crazy so imagine the pressure on someone like uh might sad of a son-in-law who has to sit there bring people to K Isel just over and over again what a terrible terrible toll it's taking so uh so we haven't even as of when I'm recording this we haven't started the ground Invasion yet and uh um all the bombing has been just to be able to uncover the bunkers so that they can then go in and and engage in urban hand-to-hand Warfare terrible terrible things yeah he doesn't rest he doesn't sleep hopefully he'll watch over us but um but what are the takeaways that for ourselves right now when we're working on this because you want to do something want to do something yeah I told you this uh the young Kip of War when it broke out 1973 my father said here I am in America and there young men giving their lives got to do something so uh he started wearing Fillin and doing every morning you know got to do something so uh obviously there's a call to action and of course ding is what we need to do we need to keep doing there's no question about it I spoke about that last time but there is maybe one other aspect my son uh who was learning in the mirror you they had a special kace and um and and uh one of the things they stressed was the following this attack took place on chabas and there's a uh perhaps a message for us now again there no the VM today no one can say why anything happened but you try as best as you can to try to connect the dots at least for yourself to try to make some kind of sense out of it so um uh so the um there are stories I I haven't verified any of these I'm telling you upfront I haven't verified any of them uh one of my kids told me a story about three people who were at this Rave out in the desert and uh it started on Thursday it was Thursday it was Friday and on Friday two of the guys said to their third friend listen we got to go back to you because uh we keep shabas and we're not going to stay here on shabas they're like yeah but the party's just getting going said I can't can't we have to leave so they uh they um they picked up and they rushed and they got back to just before and uh the friend realized that because he respected uh his friends shme shabas that's what has saved him um I've heard a story that the uh terrorist had explosives to break through the fence and the wall to the security but not to break through in the uh kib if you've ever been to Israel so you know there's protective walls around and then there's this big metal gate and of course they want to come in with their trucks and you know so what was their thing and and the Kamas showed a video of this you know they hid until a car would come and the car would you know have a opener and they would open the gate once they open the gate know and started to drive in then the Kamas jumped out and killed everybody in the car and the car blocked the gate from closing and then they were able to drive in and yesim that were shabas they couldn't break in because there was nobody coming to open the gate and so they moved on to to you know places that would be easier for them to get in Jonathan Rosenblum writes that there was one MAV which was MTI they were traditional but that shabas punk they decided to start keeping shabas they said this shabas we going to keep chabas we're not driving we're not opening the gate and the terrorists couldn't get into their mosab so like I say I haven't tried to verify any of these stories Etc but there are a lot of stories coming out of how sh shabas helped to protect it's interesting expression Shir shabas right just as much as we are sh shabas us when we keep shabas shabas is a to be able to protect us so uh if we're looking for where we can strengthen ourselves there's no question that sh shabus is probably an area where we can use so I decided that we will dedicate some of the coming podcasts to the concept of shabas and talk a little bit about chabas and maybe use that as a way for us us to be able to strengthen our own shabas and uh chabas and in that process hopefully use this as a shme for all those people who are now in terrible danger yeah um Ben Shapiro made an observation which uh which is true and that is that Hamas comes in does all these atrocities and then hide behind civilians and then if we go after them so we end up killing civilians I say well you can't do that says so what are you doing you're incentivizing people to hide behind civilians because if I can do any terrible thing I want then I hide behind civilians and you're not allowed to attack me so I can come and attack you and you can't attack me back yeah so uh we of course are sorry for any loss of life we're not looking to kill Innocents but you know if uh if murderers decide to hide their headquarters under a hospital or in a school or in a residential building and Innocents get killed it's not really on the fault of the people chasing the terrorists it's fault on the people who are uh committing the crimes and then like cowards hiding behind uh hiding behind civilians there were pictures from the last Gaza War where Kamas terrorist would grab a kid and hold him front of him as he was running in order to be able to uh to protect himself to figure okay shoot the kid you know brave brave Fighters um so uh in any event yeah so this is one of these terms you hear prop proportionality I remember one of the guysa wars been a number of them already with Kamas so uh Mayor Bloomberg he was still mayor of New York he was on CNN and they said do you think Israel's response is proportionate he says it shouldn't be proportionate says I'm the mayor of New York if I get a call that there's a gunman in Times Square according to you I can only send one police officer after him with the same type of weapon that he has what you crazy I'm going to send a SWAT team you understand I'm G to do whatever I can to take out this threat to innocence so no we're not talking about proportionality you know uh one person observed he goes according to that you know you'd have to wait to find a music festival in in Gaza and then kill exactly the same amount of people in exactly the same way is happened here if you want to be proportional yeah so uh so like I say um I'm the Torah says about the Jewish people we live alone that is when we mourn we mourn alone and when we when we celebrate we celebrate alone nobody shares our SAS and our tragedies so uh you know we have to take care of ourselves that's how it goes so it's so interesting they say why isn't Israel taking in the refugees you know says well there's a lot of Arabs why aren't they taking in the refugees none of them seem terribly concerned in any event this is politics I don't want to talk about politics I want to talk about shabas so um I became shammer shabas when I was 12 I grew up in a home that was not Sher shabas and the fact that my father worked Friday night and Saturday but when he would come home Friday night whatever time he came home my mother would light candles and my father would make Kish and he would wash he was the only one who who would wash he'd make hamotzi and we'd have uh you know chicken soup and prisk and you know Friday night suda you know so there was a of chabas was some kind of a that I grew up with but you know when I when my rebi uh re yakob Wales atal um forced me into a corner an intellectual corner where I had no choice but to recognize the truth of Tyra at the age of 12 I was always precocious and uh I realized this is true so then I knew I had no choice but to keep it uh not everybody makes those kind of decisions should I'm always surprised to hear that but a lot of people are not uh motivated by the truth it's just not enough for a lot of people you know I remember I said to my friends when I was fighting with him and I already styled myself as something of an intellectual I said to my friends we have to argue with him and they said just ignore him I said' but what if he's right they said' ignore him anyway I couldn't do that because if he's right then how do you close your eyes to the truth so that's how I became from you know you these people who become sh shabas because they spent the shabas someplace and they had you know a chent and they had a nice time Etc not me I I went Kicking and Screaming um it was a difficult thing for me to become uh from I my life was finally you know in a good place and I destroyed everything by becoming from and starting over again you know so um but in any event uh I went through the process so the time I was Bar Mitzvah I was already uh shabas and um I spent a lot of shabos by myself and uh it's kind of lonely I remember at the time I said that I was going to have guests when I got married because I wanted to be able to have a home and have guests as it is I would find a couple of guys who are you know uh like me you know loners and we would invite them over for uh for shabas lunch we would sit down have shabas lunch together especially in those long summer shabam when you know shabus goes out at nine o'clock at night you know it's it's a it's a toll for a kid you know to get through that but uh I remember most profoundly the shabos in the Autumn the beginning parous you know the first those first weeks of autum now okay full disclosure I love autum it's my favorite time of the year yeah spring is just too hopeful for me summer is just too hot and the winter is just too cold but Autumn I love it all the trees turn colors and uh it's hypnotically beautiful and the the weather is crisp but not cold and uh it's just everything about it's nice um the strange thing is of course that when they change the clock and suddenly shabas comes in at like 4:00 4:15 look like 4:15 you know um and uh and suddenly boom you have these long you know these long Friday nights yeah which uh um a lot of people aren't used to know so uh so I love those shabos I love it when it comes in early and and uh it's it's a little like I say crisp it's not cold you know and sit down to a hot bowl of chicken soup and you're exhausted I don't know why on a on a short shice I'm I'm tireder on Friday night than I am uh you know on a on a summer one when it's later but you know the best one is to sing the old man of that just knocks you right [Music] out you fall face first into your into your chicken soup that's okay because it's nice and warm and you cover yourself with a few [Laughter] noodles that's why they came up with mols so that you it's like a little pillow but uh to me that's that's shabas and and I and I guess maybe part of it is because as you know since the decided to take and turn it into so right after you start uh having a shabas now last year last year the calendar was was more dramatic yeah this year was a little more straightforward but um uh last year I remember you have the last shabas of the year and then you have rashash Shana and then you have shabua and then you have yam Kipper and then you have an extra shabas before um before sukus which is n it's like just sort of there and then you have sukus then you have chabas and then you have sheris and when the dust finally clears you come to shabas barus and chabas bacius is shabas I don't remember who made the observation but they said you know one of the one of the pities is that chabas comes every week if it came like you know once uh you know once a year just a plain ordinary shabas it would have so much kivas to us but it comes every week so we start to take it for granted now um I remember when uh I was engaged to my wife she said at one point um you know I feel like you you know I just afraid that if we're married for a long time take each other for granted I said I hope so if you don't take your husband or wife for granted then when you're saying is I wake up every morning and I'm not sure if they're there or not oh you're still here what a surprise yeah you want to take it for granted yeah shabas is what our entire week is and that's why there is a Mitzvah which means every day day we're counting toward shabas right the LA first three days of the week are left over from the last chabas in fact you can make hav dollah if need be till uh Tuesday and then already starting Wednesday that's already getting ready for the next shabas yeah and uh that's why we added on at the end of the sh shom on Wednesday which is of course the next Capital but it's the beginning of cab shabas we get getting ready ready for chabas we're we're in that chabas mode yeah um I have a neighbor told me years ago uh that uh how do you know that Wednesday is uh the beginning of chabas because you know I tell my family um I'm putting out all the shabas leftovers on Tuesday you better finish it it's Wednesday we're already getting ready for the next shoers so can't have any more shoers left overs so um uh so the the idea is that our entire week revolves around chabas and chabas it should be something that is so comfortable to us where we live in chabas Adam died when he uh AE from the a to d the only reason he stayed alive is because of shabas he got his and he lived on his for the rest of his life had extra soul that you get that's the only thing that kept them going and uh you get this extra Nish on chabas which means that we really live in shabas and everything else is just preparing for chabas or coming after shabas but but our life is chabas and uh I remember when I was running ANC why and uh we made a lot of shim um at my height almost every shabas between sukus and pesak we were running anywhere from one to three shabbaton every single chabas we had strike teams and we were going around to different communities and uh making you know we used to call uh you know uh you know local shabat we'd have the big regionals those were big shows but you didn't do the real work there the real work was at the smaller shabat in each Community amazing concept I have a friend Yehuda Alban who runs a k organization in Chicago and he uh it's called Torah Hub and the idea is that it's a clearing house for all of the other organizations and he raises money to be able to help them out and he told me once he says there's a this balab boss this Jewish guy and I kept trying to get him over my house for shoers and he wouldn't come and I finally said you know what I'll come to you I packed up my wife and kids and we brought our own food and brought our own hot plates brought everything that and we stayed in his house for shabas and we made chabas for him in his house and okay so uh you know he would go shopping in the middle or he would go to the club or he would but for some of it I actually got him to sit and participate in shabas which is an amazing thing because uh you know to be able to bring people shabas sh shabas is the the life of a Jew a Jew revolves around chabas I'll tell you a story when I was living in Los Angeles this story was probably I'm trying to think now [Music] 1978 maybe it was 79 I'm not sure but uh AB Rottenberg uh of uh Deus and marvelous MOS and all kinds of Jewish music fame um was the principal of the boy school and uh him and his wife were going up to this shabas in Big Bear Um mountains in California outside of La it's about 4our drive for my New York friends let me try to put this into perspective um I hate snow I've always hated snow there's nothing about it that I like it's cold it's wet it gets inside of your boots it gets inside of your hands it's just everything about it is terrible you know what could be worse than going outside and finding that not only is your car snowed over but the plows came by down the street and buried it in snow you know and you go out with your shovel and you dig and you dig until you get your able to get enough room to pull your car out you clear off your car and everything and you take off and right away someone moves into your spot you're just cleaned you know it's uh I remember one year in in h New York it was snowstorm after snowstorm I remember watching the snow the uh uh they were in snow plows they had like tractors picking up the snow and putting them in dump trucks and dumping it into the river it was like there's nothing just terrible so anyway it was in the middle of January uh that I ended up moving to LA and I come out there and uh it's in the 70s in January you know there were palm trees growing birds of paradise you know and they said oh it's been a terrible terrible winter it's been raining a lot I was like raining I would train snow for rain any day you know so uh so to me I I hate snow I there's nothing about snow that I find attractive you know every now and then it they predict snow here in Jus and all my children when they were little they were so excited because you know they wanted to see snow and I said this is tough because Myas have to fight against thousands of little Jewish children who are all ding for snow and I alone am calling in all Myas God please please don't make it snow because as bad as snow is in New York it's even worse here in Jan because they have no way of dealing with it we had one major snow storm years ago the whole city was closed down for weeks it was just terrible you know they don't even know what to do with it you know whereas when you go to certain places you know up north when it snows it's like you know they live they live in snow you well I went to yiva in Rochester New York um where there was snow on the ground from October to May parenthetically Rochester has one of the highest suicide rates in America for what I consider to be obvious reasons but uh you know I I hate snow you know so in Los Angeles you know it go see snow it's very exciting you know people don't mind uh seeing snow as a diletant as long as they don't have to actually live with it so these mountains outside of La where in the winter it snows and there was going to be a this organization was making a shabbaton and uh rabie Rottenberg asked if I would go with them uh him and his wife you know to try to do kir at this at this event H it was supposed to be kosher but they weren't sure about it so Mrs Rottenberg made her own uh made her own food we're taking it along we figured okay the kalas are probably okay the wine is probably okay you know anyway we set out with plenty of time on an Arab chabas um note you should always start out early on Arab chabas do not wait till the last minute to travel um how many hair raising stories are there of people who you know end up getting stuck on the highway or stuck here or stuck there because you know they didn't leave themselves enough time so we left ourselves plenty of time and uh we're traveling up into the Big Bear Mountains and we were the third car after the landslide it's one of these mountain roads and there was a landslide and there was some uh park ranger or something like that over there and that's it the road is closed until they can get someone to come and clean up the landslide and we missed it by three cars we the third car so we said how can we get there he goes well you can go down the mountain go around the mountain and come coming from the other side it'll take you about 8 hours 6 hours 8 hours something like that so he made a quickman and said well that would get us there during shabas that doesn't sound like a good idea and so on Friday afternoon in the winter we raced back to Los Angeles you don't race anywhere in the Los Angeles area there's no such concept it's bumper to bumper so we came down from the mountains and we're on the road making our way very slowly back to Los Angeles and as we're going you can see the sea and the distance and the Sun moving lower and lower down the Horizon now that's a very beautiful site if it's not Aros shabas it's shabas I went time uh said to somebody I was walking with I said oh look how beautiful it is it's almost Sunset he goes yeah it's a beautiful site if you're already D in M I didn't D yet different different things mean different things different people anyway we're watching it slowly it's all flat over there you know just watching the Sun moving down the Horizon and finally we made the kin we weren't going to make it weren't going to make it so we jumped off of the highway into a small town known as Ontario California uh if you have the opportunity to Miss Ontario California take advantage of it this is not any place you want to be it's best known for its racetrack the Ontario racetrack yeah anyway we pull off the highway and uh we found a trucker motel that was about all there was we we pulled in the car in between and we quickly started emptying the car we're running out of time and uh and we run out to the local supermarket cuz we made call and wine now in Ontario California as a big surprise they don't carry kosher wine in the supermarket eventually there's not a big demand for it so okay he bought beer and uh we found the box of matzes you can always find a box of matzas for hotzi you know and lots of ice and they filled up the uh uh bathtub with ice and you know put all the food in there so that it would stay throughout shabas and we had adjoining rooms and I went into my room and to get ready for shabas and T Davin in Ontario California you know truck stop Motel I just threw myself on the bed and did what I do best feel sorry for myself I don't do it so much ever since my heart attack 10 years ago March will be 10 years uh when two of the doctors told me I should have died and I say okay I'm still here I'm on overtime now this is this is extra so I don't feel sorry for myself so much anymore but back then I was I'd always feel sorry for myself as a kid especially I was a real sad sack but anyway so I said I can't believe it I'm going to spend shoers at some truck or a motel and uh you know it's like you know what are the facilities you know I think there's a I think there's a soda machine I think I not sure you know the middle of the highway anyway the last time I remember feeling that sorry for myself was when I became Regional director of Long Island and technically when you become the ncsy director you're automatically the OU director and um I was the OU director of Long Island now considering there was one kid in the region it's not as Kush as it might sound you know but by the second year I was up to about 100 kids but still not so so when I was the OU director and they were having the OU convention in uh in um Boston I drove up in this terrible storm and it was in November so it's also a short short chabas you know I get there you know and and I check in I get a fancy hotel room you know I'm in the OU convention you know and I go up and I had at the time this sort of nice nice gray suit with like a a little red stripe in it I had a red gray tie put it all together so beautifully and I had picked up my clothes from the cleaners on the way and instead of giving me my suit pants he gave me a pair of beige slacks now there is nothing that can bring together a pair of beige slacks with a gray jacket with a red stripe in it not unless you put on like a clown hat you know what I mean and juggle so uh I I I I remember I opened up my clothes I just kept looking like that sense of disbelief I threw myself on the bed I was like oh my gosh what am I goingon to do now you know it was pretty embarrassing but uh at the end of that I remember I said to the National director I said it seems kind of silly to bring all of us regional directors to this convention and not give us anything to do in my mind that meant like you should give us a forum or something to talk they said yeah you're right and they never invited us again so that was uh that was my contribution to the course much as the Torah tells us about the moon who says toes hey you can't have two kings with one Crown he says oh good I'll make you small goes hey that wasn't what I was trying to get at I arranged for future ridle directors to never be invited to the OU convention that was my contribution to the course but anyway so um so here I am in this truck stop motel and I just throw myself on the bed I said I can't believe this is happening yeah okay so I get dressed and I doin and I knock on the adjoining door and I came in and 88 98088 this is 45 years ago and I will never forget what I saw yeah so ABY renberg is old dressed for chabas yeah and uh his wife is all dressed for and she took these napkins and put it on the little Motel you know half table gillet candles the kalas were out well the matzas were out and it suddenly hit me it's shabas I mean all those weeks that I had to spend shabas by myself because my parents went to work you know and I'm I'm sitting there singing ziros to myself this is already better you can make shabas anywhere because chabas is a reality shabas um uh moves Beyond boundaries yeah which is probably why it says the reward for keeping chabas you is uh is a um a reward without limitations is the way it's described yeah beyond beyond limitations shabas moves Beyond everything shabas is inherent all right the gamar says the difference between chabas and Yanti one of the differences is that you decide Yanti the Bas then decides when shall be and decides but chabas comes every seven days it's something that is inherent inside of it and it's an opportunity that comes to us every week so the first point that I would like to make in this new series speaking about shabas is appreciate chabas take it for granted that chabas is here and that we uh should always treasure it every single week when it comes how we do that we'll talk about but but at least let's start with the idea that what could be more beautiful more and more important in life of a Jew than chabas so I hope this will be the beginning of a new series and we will talk a little bit more about chabas as these weeks go and like I say in this time specifically when this terrible attack happened on chabas we should beaz ourselves in this regard and now we come to the uh question and answer period of our program we haven't haven't had this in a while but with all theim and with matv and things like that but life must go on life will find a way yeah uh they tell a story in one of the concentration camps that they put God on trial and they the Holocaust they found him guilty who was guilty so they say okay what do we do now D life has to go on life has to go on okay I'd like to remind everybody that in addition to being able to sponsor the podcast and in addition to being able to sponsor the five minute para uh segments that have started to come out you also have the option to sponsor the Q&A and get a special shout out you know this is everything that we do here is but of course the question answer is an opportunity for people to be able to ask those questions they may not be able to get answers to and have the opportunity to watch rowski try to avoid answering them okay our first question is by Anonymous what's the idea behind changing a sick person's name why should changing their name change the gire din ah Gala question my good friend uh Dr morai Stern who is not only a genius in implants and one of the top people in the world when it comes to that dental implants but uh also an enormous and had connection to many of the Great GD Torah he has stories that you could start to day and by the end of the week you still will not have heard all of his stories about various gdm that he personally had interaction with just really really amazing things and uh he said to me once by the way he says I don't I don't look at myself as a um as a dentist I don't look at myself as doing implants I look at myself as a b person comes into my office and that they can't eat an apple and they walk out they can eat an apple you know I've giving them given them a gift giving them something to make their life better anyway so I I tell one more uh M Stern story you know he said that sometimes he has people come in and they say we can't afford to pay so he used to have like you ever see those donation cards you know they used to give out on at Yar you know where you fold over the flap so there there was like you know zero there was you know a small amount a larger amount a large amount full pay he says he he would give it to someone say just fold over what you can pay don't worry about it he says no one ever took zero ever you know well I always i i i h that over my head all the time what a beautiful beautiful idea anyway the reason I'm telling you this story is because like I say you could just listen to to him tell stories for a week straight yeah so he told me this story and this stays with me every par AEV I think of this story he says he's at a bris I have a friend of his and um uh I don't know if he wants the person's name publicized so their last name starts with a B imagine any name that you want yeah I'll tell you the name the name was not Burger okay we'll pretend it was Burger right and they're all waiting for the bris to start the m is there everything's all set up everybody's there except for the parents and the baby and surprisingly they play a very significant role in the bris he really would like to have them there anyway so you know uh M's more proactive so he goes and searches for them and they find the mother's sitting there crying and the husband is looking helpless and the baby's not really doing anything at that point and he says what's going on so he says my wife can't dis decide whether to name the baby kman AKA or AKA kman so he says what's the question it's Ros a Comm Burger every par is a when I look at the word a I think of that story yeah so um um when you name a kid it's an amazing thing because it's a a a moment when you get n yeah uh there is of a person that I know and I don't know if he once is mentioned or not it's not secret but he had a name to give his son at the bris and the mo says what's the name he says I don't know why I said of shalam now aam ASV nimro these are some of the names that we don't usually give you know uh Jesus Benedict Donald I man there certain names Adolf you know certain names you don't give he says sh and the the the you know my didn't even blink sh B and it was like oh my gosh what did I just do and they asked the shy they said that's the name when it comes to naming your kids that's the time that you get NAA and the fact is that I never got it right ever once any name that I gave was not the right name it wasn't there nobody was ever happy you know I mean my father loved his mother was Mariam you know I mean so I named my daughter Miriam I said dad I marri name for your mother he goes her name was Mariam I said Dad that's just a Russian version of Miriam it's name my mother-in-law I said I named you you know my my daughter Rael for your mother goes her name was really Rael I said it's the same name so finally when it came to my last daughter we were naming for Aunt Minnie who everybody loved you know I said what's her name I said mindle I said okay that wouldn't have been my first choice but you know when you have eight girls you know you know I named my seventh daughter Beva I was going to name mindle originally bachot because I just ran out of ideas you know I mean I okay mindle by the way she does not like her name she's made this very clear many times okay you in America people have Mindy mind is pretty commonly but here in Israel it's like Mindy oh you mind you know I was like so doesn't like her name so uh um so uh so I named her mindle so I I told my MLA I said I named her mindle she never liked that name never got it right never got it right anyway but you have this moment of inspiration where you name a person and that is who the person is barowitz who is a legend in the field of Jewish Education uh he told me a story once where he got involved with this Mel that's a great story for itself but I'm not going to tell you the whole story I'm just going to tell you this one thing that at some point somebody was sick and he gave the person the name um now usually a g gets a name like Ben Abraham so you know that the person so and so Ben AB you know he's a GE this person didn't he took a different name for himself you know you know mosm who knows what you know and he tells him the MBA he tells him the name he goes oh he's a g there was nothing in the name to indicate that but you know you you make a mistake by thinking that a name is a random thing that we call something as Shakespeare says a rose by any other name would smell as sweet as Dave Berg who used to write for Mad Magazine said I don't think so if you called it a kurun I don't think you would have the same appeal or as the old commercial goes with a name like Smuckers it has to be good CU why in the world would you name it that unless you knew it was really good so when you give somebody a name that is who they are think of it as a strip of DNA and the letters have significance the numerical value of the letters the shape of everything is significant when you change a person's name you have changed their meas not just I'm calling them by a different name when I give this person different name they're a different person that's why there are certain people who get very upset when you add on another name when you're naming for somebody right you're naming for somebody and his name was Y and uh you know I decided to add on from my side of the family yob so we call him yob yeah that's not the person's name it's a new name you created it's very nice maybe it gives coved to both to and to yov who you're naming for but that's not the person you didn't name for the person yeah when you uh when you're naming for a person yeah it's it's taking on that person C who you name for me M's wife was meant to be anyway if you appreciate the reference so when I change a person's name I didn't just change their name I changed who they are this is now a different person and so because of that they can be subject to a different gardin okay next question is by y I have a group of friends who are all young married guys with one or two kids all of us including myself do not enjoy our jobs should we just keep switching or maybe you're not supposed to enjoy your job there's no Mitzvah not to enjoy your job that's not a hinder now um it's uh my father over sham he used to say say if you didn't get up in the morning and go to work you starve to death there was no concept that the government was going to take care of you or things were going of that you did what you had to do you you you you were lucky if you found a job if you found a profession you found something that you could do and you were happy you had that that that that that was your parosa that's what kept you going you know and uh Rabbi Dr Ivan Lerner who is a psychiatrist he's in Silver Spring and also a legend in the field of Jewish Education um so he told me that when he made the decision to become a psychiatrist his father said to him if you're going to spend all that time in school already why don't you become a real doctor so he says because I can help people this way and his father said people are going to pay you for this and he said yeah and his father said when I was young people were too busy making a living to be crazy you had to get in the morning and go to work you know I remember seeing a sign once in the store it says new employee incentive uh uh program work hard and don't get fired so okay so we live in a world today where people can say I don't feel like working I don't feel like doing this yeah ER the uh congresswoman from New York AOC when she wrote the original Green deal which to best of my knowledge has never been revised even though she claimed that it was but it never has been not online or anything it said to provide a uh uh to provide a living a sustenance for people who are unable or unwilling to work so this is a New Concept there was there was no kind of a concept that you that you get supported if you can't work it's okay there's kinds of giving charity to someone who can't work they're sick or they're old or something you know but just a person who's an able-bodied person and just I don't feel like working so you you're lucky to get a job having said that there's a certain amount of choice now if you're someone who is as brilliant and talented as I am and trust me it's a curse so you get stuck because there's so much stuff you could do I had I had so many different choices available to me I didn't know what to do yeah I went because I figured that if I work for when I get up to sh I'll go on the employees entrance that was my so uh you know just always trying to beat the w beat the system but uh ideally you should look and say what is and this is what the gar in kadan says you want to teach your children a parosa that is Kala viia easy and clean if you can find it right and so when you look over what my choices are so for example I knew a guy in America he was planning on making Aliah and um he became an anesthesiologist he says because one of the things about an anesthesiologist is you don't really need to develop a rapport with your patience so he could fly in for a few months year and work and make enough money to support himself here in Israel and that's why he chose that particular profession I know another person who for that reason decided to become a radiologist because I just have to read the x-rays and now they can send it to you online I can look at it write up my report and send it back I don't have to be there so they chose their professions based on what would lead leave them the freedom to able to do what they uh really want to do now sometimes uh you don't have that option if you don't have those particular talents or those particular gifts you take what's available and you're very often lucky to have a job to be able to support your family and so the answer is if you have a choice and you could find a job that is fulfilling and will support your family that's better than a job that you do not find fulfilling and uh uh will support your family if you have a job that you find fulfilling and will not support your family uh and you have a job that will support your family by all means take the job that will support your family now again I'm not talking about CEs I'm not talking about getting involved in in any of those formats because that itself then I'm working for a KES that has its own rewards um but uh but if you're looking at a job look at a job IDE de that you enjoy doing that you get up in the morning and you'd want to do it assuming that you can support your family if you can support your family then it makes a fine hobby but something to do on the side but uh if you have a good job and you can tolerate it without getting depressed yeah I was running ncsy and by the end I was so burnt out I I can't even put it I I I dreaded coming to the office I remember I I would kept my desk I put my head on my hands and the secretary would say someone's on the line and I'd say tell them I'm dead so they say Reby alow is not available and I would start yelling no tell them I'm dead don't tell them I'm not available tell them I'm dead she's covering up the phone and says yeah yeah he'll get he'll get back to you I knew I had to leave and people were shocked cuz I was really at the top of my game at that particular moment I was you know my my my region was doing well everything was in place everything was running smoothly we had the funding everything was good we had the you but it wasn't I was so burnt out I I needed to recreate myself and so I came to a to learn for three years and then I was going to go into rabanus that was 35 years ago I haven't gotten around to going back yet packing is such a pain but anyway uh but I knew I had to move on to whatever was next and that's what have to always ask yourself right so if I have a good job and it's killing me it's killing me you know I just can't handle it you know so then yeah you have to move on to something else but if it's just like this is not my fulfillment your job is not supposed to be your fulfillment I was living in a TR for a year and I came back so I met someone and goes oh you're living in a TR uh what are you learning if I can answer he says I've learned my lesson he says I meet people who come from erel and I say so what do you do and he says I'm learning kadan and I said uh oh you're uh you're learning a Col he says no I'm a computer programmer but you didn't ask me what I do for a living you asked me what I'm doing what I'm doing is learning kadu and I make my living from this I make my living from that but that doesn't Define me it's the famous story with the brisar RV where this guy is T says who are you he says uh I'm in the sugar business okay asked him a little later who are you he say you know I'm a sugar business I I bring in you know the the sugar cane from uh you know the Caribbean and I making the sugar uh and he does this like three or four times like I can't understand and finally the brisk says I didn't ask you what you do for a living I asked who are you so your profession is not supposed to Define you what supposed to Define you is your your Judaism your connection to your family your community and the you know the job is just a way of supporting the things that are important in my life so uh so if that's helpful okay next Anonymous what would you give to someone who would like to take it upon themselves to only cover their hair with tickles and not shael in a community that looks down upon it the I give you is um to quote Shake SP to thine own self be true uh you're never going to make everybody happy it's a Fool's errand and any time that you're going to live your life based on what everybody else thinks of you forget about it you know I remember seeing I'm yit and he engaged in this discussion with this secular guy couldn't have been totally secular if he came to hear I'm yit already but you know and he finally answered all of his questions and then he says but if if I become from he says all of my friends are are going to make fun of me so he gives him a marshall he says imagine that you've committed crimes and you're guilty no question you're guilty and you're about to be sensed and you're going to go to prison for 25 years and the judge says if you can show me real remorse you can show me real remorse I if I see a tear I'll let you off so you start to think about it and your eyes start to water up and your friends in the back go are you a baby a girl you start so what are you gonna do you're going to stop because of that and go to jail for 25 years because I don't want to be embarrassed you know trust me I have been in many social situations as I was becoming from and it can be quite embarrassing yeah walking down the street in dark clothes and a white shirt and a black hat in certain areas especially uh Beach Club yeah it could be very [Laughter] embarrassing um I remember when uh I was speaking at a Birthright group once and the guy in charge says Don't Leave Your Hat in the car I said if my hat stays in the car I stay in the car so he says to me no because when people see a black hat they you know right away make certain assumptions and I said I know I want to wear my hat so that I can break those assumptions know if I if I if I'm if I'm defined by my clothing if I let myself dress in a way that's going to make other people accept me then I I have no I have no existence I'm just a product of whatever anybody thinks of me and I know girls who wear skirts that are at the knee and when they sit down it rides up because that's the style and they want to fit in and I know people who wish you know where they're not covering all of their hair because that's the told them is the style and they want to fit in even though they themselves have told me that they are uncomfortable and the answer is to thine own self be true you if this is what you believe is right then you follow it through if it's not if it's not something that's inherently negative and you're following whatever your m is or whatever is positive embrace it and uh read uh peric Hey of melarm where he discusses what to do with people who are making fun of you and that's it for this episode uh if you want to find out more about the show you can go to my website R ali.com you can sponsor an episode you can sponsor the Q&A you can sponsor the FIV minute parure uh minute uh five minutes yeah you can uh um download the theme song you can um make a comment send an email um hold the pickle hold the lettuce special orders don't upset us so we ask that you let us do it your way and that's what we do here at the show everyone has an opportunity to I have articles up there links all kinds of fun stuff so that's it until next time I am de olowski and this has been the rabbi olowski show it's the rabbi orlovski show Torah and S ready to go the rabbi orlovski show knowledge and wisdom will help you grow lots of fun in every episode and we don't have to rhyme 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