#48: Behind the Bima - Special Guest: Jeff Swartz, Former CEO of Timberland

from boca raton florida rabbi's ephraim goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbi schmooze about contemporary issues and talk to special guests who give a behind-the-scenes look at how they got to where they are and what keeps them going welcome to behind the bema good evening ladies and gentlemen i am your host robert from goldberg joined with my dear friends rabbi phillip moscowitz and rabbi josh brody it's wednesday night nine o'clock and we're here to take you behind the bema behind the bema behind the bema is like it really has become its own uh enterprise i was at a shloshim earlier today at the youngest of deerfield beach and a woman who's slightly older than i am let us just say calls me across the makita i come to the maritza and she says it's nice to be behind the bhima with you i'm like okay thank you so we have fans of all age categories they love the behind the bema um what's the behind the bema what is our brand we're gonna talk about branding tonight they love the behind the beam of brand so let's get this video together again gentlemen i want to thank our sponsors for tonight once again for the third week in a row our dear friend jeremy gilbert and beepermd.com b free at home pcr testing 30 rapid test unfortunately we're still in this time of this period we're talking about having to be tested and knowing what we have to be safe and to keep the community secure and this is an amazing easy way to do it free at home pcr testing 30 rapids beepermd.com also tonight we have a sponsor my new dear friend rafi aguilar rafi aguilar lives in la currently checked out our community and was very grateful for the hospitality the warmth he felt in his day and is a co-sponsor of tonight's wave tank thank you to our community rafi is a huge sports fan we had a little debate while he was here about who's the goat who's the greatest that ever lived the greatest of all time in basketball he's from l.a so kobe's up there for him of course the answer is mj jordan there's no close second even but you know he haven't even entertained lebron earlier this year the nba warned lebron against um flopping any player who has to be warned against flopping remember you have no idea what that is but it's pretending that you were fouled or hit and falling to the ground if you have to be warned against flopping you're not even in in the debate about being the goat no goat needs to be worn by the league about flopping fair or not fair totally fair i'll even take a step further what makes mj the goat is not just his superiority on the basketball court he changed the face of the game those of us who grew up in the 90s and during that era he changed basketball he made it really an international phenomenon and i i think that's really what puts him a step ahead of everyone else he was also constantly engaged in psychological warfare with the people he was absolutely against and i i always thought that was interesting competitive killer instinct he wanted to win and um yeah this is not a sports show but rafi is sponsoring tonight and he doesn't have the mic we do so i would take advantage to to weigh in in our opinion there i also think not that i'm uh using this opportunity to rank on on lebron but lebron when asked all-star weekend whether he was going to be taking the vaccine equivocated and refused to be committal and considering that the african-american community as a minority community has disproportionately suffered from coronavirus and the importance of endorsing the vaccine as the solution i think that if he wants to be a spokesperson for social change and for that type of thing it was his opportunity to be really strong and talking about the vaccine as the solution and um i think he lost and missed an opportunity there you know it's interesting you said that because michael jordan one of the things he was criticized for but he felt very strongly was that he specifically did not speak out about issues relating to the community he felt very strongly that he's a basketball player that's all he is he was building his brand as a basketball player and he specifically did not want to speak about social justice issues which actually puts him at odds with our guests tonight because one of the things that jeff swartz prided himself when he was at the ceo of timberland hopefully we'll get into that in the conversation was that he prided his organization on being committed to social justice to social change and he viewed his role as the ceo of timberland as a platform to affect that change yeah jordan famously said that he said republicans also buy sneakers when he was asked why he didn't come out republicans also buy sneakers and i'm not saying that that was we're not saying that that was correct of jordan i don't think lebron is the goat on the court or off the court missing that opportunity we're not a sports show but i think it is an interesting question about the responsibility of people to speak outside of their comfort zone or their lane on those issues so for example on last week's episode of behind the bmw we talked about an aguna case a real live aguna case and we were not shy and we won't be shy again to call out natalia sharabani whose wife has been in laguna for over 10 years a series was issued by the best of lakewood and it's time to give the get and we're not embarrassed or hesitant or shy to mention or call out his name but we talked about the complicated nature of this subject and there's been a lot of push on social media calling on rabbis and calling on people in leadership positions people who have a platform have a microphone to use it for this so for example several prominent jewish singers were called out that you love your social media platform it's a way to reach the masses you've built a career out of it use it for this and one of them was texting me back and forth talking about the pressure they're under and is that fair because you know for us it's a no-brainer taking a strong position publicly on the aguna issue but on the other end of our sofa everybody could reach out to anyone who they think has a large platform and bring their issue their cause and i'm not equating them aguna is particularly acutely painful and difficult and no other solution and we have to do everything we can i do think everyone should be outspoken to the degree they can and can influence change but i will just express my empathy that when you are the target of criticism without necessarily understanding all that goes into that type of decision it can be it can be complicated so you know it's a question lebron michael jordan jewish music singers or rabbis when do you speak out here's my view you know when you were mentioning the singers i totally understand what you said you know in the dover so if like you there's so many issues you're going to speak about it at some point you've got to get back to your your business and making music i don't think you have to hit every cause i think you have to hit some cause you have to believe in something you have to get passionate about something you have to say this is something that's so important to me that i'm going to use my platform and i'm going gonna use that platform to spread awareness about something and whatever that cause is gonna be for you as the singer everyone's gonna be different and different causes are gonna speak to different people but i do believe it's very important for you to be passionate about something and to use your celebrity status to affect that change so you're saying there are exceptions to the rule the aguna crisis is one of those exceptions you know i agree with you because it's something we take incredibly seriously but whoever has a cause thinks that their cause is the exception and then puts that pressure and wonders and the person is using their platform in fact when researching jeff our our guest tonight and he's such an inspiring such an amazing person this conversation is really really going to be fantastic he got himself into trouble as the ceo of timberland and a deeply passionate torah jew he made comments about israel the israel-palestinian conflict some of his own employees rebelled and he came out and apologized and he said it was a misstep as the ceo of timberland as the company that's not the place it's not the time to uh to be outspoken on that issue now we're grateful we applaud right because that's our issue and he was on the right side of it but you can understand if you're an employee you say i don't work at timberland or from the shu or apparel company i'm not looking for advocacy on the israel-palestinian issue so it's it's complicated and it is complicated because you see companies like disney disney's taking very strong stands where they're pulling some of their most popular brands and most popular movies because they're perceived as being outdated with what contemporary sensitivities subscribe to and many people love that about disney and many people don't love that about disney but disney feels that they have a responsibility as a international global company to take stands on those issues love it or hate it right right but listen you know the people who are using sorry rabbi bro to go ahead no i was just going to say that i i think sometimes we as rabbis we have to take into consideration that we also have certain goals that we want to achieve and we have to be very careful because sometimes like you know you could take the short the short term uh you know win by by broadcasting something that you think might be a win and it probably is because like you just said this is a very important very hot issue but other issues that are might be similar to something like that that you say listen i'm going to get in i'm going to say something it's political it's religious it's this or that in the long term you know it could hurt your stock and then all of a sudden you know everything you wanted to achieve is it's going to fall apart so yeah and this was really what we spoke about last week many of these issues are complicated the conclusion is not necessarily complicated in the aguna crisis if somebody is legitimately in aguna and the process has been pursued and a legitimate body of bayes then has determined someone's naguna it's not complicated after that she deserves our support in every which way and every avenue possible but the whole concept of aguna and the timing and so on even our conversation last week was by some taken out of context misrepresented criticized publicly online um it's it's complex and sometimes it's much more convenient for people to oversimplify and to simplify things but they're complex and so you know when when you grab that mic and when you use it for advocacy and and can you wear different hats can you be the rabbi or the jewish singer or the nba star and and have a separate sort of platform or identity where you pursue interest outside of that but remain singly focused on that pursuit in that area you know these are all these are all questions and it's convenient for people to simplify them but they're yeah but they are complicated tonight is an interesting night it's a big night for several reasons first of all our production team was debating earlier today tonight might be our 50th episode it might be our 50th episode it depends if you count the bonus episodes within the list but it's possible it's our 50th episode it's also a big night for another reason we've we've made a decision um i've made a decision in my classes and and part of behind the beam has made a decision where i am no longer teaching on zoom my classes are exclusively now streaming it's breaking news my my classes are streaming on youtube live and you can listen to them on podcast players and so on and why not zoom i'll tell you why not zoom and i'm curious for both of your experiences in teaching over over zoom the benefit to me of zoom was you're part of a community you're seeing other faces you make a joke you see someone smile or laugh you said something moving you see somebody's eyes well up with tears you get a reaction to what you're saying and it's as close as possible to teaching in front of people or in a classroom well i i began to find that 99 of people are have the camera off so you're on a platform where you're talking to yourself anyway so what's the point of trying to be on youtube live facebook live zoom you're trying to manage all these platforms i was joking about a production team it's me myself and i just like it is for each of you yourself and you um and um and it's very hard to manage so made the executive decision zoom is great for meetings zoom is great for meetings where everyone's camera's on you're having meetings we had based in for conversion we had meetings today we're having meetings tomorrow our regional basement for conversion zoom is a great vehicle when you can't be in person but for classes no longer on zoom streaming on youtube live and for behind the beam as well facebook has its challenges being on facebook live um facebook's a complicated place to begin with but also even facebook live so we are on youtube live and it looks like many of you are with us nonetheless weigh in any comments you have about lebron michael jordan follow up to laguna last week of course feel free in the comments to make your point ask your question and um now that we're on youtube live it's also the easiest place to consolidate everything subscribe you can subscribe to the brs torah channel or to my channel or to the other rabbi's channels and you'll be notified in real time every time you go live it's just a very easy way to know every time a new class has been taught so you see the subscribe button take a moment to click it but that's where we are tonight it's a big night only on youtube live wow that is breaking news that's big i'm still holding on to zoom i'm still holding on to zoom why it's well first of all i don't have the numbers that you have so it's a different calculation for me but i again maybe i'm i'm mis i'm underestimating or misrepresenting what this means but there is a benefit in my mind to a little bit of that bantering before a class or a little bit of the bantering after the class that i think you lose when you go onto facebook live and again as you said like when you're trying to build a community so it's those little touch points that to me make a difference again i get it when you get above certain numbers and you can't have that level of interaction i totally get it um but again from i find it hard enough to stare into a screen and to teach on a regular basis even if there are five people with their videos on and that's the only thing that i see when i'm talking to zoom it gives me a certain energy that is absent when i don't see that at all what put me over the top was i was streaming on the several platforms very few were coming on zoom anyway and there was a point i was teaching the other day that everybody on zoom had their camera off so i said why am i doing this and it's true youtube obviously you don't see any other faces youtube all you see is what you're broadcasting but that's what zoom had become for me so why try to balance it so you're right if i had a small chevra of people i was learning with a reasonable number and you know we do the cottage club we do certain things where zoom is a perfect perfect instrument or tool to use but teaching in mass it just it fell out of favor for me i don't think it's what was designed for and it wasn't working and to me the biggest reason was the people themselves people were leaving the camera off and you can understand that we can understand that because someone's going to put together a top 10 zoom disasters of the past year of when the camera was on when someone thought it was off or the camera was off and someone thought it was on but we don't need to get into it here this is a child-friendly show but there were many such disasters over the past year so i think people's inclination is they want to see you teaching why do they need the camera on and then have to be very self-conscious about what you're seeing from them so once the cameras are going to be off for me i might as well go on on youtube live because it's really the exact same thing yeah i'll just just going to say that you know thank god like we've taught a lot this year you probably taught more classes this past year than than i can ever remember i'm thank god teaching plenty so we're teaching a lot i i don't know about you i desperately though miss that human interaction there's something about being in a room with people when you're teaching a class and either whether it's because there's audience participation and someone raises their hand and they ask a question or it's just looking at people and feeling an energy in a room absolutely and you really miss that as a teacher as an educator yeah teaching to a screen is nice yeah giving drushes even which is much more of a passive experience for the listener is nice but there's something really really that i crave and miss about the energy in a room i couldn't agree with you anymore the way torah is meant to be transmitted is in person and you know like they say in israel arab like the everyone's sitting there looking at each other exchanging that energy we get that still on shabbos a drusha a woman's class the class in the afternoon but we miss it i'm actually this is a radical shabbos i got the next mozai shabbos we gave the opportunity people can come either live in person or watch it online because there are people who are not yet comfortable and can't yet come in person and it'll be my first time speaking in a room with people without the mask and uh run by our task force i'm vaccinated fully vaccinated several weeks passed and we'll start the seating far back so there's plenty of distance i'm vaccinated our task force of course located cdc guidelines um don't address that specific situation but if you think about the head of the cdc or the president of the united states or the white house spokesperson anytime they're at the podium even though the press corps are still wearing masks whoever's at the podium is not so we're not doing that yet on a typical shabbos but for shabbos to go though people will have the option they could watch it online or they can be in person but we will let them know that uh won't be wearing the mask for that i will just say that's a tragic end of an era i'm again i get it i understand it it's not wearing the mask no then shabbos afternoon shabbat sagado shabashuva for those who have never been in boca raton synagogue it is a unique special experience and it's not just the torah your shabazolo shabachu is amazing fantastic there's a kind robbie brother you know what i'm talking about there's an atmosphere in the room there's an energy in the room that's palpable it's the only time of the year that our entire community comes together to learn torah all different minyan all different segments of the community different demographics different ages standing room only and it's beautiful and again i think motijab is going to be nice but there are going to be cell phones people pockets are going to be buzzing there's something about that time of shabbas as it's ebbing away right as you're reading the crescend reaching the crescendo of your dress show where you're hitting the point where you make me want to go wow because it's amazing i'm telling you i i really i fear you're going to lose a little bit on saturday night i don't know it's the end of the year it's for now listen there are still people who can't come there is a older holocaust survivor in our community that um i sometimes joke i wish my wife loved me as much as she loves him and looks up to him and admires him and he's absolutely amazing he's vaccinated and we were going to be hosting we're vaccinated for pesach seder but his family's not yet comfortable there are people vaccinated over a certain age they're still not ready to come and it's complicated because they're still suffering and struggling from the loneliness and isolation but that's a determination of their family and none of us want to take that risk of telling them to do it and then not know the consequence that will that will happen so um you know you got to make it available i'm not saying it's permanently going to be this way but for now we got a lot more to talk about including of course uh we're going to address as our audience would expect nothing less the myers-leonard situation with a name like myers you would never think you'd make an anti-semitic slur if your name is myers how could you say something anti-semitic like that should be a layup not to be anti-semitic your name is myers anyway but we'll come back to that but we now have the great honor great privilege the great pleasure of welcoming someone who's been a hero to all of us jeff swartz uh former ceo of timberland amazingly inspiring person who's embraced the life of torah third generation timberland his grandfather started the company bought a previous shoe company and then changed it to boots changed its name he was the third generation ceo but really took this company timberland built that brand and recognition and the market cap and value of the company sold it several years ago is learning torah and doing philanthropy he is a really extraordinary extraordinary person and we are so honored and grateful that he has agreed to join us for a conversation this evening without any further ado we are joined by the great jeff swartz the former ceo of timberland and it is a great honor to have you with us and we so appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation thank you for joining us yerushalayim sends love rabbi wow oh how how desperately we'd love to be there to visit as soon as the skies open up and we're allowed in we will be there so i'll just start out by saying that you know we feel connected i know by moscow it has a long-standing relationship with you and your family i also feel connected because boca is home to your amazing parents the student judy swartz who are good friends of our community we've worked together through aipac and many other causes their passion for the us israel relationship has inspired all of us so it's it's really great to be together and i have to offer you a personal thanks because when in florida the temperature dips and it gets cold like the freezing cold fifties and sixties i put on my collection of timberland fleeces through yeshiva university and the rabbi salavechik institute it's a actually a collector's item by salvation institute timberland fleece but i thank you for keeping us warm literally and metaphorically with your leadership thank you so much the fire of your torah keeps us warm so you should stay physically warm please right thank you there's so much to talk to you about obviously a business leader an inspiration of of somebody's total observant and a leader in philanthropy in the community um you didn't grow up personally observant maybe we can begin by sharing your story about what turned you on to a torah observant way of life it's a it's a lovely question to think about and uh it's relevant i i am having this strange experience of being my grandfather so my father's father was a man i loved he was in many regards a hero to me he came to america at the turn of the last century he was an immigrant and when he came to ellis island he made his first business deal they said you'll trade in your name and your language and your culture and you'll become an american and and my grandfather uh dejusque in russian he was very eager to make that trade i don't think he wanted to give up where he came from but he did want to become an american it was a it was a big deal to him um coming to israel uh in aliyah this summer is is the sort of the the in in many ways it's sort of the the making concrete this process of becoming which is uh which is deep inside me and i i have to say about my parents i don't believe that they intended that uh that uh things would necessarily turn out the way they turned out in terms of religious practice my poor mother uh struggles in in the in i think the best possible way um to to make sure that her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren come to her house in florida and can eat kosher food and my my dad spends uh literally every single day with a yacht i don't know why with the yacht but he sits with a yacht and he reads he reads not partial he just reads in the mikra every single day why because when his oldest grandson was at day school in boston at the maimonides school we had my parents came for friday night dinner and um it was time for dinner and no dad and no son so missing two generations so i went upstairs and i found uh my son probably i don't know maybe 10 11 years old sitting on the bed his bed with his grandfather who again is the biggest toughest guy i've ever met built a big business yep and i i see this this is hot to see this and not be seen so daniel who's my son is saying to my dad um pop this is rashi and rashi has that same question and i see the two of them and i don't mean to get emotional but i went downstairs and i said to debbie kittish will be in a few minutes uh it will be in a few minutes because the two of them are having a conversation and dad said to me afterwards look i'm gonna have to learn this this tourist stuff because i want to be in relationship with my grandsons and so uh it's it is so how do you why do you choose an observant life i don't know i i do know that um uh there there is a language that uh of of um of uh of emotion that that is not intellectual and uh there was a need i mean a burning need inside uh me uh to be uh part of the history of the jewish people not in looking backwards way um i'm sorry i'm talking so much but i remember without phil i can show you where i was in the kitchen when the first uh the first time i opened up a gemara it came to me in in the mail i had ordered it and i opened it up and i put it on the counter and again i try not to be emotional but i put my i didn't put my eyes on it i put my hand on the doff and i and i i was a good brand builder and so in my business world and so i had a sense it was sensual and so this but i put my hand on the dot physically and i felt like coming from the ground of this thing i i felt heat and light and i felt it so it's not it's uh it's not an intellectual point uh i was so well educated in a western sense that i almost was too well educated meaning you you you you only think and you don't feel there is and so i believe at the heart of of this was was not words even though i'm a text guy i learned i learned every day with all the insecurity that comes to being in you know uh you know my grandson my four-year-old here is uh he he starts with his sister's i you know he doesn't understand what that doesn't he's gonna you know a grandfather will always zadie is always gonna be insecure about what he does and doesn't know because i want i want this young man a door with all my heart to to understand the world is this way not that way and and and so yeah there's an intellectual part of of becoming observant but at the end of the day it's always about it's always about uh at the boys wedding um weddings it didn't matter where they were it just mattered that that before minha they sang rabbi goldberg when they sang whoa uh you could just close your eyes and cry because they were singing and uh everybody all the the different wings of the family some of whom most of whom are not traditionally religious now um they could all close their eyes and they didn't understand it in an intellectual sense but they felt like in the deepest sense so uh i think there's a there's a some kind of journey of of intellect and emotion that that rub against each other and the friction between the two have created the reality that we live today i could listen to describe this forever it's moving me almost to tears it's really what a beautiful romantic description of falling in love with with torah with judaism and it's so powerful in the imagery and it's so important for all of us to think about how we connect through the generations and and what we're willing to do in order to maintain that connection that continuity really really profound and and i i want to make sure that moscow's and i really get in here but my real question then based on that so you had it all you're the ceo of a major brand company uh super successful thank god beautiful family and you chose and embrace this way of life without so to say needing it by what the world would define as the measures of metrics for happiness and you did embrace it you embraced it and then you didn't see it as parallel or separate from your corporate life from what i've read you've integrated i remember reading a business week article many years ago that talked about you correct me if i'm wrong i was much younger but i remember reading that when you fly with with colleagues when you flew with colleagues on behalf of timberland you carried two bags two briefcases and they knew that if you opened one they should talk to you it was the one that had your corporate documents and if you opened the other to leave you alone it was the one that had your gemara you weren't shy you weren't embarrassed you weren't afraid to engage torah study in the context of of that business and to be an orthodox jew at the head of a major company timberland and i love the company by the way i love all the things that it that it produces so how did you do that how did you do that without hesitation or maybe you had hesitation but how did you seemingly not have hesitation without shame without cause for concern were you worried about being an orthodox or at least identified an orthodox observant jew in that position how did you navigate what were the complications what would the message be to other people who were aspiring to climb the corporate ladder or the business ladder and are struggling with with being transparent about their religious identity in that context those are uh very powerful questions and and i have to have deep humility um you know we i grew up in boston and and so um when it was important for me to be covered roche uh i i of course was you know everybody has to flip out so how did i flip out i wore a keeper and a baseball hat so that one and there has to be a a sense of um the world around me and so uh i i i could tell you two funny stories um in the context of of trying to lead the company uh to be um modeled you know model to to uh to live its values right to be uh um a commerce and justice enterprise um you you end up engaging if you're if you're lucky and you work hard you you engage multiple stakeholders and so um i remember uh an experience very beautiful my oldest son was at the gush he was learning that which is a story to in its own regard right you know when debbie said to me um the kids go to yeshiva yes yep uh she said you say yeah like you know your time but i said no i i know it's a fact i don't know anything else about it i i you know it is what happens i don't yet i know that uh and she said so how are we gonna do this and so i had this trip uh we came here uh and we experienced shiva was an amazing experience um and so dinos at the cush and i was invited to a a forum uh as they would as my grandfather said fancy people uh right it was uh that was the president clinton uh anyways uh he was in new york and fine fine fine and so in the morning i had i had a business thing and so i was timberland right so i had on the t-shirt and blah blah blah the fleece and my baseball hat and i gave a little view environmental terrific and then i raced over to this event you have to work your way through the secret service um and somebody's waiting for me very nice person and she gives me the suit bag and i run into the men's room and you know this is a trick to get out of your timberland rig and into your suit in the men's room and i but i've mastered this you know this is the changing of identity right this is this is like take off one mask and and and then what do you do you put on another mask so um i was supposed to appear with president clinton in a specific context and i come running out of the bathroom with all the timberland stuff jumped into my suit bag and i handed to this young lady who was my colleague and and it was a coincidence that literally at that moment at the moment he was the prime minister tony blair was standing there and he said hi how are you i was fine how are you chatting very nice and so i handed the thing to carolyn and uh super chatting and that was just fine and so we but we're now running out of time we've got to go to the to the venue and president's wedding and she says to me quietly from very spots i said she i don't know she called my boss but she teased me yeah she says i need you to listen quiet this is this is almost like the midrash for leslie she kindness she says i need you to just hear me out for just a minute you look great your suit is good your tie is straight and you didn't put your baseball hat on and she said you need to understand jeff she never called me josh you understand jeff nobody's fooled by the baseball hat she said i understand you need the baseball hat but i need you to know in the moment you're not wearing the baseball hat she said oh i i don't want you to wear the baseball hat but that's not my choice that's your choice and i said uh give me a phone for a second excuse me a phone i literally like like i'm in line to cite the tv cameras all this other junk and i called daniel in in the gush and i said to him uh he i never called him he only called me so i called him and he said you know i'm learning i said uh i'm about to go on stage with president clinton and you're calling me i said yep he said why i said no baseball hat and he said why'd you call me and i said i don't know i just need a little physic and he said smile at the camera and don't fuss with reply and he hung up and uh actors president clinton said to me like you know the baseball has kind of a bad joke nobody gets the baseball hat i said yes sir i get it he said what are you afraid of i said i i don't know and he said figure it out and i said okay i still haven't i haven't i'm a pacha it's funny i oscillate between pakhad i don't have the brains to land in era and so um was i was this is this journey terrifying it is the mamash it's terrifying every minute of every day on some regards it's terrifying that's why i had to come to the land of israel because in the land of israel um there's room for it to be terrifying in a different way here it doesn't matter to anybody else whereas in america it does and so um to be a bentora or to be an aspirational mentor in america i think is a different kind of challenge because you are uh you are a threatened minority in an increasingly threatening context and so uh if you're a papa guy i don't mean that i'd like to come to get us which in fact i do believe um but parker in the sense of don't be uh hashem the the pressure for me felt very high it feels very high still um and i don't know how that ever changes so um what you say to somebody else i i am still struggling deeply struggling with um i do understand why when venezuela sees uh moshe walk into the cloud they're frightened i absolutely understand where to go because um he didn't he it looks like he walks into nothing into into into danger but i believe deeply believe moshe didn't see that emotion understand that he didn't understand the problem because he knew god was in the cloud he and so he wasn't walking into the unknown he didn't need a direct he just looked okay he didn't manage risk he embraced uncertainty that's fake that in a way that uh um that if you could give a bracha to somebody that's what i would say which is it's not about managing risk it's about embracing uncertainty but embracing uncertainty sounds bizarre it sounds like you're being like a kamikaze or something no embracing uncertainty is like there's there is god in this club i'm not frightened he didn't he didn't inch his way and he walked his way in calmly i inch always because i'm a risk manager that was what i was taught to do in corporate life and that's how i think about it even in spiritual religious terms i i i it's hard to come into the firm community it's hard to stay in the firm community not in social orthotic sense but in the deep sense of being vulnerable and exposed and i don't know the answer to this and you know the my rabbi rabbi benjamin samuels and newton is a magnificent uh heart as i don't know there's no rankings of hearts and heads and scrolls but uh this you know follow me to your father he and i laugh about that i adore my father i take a bullet from my father and i have but when you ask what's do you wear your children during hulk hum wade well the minister is not it's not it's not an operationally relevant point and so but follow the middle of your father my my dad modeled as my father's father did too embracing uncertainty and in in a narrow sense rabbi that was the most important religious gift my dad ever gave me i don't think i've ever told him that now i think i will because please god is turning 85 soon i think the biggest gift he gave me was not to be what was he his to walk into the cloud he knows god's there and he just goes he wouldn't say that but that's the faith lesson he taught me and so um that's what i would that's the book i'd give to somebody who's worried like where do i stand in things that's risk management there's another universe out here called uncertainty interrogate that universe because that's where uh as bruce springsteen would say dreams are found and lost that's that's that's where i think that's where the story is that's amazing first of all i want to thank you so much for uh for being with us and again all the boston references is making me nostalgic um i remember at one point a number of years ago probably 15 years ago um i had arranged for you to come and speak at yeshiva university to a group of business students at the size sims school of business and at the time you took out your backpack which was then one backpack and you said i always have two books in it he said i always have my gemara my da fiomi and i always have a novel and if you could explain to our listeners why you felt you've explained the gemara side of things why did you feel the novel was so central to who you are to your development as a person to your approach to the world that those are the two books you carry around with yourselves at all time rabbus but that's a beautiful thing it's a big gift and i thank you for reminding me debbie said to me i like you better when you read um and and she didn't she knows i learned every day so that that's not what she meant she meant when you when you take time to um to read because um there is something about the experience of of uh of uh yavanit uh of seeing the world through different lenses that that um keeps me from well it makes me less vulnerable to the comments that's me um that's one thing and the second thing is uh uh i i so i just finished the yeshiva by khaim grada over on shabbat uh before milk i finished this this magnificent long novel and i love the the that genre uh the post-war sadness and beautiful but grata's novel is uh is different because he's not just telling you the story like uh dunister tells you in the family mash bear or singer talks about he's talking about the interior life of of bentor he must have been the guy who lived inside both worlds um and that to me is the is the novel world it it's it's not competing wisdoms there is no competing right you can write in black ink on white paper or in black fire and black on white fire and so there's no competition there there is though for me um something really important about uh reminding myself uh that my job is not to aspire to heaven but uh but to be about uh the the the place i'm standing but robbie samuels that was robertson was first tour to me was the question he asked me which just it blew my brains then and still blows my brain now why is the is the bracha for torah study the way it is what why does it say and he said you know your hebrews is not that good but what is so what are you a businessman as a is an isha a business what's the business of torah um i look for the business of torah i i'm sorry i look for torah everywhere i go i listen to the music i hear i listen to the in the in the business conversations and the social justice conversations and in the novels i i hear it uh in and sometimes it makes me cry in a sad way because you have people who are jewish and they're writing novels and they don't know the torah that they're talking about or they're pushing away the tour of the time but okay everybody's got their journey i find that the the experience of art and beauty um to be a a challenge to me to and i want to look at it what does probably a celebrity say if you look at a beautiful lake and you think that's a beautiful lake you're wasting time you should think that's a mikvah and i think um i don't know if i quoted that right i'm sure i didn't i love the challenge of hesedvora i want to see both the beautiful lake and the mikvah at the same time and like this morning i was learning i'm learning in the dharam now in your xiaomi and there was a there was a big conversation about only god can say two things at one time and and he gives me like fatsuki where he shows you that this is said at the same time some are reasonably radical they're then it's not one passive it's too sooking from two different places but you show me says they're said at the same time beautiful it's very magnificent um and only hashem can say things two things at the same time and humans can lit can't hear things i get it not intellectually but sometimes with a novel or sometimes with it with a symphony or sometimes with a with a with the ocean or the lake or the the german is covered in snow it's it's like it's not i can hear it it's somehow like i can't express it but i can feel it it's like yep two two two came at one time and i think to myself i'm doing my job now i'm not i'm alive i'm doing my job i can feel both of them that's wow so i gotta say i gotta get handed to rabbi mosquitz because i think for the last 10 years since he got to boca he's been saying i know this guy jeff at timberland every year we're gonna get jeff and we're starting to doubt that he really knows you but this is fantastic so it finally finally works out oh this is great so as rabbis here in boca we're constantly trying to invent and reinvent creative programs to engage more and more jews in our local jewish community and beyond i saw an interview with you where you were talking about presenting exciting new ideas to your board of directors at timberland you also mentioned springsteen again i noticed that seems to come up and talk about that after and you mentioned the boss before it comes up in different ways i noticed subliminally right okay and you said you know the first question that they legitimately ask you is does the consumer demand that on the other hand steve jobs has famously said some people say give the customer what they want but that's not my approach our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do people don't know what they want until you show it to them so should we stick to our market research here in boca or continue to dream i love your question it's it's it's it's profound and the answer of course is yes meaning it it's presented as if it were an ore right so procter and gamble in in in the industry that i used to come in this sort of two approaches one is the creative tyrant everybody in blue right that's george armani proctor gamble's approach to that is let's research the daylights out of how somebody washes dishes and let's find an innovation that'll make their experience of washing dishes differently better right i never thought if i could whatever lovely and they their poses dialectic right as as as as a choice and there's no intersection between them and i i i never met steve jobs um and i in a narrow sense i'm embarrassed to say i do use the the products because i think there's some hard things about the supply chain there and i also think there's some um i hope unintended but really pernicious outcomes that come from uh an over uh an un and un reflected use of technology but i don't think jobs was saying in orr i think he was saying and i i deeply deeply believe that the rabbis of of boca um have to do both um but the premise point and you wouldn't be who you are right and so i should have started that this way and i i ask you forgiveness i should have started by saying thank you not for the opportunity which i'm grateful for but i should have said thank you for what you do because um it it and and i didn't say for who you are because i don't know you i know i heard moscow it's i don't know you but i can but what do they say show me your friends and i'll tell you uh about you but also show me your and i'll tell you about you and so to be the rabbis of boca raton is um lo pashut right it's not the obvious answer right it it isn't and it's yet it's your answer and so the first thing anybody should say is thank you for what you do who you are is who you are but what you do is a choice that you make and it's powerful and it's brave and it's low pressure it's not obvious and if you add covet in michigan and uh you know all the horrible things that are happening as democracy devolves the united states um okay it just makes it harder and so you can't miss the point and i almost did of failing to say um but damn it from the heart from from the depth from you you're supposed to say uh thank you and i mean it and if and if you're if you're um kahal uh your alcohol feels the same way they don't say it they don't always act it um but they feel the same thing and and i ask you to um to close your eyes and believe me on this point they do i don't know them but i but i know it's true that's one the second thing is um i i i deeply believe this point about uncertainty versus risk i think in the in the latter in in in recent history jewish organized jewish life has been organized around risk management and it is a failed premise it could be organized around uncertainty there is you think about this business case robert schachter when he was at the rabbit's lady institute and i had this conversation before yeah before the rebellion came to town and i said it is an amazing industry we've created these tell me more i said look i wish i was as good at my job as as they are theirs this who you talking about i said the the the the organized jewish community is is magnificent they have managed we have now i'm not they other than simply i have managed to create an industry of education that's made torah uninteresting that is the magnificent business victory i mean you get out of bed and plunker and global no no procter gamble is a bunch of pikers from the midwest they have no stock they did they can make dishwashing interesting they can earn a living by having insight about dishwashing and we've succeeded with a generation but has more educational opportunity more experiential opportunity to make torah uninteresting that's awesome that it's not awesome in a good way but it's awesome in a business sense like wow maybe everybody who's a jewish educator should go to parkland campbell because and their stock would double because if you if we can make torah uninteresting um so job said um know what they want this is why i said thank you ramaphode because you know what they want you know that the warmth and the beauty and the strength and the purpose and the the demands and the and the you know all my bones will will cry out my bones will cry out the trees sing okay you know what jews want it and and they'll tell you that's not what they want and they showed you by not showing up and they show it to you by we show up to you by being you know i'm hearts like we bite the rabbis it's true but that's what we're saying that's not who we are that's not what we believe you you you have to be jobsian in your absolute conviction that i i heard you said jeff i know you don't want to listen and i know you kind of rolled your eyes and fetched convicted i know what you want you don't know what you want but you really really do want it is there it and i and look i am in this narrow sense um i'm not an anecdote right um you know the plural anecdote is not a polite word uh because it's not data but i so i don't know i'm not making a data argument but i'm telling you in deep truth i was blessed i remember i continue to be blessed by the generations that invested in me and all the ways they invested in me but i'm sitting here today sweating in my heart about torah and about the light and strength and the demand and the challenge of torah and you know what's unusual about that nothing absolutely nothing there's nothing about this story that that's relevant it's it's irrelevant it is normative i had a congressman he's now a congressman his name is richard torres he's a democrat out of the bronx the poorest the the new york 15th it's the poorest congressional district in the united states and i wouldn't see richie when he was when he was getting ready to run for congress in this cycle and he's a he describes himself as a black brown so la la he's hispanic and african-american and he's a gay uh a gay uh man and uh and he says he is a passionate zionist and so we walked together on the streets and i went to see him because that's what you should do right you should go see the leaders be respected for the remain so i walked with him at the end we sat down and i said i said i have to admit i don't get it he said what's that i said i don't get your support for i said see you're part of the problem i thought that's a bold response we mean i'm part of the problem he said you think that because i'm a progressive left-wing democrat that therefore i would be anti-israeli anti-zionist and he said you bought the wrong rhetoric you so like you should think it's normative i you should believe that i am the standard not the thousands of who say israel this israel that blah blah blah bds has all that bad stuff richie said why don't you reframe your view of the suggest he didn't say surya review or your name in the second said i'm the normative one i'm not exceptional hey look except you treat me that way okay i want to believe deeply i need to i'm a zadie ceos understood me zadie's interesting to me i want to believe that i'm normative that i got lost along the generations not in in moral terms but in jewish religious terms and that with grace of the support of my parents and my issue she ain't getting paid enough right to put up with a mission guys that's me but at this point you know um amalia hale who's two comes to friday night dinner can you imagine this my grandchildren come to my table friday night in yerushalayim it's beautiful but the eternal capital jewish people and she says she throws the water everywhere she thinks that's normative the only reason she thinks that normative is because she knows there's nothing special about my story and the the the craziest disconnected person in boca is just jeff waiting for the right conversation steve jobs knew that and you do too and so if you need to be reminded i say to you with a deepest humility you are steve jobs and i'm ready to buy your iphone okay i'm blown away my mind is racing in different directions i want to come learning in your yeshiva that you're the russia shiva because this is all amazing so but i want to i do want to come back and i don't know how much time we have but i because we could do this for hours on hand for most times but i do want to come back because i want to ask a specific question because we have a real expert we have access right now um to somebody who's a real expert and you built a brand you're a brand expert an international multi-billion dollar corporate brand timberland slogan boots brand belief uh it's all about the brand so we are a shul unlike many shules we've tried to build a brand we have a tagline valuing diversity celebrating unity it's on all of our literature we've actually launched recently a brs global community where we've said thanks to technology and embracing what corona challenged us we pivoted to go online and what we discovered is that we have the local offline community which is of course our primary responsibility but we have also an online global community and we've tried to grow that brand so if you could give some young we consider ourselves young brand aspirational rabbis how you can incorporate the notion of a brand of a logo of a slogan into a shul and a community life in not only a philosophical way as you just articulated so beautifully passionately but very specifically give us some brand expertise give us a i can't even imagine the value that we'll get if you can answer this question but give us some brand expertise about how how shul and community can consider growing a brand i to imagine radiating your your story uh online to audiences that wouldn't necessarily be able to participate locally brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant the idea um is is a transmission point right in what's the the password rashi asks are the windows of beta make this like this inside or they like this and his answer is kind of yes which is uh which is a beautiful answer right which is that we want to bring the light in and we want to shine the light out boy you talk about leaving the torah wow um i think that um there there there are two things that i would say with deep humility because i don't know nothing about nothing the first thing i would say is most change makers robert boyd and i were talking about this a minute ago are our invested mind body and soul in changing the narrative right jeff canada was a friend and teacher of mine in the harlem children's zone he and i worked together for a lot of years and jeff said the narrative an african-american boy in the harlem children's zone when i started was two things death or a prison those are the two alternatives that's the narrative arc of the life of a young african-american boy in harlem in this specific geography and he said i'm going to change that narrative and he spent 150 of his time energy and genius change in narrative and he succeeded in a way that was impossible um it was a strange one but one i treasured and still treasure i said um look this is a pill pool thing he's bigger than mandy's he's a martial artist he said don't don't kill me but i need you to hear this you spend 150 of your time changing the narrative you're spending none of your time narrating the change and and if you don't spend some time narrating the change you will be you you get the cycle of of of uh shelf team why is the story keep repeating itself why why why don't we learn because i don't think people spend enough time to narrate the change they they're they're leading you through the change but they expect you to understand it yourself but you're experiencing the change and so there there needs to be sort of this third angle which is the brand the brand builders responsibility the brand builder has to build the experience but you also have to narrate the change so first is change the narrative you're doing that second thing is narrate the change and then the the the the how from a brand building perspective and please allow me to to be the visible you know people say the you see only the tip of the iceberg in my case it's so the upside down thing anything that worked is the is the is the tip the what's under water is all the pain that i paid to get down but okay that's a separate story it's it's the truth i'm the iceberg of what you what what people think is a success right it's sitting on on a giant mountain of failures let's be clear about that um that's great i am a big believer i'm a big believer in um there are three roles in brand building one is you you have to create the story then you have to publish the story but the story has to be aimed at engagement because people there's this true there always was there always has been too much story and there's been too little engagement and so um people get excited because so i'll give you a very nice example this week we we got published in newsweek in the united states a story an opinion piece written by a a a friend of mine dr muhammad al nabari five times a day uh islamic movement he's he's a haradi muslim guy he's the mayor of core is one of the seven bedouin cities here in the south and and he is a phd in chemistry he is a owned i love this man uh he's he's a rabbit to me in his own in his way and uh dr nabari i see him you're changing the narrative but you're not narrating the change he said i won't talk in israel it's going to create michigan so good how about the united states he says who would want the story that's my problem so we we got the stronger the united states now there's a story an op-ed piece his mother she should live long in case she can't she can't read anything in english but okay he had to put in arabic so she could read it but his mom was like oy but a nice story people stopped there rabbi they stopped there with a story we wrote the story and we published it and people say ah good the problem is um you get so locked in to i wrote a story and i published the story doesn't everybody read the story no you actually have to you have to the story has to be written with engagement in mind the measure of story is not eyeballs it's it's sweat to me that's this is brand building is gets is measured in sweat um and it's not what they think it's what they do it's it's it's mush that's where it switches from intellectual learning to experience based learning experience based on you can't take it away from me right and so to be dislocated for 15 years i brought powerful jewish leaders that weren't connected to israel to israel but mama you take them by the hand you put them on the plane and you literally from sunday noon time until thursday night when i put them on the bus get the hell out of my country i spend every week a minute with these guys on experience based learnings and so yes we learn torah yes we we hear speakers but it's like you got to smell it you got to feel it you got to sweat it in brand building terms people forget that that the the sh that the whole story is an emotional experience last one and i'll shut up coach was a competitor of ours nasty guys they were good they're in new york they were nasty i knew the guy was a ceo and he said to me you know why we kill you at retail and i said no he said because we studied it i said okay what do you got and his story was this he said somebody comes into these beautiful coach stores and they pick up a nice handbag and they walk in they ooh a lot of money they walk around they pave the handbag they hand the credit card very nice bring it up give them the bag and they walk out failure why because they ask proctor and gamble right rabbit birdie a lot of data and the woman it's usually a woman says afterwards you know yeah i feel good about that so they thought i wanted not to feel good about i don't feel great about it what i have to do and so they went to japan and they saw how japanese cash wrap works and so never does the sales associate in japan take your credit card and then hand it back to you they walk around from behind the the desk and they present it to you directly with the bag they create a physical intimacy it and that coach did that in their stores and their sales were up like 14 not 14 the first time second sales which is where all the profit is right the customer comes back because here they see me feel me and i haven't i they couldn't explain it but i just felt different it's an experience what are we doing to create an experience of of the show of the torah of the warmth of the strength of we i'm telling you the metric you that that brands should seek is is is a a physical metric it's sweat if you can't smell them sweating on zoom we we gotta we gotta we gotta we gotta tighten the product up you've got to see their hair on fire and there's ways to do it there really are and you know how to do it the the metric is they've got to sweat that's it that's not a consumer that's a participant and when it becomes their brand that's we sold a lot of boots and we created a big brand but when we could have a conversation with people about belief they started they were co-creators it was now their torah that's our that that doubled our stock price mamash literally doubled our stock price when when when belief became um was accessible people could act upon their belief and so my question for for the for the for the for the the torah leaders of our of our generation is what opportunities do we give to people to own the torah and i don't mean an intellectual sense i mean an emotions how do they how do they live their torah and when they live it uh they'll drive you crazy in the very best possible way one of the challenges that is being a non-profit is having having the resources and the personnel to create those experiences it's a vicious cycle because if we give that emotional connection we'll get the resources to then pay it forward to the next group but it becomes this vicious cycle of being able to create that in the non-profit world as opposed to in the profit world but still the point is amazingly taking thank you so much that was brilliant amazing amazing is that um is that in timberland i assume that's when you talked about uh i gave you and spoken and read a lot of the articles so much we did timberland was about social justice it was about bettering the world and i read an article where actually george bush once made fun of you or made fun of picked on you in front of a context of many ceos where he said how you give your employees time off paid time off to do to go engage in community service because that's how much you believe in it and what do you get for it you get grief for it so i guess that's your that's your that's your theory of putting it into action and making your employees not just buy into a concept but actually encouraging them to live those principles as well we were in the roosevelt room um uh it was right after 9 11 and there were 19 ceos and you the one thing you know about the white house is in general they can count so when there's 19 you realize you look around and you realize let's see your revenues are less than their advertising budgets so you're the 19th you're so okay that's me 19. i'm the kid i was at the big boys table but i had to lick the little high chair like my little girl in a bit and then yeah president pushed himself and singled me out which did not make me super popular with a guy who he cut off who would very famous dude he was what we were doing he said first of all i'm not done speaking because he said you see this boy from new hampshire i thought oh my god okay so after we finished he says he says come on i'll take down the tour of the of louisville and so everybody gets up there's the united states get up so you go in i had been there with president bush before and so i stayed out of the way while he's doing the tour and i was hanging out by the desk because that's kind of a cool thing to do and but it was it was a tough time uh in israel's uh in israel's existence and i'm sitting there and it was close on purim and i'm thinking what do you do what do you do so the president came back and so i decided i i got this i'm a sophisticated guy so i lowered my voice as mr president and he said yep and but the problem is like what an idiot because it didn't matter i thought i spoke softly and he did too all the other ceos fight they crowded around that's not what i wanted and i said i i just want to tell you uh as a as a citizen proud patriot of america how much you appreciate your support for uh israel and jewish people and any prison bush slaps in the shoulder and knocks you over and he says boy that's not hard to do and i said what do you mean he said it's easy to support israel i said no sir it is not easy display says here's a law i'm the president i say it's easy i said okay yes sir and he said because uh israel is right about this that and the other thing and and the others he has been like what is the first of all i was a little bit of a fly in the ointment in the other room and now what does he do in time for israel and so he says to me again it does the same thing he says to this group and i didn't put in the article for good reason he says this group he says i can tell you one other thing about this boy when he gets back to new hampshire this afternoon he's going to say a prayer for me because he prays three times a day and he's [Laughter] on the left-hand side there's this it's a curved wall because it is the secret service dudes and then you end up uh in this in the in the waiting room like for the for the west wing there's this big room and i'm not making this up and maybe sound a little uh it sounded a little edgy but the saudi arabian foreign minister was was waiting there with his big entourage and and and i admit with humility and some embarrassment um i was so fired up by what the president said i stopped for a second he's a big physical guy and i looked and i said i got there first and i walked away that's great yeah that is not only great that is a great place to leave it mr swartz we can't thank you enough for your time the truth is you've stimulated our thinking i know our listeners and representing jewish communities by the way across the globe we're so honored and grateful they listen and i hope that you've stimulated everybody to think a little bit differently um whether it's about recognizing the next jeff schwartz that we we know that they want torah even if they don't uh acknowledge that whether it's challenging our own beliefs intergenerationally how we connect and create continuity whether it's re-examining our brand and what we do to create the emotional connection or whether we undo as you describe that awesome in the negative of of the disconnect with with torah you've challenged all of us we could talk for hours i hope this is only the beginning of a conversation that we can continue but on behalf of all of us from the bottom of our hearts want to thank you for being with us thank you for all that you're doing i know in the world of philanthropy you continue to serve not only with your resources generously but with your time with your wisdom in so many ways and and thank you for all that you're doing and thank you for who you are the privilege is mine and thank you for this privilege i i deeply do i abraham of haslakov you you guys should be well and healthy and safe you and your families and continue to lead the jewish people because we need you desperately thank you thank you thank you wow amazing amazing that was that was fantastic really extraordinary getting warmed up yeah we could we could have that conversation for hours on end the hours getting late though and we're not going back to the three and a half hour marathon what what what from that conversation really jumps out at you what will keep you awake tonight what are you gonna keep thinking about in the days and weeks to come there was so much i mean obviously the conversation about brand building and about creating an engagement with the people that's not just about telling the story but it's narrating the story and it's about creating that engagement with people i think for all of us anyone in communal leadership anyone who has a any role of leadership honestly that is something that got my mind racing but i will tell you at the beginning of the conversation um his description of tension that he felt resonated with me profoundly and i think you know as modern orthodox jews that is kind of our calling card it's being okay living in that cloud it's being okay living in that tension when he was describing that i found that very powerful and and i got to be honest i was getting a little choked up when he was talking about the first time he opened up a gemara and put his hand on it and not just the intellectual connection to judaism but the emotional connection to judaism that was unbelievable well you basically left nothing you left nothing for us but i agree with you each one of those each one of those the gemara one touched me because you think about right ceo corporate america crunching numbers marketing branding strategy intellect and he basically is like that stuff's all nice but it was my heart and and the way you just described it when he talked about touching the gemara i hope that the alda for the daphyomi organizations will take that clip and to hear him talk about that he got the package of the gemara in the mail he opened it he remembers where he was standing in the kitchen he touched the duff and it like went through him that was a visceral but you know to me it's it's not even almost what he said it's the way he said it the passion passion fire he's passion he believes in it it's it's amazing i love how he was talking about how we've done such an incredible job of making judaism so boring and uninteresting it's like we've really worked hard at doing that and you know why can't we just come up with some creative solutions and figure out a way to just re-engage and just like he said just be yourself take that passion that you have and and show show everyone how exciting judaism really can be he didn't really unpack that fully because he was connecting it to the idea that we're so focused on risk management instead of embracing uncertainty and that's the reason he thinks that we've made it so boring and instead of worrying about the risk management of this world embrace the uncertainty and certainly if there's a part two we can continue this conversation what he means by that what what is a jewish organized jewish community what do yeshiva school schools look like when they're embracing uncertainty instead of managing risk i would love to hear his thoughts on that i would love to hear his thoughts on that also but i but i agree with him you know when you're a non-profit the room for failure is much less right in other words if we if we fail so we're selling torah you can't it's much more risk-averse in that regard whereas if you're a public trading company you see you put out a product the product doesn't succeed you proctor gamble so you research a product you put it out so it doesn't succeed so your stock might drop a little bit you might change over ceos a little bit but at the end of the day you have something to fall back on i find right that perhaps what he was saying is that non-for-profits especially schools have become so risk-averse because they have that fear of failure there isn't right what to fall back on you've spoken about that before also right if we were able if we were given a little longer rope or leash and we had a little bit more leeway right to play i think you've both spoken about this in the past to experiment to like throw a lot against the wall and see what sticks in programming in in emotional connection in the reach to the demographics and constituents we're trying to reach did one of you get a dog since we last had behind the bema isn't it something barking back there okay that's just definitely not me okay in any case we are we are overtime and winding down but i do want to make sure that first of all we thank rafa aguilar again our new dear friend and soon to be community member uh where we'll teach him about sports and and goats um but also special thank you to jeremy gelmarbeepermd.com b-e-e-p-e-r-m-d dot com free and home pcr testing and 30 rapids but we said um we would take a moment just to reflect on uh myers-leonard who plays for the miami heat currently suspended by the mme heat used an anti-semitic slurries he was playing a video game live stream i never knew there was such a thing what does that mean people like pay or watch you play video games that's a huge industry huge because that might be the most anyone that wants this part of this anyone wants to pay me to play miss pac-man i can get to like 4-4 that could be the most scandalous part of the story but anyway that people pay to watch other people play video games there's seems to me to be like a lot wrong with that but anyway myers leonard was playing and he let loose an anti-semitic slur a couple interesting points to the story number one i thought he did a great job of coming back right away and apologizing and an appropriate apology he wrote i'm deeply sorry for using an intermediate anti-semitic slur during a live stream yesterday while i didn't know what the word meant at the time my ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the jewish community is absolutely not an excuse and i was just wrong so notice he didn't equivocate he didn't say i'm sorry if you made you feel he didn't put the onus on the victim he said it was wrong it was offensive it was wrong i'm now more aware of its meaning and i'm committed to properly seeking out people who can help educate me about this type of hate and how we can fight it right it was wrong i'm going to educate myself kharata kabbalah said all the ingredients of but i'm not on his payroll i don't get anything from him but i thought that this was a really well-crafted apology i acknowledge my own mistake and there's no running from something like this it is so hurtful to someone else this is not proper representation of who i am i want to apologize to the arisens mickey harrison's the owner of the heat a jewish person my teammates coaches for an office and everyone's associated with miami heat my family loyal friend fans members of the jewish community who i've heard i promised to better and know that my future actions would be more powerful than my use of this word and i'd like i said i was really impressed by i thought he did a good job of it doesn't excuse it doesn't let off the hook we have to hold him accountable that he's in fact going to educate himself and become an advocate of being more sensitive and careful with language but if you contrast that to saturn live and the actor who you made the deeply offensive anti-israel anti-semitic joke about israel only vaccinating jews where you know a certain prominent rabbi wrote an article basically saying what are you calling for cancelling and what are you calling for him to be fired educate him take him out spend time with him i couldn't disagree more vehemently because i think that you know in meyer's case he says i was wrong period i made a mistake i offended i heard i want to learn now it's our job not to beat him up further but to educate and to embrace and to turn him around to become a big spokesperson and a loyal advocate for israel for the jewish people in the case of the person who never apologizes never owns up never takes responsibility i think that is all together very very different a great footnote to the story that moscow's loves is that new england patriot wide receiver julian edelman who in the last year has become a really outspoken proud jew using your platform absolutely absolutely and i love the post that he wrote where at the end he basically says you know look i i don't think you're meant to hurt and i'm not gonna you know throw it in your face and beat you up but why don't you come down i come down to miami a lot and why don't we do shabbat dinner so i'm just saying if the two of them have shabbat dinner and they need a rabbi there i volunteer myself i'll be a fly on the wall when they want me to be a fly in the wall and i'll interject myself when it's appropriate but i i'd be happy to actually i actually extended that invitation earlier today but you can stop by the desert of a mosque they already said they want a real football guy so they called me exactly no but i'll tell you the best part in my house was that you know obviously my son is a very big sports fan and first of all he didn't even know what the term meant but after the conversation um it was a great conversation about how what you put on the internet and the words that you say have a lot of meaning and carry a lot of weight and it was a great conversation for us around the dinner table tonight about being cautious about what footprint we create in social media when we're out there with friends when we're in school the words that we use we've referenced in the past that words can be bullets or words can be seeds and you really have to be careful with the way you were so i want to thank him for giving me that platform to have that discussion with my children yeah that's an interesting spin on it so you know again i'm not we're not letting him off the hook but i do think it is an example in our time and what we laughing at you're like yeah that was good anyways no no i think i think i think that's a great perspective an interesting spin i'm really tired i'm looking to wind down got a newsletter global campaign newsletter featuring a video from robert moskowitz it's not too late to join brsonline.org global you can still join the global community for as little as a dollar just be part of the community you'll get a special email special newsletter special video to the global community members every week not too late go on right now and put us over where are we at who knows there's got to be a shreyer somewhere listening in any case so we'll look to see his continued learning and that's our responsibility is to turn him around not to assume the worst i thought he owned up i thought he wrote a great apology probably had some help in doing it and um hopefully we'll see good things come out of that so jeff swartz go back listen again there's a lot to unpack a lot to think about really really special person meeting after what he said just to unpack it all and to discuss ways to make that you know bring it to fruition and really concretize it within our own show he is a gift to the jewish people and there have to be more like him but imagine if we took a guy like him we said you have a branding expertise you built a multi-billion dollar international brand now talk to us about our brand called torah judaism and so on instead of thinking we have all the answers why don't we go to the people who really are the experts in this and and embrace them ask them to partner with us and guide us because in this informal conversation it really it really woke us all up so first of all if the president can have in the west wing 19 ceos so we should have at brs i'm inviting 19 ceos and multinational corporations to come to boca raton synagogue they could have friday night dinner with julian edelman and rabbi goldberg first and then they could come to brs for a conversation about how to market judaism better in i love it i love it in any case stay tuned for next week it's only going to get bigger and better we've got incredible guests next week is going to be very very special so it's been fun boys good to see you as always until next time stay happy stay healthy