#95 - Behind the Bima: R' Moshe Meir Weiss

from boca raton florida rabbi's ephrem goldberg philip moskowitz and josh brody are taking you behind the bema the brs rabbis 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 wednesday night 9 p.m i am your host robin from global joined by my dear friend and brother-in-law and the fact-checker of behind the bema special guest co-host tonight binyamin michelle welcome thanks for joining uh it's an honor to be here i frankly don't know what i'm doing here and i also don't know why after 93 episodes this is the 94th you would use all that credibility and goodwill you've built up with your large listener base to essentially ruin it by having just me on tonight not ruining anything it's great to have you here it's great to be together tonight uh you may recognize benjamin's voice because he is the voice of the opening if you're listening behind the bema on podcast which gets published after on wednesday nights we uh we do this live we are live right now trying to figure out how to hold up a newspaper or something how can i prove to you this is live right now uh in fact we may prove that to you shortly which is somewhat of a gamble but we come to you live the interview is often uh recorded depending on the person the place the timing of it but the intro the before and after are alive and we are live right now so benjamin when we publish the podcast uh benjamin is that voice benjamin give give our audience a little uh proof to them that you are that opening voice that's yeah it's funny because it's i i do a little uh radio type voice for that because i've actually had conversations with people including one of your co-hosts who did not realize until maybe two years into the show that i was doing these intros because i do a little bit of different like from boca raton florida this is behind the bema on this episode the rabbis are joined by the fact checker exactly now i understand there's some hand motions that go along with that there might be some hand motions it's for it's to help with the cadence and one of my um broadcasting idols is the mets announcer gary cohn a couple years ago they started this thing where they show clips of like if it's a big play they'll show oh not just here's the play but like maybe the next day or later that day here's what the announcers look like calling the play and gary cohen who's the best at what he does also does he's like a lot of fist pumps i don't think it's because he's so excited about the play though he is i think it's to get a certain comfort level with the cadence and with the pacing of what he's trying to do and how he's trying to control his voice so me being you know obviously at that level of what we're trying to do here so i also decided that you know to get a very professional sounding open to try to control my voice and the pacing of the cadence so like from boca raton florida that i say this is behind the b mother exactly you got he's like you gotta use that you gotta use that hand motion so um we do thank you for that and for so much else that you do and we're deeply appreciative of it you have a history at one point you had an aspiration benjamin is a lawyer um but at one point you wanted to be in radio actually sports right commenting what is your radio background i think we lost benjamin is frozen so he's officially a member of the uh broadcast now back i'm back okay good so tell me i heard something about aspirations was it you max at one point was wfan what is it what is the background do you hear me we are losing we are losing this let me tell you in the meantime i think it might be you but anytime i will mention that we continue to encourage everybody to sign up for our one and one campaign the one-on-one campaign is the mayor of st moscowitz our beloved rabbi moskowitz who is focused of course on uh estee's healing and well-being and we dabbing for her we ask everyone join the one-on-one campaign a dollar a day of giving a minute a day of total learning one and one all of us have a dollar a day all of us have a minute a day of total learning those minutes have been beautiful we've had a really fantastic diverse contribution rabbis around the world that minute a day is really inspiring the dollar day we're really grateful to dr donath and daily giving our partner i know of motion mayor white's our guest tonight was in early and a big fan of daily giving daily giving is a fantastic way to uh for a dollar a day diversify contributions there's over ten thousand dollars a day giving given out because of the dollar a day and you can be part of that so go to beersonline.org one and one beersonline.org slash one and one a dollar a day a minute a day one-on-one campaign the merit sd mosquitz she and all those who are ill should have a speedy and a painless and a complete refuse lima and i'll just mention the other night i was speaking to her by moscowitz and he told me he knew that he and arya would be would be very moved by each person who signs up the mosquitos are notified they know esti knows every time a person signs up a dollar dave stuck on a minute a day of learning he never anticipated just how much strength and support it would give them that each name they get every time they see that someone else signed up and they're finding another minute in their day and they're finding a dollar in their wallet and they're doing it for st it mamish gives them strength imam moves them brs we don't get anything out of this i'm not trying to uh to exploit by telling you that it's purely for stockholders the recipients through daily giving it's purely the torah that you're learning and you're gaining so i hope that people will take advantage of the one and one campaign but yeah when you back with us can you hear me and i'll also add that i've heard from yeah can you hear me i can okay so i'll also add that i've heard from people on the other end the people who are in the whatsapp group uh that are receiving the tutorial because uh i have the privilege of just hitting publish every day i'm sending these out that someone came up people have come over to me and said they love it they love hearing one minute a day they love hearing the different torah from a variety of people so we are getting great feedback not from vinyam right now it keeps coming in and out we're gonna have to benjamin this is evidence by the way that you are a major major celebrity because the most famous and the biggest celebrities that we've had behind the bema have the worst wi-fi and come in and out also evidence that tonight's show is live so we're gonna let you figure that out over there i think we're fine we're fine now okay yeah so talk to us about when i first met you when you were marrying my little sister-in-law you were bini michelle and you said years ago is it 16 amazing i just yeah for context uh we got engaged the week you were installed as the brs senior rabbi wow your installation was march 5th and we were engaged march 8 20 2006. wow okay fantastic that's great memory great association so when did you decide to go from binny to binyamin the only one i know who still calls you benny is my new mahutan rabbi ali storch other than him i don't know anyone calling you benny everyone you've gotten to call you bin yemen why did you do that and how did you do that i don't think it's that interesting necessarily but i mean i was always been young and my family namely been young and they called me vidyam and that's all i was called then eventually you get to school and i think it was fourth grade one of my good friends decided to shorten my name as many people do and it just became bitty and then it sort of took off my friends in school called me and that went from ashar and muncie to mta to karen b avnet and sort of people who met me through the years uh were always calling me that and that was fine but it was weird because i had two names because anybody i was related to was calling me young because that was the name of the family when anybody was friendly with friends were calling me benny and then it just sort of got complicated and i think i don't know i i may have been encouraged by my wife to pursue one of these options no but it's true because i think ultimately for consistency purposes i think it's you know it's people will call you one thing um but i mean i don't i i don't correct people one necessarily if they call me benny that's fine um i find it funny especially when people who've never met me before but have heard of me or somehow like they end up calling me benny because that's how they heard my neighbor said it's just like i've sometimes will say oh that's funny like we've just met i don't know i've i introduced myself always has been yummy and i think at some point it's just like okay let's see if we can get more people on board with calling me that i guess you know what period of the life like my mother has her full name and my mother has a nickname that she had in her childhood so anyone who knows her from elizabeth new jersey circa i'm not in my right mind going to say the year will call her by that nickname and then you know who knew her in her youth so if someone sees her and sure walks up to him so and so yeah but are we not playing with the nickname i don't like to say my mother's name you know it's an honor thing but uh i don't know what that what the nickname was her nickname was bashi her name is basheva oh my name so when someone walks up and says that you know exactly when they knew her from and i guess the same is true with you so banana wears many hats or binny however you want to call him and uh he's a huge asset and a huge help to me in so many ways so i'm so glad he's on tonight even just to be able to say thank you publicly not only for being the opening voice and introduction to behind the bema um but really for editing and redlining and helping me research and just making me a better rabbi and a better person every which way so again i'm really grateful for all of that people ask me you know who makes my source sheets me myself and i i'm the one who does there they have a research assistant and i don't i'm proud i'm grateful i'm happy i'm uh gratified that i do all that myself but benjamin is a huge help particularly on the editing so i would say here are the two biggest mach looks and these are the two biggest debates benjamin and i have in the world of editing so i write my thoughts i'm a terribly terrible speller and and my grammar could use some work and uh organizing the thoughts better beyond the huge help to me with that what would you say are the two things i'm about to mention that we disagree about in the editing on the red line um without question the two that we've been fighting about for years are the oxford comma and two spaces after period both of which i am right about and you are wrong about that both of which i am right about and you are all about two spaces absolutely my thumbs hit two spaces in between sentences i can't hit one the two are automatic that's correct that's the right way that's how i was taught i know you're going to tell me it's based on the typewriter we don't have typewriters anymore but minecraft was saying there are certain things that we have and that we have to do because the way it's always been it's annoyingly extra white space that just doesn't need to be there it was a leftover from the typewriter days that needs to go away and there is simply no need for it it's a margin it's a little breathing room just like the torah lahav deals in stumos the torah has gaps where moshe rabbenu said let me think let me absorb it so sometimes you continue on the same line sometimes the torah continues on another line in publishing i won't say my own writing because la have deal but those extra spaces between sentences there's a space between words and then between sentences to catch your breath and for margin two spaces yeah um it's not necessary this is there's there's just no need for it it's extra space it's not it doesn't it doesn't look it's not pleasing to the eye and i used to correct you on this literally in the red line i would first thing i do is i hit ctrl h and find every extra space and just if control h is find or place so i'd find the two spaces after period and then replace it with the one space and then that got a little excessive so yeah so that's one debate oxford comma i'm more lenient on i could put the comma don't put the comma i could live i don't need it i still don't think it looks right the comma before the word end the end is in lieu of the comma to me i don't think it's necessary that extra comma but doesn't doesn't offend me as much as the one space no the that's becomes absolutely necessary i mean you could google this because i know i just googled it now like examples of what sentences look like without it like uh we went we went uh we went for a walk with our dogs comma grandma and grandpa so without the comma it's our dogs our grandma and grandpa with the second comments with their dogs comma grandma kama and grandpa these are three different people you went for a walk with i mean i had a three different uh entities you went for a walk with i mean this is this one's simple are you trying to fact check while you're on the show you're fact checking yourself and me actually live on the show i i mean do you remember how the fact checking started actually it was it was it was in the zoom webinar days back when the show first started because i was sending comments in on the webinar when there was literal fact check like no i think this got wrong this was you may have you may have this wrong i think your daughter's birthday is actually uh this day things like you know little things like little details but yemen has actually been with us since the beginning we're coming up on our hundredth episode we're trying to plan something exciting for that hundredth episode which may include uh binyamin coming back as the fact-checker and posing please god we'll have rabbi brodio be moscow's back for that one to celebrate the 100th episode and maybe maybe a little trivia to pose uh some quotes and figure out who said it uh maybe which were the most listened to maybe uh i don't know we'll we'll have some fun if you have an idea of what you'd like to see in 100th episode or you want to weigh in on the great debate of the oxford common the two spaces versus one yeah the comments are open on youtube please feel free like i said you had all this goodwill built up for 93 episodes you're blowing it on a lawyer who's debating the merits of the oxford convo i mean this is this is where we are right now people on the edge of their side i also missed the anonymity i mean this was we had like a fun thing going for a while more people people people didn't um people i was just gonna say people didn't know who i was for a while i was like oh this mysterious fact checker we kind of had a good thing going and then people give me a wink wink like oh i think it's you i know it's you and then last weekend we just blew it right out there with a hello fold we did you know sometimes good things must come to an end you gotta you gotta share it we're gonna bring on rav motion mayor weiss momentarily remotion remotely wise is um fantastic and a prolific author and speaker and a very exciting conversation but first first benjamin and i are going to do a little experiment over here and this is unscripted and this was not pre-planned and this will be perhaps the greatest evidence of all the this day live show and and let's see how this goes we're going to call someone live on the air right now can you hear that is that why we're doing this no okay let's see if the answers come on come on hello hello abba it's ephraim ephraim and and benjamin you are live right now on behind the bema please you are you are live on behind the bema and i you're you're two of your favorite sons-in-law just wanted to in front of the entire world wish you a happy 75th birthday 75 years old and uh you should continue to have strength and health and nachas and pride and great things what do you want to tell the behind the bema audience about your first 75 years here on earth it's been wonderful and i only think i have to encourage that i have reached this point and i'm most important i'm healthy and in good shape and i have wonderful wonderful children grandchildren sons-in-law and great grandchildren and then and that's it's a bracha and uh oh man this episode is for you benjamin and i are uh dedicating in your honor of this big milestone this major birthday the 75 years you know thank god abba biya and hara you're in great shape you're learning sharper than ever what are your secrets to your success what would you tell our audience as important as a person goes on in life how do you stay young marry a good wife oh that's good that is a very good suggestion you know you know and and you know and what can i tell you say is you know don't don't don't don't get too nervous and upset and you know things things go uh not everything goes your way but you know if you you take things as they come and don't get don't let things upset you uh things can go well always look good that you know you look around and unfortunately the many people have much worse situations that's that's important be grateful for what you have and don't sweat the small stuff abba how did you celebrate your birthday tonight could you share with everyone what you had for stole my question i was gonna ask that you know well actually uh your mother-in-law made me last night they made a fantastic birthday bill for me which is our annual uh breaded meal cutlets garlic and onion mashed potatoes and uh uh chocolate horn from zomix so it was very good how did that tradition begin uh that's a very good question and i was going for maybe 20 years 25 years primarily because i don't get it during the year you know special reserves it's very special it's reserved for just the the uh the birthday so uh you know it makes it special okay i don't know actually what it was is when when i was in medical school and i was eating at the stern cafeteria where i met your mother-in-law um that was one of the specials that i used to get uh then they charged me four and a half dollars for the meal which was a special student right at the time so that was very nice so it's it's it's uh it's you know the the the uh the courtship days uh we i get the the uh brandonville conflict like we had in the stone cafeteria back beautiful over 50 years ago beautiful you should have many many more years together good health and happiness uh but we love you a lot of nachos and thank you can can you hear me abba happy birthday happy birthday abba thank you thank you so much and i want to say how proud we are of both of you you know you you you do so much and you're you're you're such wonderful wonderful sons-in-law and uh you know a lot of nazis and that also adds makes me makes my years go much better because we can't wait to bring you back for your 85th and 95th and um in good health all right a happy happy birthday thank you so much thank you absolutely thank you all right that went better than i expected that was great our dear father-in-law dr robert brookstein dermatologist in the five towns and uh a wonderful husband father grandfather great-grandfather 70th birthday and and this show is in his honor but yeah you're going to stick around after our interview with nothing mayor weiss we have a few more things he is the current piston arab he is the current of tishtin there's no question yeah that's absolutely true from hungary yeah he's a big if you'd like brachas you can make your way to uh we won't announce his address on the air but you can get brachus from he is the current piston right but we have a lot more to talk about on the other side of this but for now very excited to be able to bring on uh rip 37 years of the aguda of staten island staten island is a changing community and in the meantime he has moved to lakewood where he's now the rub of the aguda in lakewood continuing to teach and write and change the world a tremendous ball of energy it's a privilege to welcome of motion mayor wise it's a great supposed to be joined by ramos mayor weiss a great rav a great author a great maggot shir and somebody who i'm simply in awe of revised i don't know how you get done everything that you got done uh 40th year in the robonus in staten island obviously uh for most of the years and now in lakewood sixth cycle of teaching the da fiomi through five cycles teaching it now once a day twice a day including going into brooklyn late at night every day day in and day out i don't know how many farm how many books you've written by now many lectures thousands you have online you get it all done with a big smile it's a big scope of privilege thank you so much for letting us go behind the bema with you rabbi goldberg it's this close for me uh and i'll say it uh without shame that i i went after robert gobert when i was in boca and i said to him that i would like to be on his behind the bema i told you when we were chatting offline that i'm really a big fan of podcasts like these because there are many people around the world who need downtime and they could choose netflix they could choose amazon prime or they could say uh to their wife you know what tonight let's uh let let's see robert over had an interesting interview with rabbi wine uh let's watch it yeah that's a good idea that's more worthwhile and then the children see that that's what their parents do i i told robert goldberg i was coming back from l.a last night i was on a late night flight and i was looking around and p people were all watching nonsense on the screens i think there was a batman and and then something else and that that imagine if they had behind the bema on the screen you know and what airline was it we got to get on the united united yeah all right you know i'm i'm working on having my daphiani on the screen and my commercial on the screen you know it's and then person could select oh let me do the daf what do i have to see top gun for you know let me let me do the dash amazing there's so much to talk to you about and and we had the privilege of course who doesn't know about of motion mayor weiss for years we were on a flight there to sorel and we sat next to each other so the ribonuclear brought us together and we've stayed in touch since so it's it's really exciting to be able to have you on and to have this conversation but let's let's go all the way back to your childhood i want to talk about ravmosha feinstein i never had this i'm too young i never overlapped i didn't have the merit to ever meet to be in the presence of moshe ramosa was uh in in height physical height a relatively short person but of course he was a giant he was and continues to be a giant in imsak and and his legacy as somebody who went to his yeshiva got smirk from moshe somebody who was a personal attendant you're meshamish of moshe for for a decade what what about ramosa that is appreciated is important to acknowledge and what about ramosa that the world doesn't even know what about ramosa that the world doesn't even appreciate that they never saw but should know okay so when when you lived in the era of ramosa the one thing that you have to know is is that the there was a man that everybody listened to it was it was you know it's like they say there was no a roof in borough park when he was alive because he said that there shouldn't be a narrative so then there was no arab you know whatever he said he he was the you know there's certain people i once wrote an article who was the man of the millennia and i chose with of course humility that i chose rashi right you know there is hardly a hummus made without rashi there's hardly anything without and rashi was accepted by everyone in the world because there isn't a harsh word in rashi anywhere and there's such humility in russia lawyers parish timer lawyer dati i don't know you know you know and that was ramosa ramosha was the warmest man you've ever met when he shook your hand he didn't shake your hand he hugged it with both his hands he took your hand and he hugged it and that that he he oozed warmth i always tell people i like the variation of my words are like fire it's not just that terror illuminates our life but fire is warm he was the warmest of men and and that that and and his struck him his halachic decisions were laced with warmth you know you know i'll tell you an interesting thing that like you said many people might not know what catapulted ramosha onto the world stage in he came to america in 1937 and uh he came from a small town in russia he had they they chased him out of there they they made his life impossible he told me first date they uh they took away his house so this is the nkvd the predecessors of the kgb he took away his house so then he moved into the iraq room in his shul the guest room in the shul with his family bruven wasn't uh i don't think alive then he might have been rav david uh robertson schiffer that's rabbi tender's wife uh represent faye who was uh ravshiska's wife and they moved into a tiny little house and it into the irish room in the show then they confiscated his shoe so then they what they did was is they had wealthy people they used to take like a tithe of uh part of the house for soldiers so they gave him the tithe of a jew's house to live in and he said it became impossible so he he went to leave and they he had to have a ju pass to to know you had to have a visa he didn't have a visa you had to go to moscow to have a visa but you couldn't go to moscow without you pass it was impossible yet to get a ju pass so they smuggled him into moscow and he told me this i heard this from him that when he was in moscow he stayed by some girliam they were nice and he had there were people that were trying to get him the visa and he said during the day he went to the base of madrid in moscow he says what's the difference one jew another two and he said one night he got a rangatan he got very occupied in learning and when he picked up his head he saw that it was very late so he said it's not fair to risk waking up the nice guardian so he stayed in the shul that night and learned the whole night and he told me pumped just that night the nkvd came around checking the houses he would have been in siberia nobody would have ever heard of him again wow yeah he told me this over over a tea wow indeed so he came to america in 37 and they took him as as uh rashiva and mtj the the head of mtj at that time told the boys he said you know you're doing good boys and every time you learn more uh i try to get you somebody that knows more he said i'm getting older so i'm getting you somebody now who no matter what you learn he'll always be good for you and ramosha was going to be there shiva of mtj and and learn i heard this from david david son of david said that in 46 47 the the women started coming from overseas and said what do we do we we don't know what happened to our husbands we have no clue you know what do we do and nobody wanted to touch it because of course you know if then the husband comes back and she remarries the children i'm i'm saying him and it's a whole mess right right so ramosa said look if nobody's going to do it i have to do it and rob david said that catapulted him onto the word stage i don't know the exact number i this i never heard so i can't vouch for it but i heard a number that he permitted like 200 women i don't know if that's true that's a number that they throw around but i do know that no husband ever came back when he permitted a woman to be married now it's amazing about ramosha obviously is super genius a super mind super analytic a super bowl mahadesh his pisces his positions uh in many cases are are very bold courageous they're they're very novel um and and i don't know when i when i think of vigorous motion or dibras moshe which i think he was even more proud of than igris moshe that is certainly correct so when i when i think about it i'll never measure up i can't compare why maybe even try but but when you think about the warmth and the medos that you're describing who of moshe was aside from his mind that is something every one of us can can strive to be and be that's what exactly why i said it you know they say that they asked you of shock by what merit did you live long and rav sheikh said i always benched from a bench rough shack learnt every second but he said bench or adventure that you could do so they asked for maisha also the question now i can testify i was mashable for 10 years he was never not learned i mean i could tell you a story that i once he he he had at what one point what the in yiddish they call rosa which is cellulitis or they used to call it phlebitis he had phlebitis and he was in bed so um i was in the bungalow and he got up from a nap and during the day he didn't always keep negovasser by the bed and the night he did but in the day so he had a tanakh a koran tna without rashi which he actually inherited from his son lord of shizkal and the world always saw pictures of him learning mishnais because that's what he learned when he took off his drill and everything but throughout the day when he had spare seconds he reviewed snacks right without rashi just reviewed the whole thing straight so anyway i saw him get up he had to knock by his bed stand he picked up the tanakis turning the pages he's walking to the sink he puts the tank down by the sink opens the water and is still turning the pages and he washes his hands and immediately afterwards he was already immersed in the tuna that's just an idea of who ramosa was in learning but yet they asked him and we know my whole life i never caused another person pain that's what he said and oh it's that's what we could learn from him well we could learn from him there was a there was india shiva a uh janitor his name was john there were many janitors but one year this is the the janitor that sticks out in my mind he was a drunk he was a low a low class guy but he was the janitor of this yeshiva and ramosha on his way out would stop if he saw him and he would say thank you john in english thank you john for cleaning the yogi that was your emotion we had a hungarian cook a wonderful person should have an aliyah mr yeager aloe vera shalom and he was a real hungarian like i am i mean i was born here but my mother was born at pest and uh and he made are you familiar with the hungarian poland a little bit my wife is hungarian ah so so he made 800 handmade polanchinta for schmooze and it was a yearly event that even when ramosa was in his 80s and he already had stopped eating with the balkan in the gym downstairs he had a sweet upstairs on the floor the base of madrid he would come down two flights go in the kitchen to thank mr yeager for making the blintzes and it was already an event the the bachroom knew that he was going to do that and he thought he would tell him he meant torah what he's doing for the from 800 blintzes handmade what a big thing it was that was your emotion that and that we can't imitate that everyone you don't have to have a high iq or a great memory right you could anybody can imitate that part of who he was so you're going into your 40th year of rabbanus and that that in itself is extraordinary um i recently realized that i started as the assistant rav here in boca in 2002 i was in the cola in the community before but i was officially part of the shoe my official rabbana's being in 2002. so i'm now in my 20th year half that time and and i feel like it's uh it's forever so 40 years is really remarkable really really extraordinary what changes have you seen in the rabbanas from when you first started till now how have you seen the the the balance shift in terms of on the one hand the rev has to carry himself as a rev a rov has to try to be a model behavior and a lifestyle that others can aspire to and i know that you i i watch and i see your shirum i don't think i've ever seen you give a shirt where you weren't wearing your your hat and your frock but even with your hat even when you sit down and you're giving a shirt to not take off the hat clearly you're trying to present uh the regardless of of of rabbanas and cover torah zatorah honor respect for torah on the one and on the other we're living in a time and in a world where there needs to be a friendship and a closeness and a casualness and an access and i know that you can quote and reference modern things that are happening that make you accessible and people can feel connected and i know and what we'll talk about you're very active your shirum stream on facebook and using technology and social media so how has that particular area of abundance changed in these 40 years from how close how friendly how casual how much does one have to stay as a rov and and be apart or different um what is the thinking and always wearing the lavish of rabbanus never not wearing it or presenting that way how have things changed in these 40 years well okay so first uh i you know i'm a i'm a ball player i uh i play uh tennis i play paddle ball and recently i play pickleball and i play in the park and uh i play in hot weather i hope maybe tonight at seven o'clock i'll play a game of pickleball before my touch urine uh and i always wear i don't wear my compartment hat but i always wear long pants and a shirt sometimes a tie even and people say to me you know it's it's hot here it's it's 90. you know and i said listen i'm a rabbi uh on the court and off the court you know and i i i believe it's my responsibility to radiate that i'm what they call a man of god uh i was i'm a pretty good player and there was a high level game uh played in a colony up in the mountains in harris and they wanted me to come and play it was in a colony that was jewish but not religious and i would play paddleball there and one day a clearly non-religious woman came over to me are you the rabbi and the way she said it i was almost certain that she was gonna say i have no right to be here and i said you know a little yes so i have to thank you why we live right behind the paddleboard and we were seriously considering selling our unit because of all the obscenities that were heard on the court since you came they stopped completely so we owe you a debt of gratitude now but what do i tell i'm not their machia so i tell them look if you want me to play you can't talk this way because it might rub off on me and i can't afford to talk that way so they stopped talking that way you know so wherever you are you know when i play and i like to win and that's uh something about my i'm competitive i like to win so it's a big thing that oh the rabbi makes an honest call and i'm dressed this way so i i don't want to steer the conversation but can i tell you a story please absolutely are you familiar with a big philanthropist who is who was also a personality he used to be very much on you know you know am on the jm sure yeah so he used to come his name was lobo heim silver lobos that was the the team up in the mountains yes yes yes so he was a talmud of mine so unfortunately he got sick with the same machole as my first rabbits and a large on him and he was go for chemotherapy and uh i actually said said this on a husband for him uh he he usually wore a big lobo cap that said lobo which was the name of his team you know up in in the catskills but when he went to chemo he wore a black yarmulke and they asked him why and he said look you know the reality is now is he's in chemo and he realized that his challenge now people that take kimo loyolano uh should never be for us uh they are grumpy and they're irritable and he made it a like a passion to be nice to the nurses to the to the chemo nurses to the staff to the doctors to the other patients and he said i wanted to wear big black yarmulke and everybody should know that i'm a jew there should be an opportunity of kitten so the same way i i'm around with my kapota and my hat you know there's a jewish rabbi it's an opportunity to make a kitten now your other question which is a very profound question and that is how do we straddle the the tightrope of being a rabbi and yet a friend so the first thing is is that we can't be a body because you know there is even a sheet it's a much like us but there's even a sheet that you're not yahtzee don't worry you could give your other nice mothers but the idea is exactly what robert goldberg is pointing to there has to be a line between if we get too friendly then if i have to tell somebody that's not the way you're supposed to treat your wife right so then it's hard for me to do that so there has to be a little bit of a um tightrope to walk and and i don't think that that's changed over the years what has changed over the years i believe is first of all i think that today it's we've we've moved into a lot of specialties you can't expect your rav to know everything right in when i started to rub honest i didn't even know what anorexia was i never heard of it bulimia uh even today all of a sudden we have an entire world of gender problems we have an entire world of eating disorders we have an entire world of orthoderic and i i i don't know if uh were you a rather ready when the first jewish observers came out about no the problem was off to death right it was before my time i read them before your time yeah it's okay but i remember when that broke until that broke who heard of off the derrick you know so and today you can't expect every rov to specialize in everything it's just impossible uh you know we have we've moved into uh in the old in olden days there was something called the eshko you know somebody that is charcoal he was a cobra he was the sheikh he was the mayo he was that's over it's over it's impossible for everyone to specialize in everything there are there there are many marriages that are floundering because of intimacy issues but not every rough knows how to deal with that there are a lot a lot a lot a lot of rep on him that don't know how to deal with it so a rev especially if they're starting out now should know that you know you have to know how to delegate you have to know at least to recognize a problem i i tell people that if a rav doesn't know that sometimes when interviewing a case of shalom bias you have to speak to the couple separately because there are times that the wife is afraid to say something in front of the husband if you if you don't even know that basic fact then xiaomi is not your specialty right right so so let me pivot a little bit which is how do robunum stay humble right so if the rav is even dressing as a rav on a tennis court now obviously i'm not speaking about about you ravois everybody knows is a very humble person and practice is what he preaches as a source of inspiration but is there is there a fear that if rabonim feel that i'm more elevated i'm a man of god i dress that part i speak that part i i deserve or receive that covered that that gets to the head of rabbanum we know rabbanim who become balagueva they become arrogant and scandals scandals occur because they start to feel they're above the law above the rules and there are tragic scandals that then filter down and talk about pushing people off the dara when when somebody is exposed to whether in school or sure life communal life robunum religious personalities do they feel are arrogant or hypocritical it's an enormous turn-off sahara's within the rabbanus and i guess i'm just letting everyone listen in now as i as i get personal lessons how within the rabbanas the rabbanim who are dressing the part acting the part being treated with that covered maybe being even addressed in third person how do rob bonham stay humble and make sure that doesn't get to their head yeah so first of all this challenge is a challenge not just under abundance you know there's a famous saying remove the sutton from before us and from after us so the simple explanation what we say in marvel is remove the sun from in front of us that says uh don't do it don't don't get up for davening and there's something that's in back of us that's pushing us look at that look at that it's okay you only live once you know but another shot in bahasa something is remove the sun before we do the mitzvah and then the sudden after we do them it's only say ah i learned off yami every night so that's a challenge for everybody but you know they used to say in my day that if you think you're big just go to the shelf and open a state hemet and just look at one page what he has on one page and you'll see that you're very small so somebody like me you know it's very easy for me to stay small you know you know i don't know are you are you familiar with reviewing sure okay so he's he's a contemporary of mine we actually one summer our parents spent in a cook-a-lane in uh farakawe they shared a bungalow with the same kitchen and we played in the same playpen but so when i wrote my my fifth say for power benching which is all about benching so he wrote a scammer for it i asked him first come on so he writes in the stomach that he's not uh it's not his custom to write about somebody that's bigger than him so i put in a footnote my publisher didn't really want to publish it i insisted i put in a footnote i don't know if you ever saw a footnote that has come up but i put in a footnote that he wrote is safer on ribbus and whenever i learn hazard venezuela i get a headache so you know you know so you know you have to so when rabbis are around people that are so much greater than them that keeps us humble you know you you said you know my cousin rabasha weiss ravasha weiss can come into your your base of madrid and ask okay what are you learning and on the spot say an unshare on whatever you're learning so okay that keeps us humble the asha why rabosha weiss has a brother an older brother by the name of beryl weiss he's not known because he's not a big speaker but rabero is the son-in-law of the chef akaya of the free addicted clothes bigger ever he married the closer mcgregor's daughter the one who lost 11 children and her wife and the holocaust so close mcgregor had a uh when when he remarried and he had daughters he didn't ma marry rebbe's children he he had a uh tonight do you want to marry my daughter the first thing is you have to know shots palpate and he forehead i was i was you know evolved i was little then but he he if i heard my cousin robero and charles palpate so when you see that it's very easy to stay humble and also you know we we meet people like you who doesn't stop i mean whether it's behind the whether it's make arab shabbos friday out of shabbos whether it's 10 minutes swimming i mean and i was in your shul it's not like you're twiddling your thumbs and just sitting in your study you're you have a thriving show and also you're the man to go to if there's a problem in boca so you're very busy so people like you keep me humble also that's the opposite it's the opposite sixth staff yomi cycles so revoice talk to us about what that's like teaching six daf yomi cycles um does it still take enormous preparation by now is it less preparation is there a rhythm to which meseta which seder you like the most and you're heading into is it a relief for you this is the first cycle that you're only giving once a day not twice a day talk to us about the daf okay so first of all um i just finished yavamas and with the sigh of relief uh ivamus is very hard to teach it's hard to teach first of all because uh you know i'm sitting and i'm preparing and i went it over but i have to give it to people that are tired from work it's in the night and i have to make it not only easy but exciting to keep people awake um i i had the pleasure of knowing roof shim and schwab and this i share with you because uh you know it segues into what you spoke about humility i once by a good convention had to meet with him about something so i ate a breakfast with him and at that time i was giving my rather famous stuff yamiche amber park at that time i had over 250 people a night by the day that was when in borough park it was an english-speaking islam and there weren't uh 30 daffy armies you know i was like i and rabia kulhar were the only pretty and relatable cats all of a sudden were the only people giving daffy army in english and i cornered the market in the night and i had a huge island sort of schwab's first question to me as we sat down is how does a daf yeah magazine like you give to learn tirulishma so what he was really asking is you know you're speaking to 250 people you're setting up shot and everybody's going ah how do you learn tara lishma so i didn't know what to say so he said to me you can't but he says you're teaching hundreds of people who are tired their eyes are closing they're fighting the clock and they're learning terrorism and you're causing it that's your tyrol ishmael that's what rav schwab zakat sadik lavrov i'm i'm a champion of the deaf i think that if anybody really wants to in their lifetime finnish shas this is probably the only way to do it in other words if it says ashrae me shabbat khan fortunately somebody comes to the next world with the talmud in his hand to be able to learn shas and get through creases and and and nazir and misato's schwa you wouldn't learn you wouldn't say let's sit down and learn another you know i'm in the mood to learn creases you know or a rocking i'm i'm in the mood now you know to learn traefes the only i had a talmud hashemi should live and be well his name is dr eli piro he's a rather well-known gastroenterologist in in the uh new york area and uh he made up that he's going to start with me the death and he arranged here all his office hours all his hospital rounds all he was on the ethics committee in staten island university as for all the meetings around enough and he told me something that i had i printed in the magazine for the last year my shots and and and he told me rabbi weiss i made up my mind how many good seven and a half years do i have left that's what he said and he finished us he finished us i i i believe that people have to ask themselves that question how many good seven and a half years do i have left you don't have to start with brothers then contrary it's great if you end with the easy stuff you know you know you start any time we just started silver's cotton you know it's it's so about hashem i i my my main audience now i mean i have a zoom audience that people can join my share they want to come on on new york time tonight they could join me at 10 to 9 8 50 new york time you go to zoom.com and you put in the meeting id which is my cell phone 718-916-3100-718-916-3100 you can join our zoom community but also my daf is on tour anytime.com my daf is on color washing my daf is on facebook uh so you know i try to reach the people but i i know i'm hogging the microphone over here with you no no i'm listening i don't really want to do but i i also have a very strong opinion you know romeo shapiro and elena and some say the church of the rebbe they they introduced a very big novelty and the novelty was is that not many years ago uh shas was not an ambition of the average person you know there was the ayan yakuzu where they just weren't tanyakum they just learned homiletics they just learned the gareth and then there was the tillam sugar shule where they said tell him and then there was the mission and then there were those that learned the yeshiva receptors they ate ten yeshiva shimmers afters you know when the he had to mamish you know say listen we have to have to hand him if the base of ming dish is built from here who will know cochin so he he started to cuddle catch him and rat and otherwise who learned to touch him you know yeah and then came along romeo shapiro and he said no shas is for every jew i want to make a suggestion where he got this from you know in the hagarda after we drank already the four cups and we're all mellow we sing a song uh who knows one who knows two and in it we say who knows nine teach me you're there who knows nine kishaniya there i know nine there's nine months of pregnancy [Music] two of the lucas three three is the top there's four is the mamas five is the coming six is the mishna seven is the shabbos eight is demila and nine is nine months of nausea that's and it's not uniquely jewish i like the other stuff so he says it's referring to the gemaranida that during the nine months of pregnancy a child is taught kalathirakula and then a molecule strikes above the lip and we forget it but we taught it for a reason we're taught it because each of us has it in our potential mahmoud made sablaevish oh says ramayana shapiro you did it already everybody could do it and i can tell you ruby i had i have a yid you should live and be well he's very senior now his name is dr leslie abrams he's a dentist until 30 he he never went to yeshiva never went to yeshiva not elementary school not not high school not based medicine he started coming to my doctor and a half cycles ago came with an art scroll he had no idea what was going on no idea and slowly slowly but surely he started picking it up he kept at it not many people could do that but he kept at it and he finished shots with me two times you know and to me that's it's for every person i had another year uh his name was uh jack hertzger zakat lebron uh and uh he played paddle ball with me monday monday night i used to do my daffy me and burpa later i i would uh give the duff and a good mayagura in staten island from eight to nine nine o'clock we'd have marev and then i ran over to the gym in the young israel and played paddle ball and after the paddle board game i ran into the car to go give my second off and uh this i said jack george usco this george came to play palliable with us and the rest of the guys would be uh would be talking about the death because they were my dark guys what the eisenberg mark rosenblum so he got he got intrigued and he started coming to the deaf and he learned a thousand blot with me and then he got loyal into pancreatic cancer and passed away and the family bought an art school shots for my shule with a beautiful letter thank you for sending our father to my bow with a thousand block so so i believe that it's stuff yeah me it's not that you have to have a deaf hearing personality i believe that everybody can do it and i've seen it i've seen it from all walks of life uh it is a discipline but it's like any other discipline that after a while you just get used to it and and and and it's a his skybus that you have to learn every day um and it's robert goldberg i can tell you now i have a son one of my sons yaakov is finishing shas with suvis uh and he told me he grew up there was one blizzard uh when they were young where there was here you were probably living where where did you live before jersey i was probably living in new jersey growing up okay so okay so there was a big blizzard with three foot of snow and they came with a hummer to take me to the duff and my kid said tati is going out in this weather and it left an indelible impression upon them when you learn you know people tell me that their mom etc because they remember their father being marvelous every friday night and they fell asleep with their father being marvelous and so they remember they they never said you see your father going to the dive every night you know i i gave daffy me on the day at the kasana of all my children's weddings they had to work around the they had to work around the uh pictures around the duff so that which they did and they came in and they took pictures there but i gave daffy me bail i gave the morning i got married the first time i gave a daffy me in the morning that i got married and uh this time i gave the daff uh i don't remember how i did it this time i don't know why i don't remember but i didn't miss the death well after we'll have to come back to this in the in the shalom bias part how you manage show and bias while giving adaf at your own kids weddings uh but you mentioned hobbies you tennis paddle ball pickleball i understand you're also a ranked tennis player chess player that you have you know do you know that from people in the show i know that i know that because i do my research so i know that the rev can play up to eight games simultaneously can manage rated nationally as a chess player i'm not so raped let me tell you let me tell you what the story is i'm i'm i was recently a scholar residence in century village in deerfield so uh their last minion in the morning is at eight so i'm a night owl so i checked is there anything later so i found out that by by rabbi goldberg there's a nine o'clock minion so i came to your minion several times when i was there and it i remember it was a sunday morning and after davening i put on rabbina thompsonville i have a clear seat them that i i learn so i'm learning there and all of a sudden i hear a banging behind me and i said oh wait a second that sound there's only one sound like that that's a chess clock and i turn behind me and they're getting ready for a chess tournament in usual right and um so i get up and i i have to say that i haven't played across the board with a person for decades and i said to somebody would you like to play a quick speed game he said yes so i play a game and i won so another guy said i gotta play him so i i was lucky enough to win the second game too so then they said stay for this tournament stay for the tournament but i i had it i was on vacation and of course if you if you want your wife to go with you on speaking tours and i wouldn't go without because i don't travel without my wife so you have to make sure you leave time for your life so i had a breakfast date so i couldn't stay but i have to tell you i was very tempted to stay uh where did you learn where did you learn to play chess how did you get so good and what's what's your current ranking um i don't i haven't played in the tournament now for 30 years so i don't have any any current ranking and my ranking wasn't so high my my ranking 40 years ago was only 1651 which is nothing but i i don't know what my ranking would be today but but uh the the fact is is that when i was a little boy my uncle mutty miller taught me how to play chess and uh i like chess i i although my rebbe who was from russia russia was chess was a very big thing in russia the legend is is that ramosha stopped playing at eight he he played until he was eight and then he stopped playing at eight you know but rabiacov rivakov kaminetsky still picked up gains in camp or shraga into his 90s uh but uh if it would be up to me i would teach the chess and yeshivas um i know that's a very controversial statement uh but you know people will say okay we can understand ball let's kill it zombies but jazz bethel so while it's true if a boy is going to start perusing the chess books that i'm not instead of perusing the chess books uh learn navigable you know instead of perusing the jacks book peruse charlottesville chuba's you know but but the lessons of chess are invaluable are you a chess player at all i know how to play but you know how to play so i just the the idea that when you play chess if you know at all how to play you can't just think about your plan you have to get into the other person's mind and think about what they're thinking that discipline is invaluable for relationships you know i tell a husband a lot of times you have your view of shabbos did you ever think what your wife shabbos looks like you're out you go to shul she's stuck home and then you enjoy a good meal she's serving she's cleaning you take a shower sleep and she's up watching the kids and if you put together the picture of your wife shabbos it's a lot different than your sharks and chess teaches that chess teaches a person how to look ahead we know aiza khaka mariah has an island you know so what makes a good chess player is i can look almost instantaneously four moves ahead you know so it it teaches a person to be row ass annihilate to consider everything and it's a lot of there's a lot of disciplines that are very vital in chess it's a jewish game right rabbis yes one of the activities of nipple not but uh but yeah represented it will not play chess i've been this famous little baba trevor playing with his schwerer and and and and uh but uh look i i have to say i'm not such a mass made that i'm gonna hold off if i i don't get a chance to play it in my with my youth chess was a very big thing in the bungalow colonies there were chess games going on under the umbrella tables all the time uh now today you don't see chess people don't have the patience for it people don't uh i find speech as thrilling i i enjoy it immensely but i never have a chance to do it my famous story with chess that probably makes me a little famous with chess is that when i was a very little boy i went to the pineview hotel all of a sudden now it's a jail but the prime view hotel had a simul with the famous samuel rushevsky samuel chefsky was then ranked 10th in the world and he might have had a chance he beat fisher once he might have had a chance to be world champion but he wouldn't play on shots and he did it a 50 player simon he played 50 players at the same time and uh i i joined i was a little kid and he probably didn't notice me at all but i was the last person in he he he he won everybody else he's playing we had that and uh so at the end he didn't even finish on time but he told the organizers he's going to do this this this and win which was for sure true and uh he he was declared a winner of everybody now fast forward uh from that story 11 years uh i was 19 and a very old samuel rushevsky was together with me in a pesach program uh by mel chicken katz uh a peso program i was a scout residence he came to my shiren and he did a simultaneous and he comes over to me sweetly and he says rabbi vais are you gonna play so i said okay yes so he says to me with a twinkle you're gonna lose first and this wasn't like the pine view the pine view it was well advertised here was a bunch of people with all broken sets and i don't think there was even one person there that really knew how to play and i played a very conservative opening which it should have been very hard for him to win me fast and there's little kids there he didn't let anybody lose until he creamed me don't forget it was really something you know he remembered he remembered those years later yeah isn't that amazing isn't that amazing here i was a little kid i remember but that he remembered amazing so we don't have much time left we're so grateful for the rob's time i want to segue to the last topic we could speak for hours and hours and i'm here to show we will but really it's a perfect segue from the chess and the anticipation and relationships shalom bias you've spoken about you've written about someone of an expertise in and even in in your own personal life and you share this and i say this only with your permission having lost your first rabbits and remarrying and uh barak hashem a thriving second marriage i i say that because i sat next to you and your wife on a plane for 12 hours territorial so not that i was watching and listening but you could tell you could tell about a healthy marriage on a long long plane ride through the night so and i know also that all of your years in staten island almost four decades such a success in in being able to heal marriages and shalom bias if you have to close us out with some lessons for those who are watching and listening for those who are not yet married need to know what's most important those who have good marriages want to make them great and those who are struggling marriages what are the top most important tips for shalom bias okay so first of all uh we're talking like from rav to rob a rav must radiate shoulder bias you know it's anything that we do it's not our relationship with our spouse is very important the kahillah is watching and they're learning you know so i i take every opportunity to demonstrate i i will not be loath to say i can't do this because i am doing something with my wife let them hear it no matter how busy you are uh it should be that way and that's number one number two is that the reason why i'm so passionate about shaumbra is they asked the great prime vital who was the star talmud of their resolve how can you tell the character of a person and you would think the uh the arizona by reading his palm right looking at his forehead by looking at his silva he said see how he treats his wife see how she treats her husband that's the kaleidoscope of all our medias our our our tolerance our curing our temperament everything our way we handle our money uh our our softness of tone so first of all we should know that the difference between a humdrum marriage and a special magical marriage has a lot to do with the mouth when we say ko khas and the kurukawa kalkasama kokawa is a tenderness i tell people you go under the cooper you're making a statement that from now on my nicest speech is going to be to you and that really makes a difference you know by people it's a lot of times the opposite they pick up the phone in the office hello oh it's you i told you not to call now i'm busy that's the opposite of what we need to do um recently i was in massachusetts in rackling new jersey for a couple and i told them i went into their rooms beforehand uh because i didn't speak under the cup they didn't have that they needed room for the the symphony but uh the the i went in but by each of them and i told them that from now on you're making a commitment to make the other the most important person in the world and i tell people and this you could put on your refrigerators on your desks the best way to get something is to give it you want affection be affectionate you want time well when your spouse needs you clear the slate for them you know in the in the i don't know about government did you ever read under a cup of sparty server all russia davos yes i've been handed one i tell people if you have never read it and they ask you tell them you have to go to their bathroom that's good advice but anyway the in the surviving super it's i will smile i would love to put in an auxiliary because if you want smiles smile true story i had somebody in my uh shul who came to me one day very upset good guy very upset said i'll make up a name ruby uncle why are you upset ugh i come into the into the house and my wife is laughing on the phone so i said so she never laughs with me it really bothers me never laughs so he said yanku do you know how to laugh forget about that do you know how to giggle i've never heard you giggle if you're not gonna laugh your wife is not gonna laugh her friends are laughing so she laughs you want something you have to give it that's the that's the recipe in a nutshell you know you you you you want patience you got to be patient you you want somebody to be there for you and then none of this garbage do i have to go with my wife to the doctor for the scan what do you mean your wife is doing something which might change your whole life and you want to be a notion and then you want her to be there for you so it's past the mirror that we hold the stats of the mirror of who we are yeah yeah right that's right uh my command my point of view upon him came i always tell people view it as a mirror yeah you can't say ugh that's what i look like what a stupid mirror amir doesn't lie no no and the spouse doesn't lie fantastic advice really phenomenal advice i want to thank you for your time there's so much more we'll have to continue this conversation online and offline thank you for all that you're doing continue to share hashem's tour in such an inspiring way and continue to win on and off the court share that i share that competitiveness i like that drive i think there's nothing uh it's a good thing that they they say over from rabbi weinberg why was it robert weinberger robert weinberger there was shiva of mary's throne right revolver jacob wahmberg the one he came right after a rudiment right right right so they say over this is a i mean again i didn't hear it directly from him but this is what they say that he was once walking and he saw the balkan playing baseball and the rebbe told them look how nice they're not they're not fighting they're they're getting along he said from such playing you don't become a gobbler i don't see the the brand the brand the competitiveness so you know competitiveness is is a good thing it's good possibly you probably shouldn't be too competitive when you play with your wife but other than that it's a good thing thank you for your time we really really appreciate it we look forward to continuing the campaign goldberg you should keep up the good work michelle we are back fantastic conversation with the great the one and only of motion mayor wise thoughts impressions takeaways i think the first thing is i always have to remind myself that just because they have a long beard and look a certain way like a lot of people that are yes even as especially rabbis are more tuned than we think they know what's going on they know what's going on in the world they know what people are experiencing and it's so refreshing any time we see again when you have a guest like that uh to see how tuned in he is and how much he just gets it you knew that chess master he was referring to samuel rushevsky uh i remember he i don't know if he lived the months he was i think he did because i i was 10 years old and i remember hearing about him he was one of the it's hard to imagine you know young people like us but back in the day people actually cared about chess i remember like when the bobby fischer uh there's a movie about uh that wasn't about bobby fisher's about like chess and it's called searching for rob fisher and people like actually cared a lot about chess like the way we watch sports like people watch chess and like took it it's like the front page of new york times like bobby fischer playing anyway so sam rashefsky was like a big deal and i just i i just knew there was this chess master that was around once and he actually passed away uh at an old age um in shul died on a multi shabbos in uh in muncie side that name did ring a bell but it's funny to see let's say you see like the gleaming is that when he talks about chess yes he got excited actually i was gonna say that was my takeaway from the the conversation you know ramosha mayor weiss if you just read his many books or his thousands of lectures or six cycles of daffy me certainly if you see his appearance right i have a little beard envy i love that beard but if you look at his appearance it's very uh looks like a rav carries himself as a rev you have a certain impression but then he's referencing top gun and netflix then he's talking about how viciously competitive he is on the court it happens to be i know that when he was in staten island he would play tennis where the u.s opens played because that was the level of competition he was looking for with his super i mean he couldn't look more his suit pants and sneakers and white button down shirt so on the one hand you know he's this quintessential rov this paradigm this this impression that's how he presents on the other hand he has this really contagious smile and laugh and giddiness and joy for life and i found that fascinating almost dichotomy really enigma about him that on the one hand he's every time i've seen him give a shirt he he streams all the shiram on facebook he's wearing his hat and his his frock his becca every shirt he gives his hat is on first thing i can't wait take my hat off after davening his hat is out of that impression on the other he's not apologetic we didn't get into this in the conversation he's not apologetic to use and utilize every tool and technology and platform he can to reach the people where they are and i thought that was really interesting about him i like that last story too about uh rewind brings that silence a nice uh homage to her by brody who's not here uh on the show tonight uh get a narrative pop in there and actually today was rav ruderman's yard site but that story about rav weinberg and like you know i forgot the yiddish yeah i can't i don't speak the idiot but that you just freeze about uh from there you can't uh you're not gonna be it reminded me do you remember on the flying this year when rabbi finer told us about when he was playing when he was a staff member maura shah and the coach of the morisha staff team saw him playing a one-on-one game and he was kind of just taking it easy he said you're being bench next game why because if you're not taking it seriously in a one-on-one match then you're gonna bring that lack of seriousness competitiveness right to a game it is obviously he brought it to a rookie's point about always being serious in our learning and that there's no that there's no such thing as like just taking it easy like you have to you know give it give your give your all every time out it was just like those stories like that i didn't relate to her identify with the competitiveness at all of course that's not me the notion that you can channel the competitiveness in a good way and that listen if you're not going to be competitive and if you're not trying to be the best and win then you're with then maybe you're wasting your time maybe you're not even entitled to be doing it with medos with with uh of course proper behavior and so on and so forth but i thought that was uh something which was interesting you recently traveled for what is known in the camp world as visiting day yeah i'm a jungerman this is my first ever visit today uh first ever well my older son surely goes to a camp they don't have visiting day um so and he's been on campus a number of years so we sent our son yosef who's going into fifth grade to camp kaylee and that camp kelly has a visit they know we can get into should a four-week camp even have a busy day we're talking about i i think certainly a seven eight week camp that's you know that makes sense but for four weeks and there's no question i was gonna go i mean it's his first summer away plus it was an amazing experience and kaylee is like okay can we be honest you did not go to see yo safe let's be honest for a moment it was not visiting day for yose if it was visiting day for yemen and all the people that he worships idolizes listens to learns from and can take pictures with okay so it was a great hawk uh cam kaley i so can't get the director of ken kelly's right by ellie brazil and robin lee brazil was my counselor on campus sora 27 years ago in 1995. so uh you know ellie brazil is a camp life for his father was the director of asura and he now runs camp kaley and i kind of see it i don't know if it's intended this way but kind of like a a legacy of the messor of my youth what i went to so there's some staff members that were on staff in the soror when i was there or above him and and so like kind of the feel of it but like i don't know he just he just took it up he just kicks it up a notch and everything is they were so welcoming it's such a wonderful talk with the inclusion and who the kayleighs were harvey kaley zaikovanka was i know you have a relationship with glory kaley and what they how much they give and what and what they stand for what they stood for so it's it's uh it's a wonderful place and i was just blown away but yeah i definitely went for yosef but i also like there at the roster giving adoption i believe it's going to be 10 minutes i mean who wouldn't want to spend the day where you you're seeing your kid you're the everything's just so exciting it's fun to be there and people are like is it fair to say that is it fair to say that your wife told you while you were on the way don't forget to visit yosef is that fair to say did you know that she told me that you're just guessing they told me that she said several times like her biggest fear is that i was going to go basically like you know just walk around the cabin including everything by the way and uh you're making family or by storch uh jaffa storch is the director of programming uh so the storches are all there and then it's just it's just fun it's it's a fun way i went for years and it is a fun place and you do see a lot of uh people you know um every guy who grew up yeshiva she's wearing a colored polo shirt every guy from wearing a white button-down shirt is the classic stereotype about camp kaley visiting day and other camps like it they do a very nice job and it is a beautiful thing the integration of campers special needs and non-special needs all together you don't uh see the difference or it's not it's not highlighted and it's really very very beautiful thing i'm not a huge visiting day fan myself in general um not because i i don't love my children or want to visit them or spend time with them but um you know again not speaking about myself but it has been said that visiting day um is a lot of can we go out of the camp can we do something fun don't leave i'm angry like it doesn't necessarily accomplish its goal um as much as it's intended to be but my bigger my bigger beef with it is that like so much else it's not designed for anyone who doesn't live in the tri-state area so listen david live in the tri-state area is in itself a form of torture just having to drive there get stuck in the traffic coming back from there but if you don't and you live let's say in florida you have to take the 6am flight land after sleeping for two hours three hours rent a car at a huge expense the flight the rent a car drive several hours to that camp get there probably later than the others because of the need to have have flown in spend the time at the extent of that exhausting day um a lot for the traffic back to be able to return the car get to an airport take that flight back and get back so late that you have no sleep over the following night either if you're going to work that next morning so again i'm not blaming anybody and the camps are are wonderful but it's not necessarily designed for somebody who's not from that area that's true for the campers as well right the cost of camp doesn't include if you have to pay for flights the cost of the of the luggage for camp doesn't include if you have to transport that luggage with luggage fees on on flights and that's true not only for for camp for yeshiva for school for college there's a lot that could i think improve in its at least even if it doesn't change any technical things but at least um concierge attitude towards those who aren't local to see what they could do to make it easier or acknowledge those additional costs yeah i mean i i had a little different i was a little um i'm lucky enough to have parents that are in muncie so i was able to go to muncie for shabbat spence there and then kaylee's just about an hour from there so i didn't have to rent the car i went with my parents who uh i was so glad they came along with me by the way another difference between you and me um is that when i'm killing nobody cares like i'm not a celebrity they're like like you like people coming over to you oh wow like nobody like i'm just seeing either friends or people i know and i'm i'm i'm you know i'm nobody so when you're there it's very different so i'm like like you may have like this little sense of like oh if i go like people are going to come up to me or talk to them i'm not nobody too yeah it's not like that it's not like that and seeing our children seeing our children makes it all worth it which is yeah it's weird like to be at this stage where your other individual like i now um i'll tell you this uh you're an adult you're an adult i know but i was in the bunk i get in the bunk with yo safe and like so to a parent's parents walk in and one of the mothers goes right for the bed and changes the sheets first thing she does like shawn is like did you do that i'm like no that's the boys month of camp the uh mothers are coming in to do that so uh sitter snippets you know that every day i give a snippet six minute set of snippets i think we've done 370 something of them at this point started from ani the first words out of my mouth and we are almost up to galileo's show we're about to start the amid the shimon sre which i'm really excited about and i get i get partial credit for this one because i was telling you for a while that you should be giving ian fila i didn't tell you in six minute chunks but i was like pushing you for a while like you should do slang in the sitter and now here we are so i'll take a little bit i appreciate that the biggest beneficiary is me the preparation i put in it's changed my daughter in my understanding my comprehension i'm embarrassed and ashamed to tell you i can't tell you how many parts of davening halal lucas in particular i still now will see something and be like what does that even mean and then i say i taught that i go back to my notes and i'm like i learned that up i taught that i shared that and it's so easily elusive to be able to remember the parts that don't come as easily as naturally so i'm really excited the amida amida is the core of the crux the most central part as its name suggests it's the only part of david that we're actually standing in front of god in conversation with god and i'm gonna be trying to to push it out and encourage others you can sign up for whatsapp groups where the six minutes pushed right into your whatsapp group or you can listen to a podcast player so this is a shameless plug for sitter snippets but i will ask you favorite favorite bracha or line claws what in the army that jumps out at you which words do you always find you're able to hone in on when you say so that's a good question i think back to a few years ago maybe more than years ago rev mendel blockman from caribbean was spending shabbos here and we had a tish at the we had a local tish it was one of those classic black and friday nights who just spoke for hours and hours it was amazing and at one point he was talking about i forgot the language you could help me with the mission impaired elvis i thought that we have to be about our opportunity yeah and and so he connected it then that's to the words of schweinsteiger we talked about scala brockman with razon and then it would say it was so sometimes if i'm in a good place to focus i try to think about what that means right zone and that i have my red zone i know hashem has his root zone and at some point i have to be involved in my russo to his and that that so sometimes i just focus uh think about that word and what that means and what and what what's going on in my life and well sometimes when i wrote someone seems to be different from myself and i'm hoping that we end up on uh with the same right zone and then the other one is uh a credit friend of mine from here eton austin who said i don't know what we quoted but in modem the era of avocados haram so obviously literally evening morning afternoon but that also can uh on another level mean that we're still thankful when it's light out when things are good sorry i am when it's late afternoon and cloudy and maybe you know some dusk or an era of when things aren't so good and it's dark and we send so many stars hashem is a hester pattern in all those cases we still say you know we still say modem right beautiful i like both but i have to interrupt before i enter to post this look at that look at that youtube comment wow there are so many things about this youtube comment first of all our mother-in-law whom we love thank you so much mom the fact that she's watching the fact that she's commenting on youtube and the fact that she's proud of us amazing we love it thanks mom we love you too we're proud of you too and happy birthday abba said that's what you need in order to be able to reach longevity and health um i have different sentences that jump out as you were saying i think whatever's going on in your life different moments different times different points certainly there's someone you love you think about rafael i know whatever i'm doing right now these months as we're still dabbing hard esther tahila basariatsi pora um we're we're we're diving so hard for sd moscowitz and joined the one-on-one campaign again big push a minute of daily giving a dollar daily giving him a daily learning um so refaino for me it has not been hard to concentrate even if i'm lost in every other bracha but when there's someone you know and love and and you think about um and there are other moments and other things that um you know you think about depending on what's going on so for example last week i was thinking about the sentence you know sometimes you're thinking there there are people who have some some plan they have it in for you they're trying to hurt you some of the ugly underbelly of social media when people can unfairly attack you and be missing facts or make assumptions or be totally ignorant and choose to nonetheless be attacking in a really painful way so there are times in robonus i was speaking to another public personality uh this week who said he regularly thinks about that sentence in davoning that's what jumps out at him but i would say much more inspiring than um that sense what jumps out at me is um the idea that there are those righteous people who are always feeling connected to you hashem let my portion be with them let me be among them and let me not be embarrassed or ashamed let me be a proud jew a faithful jew and let me never be embarrassed or ashamed for that so i think you know depending on what's going on in life we all different different words jump off the page and it's okay like stop and reflect and meditate and lean into those words whatever's speaking to you jumping off that page for you that day i'm excited to to start the immediate with you i'm excited that uh you know that this is um you know there's been a lot between the beginning and now and it's like it's like now it's like i don't say it's the climax because there's still a lot more even after that but this is it's significant to like really get into the amiibo so we say three times a day something on shop sport time so to really get into that and explore and learn and just help hopefully help help everybody nothing better uh yeah and the focus the emphasis is what i try to share because it's what speaks to me um you know i love the beautiful interpretations but it's not fancy highfalutin interpretations not trying to impress anybody with sources it's all relevant it's real and and the goal here is not only to talk about the amidah in the six minutes a day but by by focusing on the amidah really actually getting to a better place in a relationship altogether with god what does it mean who is he who are we what does it mean to feel praise why are we asking him how do we express that gratitude if you want to sign up you can join the what's app group it's pushed into the what's app group you can listen on a podcast everybody from growing.org sitter with 2ds as my dd you are quick fact check it's a little longer than 6 minutes these days uh not today first of all okay okay since you're calling me out i will say the following i will say the following you maybe did give me the original idea to focus on ian's villa first of all every rabbi will tell you they're looking for something to say between them are ventual i did the the um i did raverstein i did prakam of tanakh i did mishnays i did the whole sacred field kill because i was always looking and then i realized this is the most meaningful i mean we're there to daven so you've just said you're about to say marv if there's a little something that can can ignite or light something up it's it's really again for me and other people can listen that's why i started it um why did i call it six minute so our dear friend rabbi arya liberates has a 10 minute halacha i don't know if everyone's made a spreadsheet if anyone in the world would have it be you to figure out on average how long is the 10 minute i love rabbi leibowitz the topics he's tackling cannot be tackled in 10 minutes i'm not sure if there's ever been a 10 minute halacha or won the most last recent 10 minute so i will say that i'm liberal in my definition of six minutes six minutes for me is not the six minute mark it's six minutes and 59 seconds as long as the first number is six i feel like i'm at six minutes now i get into the seven rarely i hit an eight um there are enough people actual who start giving me really ugly looks but i try to end it at a six so 659 to me is still a six minute sitter snippet okay well we'll stick with that yeah you know it's funny because you know the this this whole fact-checking thing that we're talking about like i remember you know i i don't you talk about like you said some nice things at the start of the show about me moving here and you know all the nice you know the nice things that i do but i started calling you out like you know when i would say that that story that you told that you opened that was you know had people like in tears like sorry about it stock probe and playing with three strings i don't think that's true let me look that up let me look into that oh it turns out it's not true like i i don't i don't you know it's not but it could have happened and they didn't say it about me and you okay but like i i will say i think i think since i've since i've started checking you on these you've gotten more like especially with quotes right like the quotes that used to just assume that okay if i you know if someone on the internet says that it's mark twain i guess it's mark twain but like now it's like oh uh a quote of anonymous attribution or a quote of you know uh mysterious origin yeah maybe we'll be a little stricter today but but i still if if it's a great quote or story i'll still tell it but maybe i'll say you know maybe it's apocryphal but they tell the following story or the following story so i don't say the following happened he said the following story is said you know what i just found out uh like a year ago there's a story i think we all kind of heard growing up about where the base of mcdosh was built about two brothers who you know one brother had a big family no do you know the story tell me about one brother had a big family one brother i had no family and they would stay and then one and they would uh each give the other one more so apparently i looked into this not not enough but apparently there's no actual jewish source for this like it's or at least not it's supposedly gemara there's no gemara supposedly madrid now you are the rabbi i am the you know i'm definitely the arts here so you could correct me if i'm wrong i don't know that i've ever again i looked into this a little bit but there might not actually be a real authentic old source for this and this is where the spot in other words when you're gonna there are there's several examples of that we have that we have that there's a story that makes the rounds all the time about they say in the name they say that right when i was young i thought i could change the world and i got a little tried to change um my country tried to change my community tried to change my family then i realized i have to change myself if i change myself i could change my family right they tell that story apparently it's on the tombstone of the archbishop of canterbury or something it's not really a jewish origin so there are a lot of stories like that i once used the expression to dr professor lawrence schiffman i used the expression a navi biro which means there's no profit in his community right you reflect on you know how many scholars and residents that we pay thousands of dollars to bring to boca and we packed the house with hundreds of people and they gave a weekly share in their community that four people come to because when someone lives in the community in that city you take them for granted ain't nobody be hero to which dr shuffman said to me you do know that that comes from the new testament which i did not so which i did not so we have all kinds of uh statements like that that have made their way in i think yeah some of these we just take for granted because we heard it and we're like you know if you hear it enough times then and and by the way like you you look this stuff up and there are big people who quote this as fact without because they just heard it and it's you hear enough times it just becomes part of our lore for lack of a better word and it's not necessarily really part of it and it's just you know again you've got to make the claim that this is the spotlight it's possible the fact checker is being fact-checked by the father of the fact who tells us that is it possible to zohar i'm thinking or beridinski quoted a zohar i mean if there's anyone who knows harvard so i mean maybe this might be my happiest moment of all time but the father of the fact checker is fact checking the fact checker about a fact check that he's trying to say uh you're ready i do want to thank ellie lassen i love ellie lassen a 12-minute step up is really a six-minute sniffer yeah but that doesn't work when you're when you're in the room it doesn't it's true you cannot turn up the speed while it's live while it is live that is fair to say benjamin thank you for joining me as the surprise coast tonight oh are we are we done already are we not going to talk about if they're eating locusts because that was that that's the highlight of the week that is the highlight of the week the video i sent you that video i saw the video i saw one before you sent it it was making the rounds all over i love first of all that he's like on his way to learn he was interrupted yeah the second he chewed it he put his head back in the gemara and he was like sure delicious i'll eat that he made the barakah dropped it now by the way from twitter is lit up with the question yes did he not eat another one because he wanted to clean up the floor because he felt whichever you make the brach on is the one that you should eat not a different one you didn't make the broke on what was the motivation we'll have to get to behind the bema behind the sock of wire of chakra eight the locust that he dropped first on the would you eat the locust no no it's disgusting my take of when he picked it up off the floor was there's some things that if they go on the floor it's not going to i mean it was nasty before it hit the floor it can't get more nasty because it hit the floor so i was okay what is the like what's the weirdest thing like have you ever been served something like not locust but something like that's just really out there like um what's the craziest thing i've eaten yeah would dare you to eat i'm i'm not that kind of guy you know my daughter i won't say which one a tara like when she was younger would eat the eyeball of the fish on rosh hashanah we all knew that was a big part of the we we have both nights of beautiful roshana seder my wife puts out amazing like little seder plate for everyone with each of the semanam we go through it it's a lot of fun it's beautiful and uh so what one of my children would eat the eyeball of the fish um but that's not me i'm not uh it sounds like uh there was i remember seeing that video years ago when it went uh it's more like one of these uh ravelli stefanski things that he i think he pretended to eat like a fish blood or something or like there's it was one of these things that he does no it was a fish one right it was fish blood right but it was fake he pretended it was real right but he shared that story by the way he shared that story on yeah i'm behind the bema i was going to say you know a few weeks ago you said something about how um the lakewood aderiya torah of how they fill the room and they packed the room and say what you want rebellious to 50 600 people at a scene of almost new york 1600 people i mean we know people that are in that are just you know this show robby brodie people that are just so into it and it's like he's got something going there oh i was just reminded by someone i'm related to that that same daughter by the way who used to enjoy the eyeball of the fish i came home several months ago they were visiting and she said abba check out this jelly bean it's delicious i made a shock i ate the jelly bean thinking i was putting a delicious jelly bean in my mouth it turned out it turns out there's a jelly belly game where you have disgusting tasting so this jelly bean was made from or synthetic version of like one of the spiciest substances on earth my mouth was beyond on fire i basically drank a gallon of milk which if you know me is not a simple commitment to me right the pain the pain of the spiciness and sharpness so you know it's you're forbidden to take revenge revenge is forbidden in judaism um but uh let's just say we have not forgotten that yet so i think that game is called bean boozled and i'm pretty sure that there was a habura given uh after the ash convenient several years ago by dr evan landau on whether i i think the khabar was i don't want to get this wrong i think it was about if you're playing bean boozled because if you're making a bracha but the thing you might eat is disgusting right um i think i think there was some candy giveaway at the uh at the kabura i was out of town it was uh we had a family simcla up north that you may or may not have attended i forgot what i don't know i think that was our wives who are texting on the side and watching the hours go on we're gonna hit the like brs staff um marathon version are are are texting this is why at family semicolons the two of us are never allowed to be seated next to each other true story fact checker true it's it's true and yeah it's really regular frankly it's frankly shocking and uh it's it's insulting that that you know god forbid we should enjoy each other's company and spend time together what would make you prouder than your husbands brothers in law wanting to be near each other it's it's insulting it's just insulting is the figure still listening what do you think it's pretty late don't forget i mean listen tomorrow what would you like to wrap it up with i don't know you know what i'm thinking about how am i going to record the opening to this it's going to be weird like a whole meta like opening here like robert goldberg is joined by honestly that's weird joined by yours truly yours truly well we welcome your comments if people want to weigh in on the oxford comma we do have a few people weigh in okay okay avi obviously i vote for the oxford comma and two spaces after a period so that's gave one to each of us uh we got a ellie lassen two spaces after periods and the last comma so that's interesting we're getting we're getting several one and one okay let me give you let me give you a scenario this this is this is the check this is to to for the for the purposes of voice the guest checkmate here okay you're writing your first book and in the acknowledgements you write the following sentence i'd like to thank my parents three bonus shalom and elon musk okay where are you putting the commas i like to think so if you don't use an oxford comma it would be i'd like to thank my parents comma three bonus only known musk which sounds like you know we're one second you're making an assumption you're choosing to read it that way because you say the comma's not there so i read the last two things together joined by these that's how it works yes the argument of my position is that you're choosing to read it that way but that's not the only way to read it when you see it presented as a list you read it as a list with the end only separating the last thing from everything that comes before or adding to it but not joining the last two things together okay but you know how you eliminate that you could eliminate that confusion entirely by just putting the the comma between item two and three and you never and there's never any doubt it's so simple um just think about that sentence i'd like to thank my parents they're bonus shalom and elon musk and then like wait a minute that doesn't make any sense my parents don't you have to put the the second comma in there and i don't have the checkmate for one space after period but it's fairly obvious uh this is just in from a fact-checker too that video that we're referencing of mori varabi apparently has been taken down from the internet apparently uh the original nothing gets taken down from the internet and in fact the fact checker can help you find things that ostensibly have been taken down but you want to be able to research for your uh for your research purposes uh closing thoughts benjamin what would you like to share about redlining editing fact checking uh your your illustrious historic historical career in broadcasting which has been revived tonight on behind the bema yeah i mean i was always that kid some kids grow up thinking they're gonna be like they watch a sports game like i'm gonna be the guy you know pitching or hitting the home run or you know scoring the game when you touchdown i was like i'm gonna be the guy announcing so like that was no offense but i've seen you play sports so i understand do you should we talk about who's winning in our ping pong series uh one second that this version of the pink spinning series depends how far back you go no it doesn't either way it's okay if you talk about tennis it's an advantage you if we talk about ping pong it's me basketball uh what else oh the pitching uh in any case you decided you're gonna be a broadcaster yeah yeah um and as you as uh you can tell things worked out differently i but i never kind of gave it up i heard you talk about this earlier i did broadcast for the you max uh i did have an internship at wfa i made some fun connections there and uh so i always harbored that dream and anytime i get to even get a slice of it whether it's you know doing the intro for behind lima or things of that nature i i enjoy the chance to pretend like i had this alternate life where i was a broadcaster things of that nature for sure absolutely well we appreciate it i want to give a bracha as we close that every rabbi community leader should have a benjamin who helps them uh behind the scenes not that it has to be tonight you're ahead of the scenes um but uh really a tremendous asset and i thank you for all that you do for our community and uh and for me you certainly um enrich my life enormously so big thank you so much it's a pleasure and it's this list and it's a real honor to be uh to to help you um do the amazing things that you do i appreciate that so again a very happy 70th birthday to our father-in-law dr robert brookstein many more in good health belian hara uh please sign up for the 101 campaign dollar day of stukka through daily giving dr donath the minute a day of torah learning sign up appears online dot org one and one sitter snippets amida coming up what's your favorite share with us what you believe about grammar share with us what you feel is your favorite sentence in the amidah share with us what your secrets to a healthy marriage of motion mayor weiss our wives are texting right now that we are ignoring him as we do not end this episode um but what is your secret to a long and healthy marriage we're grateful thanks for joining us until next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy