Bonus Episode: Behind the Bima - Roundup #2

[Music] from boca raton florida rabbi's ephraim 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 hello everyone don't worry this will be the last week in which i will introduce our roundup here is a roundup of the second 30 episodes of behind the bema enjoy in that meeting of the rabbanim one of the rabbanum suggested that we should print out we should print out tahilam sheets with the appropriate chapters of tehran that we're going to say the suggestion had been tell everybody to bring their own book of tehillim you know so somebody said you know like it's difficult people have different additions you know you're going to flip through not everybody can manage with that you know maybe we should just print that on a piece of paper all the we do this by the way for those uh you know we have a connection to why you we do this in you all the time every monday and thursday when we have to say taylor we print it out so if david stopped and kind of looked quizzically like he couldn't understand why somebody would say that he said i i don't understand we're trying to increase merits for the people in eretz cicero you're going to generate hundreds of pages of sheamus which i'm just going to be disposed of i i don't understand why would she do that for ripped off there was no there was no window dressing you know this is an evening we're getting together to to get hussom to get married as well to davana their parents as well and and anything that detracts from that is just negative people did lose someone they felt they were related to even though they weren't or they saw in you know a few times but felt like they were literally close family he had the ability to reach out to to so many people in so many ways and mean so many different subject matters and so it was always something that he had to say that someone would connect to it was always you know one of the things that for me rabbi sacks connected to me in so many ways not just personally but as a as a good guy i feel good you know that generation i feel like he literally managed to reach everyone you know that very very rare ability to do that that's true he called a thousand times and i called him afterwards and i said i told you not to call me friday night unless there was an emergency and i knew it wasn't an emergency because she didn't call the office and they didn't fax me a note saying he's just been arrested or he's just been shot i don't know what the emergency could be but that didn't happen and yet my phone rang so i'm sorry i didn't answer the phone and he said don't be sorry man he says i just won i won ten thousand dollars because i bet my guys that you would not pick up the phone you know i've always prided myself on on doing my job well and trying to have a set of ethics as a criminal defense lawyer that i think are discernible and very important and once you lose your credibility as a criminal defense lawyer uh you're really worthless uh and not really worth the as a lawyer and i think once you compromise uh yourself um then you know people don't come to you and don't call you the greatest danger to the jewish people are not external enemies or natural disasters or wars is apathy indifference and ignorance those were the challenges throughout our history we did not overcome we were doomed and today we see a generation that is largely ignorant they're even ignorant they don't know what the soviet jury movement is the latest polls studies show that young people today don't know what auschwitz was what the holocaust was i mean it is only 80 years and some of the latest survivors are still alive and yet we see the holocaust revisionism etc so education is the most important thing that we start with and the changes that we've studied in the studies we've done of young people it's not that they turn so much against they turn towards indifference but indifference for us is a loss if somebody's indifferent in an election they just discount themselves they don't go for against they're just they're just not part of the equation but that's not true when it comes to support for israel on the other fights that we are engaged in part of our problem is our success we saved syrian jews we saved ethiopian jews we saved russian jews and those were causes that could mobilize people it was pure uh i mean for many m i i told often russian jews they say more of our kids than we did of theirs that so many young people came back to the community were motivated by the examples and by the the the effort and that is why i am trying now and have been pushing for years and finally seeing results to create a movement again not an organization not where everybody's name is and who's you know a letterhead it's going to be on but a movement against anti against jew hatred i just want to give people that feeling that i felt my whole life the feeling that you know whatever you're going through there's always a you're always where you're supposed to be and your bedroom is with you and i just had a friend just text me today i was releasing my trailer for the upcoming hanukkah film and a guy said you know it's so cool to see so many years later that despite what you've been through you're you know you're doing this and i i i kept saying to them it's not despite it's because you know these are these challenges these difficulties or whatever we go through that's what makes us into who we are that's what makes i think that's what makes somebody successful in today's day and age the fact that you're relatable the fact that you share the same interests then when you come and teach them gomorrah teach them mitzvos you teach them whatever they say you know here's a guy who i can relate to i can connect to let me hear what he has to say you know i met with with the a very active lady uh that came over to me and she said listen we are very we are the people who are working in outreach very bothered and it's hard for us to explain to people the fact that a karate a mainstream heredity publication is really eliminating uh um women and i i told her listen this is the first time i hear an argument that really makes me feel that we need to do something about it because as long as people are coming to me and said listen we will boycott there is some some facebook group or trying all the opposite i was got offer that they were trying to bring together five thousand people to sign subscribers of mishpochah if bishop will start to put pictures of women so i said as long as this is a business decision it's very easy but we're not just about business here we're talking about issues if someone will present the haredi voice of the fellaini jury as to face this challenge and to try to understand how this is affecting or creating an image about kharadi people so i believe that the almighty gave me incredible gifts uh in my second grade report card my mother called me off she says i'm sending you your second grade report card i go why are you sending me my second first of all could she be jewish she still has my second grade report card so i said why are you sending me my second grade report card she goes when you get it open it and call me you'll see all right so i get it i open it up my second grade report card says lori likes to get up in front of the class and enthrall them with her stories okay it could have been like a review of my last talk in l.a so so what did i learn from this like hashem gives you gifts what you do with those gifts that's your bachelor that's your free will i could be using it to sell you amway products swamp land in florida or i could be using it to share the almighty's wisdom the year is 1990 i was born i think it's it's you know it's been a long time coming no there's no overnight success it's it's really something that i never looked at as a job or a business and i think my bubby will cringe when i say that because she thinks i'm allergic to money i think it's it's not the fueling it's not the it's not the momentum that keeps me going to show up every day and to spread the message of positivity and light and to infuse that with my background and with with the tara that i know and and the and the wisdom that i pick up from incredible teachers and so um growing up i suppose and i did grow up in that in that philosophy and in that home which is was always so open and warm i've always been infused and taught you know obviously straw every you know doesn't matter what kind of titles people have and how long their beard is and what does a jew look like i don't know i just you know it it's just all about showing up and just sharing that one missile in the moment it's incredibly important um you know to me it makes all the difference you um you you need to stay positive and have that positive attitude and and that's really what gets you through it uh you know having uh family and friends and community uh and knowing that they stand by you and support you and they're there for you in need um that that really gets you through things i have to say that i i think that having a positive attitude plays an important role in your health both um psychologically um and physically i i really really do so um so i encourage everybody to to find um that uh that sense of positivity um and uh and and seek the help of your community and and everyone who can be there for you to me and i think to my family as well it was it was a matter of paying it forward and knowing that there were so many other patients out there in similar circumstances who weren't finding matches and we we had you know built up uh such a momentum with all of these drives testing you know between 50 and 60 000 people and and helping so many people out there in similar circumstances and there were so many more that needed help that we couldn't not do it yeah you know people ask me let's talk about tick tock let's talk about which filter is best and it's important to identify these but the underlying issues is so much more important because we can inculcate a self-awareness into kids that they can utilize terms it's amazing when you hear an eighth or ninth grader talking about impulsivity or compulsivity when it comes to technology and and be able to identify that behavior if we give language to behaviors then we can manage it then we can talk about it then we can make adjustments but if there's no language and i just give you know straight rules you know don't post personal information online but i don't understand what this inhibition is i don't understand that i'm more likely to post private personal information or or uh images or songs uh you know like musically or tic toc if i don't understand how i'm more like i would never walk in the street and and sing and dance suggestively uh you know you wouldn't do that uh and but if it's online there's this innovation so if i can understand this inhibition then that will inform my behavior across the board from the beginning i was always interested in in something more than what i was offered and so while it was certainly not expressed towards mysticism by any means it was a movement for more or owed or something more than what was present which i believe is the very same impulse that drives a person into kind of panima satoru judaism does not perceive the idea of perfection as a concept whatsoever even prior to the and things were imperfect that was the injunction to protect oneself to be guarding the implication is that we're susceptible to failure already not to mention that symptom the act of contraction and shattering of the vessels the birthplace of human experience is brokenness maybe because i was a journalist and then i became like more from i feel it added really i feel it like adds something to my career to my life because it's much more meaningful now i interviewed them all as i said from the age of six but now like there's a meaning and there's like you know there's a mission here when we received the torah you know nobody said at harassing like okay you are modern you're you're to the right you're to the left you're hasidish you're now maybe it's like childish it's a childish way to describe things but i think we need that concept and maybe you know what i discovered during our year in the states maybe we need your format i mean your formula of american radish i don't know are you here no are you um no are you it's something different at the end of the day i think whatever you say whatever you sing whatever you do has to be with true belief and conviction so whatever you're saying regardless of what uh what type of songs whatever audience you want to make sure that you truly believe and you convey a message not just sing a song i think it goes back to the humility of like you know it's all hashem it's it's it's what's there to of course i'm proud of the things i do and you work hard for it and you're proud and there's a certain satisfaction when you accomplish things and also another thing what really keeps you going is with the impact it makes the work i do now is just like the work that i did before just like the work that so many people in our community do in in advocating for a strong and secure israel i just get to do it now from the other side of the desk and i have the benefit of then sharing whatever insight and experiences i've had with my colleagues to hopefully make them better informed uh more knowledgeable and in their own way more committed to these these things that we care so deeply about first of all um i think israel is a miracle i think it's a a divine miracle uh where human and uh have to work together a very practical person i i i'm a big believer in uh which means you know don't think that all is on you but that doesn't release you from putting in all your effort so hi i'm jorge goldberg maiden name was brookstein i'm from lawrence new york and i actually did want to be a rabbitson i kind of went into this knowing full well i dated guys who are going for smikha and want to be some form of a rabbi and i i was involved in kirov and in different organizations in high school and college and really enjoyed doing all of those organizations and working with different populations and you know i loved kira then just you know working with people and and helping and so it was something that i really loved i loved community work and i'm a social worker it was something that i also loved to be with people and to advise and to counsel and so this was something that i really wanted in my life aside from my role here in our show which i absolutely love being involved in our community i'm part of this great team at brs i do also work my i always say my other had as a nurse practitioner in one of the local internal medicine offices here and i love love doing that how do i combine it well i do see many patients many local patients i feel that both work i work at in my office as well as in the community in the shul really do combine what i love to do is connect people and help people we moved here actually 21 years ago i will be married actually 24 years next tuesday and we have six children and um i write currently besides being the brs i guess outreach represent i also work with yacht which is i help families with um children with disabilities and we used to entertain all the time and we had programs and projects and workshops here and when corona hit it got so quiet and then we needed a way to connect with all of our people so we initially started by a challah program we started making multiple callers each week and delivering college to our friday live service for a live outreach family and to our momentum group families and to our yacht families we met at at 16 years of age incidentally i do the talking but edith is really the boss i just want you [Laughter] like us just like us exactly you know we met at 16 uh we we got engaged uh edith was was 19 and i was 20. we got married in 201 in in 41 that was before pearl harbor incidentally and uh and and in 1943 uh i was called the disservice edith sent me a letter every single day every day because she saw what it was when we were in mississippi how people fellows would stand waiting for the mail and get no mail and it was so disappointing and she felt so sorry for them you said i want you know that one thing is that we had arguments like any any normal couple but we never never ever went to bed angry at each other i'm a magician and i was also an ncaa pitcher in college so i played baseball and i found out that i had this crazy talent of being able to throw a ball 90 miles an hour plus and one day by accident i picked up a playing card through it and found out that i could throw playing cards farther harder and more accurate than anyone in the world and ended up breaking some guinness world records back in 2002 i broke my first world record for the distance throw 72 yards so 216 feet 4 inches and it basically was before social media so there's no youtube no instagram i i kind of went viral with associated press like the front page of the local newspaper but it went worldwide it launched my career breaking world records i just broke another one um this year this was uh wow the most the cards thrown out of a deck of cards it's a numbers game and creativity i really believe is a numbers game and you should you should be open to that you should realize that not every idea is a gem but you got to come up we just got to churn them out and there are going to be some gems in there and it was interesting because when i started that project i did not think of gratitude as a very jewish value because my cultural judaism you know the the emotions that i most thought of you know were like confetching that was like that situation guilt right exactly right um but just in researching and talking to wise rabbis like you uh you know i was i was enlightened that it is a tremendously jewish emotion the first time i opened up a gemara it came to me in in the mail i had ordered it and i opened it up and i put it on the counter and again i i try not to be emotional but i put my i didn't put my eyes on it i put my hand on the doff and i and i i was a good brand builder and so in my business world and so i had a sense it was sensual and so this but i put my hand on the dot physically and i felt like coming from the ground of this thing i i felt heat and light but what did i say show me your friends and i'll tell you about you but also show me your hood and i'll tell you about you and so to be the rabbis of boca raton is um lo pashut right it's not the obvious answer right it it isn't and it's yet it's your answer and so the first thing anybody should say is thank you for what you do who you are is who you are but what you do is a choice that you make and it's powerful and it's brave and it's low pressure it's not obvious this story starts but like most stories or many stories we're big believers in camp camp extracurricular you know because people go through the beautiful functional you see the system they don't always they don't get the access maybe those extra talents that they they know they have i should mention that i have five sisters i have no brothers which it seemed like a cruel fate for most of my life but at a certain point i started to realize as i got older especially that i'm able to do what i do because i grew up with people is it okay to say that there's a lot of talking in my house just talking and talking and talking i'm talking and a certain point you can't express yourself i appreciate that so so there was just a lot of expression and and everything was being talked out there really wasn't you know there was no one to play ball with so it became survival of the fittest i realized later in life that there that their budget is giving me an opportunity i guess it comes to mind but there's a puzzle and things start to fit into place in place and you understand this works now the last year but it's so much easier because i'm writing books about people now that there's emails from and text messages from and so much video footage of schleimer i was really a little bit blind i was you know there was some audio very very little video uh video footage out there not much the blaze of gold sailor also uh you know mayor ottowitz i had emails myself from him i knew him and and it was so he he documented everything he was a very very efficient person he got a lot done borah hashem you know we have grown tremendously in the world of koshers and to be a good masjid today you need to your a day is important but much more important maybe is is engineering and chemistry and food science and of course psychology but that's rabonamu you know what that's all about uh but it's truly understanding how steam system works and how bittrex works and how how you know what how do you make ice cream from the bottom up to understand that they're missing a key ingredient when they tell you it's not in there etc etc etc so the point is that the list that we do that the seriously decided to put together was going to be a list of knowledge and a list of science and lists of chemicals and whatnot so when i say we start way back is that we literally start going into the stores we start going to the factories we start calling on uh it was not a matter of living in a elegant home it was not a matter of having you know a high standard in life it was what do you do with your life and they were when i look back unbelievable couple who had a tremendous ex respect for each other and they really show us uh a sample of what we need to do in life and you know in pirkei a vote though there's also four little phrases you know me who ha ha ha ha made me call her dumb me who are sherasa cohen and then of course you know and i just think staying with those phrases and that teaching you know nihua dibora covey i mean if you can really follow that and i must say my inclinations aren't always that way but those are like breaks in my life that have helped me and um i just lucked out that i was born into our people i i think we have something so special well one thing is i've always been you know very proud of the community i came from the certain uh jewish phrases that i sort of incorporate into conversation i find that i bring into it um there are things where i try to explain the concept of gamsula tova which can also be used as you know interpreted as a crisis uh you know a crisis is a terrible thing to waste and and adversity breeds opportunity it's sort of the different version of godzilla but there's also ones you know is another favorite because it's i think in the world we live in the uh from my legal background i try to be as fact-based as possible and from my political background try to be as precise about audiences and so those sort of who need to know know uh is can be a powerful thing and a lot of the times those who tweet don't know so i got to my grandfather on thursday it's still the war is going on the six day war friday they came to take my grandfather to the hotel before they opened it up to the public all right so my grandfather says you're going to come with me and we we um my grandfather got out and he wanted to make a career he wanted to rent his garment his frock because he hadn't been to the kotel since 1948 and he tried he couldn't do it now i have a picture of me there with a little pocket knife that i had in my pocket i took it out and i made a cut for him and he rented his garment and he made a shakiyanu the two shahriyans that i remember that he used the shame and furos first when i first came as a kid and the second time the week of the of the of the six day war he and he was crying and i cry and everybody's crying because 10 days before everybody thinks that israel is finished and near you stay by the cotton come to my mind and i speak to our god and i said what can i give you back a thankful for this miracle and i decided i i will leave your line for one hill one year volunteer myself one eel to a a place they they need help for the youngsters mcdonald hammock in this time was the worst place in israel crime dogs all situation why but this is the the fact the fact is that a soldier was ashamed to say that he leaves him ignoring many you have the papers every day but make the lame somebody kill somebody this in this i decided to go to mcdonald's last week i would have never even thought that my yamakura my judaism would put me in harm's way verbally or physically my entire life thank god i uploaded to that point and never really firsthand experience anti-semitism i've heard about it and i've said the classic cliche can happen everywhere it can happen anyone but truthfully speaking nothing of severe magnitude where someone was physically hurt happened to anyone close nearby to me and the fact that happened to me is really just yeah it's very you know scary but never would i think that i have to you know not you know i hide the fact that i'm jewish essentially no i'm okay i'm just banged up still you know i got some headaches and everything sore but uh i saw the video like you said a couple times and just a little thankful and grateful that it wasn't worse considering what could have been to be honest so the fact that i was able to walk out of there make it out you know one piece thankfully out of the hospital that night uh you know kind of presenting the opportunity to make you know example and bring some positive uh vibes to the situation or positive impact whatever i could do just to prevent it from happening with someone else or bringing awareness to anti-semitism in general whatever i can do i mean israel is you know one need not be jewish or israeli to have deep admiration for israel as a success story of human resilience and ingenuity like israel is a powerful example of of of what can be achieved when a people come together and i think of israel as a profoundly progressive success story um you know i am pro-israel not despite my progressive values but because of them no israel is a sovereign state and with sovereignty comes the right of self-defense you know if my neighbors and i were the target of more than 4 000 rockets i would expect my government to defend myself which is a right that every country including our own take for granted and this is a real human rights issue i'm fighting for the human rights of our soldiers and i believe that discussing human human human human rights is also already it's it's usually based on humans not on countries on cases of of of of human people humans so if anyone has any contact any any way to to approach um those kind of decision makers i don't know in iran i am a turkey i don't know whoever has leverage on hamas it can be very very very helpful my entire desire to make it to the olympics was i was motivated by you know the desire to to bring kavod to the world to show that you could you know achieve the greatest level in sport and not compromise on what it means to be a religious jew and really you know in my mind i thought like what does hashem want from me hashem wants me to make it to the olympics right that's razon hashem but who am i to know what hashem wants from me and i recognize that when i didn't quite achieve that goal when i failed i thought i said maybe this is what this is this clearly was what hashem wanted from me in this opportunity and i had a unique opportunity to fail in such a public way and someone sent me this beautiful nesibu shalom that really just and he told me you know this is he said you had to teach this message to the jewish people and basically the nasiva shalom says that you know we talk about avodah avodah's hashem work and he says our hisero and our disadvantage is that we think that when you do when you work on something you need to build something you need to make something you need to create something it's about the outcome and no no no no it's not about the outcome at all it's about the yugiya it's about the effort and the only thing that matters in this world and it's hard to know it's hard to really recognize that in a world that we live in that's so physical and it's so results driven and that it's all about achievement but the only thing that hashem really cares about from us is arya and our effort i put out another book a couple years ago called the joys of intimacy which goes to more the heart of the issue assuming that nobody blushes anymore what's left to the decency in people and what was left is the natural need for intimacy hopefully that'll save us because if we keep going the way we're going relationships will become paper-thin thing that my father told me early on it could be that i played a certain song for my father and my father said to me that song is way too sad you're wait you're too young to be singing such sad songs you're young you need to be hopeful so that is a a very strong guiding principle for me now since then um in choosing songs and topics and things to sing about to try to find the positive side of things and the hopeful side of things and um a song can either be an idea that exists in my brain and then i'll go to different um uh composers to try to find that that perfect expression of the idea or sometimes the song will show up in my inbox as a full complete song ready to go all right that's all folks i hope everyone enjoyed and stay tuned for a very special episode this coming wednesday where behind the beam will come back bigger better and more awesome than ever so on behalf of rabbi goldberg and the other host stay happy