Rabbi Yosef Kaiser at Mishmar in Scheiner's Shul

thank you for inviting me I um I want to share with you thought on this week's par par begins as we know tells to leave and to go from everything familiar familiar to him where he's born where he's grown up where he's been living for so many years a new place a new land something totally unfamiliar and this is a tremendous a test that here or he was telling him to do something very difficult leaving behind everything familiar him but the question is is that the r tells him right after that you're going to have everything everything that you've wanted in all the different bras rash goes through different bras that he was telling him the is giving him all children and wealth and fame everything what's the if someone tell you that you know if you pick up and you move and you go here and you go there you're going to have everything we say this in every day when we do good we get BL 100% but over here what was in the sign if I tell you you go here certain certain place certain time you're going to get everything you'll be there it's still very difficult oh what's so difficult what's so difficult here he was being offered everything a br for everything he was told that he has to leave he has to go to the place this land that re was telling you about what was the sign people say want to see it oh it's very good so you're saying the was that he that believing that it would come the very good definitely one of the but there's a very interesting story that in during during Second World War when Russia and Germany split Poland and I don't have all details exactly but basically what happened was that Russia took took the Eastern side of Poland and in there was VNA and they made vilna the capital of Lithuania and I'm not mistaken and what happened was is that the borders between Russia and vilner were then open and many took this opportunity to leave communist Russia and flee to to to to Villa it was a tremendous opportunity it was not simple leaving Russia and here the borders were open and many went there many yeshivas went there and many many went there and included including in that group that went was the brisar he was also in Vila at the time and there's somebody of ab ABA Z who was there and he asked the brisar he said I don't understand this an opportunity that we haven't had we don't usually have to be able to be able to come to come to leave Russia and to come to Villa no problems open borders so why aren't more people coming why aren't more people taking advantage of this opportunity and the bov told him he says he he answered him with the following question he says we says the P says that we we speak other times says I remember the tremendous that did for me that they left MIM and they went went with me into the midbar empty and desolate as it was what does that mean you know what they had in M they weren't living the good life they were slaves that fish huh fish that fish absolutely cucumbers and they paid for it yeah that's what they wanted the fish and cucumbers that's what it was all about they were slaves what was so special about them leaving there and following into the is because people have a hard time changing right people are used to what they have all of us can you know this resonates with all of us well that people have a hard time changing whatever we're used to studies of this I'm sure and they they brought them you know they brought the third world country to people like they ran out couldn't they couldn't they don't want it they don't want it they want whatever they have they could be suffering they could be going through difficult times they could be slaves but it's difficult to change to come to something different come to something new and is very difficult and said the same way as to give that up and to leave and to go into mid follow that remembers so too when you have open borders and can easily flee and go into Villa they don't take advantage of that opportunity because it's hard for them to change same when they had to run away to America want yeah yeah very very hard for them how could they everybody's asked how could they yeah many many people even after the war went back to their country why you going back they had hard time change yeah say jewi thing or no it's a general thing yeah yeah yeah but also said that it could be this is the of that even though it's true V was promised a lot and even if the wasn't in the you're saying but still there is a in giving up the old changing from the old and trying something different going to something new yes he would have everything that he wanted all the bras you would get here he was 75 years living in the same place born there raised there grew up everything was there that's what he was used to and now he's going to a new country A New Beginning a new everything that was the difficulty that was that was the there's famous question that's asked by the ARA no it's not we have time till we get there but the AO there's a famous question that here we know the AO the tremendous sacrifice that AB was ready to give up his son to give up the question is we've seen many times many manyen over all the generations who are ready also to be ready to do the same thing why is it that the of is the special that we have this is something doesn't seem like only a was able to this is something that that that tremendous amount of first it's easier after the first it's true but it's easier but but still AR ven sounds like illegal of his own but there's a famous ter from that he said that we look at afterwards similar to he saying that we look at afterwards and we see other people did it do you know how they did it do you know where they got the ability the to be able to do that that came fromin who did do it who was able to do it who did was the first story of M NE that he was able to do that that gave all his children after him he put into the DNA exactly he put into the DNA the ability to be able to be so he he created the ability of the well maybe not the but the to be able to which is very difficult you only do that if youo for sure but even with auno it's still quite a test quite aest test not if you have 100% am um no test okay could be could be we can argue about the maybe but still it's very hard that's the question why hadam sin if he saw he was yeah that's yeah but and everything there's always levels you know right but you say 100% but it's very hard the idea of being for sure is very difficult and the ability to do such a thing that ability it says came from from the act that he did and that by by him doing that he was able to instill that ingrain that in all his his children and all the many generations that who were able to do that only because of that and it could be we can add the words ofner and say there wasn't just the ability with [Music] that but with as well the as well that also was something that did that he was able to complete to be able to do and the ability to do that n is something that he gave over to his children after him and generations and generations were to have the ability to do to do what is to be able to make a change the as we said the ability to change to be able to do something that what we're used to and to change from our Norm our routine our the our comfort and to be able to go out of that and to do something different and after 75 years pick up and move and start all over again not only but he gave us that as well the ability to pass all his n he and all our n is something that we inherited that we have in our DNA from not only the ability to be but possibly the ability to change to change and to do things that we're not used to all different ages over here but all of us almost all of us I'll make it more General people in the whole world maybe all of you sik it could be I don't know all of you some of you know but but people have a hard time changing and people are used to whatever they have been whoever they are that's the way they are that's the way they are they have hard time changing hard time doing different and you have many times a person who maybe even thought once that he wanted to do something or maybe one time dreamt of being a certain type of person but he's not that and how is he going to become that change how do I change we don't change I am who I am I was like this last year and the year before and the year before and the year before that are we all again I don't about the this crowd but everybody out there is it this way I am I don't only mean that if you've been Democratic your whole life a republican is hard to change in every way in real ways in things that that really changing ourselves in the ways that are harder to change to change and become something different we have a very hard time but perhaps this is of and this is the ability that we have from you hear it sometimes from somebody that he always wanted to go through go through it from beginning to end to go through the whole thing he never did it he's going to start now now he's going to become that person who could do it now he's going to do it didn't do it last the year before he never did it a guy who has whatever whatever his his dream is whether it's to finish whether it's to do this to be able to begin and start becoming this type of person who helps people in this in this way I never did it I'm going to become that person I want to share with you one of my my my favorite stories I've told this to a lot of people but incredible story which I found inspirational for already for already a long time I grew up in Canada and I said this is part of our history part of what we learned about in elementary school don't remember which grade this is something that we learned and remains in my head that years ago there's a fellow whose name is Terry Fox if any any you ever heard of him I said Canadian and Terry Fox was a fellow not not Jewish was a fellow I think there's born in the 60s I think ran then and when he was a teenager he had a dream to run across Canada run across Canada now Canada is bigger than Americans think it is and and not only and people but the area it's a very big area it's big but no one lives there [Laughter] but he had a dream he wasn't he didn't have to worry about burning into people yeah he had a dream to run across Canada from one end to another this was his dream why for no reason other than this was his dream as we say in this is the thing this is what he wanted to run across Canada this is going to be his thing M from the street this was his thing anyways when when he was 18 he he um he was diagnosed with leukemia and unfortunately they had to amputate his leg and here his dream was to run to run across County what was he going to do what happened was is they amputated his leg but they didn't want to give up his dream and he said he's going to do it anyways and I think he had he had a he had they put onthe prosthetic leg and he was going to run with that and I saw a video more recently of him running with that and very sad scene of him there's a truck going with him it wasn't safe for him to to to run by himself but running running very slowly but running and he he he made a campaign to raise money for research for leukimia and and he ran and he ran and he ran he ran almost to the end of the end of Canada and when he was this is from the time he was 18 Till the time he was 20 one sometime in there for whole three years but he was running and running and running and he did not make it to the end he died at age 21 almost run across entire Canada with one real leg one only one real leg with another leg is amputated for what because he had a dream because he wanted to do it there no real gain at then maybe he raised a lot of money for the Kimia but but only because he had a dream to do there's something he wanted to do and I think how powerful this is the power of a r of a desire to do do something with no need to do it the world's not missing anything but he wanted to do it and that's it because a person the that made people even even non-jewish people gave them incredible power of ruton and more than that an incredible power of being able to do and as much as we think of course we're always we think that we can't do we can't do this we can't do that but we could and there's so so much that we're able to do there's so much that we're able to do if only we number one have the desire to do it and number two is that we are able to make the change to do the that we find sometimes so difficult should help us all that we should be able to take from this of to take the the ability and to be able to change in ways that maybe we have dreamt or maybe we thought we never did and we never pushed ourselves but to be able to make the changes make the changes we wanted to and if Terry Fox can run across almost entire Canada then we can do just about anything jph