Rabbi Yosef Mendelevitch Project Inspire Convention 2022 Motzai Shabbos Keynote

[Applause] maybe i should just sit in the crowd to be singer thank you thank you for coming all the way here from your shalom to join us [Applause] ladies and gentlemen i mentioned friday night in my introduction to raviosa mendelevich that i had the greats close this this week this year for tish above to do a film called iron faith i want to thank g orman from big productions who did a tremendous job with his team putting this film together it was not an easy project as many tend to be and it would give us a small synopsis as to what the soviet jew soviet jewish heroes did back under the communist regime to keep torah alive in the former soviet union ladies and gentlemen a small tidbit of our film iron faith [Music] with the rise of communism they essentially were looking to obliterate everything that was jewish schools yeshivas synagogues shrita mikva you name it my father told me about some of his experiences he said we live 24 hours in fear you can imagine that you go to sleep in fear you wake up in fear they can knock in your door anytime arrest anyone these people who were born after the communists took over they knew nothing religion was a was forbidden there was no such thing it was being drummed out of them nobody told me that there is a god i discovered myself after the six day war jewish identity in the soviet union skyrocketed it created a renaissance of jewish life in a country that was atheistic and that prohibited religion me and some other friends decided to establish an underground jewish educational movement to prevent assimilation i asked my friends and acquaintances do you want to learn torah they said so what is tour i do want to know tour but what a story i said tour is our life so the first students were 15 young people the network of our studying was about 20 cities in the soviet union under the eyes of kgb i want to stress it's not so easy under the eyes of kgb it was a real struggle a small group of people against a massive empire if a regular jewish citizens in soviet russia would discover that we are doing that they would tell don't they understand kgb knows everything why they are not afraid hanukkah class of 1980 about 30 40 people were sitting in the room one of my friends was sitting right near me when the bell rang so he came to open the door and there was a big bang like he was like flew to the opposite wall and a second later we saw police storming the room don't move hands on the table you're under arrest it was a scary moment i remember how my soul seemed somewhere i came to understand that educating hundreds and maybe thousands will not solve the problem of a complete assimilation so it was obvious to me that the only possible way is to break out to get out from serving russia and open the gates for freedom of immigration even illegally so in riga in fact a certain man called hill goodman out of ashland come up with the idea to hijack a russian airplane and try to escape when we arrested red-handed in the airport we were being sentenced for 15 years of imprisonment of betraying russian motherland in siberia the person who sent me was someone named bernie hirsch he himself had been there he was tossed out and he chanced upon a group of people sitting and learning and that was essence he was dazzled and he came back to the shul and he gave a collaborative but i said there are people charming torments in russia who need our help we must help them the israeli government sent in month by month to people to maintain contact with jews there in a nondescript building we were given our instructions we're going to bosco leningrad and kiev we were basically going to teach torah as soon as i walk out of the taxi i have two people grab my arms and they push me into another car i said were you taking me he turned around and he said to me do you think your god is going to help you now and i said i most definitely do one major problem was i had in my pocket booklets about twitter about sitzesis about shabbos about this i was pulling out these pamphlets and burying in between the seats i must have thrown in about 20 pamphlets friday we come to a train station near where we're going to spend showers as we get out we see from other doors young people many of them wearing kipat and we're all walking in the same direction starving mink and kabbalah was done by the whole group word by word everybody darvened together it was a scene humbly and then they started singing and i see these young people their tears they're crying these kids in moscow that friday night that was their lifelong yearning that was a an experience unmatched young people young people these are people that we can be in awe of these are people who saw the fire stood before the abyss and stood strong this represents the best of our jews are nations keep coming nations keep going passing like shadows wiped off the earth egypt enslaved thee babylon crushed thee rome led the captive where are those nations mighty and fearsome we were present in the world at the birth of all the great empires and we were also the one who said the hasped at the levia iron curtain i think was coined by churchill an iron curtain has descended across the continent behind that line but the talmud says which means an iron curtain cannot separate the jewish people from god i'm learning so much faith and i learn how to believe in people from my students they really inspire me and the need to reach out to those that otherwise will fade away need to be conveyed again and again people who sacrifice their lives sacrifice their comfort and they do so much to bring other jews back to the industry and if this feeling of pain and responsibility and commitment will be conveyed and become the spirit of the generation we have so much hope and we can do so much together because together we can overcome anything [Applause] after being arrested in the airport they brought us to kgb prison for interrogation and it uh became very soon obvious to me that their scheme was to arrest us red-handed also they did know about our preparation for a lot of time they would like to arrest us red-handed and then make us cooperate with them call upon war jury to stop any activities and because of us and then we had to call up in russian jewelry sit back and get assimilated so they tried different ways to break my will torture me intimidate but it wouldn't help so i say the known way of uh deal with people sticking carrot their stick got broken so you used a carrot by the way i don't like carrots anyway what their carrot was after all uh interrogations i was escorted to another russian officer and he was very soft he told me you're safe i'm sorry that you arrested no maybe you're sorry why you arrest me anyway i'm sorry that you arrested is there a carrot and i can understand you you are young man romantic dreams but now he told me believe me i'm like your old brother recommend you don't be stubborn you'll not break the wall with your head you will break your head so be clever cooperate and you will get less penalty instead of death penalty maybe only seven years of imprisonment and then he looked at me and he told me you say you are jewish you belong to a jewish nation you work for a jewish nation you don't look jewish at all you know he told me you like our russian brother you studied in russian high school in russian university you know a lot of uh russian poetry you are russian but all of a sudden you start thinking that you are jewish you know it was obviously a way to find a way to my heart but when the interrogators only yell at you intimidate and torture you all of a sudden you find somebody that speaks talks to you in a human way and he felt that like something is happening with me okay he told the guard take him back in to his cell let him let him sink again so i was there in the cell and i thought to myself maybe he is right maybe it is not the time for dreams i have to be realistic to save my life and then i recollected what he told me you don't look jewish you are not jewish with what you are jewish you got our russian education was jewish in you and i got angry how he dared to tell me that i am not jewish and i thought about myself really how are you jewish i look like them speak their language behave like them what makes me different if i would behave as a jew he could understand that i am different what does it mean to behave as a jew to keep this with so a being in the underground jewish education movement i would go from time to time to the show the synagogue i did know something but now i felt it is not enough i have to make the decision to behave jewish meets with it's good to say to be in the empty room in this cell to keep misfits in what way i don't know anything i have to be have a jew as a jew and i decided i'll build a wall between me and him behaving differently not like them for declaration is not enough say i'm jewish it's not enough you have to behave to do something jewish so i invented a way to be jewish in fact i covered my head and i had a black beret but thrown in the ground in the airport i lost the beret bro hashem not my head only the beret so i i need something to cover my head a yarmulke they would laugh at me if i i would ask for a yarmulke so i invented my yarmulke i got it was legally to have a handkerchief so i made knots on my handkerchief like this i'll not take your time i made four angles now it will be only two of them and then export it next time to the officer [Applause] you know one of the way to break me they previously sent me to a mental institution telling that if i they told if you wouldn't cooperate we will admit that you are crazy and you will stay in that mental institution for a life so they had to release me now the officer looked at me and he told me yo sir you are completely crazy he told me why not by chance they put me you in the mental institution behave you are an educated man why would you put this piece of clothes on your head i told yes i am educate educated man but i have a jewish education and according our jewish education we have to cover our head so i told him a whole story about mushroom with his mitral saturn saterra i believe it was the first time that he wrote down my report for i wouldn't i wouldn't cooperate with them and then he became angry and told him you think you're smart you are stupid for it is the way you are digging your grave think again it doesn't pay you to behave this way and think send me back to to myself when back in my cell i told okay i am on the right way the enemy is angry with you with anger with the enemies pleased with you your is you have a problem when the enemy is angry with you i am doing the right thing i have to build another layer of of my wall what can i invent and i decided i will double i didn't remember certainly but i was a underground hebrew teacher so i wrote my prayer saying ebony shalom take care on my nation i'm israel take them from russian slavery take care on my family my father my sisters and don't forget me here in the prison i can't withstand anymore now i had to find miserable i was aware that we have to govern the direction of israel what to do and i recollected that in underground we had the safer daniel telling about daniel the prophet that was in my situation some two thousand five hundred years before he had to find out where is that uh where is that your shallam he just opened the wall at the open the window and directed his heart link to you shall i when it's in now i checked it in shock if you don't have a smartphone and if you don't the direction of your shallam just open the window and was what is important to direct your your heart so i couldn't certainly open the wall at the the window there was a lot of grades of it but at least i stood at the window and i had my piece of my prayer we say as when we govern we have imagined that we are down there and crying out hashem in my situation i even wouldn't need i didn't need to imagine it was really i was there dev in russian prison i would cry out after a while after this kind of practice the door got opened the guards entered rushed inside grabbed me in the wall and told me we watch you all the time you stand at wall and you uh you you touch the wall what you try to take out a brick to run away they can't they they check the wall and the grates nothing everything is intake so they checked my pocket and they found um my might feel what is that ah we understand it is a secret letter that you try pass over to your friends you know you should be really crazy to imagine that you can pass something without envelope without an address through a locked window with a lot of grace but they had no explanation so they take it away took it away and after several days i was escorted back to the office of this my russian brother i saw on the top of his table my my filler and in the translation he was very angry he told me joseph what's happening with you i got in translation it is that feeling you are dabning you became religious you never been religious you got our communist education who influenced you i told it's uh god everyone shalom influenced me you know but he wouldn't believe imagine what happened i had in fact two options to cooperate or not to cooperate with a with interrogation with with k2b i had no third option yes i had the third option the third way was just to link the following ribbon shalom and as far as this third decision was completely illogical i know that it was the ownership oil himself that ordered me and i am privileged that i accepted his order and followed him how i know [Applause] how i know that this was the only one true way for a simple reason for i'm here with my wife with my children grandchildren it's a victory when then in the court during the trial the judge asked me mendelevich why would you betray your motherland i told you know what ribonucleolum give abraham it's yakov artist royal is my motherland their grandchild so i never be tried and i believe i will never betray my real motherland so the prosecutor stood up and told the judge don't you know mendelevis is a fanatic religious jew you know he thought we cannot understand how the man being educated in our university studying thermodynamics physics cetera et cetera is devoted devoted only to his god you know fanatic so i'm i i'm not fanatic but i am proud when my enemy admits that he cannot win me for i am a religious fanatic jew and then i spent as i told 11 years in the prison and when i was out sent away from soviet russia they cancelled they wouldn't pardon me they told me don't pardon you you don't deserve pardon will you cancel we cancel your russian citizenship for you don't deserve to be a russian citizen and i that day i was aware that already two hundred thousand jews left soviet russia after we were arrested it means when i was there in the prison i told rivena shalom i know that people start immigrating leaving russia if so i am ready to stay as much as needed in the prison just let them go and it's like my opinion of him imagine you to release two hundred thousand jews to make obedience win for two hundred thousand jews you have to be a millionaire i am the millionaire what i am saying now you used to demonstrate and i met here a lot of people they told they demonstrate and did all kind of efforts to save russian jew it was the slogan save russian jew now now i come here to tell you something different save american jew now save them rabbi mendeleevich we hope to take your message home tonight and to do just a fraction of what you were able to accomplish to free 200 000 jews may it be his will that all of us in this room could bring back 200 000 jews ladies and gentlemen tonight this is the highlight for me for tonight everyone here knows by now that project inspire has a one-on-one learning program and of course you'll get your opportunity momentarily to sign up but during the pandemic many programs were run through project inspire with the sole focus of getting people to learn one on one isn't that right stuart one-on-one learning and so using the shabbat show and using the many online projects that we ran throughout the pandemic we pushed everyone to sign up to learn one-on-one and one such person flew in to be here with us tonight he is a beneficiary of our program of our 101 learning program and the best beneficiary of people very similar to you in this room so especially in from minneapolis minnesota i'd like to ask dr luciano kolodny to share his experience with us today thank you very much thank you