What did Dr. Lander of Touro and the Rebbe have in Common?

a good night of shabbos to everyone a tremendous opportunity for each and every one of us to be blessed and benched by the father himself by god there's barack obama almighty to have menachem comfort us console us and bring us the ultimate redemption i want to talk about this week a concept that is probably not spoken about much and that is the power of inclusion and how it's related to abbas israel open and honest communication with including more and more people in our lives in a loving way and i'll cite several examples years ago someone came over to me a former professor at toro college and he said you know i think you would do a lot for toro college if you got involved and i said you know i'm a shliyak i'm writing i'm lecturing he said but you could use some extra padnosa why don't you go see dr bernie lander the founder of toro college i said okay i went down to manhattan it's about 20 years ago or so and i presented to him an idea that i thought would be beneficial for his university for his college and that is working with the alumni i had experienced an alumni work as a director of alumni in 1997 for the united laboratory shiva for 770 i was hired by rabbi zamala pakowski the rosh shiva and abdulvadraskin and uh i presented the idea to dr lander now please understand dr lander was in his early 90s i believe at the time he was half blind his mind worked he came to work every day at eight o'clock from queens where he lived and he was not on the top of his game with millions and millions of dollars of subsidies received from the government colleges all over doing so much for jewish people by giving them parnassa both from the kharadi world and the modern orthodox world people who are accountants today and and therapists all went many of them went through turo he didn't need haiyan dolphin to come and give him a new idea at 90 years old i presented the idea and i thought to myself this is a real waste of time i'm just doing this to satisfy this friend lo and behold he says to me it's a great idea i want to do it in fact i want you maybe to help me open up a program in los angeles i want you to help me with this and help me with that and i was amazed here i am with my beard that wasn't as white as it is now with my yarmulke with my lubavitcher hat and he's taking me in and saying i want you i want your idea it took a half a year and he said i'm gonna let i'm gonna notify this dean and that dean of this school and that tool and they'll be in touch with you a half a year later a dean called me says coming to my office i want to give you the job i want you to start this alumni program for us which we did for several years i was an independent contractor an outside consultant for them what did i see what did i learn from this i learned that you're not too old at 90 to to include new ideas that's a real visionary and lander dr lander was in his midlife when he started toro college in 19 i think in 1970s 70s 76 i'm not sure what year he was an accomplished man he had a phd he had prestige he was a rabbi he was known and he was not satisfied he wanted more that same enthusiasm and leadership quality that he had when he started toro college in the 70s i felt in 2000 or so year 2000 to 202 forget when when i met him because in his very essence he was about visionary leadership what more can be done abbas israel means to include people not to exclude them maybe they're not right in this field maybe they're not right in that field maybe they're not successful here not successful there so you find them a place in which they'll be successful everyone has a talent everyone has something they can contribute we the leaders need to look at people that way that's ours israel let's take our rebbe the rebbe i heard from the rebel myself rafa brengan he looked a deice difference of opinions is healthy macholicus argumentation and divisiveness is unhealthy hey look at dale's enhances the product it markets it better because you include more opinions you don't exclude them yes you have your prototype and you have your agenda and you have your way of running your company you have the way you run your family you have the way you run your yeshiva so if the boy or the girl doesn't fit for this yeshiva you find them yeshiva it's up to it's the responsibility of every educator that every jewish child every yeshiva every girl be in a yeshiva at least to try to be in the yeshiva before they go out to the workforce this is abbas israel inclusion not exclusion and our ebba taught this and wanted this from his organizations his his people so when it comes a time like now the nine days and we need to find ways of showing god that we are doing things to include more people these are some very very practical things that we all can do if we only get out of the way with our ego with our i know better i was put in this position on and on and when we do this all of us have more success and when hashem when god sees that we are putting ourselves aside making room for another including another not excluding them hashem says i'm going to include you and you and you and everyone and he brings mashiach that we find this in our personal lives in our family lives in our community lives and only through inclusion will we benefit and again i emphasize i'm not saying that you should include someone in a position where they're either no good for that position or they're actually uh they'll ruin the situation so find them another position but it's your responsibility that's that's that's the idea here don't shrug your shoulders and say it's not my problem that's not ava not that's not love for another year in front of the jew hashem help we should do this and do this with simcha it's a time shabbos have a kiddish to wish each other well and to truly try to help each other in a way that will bring only goodness and kindness in a revealed way with the ultimate comic of meshiac and hate of you may know our main the um