Facebook Friends vs Real Friends - Rabbi Benzion Klatzko

right over here okay is that okay this is for T so the the role of social networking in our lives in being able to be productive and maybe even in making friends and friendship now I'm sort of a strange person to be delivering this talk and I'll explain to you why some of you may know I own a social network I I I actually own the largest Jewish Social Network in the world called shabbat.com and I started shabbat.com a year a few a few years ago and today a million people found chabas through my website and and so on and so forth so you would expect me to be maybe the very first person to give a thumbs up to the concept of social network like yes what an amazing way for people to um to interact with each other to get to know know each other so the first thing I want to tell you is that social networking was not invented by Mark Zuckerberg and it wasn't even invented by the people who he plagiarized it from right uh social networking actually goes all the way back to the gamar the gar speaks about the concept of social networking and I'll tell you where it's in the thear says that the came to said they needa Jewish people we need you're our King you should help us get a so answers with a cryptic answer he says go make parosa from each other what was that answer what was where are they expecting to make parosa from if not from each other and yet D thought that's a sufficient answer you need to make parosa he's not going to send them to the so what is he answering to so the basic way of understanding it is also the way of understanding what social networking is very simple this is social network 101 I have 30 friends my sphere of influence are those 30 friends you have 30 friends your sphere of influence are your 30 friends and therefore our influences limited to the people who we know what social networking does is says what would happen if I could tapen to your 30 and you could tapen to my 30 now my sphere of influence is doubled and what happens if I could tap into each one of your 30 and soon you could change the world so the concept of is saying is you're liting yourself to the people that you know but you have to learn how to network socially in order to reach people so it sounds like a good thing and even more so I will even tell you that there are good aspects to it but here's what we have to understand as being from mutant we are not against modernity we are not against technology we are not the Amish we are not the people of no we are the people who are y sh and a y sh what is y y means many things but on its face fail it means we tremble we are we are we live in awe and fear of Hashem in the most healthy way imaginable and therefore whenever something new comes out we don't rush head first into change without understanding the ramifications of that change listen carefully obviously the world is changing it's changing before your eyes I'm already a zi it's changed many times in my eyes I did not grow up with any of this and I see it and my kids are different they're in a different door and already my kids have kids we're not against change but what we say is the following any change that exists we need to understand how to deal with it let me tell you an anecdotal story when texting became a big thing now today text is more than more than fun call people it's easier it's quicker to text somebody so I was speaking to a Bak after his Yeshiva came out with the proclamation no texting we don't want texting no smartphone no texting and this B said to me the Russa are simply backward they're just backwards this is how we reach each other we WhatsApp we text it's quick it's easy we throw in an emoji or three and that's what texting is and I said you know they called for a reason while the secular world would have us believe that our are backwards people or they're not in touch with today the reality is their deep Insight that comes from Torah tells us certain wisdom that we may not understand so I I said for example there may be this was a bucker who was not yet dating I said there may be a young lady that you meet and you would never go over to but if you get a number you'll text and you'll text back and forth and that's what will happen goes no if I wouldn't speak I wouldn't text I want to tell you within a half a year of this guy starting to text he was texting girls right left and center and I met him again I said I want you to be I want you to at least admit that the were not out of touch they understood does it mean that we don't text no but what are the what are the safeguards in other words we're going to embrace technology but cautiously yeshivas have websites some yeshivas that don't allow internet strangely enough the only way to register is online but again it's not a steering I'm explaining it to you why because we're not against technology in the same way we weren't against telephones although lashara can be said more easily on a telephone but we need when deal dealing with something that is so potent that is so unknown and there are so many studies that have come out that in include addiction that include people who end up meeting people online that they don't know getting themselves into danger situations doing things that they would never do so does that mean that forever it won't be allowed no I don't believe that I believe that eventually we will understand the chall through our to understand how to use technology I'm tell you this was it's sort of a an ancillary story but I was once in shul and the it was a very very very modern SCH and the rabbi was to the left and I was I was a guest there and he got up by sh this Rabbi and he says you know I want to tell everyone AES what's The KES he says my is that the easiest way I discovered the easiest way to caser dishes before PES is to put them in the dishwasher I just put put it on the hottest water imaginable and you've cered your dishes now I'm sitting next to him I'm the I'm I'm the guest of this Rabbi but I can't control my face you're like no no but I say anything I'm not gonna you know I'm the guest over there in the Sho but this one fellow he came over to me after after the talk he says I looked at your face you didn't seem to agree with the rabbi I said what that's nothing it's not Gull it's not leaving how hot does the water get as hot as the sink you know 110 120° tops that's that's not cering so he says why don't you say something I said I'm not going to jump in front of the rabbi but you know Bob if you'll say I'll back you up so to this rabbi's credit Bob didn't go over them and he issued a retraction over a je email well I was mistaken the water doesn't get hot enough but he said there are certain military dishwashers like anyone owns one of those there are military dishwashers where it does get up to 140 plus which again is still not hot enough still not hot enough and what bothered me is not that he's trying to come up with a good good we're always trying to understand how to use techology but what bothered me was rushing headlong into change without doing the research without understanding that you may end up with for your entire because you came up with AES to come up to come up with a KES is not a KES to understand how to use social networking I want to tell you in my social network shabbat.com we have the hyra of all of the gum and we have their ASAS and I videoed their ASAS and I showed them how it works and we have all sorts of safeguards and even then I don't sleep well at night even with all the safeguards from the G it is still scary because someone wants to misuse it they can but there's a greater tragedy than that and I'll tell you what it is shabbat.com is not my day job I actually have a day job my day job is I'm the national director for college Outreach in North America which means that I fly from City to City each week training in the ronam each of each campus so I'll run to upen and I'll run to Las Vegas I'll run to the University of Madison Wisconsin and I'll go down to UCF in Orlando and I go from campus to campus training in the ran and I get to know a lot of students on my way and some of them I feel like I made a real Casher with but you know the Trap that I myself fall into I friend them and of course I am on social media that's where they are B sharam I don't Advocate it none of my kids are I am with lots of oversight for my wife right we share the same account so she could use it she sees very important to have a shimer and even so leave sne out leave the all the other issues that exist out just the fact that you think you've made a friend you've quote unquote connected may be one of the greatest tragedies of all I see with my own children who don't rely on social media that their friends and their friendships are so much more powerful and real and we can take shortcuts that eventually are not shorts but they're not real friendships at all so I want to juxtapose these two and that's going to be my talk juxtaposing real friends versus social media friends and how much more we should and are able to invest in real friendship and how great the payoff is so I I I want to start with with an amazing story it's a friendship story it's a troubling story but it's a it's a friendship story this happened about 200 years ago there was a very rich fellow whose name was dun like the shavit and dun comes into the B and bdan how are you and rdan say I'm doing well I'm doing wellem the parosa is great everything is great and about yeah well that's amazing you know you got a few minutes I have a story for you I thought sure the re re's got a story for me what's the story he say I want to tell you a story about two friends one of them name one of their names were a and the other one's name was ysf and they grew up they went to the same together when they were young ab and Y they were inseparable they were best friends they literally loved each other and they went to the same yiva after elementary school and then finally they got married just about the same time after they got married Abraham says I'm going to go seek my fortune elsewhere I'm not a small town person I'm going to go and Y says wait I'm going to miss you you're my dear friend and I have to go y says I have to stay my family's business is here but they made a deal and the deal was that not only only will they stay friends but if at any point in their lives they need each other they will always be there for each other one day YF the one who stayed in town he lost all of his money a terrible business deal y became impoverished he became poor didn't know what to do take took out loans from this kak and that kak and eventually he said the only thing I could do I realiz I'm going to go to my friend AB who lives out of town I'm going to go to him maybe he'll is he'll remember our childhood friendship maybe he can give me give me a hand and he takes the last of his money and he travels many days finally he reaches horse and buggy takes a long time he reaches the town of his friend comes to the door after opens door yes my friend welcome I miss you he gives a hug and a kiss says come sit down here's some cake here's some coffee please tell me how the family is tell me how life is and you say it's not so good I really you know I I invested my money I tried so hard but wherever I turned I lost money and I am impoverished I'm poor so says my friend thank God barem Hashem has shine down his countenance upon me I've done very well for myself I'm quite wealthy you're my dear friend I will never forget our friendship half of what I own is yours period half of everything I own and YF went back to his hometown a very very wealthy man well the wheels of fortune turned and yoseph who now got half of aram's money ysph began to do better and better and better and he took that half and he invested it and now his Investments really begin began to pay off and aam who gave away half of his money aam he began to lose money right and left and soon abam became impoverished he was so poor and with nowhere else to turn he decided he's going to go back to his hometown and hopefully ysep will repay the favor and he takes that long trip back to his hometown and ysep opens up the door and says he says AB my friend come on in please sit down how are things and not so good since you left things have taken a turn for the worse I don't know what to do we can't afford bread we can't afford anything and yph looks at him with those sad eyes and says you know I wish I could help you but I can't because I see already the way God is working I see Hashem is not going to let us both be on top and therefore if I do the kindness that you did did for me I know what's going to happen you'll become wealthy and I'll become poor and I can't do that to my family so I wish I could help you but I can't and Aram went away poor and brokenhearted well Hashem doesn't run the world the way we think he does and the wheels of fortune again changed and Aram who began with menial labor jobs once again began to put together his fortune and I became wealthy back again and yph who was so smart he didn't want to help yph actually lost his money now y was caught what am I going to do now do I dare go to AB that I did not repay his favor I was cuff to and after turning to every friend and every family member he had no choice and he travels to abam and his abam knocks on the door and ab opens up the door Sees him standing there in tattered clothing and said don't say a word half of my fortune is yours for the second time he gives half of his money to yoseph and the rest of their lives they lived and they both prospered they passed away on the same day and when they came up to shamayim in Bez and Shala they decreed that AB who was this big b this one Wonder ful friend AB is going to go straight to G and was a it's the other place for him but shal no I'm not going to G without my friend shal they had there were stuff what do we do we can't send a r down to gon but we can't let the is go to G he was an awful person so they decided they're going to send them both back down as Gil gulum they're going to be reborn again and they're not going to know each other they'll be strangers and one day they're going to meet each other and Y the selfish one he's going to be very wealthy and the poor and ab the generous one he's going to be born very poor and one day this poor person is going to come to the former y for money and if he gives him money then they're both going to go to Ghan well Abraham who was now reborn with a different name to beggar all of his life goes from town to town finally he ends up one day in the town where the former his former friend ysf was and he's so poor and he ends up by this former y's door and knocks on the door and the guard is standing there in the garden says what do you want he please I haven't eaten in almost three days I am starving I am weak my my master does not take visitors we don't take Beggars please leave but the poor man he was so he he was so desperate he pushed his way through and he begins banging on the front door please let me in and the former ysep who's now dressed in fine robes sees this poor guy standing there bangging on his door who let you through who let you in and he pushes him down the stairs the poor person falls down the stairs head over heels and at the bottom he lay dead and dun who is sitting there in front of the bantov his face turned white you see just that day dun who was a very wealthy man had pushed a poor person down the stairs and the B was telling him this story he says you used to be ISF and that was your one chance to to redeem yourself and you blew it friendship of course the end of the story goes about says you want to redeem yourself find this Poor Man's family his wife and his children and support them and marry off the children and that will be a kapara for you friendship sometimes hurts friendship is exhilarating but the main thing about friendship is real and social media you could block somebody in real life if someone says something you don't like you discuss it and maybe there was miscommunication maybe they didn't mean it you didn't see their face when they said it their tone of voice in friendship which is so real we deal with difficulties daily but then friendships become very lasting you know there's a very famous story from the gar the gar speaks about a person name I'm sure you all know this story it's very famous but said how could it be that Gus was like 70 years so as he's walking says how does g between the B and chain how is that like 70 years so he's walking and he seees someone who's planting a carob tree and he why are you planting this doesn't it take 70 years to grow he says I'm never going to see the fruits of this carot tree but I have carot trees because my grandparents planted them for me and I'm planting these for my children and says that makes a lot of sense and he continued walking and he walked and he got tired a big yawn lay down next to a tree closed his eyes and he slept and he slept and he slept for 70 years and he wakes up and he sees that the boxer tree the carab tree is all it's all grown he I don't get it how did it grow I went to sleep and they came back and to to make the story short he understood that what actually happened was he slept for 70 years and he walks to the B mes and he hears are saying used to say this and used to say that and he came I you say this who are you I'm you're no he died or something long time no one knew what happened him he must have died 70 years ago he no I'm and eventually what did say those famous words give me friends or give me death believe me he was not speaking about Facebook friends give me Facebook friends no he was speaking about friendship where people grow from each other people learn the kind of friendship that when you when you have it when you have that friendship it literally gives you life want to tell [Music] you I was involved with a a young man who had been married once and it was a very it was a very difficult marriage no children and I was determined I'm going to find him as and I was asked by by uh Ras young who's a speaker in U in in mon I was asked by him to speak for his post Seminary girls I said I'll be happy to but I want to make a deal with you after I speak I was speaking in a school I said let me let me have let me have an office said I want to make a deal with you after I speak I want to meet every one of your girls for my wife and I have made over 200 so we we we're we're very into sh and we we we love making sh so I said let's let let me meet each of your girls and we'll we'll take notes come to me when you're ready so so every one of the girls sat in front of me and I took notes about them I had different ideas for but really I was looking for that one great girl for this great guy and this one girl comes in and I both spoke with her and I spoke to a few other girls about her and when I came back from that speech that that night I told this person I found your wife definitely found your wife barash they got married have three kids now what was the story what struck me they said about this girl that she was such a good friend that even after she studied all night for a test I'm sure this happened to some of you after you studied for a test you come to school and your friend say oh I forgot to study can you quickly go through the notes with me can you quickly it's very annoying when that happens why cuz you just spend your entire night studying and they spent their night doing doing doing who knows what and now they want to use your notes right and she they said about her that she would not just go through all of her notes with a girl that would ask her but as soon as that girl walked away if another girl would come say oh I got to study she once again start and sometimes even a third time before the test not saying oh well you should have studied and now you're going to fail and you'll learn a better work EIC because I'm your teacher but instead I'm your friend and whatever you should have done is between you and your studies and your parents and Hashem but but as far as I'm concerned I'm your friend and I told this hus anyone who could be such a good friend is going to make an amazing wife because friendship means you go that extra mild in The Social Network you don't have to go any mile as a matter of fact there is an app called WhatsApp that I'm sure you've heard of and it annoys people sometimes because when someone sends you a message and you look at it they know that you look at it and they know that he didn't bother answering right it's true it's annoy because the beauty of social networking is that I can ignore you in my convenience in real friendship we don't ignore people and if you can't answer now you say I can't speak now but I will be able to speak speak at such and such a time and I don't want to pretend I didn't see it because what that really does is it Waters down friendship and maybe of all things that is the great Ava of the social network connection the reality is when a person has three four 5,000 Facebook friends they don't know who they are if they bued into them in the street they wouldn't know them is that not so you barely know everyone in your school and I with 200 people there how you know 2,000 people or 4,000 people and by calling it a friend we water down the idea of friendship tell you a beautiful beautiful gamar the gamar says gar Aran what does that mean let's translate someone leaves their friend don't leave except through words of share with each other because through that you're going to remember your friend now that's a very very deep line there's a lot to be said about it but let me just point out two things when it says if you have to leave your friend don't leave except what does thear seem to imply H should leave yours you shouldn't leave your friends a real friend is a big deal it's such a big deal that when you make your decisions about what school to go to what Seminary to go to where you're going to live all of that friends are not like okay well you make new friends does doesn't work like that friends are not disposable they're indispensable they're important if you have to leave why so let's look at the last words through that you'll remember the friend I don't get what thear give me advice how to remember friends that's thear that tells me all sorts of and how to do how to return lost object is now giving me advice friendship advice hey you want a good way to remember your friend strange gamar unless unless remembering friends is vital because it's even more than a rebi a friend is a teacher a friend could be a mentor if I ask you who your best friends are right now it shouldn't be the person that you pale around with but it's the person that makes you the best you that you could be it's not just networking it's I am me because she is she I am I am a better person I am Kinder I am sweeter I am more spiritual I a better doer I am more mock in simply because she is my friend and therefore not only will I remember her but I'll make sure not to leave her I want to say something about that if you want to make such a friend it's incredibly important to invest and that's also something you don't have in social networking to invest in friendship means that you give them your time or like this girl in the story who who who who we made the sh because she invested in her friends with her knowledge she was there for her with a listening ear if you consider somebody your good friend or if you consider yourself you are their good friend ask yourself yeah we're good friends but we never talk then you're not good friends it's not the way oh we're great friends we meet each other in Camp so you're not your Camp friends a good friend stays in touch I'm very busy no one's too busy for a two-minute phone call nobody's too busy if if a friend is a real friend you invest in them for that reason alone even those who are Mee in social networking should get out of the water a little bit simply to reteach themselves what does it take to acquire a friend we've it's a lost art last two stories now this this story I don't really have a great spiritual understanding about why it happened but I'm going to share with you because I believe it's connected to Friendship I got married many years ago and during my honeymoon which took place in my parents' basement in Cleveland it's cheaper than the Bahamas right we were in Cleveland the basement enjoying our our uh right after our first week of sh and it was m shabas and I get a phone call it was an awful phone call and someone said there's been an accident three of my dear friends were driving down from the mountains in from Staten Island Yeshiva Kon of New York they were driving to the city the driver himself was a new driver they had stayed up the night before the entire night playing risk which is a game that never end and and they get and as they're driving apparently they the the driver this new driver is 18 years old he fell asleep at the wheels 19 fell asleep and the car rolled over the side of the road went down a ravine the driver was thrown from the car the car unfortunately rolled over him and he was lifter he did not have a seat belt on the other one of the other passengers he did have a seat Bel on although he was shaken up nothing happened to him and my good friend my my closest friend whose name was doin Newman he had his arm ripped off and that itself is an amazing story there's a lot that went on some hitchhiker saw this accident and quietly went and tied a tourniquet on his arm to stop the beding him and walked away and that saved his life just an amazing amazing story that happened with do Newman the person who passed away his name was Jacob Isaac Goldstein y Goldstein Jacob Isaac Goldstein I told my wife she saw when I put the phone down she saw my face was white and she said you've got to go I know you've got to go to the levia you have to go visit D in the hospital I said yeah and the next morning I took the flight out I went straight from the airport to my in-laws who had a car and straight from there to the cemetery and the father of Jacob Isaac Goldstein saw me there and he gave me a hug he said wow I know you just got married and actually Jacob Isaac was in my he's in my wedding video and he said it means a lot to me that you came all the way then after the levah I was driving down the BQE to go visit D Newman in the hospital and as we're driving there's that one place in the BQE that has four lanes turned to two and if you don't realize it you go from 50 m an hour to 15 M an hour and then it gets fast again and I'm driving my in-law's car and as we're going from 50 to 50 and I put on the brakes and we're all going slowly and I look at the rear view mirror and there is a truck who clearly is spacing out cuz he is rumbling towards me and it does not look like he has on the brakes and I give one last scream and this huge truck plows right into me and it accordion the car and if you would look at the car you would say nobody could have lived through this somehow not only did I live but I did not have a scratch I was shaking up not a scratch somehow I got out of the car this was able to squish out of the car the truck driver jumps out he's shaking I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I said okay give me your license give me your registration he said yeah yeah yeah yeah and he goes into the truck and takes it out and when I get it I get the share as I go cold because his name is Jacob Isaac Goldstein exactly the same name as the person Laya came from and I viewed it as such a sign that I did not press any charges nothing and when I came back I told it to my wife and I said I don't know what is Hashem saying I don't get it but maybe maybe something was supposed to happen but when you're there for a friend there's a shmir there's no question in the world that values friendship to the point that one of the highest levels of Sheamus of hem is y a deep and undying love and a connection here's the last story I was a rub for 10 years before I went to C when I wented to kir our family was the first ones outside of kabad to do campus kir today there's about 150 campus MC Carvin in those days there were none this was the year 1999 and the same year the same year right outside kabad and Hill there was no campus perod so I applied for a job in the University of Michigan called this person the Rabbi over there I want an interview he said sure love to do that I had just lost the brother so I was very traumatized brother was n that's why I left the ranus I said I need to do something more and I feel that kiru will give me more satisfaction in terms of doing for the cloud so I was going to fly down to Michigan when he says you know what you don't have to fly down we found someone and he's going to be doing the C his name is AR of it okay okay uh so my first opportunity is gone but at the same time an opportunity in California opened up and so the very same year University of Michigan and UCLA opened up Cur of programs and thus began a friendship together with a little bit of a rivalry between myself and this fellow iron d first we called ourselves Jam that was our name on campus he calls me up he say you know I really like that name Jewish awareness movement Jam he says can we call ourselves Jam he says yeah you can call yourselves Jam so now we're both Jam jell and jam right we're all Jam then he says you're getting a lot of people can you teach me how to bring people in the door I said I'd be happy to so he comes down to California and I teach him how to table which means to stand at a table and to find people to come and uh come to your shabas to come to your cure programs so now I'm teaching him then he comes to me calls me up one day and says I have a great idea he says I'm going to call this idea my Mones he says what's my monings what's this idea the idea is that everyone on campus will offer them $400 or $500 and they'll learn 2 hours a night they do two shabbaton over the semester so it'll be 10 weeks of learning two hours a night I we'll give them 500 bucks and I say that's a ridiculous idea why would you pay people to learn I get people to come without paying he was right I was wrong my monties today is so incredibly successful that every single week between 30 and 40,000 people around the world learn in a my modities kind of program that Aron D started then I call him up and I said I got this idea let's create a social network for everyone for shabas called shabbat.com he said that's a terrible idea but I persevered so you see what we're going with this I do one he does one I do then the most ironic thing happened I was asked to be in charge not just of UCLA but to take care of all the campuses so now iron do works for me because he's in NYU now he's went from Mich NYU so now he works for me so how's he going to play his card here well my daughter was looking for a job so he hired my daughter and son-in-law so he works for me but my kids work for him oh my goodness like a chess match and and we discuss and we argue and we grow and that's what the friendship was about but it's all ending this month and it's ending because my son is marrying his [Music] daughter maybe it's not ending maybe it's just beginning who knows the reality is the smile on your face tell you and tell me that there is such a thing as a real friend there is such a thing as growing from a friendship so my BR to you and my petition to you is that you should find that amazing person in your life or those amazing people and don't rely on the social network and don't dabble it's fake it's fake it's fake okay it's a way of texting people that's all it is but you want real friendship it's face the face whether it's through pain or through moments of Joy through who knows give you that braa you should find good friends thank you