JNet Mentor Relationship Advice and Tips from Simchah Kassner

sure okay um so about three years ago I got a phone call from it was Rabbi mendal Groner asking me if I'd be interested in participating in jayet Kusa program on uh basically long distance people could be on the phone or Zoom however it goes and I said am I the student or the teacher and he matter of factly said well you're the teacher I said really who decided that how did I get recommended and he didn't know um I'm B Chua I was raised reform so I was a little taken aback like wow I'm the teacher woo you know who am I teaching how's this going to work but I figured all right I guess somebody knows where I am on the Jewish journey and thought I I had that potential so then I said to him okay so who are your potential students you know I'm thinking if I'm going to match up to somebody it better not be somebody who's knows way more than me what's the point of that so the first two people he mentioned by description I thought I don't think that's a good fit I remember the second one was somebody who was kind of cynical and skeptical and wanted to be convinced and I thought that sounds like more like the kabad rabbi a kabad house Rabbi gets that kind of stuff I I didn't I didn't think that was sign up for that treatment no well I wasn't necessarily equipped for all the arguments either for somebody who's approaching that way but the third one was this fellow who uh he was in his early 20s living in Florida I'm in California fine he's in Florida he's raised reform uh living at home he's working but living at home and he has a friend who's in Yeshiva in Israel who's encouraging him to become more observant and he's contemplating the lifestyle change the this the that and he's kind of looking for some uh insights or or inspiration or something like that and I thought that's my guy because I've been on that road I I started out reform I'm surrounded by family it's all reform to know what that feels like when people are questioning well why don't you do this and why aren't you doing that and you know you're you can feel defensive about it because people who aren't raised observant often times think that following Torah means it's all or nothing they see the people with the black hat the white shirt the black pants and those are the Orthodox people we might call them parady and then we have everybody else and like what are you going to be are you everybody else or you one of them and and I so what I explained to my husa partner Josh as I said you might get some of that feedback but think of it this way if you and I started out being spiritually starved a little bit we'll just call it that like a diet situation starve spiritually as you sometimes feel reform didn't really fulfill you and now you're learning more about spiritual nutrition does that mean you suddenly have to start eating all the health food and everything there is and by the way you should exercise three times a week at the gym and you should also go walking and you get have a whole health program and make it feel like it's all or nothing and overwhelm yourself or you say I'll take a piece at a time maybe I'll try keeping shabas for a night I won't even make it 25 hours I'll just say Friday night become shabas for me I'm not going to go to the ball game I'm not turning on the TV that we gradually take on things that seem like they would connect in some way and so if I could just take a pause for a second sure ask you a I think a general question that some of our volunteers might be thinking which is that jet essentially starts off at least as ausa program which is learning right so it's like learning which is for many people is like academic it's Theory so how do you bridge that divide between learning about something and then really connecting with somebody in a way that you're really pushing their buttons and changing their life how do you make sure that you know on the one hand you don't take it too far and make people feel uncomfortable um when you're when you're encouraging them to do things but on the same at the same token it's a opportunity like you're saying to to make a meaningful impact on people's Li lives and not just keep it in theory you know learning about some spiritual concept without it actually talking to me well you have I my thing was I I worked in sales in sales somebody comes in they already know they want to buy a washing machine machine and now we're trying to figure out which one it is I'm not saying you need a washing machine it it do not not walking door too banging on doors saying do you have a washing machine if not you should get one so my my point with any jayet Kusa partner is they walked in the door they came in your store they're looking for something I think my job is to find out what it is that brought them in the store that way I make sure I'm I'm focusing on their needs uh rather than what I think the agenda might be I don't really have an agenda other than to grow them uh uh growing might not be the best word that that I'm wanting to encourage a greater connection to God and yides Kai that the whole idea is that we're we're always connected to God just by being Jewish but the question is how do I bring you closer well maybe I'm going to inspire you to light chabas candles maybe I'm going to say you're going to put onto fill and maybe it's just you can understand the paraa better because you thought it was a fairy tale like I did Growing Up we read it was aso's fables we had Bible stories we didn't have Torah study it was a whole idea of of yes it's a good way to learn how to live but it doesn't mean we believe it happened and of course reform plays it that way because otherwise the kids would say so how come we don't keep chabas right you have that it's one of the Commandments H how how do you have this disconnect between what it says and what we do and the answer is because we make it that it really that didn't happen that's why there's a book called who wrote the Bible Bible we have to create controversy because if we don't have controversy then it's EMS then it's fact and if it's fact then why aren't we doing it right so so and 90% of Jews grow up with this ignorance about well the reason why we're not doing it is because we don't want to be too different for everybody or whatever the reason is pums you name it and so you're given this indoctrination that it's really not all true but there's good things you can get from it and that's what reform did for me I'm I'm late to this party I didn't start going to kabad until I was over 50 but once I heard what there was I said well then I realize I have cognitive dissonance over here there's a there's a reason for this being what it is but yeah that's that's the idea though so I I don't invite them to do things without setting a foundation of some kind what are you here for tell although what you're saying seems you know straightforward and simple for my for some people it might be like an out of thebox way of thinking that I know let's say for example I could talk about myself when I was right now I'm the jet coordinator but when I was you know in 2013 I think it was I had my first J Kusa and I don't know necessarily that I looked at myself as like the leader in that relationship taking the lead and initiating and looking at myself as like like you you explained like a salesperson that somebody walked through the door now it's my job to help this person find what they want so that's in a way a leadership position you see what I mean like like you're you're taking the role of he's in my store now I'm going to initiate I'm gonna show him around I'm gonna give him a tour of Yiddish kite I'm going to be the giver here when I did it back in 2013 I think it's you know it's a while ago but I think basically I just kind of went with the flow okay you want to learn he wanted to learn um first he wanted to learn sh sh so we learned sh sha and then we we learned some other stuff from and then I answered his questions but I didn't really look at myself as like the mashia the giver and initiating the relationship and trying to really figure out how to optimize it so that's that's amazing the way you do it well important that's my Approach um and I have a lot of foundation in the secular world so when questions come up I I can answer them because of my background in a way that somebody else maybe wouldn't um the this my latest by the way I want to dedicate this learning to my newest cersa partner his name is yonathan benar Manu um he just got his Jewish name he asked me what his Jewish name should be um his grandmother was Jewish he'd gone to Passover saders but otherwise his mother didn't really give many Clues and he said so my name is John Malone what's my Hebrew name I said uh let me look into it but I think it's probably I'll come back to I came back with him as yonathan and uh so but we don't know what his mother's so you said he was born Jewish or he wasn't he's born Jewish his maternal grandmother is Jewish and he remembered going to Passover for eating matah on Passover but that's all he had there was no um Jewish Education of any kind and somehow at this late stage he's 60 something like 61 years old Kara he's looking to to explore this uh realm and he found Janet by looking on a RBI smika program he was looking for Jewish Education found something about Jewish Education smika and the Rabbi says um you need to go to jayet right I don't know if he was ready for you're saying he wasn't necessarily ready just yet to become a rabbi not quite he just wanted to educate himself and that's how the journey led him there but he's uh in the I was supposed to see him our scheduled time was this morning and he texted me that he's in the hospital that he has heart problems so I wanted to dedicate the learning for him am me so so that's his story so he's an open book but what he'll do is he'll say you know I was reading about this and and what can you do to enlighten me about this so we've talked about everything from why Moses hit the rock to um how science relates to Quantum Theory relates to God you know it goes all over the place but if I don't know the answer I just say let me get back to you on it and then I'll try to get a deeper answer answer because like his question about Moses and the Rock we were going to discuss it today um but he's sick I I didn't want to just give him the Rashi I was trying to give a little more uh because he deserves it he's a he's a smart guy and he's curious um that's the thing to measure too is is somebody curious or are they just looking to be a book learner I don't know I find out who I've got on the other side of the the table and that's how I function so you're really observing you're really observing the quote unquote customer or the uh you know 100% yes that that's what it is now while we're on that topic let me ask you this what is it that makes you tick meaning what you're you've been doing this for three years some of our kosas Unfortunately they go for a certain amount of time and then they start feeling burnout right all this problem in the book what is it that makes you really want to stay consistent keep doing it gives you that energy to take on you have how many KES right now you have multiple yeah I've got basically three um here we go so what what really motivates you well even though reformed Judaism was not the greatest Foundation One Day a teacher I don't even remember her name or who she was I can't even picture her face she says why are we here and we all kind of looked sort of like you know we don't know and she said we're all here to make the world a better place and I thought oh okay and then she said whatever your gifts are whatever your abilities are your purpose is to make the world a better place place so maybe you're making the world a better place by keeping your room clean maybe it's going to be because you helped a lady across the street but if your mindset is why am I here is because I'm here to make the world a better place then you have meaning and purpose in almost anything as opposed to saying what I need you say what am I needed for it's a it's a whole different thing um so learning that mindset late in life might be difficult having grown up with it it's just kind of second nature this is just how it is I was in the appliance repair business as well as selling them and repair was just a go-to like a Mak sense I'm making the world a better place because your fridge is busted you're freaking out I'm going to get it taken care of you know I'm in the making the world a better place by something that's very obvious to me as being a Healing Art so to speak um if you can compare that to our nyell to our uh what problem are we fixing with with uh you know what problem do you feel like you're fixing when you are a Janet study partner uh the problem I'm fixing is misunderstandings about Judaism or ignorance uh whichever it is it could be one or the other or sometimes it's both but you know for certainly ignorance if you don't that's what we when we go to the the standard part would be you're having a teaching class because you don't know this information I'm going to teach it over to you so you're ignorant and I'm teaching you but the challenge that I do well with is the misunderstanding part because I grew up with a lot of misunderstanding and how did I get to this place of being a teacher is because I realize what the misunderstandings are about we used to joke around how can people keep Shabbat they have to they can't turn lights on and off that is so muga that's so crazy a light switch on and off is work give me a break maybe back in the time of the Bible when you know tourah was given they're lighting fires and light you know it's work to light up the house with the fire but the switch thing and so then I took a class jli and they explained well work is a different kind of a concept it's you know based on the 39 things of building the Temple and and it means creating versus destroying you get the idea so but there's most people walking down the street think Judaism has something flawed in it or they' be following it right they think it's like archaic or they just or they just don't know much about it you know right that's why I said it's either ignorance or misunderstandings or both and that's where I I'm energetic about it because I felt like I got somewhere I got from the darkness to the light and I'm saying here I'll show you a light like the rebi said I'm I'm handing you the match beautiful right you have an opportunity to really Shine the Light in people's lives that's what we're doing that if if you see it that way don't get caught up in uh we just need to read the paraa over here that's that can be too much structure without enough uh personality to it so that's you're really bringing them the gift of Torah you know yes now let me ask you this um what would you say is like a you know you said before that reading every K understanding where they're coming from knowing what they really want that's important but do you have any like General tips in general ways to to makea study more impactful take it beyond the book bring it into you know actual real human connection change somebody's life how do you do that what's a good perspective for that well I just take an interest in people in general so I'm interested in who they are and I get more of that before I get too far into the studying then once I know who they are then there's some way that this meshes in a better sort of way as to what's going to be meaningful for them um because this is really all about making this meaningful for them and by the way as we do this as every teach teacher will tell you you learn as you're teaching you can't know the material as well as you do once you have to give it over then you know it better but I I think of this as a journey we're taking together imagine for a moment you're sitting next to somebody on an airplane now I don't know if everybody in the room has been on an airplane or if they have have they ever talked to the person next to them some people are too shy or they're focused on their own stuff but I will sometimes look over and if the person next to me is reading an interesting book or there or something's going on that I might say so what brings you to San Antonio we're here on this plane flying to San Antonio are you from there because I've never been there before I've engaged in people with conversations like that and so here I am saying you and I if you were my husa partner I'd say so we're both on this Jewish journey together where are you in the process what do you see yourself as what what does Judaism mean to you what do you how does it connect to you in your day-to-day how does it connect to you in your right uh vision of your life in general uh and once you get that then you know what you're working with you know what how may what's the formula for uh connecting you more is to know where you're already at yeah it's so important to take a genuine interest in in the person if you want to have any impact on them at all right that that's how I see it that that's how I function that's how I functioned in sales too is you know just to be interested in what their needs are what's going on for them what the challenges are uh because I I think that they say that in sales there was a famous salesman you can look him up named Zig Ziggler Zig l a r and he said they don't care what you know till they know that you care H it's so funny I was about to I was about to share that line I didn't know who said it but now I know yeah that makes me think you know some people are better schmoozers than others um is it something you think you can learn is it something somebody can teach themselves so to speak like if a if somebody's naturally an introvert or naturally just not even an introvert but naturally more of like a bookie not a bookie um how do you call it a bookor you know somebody who's more into the books well then you would need to learn to be more like a journalist a journalist if you're doing an interview you you would ask what where why how questions you don't ask yes and no questions if you want to draw somebody out you say so what brings you to jayet let them talk a little bit why did you decide to do that how come if you you need to ask questions that Express curiosity and if you don't have that innate curiosity then you're going to be kind of mechanical about it and this won't go very well when we're mechanical we have to be from our heart that this is what we want to do so otherwise I imagine there are some people who are teaching in this program who feel like they're more comfortable being the academic hi we're here to read this week's paraa and here we're going to see what happened over here how come uh pinus became a Cohen and and people can learn that way but that's probably why you if somebody else is getting a review how is it well it's kind of more uh impersonal it's just a class right and I don't I'm not teaching a class Spectrum no meaning yeah yeah well that's well you you said you wanted to know how to inspire somebody and that's different than educate somebody so people who are in the traditional husa program we're both here to learn this material then that will be an educational experience and we learn the material but the way to make the material better if we're not going to do the shozi way then I'll share with you what I remember in in University there are lots of classes you could take and one of them I happened to take was oceanography and they could have taught it just like the geography class I had where they're just teaching you about the plate tectonics and what causes earthquakes under the ocean and stuff like that and the teacher started out with how would you like to know how to find the best place to buy a beach house oh hadn't thought about it but how many people sometime yeah when I retire I'd like to have a beach house and he said yeah and if you don't buy it in the right place you'll be really sorry and he explained how the ocean erodes the shoreline and if you're at this part of the shoreline your Beach will eventually get eroded away and if you're at this part of the shoreline the the beach will have sediment continually dumped on it that's being eroded from the cliff and you need to find a place where neither of those things is happening so he made it more interesting because he made it something that could personally affect you so Rel you can do that with Torah too you can say you know how would you feel if you were in this situation and zimy and Cosby are doing this thing in front of the tent you know I I I can't say that I ever had that conversation but but just the idea of making why is this relevant to me if if you're teaching and you don't want to get into the Shmo thing then you would speak from your own heart and say what is this par mean to me you know just out just to to share with you when I read this about how Moses laid hands on Joshua it reminded me of when I was a little kid and my father blessed me on Friday night something that makes it a Little More Alive than just reading a story that happened 3,000 years ago animate it a little bit you know yes personalize it some way it doesn't have to be the Schmo approach it just needs to be even relevance you know like I was learning H shabas with with somebody this week with jet um and one of the things I try to do is constantly take cases in h shabas which some of them could sound very impractical old-fashioned things that happen in talmudic times and say okay let's see how that would actually apply to me today in my house in my life you know where would I actually have this like it it gave an example of a of somebody pouring water on on the ground and then it eventually ends up in the grass so we were thinking you know these days we have Plumbing Systems who does that you don't really do that and then I said well sucus is might be an opportunity when that happens and he said hey that's actually interesting because in my Suka that's exactly what happens we wash on a patio and the water runs off onto the grass and then the question is is there an issue with watering grass on chabas is there not an issue so just like you know to to take the text out of the book and make it become alive I think it's important I wanted to we're going to we're going to wrap this up soon so I wanted to just see if anybody who's here with us live has any questions if you do you could either U message me or I guess I could I'm G to make the um I'll make the C the mics be able to unmute let me see how to do that okay so yeah everybody can unmute them if you have a question if you have a comment if you want to share something now would be a good time otherwise what would be a good uh a closing message a uh elevator pitch or a closing message well I was hoping to be able to say what I did in this meeting is what I do with my people which is you know we we're making a connection but I don't know what the people in this uh group have gotten so so there so I will just say that my close would be what I remember hearing at Young Israel I was there for mka and before the the daving the rabbi was talking about the difference between their connection to God and cidic and their connection is all about musar and doing the right thing and that will set you up all the best in the world to come and they said however ham seemed to have this idea that they are deepening their connection to God and I'm thinking to myself you know the difference so why is it that you're not saying and we should try to do that too but that's the goal is to feel more connected to God to realize the Divine Providence in your life at every moment like the Fred kbbi when he tore a leaf off a tree and his father said what'd you do that for and he says what do he mean he says well that leaf was there for a reason and now you tore it off everything's happening for a reason and if you see it that way and you see opportunity in everything you're doing that's the point is is you have an opportunity your H Vera partner is there with you and you can decide it's only about the thing that you set it up for or it can be about something else it could be that that person's single and would love to get married and if you ever talked about it say well now that I've gotten to know you you know I have a friend who knows somebody d d d and you can make a sh but you have to be thinking outside the box of I'm here to teach this week's par I have this um husa partner that he uh lives out of State and I've been trying to work with him but he's kind of a challenge he's more of a motivational coach kind of situation he's like needs to get launch his life a little more um so I've been trying to motivate him and starting out with gratitude um I I say whenever you're stuck start out with being thankful for what you have and I said to him because he he's doesn't have a job I said so you're really depressed you don't have a job I said okay you know I gave him some stuff but I want to get to that part that you were say the hashak prus but but to start out I said imagine you were a billionaire would you be happy now he says oh if I had a billion would be great I said what if you didn't have any legs well then I wouldn't be too happy I said so imagine now for a moment you're a billionaire with no legs is that better than where you are right now and he said no I said so think of it you're already a billionaire your legs are worth more to you than the billion dollars be thankful every morning thank God that your body is okay you're starting out with this lacking thing I don't have a job I don't have money but but it's a lot of work this guy is a lot of work he's over 30 years old and he's still living at home and he thinks he should have a because he's seen that younger guys in their 20s are getting married before they have a career I'm saying you didn't launch at the right time you you got to do this differently but the hasaka Press is he was telling me hey the next time I talk to you I'm going to be in the midwest I said really how come and he says well my parents have a vacation home and in the the summertime when it's muggy and hot in Florida we go to Wisconsin I said oh okay so so so anyway okay anyhow so I ended up saying to him you know I know somebody who's going to be in Wisconsin um and and he could possibly meet up with you by hashak prus they met each other without me even setting it up but I did let both of them know about each other and now they've exchanged phone numbers and they're in touch with one another at least for the summer so so this is how I didn't have that in mind but it happened the other thing that happened that was really crazy that I didn't tell you about is my other kabusa partner who lives in Maryland actually went to the funeral of a friend of mine's brother-in-law we were just talking about what city he was in and I said are you anywhere near this city I said he says yeah I said that's funny because my best friend's uh wife is over there right now for a funeral uh sing Shiva and I said and I said who it was and he said that's too crazy he was he's the president of our synagogue and I'm the president of the Brotherhood he's my buddy I go how 3,000 miles away of all the habusha partners I could have I've got this guy who knows my friend's brother-in-law that's just a sign that hash was looking out for you and he he set you up with the right guy yeah always so but you just see these things and you just kind of pinch yourself um yeah we keep a journal we have you know in the jet office these stories happen all the time like stories of ashk prus and connections that nobody would have imagined that just uh you know it all gets pulled together you had one I think I shared with you a previous one who got busy he got married had kid can't talk to me anymore he's just too busy but before that happened he was converting he and his wife were going through conversion and they were in the Midwest and it turned out they did their conversion and got married all on that same day and it was on my Jewish birthday oh the Hebrew calendar I think I might have mentioned that to you yeah so so it's like well how crazy is that how many days are there in the year and the one day that this all happens for them is my birthday so says there's some kind of a sign and he ended up sending you a picture from when we met at the restaurant I picked a restaurant to meet when he was in LA I saw but I I don't that was how Pro we we go to this restaurant I pick the restaurant there's plenty of places to go and it happens to be where his friends Mish so we took a picture together so that's the kind of stuff where God smiles and says you think you know where you're going I'm I'm leading you around just when I was in high school we were watching a movie about science was astronomy and all this stuff we're learning about outer space and at the end of the movie it said the thing that we find with science is the more we know the more we realize what we don't know and how that played in was they were telling us about how until we invented telescopes there was so much of the Galaxy we couldn't see or until we invented microscopes there were so many things we couldn't see and so this invention suddenly broadens the awareness of God we didn't know about all this stuff in the micro or in the macro because we didn't have the tools and I said in Torah is the same way when you don't know anything about Torah when I grew up it was sort of like having a friend say you know you heard of that about that movie called Ishtar with Warren batty don't bother with it they spent a lot of money on it it's a dog of a movie and it got panned in the newspaper nobody saw this movie the Torah is the same way for most Jews they haven't read it they've been told by everybody don't bother it's just a bbam iice 40 years they got lost in the desert they didn't ask for directions there's a sort of a caricature about what it's all about don't waste your time it's a it's a sales pitch it's don't don't get sucked in so what we're dealing with then is to say as soon as we can get people to understand that the Torah is emis that it's true that it really happened then it opens up the door to all the other amazing truths that there are to be understood about God and through cdus especially how everything happens for a reason how there's meaningfulness in all of it as opposed to the secular words like Serendipity and coincidence because those are the words that undercut God's Providence people believe in the word coincidence they're already telling you well God's not involved oh last but not least this is really really really important most people most people that I've talked to they think if they think they're believing God at all like they're ostic but they believe there's a Creator there has to be something the Big Bang just doesn't answer it for them then they have this belief that the Universe was created somehow by some being or some space aliens or whatever and then it just runs like a watch that was made by a watch maker and that construct of something from something is what they think of because they think that's rational and anything else would be irrational and so we introduced the word superrational this is really important for everybody in this group I learned this from jli the word supr rational simply means beyond our understanding and let's face it we were created by somebody that we don't understand God's above us it's like when you're first born your parents know where you came from and you have no clue you just showed up and here I am how did I get here so likewise we don't know how we got here but God does and the thing about it is God creates something from nothing yeshion I never had that concept until I started studying a citizen but it changes your whole vantage point if you start realizing that every moment we exist is because God is continually creating it like a movie on a movie projector on a screen then it's a different attitude about what life is God is running this movie all the time you're in it because he wants you to be in the movie but don't get so full of yourself that you think you're an independent being your existence everybody in this rooms our existence depends on God continuing To Shine the movie on the screen it's really important for example if I go to young Israel they'll probably tell you you know you should put on T filling every morning they're right and they'll say it's because it's in the Torah there there's places where it talks about it and I would say let me explain something what's going on is we are the originals God gave us to fill in as a foundation for Jewish meditation we are the first people who got meditation and how does it work we are focusing our heart to our mind into action and that's why you're wrapping your arm to fill in first that's according to your heart and then we're putting it on our head and then we finally wrap the hand why is that sequence it wasn't just because it's in a book that says you do this by this by this one two three we're doing it because we are mindfully saying I want to get it all in alignment I want to get the heart and the brain and the action going and we do it in the morning because that's you're starting your day with a focus if you don't get that then you're just doing it because it's a task and and that's what we need is is uh for Jewish people as we get older we need it to be explained when you're young you'll do things because your parents told you to when you get older you need to be given a a reason yeah because we can't make it any better than it is without knowing what what this is something I want to start doing in general is having different volunteers sheare you know sheare their experience and Inspire others so thank you very much for being Theon and hopefully we'll get you again sometime in the future anytime thank you very much all right all the best to you all have a good week yeah