The Shabbat Show - Episode 16: Inspired Always

[Music] hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the shabbat show everybody's doing well incredible how the weeks are flying by thank you so much for joining us again on another show this is a special show this is a show that is taking place after one of the most impactful painful and serious days of the year the the holiday of that which we experienced this past week for those that were that joined us on the radio show that we did last night uh thank you for joining us and right now in the jewish calendar we are in this unique period of time we are turning the corner from a period where we had been holding back from certain things that bring us joy and happiness we've been holding back from music because music does something to our soul as you saw on the last show is the music that we we played was really a cappella music because music does something to us and in commemoration of the holiday this week the when i say holiday i mean an important day it's still a day to connect the day of tish above we were holding back we held back from wine we held back from certain foods and now that we've done that and we are turning the corner if you will and now moving on to the next year we are in many ways celebrating the things that we've had and when you don't have something you appreciate it we're celebrating the ability to enjoy certain gifts that god gives us wine music we're celebrating it not from a place where we can indulge in it but where we can use it to lift us up to be inspired we're celebrating people that are inspired always we're celebrating the idea that even from the ashes we emerge we are the jewish people we are bullet proof literally we don't go down we are eternal and there are moments where it seems like it's almost over and there are moments where we come back this is the shabbat called shabbat nahamu it's a shabbat of consolation it's a shabbat where we remember that we're eternal and it's an honor to be on the team and it's an honor to be part of an eternal nation which is where we are we've got a great show of music of wine of good times this is an incredible shabbat thank you for joining us this is a credible time and i know this is going to be a a show that i hope stirs our souls and has us introduced to great people that are inspired and leave us a little bit more inspired and lifting our spirits to where it needs to be as we enter ourselves into this new era so thanks so much for joining us an honor to be with you again what would friday be like if i didn't have you it is so incredible thanks so much for joining us today's show is sponsored by tofona sellers ontario's premier kosher winery thank you so much for doing that we've got a great show we've got kahoot coming on later we've got rabbits feet gluckin from boston who's coming on this incredible individual you're going to meet very soon we've got toby and joe and jody burkau from ontario who's from tofono who's here as well we've got miriam sandler jamie geller we've got a lot going on before we do that one more thing important when we have the opportunity to meet with uh the berkeleys we're gonna be making a lachaim so if you happen to be near if you're over age and you happen to be near a little bit of wine and a little bit of maybe a nice glass and you want to make a la chain with us we'd love to include you today in our lachaime it'll happen probably a little bit when we start interviewing our wonderful winery last time when we interviewed uh jay if you remember we interviewed jay from kedam and people emailed me and said what do you mean you made a little high-end with jay you didn't tell me about it i said i'm sorry he said i gotta meet with one person saying you say shabbat shalom habits i am too i'm like you're right my bad so i'm doing it right now we're gonna do all of the show if you have a chance if you if you have a chance get it it get a glass of wine we'll do la claim together before we jump in remember one-on-ones every single week we talk about the one-on-ones it's so critical so important if you have the opportunity why not get the wisdom it's a custom bespoke program that is being built so that people can learn what you want when you want make sure you text one on one to 97 000 to sign up also really important we've got a brand new web page you gotta check out the shabbat show the web the webpage the shabbato.com it's got all the shows that we've done if you ever want to review it we've got all the interviews whenever i say that was a clip of an interview you got to see the whole interview it's there we got previous shows we got a lot of stuff all the tools all the everything we have that we talk about on the show it's all there check out the shabbat show you can stream from there i believe as well but at least you have it afterwards for so check it out um that's an opportunity as well so thanks so much before we begin our show with our first video today i want to wish people a couple people shabbat shalom it's an honor to be with you you know that many times in life we want to wish each other shabbat shalom but we're so far but we are not so far because of the jewish people and we are so close shabbat shalom terrific and thornhill shabbat shalom thank you very much to beverly maurice from statesville north carolina esther malkin shabbat shalom michelle kurzner michelle and michael curzon from toronto canada we got a lot of toronto tonight we got some real representation from canada so we appreciate all the love coming up from the north henyan goldberg shabbat shalom jen from georgia shabbat shalom lisa weber shabbat shalom and thank you for your kind words alisha helen middlemen shabbat shalom to you adam from california says good shabbos good shabbos to you as well bonnie from texas from austin texas shabbat shalom lisa again from muncie pomona shabbat shalom to you we've got a lot of people that are sending their love toby and jody i know that you're listening we got lots of people sending you their loves to rona shabbat shalom from florida um to leia richard and leia bessette shabbat shalom village shul in toronto shabbat shalom to lauren elimelech delhi melis from toronto shabbat shalom from california shalom to the novak family from toronto oh my god there's so much awesome toronto going on over here shabbat shalom from the patolsky family from waterloo shabbat shalom from to ruth sussman from miami to the simons of phoenix we're getting ready for your performance today and thank you for the uh for the warm wishes to my family shabbat shalom to lay apparel from new york city okay let's jump in we'll do some more shabbat shalom later let's begin with our first video you know one of the things that is so critical as you come out of a tish above and you come into this next period of time is this recognition that we are an eternal people we don't go down we are a miracle we're a walking miracle there's a great singer named jacob schwecki who produced a song speaking about that and i think it's such an appropriate way to begin as we go from tishaba from the ashes ultimately to where we are right now as you go from down to down to up to remember that every day we walk around me and you we are part of a nation that is really a miracle check this out it's a glimpse of who we are i gotta tell you i've seen that video so many times ah it's who we are i'll tell you this is particularly touching for me today this week i had lost my grandmother she was the holocaust survivor and my grandmother also had those numbers on her arms and many times i would pass by and i'd bring my kids over and they would say things like um you know we're gonna celebrate pesach and they would just make references and she would look at me and she would say charlie i am a billionaire who would have thought who would have thought that's who we are as a people that's who we are as a nation we are a miracle highs and lows but we don't go down we are a miracle that's the beauty of the shabbat that's the power that's in front of us that's the joy of knowing who we are we're a miracle we got a great rabbi coming on next the next guest is a individual who is awesome you're going to love him right away his name is rabbi tsv glucken he's our next guest on the show here rabbit sv glocken is based in boston and he runs olami inspire online an online educational program for college students and young professionals he's a pioneer in online outreach starting with his first interactive online programming in 2009 in in digital life that's like 2 000 years ago he served in the israeli army and has rabbinical alternation from by noah weinberg he's also a freelance music writer and has his in and has interviews and features with important musicians appear in leading music publications like premier guitar band camp daily and vice he has a degree in jazz studies from the new england conservatory of music was an active player on new york's early 90s downtown scene and was building an impressive if limited this disco free before skipping town to go to yeshiva he recently brought his disparate interest under one roof and launched the in gathering which explores music via a jewish filter with a focus on jewish identity and music's inherent spiritual nature rabbi glucken welcome to the shabbat show it's great to be here what a pleasure it's awesome having you on and it's awesome being able for everyone to see you and just get a drop of your infectious personality thanks so much for joining us thank you so much great to see you as well and you know we're talking about the soul we're talking about music we're talking about this idea that we held back and music does something to us talk to us a little bit from your background and what you know and all your your purview and music and give us a sense of how to look at it from a more spiritual lens of what it does to you and what you've seen and known about it absolutely absolutely music is a powerful thing and uh it's something that's intrinsic to judaism and the jewish experience and what's fascinating is that your spiritual experience in judaism and your passion for music they're not mutually exclusive they actually work with each other to help each other um i think the reason for this is because music is something which bypasses the intellect and reaches us on a much deeper emotional spiritual primal level like it gets into your kish goods and it just moves you and uh and it can affect you without words without language i'll give you a great example um many many years ago when i was in yeshiva in jerusalem and uh i was in yeshiva and russia shona yom kippur kipper coming around as most people know the most important things about russia on yom keeper is uh getting your seat and uh no joke and so i i had been there long enough and i had enough protection that i got a great seat in the back with nobody near me and i'll pull right what's that this is the jewish version of playoff tickets you know what i'm saying like we got to get make sure you get the right seats right for the game totally exactly so i've been lobbying and you know for my seat for a while but i got it and this new guy wanted my seat so they put him next to me anyways uh he was somebody who was he had he'd been around yeshiva for a while but we didn't know each other that well he was in a russian program and i was in the the regular yeshiva program there anyway so roshana comes it was great we just said hi whatever yom kippur comes and as yom kippur is moving towards the end through minh and nila and you know you're just singing and we were singing our hearts out and um by the time yom kippur was over we were best friends it was unbelievable i didn't even know his name and uh but and this is going back 25 years since that point obviously i learned his name we became very good friends and what's amazing about it is that that bond our connection was born through music and it doesn't matter even though we're different people we actually disagree on pretty much everything but we're able to get beyond our uh differences because the power of music brought us together and our friendship is rooted in something so deep and so powerful that really translates transcends language and everything i'll give you a source for this which is actually very powerful um i saw this in rabbi uh shimon schwab's book the one that they give to every bar mitzvah boy you know and um so in chapter 11 of the book of genesis the story of the tower of babel so over there everybody knows the story and god confounds the languages and disperses the people and nobody can communicate anywhere because nobody's able to speak the same language as anybody else but what was language like what was it like in a world where we had universal communication so a taste for that is music and uh the reason think about it music is something it comes from we could come from different people different cultures and other peoples could seem alien or foreign to you and their language their music is affected by their culture their language the language they speak their religion politics personalities tastes whatever it is and yet if you make the effort to get past that and just to listen you can understand that other person musicians have this experience all the time they'll jam or work with other people who don't speak the same language and yet they become very very close they can't schmooze afterwards when they're drinking coffee but they're able to build a very deep bond because music transcends all those things and our polarized insane world um where we're divided by pretty much everything the way we can get over the hump and appreciate other people and get into the heads of other people is by taking a moment to check out their music understand where they're coming from learn where they're coming from and in particular coming off of something like tisha bob which is you know are suffering because of our divisiveness and because the the disagreements that we have if we're able to take the time to learn listen to the musics and find other people's and peoples for who they are through their music we can really come together and build this world and really make everything so much better i totally agree i want to play a clip of you with you watching we found the cool clip of you online if you can play project inspire super team if you could just pull up that clip of rabbit sweet jamming just tell us a little bit about you're sitting with a buddy of yours you're jamming and and just check this out just to give you a sense of your background um and just and the expanse of your knowledge just the project inspire once you play that [Music] clip [Music] [Applause] wow brother if you only knew you wish that you in my shoes you gonna keep on using me [Music] who would have thought a rabbi could jam like that i'm telling you look at you go to talk to me about one more thing one more question i know it's busy it's a friday afternoon give me one more question for those that can't jam like that right you're you know not everyone's got that skill that talent how does a person use music better how does a person delve deeper into music to connect to um to be more what can we do to be more appreciative of it and to use it i guess to be more connected to to god to each other's spirituality that's a beautiful question i guess the the simple thing is just to listen to listen and to let the music move you in synagogue in particular uh like on a friday night for example when you're coming to shabbos um most times the the nigunim and the songs that we're playing are simple enough that if you just close your eyes and let the music move you can go along with it and it can take you really to a very different place you can you can leave yourself you can leave the mundane you can leave all the superficiality and stuff that plagues us and bothers us and you can push that to the side and just get into the groove you're awesome rubble you're awesome keep on being awesome keep on jamming away keep on bringing the light and it's great to have you on the show shabbat shalom to you and yours thank you so much for joining us thank you rabbi that was rabbi glucken how awesome is that right how how great is it to watch him jam it's so amazing uh shabbat shalom is a little bit more before we get to our next guest uh we have a special birthday lay apparel's birthday it's the shabbat shabbat shalom to uh to leia shabbat shalom to um adina shabbat shalom to rich to from richmond hill ontario shabbat shalom people on sending it in to lawrence and hillary hess in fairlawn to leia khan from thornhill shabbat shalom to kaia halperin from pasadena california elian and eric from brooklyn shabbat shalom stacey and al from california shabbat shalom from the buy it shul shabbat shalom from lisbon from vancouver gabby kesten from queens shabbat shalom of course to the great blooms my harare north my family up in toronto shalom to uh to everybody from the bloom family okay getting ready for our next guest our next guest is a family who i know well i've had the opportunity to not only go to israel with toby more than once i believe but to be inspired by his wife jody and all that she's doing um they're both here together and they are uh the the founders of safona today's sponsor toby is an entrepreneur as well as a general manager of ontario's premier kosher winery to phone and sellers toby is very involved with his community as well as j inspire as a city leader for their men's momentum trip to israel jody is a jewish educator in toronto and works as a parent program coordinator ncswi and is involved in momentum as a city leader for the women's trips to israel they live in thornhill with their three wonderful children look at this toby and jody welcome to the show hey charlie charlie you guys look amazing i feel like i'm in the academy awards we love you thank you so much for joining us on the show and it's great to have you on and thank you for sending me the wine we're going to have a look at my help a little later i see some of the bottles behind you so i want to get to know both you i want everybody to get to know you as well so jody let's start with you tell us a little bit about your story now i know what you're doing in terms of speaking and inspiring people give us a little bit about where you're from and your story okay so charlie i just want to say that it's so great to see you we've we've been watching your show every week so to actually be here on the show with you tonight is totally awesome and uh thank you so much honor it's totally an honor right so in a nutshell um just over 11 years ago after the birth of our second child i had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude to god but at the time i had no way how to express that and when the opportunity came to attend a torah class even though i had no clue what a torah class was i thought to myself well maybe if i go it will be one way that i can say thank you to god for all the blessings in my life so i went to the torah class and mind blow and i'll never forget the first time i heard jewish wisdom because when the class was over i went right up to the teacher and i said to him your words bypassed my ears and went straight to my soul and charlie i knew i was home and you know it's so amazing you played that that first video we are a miracle so it's extra special for toby and i i'm not sure if you you know but we're both grandchildren of holocaust survivors and so much of our growth in judaism is based on that and i want to share with you that over the years every step that we have taken to bring judaism back into our life has felt to us like greatest victory ever and um it's just it's been an incredible journey ever since and it's it is incredible and the the the story of the holocaust survivors and their grandchildren and grand great grandchildren really is incredible toby talk to us a little bit about wine how did you get into wine so i've always loved wine um as i got older i turned my passion into a real hobby so i wanted to educate myself i took classes i attended winemakers dinners and other wine events going on around the city we even traveled to wine destinations at the time all on kosher and i built a nice little collection um when we were considering koshering our home i needed to figure out how to do that given the laws around getting rid of unkosher wine so i had to actually approach my rabbi so once i understood those laws i discovered that the toronto symphony orchestra actually purchases private collections to sell at their annual fundraisers i'll never forget almost the next day sitting there on the couch as their team came to schlep all my wine out of my cellar my wife coming over to me and putting her hand on me and saying are you okay honey no no i'm not it it hurt just to watch it to this day i'm actually convinced that all my neighbors thought we were being repossessed so how did the winery start so you get into kosher wine there's one thing to get into wine and then to to kosher your house then there's taking what you're doing and building a winery how did that happen well it was actually very very um uh lucky for for lack of a better term it was a blessing that uh we got introduced to rabbi avram gesselson and his family and they recently moved into our neighborhood and we became close friends very quickly we shared a passion for great wine and then one day while having a great bottle of wine i asked him are there any kosher wineries in the niagara peninsula because it's such a wonderful wine appellation and i really had a desire to support local somebody from the toronto community was either going out there or our customs organization was going out there to ensure that we had great kosher wine when i started to do some research i discovered there was none and i found this so surprising because it's a world-renowned wine growing region immediately we saw the opportunity and decided almost right there and then to start the winery with avram being the winemaker and me managing sales and marketing and uh and charlie i just wanted to share with you that you know it's been almost six years now but i remember that first time will be came home and he said to me joad they're bottling our wine like i can't believe it and i said back to him i said look how much hashem loves you and he said what do you mean and i said what do i mean i said you sold your whole collection of unkosher wine and now you have a kosher winery if that isn't a kiss from hashem i don't know what is great that's great that's amazing it's actually been really easy to see hashem's hand in this endeavor now it's so six years later we have seven different styles of wine including our multi-award-winning ice wine um and nothing gives rabbi gusen and i and jody morenovice than receiving calls like we received from a small community in the canadian maritimes saying that his community is making kiddush the blessing friday night over the wine for their first time because some of the people there found a wine that they enjoy and they really have a desire to support local so it gives us a lot enough amazing let me one more question uh and then i'd love to make a la chain with you um we're talking a lot on this show about uh appreciating the things that we have and taking the things that god gives us and elevating even more so give us a drop from your perspective about how we can appreciate wine a little bit more like give us a drop more in terms of taking the things that we have and making it even a little more special and more connected to it so it's not as difficult as everyone thinks to really start to appreciate wine drink wine drink a lot of wine try different wine if you're old enough different just to make that make sure that's clear assuming you're old enough and uh it's in a safe environment if you want experiment you want to try different ones see what you like see what you don't really be present real don't pick up a glass of wine drink it and say for me not for me try to smell the wine nose the wine as we say look at it see the colors taste it be present go slow really try to extrapolate from that experience what maybe the winemaker is trying to express in their wines so be there be present and be appreciative of both the experience and what the people around that winery has put into that bottle for your enjoyment at that moment amazing okay i'm gonna pour a little bit of your wine here this is can i give you a legayam may god bless everyone on the show to you and all those that are listening right here from all over the world a life filled with happiness health blessings and may we realize how special each and every one of us are may we feel god's kiss every day of our lives and we'll be able to elevate the physical enjoy the spiritual and become the people that we're meant to be oh that's great you guys are awesome thank you very much continue doing what you're doing continue shining your light on the jewish people on the entire world and i look forward to drinking a wine glass with you i hope in your shall i am soon amazing and if not in toronto we miss you charlie if i'm toronto we'll take it it's time i'm coming back as long as they open up those borders soon thank you guys shabbat shalom that was great to the cows who i know well they're such an incredible incredible couple really really real and awesome thank you so much for that and thank you for the wine for those who are drinking to you may we only be able to celebrate good things together all of us a couple more shabbat shalom before we go to our next video um to gabby kesten from queens which we got toby and jody jody and toby if you're out do you still listening people are loving you all over the chats over here if you get if you're on my facebook i'm going to go do the facebook shout outs a little bit later on so please feel free to check my facebook page on this show and i'll try to get the shabbat shalom on that as well to jen thanks so much for your kind words um to c d urbach shabbat shalom to you to lisa black metting shabbat shalom to you as well to rhona salinger shabbat shalom to you rochelle kurzner shabbat shalom to patty shabbat shalom thank you for your kind words malcolm kalinski from chicago shabbat shalom to you to the whole thank you hashem team shabbat shalom to mariam daba thank you so much for your kindness to leron my brother liran thank you so much shabbat shalom to you okay here's a couple more soon before that let's go to this new video that we found um from a man named alex claire [Music] i grew up in a very very secular family and i grew up in southeast london famous for david bowie and peter frampton and billy idol i didn't really have a sense of being jewish i didn't think that we were any different to anybody else until i was at what would be called junior high in america i guess there was another kid in my class who was much more traditional than me and i had another kid in our school in our class say to me that he wasn't allowed to play or hang out with this other kid because he was jewish and his father told him not to and that really shook me up when i was seven years old they were offering free music lessons at school and uh i got a drum kit and i started playing in different bands when you're a musician as a kid there's like a gateway to get into all the parties and all the bars when you really shouldn't be there and at 17 years old i decided to really take music seriously and follow it full time sure enough i started working for a small publishing company in london working in studios working on my way up from her firstly just making cups of tea but i started creating my own type of music which was blending soul music with electronic music [Music] i was playing live almost every single night and before too long the recording industry in the uk started to notice me eventually there was some sort of building war between parlophone and island records which is where i ended up signing and coming out an island records artists famous for signing u2 and bob marley and like various other big big musicians [Music] you know the real moment of sense of achievement was when i played a lollapalooza in chicago that feeling of seeing 30 to 100 000 people singing every word to every song back um marks a real sense of achievement starts the dream [Music] in the mornings and gomorrah in the afternoons i learned and and learning your idea fantastic you know the very fact that i had so much dashima in the music industry means that i can sit and spend most of my day learning torah i'm a professional musician and as such have uh always played music there was a stage in my life however about seven years ago when i started taking my yiddish guide my judaism a lot more seriously started learning torah and um investing a lot more of myself my time into judaism and decided that i would start taking on mitzvahs one step at a time first the sort of the learning based ministers and then castrus and then keeping shabbos being shown with shabbos um around the same time i became chairmashabus i got a very significant and very substantial record deal with a record label in the uk called island records which is um part of universal um music group big huge um organization who in the past i've had acts like you two and bob marley and florence and the machine and mumford and sons and everything was going swimmingly and when they signed me i told them there's something you have to know about me i'm an orthodox jew and as such i can't um i can't work on friday nights or saturday days okay they were very eager to sign me so they said okay fine that's great you know no problem we'll deal with it so they dealt with it and uh you know time went on and i made an album and the album was about to be released then just by pure uh coincidence even though it's a funny word in judaism um every piece of work i was being offered for promotion of my album was on friday night and on saturday day shabbos so uh i told my record company i'm really sorry i uh i can't i can't i can't do it so they understood first few times and all went by quite nicely so rosh hashanah went by no problem yom kippur great until matsuyam kipper when i got a phone call from my record label who told me that um i had an amazing opportunity to do a live performance for the bbc the following thursday i thought that's very nice following thursday and thursday just so happens to be uh just so happens to be one of the jewish holidays which has the same status as shabbos um you can't work obviously on those days so i told my record label i'm really sorry i can't do it at which point they told me if you don't do it we're gonna have to sack you we're gonna have to drop you from the label and uh yep sure enough uh that opportunity came and went over circus and uh yeah they dropped me i got sacked um i'm laughing now at the time i wasn't laughing at the time i was gutted and i went to my rabbi um he's a very special man called rabbi david tuggentuft who lives in london and i told him what happened and then i was pretty uh distraught and a few months had gone by by this point and the the final process of getting rid of me from the label had taken place and i said to him what do i do you know i've made certain sacrifices for judaism and it's doesn't seem to have worked out v was as a result of that decision and he said no matter what you do no matter what decision you make if you make the right one even though it seems really hard at the time and it may seem so cloudy you know unclear why you have to make that decision um in the long term you will get seated you get tremendous help from heaven and uh so that's very nice but i continued to not be able to pay my rent that month so uh after losing my job and being unable to pay my rent check or any other checks we'll take if any other take care of any other financial responsibilities i was literally down to my last uh pennies um and being a bit confused by the whole thing i got an email um from microsoft not as a performer of too close but as a songwriter they tried to contact other people but it just hadn't happened and eventually through my music publishers they got in touch with me and said we want to use your song for a international campaign and they did and as a result um that song too close sold just under six million copies and um the album has now sold around 1 million copies worldwide that too close was on so literally keeping shabbos has given me the hugest amounts of brokers i really feel as the result of that decision to keep shabbos i've had tremendous uh tremendous yeah maya huge huge amounts of blessings um from that decision an incredible video what an incredible story this happens to all of us at times in life where we are up against our own values our own morals the things that we believe to be true whatever they are whether we are going down a certain direction and we're not gonna we're not gonna break and this is the idea of being eternal eternal means we don't break we don't we don't give in because someone pushes us that's not how we roll and uh and sometimes when you're going through it it's hard but when you come out the other side you realize that when you hook up god he hooks you right back and sometimes it takes a little bit to see it but you end up seeing it it's an amazing parallel that we're seeing here between the winery of the berkels and uh and alex claire story it's just all part of who we are all part of what makes us great and uh and this is what we're celebrating today we're just celebrating this eternality of the jewish people a couple more shabbat shaloms why we'll hear to the begun family shabbat shalom to you rabbi gluck and i'm not sure if you're still on but everyone's commenting on your guitar finger so uh continue doing what you're doing uh elaine ozil shabbat shalom to you joel from toronto shabbat shalom leslie gold reuters shabbat shalom to you we've got some upper west side love shabbat shalom to carol drucker shabbat shalom to ozzie from baltimore shabbat shalom to you rifka mansour shabbat shalom to you and thank you for your kind words shabbat shalom to hama and jaffa from baltimore shabbat shalom to arya mack shalom to the group in passaic and shabbat shalom will be plenty more keep on jumping in here we're happy to respond back and in a little bit i'll be able to get to the facebook feed and now we're going to kahoot if you haven't been on before you gotta you can either get it on your app or you can get it on your web page just go to kahoot.it i'm gonna turn to my project inspire super team let's get kahoot going kahoot is the time in which we get to compete with each other the pin is we're going to slow it down a little bit to make sure my mom gets on my mom mentioned that it goes a little bit quick so mommy if you're watching here we go we got a great group of peoples joining on it gets fairly competitive so if you're here for the first time welcome to the game and if you're coming back it always gets more and more competitive each time as we go through this and people start learning on we'll get a couple um a couple more shabbat shaloms just trying to go through some more stefan sherry and stefan schwartz khan emotion donnie are we ready to roll it's only one more minute we'll get everything going if you haven't logged on yet 34608 beth from new hampshire shabbat shalom okay i'm ready let's do this okay one more minute ten more seconds okay let's just do it rock and roll okay first question how do you say guitar in hebrew musica me tareem pisanter or guitara i just love this question a couple more shabbat shalom as we do this deodo pharaoh shabbat shalom david daba from lakewood shabbat shalom okay here it goes let's see what we got here this is a long counter you got to make this quicker here it is guitara don't you love when hebrew does that guitara oh there's something called the winner liran is ready to play aviva leia and jordana okay number two i feel like iran's gonna get a place really high today he may take it okay two professors at jerusalem hebrew university created the first xylophone cherry tomatoes toenail clippers or teflon frying pan this is israeli intuition innovation at its best the answers are flying in what has been going on in israel they have been inventing multiple things which thing have they invented from this list here goes cherry tomatoes cherry tomatoes not a lot of answers okay let's see what happens steinhaus hillary jordana putney and lb okay number three let's go number three what approximate percentage of jews live in north america how many jews live in north america includes canada seven percent 23 43 or 71 while we're doing this i want to give a couple more shabbat shaloms to dorian houseman shabbat shalom deborah cohen shabbat shalom to michael structure them to judy shabbat shalom to milty weiss eliezer bro shabbat shalom leopold shabbat shalom to you eliezer shalom here goes to 43 can you imagine half the jews almost half the jews in the world live in north america incredible world this history imagine that happening 80 78 years ago putney hillary lb the bessettes and jamie's mom okay let's do the final question brent the branding color of facebook is blue because blue represents the cloud the best mark zuckerberg's jewish mother guilted him to it blue is easiest on the eyes and marx or mark zuckerberg is colorblind and sees blue the best i know which one my mom is going for i know which one your mom is going for and no matter what the answer is i am positive that there's some guilt involved so here it goes the answer is he's colorblind and sees blue the best okay let's see what we did we how we did here and the winners are lb third place great showing hillary and the winner is putney putney please joanna and joel thanks for stepping up here thanks for a great you can always email projectinspire.org dot com to get your prizes put any intro reveal yourself to me i want to know who you are thank you so much for joining us shabbat shalom to you fibers from an alpine we are ready for our next incredible guest miriam sandler fame and allure of the life as a performer said miriam sandler traveling the globe with international superstars singing background vocals and dancing for thousands she spent a decade touring with superstars like gloria estefan and michael mcdonald which included shows at the white house and abroad for the queen of england aside from being a polish performing artist miriam has recorded with megastars like julio iglesias and james brown she inspires audience of all ages with her heartfelt message and powerful voice miriam welcome to the show how are you so nice to see you i feel you have your glass open so look i am to you as well so good to be here it's great to have you on and you are a person whose life surrounds music and we're talking about music here and you speak about music being this relentless search for truth talk to us a little bit about what that means and how that inspired your journey yeah i would love to share my my journey with you um i really can relate to alex's um life story i have um some similar experiences i started performing when i was 18 years old doing commercials and like jingles for tv and radio and i started meeting other people in the music industry and i ended up singing backgrounds for a lot of really amazing superstars in the music business gloria estefan i traveled and toured with her quite a bit and i did a lot of recording also on different um albums like for example with james brown when he got out of jail and i recorded quite a bit with julio iglesias and michael mcdonald i mean really incredible successful recording artists um in my early 20s and uh it was amazing we were traveling the world touring and private jets and limousines and uh you know going to backstage parties with you know famous people tina turner prince i remember being backstage watching prince perform in europe and seeing just a sea of fans in the stadium it was really a very powerful experience and uh you know i did this for about 10 years i i um you know started you know really looking at you know what my life was going to be and i looked around at the people i was performing with and what their personal lives were like and as much as i was very excited to be successful and at the top of my career and i felt very lucky to have been chosen to travel and and perform with all these famous people deep down inside i really felt like there was some emptiness a very profound superficiality and lack of depth there and i looked around at the people that i performed with and even though they were famous and looked beautiful and very successful um their personal lives were very lonely and chaotic and at times you know unfortunately very toxic and i knew that if i had continued down this path that i was afraid that i was going to end up also very sad and look at you know whitney houston she had it all prince michael jackson i mean they were at the top they were legends and clearly they were they were missing something and i felt that same lack that that um that feeling of despair of not having direction even though externally um everything looked great you know i i you know had my hair and makeup done all the time and had you know designer clothes bought for me and it was a very glamorous lifestyle but there was something very uh profound that i was searching for and missing so i did some pretty serious soul searching i ended up in yerushalayim which was really life-changing of course and i was lucky enough to meet uh all women's band and started performing with them wow and it was the first time that i performed jewish music now before this you have to understand i was jumping around on stage basically singing you know sad depressing love songs that didn't mean didn't mean much and then i just find myself in yerushalayim on stage with all these women in flowy beautiful colorful outfits and headscarves and we're singing about these incredible subjects that i i never i never performed music like this we pro you know we were singing about shabbos about unity about sisterhood about connecting to god and it was at that moment that i realized why i had been given a gift and it was to really share the messages that i was sharing with them so we performed all over israel it was very cool we actually performed in a women's jail i have to throw i have to throw this in there i know it's i only got five minutes but i have to throw this in there we walked into the jail the women were all like smoking and you know looking at us like what are these tricks going to do for us and you know at the end of the gig we were literally dancing singing and crying with these inmates so it you know music let me pause you for one second i want you to delve into that point for us okay this is the point i want you to tell me about it yes that moment why does music do that why does music because if you would be speaking to them they'd be still smoking but there's something different what's the difference can you can you articulate us that we can tap into it or that we can use more of it because we may be living lives and not enjoying music enough we may be too busy for music we may be too busy running around on a treadmill so give us a sense of what that power is that you can tap into that can shift somebody around so quickly and that shifted you around when you were up on those stages big time it was a huge shift and the only way i can explain it is that you just feel this magic that comes over you when you're in the song when you're performing when you're dancing i literally feel like the music and just obviously hashem is just taking over and you know i feel very blessed that i've been given this gift and i think that that magic that dimension that music provides is what breaks down all the barriers and all of a sudden we become sisters we become one it's soul to soul and that was what was bonding us and bringing us to tears you know it was it was a life-changing moment i'll never forget it everyone loves hearing about the jail story um so so uh i came back to the united states and i had to come back to reality i took all my songs that i had worked on i changed them all into like incredible lyrics about hashem and torah it's called my cd's called the solution i'm so excited to share it with women and you know i i just i just clearly saw that there there was a real serious reason why i had all of that training from the top recording artists and and experienced all that so i can share it with all of you on the shabbat show and tell everyone how blessed i am to be a part of the jewish nation it is it is such a privilege and and i just i just want to show you i know i'm probably out of time i want to show you some of the equipment that i used to bring on my gigs uh when i was performing so here's my mic and my mic stand right and here's my music stand right there it is and those were some of the uh tools that i used as a performer now as a jewish woman because i've tapped into this ms this clarity this this magical divine energy that is waiting for us now i want to show you what my tools are my tools are the shabbos candles that i'm going to light hashem very soon which the women have these special mitzvos my tool here my fallows look really i think for my family and i love enjoying them seeing them enjoying it and you know what else are my tools my tools are my modest clothing which i didn't have before i didn't use that as a tool i was always it was all about external beauty and my head scarf of course as a married jewish woman is my tool so i want to thank you all and wish you a shabbat shalom and really embrace the magic of the shabbos queen coming into your homes i thank you so much for this opportunity thank you so much for joining us we have to bring you back shabbat shalom to you and thank you for what you do and for shining your light shabbat shalom thank you very much what an incredible incredible person what an incredible interview and we are sitting here today i think we have one more video for you guys so we're going to go straight to the rap okay so thank you so much for joining us and i want to really begin um really thank everybody for being here right now and special shout outs uh to uh everybody and before we go of course we do every single week we can never forget our partner jamie geller and all her awesomeness check out jamie geller thank you charlie so so much and hi everybody i am so enjoying this happy musical episode inspired by that i'm sharing with you accordion salami also known as hasselbeck salami now this technique can be applied to anything that you like so you can accordion potatoes carrots even pineapple watch and learn and i hope that you really love this sticky sweet treat the only secret tip i have for you is listen to music while you accordion shabbat shalom [Music] foreign [Music] and of course jamie geller you can always listen to jamie for more great videos check her out on jamiegala.com facebook instagram pinterest youtube twitter tick tock jamie geller and julius by jamie okay well thank you everybody for joining us in the show and this is really what it's really all about it's about being able to tap into the beauty of who we are the beauty of what we have to take the things that we've been given wine music the good parts of life and to elevate it to becoming the best that we can be meeting people that are willing to sacrifice themselves for the higher versions of themselves it's inspiring because it reminds us that we are eternal we have certain things that never go away and when we look around in this world and we figure out how we could elevate our lives we now take everything with us and become bigger from it and so for me and mine to you and yours this is a special shabbat it's a spot where we turn and we always are reaching up it's shabbat we remember who we are remember that we're a miracle we've got great people and we are great people and we need to be great people and so thank you so much for joining us like i say from me and mine to you and yours it should be shabbat filled with strength and courage and joy and happiness and good times we should be able to take the physical and elevate to the spiritual i hope and pray that next week i get to do this with you in the holy city of jerusalem but if not with god's help i hope to get to see you again next week good shabbos shabbat shalom looking forward to seeing you next week [Music] there is only one place we down know down i'll pick you [Music] up [Music] is [Music] you