The Shabbat Show - Episode 45: Convention 2021 Edition

sometimes i'd rather be [Music] hello everybody welcome to the shabbat show the special edition shabbat show and the launch of the project inspire international virtual convention is an honor to be here again with you this is an exciting time i have been going to project inspire conventions for so long the electricity in the room the the moments the speeches the people it's really one of the highlights of the year for me and i know that this is a difficult year to have one of those so at least we're doing it this way and i'm excited this is an incredible weekend coming your way it's going to be unbelievable and epic and it's an honor to be able to kick it off and thank you so much for joining us for those that are here for the convention we're going to begin right now and take you all the way for those of you here for the shabbat show welcome to this extended version of the shabbat show uh this is a longer shabbat show but i hope you will not only stay for the shabbat show but i hope you will then continue on and take advantage of what project inspires put together for everybody project inspire is something that is really unique to the jewish community they are designed they are powered and they are charged with the mission of inspiring people to go out and inspire others for me it is a i am personally moved by the organization i've been connected to the organization since its inception i remember like it was yesterday uh when rabbi samson over trop reached out and we were talking together and we ran what i think was the first ever event in project inspire history in the basement long island for the rabbis who are watching i'm sure you are smiling and nodding right now we didn't know who would come we put out some flyers and the room was pretty filth people are really interested in being able to be more inspired and to inspire others it's an incredible mission delivered by rav noah weinberg the late russia shiva of aisha torah and the visionary who told his students in the entire world go take responsibility to inspire yourself but don't stop there go inspire others as well and this this is the mission of the organization and this is what tonight's all about and i'm excited for it and this whole weekend is under that one banner to get more inspired take responsibility for our own inspiration but then at the same time to find out ways to inspire others we've got a great com a great show coming with you tonight uh first i want to thank our sponsors to crawford lake capital we thank you to bob and amy klausner in beloved memory of joel klausner josef pinchas to traffic tickets dot com rose and bloom law firm and to madison commercial real estate services we thank you so much we've got an incredible show for you we've got tons of videos we've got uh project inspire program participants we've got our good friend rabbi tsv sitner from toronto on we got jewish rapper news and black on we've got alex claire we've got an incredible incredible show so stick with us all at the end and before we begin i just want to say thank you to a few people really this is not uh inspire is is an organization that is uh powered by real leaders by people who care so deeply who are moved by just uh spirituality inspiration and they overcome every challenge they need for the jewish people and i want to thank the director of project inspire by heim samson the founding director of project inspire behind samson the executive liaison of project inspire mordechai trop the founding partner of project inspire dr stewart and andrea heitman to isaac and eddie gross to nachman and judy auerbach who are good friends and made a wedding last night so mazel tov to you guys and behind the scenes of course uh to jesse freeman who's going to be joining in a few minutes um to the indian fatigue bowl yaakov ginger who's with us to mrs sakowitz and most importantly to all of you this is a project of love and the fact that you guys are with us makes it all worth it so we thank you so much for joining us being part of this family and as always it is almost shabbat and we'd love to wish you guys shabbat shalom's it means a lot to us means a lot to everybody who's listening for tonight because of the forum you will be able to do it on zoom but please go to my facebook page at charlie harari and drop me a shabbat shalom tell me where you're from and where you're tuning in from we'd love to announce it throughout the show and it really means a lot to us so thank you so much it is an honor to introduce my co-host for tonight uh the executive direct direct the executive director of project inspire by yassy freeman yes you welcome to the show thank you so much charlie 305 am there's nowhere i'd rather be just for those who are tuning in now for the first time yossi freeman is on every single week with us he's behind the scenes if his kids or his mom is not winning at kahoot and he is in israel um and so it is 3 a.m this is called dedication this is what it's all about jesse and we're honored that you're part of it and thank you so much yeah it's also that i'm in my office and not home so that's fine that's helpful so give us a sense of what it means that you're sitting here right now the project um inspired convention what's it like for you this would otherwise be you with a headset organizing a million people coming in leaving speeches going big screens tell me a little bit what it means to you sitting where you are right now and and what what is this convention uh going to feel like this year you know charlie it's a very good question because to be honest we we were faced with the question of should we actually go ahead with the convention this year you know the covet era should we just push it off to another year should we uh should we go virtual and at the end of the day we felt that if we could bring people even though we're not in a hotel we aren't 1500 people gathered together but if we could bring a piece of the project inspired convention to the people out there um and give it a little feel of what we're out to accomplish and what so many thousands of people have joined us have accomplished and we can give that to even more people because virtually more and more people can join us we felt that ultimately we owed it to the people who have been involved with us and that's why ultimately we went ahead with this virtual convention so you're right we're not standing over a carving station or a chocolate fountain or a viennese table late at night friday night but at the end of the day we hope to be able to bring and we have an unbelievable program between tonight saturday night sunday night a really spectacular program i think that those who join us those who are on now those will continue to join us over the weekend will not regret it so project inspire is an organization that i know i get a lot out of i know the people that are investing their time and efforts into the programs get a lot out of um take it take us from your perspective tell us what are you trying to accomplish what is project inspire doing this all for what's sort of the motive behind all the work that's being put in every single day and all the proof that you guys have yeah i mean charlie i mean i think the the the answer is really answered by the question of why do a convention meaning why is it important for our organization to do a convention and i think the answer is that you know we as a nation you know jewish guilt or you know i i've seen all 41 or 42 of the shabbat shows we've been down that route you know uh but it's it we love telling ourselves we're not doing enough we're bad we got issues we got to take care of a lot of things you know it's a lot of things in our head when in reality we the people we the jewish people are the solution and we have to be empowered to be able to change the world you know that's that's really what we're out for and so a convention and an event like this to bring people around to show the people joining other people who have already joined and show what they've done and what we as a group can accomplish is amazing our entire uh methodology is to inspire people which you know is in our title but really to inspire others because we come in contact with jews of all backgrounds who know far less than us no matter where you are in your jewish observance far less than us and yet and we have what to share and we can inspire people and that's what project inspire is all about and that's what we've been doing for the last 15 or 15 and a half years now so i got to tell you one of the highlights for me uh i love the conventions as you know uh and i go and it's that the activity the speeches um and for me one of the highlights in the convention really are the stories that at every single convention just something happens you meet somebody and you're sitting in the crowd you're like is this happening like how somebody shows up from far and connects like it's such a it's so it's so moving when you see jews from all over the world that seem to do anything to find the connection to be inspired share with us if you have like any of those stories that stand out for you well being that it's a six hour show charlie i can you know start because i have so many of those moments but i'll share with you one you know it was um let's say five years ago uh we were at a convention and we we had started this program you mentioned jacob getting started a program called pi on the road we used to travel we used to take regular religious jews bring them to different jewish communities and have them inspire the community and we're showing people that look what you have to offer and so one of these one of these people that we brought to on a trip to san diego his name was reuben handelman handleman okay so reuben comes to san diego and he meets this boy his boy fernando he speaks to fernando aston fernando where you from he's from tijuana mexico in short fernando had just lost his dad and he decided to go to yeshiva ncsy was involved over there and fernando decided to go to yeshiva in san diego he traveled two hours each day across the border to be able to attend the yeshiva and here this guy ruben meets this boy who's in this situation and decides how can this boy sacrifice so much at his age right i got to do something and so we invited fernando to join us at the convention and i'll play i'll play a clip for you charlie oh man a very clever fernando sitting in the crowd we invite him to our convention we even invited his mom and there we are and jacob solomon need i say shout out thiago salmon who did a spectacular job on this but take a look at what went down at the project inspired convention i give you a little taste of fernando and ruben handlesman meeting at the project inspire convention take a look charlie then we have the clip for you hi very good you know who i am uh i saw you on stage so i assume you're an important guy uh yeah i'm very important did you ever google me uh not really no very important yeah i will i will when i get back to my room have we have we ever met before we have not my name is jacob solomon but i'm going to be a psychic and i'm going to predict your name i think it's fernando yeah yes right how did i know that i have no idea i did a lot of research about you how does that feel it feels a little weird but people get arrested for things like that yeah definitely definitely uh anyway so uh my my mind tells me that you live in tijuana yeah i do yeah do you learn in a school in san diego yeah how come you never invited me to speak over there i am now please come we need speakers i love san diego it's really wonderful yes on my number [Laughter] anyway so uh i heard about you and i i know that some people from project inspire came out to san diego a couple of months ago right you remember that yeah so you're studying there now it's a kind of a big must be a big trip from tijuana but uh yeah it's it's i commute i take kind of like the subway in san diego i cross the border and then i commute but it's worth it definitely beautiful how is i spoke to even rabbi adaro is that right yeah he's a roshiva yeah he's a russian shiva a nice man he likes you very much yeah i mean i i hope so at least anyway so we we heard that um that you're kind of interested in uh in furthering your studies and your jewish study is that true definitely yeah i want you to uh turn your attention to the stage now and see if you know anybody standing on there you know anybody standing at the at the stage there right up there right who's that uh ravine and the rabbi okay you know reuven who's that uh ruben handles man let's go up and talk to ruvving okay yeah okay folks we're going up to talk to ruvain before we end the program tonight this is very exciting isn't it exciting yeah i wonder what's going to happen okay so come over here let's see okay ruvain step up here ruvain so ruvain here who knows you because he met you in san diego yeah we met when when he they came to speak at school and ruvain here heard about everything that you're doing right so ruvain has something um really interesting really interesting to tell you okay yeah there's also a letter that i'm gonna have him read okay ruben it's all yours okay so about uh 10 years ago i was searching myself to find you know i had questions i wanted answers too and i was searching for a deeper meaning in life and i didn't have the uh you know i didn't have the funds to get to israel to find a school and to uh to find those answers and someone said that he found someone to help me out to fund my trip to israel and to find answers and i never found out who it was and about five years ago i found out who it was and i went over to him i said how can everyone pay we said one day's gonna come when you're gonna be able to return the favor and help someone else out and i forgot about it and then i went to san diego and something struck my mind and he had uh i remember that promise that i made that i'm gonna help the next person out to pay along and there's a letter i just like to read to you there's dear fernando there's a lot of excitement here at uchiva station gesher as we begin to plan for next year i've agreed to enjoy meeting with you i feel strongly that you have a lot of potential succeeding and gain from gesture therefore we are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted to ascertora the upcoming year between 2016 and 2017. we look forward to welcome you as part of the gesture family please feel free to contact us with any other questions that you might have looking forward to a great year together with w roseman innovation tour guest shirt program now i didn't write that letter i've never seen that but i made a promise five years ago that i'm gonna help out the next guy and that trip not only his accepts letter but you have the old expense trip to israel for the entire year at a plane flight at the school pass it along beautiful beautiful song written by small brazil you're going you're really going wow wow that was unbelievable were you there when that happened i was there believe me i was there and i i actually got to watch it from the crowd which was which is even more exciting but you know you know charlie as the the excitement in the room was just i don't know if there was a dry eye in the house quite frankly i'm sitting here getting chills and i was there in 2016. but you forget you forget over time how many people have made a difference in other people's lives by using the message and the programs that project inspire have provided and so to see it again reminds us how many people have stepped up to the plate to make a difference in someone else's life it's amazing what amazes me about this story is really it it's like the it's the unification of two totally incredible principles of fernando and just sacrificing for wisdom sacrificing inspiration and then to have you know ruvin saying hey i got this thing let me pay it forward and to see god just sort of like play the pieces and we're part of this incredible nation and it's an honor to be part when i see these things i'm thinking i feel so lucky to be part of this program you know and and it's great it's really special and wonderful and i think that's what happens when you push and push and push you know doors open up that you never see coming and that's i think a lesson we all take from that you know not only on the one hand pay it forward but other hand just push push push and you'll see stuff will open up for you amazing that's right you know like get involved and you'll see you know charlie we're 18 minutes into this spectacular convention weekend and you're already blown away but there's a lot more to come with a lot more stuff and i want to remind you appetizer you kidding amazing me just guys i want to remind the viewers those of you are watching on project inspire dot com forward slash convention tour anytime uh yeshiva world the matzah was streaming live right where you're watching this right underneath you can continue to donate to project inspires along with the convention we've launched a 500 000 campaign that will allow us to continue inspiring thousands more throughout the next year so right here on the page that you're watching you won't even lose the program you can click and go straight to donate to project inspire and help us reach our goal by the end of the convention we can you know charlie we took a little bit of a of a twist because we were looking for a a film during covert when it's really rough to be able to go and film people to be able to give people a little glimpse of our message especially at a virus time you know and project inspire going viral and all that so i want to play for you a new brand new commercial hit the market three days ago brand new commercial that was actually put together by a wonderful filmmaker named shy connect here in israel so let's roll the project inspired commercial i want to tell you about a virus no no no no not that virus a virus for good i want to tell you about something that's been spreading for thousands of years something so contagious that it infects everyone in its path but this contagion isn't the problem it doesn't shut down the world rather it illuminates it the good virus i'm referring to is your jewish identity and the host that is spreading your jewish identity throughout the world is project inspired project inspire instills in us all the responsibility to unify the jewish people by sharing the beauty and wisdom of our common heritage with our fellow jews by empowering each one of us as a leader project inspire is unique in that it's about inspiring you to inspire the world this has created a movement which has the ability to reach so many more it's viral to achieve its vision project inspire provides thousands with inspiration and opportunities for shared experiences that bring jews of all backgrounds together as a community to grow learn and share with one another to make this viral we need super spreaders like you it's on us to make our jewish identities go viral spread share connect inspire join the project inspire movement today [Music] and there it is people can continue to donate underneath you know charlie um we don't have kahoot this week i know mike doesn't mean he's so upset i'm getting texts from people going wait wait there's no kahoot tonight no no we have we have a makeup totally here's the mate here's the makeup for you actually we had to mix it up because we couldn't have rm or whatever it is keep winning you know especially my mom we had to like throw her for a loop so patriots rock i'm sure patriots rock is on right now she's deleting messages on her phone just okay so here we go we're gonna put up question what we're gonna do is throughout the night we're gonna have different trivia questions that we're gonna put up we have five questions okay they're gonna be five winners at the end of the night we're gonna we're gonna pick a winner from each of the questions for for those who texted in the correct answer so while we do this why don't we do question number one we're going to pull up question number one charlie people can text to the number you can read out the question but as you see you could text the number three three two eight three seven five yeah with you go for it go for it we'll see if you know this so okay eight three three eight three three two oh three eight three seven five okay so all you the question is as follows and by the way you're going to text them p i q one that's the key word p i q one and the question is approximately how many people has project inspired taken oh i got it go huh i got it it's on my phone it works your phone proxy how many people has project inspired taking digital on various trips and programs over the past 10 years and you can text a 200 b 1000 c 1500 d 2 000 okay how many approximately how many people's project inspired taking israel on various trips and programs over the past 10 years a b 1000 c 1500 d 2 000. okay we'll leave that up for another second everyone should get one just for the record yes yeah i got that one right so i'm killing it just letting you know no don't show that again don't show the answer i'm not showing the answers but yes for those who are joining right now especially for michael who lovers uh try to text text this eight three three two or three three seven five you don't have to get them all five right just gotta get one right so throughout the show we're gonna give you new answers new questions and you answer it and then we put you into a raffle golly fantastic fantastic prizes those of you who have been getting the prizes sent to them after after they answered correctly no amazing shabbat prizes that are being given out so again if you texted if if you missed out you'll wait you'll have to wait for question number two amazing amazing thank you yasu for that and uh excited for this show and excited for this convention you know we are we're privileged that we have guests from all over the world um every week we have the opportunity for those that are joining us in the shabbat show to uh to be part of it and people text in shabbat shalom's and shout outs and it really it brings out this community that we are and we get people from england and south america and um south africa all throughout america toronto and there's one individual from germany that tunes in his name is michael he is a incredible individual he stays up every single week to the middle of the night to watch the shabbat show live you know we went around and we asked some people what the show means to them and michael sent in a selfie video that really touched us check out this beautiful my inspire moment from germany for michael in germany my name is michael weingarten i come from germany's island i follow the shabbat show for a while it's the highlight of my week the show presents important teams for the jewish community and has a great lineup of guests the show how judaism inspires them to master hard fates and challenges in their daily life and work often helping others reflecting this while troubles brought me to the decision to find a meaningful life based on torah and i'm very thankful for project inspire for this gift to me shabbat shalom thank you michael for those beautiful words and of course remember every single week please tune in to the shabbat show we'd love to hear from you and uh thank you michael for being able to do something like this we're up to the second ju cue question right now i think they've let me do this myself yes he has trusted me with the next question for those who are joining us right now go to text 833-203-8375 which of these countries is not in the top 10 countries with the largest jewish population which of these countries is not in the top 10 of jews germany brazil south africa or australia which of these countries does not have a ton of jews germany brazil south africa and australia we'll give you about another minute and tell them we wanted to share with you everybody just how much uh we are honored to get stick with us uh we've got a great guest coming up right after this but we're gonna have some amazing prizes for all these cues so make sure that you are paying attention to and please text p i q two and it'll pop up on your screen and answer this question okay we are honored to have our first uh our first guest rabbi uh tsui sitner is a big friend a true friend of project inspire he's been on the show many times he's a regular educator at project inspires mind flex and deep dive he's a motivational speaker a rabbi and a therapist and he's the rabbi of the village school and asiator learning center in toronto rabbi welcome to the show thank you charlie always great to be here and always great to see you it is always great to see you as well rabbi thank you so much share with us if you can your relationship in connection to project inspire so okay so my relationship with project inspire goes back i would say a solid seven years solid seven years and when i first started uh started doing programming and and outreach here in toronto i was like i realized like there's no way to inspire and reach the jewish people alone if it's left up to like the rabbis and rebeccans like it'll never happen you know we need the jewish people and i remember talking to stuart heightman we were having we're having coffee and stewart says to me you got to get partners you need partners and he begins to tell me more about project inspire and i'll never forget it was like several months later when we literally had a base measurish a whole learning program of like 50 yeshiva educated you know strong jewish education backgrounds 50 guys coming from a whole diverse background of judaism all studying together and this went on for years like years and some of these relations continued on and on and that was like my window into project inspire this concept of like the jewish people taking responsibility for the jewish people that's when it began that's when it really began and from there it's just sword and so talk about this because it's amazing because you live this way right you live uh taking responsibility of being inspired and then taking responsibility to share and to inspire others from your position as a rabbi you know how does the rest of us do it you know the rabbis seem to be the ones who know everything and especially when it comes to judaism and that's your job and just what you do like go inspire you get paid for that this is why you're here this is your mission in this world so have you seen when other people have taken that level of responsibility for themselves and others how does that work for everybody else and and and what are the implications when people take this on so that's it's that's a great question charlie and i'll tell you i i'm not sometimes i wonder you know when one person says i'm going to be the mentor i'm going to be the tutor i'm going to be the one to take responsibility for a fellow jew sometimes i wonder i'm not sure if the recipient so to speak the student gains more or the mentor gains more yeah and what i've seen time and time again you've seen this i know you've seen this time and time again people come back to me they're like oh my gosh i'm so glad like i learned with them like i was talking to somebody today and they said to me like i said can you study with this person now this is a woman who like grew up went to all juice schools and everything like has a strong jewish education background and she's like what if like there's something i don't know i said then that'll be a great opportunity to like look it up and find out you know yeah so it's like you know i i see the recipient gain so much um and and so i even these words of like recipient and giver it's like i don't know who the giver is i don't know who the recipient is because i i really think that the one who's who starts off in that mentor position ends up strengthening their judaism thinking the most yeah they gain the most yeah i feel the same way i feel that when you see people that are excited when people want to learn they want to grow the backgrounds sort of fall away i think that's a huge mistake people think because they think that if their background isn't this way or that way then they're always the one who's getting and it's it's total i agree with you it's totally not true the perspectives the interests we're you know it says and i know you know this it says that every day we make a blessing we make the blessing on torah to ask god to give us our our peace all right every single jew has their unique peace and regardless of one's background there's a there's a place at the table and we need to hear your voice and we need to hear you be part of it do you have any stories or any any things that have inspired you um about stories like this because i know i i i could probably share a whole bunch of stories uh you know first of all just in terms of like inspiration like and you've had your finger on the post because you've been running the shabbat show and you've been so involved with project inspire and i have on like a separate front with mine flex and all that so just in terms of inspiration before a story just the inspiration like what project inspire has been doing over the last nine months or whatever of these lockdowns and the the turmoil that the world is in to me that that itself is the story yeah you know i mean just looking at like you know all of a sudden like mind flex didn't exist you know there was no mind flex you know and now suddenly like there's like a hundred people and when i go on and i'm doing the mind flex thing i'm teaching and i'm like and i hear people come on like i'm mate i'm from australia i'm like these like australian accents and like british accents from all different places i'm like this is incredible this is incredible so to me like that has been you know the inspiration of mineflex the inspiration of of of the shabbat show you know i know my kids love it but i know that it's like it's people all over the world like like that guy in germany who you just showed us a second ago uh there's so many people from all over that have been gaining so much and i feel like that's that's a story in itself yeah uh but i think about that and then just you know that's the story of just taking responsibility right it started as an idea because people were sitting at home and it was like you know april and we're like let's just do and that's the same concept it's just this who knows just keep on pushing and you never know what opens up yeah yeah yeah i i had i had two things happen one that just happened right now actually total project is literally projects right i didn't even tell this to like jesse friedman like i didn't tell us to any any of the pi team yet but like this woman called me two weeks ago three weeks ago unfortunately her father passed away and this is not even my story but just real brief anecdote this woman calls me up she's like my father passed away i don't know if you're familiar with the way kovid funerals have been having but it's been a disaster and like the funeral was the mess and it was like it's like to give you 30 minutes and it's just a few people and it's really small and it's it's pretty sad it's not very uh meaningful for people and she said like you know the funeral is over i'm in show by now and like i don't know what to do to honor my dad like she and this woman like really you know didn't have a very strong jewish background and i said to her why don't you you know there's a concept of torah study once you study with somebody she's like okay like who what and i'm right called miriam leibowitz from project inspire in toronto and i said did you have somebody and she said yeah i'll get you someone on i made a connection i dropped the ball didn't know what happened and i find out like like this was i said three weeks ago it was actually more like like uh like a month and change ago i find out that they've been learning they've been learning regularly these two women learning on the phone and she says because i have to thank you like it's been so meaningful for me but uh so like all the little pi project inspire stories i think are are incredible but i'll share one story with you uh one quick story and it's not necessarily project inspire but it's everything project inspire is it really is the essence of them of of of who they are and what they do so this um i don't know maybe it was uh a year and a half ago a year and a half ago uh i get a call from this woman in the community um she grew up in the religious community here in toronto and she says to me uh she says you know i work with an organization called small wonders okay you know i didn't know much about it and she said it's an organization that helps people who are struggling with infertility i was like okay you know how can i help you she said i i have a case of a woman that i'm trying to help out who unfortunately hasn't been able to have children for for years she has no children and at the end of my case working like this has nothing to do with judaism this is just one human being helping another human being with infertility she says i'll pray for you i'll pray for you she says you'll pray for me she says yeah i'll pray for you jewish yeah i'm from jewish yeah so she said what's your hebrew name she goes i don't have a hebrew name you never hebrew name because no she says okay well you have to get your hebrew name so she connects she calls me up to connect me to this woman we'll call her uh brittany all right calling me up she's like okay we're gonna continue britney i said okay great nice to meet you you know we sit down we talk about what a jewish name means and about a month and a half later she decides i'm gonna take on a jewish name she takes on a jewish name she comes to shul she stands you know standing in shul i get up on the bmw we do mr berak and we give her a hebrew name and and then everybody starts dominating for her and three months later she called me she's like oh nine months later nine months later she's standing in the spot that she stood for her own daughter's baby naming sorry for her own baby naming and now she's giving her daughter a baby name like this is like jews taking responsibility wow that's like hitting the solo homer to start the inning i'm telling you rabbit that's unbelievable what a great story it's all project inspired it's what they're all about right that's what it's all about rabbi thank you so much for being on the show wow wow great to see you charlie i'm blown away by that story really i am thank you so much for being on the show rabbi and for what you do and we really appreciate it and uh thank you for your partnership uh what an amazing one is rabbi t sitner from uh from toronto what an incredible individual and what a great story that was and it's a continued story i'm sure of hundreds and where um we really see what happens when you join together in inspiration and spirituality and and in being together and being one family in one nation just miracles happen it's unbelievable uh we have an incredible uh opportunity you know every single week we are pushing uh one-on-one learnings because we recognize how valuable it is to people like the story the rabbi just told of uh people that honored their their love their loved ones by studying together and we're seeing such incredible feedback from those that are doing one-on-one study partners it's it's opening up relationships it's opening up wisdom yassie freeman had a chance to catch up with a pair of people that actually signed up for one of these one-on-one learnings check this story out of cory and check this out corey drucker welcome from jerusalem israel we also have with us salami crandler from baltimore maryland baltimore maryland we heard of that so we have from two sides of the world over here welcome corey welcome thank you for joining us thank you thank you for having us okay corey first to you you don't wanna go cut right to the chase tell us where you're from you you know your background in which you grew up jewishly like what was your background uh let's give us an idea sure so i grew up in a valley stream uh long island um got bar mitzvahed in a conservative shul and we kind of bounced around between conservative and informed shules growing up and i think like the bar mitzvah was the hype of my judaism and it kind of just went downhill from there uh as most i would say eventually just kind of became a complete secular jew uh went to college in south florida and joined a jewish fraternity zeta beta tah but still wasn't really involved religiously um so yeah okay good corey how in the world were that upbringing and college in south florida did you come to sign up for a learning partner in project inspire yeah and so in uh 2017 now um i was diagnosed with melanoma and i thought to myself how could someone so young get a hereditary disease like that uh and it's very serious um and just want to make it clear that i'm i'm pretty good with it now we had a bunch of different surgeries to to remove all of the malignant tumors and whatnot um and i i kind of thought to myself you know there's a god out there and it was the first time in a long time that that had happened for me and i didn't know where to begin i was living at the time in a small town in north dakota and because of a job and i contacted my mom who's carol drucker and she was involved with jwrp when it was still jwrp um and said she sent me the number for jay inspire and so i just contacted them and they got me hooked up with rabbi kreiler corey at a certain point you decide you start to weigh out in your mind should i go to yeshiva which is a big step let's be honest right it's the middle of covid you hear all these crazy things coming out of israel locked down and quarantined and yet you pick yourself up you get on a plane and you come to learn asia torah in jerusalem tell us about it um so i i guess it started in uh september uh like the thought kind of crossed my mind so i was i guess we could say one of the victims that was laid off from my job because of corona but as we kind of say like everything happens for a reason um hp and uh you know it's very much it was a well needed intervention um and the job market just isn't relevant in america right now and so i'm kind of talking about it with others um what do i do with my time now um and you know having learning with show me we we learned an hour a week pretty much for like two two and a half years if not more um and so it was it's now it's spending 14 16 hours a day learning with various different rabbis about various different topics that i didn't even know existed and the depth of judaism that i was made aware of within the first two weeks of being in yeshiva just uncanny um it may not be for everyone but i think once you find your your right place in the world it definitely is uh is worth it let me speak to the point that corey makes which is that sometimes it's more uh it's even more advantageous for the teacher so to speak than the student in terms of that relationship how have you found that um definitely i see that uh of course with elio and alicia and the uh teacher learning more from the student i always told corey i learned more from him than he could ever learn from me and again just knowing his background and how far he comes he has a connection with hashem that is something is really the epitome and we should all take a message it's a model for all of us to follow and his desire he's definitely someone who i would call him he's always seeking out hashem and we have to be closer to hashem um going to shiva he's taking an unbelievable step to be closer to hashem uh but it's a a level that has always inspired me and driven me to say how do i become closer to hashem cory a message to people that are watching this that are on the fence about getting closer to judaism recommended not recommended through your experience but what do you have to tell the people out there absolutely recommended not only do we have such a heritage uh that dates back um but just the quality of education that like a jewish person receives uh is not just about you know does god exist or does not exist um but it goes so much more so i'm learning about like the ethics of our fathers how to live not only just a torah life but but a good quality life um what it means to be in a relationship and how to actually have that relationship and the beauty that a relationship can can have um there's so much depth to everything that people don't even know about and there's even you know books about like la shanhara right now i'm reading it it's called guard your tongue um and it's about really guarding your tongue and they say how it's probably one of the most important things that a jew can do is guard their tongue um from speaking evils uh and and just the the depths that you know torah goes into is is just incredible what an incredible relationship that and and really guys like corey really inspire all of us if you haven't until now really take advantage of this one-on-one program that we have you can text one on one to 97 000 one on one one the number one on one 97 000 and they'll connect you to someone to study with like what an opportunity bespoke custom learning like why wouldn't that be incredible check it out um even to try it's it's worth it and it's something that people have been talking about um for a long time but especially since we started started here so please take advantage of it uh time for question number three of jooq question number three of juku go to 833 203 375 type in piq3 and here's your question most likely the wasabi you are getting in your sushi store is made out of the ground is made out of ground wasabi fennel horseradish or decon the wasabi that is burning your tongue when you put on too much or when it touches the rice more than you expected and that little box is made out of ground wasabi fennel horseradish or decon text that answer to piq3 text it to that to the to 833 203 8375 stay with us to the end we're going to be announcing the prize winners if you get it right we put you in a raffle we give out awesome prizes the end of the show i know it's not good i know it's not code i can feel you saying but this is good this is also very very very good and you're going to enjoy it and love it when the prizes are going out you're going to be uh extremely happy to stick with us the whole way and now it is time to bring back my good friend yasi freeman we have to welcome back to the show thank you very much charlie good to be back um you thought i fell asleep but it's only 346. yeah i thought this is it sometimes it'll get to you you know one of the beautiful things about what we're doing here right now is really trying to relive uh moments in the convention moments uh from the project inspire history um share with us if you can another moment that really touched you in the convention well i i will share with you another moment which is which is more than a little moment because it sort of epitomizes what project inspire is all about um you might remember mississippi rifer sure who uh was one of the first you know to jump on board and say you know we're gonna change the world we're gonna be spreading judaism around and you know she was a mother of 12 from borrow park and she went to our convention and heard our message and how important it is might not have been from the background that was most likely to be spreading this message ends up on an airplane sitting next to a fellow named effie bbb febb has a whole story about how he is an actor okay and he's on his way to new york because he's got a gig in new york okay he's all excited she's sitting on the plane and she's all down right she's down because she's leaving israel he's really upbeat because he's leaving israel and he's going for a gig in new york and he starts asking her questions right under no circumstances where this conversation have gone past first base but she had come from a project inspire event and it was like how could i let this go by so we actually did a film yaakov solomon in his unbelievable ways had a chance to sit down with fvb hear the story of what took place at our convention we played this film and i'll take you to part two after we show you this little clip about the story of fpb and mrs reifer i grew up in haifa i went to acting school after after my service in the army graduate acting school went straight to the theater one of the theaters in israel it looked like a great place to be you grew up in haifa never shabbat never never not even kiddish nothing i got the opportunity to shoot an advertisement in new york and on the plane i saw that religious scary lady safety reifer so i told my girlfriend help me here you know it was easy you're gonna sit in the middle you're gonna schmooze with her five minutes after taking off i mean 15 minutes before she took a sleeping pill and five minutes after she was like dead and i was stuck with that lady for 11 hours and i was very surprised that she started to talk she was stuck with me on the plane so she had to answer something but i gotta say that her answers were pretty good and she was very honest to say you know what i think i'm not god i don't have all the answers i know a lot of people that can give you some of the answers and i'm i promise you that i'm going to ask them for the answer that was good you know for an israeli that is ready to fight what did that mean to you when she said that like he's submitting i appreciated the honesty she was honest they say i don't know so my wife invited him for her shabbos and she kept on saying i invited him for shabbas i wonder if he's gonna have a call and accept the invitation and sure enough after a week and a half he called i came on friday morning and i went to her house i opened the door i saw the stream white socks and you know that the the funny pants it was like i told myself effy are you gonna be here for 25 hours i don't think so when he came in he saw the shabbos table was all saturday and that did something to him like he had to go get his camera and make a picture of it you know he was overwhelmed by just the sight of the shabbos dead he'd never seen a shadow i told myself effie give it a chance you know it's one shabbos turn off the phone take it the whole way i went to bob of show people were shaking my hands and welcoming and smiling it was a whole different experience i ever had in israel and these people are so kind and warm and they made me feel like home and davening was great it has a lot of meaning and they were singing they were dancing they took me a part of it you know they they felt so special this quota i was visiting this hotel probably once a year i was so afraid to come here to to have some kind of you know conversation with religious people and suddenly i saw a whole different judaism he stayed here he learned i was always one of my children he came down crying and said i want you to know you have no idea what you have you have the most beautiful life that exists out there i didn't know what you have until this challenge so i want you to appreciate what you have and i couldn't sleep that night i told myself effie wake up wake up because you need to ask yourself questions i got a project in new york four months after to shoot some kind of catalog and she heard that i'm coming i told her that that i'm coming for a few days she said effie you have to stay the project was canceled the show was canceled and i had two two months a month and a half off she said effie if you're coming you're safe and i went to baba and i was learning and i was with her family and i had her in the morning with her son and at that moment i realized that i want to keep jobs these people have they have so much power they have the tool they have everything that hashem gave them to show that this is the right way they just need to learn how to show it a few years ago she was not involved in this is this something you could have predicted never you're saying where this is going to bring give us a chance the people that didn't have the opportunity to experience it i felt so angry that shabbat that nobody introduced me of chavez and i felt like these people this rifle family they're so lucky to have it share it with us all the religious people that experience judaism every day share it with us they have the power to bring us all together to one family i think if we all cried like you're crying then we'll uh we'll get there southern man [Music] thank you [Music] oh man yussi oh my gosh what a story what an individual what a family hang on hang on charlie you haven't seen anything so here we are so here we are this is an interview we have shortly afterwards fvb comes back to israel and he's got to now live up to his own preaching he's got to give and he's got to share so we roll the film at the convention of what effie was up to now and then of course we had the surprise for the crowd which you'll see in a moment as we roll the second short film which was probably the moment in the 10 years or 11 years of the project inspiring convention it might have been the moment where people would not sit down not stop clapping not stop crying let's roll the film give you an idea [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] is foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so there he was charlie in two in 2013 there he was fbb i just want to say because people have even texted me like they even forgot like oh my gosh that was so long ago fbb today is learning yeshiva he has a family he's doing amazing so amazing he doesn't even have so much time to come on the project inspired to mention anymore because he's busy he's busy studying and teaching but it's amazing when you go back to that that these are moments and not not we're not only project inspired convention moments but the really project inspired moments of people taking the message of being able to spread it amazing to me i think the highlight of that video again like the same stories we're hearing the stories of people taking responsibility and saying hey i want this and going for it we're all at whatever level we're on there's always the next level of growth of depth of meaning of study no one is ever done in judaism right like you know no one is ever finished god's infinite like you never get there and when you see people like fernando and like effie there's like a little bit and they don't need more they're off they go and by the way they're they're not the first ones right we have a nation of this stuff for be akiva and and and all the rabbis and all the the women and the men that make this our history possible or the story of purim the story of esther and mordecai it's the story of us getting a whiff of inspiration and saying all right i gotta step up and when you see it happening it's really special it is special and we're lucky enough to be involved in this and to be able to see it all close and share with others charlie i want to before we continue i want to remind our viewers that you're watching this live on project inspire dot com forward slash convention on tour anytime on yeshiva world mata right below you there's a button we just crossed 182 000 towards our goal of 500 000 you can make this happen you could allow the stories that you're seeing to continue to happen and like you said charlie we could continue to make history yeah and really what i'm what i'm taking already from this and we're just getting going right we're one hour into a i don't know five day four day conference is this is the story of me and the story of you it's living out through the stories of a fernando or an effy or whoever but it's really not their stories it's our collective story and it's so powerful and it's so wonderful and project inspire is right in the middle of it and so please join us uh be part of it give project inspire the resources that they need to continue doing the work they do and please donate and donate generously you know every single week we have the opportunity to have the shabbat show and like i said we've got these wonderful people that have sent in their moments so please check out this next my inspire moment from a mother and her son my name is francine hirsch and i'm joined by my son jordan schiff in chicago as i am each thursday night as together we share time watching the shabbat show we learned about project inspire and it's a many incredible programs through charlie harrari's morning boost that we've consistently watched throughout clover as well the friday afternoon turned thursday evening segments of the shabbat show have been one of the consistent variables and now for my parents eileen and jerry hershey milwaukee during these challenging months the topics are engaging and reach people no matter their age their gender or level of observance so why is a 24 year old watching with his mother you may ask well my hope is to actually beat some of the regulars on the kahoot game portion of the show the truth is i love the opportunity to begin to prepare spiritually for shabbat i truly believe that this time has enabled me to really decompress as i was preparing for the cpa exams the thematic shows that stand out for me are the super bowl to be spot and kosher wine episodes of course i'm always hoping that my sisters tally and ariana will experiment with the jamie geller recipe as they always look delectable thank you project inspire for shining your light on our family and all of claudius or l we are excited to continue our journey with you long after the pandemic thank you both for that kind and wonderful message i hope you're watching right now and knowing just how much you mean to us and just how much your words inspire us and we thank you for tuning in to shabbat shalom for those that are here right now for the first time the shabbat show with god's help features every thursday night live with a a new show with an incredible theme um eight o'clock thursday nights the shabbat show please for those who are not yet tuning in tune in and uh we we we're looking forward to seeing you there we've got an exclusive interview coming up next with project inspire with alex claire alex is a man who made it to the top of the billboards top concerts around the world and had to make a really tough decision we had this exclusive interview with alex claire check this out [Music] is 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 was 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 7 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 uh 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 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 becoming an island records artist famous for signing u2 and bob marley and like various other big big musicians 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] society i grew up in is one where the focus is on materiality physicality but i realized that there had to be more to life than just chasing after shows and money and success had to be more emotional and spiritual fulfillment somewhere so as my career was really sort of taking off i was thinking about judaism a lot more that became for me the focus thank god at very early stage not to be focused on materialism to have a connection beyond the physical to have a spiritual rookie sticker relationship with a college barracuda so as i was becoming from at the same time my music career was also going off on the same trajectory when i first signed my record deal i told them that i was sherman chavis so they were very aware that there was something different about fridays but they didn't quite get how serious it is for some reason every piece of promo that came in over that course of the summer was for friday nights and i was just turning down promo event after promo event of the promo event and they were getting very frustrated i might say yom kippur had a big phone call from my nr man saying you've got an amazing opportunity and asked them what it was and it was for a live performance on the bbc and the best thing is it's not on a friday it's on a thursday i said to them thursday that's fantastic which thursday and they said next thursday so i counted in my head and i realized thursday oh it's a cop circus so i said to my nr man you know that's the cot right and they said yeah we know but you have a choice to make we can either support you in your career or we can drop you when you sign a record deal they give you a ton of money they handle your studio time they handle logistics behind you know doing live shows at this point from that huge sum of money they'd given me to make an album i now had very little left being that making an album is extremely expensive when i got dropped they left me in a situation where their debt to my musicians which they were willing to pay and hadn't paid yet was to the tune of 11 000 pounds and being that i just got dropped they no longer legally had an obligation to pay that so um yeah that was pretty terrible yeah pretty rough so i decided to do whatever good jewish boy should do in the situation and go to yeshiva [Music] literally a couple of days later the divorce proceedings of my record label and i were finalized and i was finally dropped properly i was meeting with a friend of mine having a coffee one morning talking about my words and my worries and like not really knowing what to do and i got a phone call from an organizer of a design fair in germany a huge international conference of designers and architects and you know people in that industry and they have a party and they usually have like a big pop act to come and play it now unfortunately for the young pop act who was playing that night the lead singer got a case of laryngitis and they couldn't do the show and they phoned me up and they said alex can you get to berlin tonight with uh your band i'm like not a chance no way i said we want to give you uh well we'll pay you 11 000 pounds to play a show you can get there tonight so quickly i said okay give me five minutes i hung up i phoned my whole band i phoned my tour manager everyone i owed money to and i said look i can't pay you for this show but if you do this show for me we can be even i paid off my debt to my musicians with one gig just before i left yeshiva i got an email from a guy called keith and it says alex hi i work for microsoft we really want to use a piece of your music for a commercial we want to give you 75 000 for this piece of music to use it for this campaign is that okay absolutely sure and i realized that uh essentially that's going to go to paying off my debt with my record label before i know it that ad campaign was international every commercial tv station in the world was playing that commercial and as a result there were people all over the world downloading and buying my music and radio stations all over the world were playing it i'm in yeshiva and i get a phone call from universal music in germany and they say to me alex can you come to frankfurt tomorrow morning okay can i ask why and he said well you're going to be number one here tomorrow in the charts yeah i'm yeshiva baka in jerusalem and i'm being told that the next day i'm going to be number one so uh yeah probably the only yeshiva bacha in history to have a number one hit in germany so from there i was in germany and i got a phone call from radio 1 in the uk the radio station that wouldn't move their thursday night slot for me they failed me up to tell me that my music was now on the radio one a-list i was being played every rotation amazing being that i was selling millions of records all over the world another bidding war started between record labels i mean shiva boca and i'm getting offered you know deals into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars if my record label hadn't dropped me they would have had to give me a very small amount of money to make a new album and the best part was is that i was in a much stronger place to negotiate a new deal meaning not only could i get a much bigger deal but i can get much better terms with regards to shabbos observance and regards to what they would end up taking from a deal very good place to be today i live in new zealand the very fact that i had so much the other shema in the music industry means that i can sit and spend most of my day learning toyota which is a big big privilege and i am i'm very touched and i can't believe that i have discussed to be able to uh to do it i still work i still go on tour every now and then we need to have pranasa and we need to have his dadless it's completely important totally vital but for us the main thing is the connection to our college borough and i said when he says this what does it mean it means that everything else is a means to an end for a jew the priority is shabbos it's cashless to understand the brokers the benevolence and the goodness that comes from learning torah and trying to build a meaningful relationship with our college borough it's infinite what an incredible story about incredible people is the story of our people the story of me and the story of you all that we're seeing here is is a piece of the same puzzle the jewish people for generations we've been searching for a relationship to depth to the divine and every once in a while you see people that step out of the norm alex claire being one of them go beyond for god and it's amazing his story and just his alex's sacrifices became the things that were that benefited him most many times in our own lives that's how we feel what if i sacrifice what if i go further what if i try harder what if i push myself what's going to be you never lose you never lose when you get closer it may not happen in a week or in a year but you never lose when you when you push harder you never lose we're going to have in a minute from now we're going to have the interview with a great man this needs some black with a very similar concept it's unbelievable when you see these stories but to me at least when i hear these stories it's not just them it's me and you in our own lives at our own levels before we get to the next segment uh let's do one more juke you actually have two more juke use here i don't know if it's one or two we'll figure it out i think it's the last q q before we do that if you would like to wish we'd like to wish you shabbat shalom if you uh if you would like please send us an email at convention com projectinspire.com at project inspire dot com and we will be able to read that convention project inspired dot com will be able to read the shabbat shalom across the world tell us where you're from i would love to reach about shalom's across them maybe we'll get jesse freeman to read some what do you think maybe convince jesse friedman to read a couple shabbat shaloms okay let's get to juq right now remember 833-2038-375 if you haven't played until now if you're joining us for the first time it's okay because it's one each question is its own world so if you get this one right you get engine to raffle to win this prize don't worry about it text piq four to eight three three two oh three three seven five and here's the question why are pez candy dispensers shaped the way they are like a cigarette lighter convenience to compete with stick gums in the 1960s or to fit into pockets who designed the pez candy if you don't know what pez candy is you probably not get this right for those who remember pez candy dispensers the question is who designed that thing and what in the world were they thinking for it to look like a cigarette lighter and a little thing pops up in the top you know for convenience to compete with the stick gums or to fit into pockets so please stick with us and we're going to be reading the results at the end of the next segment so there it is uh for the final jew queue and we'll be getting into those answers later later on before we introduce me some black which we had the opportunity to catch up with had a great interview with that's coming up soon like to sit back and enjoy one of his more popular videos it had a million views it's called a million years check this out [Music] [Applause] [Music] i want to go [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] spa i was searching for the essence of existence wanted to find you but i didn't see an entrance i came from a distance where everything was different i called out to you and you showed me that you listened from then we became best friends i gave my all to you when you showed me who i am i am staying by your side to bask in your light in your mercy i reside [Music] is [Music] when everything is yours every time i walk straight there's another door to help me achieve everything i need and more more nothing more nothing less than going to a road trying to hear that voice from heaven your direction i climb but i fall flat like bread with no lemon [Music] is [Music] is [Music] well and that was eastern black nissan black an incredible guy he was a gangster rapper a gang member and a fake seeker he he was now an african-american hasidic jew living in beit sham mission israel with his wife and six children his songs have reached millions of people he has millions of hit on the style of his own i had a chance earlier this week to catch up with nissan check out this interview the background where you came from uh you had a lot of options in front of you a lot of nissan thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the show welcome to the convention thank you thank you so much for having me it is great it's great to be on with you and you know i know that you've been fielding questions like this a lot um this is project inspire this is about really inspiration and a lot of inspiration is not the things that we give it's also that that which we take in someone like you the background where you came from uh you had a lot of options in front of you you had a lot of religions in front of you you had a lot of choices of either to go into or not go into spirituality in front of you no one was pushing you to being who you are living where you live and being connected to judaism so what was it that pulled you i know that you you explored a lot what was it that really drove you towards judaism well i think it would go even you know further back if just as a kid i had this um this strong gum urger feeling inside of me always to really like know who god was i believed in god even though it wasn't like on something that was discussed you know maybe if people got drunk enough or high enough in my house a bad conversation happened but you know generally inside i felt this like very deep longing and um so by the time i i really started to like search really really really search and i would say at the point of where where judaism was coming into play um i had already spent enough time you know in christianity and you know i knew a little bit about islam so i started studying and i put all three faiths pretty much by each other and i looked at everything and the thing about the jewish story was the authenticity of it you know it was much more normal um you know if a person was going to say let me convince you to you know my religion i'm going to start a religion and i'm going to convince you to it what's going to happen of course the person who is either the founder or the star of the show will be completely sinless completely perfect and perfect you know and the truth is for all of us in real life it's not always perfect it's not always perfect and and and if you look at the tanakas that was all i had at the time look at the old testament whatever the jewish the hebrew bible everybody's screwing up over and over and over again and that had been the life that i lived completely like messing up over and over and over again so um it very much so inspired me to really look at the the the love that god had even even after us doing the the the wrongest thing we could possibly do god's saying but i still love you and i still want and i start to realize something because you know especially when you're coming into to judaism looking at all the naveem all the prophets everything that has to do with the future and the future promises are contingent upon there being a jewish people there has to be an israel there has to be a nation of israel there has to be you know a righteous messiah like when you start seeing all of these things you started to see that just even the downfalls and the pitfalls that they were going for back then even to what we all go through in our individual life today that self says something great about god and his level of commitment to the jewish people so it was impossible for me to read that and not want to be a part of it that's an amazing concept because sometimes in life you know one of the things that we all struggle with in life is getting lost in the trees right so right uh you know you get involved in a conversation now so you're getting all emotional but even if the conversation isn't even gonna have no matter to pull away from life our brain always brings us in and when you when you're born into the religion when you're born into a certain um way of life you you tend to not appreciate these things you tend to look at maybe the bible or other stories and go well god's always upset or um you know we don't have that level of look at the history where we got knocked down and it's really it's really important for what you're saying to to resonate which is wait what are you talking about like god's always upset you guys kept on you kept on kept on stumbling and he's never left you right right right do you and that's the end picture right do i find that still i find it still every day in my in my everyday life i'm for sure not perfect uh you know and and and i see it even even with other people i i even say the fact that i did live the life that i lived and i came from where i came from the amount of uh grace and amount of just this love overwhelming love that i've felt from even my connection to god it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense to me the whole thing doesn't make sense the the the great haircut and feeling of closeness that i have the service i laid that i have in in in terms of my voters hashem and knowing all of what i know and why it doesn't make any sense to me um and so i i for sure see i see it every day in my own life do you find i mean what's amazing is that when you came in you know you didn't just sort of stiff stay at the border right you're you're exploring you're growing um i mean i know you and and i know from the when i first met you to now there's always been this sense of growth right how important is that in your in your jewish evolution that while you knew going in that you didn't have to be perfect do you did you always have that sense of like i gotta keep on exploring is that as you as you got somewhere you're like wait what happens next how did your growth continue once you got you know sort of in the religion so to speak so i think the thing was is that i never um i never paused it i mean you have some times where you know you have to stop you have to go pick up gas or whatever um aka a urethra um or some type of thing you know um but i think the thing is it's just sort of like you know the reality check and the in the in the main thing is it's just not to be like cliche i know it's like the obvious answer but not obviously done a lot of times it's really introspection i tell you like one of the biggest things that slowed me down i'm be honest was um finally after i realized i wanted to make a garis i wanted to convert and i moved into the community and everything was great but you're around to other people like you said that grew up around it right so all of that extra fire and everything that you were experiencing having like they may or may not have ever known what you were talking about they may experience did and so once you get in and you're around everybody all of a sudden somewhat it starts to bring you down you start to realize oh okay well you know it's not maybe it's not that serious maybe it's not and i want to say it was for me the first trip that i had when going back to uh my first trip to eretz israel that i i mean i got i came back and i said now i remember what i was after i really remember what i was after and it wasn't until i had that trip that i was almost felt like i was like you know in the zone of just feeling like out of touch you know yeah even though i was going picking up information you know i i don't know how much i could speak but there was a couple that came to me in manchester a few years ago they they used to be they used to been uh they were christians before uh pentecostal and they were in the they were in in their garrison their conversion process they came to me and they said listen we feel very much so that we make the best decision on the intellectual level it's true we believe the last religion is false and everything but where is god because over there i felt god all the time i come over here i feel so cold i feel even more distant from god but i feel like i have the knowledge so so so what's what's going on and one of the biggest things is is that you know even i tell a lot of garen but i i think it's a big thing for for people that were born jewish also and and born in religious communities is that you have to be connected to tanakh navi and understanding that beginning the beginning relationships that hashem have will call us for those relationships at the beginning are so crucial when you see inside the navi that that that hashem was with david what does that mean that he was with him they keep saying it he was with what does it mean that hashem was with him what does that feel like that hashem is with you there's a certain sense of siata de shmaya that people felt the closest to god that they felt that hashem was going to protect them and be with them there was a certain as a result of there's a certain of a muna and bitter home that comes as a result of that and it changes the whole entire dynamic of the relationship and i tell people all the time we have to go back to these things and not forget you know sometimes we'll we'll take our alumnus and we'll we'll learn out hashem right instead of instead of being connected right sometimes you're so busy being jewish you forget to connect to god along the way exactly yeah for sure and i think that's a various due point i want to see one more piece on this because this is really critical i find this for myself and other people as well which is the necessary sacrifice right you know sometimes people feel that you know inspiration is amazing and life's amazing and then all of a sudden like on the way all of us remember all of us are on a journey there is no jew whose eyes are open that's like at the top level going oh this is amazing i'm good i'm going to ride this out to 120. like i got my you know i got my hotel sweet like us and god are good if your eyes are open you're on a journey and along the journey unfort fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective the real way you journey is through sacrifice right so right that and that's really the rub because you want to grow but you don't want to sacrifice and you want to get there but i don't know no i can only imagine and we probably can be here for an hour you tell by you telling us the level of sacrifices you went through just just to get to where you're sitting right now the the amount of time and you and your wonderful wife and your family and then when you thought it was over here new things pop up and then you're here and then else pops up and then you know right if the sacrifice of the quiet the sacrifice of the loud the left the right the fr what are you using as a strength to enable you to pound through life changes adaptations family changes cultural changes the sacrifice that you need to get through to be where you are right now it's very good my thing has been he voted to talking to his crying out this that is the only thing that i can say that has been consistent it's the only thing that i that's what i know that's what i know i came in from from you know from the world that i was in into a world where you know i didn't know what was going on i was telling my son i had no idea i tell a funny story i told a funny story that he was laughing that was so hilarious that before i was jewish i didn't know i wanted to keep shabbat and i started going to some congregation it was like a jews for for jason you know it was at the beginning and on my way to go there i knew from the book of nehemiah i hadn't read anything in khazal i didn't know anything about shopping around yet i knew that i wanted to go there and and even though i had a flat tire i hopped in my car and i said i'm gonna try to go for it but from the book of the year he was very upset when he seen people trading in and and doing commerce on shabbos he was very upset so i concluded from there i'm not allowed to take money on shabbos i didn't know that yet so now it's shabbos and i'm driving on my way with a flat tire and i pull over the gas station i go into the guy and i say listen you know it's the sabbath i don't carry money on the sabbath if you give me free air in my tire right now i'll come back after the sun goes down and out and i'll pay you he gave me free gas now first i wasn't jewish i wasn't really obligated to talk but number two was that my heart was so pure that i wanted hashem so bad i was willing to sacrifice to get in the car and go and what i'm saying is that from that i always look back on that and say now obviously you go wow how stupid was i really to think about knowing that but my heart was so pure that's it and no different than that then the things that i have to go through today to steal you know whether i know whether i don't know that i'm gonna go for it hashem i want you i want some i want this closest to you that i'm going to go for it and the only thing that i've known that's been able to give me the power and give me the strength and the fuel to get over those things has been talking to hashem has been speaking to hashem daily like he's my best friend this is not a breast i happen to be breastfed it's not a breast lift thing there's almost no page or no story that you can go through inside the whole entire you know uh tanaka inside the hebrew bible where they were not crawling out crying out their shin it just doesn't exist right so we see that this is a very very key and critical component that rashi even says that it stands at the heights and it's disrespected the most we don't understand that all of uh we're like mama's like prisoners with the key in our hand with the key in our hand not sitting on the key it's in our hand and it's it's the feeling i want to transition a little bit to to your work to your art um you know one of the great aspects i believe of jewish wisdom is that there's nothing on this earth that doesn't have value and purpose and right whether something was traditionally jewish or not is not relevant right i mean for for lots and lots of years we didn't pick up a gun you know what i'm saying and like all of a sudden now god okay by the way you probably want to learn this trait because it may get a little rough in the next couple of years right we weren't flying airplanes you know 100 years ago so right the jewish approach towards life is if it's if it's there that can help it's there that could inspire let's take it and let's make it you know inspirational project inspire it's all connected so talk to me about rap rap hip-hop has not necessarily been the traditional jewish mode of communication we don't have a messora of of of hip-hop artists the goodness that you're you're building that which is pretty cool right [Laughter] you're creating a sora which is like that's awesome like you're building your own tradition but but if you can like give us give us you know we listen to your music and you know rap music for those who didn't grow up in it they don't understand it so much but it's it's its own way but what i love right i would love to get into your mind as to what you're thinking when you're making music when you're writing songs what are you trying to accomplish with it and why even though you changed your your location your lifestyle your eating habits you never changed this love that you had for hip-hop right i would say that somewhat of the love has changed in terms of the dynamic of the relationship that i have the hip-hop um i certainly look at it more um as a as a tool more than i do my baby like i did at one point you know it was much more dear and close to me but i i really look at it as a tool and a very valuable tool no different than like you said you know a gun or or flying an airplane um and the reason why i said that and and really all music is like that it's a vehicle to help a person achieve you know um certain feelings certain ways of thinking um but i think the biggest thing for me has always been being able to write something um from a point of view that other people are going to be able to grab onto that's going to lift a person out of the spot to think a thought that they were they were either thinking but they wish somebody would have said it or they wish somebody would have felt what they felt um so i use my music really as something therapeutic and and even even as i you know change when i go from one subject to another subject or different things like that it's already in my mind that this is going to captivate a certain type of audience and bring them closer and this is going to captivate another audience and bring them closer i'm very much so i write very calculated very very calculated um in terms of it so i it's very rare that i would sit down and just write something and it just fall out unless i know it's just like it's a thousand percent just when i'm feeling right now hashem and this is a song directed towards you or whatever but the more more i leave that and i come down into a space where even at first i would say that i was very uncomfortable to go back into that space um i'm much more calculated and thinking about how people are going to feel and i listen back to the music a lot to see if i'm communicating the emotion really that i want to want to be able to convey so i mean ultimately that is obviously to lift people up not make people feel bad about things but to make people contemplate certain things you know um that are very very important to convey stories you know i just told a story recently i released a song today that's called be true yeah so yeah thank you but uh you know i write very calculated based on that how to how to create emotions with people and do you find that um this is a vehicle for inspiration for you where people are responding and saying you know the you know as as you know this right every ore comes into this world every light needs a vessel right light just doesn't zap it do you find that um the way you approach it it's it's impacting you you do you see the impact that you're having or people reaching out to you from different walks of life and what happens it's beyond tremendous the amount of people who who have written in to me and say man you made me put on to film for the first time or you made me i'm talking about it's it's it's you know i almost cried thinking about it people that you know are uh you know maybe not as as close you know i don't want to say but people have been very very distant all the way to people who are not jewish who are saying i really want to convert can you help me out i want to know more i'm gonna i mean i get these messages like like crazy you know um and it's just it just always confirms it confirms you know what i knew and what i felt you know when i realized that this is something that what hashem wanted me to do and and you know we talked about sacrifice earlier i really did sacrifice i left everything i quit my job there was no there was nothing there telling me that you know this was going to be other than my own heart and intuition that this is what hashem wants to use use me for and i'm going to go for it a hundred percent and i did yeah last question know that you're busy you know and i wanna just double double click on that what you just said uh you you threw it in because you're living in that space but it's important to just bring it out this is what hashem you know wants to use me for um how important is is it for us every one of us to see our lives really as being you know on a mission from god you know it's not our talents really it's right talents being loaned to us that we have no choice but to but but to use how critical is that in your growth being able to bring together your hip-hop and rap and your judaism how critical is it to be an inspired person i think for me personally this is what drives me this is what drives my my whole entire heart i feel like you know it's imperative to to to to to search and to seek out what it is that you can do for hashem and what you're supposed to be doing for hashem while you're here i think it is so important um i think i would not it's it's it's what it gets it's what gives me life it's what gives me life in and every single thing that i do is that i feel very strong willed about my purpose and and when i don't feel that is when i find myself in the rut crying out even more to hashem begging them i i need to know what's next what's next what's next i don't know what's next and i i i live like that i honestly cannot tell you or put it into words how much that that's a part of my journey and how much i think it's important for every person to really seek in search and not be afraid of that that's why you know like you said take away some of the taboo of talking to god it's like once you're living it's a different thing to be just living with this to be living within and and once you have that there's a certain siata de shmaya certain help from from heaven that you're going to have that is going to illuminate you to your path here it will illuminate a pr i guarantee it i seen it i came from the worst places charlie the worst places and i could tell you right now that i'm i'm a thousand percent confident if a person seeks and they search out that hashem will illuminate the way for them and they will know things they will see things they will experience a whole different life from just going to say i want what it is that you have for me amazing it's amazing nissan thanks so much for joining us thanks for what you do thanks for shouting your light in this world and may you continue to do so and give uh give god a lot enough oh man oh man thank you charlie thanks nowadays in black i got to tell you this is the story this is the story of project inspire it's just the story of the jewish people this is the story of fernando and affy bibi this is the story of alex claire neeson black there's a story of our great grandparents is a story of the the jewish leaders from the beginning of time it's the ability to to push for inspirations the ability to go past our comfort zones the ability to to push ourselves to deepen our own relationship to god to inspire ourselves and to inspire others this is what project inspires all about and it's the story of me and you and i hope that tonight is only the beginning by the way we're not even getting started yet but i hope by tonight already we're seeing what's possible i know that i'm inspired and i hope you are as well nissan black is actually he actually staged a lot a performance for us for us tonight so let's go to israel right now and hear a performance just for us on a song hashem everybody at home i need you guys to sing along with me on this one if you know the word sing along if you don't know the words act like you know the words that's what i do here we go this is the world makeover meshiac will come take over you ain't gonna be me i'll see what i see all you gotta do is take a look forward lift up your eye to the sky spread out your hands say thank you smile get em up get em up leave em up haha yup yup pump up the volume every day stand in place heart racing no words to say pressure builds i'm trying to hold my face and my mind is drifting like not today wake up from everything break out your [Music] everybody [Music] [Applause] [Music] ladies and gentlemen [Music] [Applause] [Music] it to whomever cows now [Music] [Applause] hey our soul the creeper is fighting we know we rage in the world we won't let them go even if the world don't turn the fire will burn the h-town me a cool upon self-sacrifice y'all put h on me we clapping loud screaming loud we gonna take that crown bring it back straight to the king then we bow malcolm complete yeah pick up a mitzvah later on the hate hold on my ball oh my zade the feeling is great what we can say praise that his name is great great [Music] here we go [Music] me that was eastern black we thanked me so much for being a part of this show and for the interview we had with him what an incredible individual an incredible individual every day searching to get close to hashem in his way and we've got to take the lessons that nissan is teaching us to get closer to hashem and our way um it's now time for my friend yasi freeman to be back here yussi thanks for joining us back on the show the problem is don't you you're keeping me up charlie you're doing great what's harvesting this or just so we can just check in before we go 4 48 but it was 48. you know we appreciate you and michael and we have we have all these people from all over the world tuning in right now because for those of you who are up in the wee hours the morning we appreciate you give us the fuel you fuel our fire to keep on going we thank you yussi so much for that we are going to do um the the last juke you last shoot q right now let's get that on the screen let's get to the last juke of the night remember go to 833 203 8375 text it you don't have nothing fancier than that no no downloading of any apps next week with god's help we'll get back to kahoot but for now 833 203 375 text piq5 and here's the question how many unique viewers have watched project inspire programming over the last year how many unique viewers have watched project inspire program over the last year around 12 000 around 118 000 around 200 000 or 1.6 million how many people have watched it we'll leave it up just for a few more seconds while we do that we're gonna get into our good old-fashioned shabbat shalom this this week we have to get it to an email so it's a little less than usual but we appreciate those who actually emailed us in we'll give another minute over here for the uh for the answer while we do that shabbat shalom um to the bolton and begun we thank you as always for your partnership to zahava from brooklyn shabbat shalom thank you so much to eric and lisa hirsch from fairlawn they were one of our first guests in the shabbat show we thank you for your for your message as well yes while we're reading the shabbat show messages do you have any other uh you know messages you want to share you know as we start to get to the end of this program um the convention is coming up and maybe you want to give us a little bit of a highlight of what's what's news and then we'll read some more shabbat shalom then you're gonna have some some prize winners is that right they're prize winners exactly coming up i just want to remind our audience we have thousands that are watching right now um i know there was an issue people uh complained that the embedded player on some of the sites didn't get the full screen i'm totally fine with people watching me in a small screen but either way we'll make sure that for the saturday night and sunday programs we'll make sure that that's corrected as well coming up we have our saturday night program at the matsushabus program the saturday night program at the project inspired convention as you know charlie we saw some excerpts of that from previous years we hope uh to live up to it for saturday night's program and then again on sunday we have amazing guest interviews um you mentioned the begun um family we have a special interview with them as well coming up for sunday night um as well as many many special guests you know we have robert grossman we have the story of rabbi yitzhak fanger uh so don't go anywhere if you're locked in you know make sure you lock back in saturday night and sunday night as we continue the weekend convention amazing amazing we want to wish more shabbat shalom to uh roberto fleito shabbat shalom to macho fradal uh shalom to rm from toronto is one of our big winners as usual from toronto shabbat shalom to you um a couple more shabbat shaloms i saw lloyd the satnik is on this shabbat shalom welcome to lloyd marty and deborah cohen in uh middlesville uh georgia to lisa black meddings um from toronto shabbat shalom to you to the silverson highland park to roger matlow for southampton new york shabbat shalom to you to joan and aunt lily from toba begun shabbat shalom to you as well and we thank all those um people that have been tuning in to us um i think it's time do you have prize winners for well we have before the prize before the prize winners charlie we gotta have the correct answer so i'm gonna read to you the correct answer with that bad charlie let's see what i got yes i did one i think i did one i got it right so let's see number one approximately how many people have project inspired taken to israel on various trips and programs over the past 10 years choice is worth 200 a thousand 1500 to 2000 your answer was mine was mine was the last one the most possible that's correct that's correct charlie which of these is not in the top 10 countries with the largest jewish population germany brazil south africa australia your answer was my answer was germany it is south africa okay and we know where south africa is because when you fly in el al there's a blip on the screen right so we know all that right right right most likely the wasabi you are getting in your sushi store is made out of ground wasabi wasabi fennel horseradish or daikon i would say it's horseradish i would say if it's kosher they're somehow tying it back to horseradish it is horseradish i would figure this number four why are pez candy dispensers shaped the way they are a shaped similar to cigarette lighters because it was invented to help people quit smoking cigarettes b solely convenience c to compete with the popularity of stick gum in the 1960s d the company felt that a full figure would be too bulky for pockets i would go with the cigarette lighter in the 1960s you are correct shaped certainly do a cigarette lighter because it was invented to help people quit smoking cigarettes and of course how many unique viewers have watched project inspired programming over the last year where this was a year of online programming approximately 12 000 approximately 118 000 approximately 200 000 approximately 1.6 million your answer was 1.6 million no it was actually 200 000. on the shabbat show itself it was 1.6 million that's what i was talking i thought you were talking about the shabbat show i didn't realize you're doing everything you were down amazing and here they are very very unique charlie and that the winners and that the winners are actually phone numbers so you guys are gonna have to email convention at projectinspire.com claim your prizes here we go we have winner number one winner number one i guess is from toronto that's area code six four seven six eight six nine five four eight that's six four seven six eight six 686-9548 you'll email us at conventionalprojectinspire.com to claim your price winner number two area code954 this is elisa it's cheap 954. four six one zero eight four what where is nine five four my i think it's the north miami beach somewhere around there right nine five four four six one o eight hundred winner number three six one zero another canadian right six no six one zero where's no it's pennsylvania six one zero nine three seven six one zero nine three seven o nine one that's winner number three winner number four no finally closer to homie right 917. 917.28 287 2371 you have the feeling that like you're in camp you ever just feel like you get this one that you're in camp and someone gave you a little ticket and you're waiting to see if you're gonna win totally here we go it's nine one all right seven two eight seven two three seven one and the final winner the final winner of the juke you trivia is back to canada four one six canadians dominate four one six you dominate eight nine three 3652 that's 416-893-3652 okay all right well congratulations everybody especially the canadians who seem to always be sweeping and good but for wherever you're from i hope that you enjoyed and please text project inspire uh email them at where you see convention convention at projectinspired.com and again charlie before we before we end i want to remind our viewers that before you log off right where you're watching from you can continue to donate to help us get to our goal of 500 000 through this convention weekend everything counts if you donate in the beginning donate again now and again saturday night of course and sunday night keep it up send the link out let people know about the convention and once again saturday night and sunday big time programming coming at the project inspire convention and we thank you yussi for what you do for project inspire what you do for the jewish people and as we sign off tonight i want to wish everybody a shabbat shalom a good shabbos and remember this is what shabbat really is all about it's about that moment that we get to stop what we're doing take a deep breath and realize that really what we're looking for in life is depth and meaning and things that are lasting and there's nothing more lasting in life than a relationship with god and relationship with inspiration and pushing ourselves for more more wisdom more connection to each other more connection to the divine and i hope tonight in in the beginning of this massive convention that you're going to experience i hope tonight uh this was almost the appetizer seeing individuals that really took a stand and joined a tradition of jews from the beginning of time that from abraham all the way to today that stood up for what they believed in that pushed themselves be beyond their comfort zone and that found depth in ways that they never even thought possible that is the destiny of me and the destiny of you our history our history really informs our destiny and so when shabbat comes in this week and the world quiets it allows us to be deeper and allows us to come back in the next week and be stronger and this week more than almost any other week we're gonna be able to go into shabbat this week and come out of shabbat and have even more programming and more inspiration and take that with that fire into this incredible holiday coming up next week in the holiday of purim so on behalf of me and mine to you and yours i wish you shabbat shalom i hope and pray that next week get through this show live from jerusalem but in if not we'll see you back here with god's help 8 p.m thursday nights shabbat shalom good shabbos and we look forward to seeing you over the weekend thanks so much for tuning in [Music] like a light leaves a flame in the darkness in the darkness i keep calling out your name i know you're here under half a trillion stars i'm searching you are searching like we're light years apart but you're so near if you're in pieces and you're just falling down falling down i pick you [Music] as you turn [Music] together [Music] i see them around [Music] when they keep falling down falling down [Music] you we together [Music] are faithless [Music] there is only one place we know [Music] i will [Music] i will let you go [Music] like a light leaves a flame in the darkness in the darkness i keep calling out your name i know you're here [Music] under half a trillion stars i'm searching you are searching like we're light years apart but you're so near if you're in pieces and you're just if you feel like you're [Music] together [Music] together is falling down falling down [Music] together together [Music] save us in the world acts where they where patients are faithless the torah get the hole with a facelift and hatred it's baseless we take it erase it and exchange it for that master we don't forget wherever we may go there is only one place we know [Music] know in the sun [Music] you