Oh, You? - Episode 01

hello everyone and welcome to the oh you podcast today we're lucky to have our guest Rabbi Daniel sherat to start I'm going to ask you the hardest question that I ask everybody all right tell me about yourself so a little bit about myself um well I didn't grow up religious totally secular um then I went to uh where where was that I grew up in Hollywood Florida okay so uh yeah the my high school is about a mile and a half two miles away from the beach I went to Florida State University um majored in mechanical engineering and that's when I got exposed to kabad uh on campus and I was doing very well in school and then I transferred to Notre Dame University of Notre Dame um and there I graduated with a uh degree mechan me Bachelor's of Science in mechanical engineering we're going to talk about that because I want to know if that has an impact on the kind of work that you do today now you told me something interesting about your uh kosher observance at Notre Dame yeah um how many people had a kosher meal plan when you were there to my knowledge I'm the only one in the history of that institution that had a kosher meal plan as living on campus they require you to order a meal plan and pay the university for meals now in the fine print they say they they cater to any dietary need and restriction allergens so on and so forth so I went over there uh I spoke to the head person saying I you know I have a dietary restriction can you guys help me out and of course I they bit and they're like sure we can we'll do anything you need what is it so I told him I keep kosher and they were like a deer in headlights and it's a very in hindsight the complexity of trying to have a kosher meal plan in a industrial side kitchen serving thousands of you know students with everything in anything under the Sun so they have Yeshiva there they had a cook and basically what we ended up doing was the University would pay the yiva for prepaid meals that I could that are double wrapped and sealed and I could just heat them up in the microwave now would you go into the kitchen and make sure that they were doing this the right way well they had this little place kind of stationed and everything was sealed and uh I would just walk in like I own the place and just grab my meals and I would just walk to the microwave and heat it up I was kind of self-sufficient in that regard so that was like your first Mash job then to uh yeah I guess so if you want to look at it that way yeah okay good so as I was in southb Indiana they had uh you know they have a Kyo there there was Isa and often times I would find myself hanging out over there and learning more and by the time I graduated I just felt really restricted to just to English translation and I made a commitment to myself I'm going to Israel for one year like a really intense place I'm going to learn how to learn and you know um and one year turned into many more parents were okay with that they were not um they uh you know it was it was a roller coaster ride my family was not supportive of it um and when I went to Israel you know they thought I went off the deep end they wanted to do an intervention I joined a cult it was pretty you know here you have this good-looking guy I played water polo for Notre Dame as well you played water polo like on the varsity team yes I was one of the starters I walked on really yeah I started for Florida State and I had a scholarship of Florida State and I walked on at Notre Dame I was pretty good um do you still play water polo no I don't no they uh they were beside themselves that I'm throwing everything away to just pray all day quote unquote so it was was pretty tenuous time for them sounds like it was certainly challenging yeah yeah it's okay but you ended up getting to Israel yes so I did a small stint um after I graduated for surgical robotics company in South Florida um and then uh for the summer just to save up some money and then I went to Israel I studied in Yesa calledo so one year ended up turning into four years w um living and I had incredible incredible um and then you know I got married in the time I was two years as a bucker two years as a as a younger man and then I um we came we moved back to the States we moved to Brooklyn where I then attended U tarvas so uh yeah and then that's when I was like to meet rebelski and you know go through the whole youra track with him him and get mik from Tas wow and after he passed away Risman current Riva opened up a k for post students I guess and I was I was in that kabura for a few years um yeah and then uh I guess slowly but surely transitioned into kosher supervision I don't even have to ask any questions the story sort of tells itself so yeah so you transition here and so again your role here at the OU oh great so I'm a rebid coordinator what does a rebid coordinator do so a rebid coordinator uh essentially is an account executive so for example I'm in charge of a number of accounts so what it comes to the billing the finances additionally coordinating the visitation rates and the rabbis if there's any issues either complaints from the company about the rabbi or the rabbi finding cashous concerns in the company I'm kind of the quarterback for all that um so is there a particular area field that you're focused on in terms of the a grouping a theme of yeah so companies contrary to popular belief there's really no official titles but often times people who have a certain area of expertise will get more of a concentration of those companies but I think what's beautiful about the structure of the OU is there's not one individual in charge of an entire industry so that being said the areas I specialize in are beverages um produce specifically Indo vertical farming or Hydroponics you said that really quickly but because you've shown it to me I'm not sure if the listeners know exactly what that means yeah so uh basically uh I have pretty good expertise when it comes to bugs products that are susceptible to bugs are leafy greens and herbs and berries and uh so I deal with accounts that grow such products and uh you know trying to quarterback in every company can be very different um additionally I speak Spanish so I deal a lot with Central South America and Spain um and uh you travel there sometimes yes I lived in Spain for six weeks actually in college when we did a study abroad in this Summer that was that was fun and interesting and challenging all one yeah keeping kosher in the middle of nowhere for six weeks because that was harder than Notre Dame yeah I didn't have a kosher meal plan in Spain and vertical farming ah indoor vertical farming yeah so tip classic agriculture is kind of on a one plane usually outside um now with hydroponic technology which means you can grow the produce with water and that needs soil and with artificial lighting that can mimic the sun you can actually grow in a vertical plane saving the footprint so to speak so supposed to be more efficient uh and spacewise amazing amazing what is something that you believe in that if everybody believed in the world would be a better place I'll answer that with a story I heard from rebelski oh sh so his grandfather was uh reab wilham who owned a I guess a pots and pan store or something I'm paraphrasing a little bit um and one time he discovered that when they were buffering these new pots and pans they were using fat from a sheep's tail so he freaked out rightfully so it's TR everyone's buying new pots and pans like everyone's going to have to caution was like I think it was before pesak so he ran through remosa Feinstein and Rosa thought and he said all right let me let's look into it it don't tell anybody anything so I asked rebelski why not you know you have a real Shiloh of trait like why not you want to help yiden prevent from eating iser so rebelski said I'll tell you gorah and Yuma you know one year the K G you know every year they go to kades kadash they tie the rope around him in case he dies they to drag him out so he goes in and he's everyone's waiting and the runam pulling the Rope you know is he still he pulls back he's still good so they're waiting and they're waiting finally he comes out and the rebun are all upset at him what took you so long so rebelski his poetic license he was like you don't appreciate Myas for K and this and so on and so forth I doin for a long time and the ranam said that's fine but you can't scare CL you know we have a we have guidance we have ronam and this if everyone was on the same page of fear like the that fear mongering is not productive I think just from the cerous world from the community not just the OU but for a lot of cautious agencies I think would I would think it would improve a improve things a lot part of what I do and part of what I'm involved in is supporting all of our programmatics and making decisions about where we need to be where are people not being supported where is their fear or where is there uh a space a person who's not being supported in the ways that they need to be and so they're living with some kind of pain that other that we we can be helpful with right so it's interesting to think of kosas also not just as a service making something sure something is kosher but in terms of leadership in terms of thinking about people what are we going to tell them how are we going to tell them when are we going to tell them and making sure that we're taking care of the whole human and not just making sure a specific type of food is technically kosher or not what is the most interesting thing that ever happened to you and it can't be I went to Spain for six weeks or I got the only kosher meal plan or I learned mixed martial arts when I first transferred to Notre Dame from Florida State um you know the the kabad rabbi gave me a parting away present my first pair of tius that I owned I was putting on to fill in every day at the time um and uh so I arrived there you know on a Sunday their orientation with my uncle and my roommate didn't know I was Jewish because I just put the phone on I wear a baseball capat I tuck down my Titus and Friday afternoon comes and I just asked my roommate do you mind if we can go to the supermarket I just need to get a few things would you give me a ride he's like sure we get there and I thought to myself you know what like I'm on my own here let me make kiddish let me do something at least for chabas so I was in the wine section trying to find some kosher wine and this guy walks by me black hat titis the whole shabang and I go whoa shim and he looks at me he's like who are you I'm like no man I'm Legit you know I show him my Titus I pull him out and I show him he's like whoa like what are you doing here I'm like you help me find some kosher wine so without missing a beat this guy's like where are you for shabus so I like I was just going to be on campus by myself it's like no it's it's Friday afternoon like you there's a whole Jewish Community here like you have to come you have to come with me we're going for shabas so I look at my roommate Kevin and he has no idea what's flying he's like what is going on so I say Hey Kevin I'll see you later I'm going with this guy so he's like okay just like call me if you need anything you know so I'm with this guy he drives me drops me off at his friend's house you know Jewish guy and everything everything's fine so they give me basic directions to walk the sh Friday afternoon and I have long hair by the way at this time you know I'm wearing like a dark green olive like fancy suit and I get lost and I look at it and I talk to Hashem and I go you know I do all this I go on a limb here a sh like help me out like I'm trying to get the shore something without and I'm not exaggerating the moment that left the house were directly in front of me to the side the garage door opens up five buck that look like they left Lakewood pile out and go into a van and I run over to them are you guys going to sh they're like yeah I like can I come with you I'm lost and they all look at each other like they're like uh sure so that moment with you know as I go to the sh and I get everything works out fine you know I'm just like you know that moment kind of crystallized like wow like shem's really helping me out here he's got my back so so the kicker of that story which really makes it even all the more embedded in my mind that guy that individual I met in the supermarket I never saw him again he wasn't Jewish he was Amish he wanted to convert and nobody wanted to con like I guess he they didn't want to convert him but he brought me to the Jewish Community it was like a whole my first chabis in South Bend so basically you met eliahu Anvi in some kind some fashion some form or another I suppose yeah wow yeah but that was very um it didn't really da to me at the time but looking back that was probably a very crucial very crucial experience that set me for the rest of my life Amazing Story yeah can you talk about things that worked well and things that didn't work well in terms of you're coming closer to to Hashem like what do we do well as a as an orthodox community and what do we still have room to grow where if somebody had an extra million dollars that they would give you we say ah for the next group of Rabbi denil shats who are coming off of being uh you know water polo captains at the Florida State University without the Amic consus for that next person what should we be doing you know uh a friend of mine once said you know Don theop is a Mitzvah and you know without going to all Theos and the whole the whole everything about it I had a you know there's a correction in that statement said you shouldn't be judging period if for whatever crazy reason you can't mind your own business and you and you feel like you have to be in a position to judge somebody only then do you have the obligation to judge them favorably and you know people in many communities where people don't dress a certain way or they're not pushing a certain stroller or they have certain Hobbies or whatever it is like why should one they should be judged and secondly why should that person feel judged so I think you know and I think there's a certain level of maturity with that um and you know I myself have gone through my ups and downs and throughout my process where you know super um that's a Jewish word by the way yeah whatever um there's my Notre Dame education there you go right you know you talked before about judging people yeah and yet you're an RC you have people who work for you who are out in the field who you supervise yes and you have to judge whether they're doing a good job or not so where do you draw the line between your own personal behaviors let's call it as a mench and on the other hand the responsibilities maybe as a manager and like do you act the same way in both in both situations um I don't well hold on how much time do we have that's a that's a that's a great question um well so when it comes to I guess a personto person your relationship with God is between you and God now we also have been ad yeah um and and uh I I you know just understanding Basher husham like where the person is holding um you know and I don't know hashem's metrics on certain individuals that's out of my dalaras as a manager you know there are certain roles that and certain action items that need to be taken account of and there are you can have really defined metrics of success and what the roles are as a Prof in a professional manner as a as a manager you have to so to speak make as a judgment of whether or not a person is fulfilling his obligations those are fairly well-defined metrics and if you don't have those metrics to Define then it's kind of important you know when someone says yeah I want to be successful at something well how do you define success right right that's kind of where if you don't have def definition of success then it becomes arbitrary and subjective and then you know then it could be get personal yeah you have any questions for me have lots let's go okay so how did you get to the OU from your illustrious I I I friended him on LinkedIn you know beforehand and I took a look a little bit about your impressive history you know you were you were a Trader at one point and then a director of operations and just like catapulted really to you know to hide places pretty quickly so how did you but how did you get to the OU a lot of doing lot of doing um great uh great question this is very specific to me so this is really about oh you but I guess it's only fair that I should share a little bit because you asked you you've been very forth right uh I uh I've had a lot of help from above a lot of seat desaya and um I have met Fascinating People in my career many of whom have sort of put their hand on my shoulder and said you know you'd be you'd be good over here I I I I joke around I don't know if it's such a joke that one of the things we're missing in some of our worlds is someone like laab rebbi who could put his hand on someone's shoulder say you know what you're really good with people go be a psychologist and you also speak Spanish go be a psychologist in you know Argentina uh or wherever it is and and help Jews uh over there so um you know we don't always have those those kinds of things so as As Leaders we have the opportunity to put our hand on someone's shoulder and and I've been blessed to have that happen to me I just told a story on the OU's LinkedIn feed about uh a professor a mentor of mine famous guy actually Frank luns who was speaking on Wall Street not too far from here to the conference of presidents of major Jewish organizations and uh he invited me to come because I was working wall and uh before he started uh he said it's Josh in the room I assumed he wasn't talking to me because I wasn't even clear if I was going to be able to make it you know based on the trading day and uh he's like Josh Joseph are you here so I sort of like half rais in my seat you know that awkward half stance and he goes all right stand up you guys are all running your amazing organizations this guy's wasting his time in Corporate America he should not leave here without a business card from each and every one of you and I I literally walked out of there with like nine business cards and it ended up leading to not just my next job but the next two jobs I had in the not for-profit world what do you think he saw on you to do that as much as I enjoyed my time you know um in the corporate world um there's always been a different me that comes out um at different times that's that where you're too nice where where where I'm uh passionate Mission driven uh get excited about a cause and uh he felt that uh my story has similar themes to your story um you know that that the choices that I had made to get where I was that would be a shame to lose that from the Jew within the Jewish community and that not enough people were choosing to to work in the Jewish Community to support to run the Jewish community and uh you know I thank him barash for that for that moment and I've had some great mentors along the way um including president Richard Joel and uh and others um who've helped me to guide my career to to get to this uh this awesome place which I'm really loving and enjoying all right we're going to do some rapid fire questions a little bit different okay and there's no wrong answer I mean there are wrong answers but we're going to go with it okay how many muas in our offices oh my gosh I would off the top I would say let's say 600 why does a round Pizza come in a square box so people could grab the pizza Easier by the edges how many traffic lights are in Manhattan probably 10,000 at least not more what what kitchen utensil would you be rapid fire a plate can you explain why um I like helping people um I like providing service to people um and I find that that is something that you kind of need but you don't really realize it you could eat a slice of pizza with your hand but where you going to put the pizza on wait what what kitchen tensil would you be that's a great question um I'm going to answer this one every single time differently I think I'd be a chant pot why because every week you can make me different and uh people love chant you know so okay yeah well we'll make a good team then you could put the chant on it on the plate perfect um liquidy or like thick well you know have to understand I grew up in a spartic community so you have you have to know that uh different kinds of ingredients also go in that's that's part of the fun thing one last one if you could wake up tomorrow having gained one ability or quality what would it be I would say knowledge okay having more knowledge okay yeah we're blessed to have you as part of the team at the OU and we appreciate your sharing with us today um what braa would you give to the OU as we uh as we break so although we say three times a day that we would love to have the guidance as we had in previous years and we don't have it to the extent that we've had in thousands of years ago um seems to me the OU generally is on a pretty solid and has pretty good guidance and my braa would be that the OU organization as a whole uh should continue and Merit to have correct guidance amen thank you yeah now you do have an interesting hobby not water polo but you've kept up other athletic Pursuits I think the rumor has it uh that uh I shouldn't challenge you for to a fight uh you I mean you're always allowed to um yeah so I don't want to get you in trouble I do yeah so um this is kind of like a more of a recent thing not like I haven't been in it in years so I don't want to but uh yeah I have been doing uh some mixed martial arts mainly jiujitsu but uh yeah I do that once or twice a week depending on just try to it's fun exercise for me I'm not the type of guy that will just run around a track for exercise I find that very boring monotonous and I'm not and I don't enjoy it but in a soccer match I want to score the goal and I get that competitive nature and I can run a lot more you know just to do it for just because felt like running around in a circle but if I have to uh possibly engage somebody it's a different it's a different you know the competitive nature comes out can you show me show me a move is show you a move yeah show me jiujitsu show me something like a flying arm bar no flying arm bar I don't know if we have enough room but sure whatever um all right how about I not how about I show you but I'm not going to throw you to the ground I don't know if it's there are some people who would like you to me to the ground let's try it sure okay so Jiu-Jitsu has a lot initially with grappling and on the ground so the idea is you want to get the opponent to the ground so often times let's say if you're kind of going after somebody and you lock up right so let's say you lock up this so I'll try to grab and you see how I overhook my arm on here yeah and I grab your wrist yeah so try to get out I C your arm pretty good right this is me trying so all I need to do to get you to the ground is take a deep big step forward and then I can throw you pretty easily to the ground there you go yeah it's very easy to throw me to the ground thank you for that I appreciate it yeah