OU Live April 6th Episode 011

welcome to oh you live my name is rabbi David Pardo I'm your host tonight we're actually doing a different kind of episode we like to keep things light here and inspiring and uplifting but it's also important that a three-day hug is coming up a three-day young Tok at least here in cool until we're fully redeemed and macaulay appropriately three days I've learned that people kind of think about this time you know the self isolation in the bucket that they fall into so I am as little kids so I really think about isolation in in terms of working from home and having little kids run around and keeping them in school and entertaining fed and those are the kinds of memes that my friends are sharing with me but I also know that people are experiencing this as young marriage with no kids as older with the kids out of the house maybe as seniors and thinking about where the kids and grandkids are this young token also about being alone people who are single are living by themselves maybe with or maybe not maybe making maybe they've moved in with their parents maybe they haven't maybe they can't and I want to spend an episode thinking about people in our community and not necessarily our I live in Fairlawn you know with a lot of people who are like me I mean our community in a broader sense people for whom this three-day Anto for me the the scariness is thinking of keeping everyone fed and entertained and making univille star and staying sane but only in the colloquial sense thinking about people for whom this three-day on soap is scary is frightening and for whom it really poses an actual risk of death and suicide and how we can be more mindful as people who are a little luckier we're not struggling with the same sort of demons whether it's an actual clinical depression or just loneliness how we can be more mindful and more aware of what's going on so we have an incredible lineup tonight talk about this issue from very different perspectives maybe there's only one perspective really you think about it our first yes is dr. Michelle Shan who is the assistant director of the oh use communal center for research center for communal research with that person dr. Shane formerly of Brandeis of the common center and doc how you doing I'm doing well how are you I am great I'm great so we we spoke earlier and you you are up to the center really has been up to some interesting research lately on on this entire demographic so could you tell us more about what this study is sure absolutely so there's a lot of research showing that more and better social relationships improve our health and lower our risk of disease and even death and that social isolation has the opposite effect and this obviously becomes really important right now with the closure of schools the closure of non-essential businesses and all the stay at home orders in states all around the country so what I'd really like to do with you tonight is explore what we know about living alone and loneliness in the Jewish community from a research perspective and one of the ways we're gonna do that is we're going to give you a sneak peak a first look at data from the OU youth centers Center for communal researchers first study which we are tentatively calling Great Expectations which involves both interviews and surveys of single men and women in the Orthodox community I you know I capacity what is the oh you Center for communal research I didn't realize that cool studies are coming out of your office what is what is that yes so the oh you a little over a year ago I started a new department we're calling ourselves the Center for Camilla research and we have two missions the first is to really support evidence informed decision-making and policymaking in the Jewish community by using the tools of social science to understand who our community is where they are and what they need and the second is to evaluate all you programs and to see what we're doing very well and where we can improve to serve the community more in this study is a study of singles and what was the was that point we were trying to understand a couple of things the main one was what does the marriage market look like right who are the men and women who are looking for partners what do they want what is the experience of seeking partners like and how does the experience of being single affect the relationship with the Jewish community with a shaman with their Judaism more broadly and what you find out or not the whole thing okay so should be oh yeah yeah share screen okay all right so I want to get started with some population numbers as of 2013 there were about 5.3 million Jewish adults living in the United States and of those about 10 percent about 550,000 were Orthodox 20% of non-orthodox Jews live alone that's nine hundred seventy nine thousand people roughly ten percent of Orthodox Jews live alone that's another 53 thousand people now that gap between Orthodox and non-orthodox Jews 10 percent versus 20 percent of people living alone is the most pronounced in the age group of the 18 to 29 year olds which is likely result of Orthodox Jews getting married younger and non-orthodox Jews staying single for longer this information we know from the Pew Research Center's 2013 survey of u.s. Jews and it's corroborated by Brandeis University's American Jewish population project unfortunately there are too few Orthodox Jews in a few sample to say very much about the Orthodox population with certainty and that's kind of a general problem in researching the Orthodox community that our population is so small relative to the u.s. population as a whole that it's hard to get reliable information and that is part of what prompted the formation of the Center for communal research and this study so our first major study was a study of the single Orthodox men and women matchmakers and the marriage market in the Orthodox community in America are working titles great expectations the study included in-depth interviews with single men and women and matchmakers and community leaders as well as a survey of singles so we surveyed users of eight dating websites and organizations that serve Orthodox Jews between February 5th and March 6 so we were lured lucky enough to get out of the field before the coronavirus epidemic really started to change daily life for most people in the United States we had over 2200 responses a 12 percent response rate which is incredible we are so grateful for the feedback in the enthusiasm of the Orthodox men and women who participated in the study so what I'm gonna give you now is the first kind of public peek at some of the data we've collected and I want to use it to illustrate some of the experiences of people who are living alone at this time so first of all I want to note that obviously not all single Orthodox men and women live alone right of those who completed our survey 29% we're actually living alone with most of the rest living with their parents or living with roommates I want to explore before I go further into the quantitative data some of the feelings of loneliness in the single Orthodox population and how those feelings were expressed by the respondents themselves I'm going to bring you some verbatim quotes from a quest an open-ended question at the end of the survey what do you want Jewish communal policymakers to know about your experiences as a single Orthodox Jewish adult so here we're asking people to tell us what do you want the community to hear and here are some of the responses we got about loneliness Singles are pressured and pitied and we're always told we're not enough there isn't enough gays who got there it can be a very lonely time a lot more people than you think are struggling with loneliness and isolation it's lonely aggravating and feels hopeless often when you're actually in it but many singles are so sad from the constant beat downs their self-esteem is taken that they might not feel comfortable asking for help and talking about it more but this is one of the most trying and embarrassing times in our life we lose a sense of purpose and don't really know why we're on this planet there's no way to explain the thousands of times were discounted rejected overlooked while trying to find our own purpose and meaning in life the combination is terrible and really can destroy anyone that's really heartbreaking it really was and I thought it was really important to start with some of the voices before we looked at some of these charts and now I want to move on to some of the quantitative data so we asked people how often they feel that if they lack companionship that they're left out and they're isolated from others remember all of this data was collected before the corona virus outbreak so this is sort of a baseline right we're not talking about what people are feeling at this moment and even then we saw pretty high levels of loneliness amongst Ingalls 44% saying that they often feel like they lack companionship so what I did was I took these three questions and I combined them into a loneliness score that goes from zero to six so if you said hardly ever or never to all three of these questions then you would be a zero on that scale and if you said off into all the questions you would be a six right and everybody else sort of spreads out between those two ends of the spectrum and I'm going to use that index to figure out the characteristics of the people who are the loneliness loneliest my hypothesis going into this analysis was that the strongest predictor of feeling lonely would be living alone and that's why I chose this topic for this time during the corona virus outbreak expected that it was the people who didn't share their physical homes with someone else who were gonna feel the loneliest turns out I was wrong so in a regression model living alone was actually not a significant predictor of feeling lonely the strongest predictors of feeling lonely were age and sex so feelings of loneliness seemed to increase from the early 20s through the early 40s and then drop again a little bit and single men are lonelier than single women thinking about single men and single women something else that was interesting was that single men are also much more likely than single women to strongly agree that their lives would be fuller and happier if they were married rather than single and while most people disagree most single people disagree that a loveless marriage is better than no marriage men were more likely than women to agree with that statement 10% of men agree that they would rather be in a loveless marriage than in no marriage all compared to only 4% of the women I know some of you have probably heard of the Framingham Heart Study it's a longitudinal study that started in 1948 with about 5,000 people who were living in Framingham mass and researchers have followed them and their children and their grandchildren ever since it's an outstanding project and most of what we know about heart disease actually comes from this study that's why it's called the Framingham Heart Study and one really interesting finding from the children of that original cohort is that unmarried men had a 54 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease or deaths over a 10-year period compared to married men whereas for women marital status didn't seem to have any effect at all we also know from this study and from others that the suicide rate for men is much higher than for women and for unmarried men much higher than for married men and I brought you the national numbers from 2005 on the right there is tons and tons more general research that shows that the negative health impact of social isolation is larger for men and for women I mean just because we're running low on time I just want to I so I I thought that was really fascinating in that you would have expected I don't know what you would have expected but the people that we should be most worried about are people living alone which is not everybody we can take the for granted and young men are at most at risk for loneliness and I'm gonna assume loneliness is correlating with everything else that we're worried about absolutely you know it seems that men have a harder time creating and sustaining emotionally intimate relationships apart from having a spouse or romantic partner whereas women are generally able to get more of their emotional needs met by their female friends that's that's a that's a Goering what what should people know what do you like then we should do the rest of the study it's another time what should people take away from this presentation I want to leave you with three thoughts the first one is social connection emotional intimacy these things are essential to our physical and our mental well-being right men who live alone who aren't married they struggle more with that social isolation than women in the same situation and women who live alone aren't married so please I'm asking everybody who's watching this tonight do what you can to connect with the members of your community who are living alone right now and especially with the men who don't have partners right who might be having more trouble even than some of the women who have partners reaching out and asking for that help that was one was three well those were sort of oh sorry can I show you the photo and I love I love pictures okay so as part of our study we ran a photo contest we invited single Orthodox Jews to submit an original photo that reflected their lives as a single Orthodox Jew this was the winning submission chosen by our three judges and the photographer himself titled the photo and wrote the caption he called it a shovel I find and he wrote saying Isha Pilate dinner joined only by his reflection the table is sparsely adorned married friends own fancy things kiddush cups challah covers candlesticks being single you make do with tin foil candlesticks and napkin challah covers and I thought that the image really beautifully captured that reality and is also a nice image for us to carry in our mind thinking about pass off thinking about Seder thinking about what our table looks like what the tables of others in our community it might look like right now and what we can do to make people feel less alone that's an important message and thank you for sharing without dr. Shane and God will have you on another time thank you hard coccynelle you are on oh you live my name is rabbi david Pardo we're doing a special episode on vulnerable populations and the upcoming three-day hug oh you live is a nightly program and always looking for feedback oh you live at Oh you org our next guest is rabbi yoni rosensweig however Rosen's like are you all right I'm great I mean I'm you know as good as anyone else I think oh yeah power-efficient can't complain so rosin like you are you're the rub of a community in Beit Shemesh you are you're a teacher you teach in a couple I think different issue both and but also when I was trying to think of rabbis that I know who speak eloquently and frequently on a topic of mental health I immediately thought of you I wanted my first question to you is why did that happen to me meaning how did you become this how did he become this outspoken advocate for mental health and Aloha in short because I know this is not the main point here about three years ago me as a community rabbi I perceived questions over the years but about three years ago I realized that when people ask me questions about mental health there is nowhere to turn meaning you can always ask another rabbi but in terms of written material I'm not saying I'm the first one to I've ever written on the subject but there's an article here an article there there's really not anything that's been collected or clearly put together and therefore I started learning once a week with a friend of mine a psychiatrist about these topics I started you know reading the DSM and other books that have to do with mental health just to understand the world that we're talking about and what we're discussing and at the same time learning on my own the hallux of it from the stickers and the Gemara through the different opinions in order to gain an understanding of what this world looks like and what's still missing and I found that there's a lot missing you know in terms of you know answers a logic specifically in Halawa I love it responses and you know solutions for things that people go through and so I started writing a book on the subject that was three years ago and I finished I mean I've been published but I finished more or less writing it about four or five months ago and then after I finished writing my own understandings I started going around to the post Kim to start asking them you know what they know what they understand and I found that many of them were very open to hear about you know the problems that I was raising and trying to find solutions although at the same time many of them were still relatively unaware of how to deal with this topic meaning I found that it was new to them as well and there's a real dearth meaning I mean I'm reverser Weis has written a lot on on things like OCD and various mental health issues and over it's called zilberstein and was one of the first really - right to vote is that is that changing is that I mean this is a conversation a lot I think in in the rabbinate about awareness around mental health issues but in a sock way besides rubbish or in rivets silverstein is that right so the right move it's like zilberstein I think has written the most that I'm aware of and I searched far and wide you know to find anything that was written on this subject I think out of everyone that I know but on trophies the one who is dealt with it the most he's got with it in writing the most okay that's for sure okay reverse revised I mean I I was off had to sit with him between ten and fifteen times you know about issues of mental health and yes he's written about OCD but and it's not to take away from robochav highs of course but so have many in other words there are certain topics in mental health that are relatively let's call them popular so obviously is one of them it's relatively early that the post can discuss OCD but there are others that are popular so to speak once again in quotation marks but that are popular in in let's call them in in in our public discussions but logically there's very little like depression you know which is something that is known yeah and something that people know about but how should depression be discussed or dealt with in terms of keeping Shabbos in terms of all look around you know you won't find much you know if any that is written you know on the subject I asked many post I'm gonna grab some very interesting answers about these topics and after I felt you know if the tutu half years that I felt like I was really swimming in the in the material I also felt comfortable to start posting on Facebook about these issues and start discussing them and I found that there was a tremendous response from the community and that's why I think why people know that I deal with it is because I'm one of the only ones that's you know as a rabbi at least that writes about it and writes about the illogic ramifications and implications of these things and I'm not blaming other rappers I'm really not because I understand why they feel that the field is very very vague and they can't how could they say anything clear about this field you know that that's the problem here for rub on him and that's why they don't deal with it so much and I can tell you from experience when you when you ask any any therapist any question right so the first answer they always give you is called me credit GU for every case is different yeah so never it's for a Rabb who always wants to define things in very very clear terms it's very difficult to work with that you know what am I supposed to do that if every case is different and I suppose to actually go case by case so the answer is to some extent yes you are supposed to go case by case but the challenge of writing the book that I have written is was it indeed to try and create a new language for Halawa to deal with mental health issues so the depression because depression I guess is not attractive to write about but it's also very clear I really wonder how many people it's part of it I you know a layman's perspective not the revit part the psychology part but the line between I'm very sad and I'm colloquially depressed and I'm clinically depressed it's short of an actual clinical diagnosis is is very blurry I think for a lot of people so and I'm also just really I I read a I print out a lot of stuff before Shabbat or this blog post by someone in our lobby who who wrote that we're gonna have he's he's scared that he's gonna open his computer after Shabbat and see how many people committed suicide classify Lila and so it's very real they're very real implications when we talk about people now - its Israel on the other hand Haddie how are people who don't know that they're depressed just feel very sad how are they supposed to know you listen if if I like you know cut my hand off backs and I know okay now I'm gonna become a flesh tone but that's physical with emotional stuff mental stuff how am I supposed to know when I have crossed the line and am I supposed to know that for someone else for a friend of mine very very difficult to know you're right so obviously everything I'm gonna say now is you know to try to give an idea of how I would tackle this okay I don't want anyone to think that this is a you know like a clear a clear-cut sock in one way or another but there's a hollow lomasa and of course so first of all the question that you asked me is the question that Professor Vice asked me the first time I raised it with him about the question of someone you know who is depressed can listen to music on Shabbat can enlist can they write in the diary on Shabbat can they you know can they play music like on a piano on Shabbat you know what can they do can they can they go on their phone on Shabbat what can they what is it what is okay to do and robot replies you know said to me you know it's not that I this is how he said he said it's not that I don't believe that mental health is important or that I don't believe that people are mentally ill I believe that I just don't know how to define it you know and that's what you said to me just now as well you know rightfully so you know what's the difference like I woke up in the morning I was a little bit sad I was a little bit blue so I feel like you know does that make me automatically sick you know the problem is that everything here is internal there are no biological markers that we can pinpoint directly to say oh this individual you know has such such as such and such and that's really the issue and the call me credit go for that I mentioned before is exactly a you know symbolic of that you know it's it's it's indicative of that you know that we don't know every day it's so different so how could we really really know okay so let me let me start off and one thing I make it short because of the time constraints I don't want to be overbearing here but the the the factors that we can definitely use our functional consequences okay and that's that's a very important point okay if we see functional consequences so the individual is depressed what is it depressed he's just feeling bad well he can't get up you know out of bed for work he can't go to you know sim house he can't go to important things he can make his own breakfast I mean it doesn't it to be all these things to some of these things meaning our is he functionally affected by the depression that he says he feels so yes the the issue is internal but it affects outwardly does it really matter whether the whether the external consequences are caused by something with biological markers of physical disease or by something that is mental either way the person is deprived of certain basic functions and therefore from that perspective we can't apply Halla cause of whole issue yes but whole issue and was like Anna you know etc etc and try and see how we translate that into something practical however it is true and this is when I thought more about the personal feeling of the individual it is true that we can't always see that and the person doesn't always feel that that question we also want to catch it before it happens right we want to make sure that the person doesn't deteriorate to that stage we don't want to only catch it at that stage that's part of the challenge here that you mentioned about waking up the next morning after fog and finding that people did such and such and such because the rabbi's didn't allow you know to do so and so and are we only allowing for someone who has been you know like clinically diagnosed by a licensed psychiatrist or are we saying to people look you know you have to watch yourself and if you know that you might deteriorate you know you know what do we do in terms of those situations and the elderly certainly are in that situation and once again I'm kind of like zooming through this you know considering the fact that right the elderly are definitely in even those were not diagnosed hit with depression their morbidity is certainly heightened and why because what is how depression caused caused by isolation which they are caused by lack of mobility which they are even if not physically but they cannot go anywhere caused by being faced with your own mortality people on the new saying day in and day out how you know those people are gonna die if they get the coronavirus and and that possibly friends or family you know who have already passed the coronavirus I mean in those situations who wouldn't be stressed who wouldn't be in a situation with a heightened possibility of gaining of getting depression so taking all that and coming to our conclusion right I would say you know people the way to tell the difference between whether you're depressed in a more significant way or whether you're just having a bad day you're having the Blues also it has to do with how quickly you can get control of yourself here's what we don't understand about depression people say oh just be happy just you know think think of the bright side you know life think about about the good things in your life it's not like that see just like your person person who's really sick if it's a physical illness it's not just gonna be in their head right they can't just like make it go away you I have a fever thinking that I don't is not gonna help it's the same thing with depression person who's depressed it's not just oh just think positively it's not like that they can't make it go away they can't control it it's not something that they have an ability to control without help no external help if it's medication or is it therapy or whatever it is but they do need the help in order to control whatever is going on inside their head and that's a major difference anyone who's going through that knows that they're going through that sorry I can't hear you I made it myself practically someone who let's say listen people who are watching the show who are starting to wake up to the fact that they might be more depressed and they realized that that's important what about people who are watching the show and you know you shouldn't be psychoanalyzing your friends or diagnosing your friends it's not a good thing but people who know that they have friends loved ones who are depressed what should their takeaways be we think that their friends are depressed friend family yeah again doesn't have to be young to be old right right you're right I mean these things definitely need to be we need to be aware of them right that's that's the problem there's a lack of awareness there's a stigma also people hide the fact that they are sick they don't want to be you know pitied in this way it's like oh you're you're depressed you know like people don't don't treat those people the right way we don't there's a stigma within our communities not just ours not just religion religion also outside of religious communities you know and therefore people are ashamed to admit you know that that they have this therefore they hide it and they don't tell anyone so we have to be vigilant to see what's going on with the individual and to always be asking after them we can't always diagnose obviously we can't know for sure we have to notice whether there's a significant deterioration and ask after the after the individuals and show them that we're interested in them and their problems so that is significant in order for the person to come forward can i really give a clear indication for a person look if they're if they're really disinterested disinterested in life you know and all and all regular functions meaning there's a deterioration in terms of like I said getting out of bed being interested in doing anything certainly if there's something suicidal going on without that but I'm saying even before that you know if there's a general lack of interest in in anything that that implies vitality then I would say that you know we have a definite problem over here and one should be hyper vigilant you know for such an individual once again you really can't diagnose and know for sure unless something significant has occurred that is shonali apparent otherwise it's just it's just guessing and maybe the art is having a bad day or even a bad week you know that could definitely occur like I said in in these days when people were talking about you know whether you should zoom in for Seder or not you know from before hog leave the zoom on and all that discussion so you know what I was telling people was I mean the person that you know who's isolated who's in etc etc I mean have you seen a deterioration and their mood lately have you seen what's been going on with them is there something that you know specifically makes you you know worried afraid you know that something is going on or are they generally upbeat in a good mood you know etc they seem like a dream or less the same things I mean what what is it if there's something wrong there if there's something that's happening over there definitely I would say there's something to be worried about and maybe yes maybe zooming in for the Seder you know is the way to go otherwise you know not necessarily people so I'll just have you know like or there okay there okay so you have to be vigilant it's hard to give a clear a clear guideline ruins by order can people find you online or find the safer well I haven't printed it yet published yet but I'm on Facebook and if you want my email it's Ravi only a gmail that's pretty easy Rav why you and I are gmail.com so you know that's lucky that you got it soon enough that's right thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with us thank you no no you live my name is rabbi David Pardo we're doing a special segment on vulnerable populations and mental health and coping with white what might be a very difficult time for those of us tuning in or those that we know I'd like to introduce my next guest is rabbi Ellie Miller Goldberg known affectionately as rabbi G who is the founder of kiss kickin cancer rabbi Goldberg the link Nicolle drag your screen is black see myself so I hear you don't don't see you ain't it looks like I'm getting decent bandwidth let me move to my office maybe maybe the bandwidth is better oh there you go that's you that's weird video just kinda like no it was probably a bandwidth issue right would have imagined like a frozen screen first before you know nothing and then something it's a zoom issue of making sure that there's enough bandwidth yeah well zoom super-clown they've really exploded overnight went from 10 million users to 200 million users very dapper rabbi and I Goldberg you are the founder of kids cooking cancer can you tell us why on how what is what is cooking cancer and why'd you started kicking cancer began 21 years ago but the first inspiration for me was our daughter of blessed memory when I was ready for university in Los Angeles our first child was diagnosed with leukemia at a time that it wasn't the very treatable children's illness that it is today - is an amazing little hero at two years old she told the docs at UCLA no medication tonight please and tell the five-year-old kids in the clinic not to cry a number of years after she passed away I found myself directing cam simplify lifeline and an extraordinary place and I came upon a five year old child in the infirmary he was having his port access in his chest was chemotherapy I'm also clinical assistant professor in Pediatrics so I teach the the science side of this in the old days we used to teach in medical school that if a person is experiencing pain there's a pain center in the brain today we know it's not true it's old nor matrix which means if they're angry they're afraid they're despondent there's no purpose for what they're going through the nociception actual pain message goes up so I walk in on the scene this child is being held down and nurse has a large syringe to plunge into his chest it was so counterintuitive he was screaming so loud I just yelled wait and they all stopped even the kids stopped screaming and they looked at man I have a clue what I was going to say next and I just told the nurses give me five minutes with this child and they're happy to leave the child looked at me like I was the governor I just stayed his execution and I approached this child and they say no I'm a black belt which doesn't mean anything to a little kid so Wow they said you want me to teach you some karate you almost jumped off the table explains when the martial arts you learned that pain is a message you don't have to listen to you can breathe in this amazing Chi this energy this light from hashem is credible power from God and push out the pain watch me if I'm going to say they were doing a simple Taichi breathing technique 20 minutes later they pulled the needle out they looked at the nurse and he said did you do it yet so we began with 10 kids and children Hospital in Michigan and now we have a goal of reaching and lowering the pain of 1 million children by 2025 we're currently in 19 stitute in 8 countries and growing that's amazing so we are we're now exploring adults looking at this three-day Yom Tov with some trepidation either because they're alone or because they're depressed some way and not knowing you know how they're gonna cope with so what are things that either people who are feeling that way right now and watching or people who know people who feel that way and are watching what are the messages that they can learn from your children well let me make a deal for your listeners and for your viewers the three words that we use in kids getting cancer and now we're dealing with children all different things all over the globe power piece purpose that you could breathe in this light and push out pain fear and anger lowering your stress we ask the kids what you're purposely out to teach the world so we bring our kids to teach adults how to do this and so literally we have heroin addicts who are learning from the children how to take control and use this brown stuff to lower their stress but there's a message of power peace purpose that really is so appropriate for this time of K loads of freedom and liberation because the ultimate liberation is from ourselves and we have this ongoing stress and the challenges that those stress creates realizing that there's a purpose to the moment notice it the group called the optimists and they're like the Lions the Rotary Club they're really a group called the awesome optimist is probably a group called the pessimists those are optimists with experience but the optimists were making this great party for us and one of our kids an 11 year old boy named Bernard actually was a week before his 11th birthday so he has his twin sister Brittany push them to the front and they're his little wheelchair he says in a loud voice yes for the microphone which they were kind enough to give him an alarm it said hi my name is Bernard into that moment about 400 people milling around the auditorium they all stopped to look at this little kid in the wheelchair is I want to thank you for such a great party and I want to teach you optimist what they teach us that kids kicking in cancer and that is know no matter what your face in your life you can breathe in this light and push out the darkness and it preached the presage to show them how to do our breath break and then with a big smile on his face he says remember no matter what you face in your lives you can breathe in the light and blow out the darkness and then again let me then they gave me the microphone I had to take a breath break myself because we all knew that Bernard's mom right away when he was a baby his dad died when he was 8 years old his uncle died when he was 9 years old and that was the year who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor that was slowly stealing any movement from his body and with the most beautiful smile on his face he sensed everyone there no matter what you face in your life you can breathe in the light and blow out the darkness so when they finally gave me the microphone I took a breath break myself and I sent to the optimist I want you to understand that Bernard just to find optimism but the definition of optimism is not that everything's going to be great optimism means that we can respond to everything in our lives with greatness and this is the moment of optimism this is the moment that we have a night the night of Pesach that's so dark but it turns into almost like daylight xolo young fellow Lila the light according to the Midrash lit up as if we're in the middle of the day finding light in the course of darkness is a human goal but when we realize that we're teachers whether a home by ourselves or the people around us there's so much opportunity to teach to be able to relate that we have found this light that we can use this light that we can ultimately feel this connection to Hashem there was a young lady who called me unfortunately she's on hyper alimentation for many years she can't eat or drink and this Theatre she cannot be at anybody Seder she's very immunocompromised you can't even go down the block to be by a parent Seder what does she do so after discussing the losses of what she does Friday night from kiddush and the dolphin could she can't make it is because you can't drink it said to it said John it said so I just want you to know that you're not alone because in the middle of your Seder I want you to look across the table and see that the screen has sat there and the divine presence will say to you you know what I'm very lonely because for thousands of years I've been without my children in the base on me gosh and yes they gathered from year to year with all of their friends and they say sparkling words and torrid beautiful songs but it's not the same I miss them I'm very lonely and by that point they said to my young friend I said I want you to realize then when it's time to open up the door of raelia Novi Sad machine it's opened up the door but listen carefully because this year he's going to tell Elio Shawna has abused shall I am I'm tired of being lonely without my children and I told my young friend when you begin to sing the songs at the end of the Seder your voice to be joined the voice of the scheana for the shirah chadasha because we're never alone but I said to her on the kana you I'm jealous because your Seder will probably be the most holiest Seder in the world for the you and the Tsarina and your Satan will bring machine i'm akane here so these are the words of power peace purpose to be able to bring in this energy to push out pain fear anger stress and to know that every moment we have a purpose and people are watching people will see how those individuals sat by themselves at a seder with a shame assumption that they went through this darkness with lights you children are watching even if you're not on zoom even if you're not connected you're connected because ultimately when you live that light you'll share it to the world around you no one will be alone this Seder but neither will the Shriner can you teach us how to do a breathing power break sure we have a trademark breath break BR a ke which even though it's trademarked if you breathe you don't have to pay us but the idea of the breath is the following every time we have stress and there's the constant stress of all of the news and all of the pandemic and all of the fears and all of the angst which is certainly appropriate for the time very understandable there's a constant world of stress that's around us but it preceded the coronavirus those stressors will always make our body tight and we have the adrenal gland that shoots out these glucocorticoids these stress chemicals it's the number one cofactor in morbidity and mortality it makes you sick but don't worry about that because it'll kill you so we live in this world of stress but the one good thing about stress is that it'll make your muscles tight now that doesn't sound so good because they say there are two types of Americans those who have back pain those who will have back pain however if we become sensitive it would become observant of ourselves and identify my neck shoulders chest head stomach think about your special spot of stress when that becomes tight and you're not lifting weights and the reason that you're tight is because of your stress chemicals I I give these seminars to busy executives all over the world tell me you pick up the phone and I'll listen your arm is tight it's either your phone is too heavy is probably an Android or you actually have seen the caller ID and it's giving you a message it says hey you need to have stress so the press print is really simple because when we can identify that our body is tight and you're not lifting weights you're having a stress moment first step check the floor if you don't have any of your major body parts on the floor then probably there's no real good reason for you to have these stress chemicals it doesn't need fight or flight that sympathetic nervous response if there are body parts there call nine-one-one that's a problem it's gonna break also right check the floor number two rub your hands together kind of gets the energy flowing and then with your neck a little bit down breathe in and pull up like you're pulling up light imagine the air is like a light flowing through you all the way to the top hold that two three and then breathe out through your mouth relax your shoulder your chest at the ends of the breath push out a little bit more just like a wave your breathing up and blowing out up and down but don't just breathe in air we ask the kids for kids getting cancer a narrow circle what do you breathe in they sell out the light and what do you breathe out the darkness and we all have darkness the ability to actually feel this light from a cordless power will fill you up and energy and then so blow out the darkness of pain fear and anger you actually are telling your adrenal gland nobody's running after you to kill you you stop stress chemicals it's that easy using your breath to relax your body then there are two words in Korean we teach people to say if my own black belt is in Korean martial art they're two words are both Hashem it's not really Korean one of the big Hollywood actors had problem with his back it was did you how to do it so I told him the two Korean words bull Hashem he's not Jewish so the Korean restaurant down the blacks were going bullish and brush em but it really spent because kim jeong-hoon oh the guy even lunatic in North Korea after the last ballistic missile he turned to his jolly-go-jumbo so it's made the rounds but um the rash boss says what does that mean but look like a break up a channel a flow a pool it's flowing through me when really I said everything in our life is an opportunity and we could use the light from a Kadesh burrow hole and blow out the darkness we change the world around us that's the ability to bring in that path our create that piece and here's the purpose you become a teacher to others and I'm going to give you at the end our website because you can thank the kids of kids geeking cancer when they know they have a purpose they actually have less pain and we've evidenced that with functional MRIs we see the changes in their brain but anybody can do this to breathe through the light and to blow out the darkness and to say that bill hashem is a purpose that will illuminate the planets and be as etosha share it live it breathe it you don't need a mass to breathe in the light but when you do the darkness changes in the world so when you're sitting at the Seder whether it's yourself and your spouse or your children or all alone remember you're never all alone remember that yes the stressors are natural and understandable and you need to be aware of them but ultimately the ability to breathe in that light and to blow out that darkness gives you purpose and at this Seder as we all sit with the shrine assertion woods telling us right now I have also been very lonely we can sing together the Shira Hadassah the gula song and near should be acceptable in shamayim when our Kurdish burglar calls all debts from Qatar shamayim or the hosts of heaven to hear the song of the Jewish people as we have a chance to be embrace I call the sparkle because that's optimism it's not that everything is going to be great it means we can respond to everything with greatness this is the call of the moment and that we refer to as power peace purpose very powerful Rabbi Goldberg people who are moved how can they find you online how can they think those kids kids kicking cancer.org just go on our website plenty of opportunities we have some meditations there we are pushing out videos for an media for children who might be anxious now in general beyond children were sick teaching them how to have this empowerment but just remember there isn't one person spinning there in the audience who is not a teacher take this moment this is your moment to teach what real faith means to teach the vision no matter where we are I could there's pros and when we feel those moments of tightness bring in the light and you don't have to use your hands sometimes adults get you know hung up with that kids love it but wherever you are just to breathe and rely and blow out the darkness and don't forget your Korean but will Hashem because we are that breakup we are that channel for uncle - bro who in this world and when we open up with greatness we let our colours bro who in and God willing we'll enjoy that embrace because it'll be the embrace that accompanies me shot said Kano hum that another Goldberg controversy man thank you so much thank you for taking the time my great pleasure thank you for listening this is oh you live my name is rabbi david Pardo we've had a very powerful episode a lot of guests and a lot of takeaways there are vulnerable people in your in your network maybe you are one of them perhaps we're all vulnerable in ways that we don't even give ourselves credit for I want to take the opportunity to remind people who who are themselves vulnerable to make sure to look up before hog the number for the national suicide hotline and make sure to take care of yourself make sure to be in conversation with Rabbi about the necessity of of taking nefesh life-saving measures if necessary a trubiz being circulated by our official Shafter so that effect you should speak with your local Orthodox rabbi if you don't have a local Orthodox rabbi email you can email me what the heck Pardo you gotta work on that Pizza connect ale or you know I'm happy to listen if you are taking these coefficients make sure you speak with something before Yom Tov make sure they're there and ready to pick up the phone if you need that and make sure to have a not just a haka share but really a hug the now of my family to yours