Tisha B'av 2022 UNEXPECTED

once gave a speech and wrote about what is the purpose of fasting especially fasting on tisha buff and he writes like this he says actually what we are doing is we are stopping life in a sense he writes i'm unworthy to continue living a person stops eating and drinking and does not partake in life-sustaining nourishment we don't wear shoes we don't wash ourselves we're putting our lives on halt and he says the purpose of fasting is to rethink the value of life and to have remorse for the deeds or the misdeeds that we may have done so in other words today is a day of reflection so let's think about a famous gemara that all of you know but we will see now a brilliant insight the gemara tells us in gitanun bays akamsa or barakamsa heart of yeshuaim because of kamsa and barakamsa yeshuaim was of now we all know the story barcamsa who was disliked by the host came to a party and the host wanted to throw him out now really he had invited kamta kamsa was his friend but when barcompton showed up the host embarrassed him and wanted to get rid of him but kamsa pleaded that he should let him stay and of course he wouldn't brakamso got so angry and we know the rest of the story he did something that got the caesar angry and that was the beginning of the corbin so many people asked the question but the gemara says akamsa obar kamsa kharavir shalayim what did come to do why is he part of this a phrase that your shelian was destroyed it's only bar comes up well the simple meaning is because he really liked comes and he didn't like mark hamta but if you take a look at them showing you take a look at urdu mufashim you know what they say come kamsa was at the party his friend was at the party but barcamps also came and kamsa didn't do anything he just stood on the side he should have stopped it he should have stopped this embarrassment he should have gone over to the host he said listen you and i are friends listen to me don't do what you're doing in other words somebody who just stands by the side when he has an opportunity to do something that could lead to terrible things and that's why the gomorrah says i'll come to ubar kamza khar of yoshalam you are about to see a presentation what does it mean when people don't stand on the side when people take a step whether it's an individual or whether it's a community and they can change lives you will see how some families were in absolute turmoil and they thought life was over how're they gonna go on in life but then hashem orchestrated people to get involved individuals and communities and what a difference watch this presentation you will be so inspired and then we'll think about that as raf schwab said let's have a reflection are we standing on the side or should we be getting involved i was born in belarus grew up in a non-religious secular family went to public school i was born in belarus babrusk i've lived there since i was a little one until 12. my mom brought me up because my dad passed away when i was nine the only thing i remember as a judaism from my family was when my mom would bring me to my grandparents her parents house and they would have matzah that they would bring from moscow when i was approximately seven years old i went to first grade so they line up usually first grader with 10 graders who are ready to graduate and we give a flower like a rose so the 10th graders when i give them a rose after the ceremony was over i went to a restaurant to fresh out he came from the back took my hair you know from the back hidden a sink broke my nose and said dirty jew that was my introduction so i have no idea what you mean so i went to my mom she's like what happened i'm like nothing you know i fell so she's like i'm like asking what is julius why this guy oh jew is like we're different that's it that was it but when i went to a fourth grade i used to be called different names i used to be fighting like at least once a week i was begging my mom and my dad let's leave the country didn't understand why i want to leave i never said why you know hiding from them that i had troubles so they kind of listen to me without understanding why i want but there was so many people moving now that they actually realized that they have to leave and left both of our families connected in italy actually that's where i first met my husband through the immigration process and ever since then we became best friends and we had a very very long journey as far as like coming together and getting married we married then we had our firstborn son benjamin i had daughter born like five years apart we bought a house in staten island by arizona bridge and we lived there for 15 years peacefully in terms of religion going back as as far as i can remember we didn't have much except like okay we understood we're jews i had no idea what that really meant my sister jesse she grew up going to you know yeshiva boys and girls school i was learning about judaism but not so much they didn't teach about like shabbat kosher so i was just living life like normal kid we loved the idea of being jewish without maybe understanding what are some of the things i'm supposed to do and keep towards the second half of my high school career we had small problems which uh eventually became more overwhelming and more serious our very nice neighbors that we have known for 16 years they became anti-semitic maybe was dug in a big hole and then it finally came out i remember my son telling me that our neighbors were getting upset with our dog being walked outside even those couple of houses down from him and they were very very mean to him and they were trying to shove him with their feet and my son was trying to protect him soon after it rolled into the fight that unraveled it all for us for our family my friend and i are standing outside the house outside their house in like right outside our car and i don't know what happened but within a blink of an eye i just i hear like a slam of a door and it was just it was the glass screen door i thought something i thought something broke and then i hear another sound another bang it was the front door of the house and i see my 200 pound neighbor six foot something running out the earth around me is shaking he starts saying you dirty russian jew i hear my son running into the house and saying help and he's not the type to ask dad for help he was practicing judo for many years he was very self-sufficient very independent able to take care of himself physically and he was pretty strong very confident in that skill and all of a sudden he he screamed for him so my my father comes out two hands like this tries to like stop and get the father away the father in front of my eyes shoves my dad in the face so i'm just like i can't do this anymore i finally i blew up i gave i gave back what he was giving me to me so i knocked i knocked him i uh gave him a nice uppercut which he deserved and uh right after that my father followed gave him a nice uppercut father stoned back a few minutes later you know we get pulled apart and the cops come everything was okay but uh you know now we have to go on with our lives eventually there was there was another fight couple a month later on my son's birthday i was in my friend's but all of a sudden there's a whole group of guys wearing ski masks wearing all black and blue bandanas around my car and quickly i realized what's going on they're trying to rob me i'm looking around i'm trying to figure out how to get out of the situation and i look to my left and now i'm frozen because as i'm holding my wheel i'm staying down a pistol at that point everything just froze it was like you know time was like it wasn't moving and um i just reacted so i just slammed on the gas made it about cars length into the intersection and before i could blink i'm i'm now opening my eyes and my car is in smoke my car is like a sandwich and i'm facing backwards on the one way across the street what happened was i basically i guess i ran in red light because i wasn't looking and it was another cars right of way and i didn't care at the moment i was just getting away from from on the gun point so i i i didn't even think twice i crawled out my car i my friend my friends and i were just we just ran i was thinking like reading a book on the couch and all of a sudden i hear my husband running through the door very shaken up and i see his face he's all pale my daughter's with him and he says your son had a life and death situation but he's alive after that my daughter you know we we lived in like on a dead end block and the yellow bus used to drop her off on the street so she used to walk a block and now she was afraid because she saw everything that happened and i guess it was too much for her she was afraid you know she's a kid and i had to rush for my work to meet her in the corner one block to just to walk with her and like a month or two later i told my wife we can't live like this we gotta move we sold the house we live by brooklyn side in staten island and we moved to uh another and opposite end of the nile by new jersey side we thought it was like far away from everybody we didn't even realize it was a jewish neighborhood we weren't looking for judaism at that point in our life we were just looking to move away run away one day i was i was headed to pennsylvania to to a place that i that that we stay in the summer and i'm wearing a bright yellow wrestling tank top with shorts i get on my car at that point because i wanted to double check make sure i packed everything i'm standing in my trunk and all of a sudden i you know i see this guy that looks like a rabbi walking down the street next to his wife i said to him excuse me what are you doing here he says i live down the block i said i'd like to meet your parents he says they sure take their number he gave me that number and uh and that was and he gave me his number i said have a have a great time my son calls me he tells me mommy uh probably reuben and uh razer rubin will come and meet you and i'm like okay so i'm sitting here waiting for them sitting waiting waiting waiting a few nights later at about nine o'clock and the night i said to my wife let's take a walk and let's go visit these people she said it's nine o'clock you can't go i said well you know we're not we'll try one of my rebellion was refrain mints and he at the fledgling stage way before ura or anything else he used to walk around in staten island and look out for windows during hanukkah time to see who had a unera on the windowsill and he would knock on the door and ask them would they try to introduce himself and ask them would they like to send their son to a yeshiva he was sincere and i observed the headway he made so we rang their bill i opened the door and i see a couple and it kind of clicked to me because i didn't meet anybody else here they tell them me who they are and i'm like oh my gosh how are you what took you so long we've been waiting for you i was so happy to see this couple i hugged her easy ruben i didn't even know her yet but i felt like i've known her forever because of how open she was she was smiling at me and she was so she was so humble so beautiful my wife and her and and and i i saw we we connected and i said where are your parents from uh he says they're oh they're in my house with my in-laws now so i said i'd like to meet them he said you can't meet them my father is anti-religious he won't talk to you and i said i'm not going to talk about religion i just want to know his background i want to know something about him i'm curious so we walked them to the house and the father saw me and was eyeing me and i said hi you know my parents are from europe where are you from and we started talking and in the course we hit it off sort of i saw cautious but he was receptive something woke up in him because he started remembering his journey he started remembering his childhood he started remembering that his father was religious that in his house they actually kept minions and uh whenever there was a danger somebody would knock on the door from the other side and uh they would rush to cover everything up roll up the torah there's extorter he put under a pillow he put me on the top like like i sleeping on the torah that's how they actually kept it up in belarus and it's amazing that under such strong regime they were still able to fulfill their obligations and have a minion in the house we're still involved on a very close level they actually introduced us to our neighborhood and we met the community we started going to many people for shabbat we started getting inspired we started learning many new things and we just became more involved in judaism and a religion jenny wanted to know about modesty and clothing so my wife said to her why don't we go shopping together she's like don't worry i'll take you to the kosher store and uh i will introduce you to the right people here i'll introduce you to the yeshiva we have amazing amazing people amazing community here that you will be happy to be a part of rabbi feinstein was always open for us on a short notice i really like sometimes same day my wife went to him for like an emergency appointment to ask something in the course of this in the sheila i realized she wasn't married or at least not married according to the supervision and i asked her if you know if that is the case she said yes and i said so why wait any minute she called her husband who was at home it was about seven o'clock at night and she said you have to come to robert feinstein's house right now he said we're getting married they had bakram a minion and and what do you do with a a ring what what about a ring it was her ring what is it we're going to do he was mikados with a safer he gave his safer that prabhuvan had written they wrote in his name and he inscribed it they asked him to describe it and he gave it to the cousin gabriel and he was makadish her with that saver subsequently in my conversation with gabriel he asked me about my family and i said i have a big family bark hashem and one of my sons lives in staten island at that time and he happens to be a male he says that's very interesting i said why is that so interesting he says well my father could use a breast my father understood that he has to have a breeze even though he's already like 72 years old it's a big scene not to have one and october 25th 2020 i remember the day i went with him he came home after and i said this is your day this is your day to ask for anything hashem is right with you this day you can ask for anything just go and pray or put it feeling on him he put a talent and he went to a corner and prayed i'm not sure what he asked for and since then he started changing his life i'm in awe of how far he's come along my mother-in-law is also trying her best for sure for sure she's trying to cover her hair now and she comes to us for shabbos and she you know davens and prays for family and she lights candles with me each one in our family has their own way that this has shaped them up i don't remember exactly how but i got acquainted with rabbi shandalov rabbi devishandov he's my rabbi right now back home he basically called me when i was in pennsylvania and he he gave me he got me to start learning with him i don't know how he did it he managed it got me to start learning with him a few times a week and right away after a week and a half invited me to to a place called signing retreats at signer retreats a week and a half in rabbi shandolav and rabbi title bound they they just looked at me they saw the way the way i was like soaking in all the learning the fact that i wanted more than three four hours a day i wanted more and more they both in two different days mentioned mahon shomo and which i i didn't know what that meant but i searched it up by searching and right away i felt in love with um the ideas of what they wanted to instill upon their students [Music] i just finished two years there and it was uh definitely the best place i could have been probably mushrooming when he accepted me with open arms and my family he really just sparked not just a spark within me but hashem my future family that we'll have torah and their kids their grandkids if it wasn't for for people like them who made that outreach extended their hand and opened their arms and took us in then we wouldn't be where we are now [Music] rabbi and mrs maisha rubin took the initiative and did you hear that question that mrs levin asked the lady at the door she said what took you so long now of course she said it with a smile but there are thousands of our brothers and sisters all over that are asking that question and they're asking what's taking us so long they are asking they are seeking and they are waiting they're waiting to be inspired and we've got to be like ramosha reuben and his rebecca they took the initiative and look at the difference look what happened you know there's a famous story that i tell so many times about rabbi [ __ ] hymen he was the rash yeshiva of tervadas and one day in williamsburg there were only four boys in the class because there was a snowstorm and he was telling the gemara brand new gomorrah with a whole schmuck and a whole enthusiasm and one of the boys said rebbe take it easy there's only four of us here today normally there were 20 in the class and you know what rough schleimer muhammad said you think i'm only talking to you i'm talking to you and to your children and to your grandchildren i'm talking to you until you tell me them until you tell me them tell me them and one of the people in that class was aramis samuels who was a rebellion tervadas had thousands of tamidim over the years that he taught and so therefore raphael hyman was right when you're talking to an individual and you're elevating an individual it's not only him it's the family it's the children and the grandchildren and in this story that we just saw it went back a generation could you believe that i couldn't get over that the grandfather at 72 years old had a bris only because rabbi moshe rubin took the initiative and of course we saw what's happening with the children we can get involved that's really the purpose of this presentation but my dear brothers and sisters wherever you are in the world watching this i feel that i must prepare you for what you are about to see you are about to experience a video as never before you will perhaps cry as you've never cried on a dish above i've watched i've watched this coming presentation a few times and every time it breaks my heart every time i've cried you're about to witness destruction devastation [Music] hope and rebuilding you will see what it means me israel you will see when a community feels in accris to other jews the only thing i can tell you watch this but be prepared you are about to be moved and inspired as never before [Music] my name is martin langisfeld i'm 24 years old i grew up in miami florida just me and my sister my sister nikki was absolutely everything to me everything i knew everything i admired i learned was from her i never grew up with any religion at all we never were were involved in the jewish community i just knew i'm jewish by blood i'm jewish my parents are jewish my grandparents everyone in my family is jewish my sister nikki married a wonderful man louis sadovnik who she met seven years ago in the university of florida as a wedding gift lewis's grandfather gifted them apartment 804 for two years rent free as just here enjoy don't don't stress about the money here's a beautiful oceanfront apartment for you to start your life they already had conversations about starting a family she was an attorney ready to take over the world it was june 23rd and it was a normal night for me i was out with some friends just having a good time out it was 2 55 in the morning when i get home and my mother she opened my door right away and she said martine a building collapsed on collins avenue she showed me a news notification from cnn on the phone and they said building collapse collins avenue no name nothing the 12 story complex simply turning to rubble the building it collapsed building is gone there's no elevators it almost resembles the tracing people on the balcony that they are trapped inside of their apartments racing to the scene firefighters went to work rescuing residents trapped in the portion of the building which had yet to collapse still have people standing upstairs that don't need to be evacuated i remember going down into the garage so my parents don't hear and they call 9-1-1 i caught them three times the first two times they had no idea what was going on they said yeah we have some reports of a building collapse we don't know what building it is and by the third time i remember exactly it was a lady she said sir i think it is champion tower south we arrived to the scene and it was a disaster a complete disaster i saw you know fires and debris and parts of the building all over the place glass and people screaming i was just trying to peek to see where the building was all i remember is looking up at the building to my right and counting floors just looking up going like this and seeing where the eighth floor was just to see if the floor was still there it was there but half of it so i started thinking where the beds were where her office was [Music] and i realized that the beds the two rooms with the beds were what was missing from that moment from 3 30 a.m was when my life changed completely the news was starting to you know pick up people were starting to make phone calls it was becoming a bigger deal i got a message to my phone that they needed nurses they needed female personnel to come help i just got in the car i grabbed my stethoscope and i went there were hundreds of people on the street just having forced to come out of their homes and standing there waiting to see where should they go what should they do there were no roof over their heads there's no place to go slowly people start to gather the major gathering place at that time was the community center [Music] in the community center there was a lot of chaos you had the police officers there that fellow members there and some some family members and friends and they were all kind of trying to figure out what was going on i remember hatsala would follow me around with gatorade a bagel and a bottle of water for hours just follow me around shadow me because in my head i said if my sister is stuck in there and she's not drinking water and eating i'm not going to either it was very painful to see these people because they were in between a stage of grief and also on the other hand they still have that that faith that their family members are still there and we're trying to keep that alive because there's always a chance i hope for something that you cannot dismiss cannot diminish you cannot in any way i'd try to remove it because that's life and those of us that were on the location on a pretty regular basis day and night watch the process and knew what was going on and dealt with the professionals we recognized from a practical point of view the hope was hanging on to an absolute mirror like the splitting of the sea it was like a waiting game horrible waiting game and you would just hope that one of those days [Music] they would say we found someone alive one of those days anyone you didn't care if it was your family you just wanted hope the first thing we train as chaplains is to detect pain and with our skills we could diffuse the pain we cannot remove it but we could defuse pain and ease tension i got very close with some of the chaplains who were there including elisa mermostein when i met martin i saw a very broken young man who had to be the support for his parents while he himself was dealing with his own sadness pablo andrea the parents were so broken this was their only daughter beautiful beautiful girl accomplished girl married and their lives were shattered twice a day we sat in the briefings with them and we shared with them like whatever news they were hearing we experienced with them and we were the shoulder to cry on i don't know if there's a way to even express it was literally hell on earth every second of it and this is why we were there because if we champlains felt that way you couldn't imagine what the family remembers felt you keep slapping yourself you you keep pinching yourself slapping yourself just to wake up from this nightmare and you come to realization that you're not waking up from this this is this is reality and you go into survivor instincts for your family you you forget who you are as a person and you do everything you can that you didn't think you were capable of to find your family when you're desperate our initial reaction was that let's try to get the best people possible that know how to do this as best as they can as best as possible and of course the idf came to mind i had the relationship with the new consul general more elbas had been on board for four days when this happened and we talked about bringing in the idf it took over two weeks for both my family members to to be found and identified and throughout this time i never felt alone and not because of the friends and family that were around me at all times because of the community that was around me of people that i did not know government officials the governor the senators they all had very clear expression of the unique impact that the jewish community had and how it really resonated around the world of how this community reacted we are also seeing an abundance of help coming from the jewish community here at the shul of bell harbor synagogue they have been receiving donations throughout the day everything from mattresses food bottled water even kids toys not missing on this tragic day the goodness of humanity people helping other people they'd never even met the jewish ambulance service hatsala is sending some of its elite members from israel the british community services of south florida is providing emergency mental health care services to families first responders and community members traumatized by recent events several people gathered outside of this synagogue praying from box trucks loaded with boxes of food and water to mattresses incredibly optimism was still in supply too nothing can bring back the building you know with the people in it but at least for that period of time we wanted to make sure that community center turns to our home we were able to do something that i never thought i would ever be able to see serving 3 000 kosher meals a day around the clock as time went on we were sending food and meals to survivors and to the families and to the victims at this point they were relocated into other places whether it was the grand beach whether it was the sea view hotel and other places within the first three four days we we had about a thousand people signed up on the editing website to volunteer within a week we had almost 2 000 volunteers over time we had over you know 2 000 people just signed up on the website aside from the people i already had in my palm you know ready to go people they didn't think twice they just did whatever needed to be done to help that unity watching jewish people in action you know the world doesn't get to see that it was on display here where everyone felt a part of it everyone very quickly everyone understood that this is an effort for everyone this is not an effort for just kosher people or just jewish people this was for everyone everybody was like a brother and sister there and we treated everyone like family no matter where they're from at some point i can't forget i was me joe and ellie at the same time in the kitchen and a few guys from fire department came and they said you know when we eat this food we feel blessed we feel like when we go there back there to walk and to do our walk we're kind of protected you know that got us all very emotional because we felt that you know the stuff that we do impacts you know so many arrows in so many ways and you feel that these people they will always remember that they when they needed somebody here to do it to be on their side they would all always remember that the jewish people were there for them we did not stop receiving and not once did we ask all these jewish people just kept giving us giving giving giving giving giving hugs even not all material giving comfort giving love care [Music] they didn't stop giving it didn't matter what time of day there were people at five in the morning at five pm at all times of day they were giving and that was shocking to us not once have we ever experienced receiving so much without asking [Music] it turned into strength for me by the funeral the people who were there of course it was a lot of people we tried to make it private and it ended up being very big but i remember seeing so many people who i met throughout the catastrophe there picking up a shovel with me [Music] to cover up my sister [Music] people who i met three weeks before [Music] who became my family throughout the whole experience he realized what it means to be part of amy's well and how one jew cares for the other and there's no alternative motive in there whatsoever we were just there for martin his parents andrea and pablo just because we care because it's one year to another and i think that his eyes were really opened by that after the funeral i invited pablo his wife andrea and martin for shabbat meal and the experience for the first time [Music] experience what a shofar is was el time he experienced what akidos is what a challah is what canada are what kosher wine is that was the beginning that was the beginning of a revelation mindy had martine and his father pablo become chaplains which was great and then we had a chaplain retreat back in november we had a chaplain retreat in fort bragg on an army base which was was fun it was interesting and martine was there he came and rabbi israel majeski from l.a was there a great guy he's also a chaplain and i went over to him and i said sir robert majeski you have a job over these next 25 hours you have to get close to martine and you have to convince him to come on project inspires texas retreat [Music] when i went to project inspire in texas it was a very small tight-knit group and on the last day i got really close to many of the people who went on that trip in texas you just saw it's a brotherhood it's you're part of something without doing anything you didn't have to join anything you didn't have to become a member a card-carrying member you're a jew i'm a jew we're in we're part of the same club and we're there for each other good times are bad times and i think he really understood that and felt that and appreciated it as a person and my life in general has taken a complete turn i'm not the same person i was one year ago i'm slowly opening my eyes to a whole world that i didn't know existed there were people who kept up with him from the trip and the next thing i know rabbi sampson calls me and says elisa i want you to know july 3rd martine is going to aisha toba and i was like because that was that was like my goal the whole time this entire catastrophe made me realize there is so much more to life than money i decided this year to put my entire industry aside my profession what i've worked my entire life for to learn to become a better person to grow i'm going to israel to learn not only the torah and and the studies of it but to understand why for one year people from this community were standing and continuing to stand next to me our basement was destroyed for cineclinum we're only going to get it back with anthony and that's obviously them what will make hashem happier than to see us caring about people we don't even know who they are but that they're they are our brothers and sisters [Music] throughout the three weeks of the waiting period and serve side i felt like i lost everything i lost my family but at the same time i gained the family i never knew i had next to me the entire time from that day on i said i need to be a part of this community so here i am looking over the koto taking classes in asia torah project inspire they've been with me from the beginning and continue to be with me one year later [Music] there is so much to learn from what we just saw but there's something that strikes me there's a famous ghazal that we all know in yumadaf test summit base and it tells us why was the second base that made this destroyed even though that they had torah and mitzvahs and gemini it was destroyed because they were sinatrina and what we need more than anything else especially today is avaschinum love of another jew just because they're another jew they were yid a brother and a sister and what to me is so remarkable is look what elisa mermelsdeen a project inspire activist did she saw this boy she saw his pain she saw his devastation and his emptiness and what did she do she went to rabbi majeski at a retreat and she said this boy you got to get him to aisha right now he's ready he wants to join the club so to speak that's claudiusro all of a sudden the rabonim in miami opened him up to a world that he didn't know existed and now he was going to get spiritual sustenance he didn't have it before he didn't even know that it was missing but look because of elisa's involvement and commitment look how this boy is changing and today of course we know he's learning energy trial and as we said before it's not only affecting him it's going to affect his children and his grandchildren and mith hashem has great grandchildren you know what once occurred to me when we dabbing shimonesra every day the middle part is by kasha we ask hashem for all the things that we need and yet every bakasha every request is losh and robin in plural new give us wisdom salah new forgive us no heal us bless us with pannasa shema khaleno listen to us you know what i think khazawa teaching us yiddish kite is not only about you it's not only about me it's about all of us and we have to darven for our brothers and sisters and we have to be concerned for them and that's the essence of what project inspire is all about today you can become part of project inspire you can sign up today on this screen to learn with a fellow jew you can inspire another person and when you get involved and you see and you have seen what project inspire does you can get people to come to retreats and those are fabulous life-changing experiences you can get people to go to eretz israel and of course that's a life-changing experience and as we said before our brothers and sisters are waiting get involved in project inspire you can learn with someone you on any level whatever level they want or what you want you'll be able to do that on this day of tisha buff as we said khazal consider it a my eight our brothers and sisters are waiting we are also waiting we're waiting for meshiach and maybe if we answer the call to our brothers and sisters mashiach will answer our call and then come take two minutes just sign up make a difference in somebody's life it'll take you just two minutes to sign up but you can change a life of another person and their family hashem should bless every single one of you and next year we should all be able to do this in your shirakai dish thank you for inviting me and thank you for listening [Music] my [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] oh it is [Music] is [Music] r [Music] oh [Music] i [Music] yerushalayim me [Music] me [Music] see [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] a yerushalayim [Applause] [Music] me it is [Music] r [Music] yes [Music] see [Music] yay [Music] [Applause] see [Music]