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Torah Efrat Opening Remarks- Rav Shlomo Katz, Rabbi Sam Shor & Rabbi Avi Berman
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Featuring:
Shlomo Katz
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Torah
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before we say anything we first of all
our hearts
our are continue to be every single
second for for the immediate return of
all
everyone will come and join
us so welcome to Welcome to our to our
sh here
inat we see many familiar faces but it's
also very beautiful to see people here
that um for the first time so it's very
very much very very
heartwarming and I want to give a
tremendous tremendous yes it's a it's
such an honor for us to partner with u
Israel our dear it's by now it's it's
really
M that she Israel connection and I also
want to thank everyone from the sh
itself that worked very hard behind the
scenes and I specifically just want to
mention our dear friend Josh caner for
working very hard on this evening I
really appreciate it very very
much and since this is the first time
that we've had a uh an evening like
tonight in this format every time we'll
have the opportunity
to will keep on learning and growing and
getting it better and better and
better so before I call up my dear
friend who's sitting right over here
next to me there's one
statement in the
gamar that R cook I figur it's such an
such a beautiful way if we could start
with the light of the K of the one
who who knew how to speak to our hearts
his words continue to speak to our
hearts in such a magnificent way of
cooks per on a statement from the gar
andan whoever Mourns
over so he merits to see it in its
happiness and Rook points out the
obvious question should have been said
whoever Mourns
over should Merit to see it
rebuilt what do you mean why does it
say that it sees it and it's and bless
you that you see it in its
s shared that many people see y being
built and it doesn't necessarily fill
their heart and soul
with
s we see a lot of good things happening
to us even though this year was very
very difficult to see it but even within
that boy did we see am Isel this year
are we seeing am Isel this
year but the only way to see big things
happening and for it to fill you with s
is if you were able to
cry over the things before they were
rebuilt and before they were fixed
if you know how to
cry then when good things happen you'll
know what it means to
be this evening we're privileged to have
here in this building a number of
besides just being very very special
people and tremendous Educators in their
fields we have
people that know how to cry over
yam they know how to cry over
Brokenness and there are also people who
know how to
be when things get
rebuilt and that's such an
amazing thing to go to tonight
or to put our
focus on learning how to cry in order to
learn how to
be we should all Merit to have that part
of
our all of us should learn
if we still need to for the moments that
we're in right now we should learn how
to
lead because what's waiting for us
the we're all waiting for it so
desperately like we wrote in the
title broken hearts waiting for the G it
is such a dear for me to introduce my
friend of kimat 25 years who have the
privilege of working on so many
different projects with RAB Sam sh is
the program director of the OU Israel
Center and it's a to have you here in
our home and hopefully it's the first of
many
[Applause]
so so first of
allra I want to thank you and your
entire incredible Kila for opening your
your home to
us and I also maybe I'll share just as a
part of an announcement I'll share my
most embarrassing moment in rabanus the
story of my most embarrassing moment in
rabanus I was a
25-year-old young Rabbi intern and the
senior Rabbi the mardas in the community
was on a six-month sabatical away from
the
community and there was a very sweet old
elderly gentleman who passed away and I
was called into action to officiate at
his
levia and I sat with the family the
night before the funeral and I prepared
a what I thought was a very a very Hur
sick very warm uh
personal tribute to this fine gentleman
and in those days in those days the only
people that had one of these were
business Executives and rabbis okay
rabbis ha in case there was God forbit
an emergency or if you were involved
like us in many many things in terms of
communal INF infrastructure for Co you
if you had to checking a product for
kous so you had a you had a you had a
cell phone but very few people had cell
phones so I get up in front of this
packed
house to speak about one of these
pillars of our community who have passed
away and all of a sudden we hear a cell
phone
ringing and I knew it was my cell phone
not only because in those days no one
else had cell phones but because I had a
very distinct ringer on my phone was an
Asian jingle it's a Gong was going off
and I ever since that embarrassing
moment my most embarrassing moment in
rabanas to my wife's sh grin my phone
remains on silent and vibrate 25 years
later 20 28 years later and so I
encourage everyone to check their phones
right now before we get
started and make sure that our phones
are indeed on silent and
vibrant as
mentioned our theme for this evening is
broken hearts ready for
Gula three times every day when we stand
and Dav in and say theid we DAV that
should be rebuilt speedily beu in our
days now the re of retal rets he say
that that opening bra
that of
those
words the wordu can mean either speedily
in our days or beu with our days through
our days the way in which we spend our
days says the rebbi of Retz can
contribute to building the Bas mikdash
orom preventing the B mikdash from being
built one of the many interesting
associated with Tish and challenging
associated with Tish is the fact that we
don't
say the saddest day of the year and we
don't say and those of us that are
familiar with this know that the reason
is that hopefully one day soon TSH will
be transformed to be a moade tshav in
its Essence is a day of Celebration not
a day of
sadness so rosha Wilson
side he say F he says we can see this
idea even extended to the fact in terms
of the practice that we have not to put
on Fillin on Tab morning how can it be
that we wait all day literally till the
end of the day to the end of the
afternoon to put on so Cesar mosha will
say the most beautiful idea he said we
wake up on T shabab morning and we're
still hopeful we're still hopeful that
some point during the day we're going to
be blessed to greet
mhu and this day will be transformed to
a day of Celebration to the mo it's
intended to be it's only after we go
through the whole day and we see that
sadly tragically we're still waiting for
mashia that we finally realize we have
to put on Fillin that this day is not
yet a
mo my BR for every single one of us as
We Gather here tonight for this awesome
evening of and inspiration
and is that as we prepare for Tish on
one hand yes we're ready
ifom remains a day of Brokenness and
sadness but please God we should be to
sing together to dance together on the
mo
of it is my to introduce my dear
colleague and Friends AB AI Burman the
heart and soul of U Israel oh is's
executive director to share a few words
[Applause]
of
to to to all those that worked very very
hard to make sure that this evening is
going to be an uplifting and inspiring
evening for each and every one of us
because we are all in desperate need for
this evening to be an uplifting and
inspiring I stand here as uh the
executive director of the OU in
Israel thanking the fun family for
giving us a task
I believe seven eight years ago of
putting on an event that's going to be K
Torah in memory of David and Norma fund
their
parents that event was thank was thank
God a major success in
Yim last year we took it from to and mod
and this year we're taking it toat
and the fact
that two incredible Jews David and Norma
who had the tremendous honor of knowing
and being
friends had the vision of English
speakers coming to Israel and becoming a
source of Torah a source of doing good
and a source of changing the
country really is uh so for this Torah
to be in their memory so I want to thank
family for doing this in their
memory last
year remember before October 7th the
woods of
world so last year I was approached by
our director of marketing and director
of social media Leia and Mina and they
said to me AI how about we put together
a video for
fish so well that sounds pretty boring
because everybody's watching either
Rabbi weinreb or Rabbi berson or Rabbi
wild or Rabbi Howard you know all the
different OU platforms and all people
want is
kinot and they say to me like no but
maybe there are many people that are not
in Yim and they want to connect to Yim
because you know Yim is where everybody
wants to be on Tish so they convinced me
to do this
video and uh to be quite honest I I I
was very skeptical at the beginning
uh but because they yes I went along
with
it
and we were successful
literally few hours before tab to get it
uploaded to
YouTube and by the end of
tab we had 46,000
views for 28 minute video talking about
what we had inash and what we're going
to haveen
mikash and I was taken by surprise I
said to myself
really there are
46,000 people that wanted to watch a 28
minute video about bet
mikash is that
incredible that's
amazing and I'm I closed my eyes the end
of that
Tish Le year and I Tred to ask
myself if we would have gotten 46,000
views two or three or four years
earlier and I don't think it has to do
with YouTube being more popular or less
popular or us having more followers on
the OU Israel Channel or
not but when I stand here and look at
400 people in a
room that I hear saying very clearly
to we want the end of
this we don't want to sit on the floor
anymore in Tish we want to dance in bet
mikdash that comes and shows
me that we're getting
closer you know we all
know I didn't say anything for the last
three weeks
and I don't want to
be but we all
know that the three weeks are always
three weeks that we all have to be
extremely
careful and unfortunately K Isel has
known many many tragedies during the
three
weeks over the
generations and unfortunately we had
today another
tragedy where a 20-year-old yonatan was
killed in the bik
but when I look at these three weeks and
I didn't think sit down stati with
Statistics and graphs
Etc but my gut tells me that these past
three
weeks clel has destroyed more
enemies than any three
weeks definitely in recent
history and I try to think of what has
happened the last three weeks
and I
say we've had a lot of good
accomplishments we still have a lot more
to
do but we're getting close to
Tish and the Theory comes and says the
following if Tish itself like RAB Sam
said is is supposed to be hopefully very
soon a a day of
holiday then the 3 weeks before are
supposed to be the preparation for that
holiday which means they themselves are
also supposed to be much
happier than when Tish is a said
that so if we're just finishing now
three weeks and they've been a better
three weeks than we've ever
had that is sending us a sign that our
hearts are Desiring what be is going to
happen we're not just ready for the Gul
we're anxious for the
G we are excited for the
G and us sitting here
today coming and listening through an
entire evening full of Torah talking
about the and talking about how ready we
are for
the shows that it's going to be
hopefully very soon
Nina convinced
me thank you
Nina convinced me to do another video
for this
year I told her on condition that we
have the chance of not putting it up
because is going to be a
y so hopefully you won't see
it and Nina worked with zei for
nothing but I want to thank you all for
showing a k how
much our desire is our passion is to see
that mikash hopefully very very soon
[Music]