We Need a New Vision for Jewish Unity

hi everybody you can hear me and see me excellent okay husky is here yes okay i'm here ready whenever you are welcome everybody thank you very thank you for the honor and the invitation thank you this is this is a very different way that i've seen you since the last time but that's the way it is thank you very much for for arranging this tonight or for agreeing to speak tonight and for your staff arranging the zoom meeting our pleasure our honor i'm saying our honor and pleasure okay i don't know that we're gonna have any other introductory words i'm just gonna thank everybody else for joining and for helping us mark the occasion of sarri's yard site and we're going to hear some debri torah and visit from rabbi yui maybe your wife wants to say something is your wife here she already told me i have to do it okay she's in a different zoom i see on your left okay so it's my turn do you know this was the shortest introduction i received in my life good all right they should all be longer then short is perfect one time the introducer was longer than the time that was allotted to me from my speech but you made sure not to do that there was once an emcee who got up and said this speaker doesn't need an introduction he needs an ending so first of all i want to welcome everybody everybody is in everybody is in the crowd and the crowd looks big i can't say everybody because everybody's a relative but we certainly seem to have a lot of people so i think you can go for it perfect so first of all i want to welcome everybody to this special evening i learned recently the trick of muting so that way we'll have a little more uh serenity okay i really want to thank everybody for joining us here this very special evening i want to thank my dear friends fagi and kesky the parents of sorry of blessed memory who have year in year out always made a special attempt to honor her special memory her unique soul the extraordinary life that she lived the energy that this young girl exuded through her short but impactful and powerful life tonight's sheer tonight's lecture get-together is of course dedicated in her loving memory hanasara bass mushulum jeskel in tribute of the eighth yard site many of you know the story of this remarkable girl who as her mother shared with me not long ago was diagnosed at the age of 10 with cancer and then battled for two and a half years and passed away eight years ago at the age of and a half i want to quote the words of her mother may you have many happy and healthy years together with all of your loved ones and your husband of course she wrote to me about her daughter and nobody knows a daughter like a mother my daughter was a person who grew from her serious challenge her nissanian she taught all of us the true meaning of simchas what it means to live a life of joy and a meaning she wrote to me about the 250 people who have undertaken upon themselves to learn the book a life worth living in her memory every year there have been over 200 people learning a book in her honor and in honor of the art site and i want to welcome all those who learned the book of this year a life worth living i know not all of you are joining us for whatever reason but all of you who are joining us or all of you will watch it later i want to thank you and welcome all of you to this class i just recall when i saw the title of the book a life worth living it just reminded me of an old story i once heard and it touched me that there was once a devastating fire that broke out in a home and there was a man there who was disabled he was physically crippled he couldn't run out so a fireman rushed into the range raging flames and he slept out this man to safety and this person who was physically disabled but financially very well to do turned to the firemen who just rescued him from the flames and he said i would like to reward you handsomely i am a man of means tell me the price that i owe you and i'll give it to you and the firemen innocently said i was just doing my job you don't have to pay me i get my salary i'm comfortable and the man says don't be foolish i am a very wealthy man and i'm offering you here a great reward for saving my life take it and the man says again i didn't do it for money i'm doing my job enjoy your money he says but i would like to reward you so the fireman says so then i will ask you for one favor live a life that was worth saving live a life that is worth living before we go to sleep at night it's one of the questions we can ask ourselves that i live a day that was worth saving worth remembering may have not been a perfect day but i gave it all my god i got it was a day in which i displayed courage love resilience faith fortitude a day in which i challenged myself and flexed my spiritual emotional psychological and hopefully physical muscles a day in which as my rebbe would say i left the world a little better than it was when i came in and that i always found to be a very meaningful question i want to make sure that this day leaves the world a little better than the way it was when i entered into the day and this special soul whose loving memory we commemorate tonight hanasara certainly in her 12 and a half years her short journey on earth left the world not just a better place a happier place a deeper place a more authentic place place of deeper oneness intimacy deeper love and unity every neshama every soul has its journey and its mission which is unique every soul is an indispensable note in the divine cosmic symphony and every soul fulfills its unique its unique purpose and exudes a light into the world and into history and into god himself and into all of the jewish people that never was brought into the world not before the soul and not after the soul and certainly your daughter mark and feigie heskey and your daughter sorry brought a tremendous light into the world and the best proof is that years later quite a few years later so many people gather year in and year out and once again this year even with our physical distance but spiritual unity in order to celebrate her life to remember her life to pay tribute to her life and most importantly to carry on her joy her growth her commitment her faith her simcha in our own lives and in your lives and in your family lives and in that sense her spirit lives her energy lives her soul her holy soul continues to impact us and may she be an everlasting source of love and joy and inspiration not only to the dear parents not only to the entire mashbach of the family not only to the entire community to all of teaneck but really to all of us because we're all connected in a very very profound way i once remarked it could be was at an adventure t-neck actually a yardstick event at t-neck i'm not sure that i once saw a very moving letter arik sharon a real sharon oliver shalom you remember was the one of the heroes of the six day war celebrated israeli general years later he would go into politics not sure if it was the best thing for him but he was a military genius and a military general par excellence and he was one of the heroes who led the jews the soldiers to victory in the six day war it was an incredible an incredible moment it's before my days but i'm sure some of you remember even everybody looks so young here but certainly some of you remember the six day war and shortly afterwards tragedy struck a real sharon arik was married to lily his first life was lili sharon and they had a nine-year-old boy who one night went and took one of his father's guns and was playing with it and by mistake he shot himself it was a fatal wound and he died in the home in the yard nine years old shortly after the six day war it was an un unfathomable tragedy any family under any circumstances but the contrast was so tragic here his father was celebrated in the israel and the world after the six day war as the man who led his people to victory and then this personal devastating loss and i once saw a letter that was penned by the labor chief of blessed memory tyreel sharon shortly afterwards very long letter he starts over the letter i don't know you personally but i felt that i want to write to you later they would get to know each other quite well they would become pretty close acquaintances he came to visit a lot here new york i remember but at 68 67 they haven't met yet per uh face to face she says but i wanted to share this with you and it was a long letter where he shared just words of solace and comfort and more than words silence but then he wrote to sharon arik sharon a thought and he said that by jews when we comfort somebody the traditional statement may god comfort you among the mourners of sion and yerushalayim zion and jerusalem and the laboratory asked the question to mr sharon why are we associating it with zion in jerusalem a person comes god forbid to a shiver call say may god comfort you for your loss among those who are mourning fatsy on your what's the connection we're speaking here about of specific laws in this particular family so speak about that and he wrote to mr sharon he said there are three reasons to make this association first is we want to emphasize whose loss it is sometimes we think a person lost a family member it's an individual loss it's sad but it's there it's their loss it doesn't have anything to do with anybody else so we say no it's like zion in jerusalem who mourns fatsia who mourns for yerushalayim every jew has a heart every jew who's connected and every jew is connected consciously or subconsciously mourns for zion and jerusalem so we say the loss of every single jew any person child older person woman or man at any age affects all of claudius because it's like a limb of a body every soul is essential to the fabric to the chemistry to the living organism called amistra so therefore it's not just you know they amputated my leg my arm big deal big deal changes the trajectory of your life forever number one it's not an individual loss it's part of the jewish people some people may feel it more acutely than others but we're all part of it and therefore i say we're all part of the commemoration of this yard site then he said number two the loss of cnn you were everybody knows was only physical jerusalem's spirit did not die nor did the basa mikdesh cease to exist it continues to exist in the hearts and souls of every single truth even when there were very few jews living in jerusalem and physically there was no temple and no community wherever they were in the world facing jerusalem remembering the basamiktas hoping for the gula for the redemption the presence of the shrine dwelled and dwells in every heart and in every shrule and every home and wherever you let god in in the whole world physically it was decimated but not spiritually and he said so we tell every person who's mourning god will comfort you among the mourners of zion and jerusalem in the sense that just as that destruction was only physical but never spiritual never ever think that a soul can die a soul lives forever a soul lives in eternity even if it lives in dimensions that are not graspable by the five senses of the material body and then he said number three we know that syrian and urushalayim will be rebuilt we pray many times a day um jerusalem will be built because this will be rebuilt will come and so we tell every person this is like the comfort of seeing irish alliance where one day the neshama will come down with the trias amazing the resurrection and be reunited with its loved ones and this letter really triggered a very powerful relationship that wasn't just nice it was good for the jews in terms of the security of israel and in terms of vision for the jews living in israel the country the soldiers and all of our brothers and sisters living in israel today thank god numbering 6.6 million so when i asked what do you want me to talk about besides you know a tribute to your daughter she said i want you to talk about loving jews so i like that that's always the best topic the best topic is talking about love that's what we need that's what we want that's what the jewish people yearn for and that's the truth all our problems many of our problems come from fragmentation from this unity and when do that but it's so easy alienation especially now is an era of a lot of distancing social distancing and physical distancing and also people having different different opinions and different perspectives people living in different worlds and different philosophies some who take this pandemic very seriously and some on the other extreme and some in the middle and without now judging anybody or criticizing anybody or anything there's often this unity and mistrust and fragmentation sometimes between families we live in a country that is now very divided as the recent elections have demonstrated we live in a world that is gripped by fear by uncertainty by challenges by insecurity and by anxiety and it's most fitting to use the yard sight of a young girl like sorry the chronological of blessed memory to inspire ourselves and empower ourselves how we individuals and collectively every person in their own life and in their home and family every community beginning with teaneck but all jewish communities and i know people are tuning in here from t-neck and tuning in here from other parts of new jersey and other parts of the united states of america including my little stetla here in rockland county a few minutes away wherever you're tuning in from we can all strengthen ourselves in our sister on the love of jews and an actress israel the unity of jews it's really i would say the call of the hour and let's be blunt about it not very long ago many of you remember a rabbi can gain popularity by getting up in the synagogue and giving a speech fire and brimstone against a particular individual or a community you can almost become popular that way it meant you have a spine you have a position etc today i would say it's one of the unique blessings of our times i find in the last decade maybe two decades that this is not the case anymore people most people and i've had the privilege of going around the world and speaking i think every conceivable type of jewish community what you would call litvish and yeshiva and hassanesh and very hasidish um so i'm mrs g and i'm a physical therapist and i work with the kiva um i see him once a week in thank you you can still hear me and see me give me thumbs up okay and i've had a privilege what you would call modern modern orthodox very or ultra fundamentalist this type of whatever the labels here are pretty irrelevant and i find a true yearning for unity the jewish people don't want to live anymore with a tunnel vision where i can only have a narrow view of reality and of the people people are really yearning to appreciate the rainbow called claudius canesis israel a rainbow in which there is space for every jewish soul a rainbow in which there is less judgmentalism and more empathy a chuppah a canopy that is inclusive and encompassing people are literally sick and tired of fragmentation of divisiveness of misunderstanding of hatred of animosity of negativity it doesn't sell and the reason it doesn't sell it doesn't speak to people's souls especially the youth it's interesting post holocaust there were so few that everybody had to stick together to survive then god blessed us all with success and every community started to blossom and you know what happened a certain division happened because everybody now could be self-contained you don't like this community you make your own newspaper even start to make their own newspapers their own magazines and you only read the magazines that work with your tribe and everybody is content but it makes us all smaller narrower more impoverished it doesn't help anybody in long term because we're all part of a living organism and if you don't believe me ask the anti-semites you'll see they couldn't kill us they can't they don't differentiate between the two and therefore we live today in a time where i feel so strongly that people when you talk about love and unity in a genuine and deep and authentic way it's literally like the verse says kamayam karim al-nefer it's like a cold cup of water when you have been stranded in the wilderness in the scorching heat of the sun isle like an isle who pines and a fike million at flash floods flash floods of water an aisle is this one of those mountain goats that is thirsty and it's looking to hydrate itself and it finds a fike mayon flash floods of water what a beautiful possible so my soul yearns for truth for god and i would say today i find souls yearning for unity unities within families within communities especially within israel and among the jewish people and blessed are all those who speak about this nonstop because we need healing there's been a lot of rift and a lot of misunderstanding and as i always tell my guys my students my constituents we don't have to agree with each other god's forbid we're jews but we have to be here for each other we don't have to share the same opinions about everything but we have to trust each other we have to be able to lean on each other rely on each other support each other we have to continue speaking to each other i once heard from the late rabbi jonathan sachs adrenal of rachel who just passed away literally one month ago on the 20th of kashman rabbi sakh said the torah opens up vayeshev to describe the conflict between joseph joseph and his brothers they stopped communicating he says even when we disagree we have to continue to talk and we have to each other and we have to continue to listen to each other it's very easy to cut you off i don't speak to you any longer 20 years later we're not on speaking terms how can brothers not be on speaking terms how can sisters not be on speaking terms how can our conscience justify this imagine you would tell sarah the girl who was life recovering today i don't speak to my sister we have a fight over my father's inheritance or i don't speak to my sister nor my brother-in-law because of the fight at the chupa the chevy brothers she would look at you and i'm saying life is short and precious you're going to allow petty egotistical arguments to split up a family to split up a community maybe you're right maybe you're wrong maybe you're both right maybe you're both wrong maybe you're 50 right maybe you're 90 right but you have to be able to see a have a bird's eye view of life and see the larger picture and don't sacrifice long-term happiness for short-term victory last week just heard a story from the former chief rabbi of israel rabbi israel mayor laura who's an exceptional man i love him he was a survivor of buchenwald at the age of eight lost his father and mother they were murdered his father was gazed in treblinka his father was rabbi shakayam lao the rabbi of pietrikov in poland cousin of rob mayor shapiro from la blind afiyami and rabbi shakayam lao was murdered he was gazed his wife was murdered other children were murdered naftali lavi the older brother of ristral mayor they called him tulek tulek and his younger brother was lulu and in a sack he hit him in a sack and he got him into buchenwald they wouldn't allow kids they'd be killed right away he's one of the youngest holocaust survivors he came up to israel without anybody he had an older brother no father no mother other siblings murdered but he had an uncle who lived in kiryat matsukin in israel and he was taken to his uncle's home and his uncle and aunt raised him last week rabbi lao was talking to a class a bah mitzvah class in israel via zoom of course via zoom usually the momentum class wouldn't get rabbi lao to come down to give a speech he's one of the great orators of the jewish world but it's one of the advantages of zoom and i assume you sit in your office or in your home and you speak one hour you speak to melbourne and the next hour you speak to moscow and the next hour you speak to new york and los angeles and then you go to teaneck so rabbi lao was giving an address to this zoom bar mitzvah class and he shared with them an experience and i want to tell you about my bar my bar mitzvah was shabbos and i feel it's an appropriate story tonight especially because sorry passed away right after her bat mitzvah at 12 shortly after so i think it's a very appropriate story and rabbi lao said i was an orphan so it was an exciting milestone for me finally you know some some action in my life i'll have a bar mitzvah and i prepared for months the portion of the week to read the torah parasha now people felt bad they heard about the orphans by mitzvah so people came from all over the country to celebrate my bar mitzvah and carry out mutsukin the shul was finally packed you know people here there's an orphan remember there were orphans but most kids were exterminated so when there was a child who survived without a father and mother people felt a lot of empathy so a lot of people who wouldn't have cam come but they came to honor israel mayor lulac for his bar mitzvah says the show was packed i was so excited i'm going to give my first performance and remember this is a person who has given many performances over the years but this is the first as a mitzvah boy he says i go up to the bim this show had a regular weekly balkari somebody would read the terror his name was moish maisha was an old man he had a white beard a short white beard and rabbi lao says his vitality came from reading the torah in the show he loved the attention and the validation and the being in the center of things and reading the torah you prepare for it all week he took it so seriously this was like his his oxygen for the week this was it you know everybody has their their thing he says i come up i come up from one side of the bim now usually what would happen is when there was about mitzvah so the gabba would tell moisha in the beginning of the week that don't prepare because it's going to be a ba mitzvah boy rabbi lao says i come up to the bimmer to read the torah and who comes up from the other side good old moshe and we meet we meet right there and the torah is coming up and the gabba turns to moshe says marisha this week you're not reading there's a bar mitzvah moshe tells the guy by law i'm really nobody told me so what does the guy buy says i'm telling you now leave moisture says it's not fear i prepared already you didn't tell me gabe says it's about mitzvah boy i'm telling you now go down moisture says this is so unfair i do this voluntarily i don't get paid for this aniya says i give my soul and heart for this i prepare every week for free and i prepared this week how can you take this away from me the gabby says about mitzvah boy get out of here and rabbi lao says i see my she's almost crying he says finally the show is full usually the shoe is empty finally the school is full everybody came and you're going to take away this opportunity for me you're going to take away from me the ability to read the terror to everybody and the god by at this point was quite frustrated you can imagine or infuriate it here's about mitzvah boy an orphan from the holocaust here's an older man who's reading every week he doesn't want to give up his job so the guy by really you know wanted to throw him out rabbi lau tells the boys he says let me tell you what happened i said i will take care of it i went over to moishe and i saw that moisture was almost weeping because for him this was just his it was his oxygen it was just it was so important and i said moishe i see how much this matters to you i'm 13 years old i am sure i will have many many opportunities to speak in public and to read a torah in public but you're an elderly man you're much much older than i am i feel the right thing is to give it to you i see how valuable it is for you here you read the title with pleasure and rabbi lao went down from the bimmer and this old man maisha read the bamitzvah parsha instead of israel mayor lao and rabbi lao turned to the boys and he said this was the first mitzvah that i did for my bar mitzvah this was my first mitzvah giving this jew the oxygen the attention he needed and he smiles and he says and let me tell you something it was true i have had many many opportunities since then to speak in public and to read the torah and teach the torah in public he says children when you don't allow small conflicts to take over your life you don't become petty you look at the bigger picture you don't sweat the small stuff and you allow a person their dignity your movata you forgo what may be so critical at this moment and you realize there's another perspective for this person it means the world you let it go and you don't harbor grudges he says you will never lose when you're giving something up at the moment to help save somebody's dignity you're not really giving anything up you will gain so much more it was such a powerful story for 13 year olds who were complaining that they can't have a big festive beautiful bar mitzvah like they were planning to in corona they're quarantined but i think it's a powerful message for each and every one of us you know it's so easy to get engulfed and entangled in arguments with your spouse your husband or your wife what are we doing for hanukkah what are we not doing for kaneka we're going here we're not going there arguments about finance arguments about education arguments about relationships arguments about the home arguments about donald j trump arguments about joe biden arguments about what lives matter arguments about everything psychological emotional spiritual practical stuff it's so easy to get into that zone of mistrust and fragmentation but to be a jew is really to always have that mindfulness of hine hashem nizava that i am always in a relationship with god who's infinite and the reason i'm always in a relationship with god is because i am a piece of god in other words i'm also infinite and when you're infinite make a decision from a place of infinity and your decisions from a place of infinity will never be small and petty and ridiculous and egotistical and filled with toxicity and insecurity and misery and mistrust because you'll be able to make decisions from a place of infinite confidence empowerment vigor strength animation fortitude resilience wisdom depth when you're in touch with your true self at least on some level you could say goodbye to the need of being superficial and the need of getting the last word i can transcend my impulses i can transcend my reptilian brain to be able to be more conscientious more focused on the goal more unifying and not only thinking about what will feel good at this present moment to release my anger and develop survival skills but what will really bring me closer to my truest inner core to my truest and deepest and most powerful values and that makes literally all the difference you know my dearest friends it's so true individually and it's also true collectively i don't know how many of you have ever seen the california redwoods they're called the redwoods california redwood unique trees they're known as the sequoias the sequoia tree some of them have been around for more than 3 000 years there are trees that their lifespan is close to 3 500 years that means they date back to the days of abraham isaac jacob and joseph they have been around before moses was born in egypt they have been around 3000 years before george washington and a thousand years before alexander the great these trees are incredible they have endured every storm weathered every storm tsunami and hurricane in the world floods and fires actually recently they discovered that the forest fires are actually good for the sequoias they help the sequoias but it's not for tonight's lecture unbelievable you know the california forest fires the redwoods it's helpful for them interesting some of these trees i think the tallest tree can reach the height of 350 feet in height and in diameter 56 feet scientists botanists wanted to understand the secret of these trees how did they endure for thousands of years how did they manage to survive every possible storm i mean they didn't start off so tall and so powerful they started off as saplings three and a half who's been around for three and a half thousand years imagine you're standing in front of a tree and this tree was there before moisture before yeshua before matantara before you'd see a smithsonian before godless matriarch when the beginning of gulas was right it's like crazy you know the madrid says that yaakov brought cedar trees down with him from eric israel to egypt and he planted them he told his children when you go out of egypt you'll take these cedars and that's how they had the wood to build a mishkan and this gave them comfort that's teaching right so they looked at these trees that yaakov planted and generations later but not so long they were in egypt for 210 years here you're looking at trees and you're seeing trees that theoretically could have seen in the face of yaakov avinu and yosef azadek the face of and they're here they're physical they're physical trees that you can touch it's fascinating so scientists want to understand what is the secret of their resilience and endurance they imagined that the roots of these trees must extend maybe hundreds of feet in the earth and they're so deeply embedded in the earth that as the missionaries says in prakayavas when you have deep roots then no wind no storm can destroy you how shocked they were when they discovered that the roots of most of the sequoias are shallow some of those roots don't extend deeper than five or six feet into the ground which was astounding to botanists how can it be that a tree whose roots only go down five feet can grow so tall 350 feet so wide and can last so long and then they discovered the secret my dear friends open your hearts what these trees don't have in depth they make up in width you see the roots of these california redwoods these sequoias trees extend in width very very far from the trunk from the center of the tree sometimes they can extend in the width 100 feet or close to 100 feet or more than 100 feet and you know what happens in the process something unbelievable the roots of the each sequoia meets up underground with the roots of another sequoia and they become interlocked with each other so above the surface you can have many distinct trees below the surface they're all one their roots become fused interconnected integrated interwoven interlocked no storm has a chance the storm has not felt trying to fell one tree the storm has to attack 50 trees it has no chance all their roots have become fused into one because they spread out so wide and they literally become one and when i read that i'm like that's the answer to mark twain's question when mark twain wrote his famous article in harper the late 1800s why the jews how is it that all of the great empires of history have come and cast their light and glow upon the face of this earth but ultimately they vanished and have been reduced to the dustbins of history and there is one minority that has been that it's been hunted down and persecuted in every single age by every single empire and nonetheless it's still around and vibrant and alive and well it's survived and it thrives and especially we could say during this time of chanukah the awareness of this becomes so powerful because if you ask a question where is the greek empire where is the syrian empire of antiochus where is the roman empire where is the egyptian empire where is the assyrian empire the babylonian empire the persian empire where is rome where's vespasian where's antiochus where's alexander where's paul with caliglia vespasian titus adrian tiberius where are they where's turkemede with khmelanetsky where's alfred rosenberg joseph mengele joseph gobbles where's joseph stalin where is salamani and where's bin laden and the answer is they're all in the same place where pharaoh is in wikipedia they're all in wikipedia and now one more question we are the jewish people and the answer is we created wikipedia and google and facebook and instagram and telegram somebody asked me why do we eat why do we eat latkes why why do we anybody knows i know the answer they taught you in t-neck because oil right because we love oil hanukkah's oil oil the oil burnt for eight days so we eat latkes and donuts for eight days submerged in oil but i'll give you my own answer my ump the reason is because the greeks were into a few things they were into sports they were into athletics they were into the physical physique of their body they were into looks this is what they were into so therefore we eat as many donuts and latkes and chanukah because chanukah represents the victory of the jews against the greeks and we want to make sure we will never ever look like them but we don't only defeat our enemies that's not what we do we also turn our enemies into food we take power fire pharaoh and we turn them into a matzo ball we take hamon and we turn them into a hamantash we take antiochus and we turn them into alatka we don't only want to defeat our enemies and write their obituaries we want our energies to add to our cholesterol and our fat matzo bowl latkes we will take them and eat them so mark twain says how did this happen how did this happen and the answer is two ingredients our latkes have two ingredients one is the torah and the second is the fusion we are the sequoia trees of history we are the redwoods of history who have been around how look at those trees on the surface they're separate under the earth they're one va that resell instituted before davening every morning you should say harini mekaba lalai mitzvah's assertion and i want to suggest i think this is a great time during the corona to do what arizona suggested whatever you darwin whatever you dave before we start davening this is a special tradition of the arizona that you say i'm accepting upon myself the mitzvah to love my neighbor to love my fellow jew like i love me harini makabilalai mitsubis this is one of the greatest mystics in jewish history 16th century says you should say before david why so one of the great masters explained as follows listen to this what is the greatest source of aggravation for parents and what is the greatest source of nachas for parents we all know that when parents see that their children are fighting with each other especially when they're older and they're not talking to each other and they're killing each other and they're schlepping each other to court and they can't come to each other's sim because it kills a mother and it kills a father kills them i'm not talking about if they're abusive and dysfunctional and healthy and they're guilty for it i'm talking about fine parents nobody's perfect i'm talking about parents who are you know more or less they're normal human beings trying to do the right thing even if they made mistakes it kills them what's the greatest nachos for parents when they see that all their children get along and care for each other and are here for each other and call each other and and have a heart for each other and help each other there's no joy that a father and a mother have when they see that their children get along and really are there for each other even if they don't always agree with each other but that the family is united so therefore that results said we go to dave and to hashem i want to go to my father and ask him for things i'm going to dive in i want this i want this i want this before that tell hashem i love all of my siblings i love all your kin ah you know what happens god smiles hashem so to speak opens up there's so much divine pleasure there's so much nachas now you can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish when tati is so happy there's so much nakhas ruach the tainoga elya in the divine pleasure is expanded infinitely why because he sees that his siblings get along so before we start davening i have to ask myself what's my relationship with my siblings with god's children imagine somebody comes over to me or somebody comes over to you and says you know i love you i love you i love you here give me a hug pre-corona after corona virtual hug i love you but i hate your kids i hate them they're obnoxious they're rude they make me sick i don't want to see them i don't want to visit them i don't want to have anything to do with it oh you i love what is that going to make you feel like can make you feel horrible you don't want to have a relationship with such a person so now let's think about it i come to shul or my home and i say every single morning and every single evening love god with all your heart with all your soul with all your might and i tell god i love you i love you your children i hate their guts this one is uh they're despicable this one i can't stand this one is petty this one is a thief this one is a thug this one is an addict this one is codependent this one is dysfunctional this one is an abuser this one is unhealthy this one is a ghana of a chakram and these are just the nicer yiddish adjectives that we have for some people i'm not going to get more detail than this you can ask your grandmother for the best polish and russian curses what does it feel like tasha you love me but my children you despise that doesn't work something off the bala tanya once said they asked him what's a greater mitzvah abbas hashem or avasyral loving god or loving a jew what's a great image you know what he said he said avas israel is a pirush of ava you know they call them a litvak so here's a good here's a chabad litwack answer okay dalto the love of a jew is a commentary on the love of god you love what your beloved loves in other words what does it mean to love god you want comment you know what it means to love god what's commentary you have homage of rashi what's the commentary on loving god you want to love god love a jew that's love god every jew is is hashem's love if i love you i love what you love even if i'm having some issues but if i love you enough i respect i cherish that which means the world to you if you know that something means the world to your wife or to your husband even if you personally don't have a relationship with it but that in itself is enough to say you know what i have space in my day in my heart and my soul for you so avas israel is a pirush it's a commentary for ava every jew is a piece of asha to love a jew really means to love god to love the imprint of god that exists in every heart every human being every human being is carved in the image of god that the sham of a jew is called literally a piece of hashem a piece of a piece of infinity i was not long ago and a shabbos i met a special jew he lives in brooklyn his name is small duvet friedman he's a very big talmud he wrote many swarimanshas i think they're called sedate soy from wonderful commentaries and so he shared with me a story of an insight he heard this from a jew named shia myers a hasidic jew from the satmar group and today the 21st day of kislev was a very big celebration because it's the yay matsala the day of salvation of the satmarav rav the divre yoyo rabbenu your title bombs surabshia david myers he was a rosh shiva he was a satmar rashishiva in a literature yeshiva in stamford stanford connecticut so he once asked a question this is jewish trivia i love the question i love the answer he says i want you to tell me a scenario that you have a thought one thought and with that thought you perform 16 million mitzvahs one thought comes into your mind you arouse one thought within your brain and right at that moment you performed 16 million mitzvahs there's only one such thought and the answer is when i have a real thought that i love every jew what did i just do i just performed 16 million mitzvos a thought that's maybe what the rambamosa means when he says one thought can change the world one thought can spread love to 14 million people 15 million i said 60 i don't know if it's 14 or 15 or 16. but 14 million mitzvahs is good it's also good that's the power of connection that's the power of fusion rabbi sullivac rabbi j b sullivan one said something so beautiful he said tyson says in menache it's a story kumari speaks about a man who has two heads in terms of filling and tyson says a story about a man who had two heads his father died and he demanded a double portion of the inheritance because he had two heads so he's like two people and they came to king solomon and said you know what we do we blindfold one of the faces of this man we pour hot water or semi-hot water on the other head if the first one screams we know he's one person and he doesn't get a double portion of the inheritance if the other head doesn't scream because it doesn't feel the pain then we know there are two distinct living organisms two brains and therefore he gets a double portion of the inheritance as though he would be two people that's the story that toysvice brings in menaches i think it's page 37 somewhere in that zip code what's the meaning of this story can anybody explain this to me and he said a marvelous insight he said you know the jewish people don't have one head we have many many heads right we have so many different opinions two jews 19 opinions i say one thing and you have an opposite opinion even one jew within himself doesn't have doesn't have one opinion i once heard from rabbi sax that he was having a debate with i think was amos oz amos oz one of the most left-wing literary geniuses in israel and he was having a conversation a dialogue a debate so before they start amazon says chief rabbi sex i just want to say as a premise i will probably disagree with most things that you're going to say tonight don't take it personal but you should also know that i usually disagree with most things that i say classic right we have a lot of heads we don't have one head every jew has his own perspective her own opinion her own valentine's day like the native says that's not a problem said rabbi sylvain the fact that there are multiple heads is not an issue as long as when you pour scolding water on one the other one screams the problem is not that there's two heads that when you pour hot water on one head the other one doesn't feel it he says that's the problem i don't care that we disagree with each other i don't care that we have multiple heads we have multiple ways of viewing reality we have multiple perspectives we have multiple velt on xiaomi and we have multiple ashkafos we have disagreements and some disagreements may be about serious issues but when they pouring water on one head the other head has to be able to feel the water because it's one person if the other head doesn't feel the hot water now is bitter now it's bitter now you know it's not one person anymore and this is it's not one person anymore if that unity of that integration is lacking then then we have a serious challenge it's not always easy sometimes it's easy to cut you off of my life we're not on speaking terms anymore that's a tragic mistake maybe there are you there are not maybe there are some exceptions but be very very cautious make sure that that decision is not being made because of weakness and anger it's coming from a place of strength you're consulting with a person who's responsible who cares who's objective before you cut somebody out of your life yes if somebody is abusive somebody is a danger to your life if somebody is a control freak and they're not allowing you to breathe if somebody has hurt you very badly especially in an intimate way you may have to protect yourself but generally speaking when we operate from a place of strength we don't cut people out of our lives we learn how to appreciate respect create healthy boundaries but don't cut people out of your life if there's somebody you're not speaking to change surprise yourself reach out to them say i'm sorry apologize even if you're right then they're wrong don't allow pettiness to take over rabbi lau had the right to read the torah at his bar mitzvah but he knew his confidence wasn't dependent on that even everybody came to hear this old jew this was all he had he didn't have anything else it's a demonstration of strength now maybe the god bolium should have done something different i don't know i'm not here to judge anybody but the point is it's such an it's such a display of what it means to live a larger life finally last january the world commemorated the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz-birkenau which happened on january 27th 1945. so january 2020 was the fifth 75th year since the liberation of that death camp 46 world leaders came to the jerusalem museum yad vashem the holocaust museum to commemorate the date to discuss it and to make a commitment for the future you had their presidents kings princesses vice presidents prime ministers and leaders men and women some of the most powerful people in the world including the leaders of the allies the countries that defeated nazi germany in 1945 who would speak as the representative of the holocaust survivors it's the person i mentioned earlier who survived broken wild or by israel mayor lao it was really a moving scene to watch this rabbi with a hat pay us a beard addressing very powerful people in jerusalem and yad vashem 46 of the world leaders and many others who came other dignitaries or people of prominence and leadership positions and he spoke to them about the torture about the starvation about the suffering about the abuse about the murder about the dead bodies about his own parents whom he never saw after the ss took them and his mother pushed him into another line with his brother which saved his life even as he was screaming mama and could not understand why his mother would reject him it took him a long time to understand that as she rejected him she gave him a lease on life but then he turned to all the leaders and he concluded his words with this message he said i want to ask you a question in the book of genesis there's a flood noah takes into the ark every single living mammal two of every species and insects and birds and reptiles all living at all living animals and they're there for a year and i want to ask you a question how did the lioness live peacefully with the antelope how did the cheetah live peacefully with the deer how did the tiger live peacefully with the monkey how did the snake live calmly and serenely with its prey he says we don't even have one recorded scene in the torah of any violence in the ark what happened how did they all manage to behave as your grandmother would say like tata so nicely interesting question and he looked at them and he said i'll tell you the answer the animals were not dumb they knew that if noah throws them out of the ark they will all be consumed in a raging flood they understood that if they do not learn how to live peacefully with each other inside this ark you know what will happen they will all have to leave and they will all be liquidated and obliterated so they understood they better learn how to behave in that ark he looked at these 46 leaders and he said can't we learn from the animals what the animals understood we can't understand there's a flood raging humanity is threatened by so many things he said first thing is a disease of course a few months later we would know what that means we are threatened we have so many common enemies there are floods raging outside can't we learn to really get along because if we don't we will all end up drowning in this flood he said with one signature of your finger of your hand you can decide for peace for love for connection for life that's what i'm asking you to do they gave him a thundering standing ovation that was amazing but i my dear friends paraphrase the words of the chief rabbi and say to you and to me and to us we can't afford any longer to be divisive there are too many floods out there there are too many unknowns there are too many people who dislike us there are too many challenges from within and without we really cannot afford for each of us by to go each challenge in our own cocoon and not allow anybody else into our tent this is the time for us to be able to create the most powerful and unified communities because even if we don't agree with each other we mustn't agree with each other but we must always love each other and be here for each other for eternity thank you very very much you can unmute yourself if anybody wants to speak you can unmute yourself thank you very much thank you everybody who participated who joined tonight um these are important lessons that i could be speaking for myself i hope to be able to look back a year from now and say that last year at the time rabbi jacobson gave us food for thought and i'm hoping that we'll look back all of us look back and realize how much better people came from so thank you very much thank you thank you for the privilege thank you for the opportunity thank you for the special evening and tribute to your special daughter of blessed memory may she be a good to better and a source of inspiration and blessing for her mother and her father and the whole family and all the friends and relatives in the whole community and all the jewish people in the whole world and may all of you be blessed with knockouts and health and happiness and prosperity and khazakh thank you rabbi i'm a cold old friend can you hear me yes we hear you very clearly i'm a very very old friend good friend of toby with schwartz a childhood friend of mine and she's like my sister's soul and i just want to wish both and monk and the whole family peace and peace and his respect in the show for the for sari and my my dear sister toby who is my life sister although she's a small sister not a blood sister but we've been together for many many years coming out from 1964 from romania and we shared together a lot of life together and i hope to have peace and safe and health for all of them shalom amen i mean thank you uh whoever is eating whatever looks like you're eating good sushi you could pass some here to the speaker thank you thank you rabbi jacobson your speech was absolutely moving i was sitting here for an hour and a half whatever time it was and it's so powerful and so thank you thank you and this good sorry i was one of the people who read the book and uh and she was the conduit to bring you here and to bring this inspiration to us amen amen may all of us be elevated as part of that aliyah and i should say we're also hoping mashiach comes very soon so then the summer will also have a will come down [Music] to everybody which will be the greatest aliyah sometimes coming going down is the greatest way of going up you know if can you hear me oh can you hear me we hear you tamar we hear you loud and clear were you counseling a patient earlier no no okay somebody decided to counsel their patient in the middle of this year which i i didn't mind i thought maybe we can all use some of the therapy but then i realized there may be some confidential i thought there may be some confidentiality issues so i muted them to tune into people i did it three years on discovery cruise line in florida that was what i did and the road gave me brought in 1992 90 1990 yeah anyway um with the roots of the trees spreading out 100 feet like that and we're intertwined i see we're one but if we're intertwined by spreading out is that the same could the next tree come up two different trees because the roots intertwine but they don't intersect you know like inside excellent the roots intertwine but they don't intercept because even as we become interlocked we retain a certain distinctiveness and it's extremely important unity doesn't mean that we all become the same equal but different every person has their distinct contribution their distinct personality their distinct soul their distinct light it's like a jigsaw puzzle the pieces are not identical they're different but together they create a mosaic it's like the limbs in the body every limb has its own contribution but together it creates the magic of life it's like notes in a symphony it's like musicians playing together in an orchestra everyone has their own instrument but together they generate this beautiful music and the same is true when it comes to the jewish people hillel says in the ethics if i am not for myself who will be here for me but if i am only for myself then what am i the sequoia on its own can't survive you have to fuse you have to be connected that's why it's so connection is so important you know the the the wise the addiction therapists say the opposite of addiction is not sobriety the opposite of addiction is connection right that's why your grandmother who broke her hip goes to the hospital they give her morphine for four weeks and she doesn't become addicted to heroin why not why not the answer is because the opposite of addiction is not sobriety the opposite of addiction is connection because she comes home to a loving family there's people she's connected to and therefore she doesn't want those substances that's why connection is so important connection connection between parents and children connection between siblings connection of communities the first time it says in torah not good what's the first thing in torah that's not good you know what would you expect would be the first thing the torah says is not good you would think idolatry denying god that's not the first and that's not good you know what's the first thing low tov [Music] let's i want you to say that verse again but correctly one word it's not good for adam to be alone aloneness is what breeds addiction aloneness breeds isolation aloneness breeds depression connection is critical and at a very young age today they say one of the worst disorders is attachment disorder people don't have attachment they don't feel attached they didn't feel attached to their mother didn't feel attached to their father they didn't feel attached to their community and they go into isolation and it's a very difficult world and then you need things to numb your pain so connection is so important emotional connection and that's the idea of the sequoias they know that they they interlock they are connected they're not the same they'll argue with each other but they're going to be there the problem is not arguing the problem is when we drift away like this when we can talk even when we're disagreeing it's fine i'll tell you a very interesting marriage statistic okay listen to this statistic i believe i've read or heard 70 of arguments that couples have in the beginning of their marriage they will still have those arguments 50 years later that means that means if you get married at 20 and you're having an argument with your husband who's 25 right when both of you are a hundred years old which means approximately 75 years later you will still have the same arguments window open no window closed lights open no lights closed it's too hot no it's too cold we go to this restaurant no it's a horrible place we put lemon in the food no no lemon you'll still have exactly the same arguments but that doesn't make or break a marriage the most loving marriages have the same arguments like the marriages that are not good you know the difference the difference is of not if there's an argument or not the difference is how do they deal with the argument in good marriages you continue to argue but you continue to argue you talk you talk and you respect the fact that somebody has another opinion and you make space for it even though it's not your opinion in a bad marriage you stop arguing instead you turn away you ignore each other you stonewall each other you run away from each other you stop talking you don't communicate you don't feel connected you feel the other person doesn't like you you understand so arguing is not the problem the problem is what happens as a result when you stop talking so the same is true with the jewish people we have different there's different people that's fine but don't run don't run away we have to find ways of always working in unison with trust and with love and with understanding and with empathy [Music] yeah yeah it's an interesting statistic 70 69 69 gutman gotham the famous marriage therapist writes this dr gottman he says that 69 of arguments the beginning of a marriage will persist 60 70 years later i thought that's amazing and good marriage don't want good marriages most arguments will not be resolved because she has her way of looking at it he has his way of looking at it that's it tough luck live with it you're going to start convincing a man that uh that it's that it's too it's too cold or the other way around it's like convincing him that uh kale is better than schnitzel you think you're going to win that argument kale is better than schnitzel are you going to tell them that green beans are superior to sprinkle cake good luck i'm just joking i know that the men in t-neck are very very healthy and they understand that kale and spinach are infinitely superior to pizza and the sponge cake and paprika cheesecake i'm not gonna go in i'm not gonna discuss cheesecake cause that has a special place in the jewish heart we even have a holiday dedicated for it because there was over 100 participants and there were 78 participants on that link okay just so you know it sounds like close to 200 people listening live tonight and i just wanted to share a short story about sari she was in paris on a thursday morning and on wednesday i had called figgy and i said are you up for visitors can i come should i come and sari said to her mother and dial can only come if she brings bachela and right here this is my bachelor wow how much is that good this just happened yesterday like tonight however she's eight years old she was six months old when this happened daddy mom's held her the day before and as you were speaking my bachelor who really should be in bed was listening to your words and she said mommy i've never heard a rabbit like this before this is incredible and she did not want to go to bed she listened to the entire entire wow so thank you from our family for for everything that you've done for us [Music] that your sister arranged that yes i know my sister is a fan she is a fan your sister arranged that yeah yeah yeah i'm glad that your sister asked me tonight for only an hour she could have asked for four we can listen to you for four hours here speak speak speak speak for yourself and for your sister and for your sister but if you could convince my mother-in-law i'll be great grateful but i thank you for your words so her name is batsheva so how old is my trevor nine eight [Music] okay wow but trevor that means a lot when adults tell me that i was good you know they don't always tell you the way it is they want to but when children say you were good it's real so vacheva that means a lot maybe you want to come with me on my road trips after corona is over i don't know if your mother will let but maybe we'll talk about it it's good to have somebody in the crowd who's listening i know if you'll be there you'll listen so but thank you i appreciate your feedback very much but trevor you're gonna be a light onto the jewish people you see you brought your cousin you had a big mitzvah of giving your cousin your first cousin so much joy right before she left this world and that's a very special thing because when a person ends their journey on this world it's a very sensitive time it's a very holy time when the neshama goes back to hashem and you and you you didn't even know it you were a little baby but you made her you made her feeling you made her sense of of life so much more valuable and rewarding she felt joy like you said she felt so much joy and then she left this world so that's a very special thing you did right when you were born before knowing it you should just remember that that means you came into the world right when you came into the world you uplifted a soul that was about to leave the world and that's an unbelievable act of of kindness and love just know that there's no what what type of light is inside of you because these things don't go away if you didn't understand what i said mommy will explain when she puts you to bed maybe she maybe she understands better than others right is somebody now doing another therapy session on us here the truth is it's a funny thing this zoom i i give my i give my daily classes on this zoom like tuesday morning i have my women's class 9 45. it's all on this zoom a lot of people know it so one time i had a private counseling session on this zoom and i didn't realize it was the middle of the afternoon and i'm talking and suddenly two women come up they said they decided to see if i'm talking and they came in the middle of the day and i was it was just very funny so i guess that's what's happening here it's more of an open zoom because i teach a lot on it so but i will invite everybody tomorrow morning we have a woman's class at 9 45 of chanukah on this zoom so if you if you want to join us join it and we could add to the to the elevation of the soul of of sorry sorry [Music] okay everybody good night again thank you mark and fagie thank you everybody you guys could continue to bring you could continue to schmooze feel free you