When Bill Clinton Wanted to Repent

the yeshiva.net [Music] thank you so much wow it's really a privilege i'm thrilled to be here at this special evening of project inspire and tribute to the incredible work that ramadan trump and the entire dedicated selfless staff of project inspire does day in and day out to build bridges to unite jews and to kindle sparks and ignite hearts i'm very honored especially knowing that i think this is the first event in 10 years commemorating and in tribute to the great soul of rab mardukai's brother jamie and i know that all your work in project inspire is deeply impacted and influenced by the example by the quiet but living and powerful example dedication love humor and meaningful life that your brother lived i'm honored that miriam is here and it's really a privilege to be able to be in the presence of such a family and through all the challenges and the silence and difficulties you've raised three extraordinary children and i for one am honored to be at such an evening commemorating jaime's legacies that may continue to serve as a source of blessing and inspiration to his entire family to the entire community to kasutara to the entire jewish people and thank you of course rabbi baum shlita for opening the portals and inviting me and for the whole community of casa tora and everybody who's present here this evening it's amazing thank you you know a woman once asked me and she said rabbi jacobson could you find me a perfect man a perfect husband so i i said i could try but give me the definition you know perfect is a very relative term what's the definition of that perfect man you're looking for and she said in my book the perfect man is someone who wakes up five o'clock in the morning he makes his own bed he makes breakfast for himself he is scheduled principled disciplined he only surfs the web seven minutes a day he only takes two calls a day he does his own laundry he doesn't see his wife as a slave he makes his own food he exercises and reads daily most importantly you always know where he is you're never second guessing where he is he's stable consistent he's in the same place and finally he goes to bed nine o'clock at night says rabbi that's my definition of a perfect man where can i find such a guy and i said in prison you know which is actually true there was an american family they were very proud of their lineage they traced their lineage back to someone who came here on the mayflower and they decided to write a book about the family history so that the continuing generations would know about their great ancestry but in the middle of the research they got stuck they came across a great great uncle by the name of richard smith iii who was a petty criminal a vicious criminal to the point that he was executed on the electric chair in sing-sing prison for his ma'asimtovim for his criminal and horrible deeds now if it was a jewish family it wouldn't be a problem because we always make biographies about people and families and when we don't like the facts we just delete them they never existed they never happened we just know how to do that but for that you need a yiddish up this family didn't know about that art of reinventing history based on your needs and social pressures and expectations and shidduchim and seminaries and schools and yeshivas and a lot of things that go on in jewish minds not all present company excluded of course but you know what i'm talking about so what do you do so they go to this expert and he says i'll write it the way it's supposed to be written loyal to historical accuracy but not compromising integrity and with bated breath they wait for the publication of the book and they fetch the book and they go to that page and they read the following paragraph my dear friends great great uncle richard smith iii occupied a very important chair in a central governmental institution he was tied down to his position with the strongest of courts and despite many attempts he could not tear himself away from this important position where he remained with the profoundest of shackles and cords linked and connected to this important cheer until his last breath his death came as a sudden shock friends you got to know how to tell a story there is telling a story and it's telling a story and in many ways this month the next month is a story it's a story that we tell every year but you have to know how to tell the story because it's how you tell the story that makes all the difference you all know about the three jews in palm beach florida they lived in new jersey they retired in palm beach they would go golfing every morning and then play bridge drink gin and they would tell each other jokes now how many jewish jokes are there do you know how many jewish jokes are there huh i'm an expert this is my field so there are 300 jewish jokes that's it there are okay a hundred of them about rabbis 50 lawyers 25 doctors the rest is about food wives mothers-in-law husbands and that's basically it and then they're recycled in different ways so what do three jews in palm beach do they tell jewish jokes and they're plotting and laughing and giggling after 10 years they got a little bored so they decided instead of telling the joke they'll number every joke and they just say 43 and you know what joke 43 and everybody will laugh and then one day a fourth guy joins and he sits down he doesn't understand what's going on joke 120 but he's laughing choke 1690 but he's laughing he feels like an idiot and you want to be part of the clique you don't want to be an outsider so he tries his luck and he gives a scream stone-faced nobody's laughing like the guy in the back there nobody's laughing stone-faced he says what's going on why are you not laughing when you guys do the numbers everybody's laughing what's wrong they say listen you have to know how to tell a joke it's always how to tell the story there's a story that we tell we tell the story through rituals traditions customs prayers services community mitzvahs but how do we tell the story how do we understand the story a number of years ago a man by the name of moisha erlanger an israeli jew went to germany for business before yom kippur because of weather problems in germany his flight from frankfurt to tel aviv got delayed and delayed and at some point they notified him that ben-gurion airport is closed for jim kippur and they cannot make it home for yom kippur disappointed he called home shared with his wife and family that he won't be home for yom kippur the first time since his wedding that he would not pray yum kippur in the shul where he moved his yeshiva his yeshiva community he loved the people he loved the canter he loved the rabbi he loved the worshipers it was just his it was his lifeline and on the holiest day of the year he felt very isolated and disappointed but you don't always choose where you are at a given point in life curveballs come our way constantly although we try to avoid them and he booked a hotel near the great shul of frankfurt he walks to the great shoal moments before him kipper he had his talit his prayers shawl but he didn't have the prayer book for yom kippur he didn't have the white coat which we call the kittle he had slippers he comes into the synagogue the gabay the assistant of the synagogue comes over welcome to the great school of frankfurt where you're from he says i'm from israel i got stuck here unfortunately i have to be here young kipper can you give me the attire and eat for him he says absolutely here is your atari here is your prayer book and here is your seat i don't know if any of you have been to the great school of frankfurt it's worth a visit it's splendorous it's an architectural marvel and it fills up on yom kippur he's sitting there in yiddish the word would be how he says despondent dejected frustrated annoyed you know that feeling not in this show but you know the feeling of people sitting and you just you're not in your natural habit pack you're out of your comfort zone he really felt you know just like completely out of place and then the canter went up and started [Music] [Laughter] the country's name was sadiq greenwalt also a jew from israel who would fly in every year for the high holy days to frankfurt to serve as the hazanas the cantor in the great synagogue of frankfurt and he led the congregation a few thousand jews with passion and enthusiasm to the point that the middle of konniderith the cantor broke down sobbing and moisture from israel never heard such a comedy he never heard such emotion he never heard such passion he never saw such concentration he himself was moved to tears and after the davening after the services he went to thank the cantor and they got into a little schmooze what are you doing here i got stuck and the cantor says i come from israel too every year my parents were holocaust survivors so it's very meaningful for me to be able to lead the services with hashondanyam in the re-established jewish community in germany after the second world war in this great synagogue which was remained from pre-holocaust germany and reptilic says maybe god wanted you here so that you should appreciate jim kipper he said i'm asking myself the same question but i'm also asking what made you so emotional by called idre what was it what's the story and the cantor looks at him and says maybe you're here just to hear the story and he heard the story and he shared it and tonight i share it with you and he says to him a few years ago i prayed and those of you who are cantors know yom kippur is not an easy day it's not an easy day for rabbis but it's a much harder day for canters connie dre and morning in the afternoon and reptilic was doing everything and at the end of that day he was knocked out hunger pangs but more importantly the thirst a parched voice after singing a whole day and the voice resonating in the great synagogue of frankfurt he was really ready for a cold drink of water a nice jewish bite and a good night's sleep in the frankfurt hotel getting ready to go back home for the holiday of sukkot in the holy land where sadiq lived he walks out of shul he puts away his cantorial garments and attire the lights are off the janitor is already finished cleaning up you know that feel right there's three people left and true you know that feel and he's the last one janitor shuts the lights he goes out he has to walk a few blocks to his hotel he's really looking forward to the meal and drink that awaits him in his hotel room and as he walks out the front gates and he closes the gates which lock he sees a jew bewildered standing in front of the gate he looked like in the 60s and with a mixed accent of german russian and yiddish he says in this german yiddish russian broken vocabulary why are the gates to the synagogue locked understood immediately he says what do you mean he says i came here for call nidre i came here for him kippur it's usually packed there's usually 2 000 people why are the gates locked so that greenwald says i didn't have a heart to tell him i was quiet he says anthony answer me why are the gates locked at this point the jew is very agitated he's nervous he's somewhat frantic i have no choice celtic says to tell him the truth and i say my dear yida i'm so sorry yom kippur was last night the gates are locked because yum kippur is over i'm going home the jew breaks down sobbing why is sobbing he says you don't understand my parents barely survived the holocaust and then they assimilated they did not want to have to do anything with judas and judaism they suffered too much but one thing my father would do he would go to synagogue on the night of yom kippur and before he died he said we are an assimilated jewish family abreudon zionimir but we're jewish and he says how do you know that you're jewish when you go to synagogue on yom kippur that's how you know you're jewish and you're connected to 4 000 years of jewish history and he looks at the cantor and he says in my life i never missed yum kipper called nidre when my father was alive and after he died this year is the first time at last i'm not jewish anymore that's why i'm crying what would you do suddenly greenwald knew exactly what he has to do he put his hand on the jew's shoulders and he said come with me come with me he opens the gate takes him into show opens the lights puts on his talos his skittle his cousin hat goes to the canter goes to the pulpit puts this russian german drew right near him and he says we're going to do call nidre you and me god and he starts singing and subject says i'll tell you the truth i'm a professional cantor usually when i get up there's 2 000 people you know what i'm thinking about i'm thinking a little bit about god but what am i mostly thinking about i got to impress the people i want to impress the board of directors i need a contract for next year i want to get some compliments i need some validation i want to do a good job i want to be liked i want them to have a meaningful experience but here i was alone there was not one person in this room there was an old jew an assimilated jew who knew nothing who was i singing for but i felt god's presence with this jew and i broke down crying and i sang home de dre and i felt all of jewish history coming to life at that moment i finished the call nidre send them my love they probably want to hear i finished the club but you can put it on vibrate please i finished the connidre we say the shema together i give him a big hug and a big kiss and i say my jew we just celebrate it yum kipper and call me dre the jew looks at me and he says in yiddish you will never know what you did for me and he went home and i went home the next year i come to synagogue he's there on him kipper sitting in the front comes over to me he says you remember me i said of course i remember you he says what you did for me nobody but me and god will understand repetitive says every year since when i say call ninja i go back to that moment and it's so moving for me it's so emotional for me i cry that's what happens i heard this red moisture shared this he heard it from house and saw the green walls and i thought to myself you know this story is so applicable not only in frankfurt our mine at the rhine river how applicable this story is in the united states of america at the 21st century even for all of us good jews who come to the synagogue which hashem yem but we find the gates closed no i don't mean the physical gates i mean our emotional gates our spiritual gates we often feel unmoved uninspired alienated sometimes angry dejected apathetic indifferent they once asked to drew what's the difference between ignorance and apathy and he said i don't know and i don't care we often feel that the gates to our own heart to our own soul are locked yeah we go through the ritual your grandmother will kill you if you don't show up young kipper we have our seats we have our tickets we go through the roads we have the prayer books but my inner soul is often locked i'm indifferent there's a certain lifelessness a numbness just doesn't speak to me i may be there in the right time in the right place but emotionally i don't feel present and this is where this script sadik taught me such a profound lesson and i think i'm not going to explain to you the lesson myself i'm going to allow former president of the united states bill clinton to explain to you the message you see some time ago i got a call from a man named rabbi michael paley i am michael paley who's a reconstructionist rabbi shared with me the following experience it was the end of 1998. bill clinton was going through a hard time came close to being impeached because of certain asymptotim certain great deeds that involved rabbits in lewinsky if you remember the end of 98 the beginning of 99 and bill clinton traveled to cincinnati to have a special evening with clergy you didn't know this i'm telling you who was invited as jewish clergy michael paley who shared the story directly with me and michael tells me says rabbi why rabbit jacob said you know i decided you know how it is with clergy and the president it's about the picture right you got the picture you hang it up in your office it goes viral and for three moments you fell on top of the world but i decided i'm not one of these guys i'm gonna meet the president i don't just need a handshake and a picture i'm actually gonna tell him a meaningful message and as bill clinton walks by and he shakes my hand and i introduce myself i say mr president it's time for you to do chuva and i'm about to means repentance and i'm about to explain to the president of the united states what is truva i want to explain what it is but as i trying to continue the sentence he interrupts me he says rabbi pele that's so interesting but i have a question when you speak about me doing truth do you mean shiva from the perspective of rabbi soloveitchik or do you mean sugar from the perspective of rabbi cook which shiva do you mean now i have to interrupt the story because when michael told this to me i said it's fictional he says i swear to you these were his words i'm like what'd you do i almost fainted i said first of all how in the world you know about rabbi sullivan by cook second of all how in the world do you know the difference between the two of the rubbish elevator and children third of all you know about shiva more than 98 of american jews that's pretty good mr president still got to do truva but you know a lot about sugar so here i really have to take a break in the story and i'm basically going to give you a lecture to explain the sheer of bill clinton i'm explaining what's the difference of rough cook and rav salvatrik when it comes to trouba rabbi salvation because many of you know rabbi j b rabjose of dave valley celebrity of blessed memory passed away 1993. university from the famous salvation dynasty of the great lithuanian rabbis and sages known as the brisket dynasty this was rabbis rabbi cook passed away a few decades earlier in the mid-1930s the first ashkenazic chief rabbi of israel at that time it was called palestine rabbi they were both lithuanian jews but there was a difference between them rabbi sullivan was a proud product of the lithuanian and analytical talmudic dynasty rafcook was also a great halachic authority but he was also a poet and a philosopher but he was a mystic ralph cook wrote a lot about jewish mysticism based on the teachings of mahshava and kabbalah and hasidic spirituality and they speak about repentance in two different ways for rabbi salvatrik the primary component of truther of repentance is about accountability remorse confess confession and accepting and resolving to change your behavior in the future it's a very harlock systematic rigorous process accepting responsibility expressing regret not only internally but verbally making a resolution for the future changing your behavior the system of truth in jewish law articulated in maimonides laws of repentance and other similar works of jewish law for rabbi cooke the focus of chuva has a little bit of a different twist he always writes based on the teachings of the balshemptiv and his students primarily that shiva actually is about returning to the untainted self it's the discovery that the core self has never been alienated from truth that my core soul is a helix is a fragment of divinity and therefore sin is essentially an aberration of my internal spiritual chemistry truva just means reclaiming who you always were discovering the positive core that was never tainted and never tarnished and just re-embracing that which was never detached or alienated so rabbi rabbi so president clinton freudian slip president clinton wants to know which truth do you mean do you mean the chuva of rabbi sullivan do you mean the chuva ruf cook pelly was plainly was clever he says mr president of course the chuva of rafcook clinton says that's interesting most people i speak to believe that i gotta do the truth of rabbi salaveczyk not the chiva rough cook he's smart michael paley says but i say that you should do the chuva of rafcook he says if so we should talk if that's what you believe we should talk and after the official meeting with the clergy was over he said the president asked me to a side room and we spent time conversing together privately about how judaism looks at chuva and you know beyond the humor of the story there's a very profound message because very often we look at this month we look at the next month and there's an element of dread an element of fear we call it yom no ryan an element of or and it's true there is an element of but underlying the story of awe is a story of profound and infinite love it's a story about the ultimate belief of judaism that all of my tacticity all of my trauma all of my insecurities all of my pain all of my jealousy all of my depression all of my agony anger all of my issues that i have to bring up to my therapist every week all of the issues they're true they may be true and real and authentic and cause me pain but they could not constitute your core self which remains wholesome powerful confident optimistic sacred positive holy and no experience in life and not even mistakes that you have made or that i have made and not even abuse that has been done to me by others willingly and maliciously or even unwillingly can snuff out can obliterate can compromise can even dilute the truth of your internal wholesomeness and holiness and thus the main process is to really work through the debris not to allow myself to be defined by external layers but to excavate and to find that core powerful divine self who am i i am an ambassador of god in this world who am i i am an ambassador of love light hope healing love and redemption are there other voices in me that give me other messages of course there are but who am i and what are things that attach my s themselves to me through various voices you know the bar mitzvah boy who comes to his mother and says mommy i want to speak at the bar mitzvah about our ancestry wasn't the mayflower but whatever the ancestry was mommy says i'll tell you and mama gives him the picture of where the family comes and he says no no mommy all the way back in the beginning where do we come from oh god created heaven and earth and then he created adam and eve and adam and eve for whatever reason decided to have children mistake and the rest was history or rather not history but her story and then there was abraham isaac jacob sierra rebecca rachel leia here we are wow comes to daddy now daddy was a proud graduate of oxford university daddy where do we come from and that he says well 15.4 billion years ago there was a prebiotic soup which we call a prebiotic challenge and one day it exploded and ultimately from the combination of amino acids the first bacterium developed and after billions and billions and billions of years evolution happened and the chimpanzees one day experienced a cognitive revolution 70 000 years ago and here we are today the boy comes back to his mother says mommy i'm confused about my bar mitzvah speech you tell me that we come from abraham isaac jacob adam and eve and god daddy tells me we come from bacteria and gas who's right what am i supposed to say and his mother looks and says son there's no contradiction your father is talking about his side of the family and i'm talking about my side of the family we have two sides of the family and that's why judaism addresses both on one level there's the chuva of rabbi sullivac on another level this is the chuva ref cook they're not contradictory one is talking about my father's side of the family one is talking about my mother's side of the family i hope my mother is listening so when i come that night to him kipper and i feel that i'm late i feel that the gates are closed i must always remember that there's a relationship that could never be locked there was a relationship that could never be compromised there is an authentic spiritual connection that every single person has which nothing and nobody can ever compromise and how fortunate each and every one of us is when we can listen to that inner cry of every one of our brothers and sisters the world over yearning to be able to find somebody who can open the gates not of the synagogue but who can open the gates to their own soul because it's within each and every person and the incredible work of project inspire to be able to open those gates physically and mentally is inspiring it's the call of the hour to be able to teach every one of our brothers and sisters you are always connected you are forever connected you will forever be connected because who are you you are essentially an ambassador of love in this world thank you very very much [Music] thank you this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help 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