A Beautiful Story of Chesed

2:52 Mitzvah Opportunity? You're holding in Mitzvah Opportunity. You're in the group. I want to hear more. This not a group that's designed to raise tzedakah. This a group that's designed to help Jews in Eretz Israel that are in need of help. So somebody needs They post on the group. And then people get to work to do chesed. Sometimes people need money. And to date, Donny Fine, who started this group Told me that over five million shekel has been raised for tzedakah. But it's not just about giving tzedakah. It's really about getting involved in doing chesed. There's a family And even though I know the name of the family, and even though I have a shush to say the name of the family, I'm not going to say the name of the family. It's a family that lives in Beit Shemesh. It's a family originally from Canada.

3:53 And this family has been in need of chesed from Klal Yisrael for a while already. The father has a very rare genetic disease. The story is on the group. The father has a rare genetic disease. And he has four children. He's married with four children, and two of the oldest children, Azaria and Nachman, it's a Bresterler family. They have the genetic disease that their father has. It's a family that lives in subsidized housing in Beit Shemesh. They live in what can only be described as a dilapidated apartment. The nature of this genetic disease is that the head of these children is significantly misshapen. And it's not just cosmetically misshapen But it required a serious surgery in order to reshape their head. This was a serious surgery so that they could survive. The surgery was to take place in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. So what happened?

5:10 Seven months ago. Seven months ago, somebody decided they're going to pay for the tickets. Six tickets to American. Why six tickets? Because the father would not have been capable of taking care of the other children. So what they do They got the mother and all of her children, and the father went to America for these two kids to have their surgery. They arrived in JFK. And a woman whose name is Batya Travis—I go back with the Travis family forty years—a woman whose name is Batya Travis picks up this family. Batya Travis doesn't know this family from a hole in the wall. She picks up this family from JFK. She drives them to Philadelphia, and they have set up that the family is going to be taken care of in Philadelphia. But for insurance purposes, the family couldn't stay in Philadelphia. They needed to establish residency in New York.

6:07 So they went back from Philadelphia to Borough Park. When they had spent enough time in Borough Park, they went back to Philadelphia and had the surgeries. The surgeries are very complicated. And they could not fly back to America. The children had to have halos, and I have pictures here. If anybody wants to see afterwards, I can show you the pictures. The children had to have halos. Difficult it is halos around their face, around their neck, to protect them after the surgeries. What is this family? Who's penniless? Who's going to take care of this family? Where are they going to live? Someone in Lakewood gave them an apartment to stay in. But they have nothing. It's winter time in America, and they have no clothing. So Donny starts posting on the group And he says, "We have a family that's in need." And people got together.

7:03 It's a guy whose name is Moshe Schwed. Moshe Schwed is the founder of Aldaf. You guys know what Aldaf is. Moshe Schwed is the founder of Aldaf. He took a leadership role. In addition, there was a woman whose name was Mrs. Kraszewski, and she managed everything. In that group is one of the heads of Amazing Savings. Guys familiar with Amazing Savings? What did they do for this family? Danny said, "You take care of everything. I'll raise the money. You don't worry." So, what do they do for this family? They took the kids pizza and bowling. They had their house cleaned for Pesach. They made all of Pesach for them. This is a family in America for Pesach. They didn't have kailim for Pesach. Amazing savings sent them all the kailim they needed for Pesach. It's winter; you don't have winter clothing. What Israeli has winter clothing for Lakewood? Amazing savings sent them all the winter clothing that they needed.

8:01 People in Lakewood brought them bikes. Amazing savings sent over toys and games. Nothing they needed to worry about. Every single thing was taken care of. But now they have to come back to Eretz Yisrael. The apartment that they had in Lakewood was finishing up; they weren't going to be able to have it anymore. They were finished with the apartment on a Monday. The Wednesday before, they still didn't have a flight or money to pay for tickets back to Eretz Yisrael. I wish I could tell you I know the name, but I was told that I'm not allowed to say this name. And I can't really tell you the full story because it would give away details that would make this person known. But Donny reached out to somebody who has access to a plane, and the person said, 'You don't need the plane. Don't worry about it. The tickets are on me.' They covered six tickets back to Eretz Yisrael.

8:55 The problem is this family coming back to their dilapidated, moldy apartment with these kids who are still in the midst of their refuah. It's not right. It's not safe. It's not healthy. So Donny raised sixty-two thousand shekels And they walked into their apartment. They came off the plane. They came to Beit Shemesh. They walked into a brand new apartment. Sixty-two thousand shekels. Everybody got together, doing the work, scraping off all the mold, repainting, do whatever needs to be done. The people walked into the apartment. They started crying. They never expected that they were coming into such a beautiful apartment. Again, it's not a beautiful apartment, but for them, what they had was a beautiful apartment. And now it's coming time for Azaria's bar mitzvah. Coming time for Azaria's bar mitzvah. Azaria needs tefillin. It's a breast of her family, a family that has total emuna and never complains.

9:56 They need tefillin. So listen what Donny Fine told me. A tzaddik of a Jew Donny Fine said We don't just get you tefillin. We get you tefillin for life. We want you to have the very best tefillin. And because it's a Breslover family, they put on Rashi tefillin and Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. And they raised fourteen and a half thousand shekels, and they got this boy beautiful mahuder tefillin that he should be able to walk around proudly and say, "I have beautiful tefillin." And the bar mitzvah is coming. How could a family like this put on a party? And that brings us To last night Is a rabbi, a Chabad rabbi in Carmiel. His name is Rabbi Nassin Rodin. Rabbi Nassin Rodin knew of a guy who's a DJ. The DJ goes by the name Holy Simcha And the guy's name is Eliyahu Kamesh. Eliyahu kamesh is DJ holy simcha And Eliyahu Kamesh.

11:04 Says I'm going to do the bar mitzvah for cost. I think there's a lot of people who would be interested in that. Just cover my travel. I'm going to make the bar mitzvah for cost. There's another guy in the neighborhood whose name is Binyamin Kornbluth. Binyamin's been involved in this family for a long time. Donny tells Binyamin "You take care of the details. I'll take care of funding for the wedding. I'll make sure we have money for the bar mitzvah." So Binyamin Kornbluth goes out. He hires a photographer. He hires a caterer. He gets a hall. They rented the hall on Dolev, the Kallbach Shul on Dolev and Ramat Pechamish. And Danny Fine took care of all the money. Now this young man who's getting bar mitzvah He's a kid who is described, and you can understand why. He's a kid who is described as living in the shadows.

11:50 If you have a face that is not Usual. That's not common. That's not pleasing to the eye. Where does a kid like that live? A kid like that lives in the corner. It's not that he's not a sociable kid. It's that a kid like that doesn't feel that he could be sociable. So now it comes time for the kid's bar mitzvah. Who's going to come to this kid's bar mitzvah? Rabbi Yisai. Who's going to come, especially in Bein Azmanim, in Eretz Yisrael? So the bar mitzvah last night, Binyamin Kornbluth wasn't even there. He took care of everything for the bar mitzvah. Even he went away with his family. He just did it as a total chesed. So who came to the bar mitzvah? Adults came to the bar mitzvah. Rabbi, I don't know if you know this. Adults do not enjoy bar mitzvahs. You ever go to a bar mitzvah? You see the kids are dancing, and the adults are always doing the dead man shuffle on the side. With the fathers. The fathers are not the lebedik ones when it comes to bar mitzvah.

12:50 Last night, Donny Fine said to his wife, "Please come with me to this bar mitzvah." Mrs. Fine is a tremendous tzedekas. She gives up so much that her husband could do all of this chesed. And this woman, the mother of the family, she's always leaving these long voice notes for Donny to express her akharasatov. And she always says the same thing: "I have no words to thank you for all that you've done." And Mrs. Fine always makes the same jokes. For a woman who has no words, she leaves you very long voice notes all the time. So Donny said to his wife, "Come with me to this bar mitzvah." They came to the bar mitzvah last night. Rabbi said the bar mitzvah was not a lebedik bar mitzvah. It was not a rocking bar mitzvah. It was not a geshmat bar mitzvah. And Donny was feeling bad. He's like, "What's going to be with this family? They don't have a lekach. You know, they don't have a lekach bar mitzvah. They're not going to have that memory of having a boy who danced with his chaverim."

13:45 His wife said to him, "Donny, we have to go." Donny said to her, "Please, can we stay till after dessert?" She said, "Look, I have a lot on my plate." So they leave. They're going up the stairs. They go up to Dolev. And they see standing right outside of the Kabbal Shul a young man who's wearing a Thank You Hashem onesie Head to toe. You know what a onesie is, A Thank You Hashem onesie. I forget who I'm talking about. You know, you guys know what a onesie is. You have to ask me if I know what a onesie is. Wearing a thank you Hashem onesie And Donny Fine turns to this teenage boy Sixteen years old, and he says to him, "What are you doing here?" And the boy says, 'What do you mean? What am I doing here? I am here for the bar mitzvah.' So Donny looks at him and goes, "You are here for the bar mitzvah? What are you talking about? You are here for the bar mitzvah.

14:34 He goes, "You don't know." Everybody's coming to the bar mitzvah in twenty minutes. There will be sixty guys at the bar mitzvah. Donny goes, "What are you talking about?" He says. You'll see. Everybody's coming to the bar mitzvah. So Donny says to his wife, "Look, I'm going to take you home, but I got to come back right away. I got to see this." So Donny comes back And indeed, there were sixty guys dancing their heads off by the bar mitzvah, making it the most lebedik bar mitzvah you ever saw in your entire life. People were watching this with tears in their eyes. People were mishna crying last night, as one person put it. I thought Mashiach was going to come in that moment. I was shocked that by the end of the night, Mashiach hadn't come. What's the story? Donny saw that the bar mitzvah wasn't lebedin So he posted on his WhatsApp status, 'There is a bar mitzvah that needs some chizik. If anybody knows of anybody that could come to be mechazik the bar mitzvah, please send people over.'

15:33 And a kid's mother saw it. And she mentioned to her son, "There's a bar mitzvah in the neighborhood that needs chizuk." So the kid called his brother And his brother's in a camp in Ramat Bechemesh called Camp Gavra Which is run by Rabbi Safra. Guys your age Sixty guys And it's right before myrds. And the kid goes over to the head counselor of Camp Gavra and he says to him, "We have a simcha in the neighborhood. We need chizuk." So the head counselor of Camp Gavra gets up. He makes a clap on the beam and he says Night activity is canceled. Everybody's going to go to the Kol Bachul. We're going to rock this bar mitzvah. We're going to give this kid the greatest bar mitzvah that any kid has ever had. So what they do, Myrev, they went home. They got dressed up. Some of them came and rocked out the bar mitzvah.

16:29 It was the most incredible bar mitzvah. The voice note that I heard from Rabbi Saffer was from this guy Binyamin Cornbluth, and I wish I could play it for you. He left a message for Rabbi Saffer and couldn't get through the voice note. His, his whole countenance, his whole like way of being. You see, he's trying to speak, and the tears are just pouring out of his eyes. And he's just crying to Rabbi Saffer. Thank you so much for what Camp Gavri did for my son. And Donny Fine. After I heard that, I called him up and I said, Donny, you got to tell me the story. Donny says, You should know, I've been holding in the tears. I've been holding. I have so many tears inside of me. I've been holding in the tears. I'm so busy working. I didn't have time to cry.

17:23 Donny leaves me a voice note after we spend 45 minutes. He's telling me that he's going to leave me a voice note and then he's like, 'I'm going to cry.' What's the pshat? Why is it so mirageish? Why was it so emotional? What's everyone crying about? Rabbi, say we're in the shivat ha'nechamta. We just got done with the three weeks. We just got done with Tishavaf. A week ago was Tishavaf. A week ago we sat by the hotel. A week ago we had a meeting with the client. A week later. There's a boy in Kallah Yisrael who's suffering physically, and he's suffering emotionally. Could you imagine your bar mitzvah not being lebedik? We're not talking about having the schnitzel guys here. We're not talking about having the world's greatest band. We're talking about just having a lebedik bar mitzvah. The kid Maimon didn't have a lebedik bar mitzvah until sixty kids said,"We're going to make this kid's bar mitzvah.

18:18 The Lubavitcher Rebbe says the following verse: How does Gullus begin? Gullus began with Yosef HaTzaddik in a pit. And Reuven, his older brother Was doing tshuva for an avera that he had done over twenty years prior. Listen to the most scathing mussar you'll ever hear in your entire life from the Rebbe. Listen to this mussar. The Rebbe says Gullus begins when a brother is worrying about his own frumkay and not about his brother in the pit. And the way that gullus ends, Rabbi Yisrael, and we know this: if gullus begins because of sinas chinam, then gullus will end because of ahabas chinam. And the reason why people were shocked last night that Mashiach didn't come is because what type of ahabas chinam does it take for a kid to get up and say, 'I'm not disappointed that there's no night activity'? I'm sure they had planned to give a diga night activity.

19:16 Camps run great night activities. The kids weren't complaining. They said, "Adraba, we're going to make this the bar mitzvah of the century" And people are watching this and they're seeing how a Jew can love a fellow Jew. How could Mashiach not have come last night? That's the Kasha people were asking themselves, and it's the Kasha we're asking ourselves. Rebbe Nisholim, we have a taina on you. We don't like to say it out loud, but we have a taina on Hashem. We have a taina. Mika amchol Yisrael. It's not just a WhatsApp status anymore. Mikamcha Yisrael. Who does more Chesed than Klal Yisrael? Who loves their brothers more than Klal Yisrael? Who we have unbelievable organizations in this community. If you need, we have and we give five million shekels. I said to Donny Fine today. I said, Donny, let me hook you up. I know a person who's in charge of a Tzedaka fund. Let me get mitzvah opportunity to be on this tzedakah fund. And Danny says to me, "No, we're not in the business of collecting tzedakah. We're in the business of helping people that need."

20:22 And the tzedakah we have, because all I need to do is post. This family doesn't have food for Shabbos. This family doesn't have money for Shabbos. I live next door to a guy whose name is Rav Akiva Yosefich. Rav Akiva Yosefich is the son-in-law of Rav Aviantsky from Greater Washington. I'm in Yesh And I see Akiva And Akiva's a tremendous bal Chesed, and I see Akiva, and he's running in Yesh, and he's running around, and I'm like, okay, Akiva's before Shabbos, he's running around before Shabbos And I'm walking to the register, and Akiva runs by me to the register. He runs by me, and I know what that means. It means now I'm going to have to wait behind him at the register, and I come to the register, and Rabbi Sa, you've never seen a register like this. You've never seen a register. The register was like a pre-Pesach shopping.

21:14 He had bags of soda hanging off his car. This thing was like Tetris, strategically placed every single thing that it shouldn't fall off, and it's slowly moving through the conveyor belt. I'm waiting to see this mountain of food, which is clearly for Shabbos. It's all gonna fall. And slowly but surely he's packing it up, and it's this whole thing. Akiva is my next door neighbor, literally. So I thought maybe there's a simcha that I don't know about. Maybe he had a grandchild. I said to Akiva, 'Have you had a simcha?' So he's a very modest person. He goes, "No. Just a person in the neighborhood." So I chapped right away. I said, "Akiva" Who's this for? This is a family in the neighborhood that doesn't have, and every week. Different people. We go out and we buy for Shabbat and spend Erev Shabbat delivering food to the elderly. I said, "Akiba, you have a car here?" He goes, "Actually, I need a car. Could you give me a ride home?" I said, "No problem." We get home. He fills my car. You know how, like a car. I have a new car now, but my old one had very bad suspension. So you know when you fill up a car.

22:25 It starts to lean. This car was a rowboat, and the fat person was in the back. And I'm driving Ramat Bechemis, and there's sparks coming off the back of my car from the amount of food that Akiva put in the car. Rabbi said, "I'm sitting in the front. You understand how much food is in the back?" It was unbelievable. And we get home, and it's pouring rain outside. And we're bringing in all the bags, huffing and puffing, going up there. I'm huffing and puffing. I'm going up and down the stairs, and we're bringing, we're bringing. I felt like I couldn't stop. I felt like I couldn't give this chesed away. I said, Akiva, you need my car. You can have my car to go deliver it on Shabbos. So he goes, No. My son-in-law is giving me his car, where it's taken care of. I'm sitting there thinking, there's so much chesed going on in the neighborhood that I don't even know about.

23:09 If you are a yid in our neighborhood and you need, we take care of you. That's what we do. Rabbi Shlom, how can this exile go on any longer? What do we need to do? Tell me what we need to do that we're not already doing. You have a special needs child. We have Chas Shlom. Have Yedem Achlo. We have High Lifeline. You break down on the side of the road. There's a chassid that's going to be there in ten minutes to jack your car up. What do we need? What are we not doing already? We have a taina on the Rebbei Nisholam. Rebbei Nisholam, how could you not bring a redemption to such a people that love each other so much? How could it be, Rebbei? I don't have an answer for you But I know this: we spent three weeks mourning the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, but last night in Camp Kavra they didn't just have shivat nechemta, seven weeks of consolation, saying beez Hashem there'll be a Beit Hamikdash. Last night, Camp Kavra took a giant leap forward in building the Beit Hamikdash. And if every single act of chesed is one brick in the Beit Hamikdash, last night I'm convinced they built an entire wall.

24:10 And that's our responsibility. To be a person of nechama means not to sit back and say it's going to be okay. That's not the way a yid has nechama. A yid goes out and brings nechama to the world. That's our responsibility. We learn a lot of Torah, but if our Torah is not Torah of Chesed, if our Torah doesn't translate into helping out another Jew, if a Jew is languishing in the pit and we're from Then we're not so from. But if our Torah that we're learning here this summer is a Torah that inspires us to go and you see Yenim needs something, go give him. How could it be, Rabbi Isaac? Are there guys in camp that you know? You know these guys already. You've been here for a couple weeks. There's a guy who's a little bit on the outside. Do you go over? Do you bring him in? Not in like a chesed case type of way. Just like a brother. Do you make him part of it?

25:04 That's our responsibility. We're brothers with each other. This can't just be like, oh, he's from whatever. He's he's from out of town. He's not from my place. I don't really know him so well. Other rabbi, that's the kid we have to bring in. If it's your brother, we bring him in. We have to train ourselves now so that when we're older, these are the people that we become. Rabbi said, "You think it's so crazy? You're only a couple of years out." You know how many stories there are over the course of the years that I've heard of boys that were mamish suffering, boys that were in high school that were bullied or worse, were ghosted. It was a guy in yeshiva who told me. It's a wild story. He was in a certain place. I don't want to say the name of the yeshiva. But it was a regular whatever yeshiva that you guys know about. And he said to me, "He's coming to yeshiva." I said, "What are you like? What are you nervous about in yeshiva?" He said, "For four years, as he told me, bezal washin. For four years, I was ghosted. For four years, I walked down the hall and nobody paid attention to me. He's like I didn't exist."

26:02 Imagine a kid saying I didn't exist. He said, "And if that chevrah of boys comes to your yeshiva, I think I don't want to be in the yeshiva because I don't want to be with guys that could push it, ignore another human being when you're walking down the hall." My rasha shiva, Rebbran Shmigal, zechasadik v'kadosh l'bracha, who recently passed away, would tell us all the time the same muster. He said it like a thousand times. He would say, 'Guys, say good morning to your friends. You see a guy in yeshiva, say good morning. And you'll tell me' But Rebbe, it's so hard to say good morning to every single guy. You would say, 'I have an etza for you.' Mean it. If you actually wish someone a good morning and you mean it, it doesn't get boring. If you see a yid and you say, 'good morning,' you know there's a refriveld. Refriveld was the founding rishiva of Shaiyash of Zichotzadik of Bracha. He said there was a minigin in Yiddish that if you wish someone a good margin, a good morning, they would wish you a good year. So Refriveld asked. For saying good morning, you get the bracha of a whole good year. So Freifeld said yes, because when you say good morning to somebody, you're recognizing you're a person.

27:07 And I see you, and you have value. Do we say good morning? If you're not from the tri-state area, I have news for you. If you ever go to Columbus, Ohio, it's a crazy thing. If you're walking down the street on Shabbos and you see a Jew, you know what you do to that? You do. You say good Shabbos. You guys know it's a minik in Klal Yisrael that when Jews see each other, they say good Shabbos. They don't just walk by each other. We do it in airports. If you see a Jew in an airport, what do you do? You do the Jew nod. The Jew nod. You're walking by in an airport, you see another guy with the yarmulke, you go like this. We see a Jew in an airport, we do this. You see a guy who's getting ghosted in his life. You don't have the opportunity. You have the opportunities in front of you. You don't grab the opportunity to say, "Come, be a part of us."

28:04 That's what it means to be a part of this community. To be a part of the shivin and the chemta is a call to action, Rabbi Isaac. It can't just be. I see a Jew who's suffering. I'll finish with this vart, my favorite vart from R' Salavitch. Every time we bench, we say, "Narayi si gam zakanti, v'loyra itzi tzadik nezav zarmavakeshlochem." So Cesur Salivich, let's look at the words. Na'ar aisi, I was young. V'gam zakan'ti, and I was old. V'lo aisi, and I never saw a tzaddik, a righteous person, be abandoned, and his children didn't have bread to eat. R' Salivich asks, what are we talking about? Of course, we've all seen righteous people suffer. And Meisher Abenu had that kashu. How could it be that right that we're saying that righteous people don't suffer? Cesur Salivich, the words were translated wrong. Listen to how you're supposed to translate them. Naraiisi, I was young. Vgamzakanti, I was old. Veloraisi, and I never stood by and watched as a righteous person suffered.

29:03 A yid is not someone who could stand by and watch. If you're a yid and you see somebody suffering, you run out and you say I'm here. I'm with you. I'm in the trenches. What can I do to help? And it's not just in crisis; it has to be all the time. We have to be emo anochi butzare. People are feeling pain. We have to feel pain with them. That's the only way we're going to bring the gula. How the gula didn't come last night is beyond me. How the gula hasn't come all these years with all the chesed that we're doing, I don't know. But I know we're close. With all this chesed, we are banging down the door, knocking down the door of gula. And there's no doubt in my mind that if we keep slamming the door, we keep bringing more and more chesed into the world. If we'll turn the tyra of ensias yikayla into tyra chesed. Bais R' Hashem, we should be zocheh by the end of this shiver. The Nachem to the great Mashiach's coming.