Becoming a Baalas Chesed

2:24 What's the thing that we are meant to learn from the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu went up to receive the Torah alone? It's not the only time that we see that someone has to do an avoda, a service of Hashem alone. Can anyone tell me where we see in halacha that someone has to do a particular form of service alone? The Kohen Gadol on Yom Kippur is the correct answer. What's your name? Where are you from? Sapora Pinsauer from Riverdale, New York, and where does Sapora Pinsauer go to school? Manhattan High School. So it must be that they've given you a fabulous education in Manhattan High School. Yes. Look at that pride. Are you the Pinsauer here? I'm not Pinsauer. So I see where you get your name from. She was correct. Sapora was indeed correct. That the Cohen Gadol is meant to do his service on Yom Kippur alone. The question is, again, same exact question: Why? And what are we meant to learn from this? That's question number one. Two questions. Question number one.

3:29 Second question: The Torah tells us that Yitzchak sowed grain. Yitzchak sowed grain. The Pirkei DeRabbi Elazar says Chas v'shalom, that Yitzchak sowed grain. Chas v'shalom that Yitzchak sowed grain. That would be a terrible thing. Yitzchak sowed tzedakah. That's a very strange thing for the Pirkei derabbanan to say for two reasons. Number one, as far as I know, there's nothing wrong with sowing grain. So why would the Pirkei derabbanan come along and say Chas v'shalom? How could you possibly even suggest that Yitzchak sowed grain? And secondly. What does it mean that somebody sows tzedakah? That's a very strange thing. Person sows grain. The Torah says Yitzchak sowed grain. So what does it mean that he sows tzedakah? That's our second question. Last question, and this is my favorite question by far. This is the one that we're going to pick up. In benediction After we eat We say something that's almost unintelligible.

4:43 Nahrhayisi. Gam zakanti, I was young and I was old. Velo ra'isi, and I never saw tzaddik nezav, a righteous man, be abandoned. Vizaro mevake shlaten, and his children didn't have bread to eat. We say in benching every time we bench, I was young and I was old, and I never saw a righteous man be abandoned, and his children didn't have bread to eat. There's an obvious question on this. We have. Every single one of us has seen righteous people suffer. Every single one of us. In fact, I venture to say in this room, I imagine. But just think to yourself—I imagine that in your life you've seen some things that made you hit pause and go How could this possibly be? Maybe you even doubted God because of it. Maybe it was so exceptionally close but almost. We saw people in Mayron this past year.

5:45 Suffer immeasurably. They were innocent people. Of course, innocent people suffer. I'll share with you something very personal. My grandmother was a second mother to me. My grandma, I'm the oldest grandson. And my grandmother and I were very close. There's the grandmother that goes off to live in Florida, and you hear from her once a week, maybe she sends you eighteen dollars for your birthday, that grandmother. So I had that grandmother, and I love that grandmother. But that was not Grandma Sarah. Grandma Sarah was a second mother. She called every night. She was well aware of everything that was happening in my life. I could go to her to talk to her about anything. She was the most open, compassionate, kind, gentle person you could ever meet. She was also my hero. She became an observant Jew at the age of 70. That's incredible. How many people do you know that turned their life around at 70? At 70 years old, my grandmother started keeping Shabbos.

6:50 She started keeping kosher. She only dressed in skirts, whereas beforehand she had worn other outfits. She became judgmental of all my cousins that were not observing. She really became very cruel. And I live here in Israel. And of course we were still in touch But I didn't get to see her as much. And I have to share with you again. This is very personal. Of course, you never want your grandmother to die, but you know somewhere in the back of your head at some point she's going to die. And you know especially if you're from a family where nobody is Orthodox And I'm the Orthodox rabbi of the family. I hope it's a hard position to be the Orthodox rabbi in the family because you get some very strange questions. And so, consider I'm happy to do it. But I always imagined that I was going to get that emergency phone call from my mother that said, 'Your grandmother passed away, peacefully in her sleep. The levaya is going to be tomorrow. We have to get on that plane. We have to get on the one o'clock delalal plane so that we could be there for the levaya.' And I always imagined I was going to officially be at the levaya.

8:01 Covid hit. I was actually in New York in SAR the day before the whole explosion. Covid hit. My grandmother was in an assisted living facility. She walked by someone who had Corona. A week later, she passed away. And I was stuck in Israel. And I had to go to my grandmother. Sorry if I. It's still very fresh, even though it's a year and a half ago. I had to go to my grandmother's levaya by Zoom. What did my grandmother do to deserve that? That's like. That's a big question. I'm going with you. When it happened, I was like Like in my not in my head, in my heart, I said to God, like seriously Really, Grandma Sarah That's how she deserved to go Alone in a hospital without any of her family. This was a woman whose entire life was her family. And I had that question.

9:01 Really, God, how could you? So we have seen righteous people suffer. So what does it mean? So I want to share with you. This is one of my favorite ideas in the entire corpus of Judaism. It's an idea from Rashi Levitch. And Rashi Levitch says, "Translation is everything." You have to read very carefully. I purposefully mistranslated the passage for you. How did I translate it? Narayisi, I was young. Ganza kanti, and I was old. Velo raisi, tzaddik nazav, and I never saw a righteous person who was abandoned the zaram of akesh lachem, and their children went hungry and had no bread to eat. Shalvaichik says You mistranslated the pasuk. Let's read it again. This time, a little bit more carefully. Narayisi, I was old. I was young. Narayisi, I was young. Ganza kanti, and I was old. Not and I never saw. The lower Ei means that I never stood by and watched as a righteous person suffered.

10:09 And their children didn't have bread to eat. Roshalovitchik says that we are called upon in this world to fight with God. In fact, that's what the name Yisrael means. What does Yisrael mean? It means that we fought with God and we were victorious. Where does it come from? It comes from Yaakov. Correct. Yaakov. The moment before he confronted Esau that night, he fought with an angel. His name was changed to the person who fought with God and was victorious, and that became our name. We're not called Klal Yehuda. We're not called Klal Yosef. We're not called Klal Yaakov. We are called Klal Yisro. The nature of a Jew is that wherever we see injustice, a Jew stands up and says, "That's not okay." Now I'm going to challenge you a little bit on this. Because if you really believe in the idea that I just said There is a psychological difficulty that we all have with this. Ready for it?

11:11 I'm from the five towns. I grew up in Lawrence. Thank you. You're from Lawrence as well. Where do you go to school? Okay. Good guess. I went to Hat. What are you trying to say? I grew up in Lawrence. We don't have a lot of people in Lawrence. We don't have a lot of homeless people. There aren't a lot of homeless people. But every once in a while, I would go to New York City. Why would I go every once in a while? Because if you're from the Five Towns You don't ever really leave the Five Towns. So I would sometimes poke the shot, probably for the Israeli Day Parade. I would go. I would go to New York City, and when you're in New York City, what do you see? Homeless people everywhere. You're from New York City, okay? And when you go to LA, anyone here from LA?

12:15 Is anyone from LA? You're from LA. You're walking down Pico. What do you see on the benches? You see homeless people. And what do most of us do? Most of us act as if they don't exist. Why? Why do we act that way? I'll tell you why. Because it's really uncomfortable to look at. It's just uncomfortable. We don't like to pay attention to suffering. Especially today. We're obsessed with happiness. You know how many books? If you Google on Amazon right now, you know how many books you'll find on Amazon about happiness. Over 17, 000 books. We are the generation that is obsessed with happiness And paying attention to suffering. It's a little bit of a downer. You don't want to pay attention to suffering. And you don't actually think about that person as a human being And by the way, they are. So if you want to be a person who actually fixes the world You have to pay attention to suffering.

13:13 Which means Even if you don't go to New York City and look at the homeless people It means that right now in Mechelat Le'v You have to be willing to pay attention to the girl who's sitting somewhere in this Beit Midrash. And she's suffering. Maybe she's having a hard time adjusting. Maybe she's from out of town. Maybe she didn't go to the same school or the same camps as you. And you may not know that she's suffering But not because she hasn't sent out messages letting people know, but because we haven't yet grown ears to hear that people are suffering. If you listen very carefully to people, they'll tell you that they're struggling But they say it covertly. They don't want to say it out loud because it takes a tremendous amount of courage in the face of great vulnerability to say to a stranger.

14:03 I'm really feeling alone. And how many of us are sensitive to the things that people are saying? For example, I always have this in yeshiva. I'm sure none of you would have let this happen. But I always see it in yeshiva every year at the beginning of the year. There's that one guy from St. Louis And when he comes to the cheder ofel. He sits by himself. Eventually, people might go sit with him. Do you know why he sits by himself first? Because it's the beginning of the year, and nobody invited him to come sit with him. So that guy inevitably makes his way into a rebbe's office. And even though he's a big, tough guy on the outside, the guys pretend as if they have no emotions. And they do, by the way. They do. I know it may look on the outside like they don't, but they actually do.

14:55 You ever see guys apologize to each other? It's the greatest thing in the world. You know what I'm saying? Can I show you? Show. Cool. That's the whole. It's the whole thing. I teach in seminaries. The girls are like We really worked through our stuff. It was like a hard. It was like a hard seven-hour conversation. But I really think I understand where she's coming from now. And she really shared with me her journey. And I really felt there was a safe space for me to share. I really feel like I don't know if that would be close. But now we could be. I like this. I don't know if we could be close. But I feel like we could be like close-ish. You know what I mean? And by the way, the fight was about whether we should have the air conditioning. Now I know I did it cool.

15:59 Thank you very much. I'll be here all night. Guys do have emotions. It takes time for them to come out. So a guy comes into my office and here's what it says. He goes I'm thinking of switching yeshivas. I go, wow I'm so sorry to hear that. What's going on? I don't know. It's not my vibe. Like Can you share with me? What does that mean? It's not your vibe. This is how it starts. I don't know if I like Amara. Clearly that's the issue, brother. If I like Amara, I'm like yeah. It's like but also I don't know if I like. I don't know if I fit into my shear. Help me understand. What does that mean? You're not connecting to the Rebbe? The Rebbe's fine. It's like I don't know if it's my style of guys. What does that mean? They're all from New York. And he doesn't mean it in a bad way, but just like he passed it off. He just said all of you are from New York. I'm not down for those guys.

17:16 You know. And what he really means is, I'm lonely, and maybe if I go to a different yeshiva, or at least I have two or three friends, maybe it was a mistake to come here by myself. That was so good. Because I'm used to giving cheer to the guys in NCSY Kollel, and they never do that. They never like, they'll do this later in the dorms And it's a conversation that sounds like this. He's probably right. But you have to realize that guy when he goes to sit down at the table when he's the first guy in she'er when the only guy he knows in the she'er is the chavrusa that he has and the study partner that he has he's lonely and you have to be willing to go out of your box to pay attention to that and that's hard because you yourself might be struggling and you might think to yourself who am I to be the person to go over to that person and say hey do you need a friend because you might be the one that doesn't have a friend either that's the answer to the first one.

18:27 The answer to the second question. The picket of Rav Elazar, just to remind us, says Yitzchak He wasn't sowing grain. Chas v'shalom to say that he was sowing tithon. What does that mean? First of all, he was sowing grain. And second of all, why is that chas v'shalom? So I want to tell you a story. This is another very vulnerable story for me. I grew up in a wonderful family. And I'm so blessed to have the parents and family that I have. But one of the challenges that we as a family had when I was growing up was that we were exceptionally poor. And when I say poor, I mean like actually poor. My dad was young; he was first starting off in business. And it takes time, especially in marketing. Especially if you're Jewish Especially at that time. It takes time to build yourself up and to build a career.

19:28 We had a house. It was a very small house. It was a first floor, and then there was a basement that we finished only years later. The rooms were tiny. Baruch Hashem, we always had food to eat. I'm very grateful for that. But I was the kid that went to a fairly wealthy school. And I was the poor kid. I don't know if you're aware of this, but that's a hard position to be in. And you know if you're poor. You know it because you dress differently than the other kids, especially where I was from. So there were some kids in my neighborhood that were shopping on Central Avenue And they were wearing designer clothing. And I don't think I ever had anything new. It was all hand-me-downs from my cousins. And because it was hand-me-downs from my cousins, it was probably a couple of years old, and it was definitely out of style. And if I'm being very honest with you, The kids let me know.

20:27 That's a hard position to be. And you know, it wasn't just that. It was like there was an amazing woman in my neighborhood. She wasn't from my neighborhood. She was from Lawrence. I was living in Farakwe at the time. And her son was my friend. And I would go there for Shabbos. And are you familiar with those from the five towns? There was a place called Mazon. It was like a Shabbos takeout place. I love Mazon chicken. They had the best southern fried chicken. And even though at the time I was very skinny, now I have the body of a god, Buddha. But back then I was exceptionally skinny. And I could eat a tremendous amount. Those kids that eat a tremendous amount but don't gain weight until they're thirty. So I was that kid. I went to this house and they had Muslim chicken. I love Muslim chicken. I ate all of their Muslim chicken. The mother was the nicest woman in the world. She was really, really the nicest woman. They were fabulously wealthy. They had a giant pool in their backyard. I think they owned some computer company. This was in the 80s when it was just starting. They really, really did well for themselves.

21:39 So she saw me eating all this chicken. She saw this kid that was skin and bones, and she said, "Oh my God, this kid probably doesn't have." And she saw what I was wearing So she started to buy clothing for me from Central Avenue, from these designer stores. But she would say to me, "I bought it for my son, but it doesn't fit him." Now I knew she was lying because her son and I were the same exact size. So even as a kid, I was like "That's so nice of you." I knew, I wasn't stupid. I was seven or eight years old. I knew. I said, "That's so nice of you," but I also thought to myself. Oh wow! We must be really poor. I'm getting some tzedakah here. I'm getting some charity money. Thank God My father's business started to grow. And it started to grow and it started to grow some more. Probably some of the companies that he was involved with, some of you have heard of these companies, companies like Burger King. He was running all of their advertising.

22:44 Companies like ATT AT&T, Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell. You can understand we weren't poor anymore. So we moved. We moved to Lawrence. We moved to a very nice house. My parents, thank God, were never ostentatious people. We were never the people that like We were flashy with our money. You would never see my parents' names on any buildings or anything like that. They were very stingy. We always drove very modest. Very simple cars. They weren't that family. And in my father's career, I have to say he did exceptionally well. Exceptionally well. In fact, probably most of the television shows that you haven't seen were my father's shows. Shows that you've not seen, but shows like, let's say, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Oprah, Ellen. These were just some. Everybody Loves Raymond. Friends. My father is not Larry David. And you can tell that because I am mostly socially normal.

23:46 But in his career, he did very well. But I will share with you that there was a very uncomfortable three week period where my father had been president of his company. He had worked his way all the way up from the mailroom to become the president of the company. Some political things happened behind the scenes, and he lost his job. In the end, it was amazing for him because the job that he got after that was much, much, much better. And he was well known throughout the entire world. I think they once wrote about him on the cover of the New York Times. He was a well known person, and thankfully he landed on his feet. But there was a three week period where we didn't know how this was going to play out, and it was shortly after we had moved to Lawrence. And even as a 15 year old kid in high school, I was like.

24:38 Ooh, dad lost his job. What does that mean? At some point, I guess I must have like gone over to my dad and said, what's going to be? I probably said it more politely than that. I probably didn't say it as directly, but I basically more or less asked him, what's going to happen? My father is a bal tshuva, as I mentioned. He never had the opportunity to go to yeshiva. He never had the opportunity to go on summer programs like you girls are on. And so he never really had the opportunity to learn. My father today learns as much as he can given his background, and he really is exceptionally dedicated to his Judaism. I never really heard my father speak in a very religious way. He was like a very natural Jew. You know what I'm saying? He wasn't like from. He wasn't like shuffling like he was having a seizure.

25:27 He didn't do. You know what I'm saying? Like he didn't do that move that you girls do the holding the elbow basically. By the way, I tried it. It doesn't work for guys. It's like I always enjoy looking at girls' sederm because they're the makeup is running on their face. You don't see that with guys. By the guys you just see the tattered sederm. We're getting off topic. So I asked my dad. I was like, "What's gonna be?" My dad said it was probably the most inspirational thing he's ever said. He said. Recently God has given me a lot of money. And I've been very successful. And I know that everything that we get comes from God. And in that time that God gave me that money I was loyal to God. And we gave what we had And were able to support people, and were able to support institutions.

26:26 And I hope that God saw what I did with the money, and I'm hopeful that He'll send me more success, so that I can give more to the Lord and be more generous. And with you, I was shocked. Not shocked that my parents had given. I knew my parents are very generous people. I just never heard my dad speak with so much faith. And it was a tremendous lesson to me as a young teenager because I think that's what they wanted. My dad really believes that the money we get is only to hold on to so that we can serve God. And I think that's probably what the Pirkei DeRabbi Elazar meant. Yitzchak did not sow grain. There are some people that go out into the business world. They're there because they want to. To make money. Those people are called sowing grain. They're there to make money. What are they going to use the money for? That's not what it's about. They're there to make money. The Brisker Rav Elazar comes along and says, "Chas v'shalom, don't ever say that about someone like Yitzchak."

27:27 Why do you see a cool thing? Why do you get a job? You get a job because you need money. Why do you need money? You need money because you want to have food and shelter. Why do you need food and shelter? Because you want to support your family. You see, if you actually think about it The reason you have a job is to make money. The reason you have money is because you want shelter and food. The reason you want shelter and food, or even vacations, is because you want to support something you love. Nobody actually needs money. If you had all the money in the world, I have a friend whose father bought him an apartment building as a wedding gift. That's a nice wedding gift. You understand? That means that for the rest of his life, if he does nothing, all he has to do is collect the rent from that apartment building, and he can sit and learn Torah for the rest of his life. By the way, that's exactly what he does. He lives in Jerusalem, and he just sits and learns for the last 20 years. Guy, I went to high school.

28:18 Awesome hockey player. I don't know if he plays hockey anymore. Somehow, I doubt it. You don't actually need money. The money is there to support things. The lesson my dad taught me, and I think the lesson the rabbis are saying is: Don't sow grain. Don't sow grain. This is not about sowing grain. This is about what you're going to use the money for. When Yitzchok was working in the field, you know what he was doing? He was saying, "Now I have money. I can give tzedakah." " That's what he was doing. So Chas v'Shalom to say that Yitzchok went out to make money. Yitzchok went out to make money so that he could help others because he had a world view of chesed. Last questions. Moshe Rabbeinu goes up to the mountain. He goes by himself. The kohanim gavel serves kali Yisrael on Yom Kippur.

29:09 Trying to get atonement for the entire nation. He does it by himself. Why? I'm going to tell you another story about myself. When I lived in America, I worked in a camp called Simcha Day Camp. Anybody here from the Five Towns? I worked in Simcha Day Camp. I was division head. I was a learning director in Simcha Day Camp. At the time, we had like 1,200 kids in the camp. It was a massive camp. The thing that every division head hates in Simcha Day Camp is bus duty. Bus duty. Bus duty is the worst. Why? What do you have to do? You have to be there after camp so that all these teeny bopper bus counselors, after they drop off all the kids, what's their job? To call in to let us know that every kid got home safely. This way, when a parent calls us and says, "I don't know where my kid is," we can say to the bus counselor, "Where was that kid?" So there's a rotation.

30:08 Every division has to stay once a week to be the guy that waits for the calls. And you're you're bored. You're bored out of your mind. What are you going to do? So I'm like an ADHD kid And I can't really sit still. So I'm sitting there at the desk, and it's like, "Hey, camp was over at 3:30. They're on the buses by 3:50. They're out by 4. It's now 4:45." My ADHD is kicking in. I find myself shuffling and walking around the office. The phone rings. I pick up the phone and want to tell you how I picked up the phone because I'm a doofus and because I just was like Really, just totally off my rocker at that point. NBC had a jingle. The NBC jingle was NBC. So when I picked up the phone for Simcha Day Camp, I picked up the phone and I went S D C. This is not the most professional way to pick up the phone, but this was what I thought was a good idea.

30:58 So I pick up the phone S D C And there is a woman on the other end who's only speaking in Hebrew. I'll say what she said and I'll translate. She said Shalom. He said, 'so I said hello. Who is this? So I said shalom. Hashem sheli Mordechai berg.' She said, "Naimod, pleasant to meet you." I said, "My name is Mordechai Berg." She goes, "Pleasant to meet you." I said, "Okay. How am I going to help? How can I help you? She says in Hebrew "Eshalat abayim harav bender." Can I speak to rabbi bender? Being the 24-year-old guy that I was, totally ADHD up the wazoo, I said, "Harav Bender, Rulonim Sacha." Rabbi Bender is not present at the moment. Can I help you? So she said,"I need to speak to Rabbi Bender." I need to speak to Rabbi Bender. So I said, "Miza, who is this?"

31:54 She says Bat Sheva Kanievsky. Oh my God! For those of you that don't know, and I imagine some of you know by the audible gasp in the room This was the famous Rebbezson Kanievsky, the wife of the Gadol Adar, the greatest man in the generation. His name is Rabbi Kanievsky, who lives in Bene Brak, and she was a central address. There were many, many Jews from all over the world to come and just talk to her, and she was exceptionally supportive. She was a very righteous woman. In case you don't know, you generally don't speak that way to Rabinstein. It's not like it's not a move. Usually, when you're speaking to Rabinstein Kanietski You say, "Rabinstein," personally speaking, third person. Rabinstein helped you. So I said, "Rakranga." I said, "One moment." I put Rabinstein Kanietski on pause. Oh my God! So Rabbi Bender wasn't there. Rabbi Bender runs, of course, he's the rashi of the yeshiva called Darche Torah Simcha Day Camp. He's in the day camp of the yeshiva Darche Torah.

32:56 Rabbi Bender's son worked in the camp; he was the head counselor. I quickly called Baruch Ber Bender on the walkie-talkie. I said, "Baruch Ber, you have to come to the office right now." He said, "I'm busy; I can't come." I said, "Baruch Ber, you need to come to the office right now." So he comes running into the office. I said, "What's wrong?" He said, "I said Rebbitzin Kaniefsky is on the phone," and I may have said, "S. E. C." Barfay is a very kind man. He's sure it's okay. Just send the phone call over to me. Barfay Bender gets on the phone and he starts speaking to Rabbi Zakenesky. It's clearly a very serious conversation, and he tells her, 'Don't worry. I'm going to get in touch with my father, and we're going to get in touch with you as soon as possible.' So I said to Barfay, What does Rabbi Zakenesky want? So he said Rabbi Zakenesky had someone who she didn't need, but someone had come to tell her that there was someone in Brooklyn who needed help.

33:42 And if you're Rebbezson Kaniefsky in Bene Brak, and you need someone who can help someone else, the person who calls Rebbe Bender in Brak. And I was thinking about that. That's incredible. Could you imagine being the address? Most of us are not the address in our lives. Rebbe Bender is the address. He had no connection to this person in Brooklyn, but he's known as a person that if you need help, Rebbe Bender will figure out how to help you. I saw it with my own eyes. I'll tell you two quick stories. There was a secretary in Darke who Unfortunately, she was sick and was actually in the hospital. I had gone to visit Rabbi Bender and I was sitting next to Rabbi Bender right after davening. This secretary's husband was davening there.

34:26 And he came over to Rabbi Bender just to say hello. I'm sitting right next to Rabbi Bender. If you know Rabbi Bender, he likes people to sit next to him. He was holding onto my arm very tight. So he sees this husband and says, 'Rabbi Bender is a very loud person. I'm not going to use any names.' He's asking. He goes, 'No, how's your wife doing?' You know, like he's that type of very proud and very loud presence. So the guy said to him, 'She's not doing so well. The nurses in the hospital are kind of being rough with her. We're having a hard time getting what we need.' So Ravi Vender says "Okay, I hear. Hopefully, it'll get better." The guy walks out. Ravi Vender gets on his phone and calls Zevi Ball. Zevi Ball is the executive director of Darke. He asks, "Zevi, who do we know in this hospital?" Zevi Bolt. I can hear him through the phone. When people have their phone on too loudly, you can hear the other end. Zevi Bolt goes, 'Rebbe, I'll call you right back.'

35:16 About five minutes later, Zevi Bolt calls back and he says One of the members of our board knows somebody who's a member of the board of that hospital. Rebbe Bender goes, "Send me his number." So he gets the number of the guy who's the head of this board in this hospital. He says, "I got your name from this guy who's on my board. And I just want to let you know, there's a woman in the hospital." And she's not being treated very nicely, and they're having a hard time getting what they need. If you'd do me a favor and just take care of her, fine. About ten minutes later, the husband comes running back into the shul and says, "Rebbe, what did you do?" So Rebbe, he goes, "I don't know what you're talking about. What happened?" He goes, "The head of the entire hospital just came to my wife's room and was so apologetic. Because that's what happens when you get a phone call from a member of the board that says somebody who's close to me is not being treated nicely." The guy ran out of a meeting to go take care of this woman. Why?

36:06 Because instead of Rabbi Bender just saying She's having a hard time in the hospital. I don't know anyone in the hospital. He said I must know someone who knows someone who could help. That's one story. A second story. I'm going to leave out all names, but this is 100% true. I saw both with my own eyes. There was a young man who was teaching in Darche And that young man was not a Darche student. He wasn't a Darche alamai. He wasn't even a full-fledged teacher. He was a shadow for a special needs person who was in Darche at the time. And he got engaged. Got engaged But his family didn't live in America. And unfortunately, this young man—he was an orphan. He only had a mom. He didn't have a dad and didn't really have any money to make a wedding. One day, Rabbi Bender calls him into the office.

36:59 And he says to him What's going on with your wedding? So the guy says, "We're figuring it out." Rabbi Bender goes, "What's going on with your wedding?" So he's like, 'We're working on it. It's not so simple. We have to find out.' Rabbi Bender goes, 'I'm going to pay for the flowers. I'm going to pay for the photography.' So the kid said, 'They barely knew each other at that point. Maybe they knew each other for three months. I don't even think they knew each other.' The kid was like, 'Wow, Rabbi, thank you so much.' He goes and who's taking care of getting you a hat, getting you a suit, getting everything you need, getting you a tie, getting you shirts? Who's taking care of everything you need for the wedding? So he goes, I don't know, I'm going to figure it out. The vendor said you go to this suit store in the Five Towns. I won't say the name of the suit store. He says you go to this suit store in the Five Towns. There's a bill that I have in the suit store. Buy what you need and put it on my bill.

37:46 The guy did. And by the way For a different reason, I don't have time to tell you the story, though I wish I did because it's an amazing story. I happen to know for a fact. That the bill in that suit store every year is over a hundred thousand dollars. Rabbi Bender spends on people every single year over a hundred thousand dollars because there are people that don't have And he fundraises money so that he could provide for these people. Then he says to this young man, 'Your family lives in Israel. Are they coming in for the wedding?' He goes, "Yeah, they're coming in for the wedding." All his siblings are coming in for the wedding. Rabbi Bender says, "That's great, but what about the spouses of the siblings?" Who's flying them in? So the kid says, "Well, nobody's flying them in because that's a lot of money, and it's already enough that my siblings are paying for their own tickets."

38:36 So Rabbi Bender said, 'No problem, I'll pay for their tickets because I want you to be able to have all of your family at the wedding.' The sensitivity to know that a kid who was an orphan, even though he was in his early twenties and it had been a long time since his dad passed away. There's nobody else who's going to take care of this, and I don't step up to the plate. You want to hear something awesome? You want to hear something amazing? I think it was worth six thousand miles to travel just to hear this idea. You know how you do chesed? When you stop saying somebody else is going to take care of it. If you're Moshe going up to the mountain, you have to know you go alone. There's nobody else. There's nobody behind you. There's nobody else who's going to take care of it. It falls on you.

39:24 The Cohen Gadol on Yom Kippur, when he's doing his services in the Temple to bring atonement for the entire Klal Yisrael, he's alone. He can't turn to the guy next to him and go, 'He'll take care of it.' In the place where there's no other people, work to become the guy that steps up and says, 'Ze Alai, it's on me. I'll take care of it.' It's an amazing thing when you do that. You become a one-man Chesed machine. Moshe Rabbeinu. He leaves the house of Paro. It's the first day that he leaves the house of Paro. He looks around and sees an Egyptian hitting a Jew. He looks around and says nobody else is here, and he kills the Egyptian. All the commentators ask, nobody else was around. This was not in the middle of the desert. It was outside the house of Paro. What do you mean nobody else was around? There were a lot of people around. You know how you know there were a lot of people around because the very next day the word was out. Everybody was talking about the fact that Moshe killed the Egyptian.

40:25 So what does it mean? Nobody was around. You want to hear an unbelievable idea? He looked around. He saw plenty of people. But nobody saw. Everyone said somebody else is going to step up. Everybody else said somebody else will take care of it. And Moshe Rabbeinu said, if this is going to get fixed, it's going to get fixed because I'm going to fix it. You could be sitting here in Mechalat this summer. And you could be looking around, and you could see that girl who maybe she's by herself in the Mechader Ocha, maybe she's by herself in the dorm, maybe she's walking by herself on a trip, and you could think to yourself But everybody knows that I'm not that type of girl. I'm. You ever hear this is the way it sounds, and we mean it sincerely. But people say I'm just not that. It's not my personality to go over to another person. What does that mean?

41:12 What does that mean? It's not your personality. I'm shy. I hear you, but you're the only one. What do you mean? I'm the only one? Look how many people are in this room. Every person in the room is looking around, going, 'Somebody else will take care of it.' No, they won't, because every other person is looking at the other person, and you know that girl is still sitting there by herself. And she's sad, and she needs a friend. And it's our responsibility to be that friend. And so we have to know that it's up to us. So to review Three fundamental lessons in Chesed. Number one Suffering exists for you to pay attention to. You could choose to look the other way. Life will certainly be more comfortable. But to be a Jew means to do the uncomfortable thing: to pay attention to someone else's suffering and to respond with Chesed, to be able to give to another person.

42:06 Everything we have—the cars, the clothing, the money, the house. Everything we have is only there to be shared with someone else. That's what makes life awesome. You're not getting a job for the sake of having money. You're getting a job so that you could have money, so that you could be a helper. So that you could be one of the people that makes an impact in this world. And number three Don't wait for somebody else to do it. Everybody is looking around towards that other person. Be the one that steps up. And I finish with one final story. Do I have time for one final story? Thank you so much for the encouragement. This is an amazing story. And again, I saw the story with my own eyes. I interviewed a boy from Evaser. I liked him. Nice kid. Smiling kid. Beautiful smile. And comes.

43:09 First day of Mivaseret He walks in the door. And he had a blank look on his face. You know what I'm saying? Like a blank look. A blank look is not an angry look. A blank look is not a sad. He was like this. It was like it was a weird act. You're looking at him and you're like, so. Gets up. I get up my orientation. I see him in the crowd. I'm making my jokes. I like to think I'm a funny guy. This kid. Everyone's laughing. Stone-faced. Okay. Try to make it a point to go over to him. Try to listen to my own musa every once in a while. Go over to him. Hey, how's everything? Fine. Just walks away. Clearly not interested in talking to me. I tried a couple more times in those beginning weeks. I said to him, "Ruvin." His name's Ruvin. I said, "Ruvin."

44:03 ". Fine. He did not smile. Every single day he came to the Avenue. And he sat there. He didn't say a word of doubt. He wouldn't put on his tiling. He would just sit there. Obviously, there's some sort of message being sent. I don't know what the message is because every time I try to talk to him, he's stone-faced. Clearly, something had happened in between the time that I interviewed him and now. I'm not the best rebbe in the world. Not far from. Not far from. Not far from. Far from. But I work with a rebbe who's the best rebbe in the world. His name is Daniel Glanz. And the thing about Reb Daniel Glanz He's relentless. He's relentless. He just never gives up on anyone. So every morning after davening, Reb Glanz goes over to this guy, looks him in the eye, big smile, and he says to him, "Good morning" Ruvin. Every single day after davening Ruvin goes like this And just walked away.

45:05 Didn't even say good morning to him. And Ruplans is a cheerful guy. He's a smiling, gentle and warm guy. Nobody ghosts Ruplans. Ruplans is the type of guy that is walking in the hallway and every guy is like, 'Ruplans, how are you?' And he's like every single day, 'Good. How are you?' He's that guy. Everybody likes that guy. This guy totally stunk. I watch this every day, and I'm like I'm not how he does it. I gave up long ago. Ruplans is relentless. September goes by. October goes by. November goes by. December goes by. Every single day, the kid shows up to daven. Doesn't daven a word. Doesn't put on his tefilin. Every day after davening, he glances. Good morning. No. And then one day in January, four months and change into the yeshivah year, the kid looks at him and glances and he goes Good morning. And he walks away.

45:56 "It speaks." You know, "Whoa! I don't know where he glances. I'm like, "Did you hear that?" That was awesome. You know how hard it is to go four and a half months without saying a word to somebody. You could not do that. There's nobody in this room that could do that. If somebody came over to you every single day for four and a half months and said good morning, you would not have the psychological strength to look at them and go, "I'm going to do nothing." It was a tremendous amount of work. I think this guy must have been sitting there at night before he went to sleep and davening to himself, really davening hard to Hashem. Tomorrow, the man's going to say good morning. God's given me the strength to say nothing. It was unbelievable. And then the next day Good morning, Irving. Good morning.

46:43 Two in a row Three in a row, a week in a row, two weeks in a row, a month in a row. Kid starts davening, kid starts putting on tefillin. And then sometime in February The kid asks for a glance to speak. Okay, This is it. A glance comes into my office about an hour later. His wife is a ghost. He said, "Glance, what happened?" Said, "You're not going to believe what Ruvin told me." A terrible thing happened. We didn't know about it in Yeshiva. Nobody told us. That's usually the way these things go. They send you the kid. They don't bother to tell you. I just want to let you know this thing happened. So we didn't know. And it rocked his world. It rocked his world. It doesn't matter where it was. It rocked his world. And he was miserable, more than miserable. He was clinically depressed.

47:35 And he told Rivka. He was really in danger. He was in danger of really hurting himself—not a little bit hurting himself, really hurting himself. And many days, when he went to sleep at night, he thought about taking himself out of his misery. But he said, 'Rabbi Blance is going to say good morning to me after davening tomorrow morning, and that's really meaningful to me.' And Rabbi Blance told him, 'You were relentless. You never gave up. I want you to know, if you had given up, it would have been over for me.' But every day you said good morning, and that simple good morning saved my life. Every day you said good morning for months on end. Until I said good morning back, until I was in a place to say good morning back, until I was in a place to start the avinu, to start putting on tefillin, start connecting to God, because you wished me a good morning.

48:28 Thank you for saving my life. The Klans came in and said I was just saying good morning. Most acts of tzedek are like that. Most acts of chesed are not flashy. I know. Are they doing the wedding thing this summer? I'm so sorry. I meant. I'm not saying this. Good. I appreciate what a tremendous act of kindness you did. Most acts of kindness are not fighting for a life line. Most acts of kindness are not saving somebody's life. More often than not, it's just good morning. But don't underestimate the power of a simple good morning. It makes a difference. And even if you're not speaking about a case where you're saving somebody's life, you're doing much better than that. You're telling them that their life matters. That there's someone out there who cares. And it's up to you. You're the only one that could do it. If you've been given the talent to say good morning, you didn't get your talent of speech just to say anything you want. You were given it to say good morning. It's our job to pay attention. Girls, thanks for having me. It was an awesome talk. We're gonna sell this farm now. We're here.