Kedoshim / Sefiras HaOmer - It's All About The Family

3:04 Avaynu kol beisrael. Aveyu, kovishe shere Anisuri basara, basara ubashinah. Aindi be naya Ube naya basha. Yamagiri ra. Yirachay V'lechem v'yoysiyeh, v'shaya. Lirabah u'me'b'dolaya, v'shiru de'geru d'ashah, b'kala u'v'zman ga'ay.

4:12 Aba komira te, kira te mada ya miisi ya miyaga. Le ema chamu ya feyoyo, miyibo le keula shaba kola ubizanga. Avram Iron is my very good friend. Avram and I have been friends now for five years. Avram always asks me every week, "Can I print the notes for Mishmar?" This week I have. I almost never do this. I try very hard to prepare every single week. I don't like that talmidim should come to a she'er that hasn't been thought about, that hasn't been prepared. The boys deserve to hear something new, something fresh. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's been a little bit of a very busy week. It's been a hard week for our entire yeshiva with Rebbetzin Hershel in the hospital. So I've been sitting with my friend Rebbetzin Hershel every single morning in the hospital. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to prepare.

5:44 Avram says he likes it better when I don't prepare. Avram likes it better when it's just off the cuff. Avram, in the five years that you and I have known each other, this is the most off the cuff it's ever been. I'm a pasha. I'm thinking about what I'm going to say in two seconds. I apologize to everybody that it's not going to be a truly worked out idea. Maybe there's beauty in this type of imperfection. The pasuk says, 'V'y'daber Hashem al Moshe lemor, daber el kol adas bnei Yisrael va'amarta aleihem kadoshim tiyu kikadosh ani Hashem alokeichem.' The pasuk says that Hashem Baruch Hu told Moshe Rabbeinu, 'Speak to kol adas bnei Yisrael.' Speak to the entire congregation of Israel and say to them, 'Be kadosh.' It's hard to know what that word kadosh means. A lot of ink has been spilled on what kadosh means. Different rishonim, Rashi, the Remban, Svarno, all give different explanations. Prushim and Aharayos separate yourselves from permissible pleasures. Svarno says kadosh means eternal.

7:07 Chassidus says that kedusha means transparent. Lots of different words have been used to try to translate the word kedusha. Rashi already points out that this is specifically said. Rashi says it's said to all of Klal Yisrael. This mitzvah of kedushim to you is said to all of Klal Yisrael. Rashi says Malamet Shemre Parshazu Bahakel When they sharo' gufe hatora tuluyma. This mitzvah of kedushim to you, this parsha, it has so much inside of it because And as a result of having all of these big things in the parsha, it was said to the entire nation. Far be it from me to enter into the fray of the rishonim. We don't say things that the rishonim didn't say. Rashi, the Ramban, Svarno, who is Mordechai Berg, to add his voice to the list. But for us in this moment. Perhaps these pesukim have new meaning, and I'd like to share—not chas v'shalom—to say that this peshtat belongs anywhere in the symphony of voices of our rishonim.

8:15 I don't particularly like. I have a mesora from my rebbe. I don't particularly like when people just say a peshtat that's not found in the rishonim. But I think for tonight, for us in this place, it's appropriate maybe to share the following idea. I was bothered. Why does it say "daber ol kol adas bnei yisrael"? Why doesn't it just say "daber ol kol bnei yisrael"? What does it mean "daber ol kol adas bnei yisrael"? What is this lashon of adas? We're holding now in a period of sferas oimer. We know that this period is defined by the death of the talmidim of Rivekiva. Tonight's singing was absolutely beautiful. Bez Hashem, we're going to bring back Rav Shimon's guitar soon. For now, we don't have music. We're in a period of avelos. It's a serious period of avelos. The Tamidim of Rav Akiva died. It was a terrible magefa.

9:16 Why did they die? We all know the Gemara. Shalom nagu covered zebuzah. They didn't give cover to each other. It's a very strange Gemara. Many mafarshim ask the question. The Chofetz Chaim asked the question. Many gedolei asked the question. Chaveri, you're not chayiv misa for not showing covered to your chavrusa. You're not chayiv misa for that. By the way, if we were You know what I mean? It's not good. You're not chayiv misa. It's not good midos. It's stuff to work on. Shalom nagu covered zevs that we weren't mechabit our friends for that we had to die. Many different answers are given to this question. I want to share one of them with you. There are two ways of thinking about a group of people. Sometimes a group of people come together for a shared mission. You can have a business. Somebody's a CEO of a business. He gets a chaver together. He says, 'Listen. I'll pay you guys. We'll all go in the same direction. We'll all work together. We're going to work well. We're going to become a team.'

10:30 Everybody on the team is going to do their thing. Everybody's critical. We're all going to row in the same direction. But as Hashem, we're going to make money. We're going to exit. It's going to be gevulde. That's one type of group. Then there's another type of group. They don't come together because they have a shared purpose. Adrabo. They have totally different purposes. Each one is rowing in his own direction. But in some ways, this group of people has the capacity to be much more together than the first group. We call this group a family. A family is a group of people. They're all different. They're all unique. You don't build a family for a shared purpose. You don't get a group of people together. You don't come to Parva and to Mars, and you don't come to the Cheder to study. You don't get to Gabi. You don't come together and say, "You're going to be my son. You're going to be my first son, my second son, my third son, my fourth son." That's not the way a person builds a family.

11:34 A family is an organism. A family is a living, breathing entity. We forget that Klal Yisrael is a family. We are not a nation in the way that other nations are nations. We're not nations because we all came from Rome or Greece or America or Italy or China. We're not a team of people that came together because we have a specific mission. It's true, Yiddishkeit has a specific mission, but that's not what makes us Yidden. We're Yidden because Avram Avinu married Sarah and had Yitzchak. Yitzchak married Rivka and had Yaakov. Yaakov married Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, Zilpa, and had the Shvatim. We are a family. We became a nation, but at our core, we're a family. Sometimes a family takes on bigger dimensions. We went to Matan Torah. We became a nation. We have a specific mission that was given to us at Har Sinai. But Chas v'Shalom, for any of us to forget for one moment that we're a family.

12:42 At the end of the day, that's what we are. We're a family. We're an organism. We're not a group of people that happen to get together. I'd like to suggest that the lashon of adas daber el kol adas bnei yisrael Hakadosh Baruch Hu could have gotten us together as a kehilah just by saying daber el kol bnei yisrael. Get the chevr together. What is the Rebbeinu Shalom communicating to us when he says 'daber el kol adas'? Bring the entire congregation together. Adas means that Klal Yisrael is a living, breathing organism. Again, I don't like poetic license. I hope the Rebbeinu Sholom will forgive me for saying this. I think it's true for us in this moment. I don't know if I could define the word kedusha for you tonight. I certainly know that the word holiness fails to capture what the Rebbeinu Sholom is trying to communicate to us.

13:43 There's something about the word kedusha that every one of us is striving to be. All I know about kedusha is this: we can't find it alone. We can't even find it as a group. There's no such thing as a yid living a life of kedusha if he's by himself. It's not possible. If a yid is sitting and learning by themselves, if their life is inwardly focused, if they don't realize I'm part of an organism, a living, breathing organism, a family, not a group of people, not on a shared mission. If you're not together with the family, kedusha is an impossibility. To live a life of kedusha, whatever it means To live a life of kedusha can only happen as a kahila. A kehilah by us, a congregation by us. It doesn't mean that a person pays membership. It doesn't mean you get a seat in shul. It doesn't mean that you pay less money for your Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That's not what a kehilah by us means.

14:47 To be a part of our kehilah means you're part of our family. A yeshiva A yeshiva is not an institution. Institutions. Institutions are for the world. They're not for us. We don't believe in institutions. A person can't learn Taira in an institution. You could become a professor of Rashi or a professor of Ramban if you're in an institution. An institution hires the best professors. They hire the greatest teachers. There's no relationship. You don't need a relationship in order to communicate ideas. You could learn ideas from textbooks. A yeshiva is a family. A yeshiva is a group of rebbeim that give leiv v'nefesh to their talmidim. They prepare shiurim not because they care only about the Torah, but because they care equally as much about the people that are receiving that Torah. Everything about a yeshiva is mesiras nefesh. Mesiras nefesh from the talmidim for each other. Mesiras nefesh from the talmidim for their rebbeim. Mesiras nefesh from the rebbeim for their talmidim.

16:07 Our yeshiva is a family. I want to share with you a conversation that I had with Menucha Rothenberg. If you go upstairs to the office, there's a whole team of people that are meiser nefesh for us every day. We don't necessarily see them. We don't necessarily. There's a chesidish lady up in the office. She makes your doctor appointments. The nurse is coming. A chassidish lady Menucha sits in an office. If you come right away, if you make a hard left, as soon as you get into the office, there's a little room with a glass door. Menucha sits in there. Starting from eight o'clock every morning, she's in charge of much of the finances of our yeshiva. I was upstairs in the office. Avram brings me a coffee almost every day. I love Avram; he's my best friend. He brings me a coffee every day. I don't ask him to bring me a coffee on most days. Every once in a while, I'm so tired I'll reach out to Avram and say, "Avram, it's a coffee day." Most days, Avram just shows up in my office and takes my cup and says, "Coffee."

17:05 I'm so tired. I've been going up to the office. I can't sleep at night. I can't sleep at night. I can't sleep at night. Is a member of my family who's in the hospital for a week now. One of my closest friends in the world happens to work with me on the same team in our yeshiva. You don't go just because you work in the same office. You could sleep at night if you work in the same office. Your coworker is going through a hard time. You could sleep at night. I can't sleep at night. I can't sleep at night. I'm so tired. I went up to the office to get a coffee. Agav, we need a new cappuccino machine. It takes twenty minutes to make a cappuccino. It still works. It works like managed twenty minutes. The thing is working so hard. Dad can get a Range Rover of a golf cart. We can't get a cappuccino machine upstairs in the office.

18:10 I went upstairs twenty five minutes. I'm waiting for this thing to froth the milk. I could have just shaken it But I'm stubborn. I want the machine to make it for me. I'm upstairs with Menucha. Menucha has been a part of our yeshiva for so long. Menucha was saying to me "She's like, yeah." When I interviewed for this job, I think she's been in yeshiva almost ten years. Menucha said to me, 'She said if I wanted to get a job working in the world, working in finance, I certainly could.' She's very, very, very talented. She says, 'I don't want to do that. I want a meaningful life.' I want a meaningful life. She's ma'aser nefesh. She's here, eight o'clock in the morning. She's working. Nobody sees her. None of you guys know. She's working levin nefesh for our yeshiva. You don't do that if it's an institution. If it's an institution, you clock in. You clock out. If it's an institution, you're not here all hours of the night.

19:05 If it's an institution, explain to me what Rosh Steinert is doing in the beis medrash. Explain to me how Rosh Shreier is like always, always like every time I see him. Is the man ever by himself? Explain to me if it's an institution or by Apfel. I'm convinced that Rabbi Apfel is running on a fuel that none of us in this room are running on. He's mamish. Any of his talmidim know this for sure. The man doesn't sleep all night long. He's like a superhero. All night long, he's saving lives. Then he's giving shear. I don't know when he prepares shear. When does he prepare shear? By the way, if you're up at five o'clock in the morning, wandering around yeshiva, there's a decent chance he'll bump into Rabbi Aptel. He's here. He daven's v'sikin here half the time. Leiv v'nefesh, leiv v'nefesh. You don't do that for an institution. You do it for family.

20:02 Kedusha. If you came this year looking for kedusha, whatever it means. If you came this year looking for kedusha but you weren't part of the family You didn't find kedusha. Could be that you learned a tremendous amount of Torah. I'm sure there are people here that learned a tremendous amount of Torah. I hope every one of us is part of the family because our ambition in this yeshiva is a life of kedusha. I don't want to call anybody out. Chassid Shalom. I just saw him out of the corner of my eye, so I'm going to say it. I want you to know, Dayani. It's good to have you back in yeshiva. We miss you very much. You had a private conversation with the rasha shiva this week. I want you to know he was on fire from your private conversation. He was so excited to tell me he loves you so much. If you're just a rasha shiva who clocks in and clocks out, you don't get that excited from what you spoke to him about. He was excited. He's on fire from it.

20:59 He's excited. I want you to know. I know. Again, I don't like calling people out because then people are going to say, "How can you call him out and not him out?" I really could do with any guy in yeshiva. Etan, where's Etan? Etan Kamenetsky here right now. Where's Etan? He's probably doing chesed somewhere. Etan, you're a family member. Who in this yeshiva is doing more for every guy? I don't even know what the covers on the chairs mean. I'm the manal of the yeshiva. Etan posts a message. How's the time? Etan posts a message on the yeshiva. I'm like, what is Etan running? There are certain people in the yeshiva. Etan, you need to become the next Avraham Iron. I don't know what we'd do without you. You're irreplaceable. Lots of every Jew is irreplaceable. Lots of people come into yeshiva. Etan, you left your mark. You're a family member. You care about every one of us. We care about you so much. Walk through the halls. Is there anybody more happy than Etan? He lights up with a smile. He lights up my day every time I see him.

22:01 I'm so happy to see him. Everybody in this room is a family member, irreplaceable. Every family member has their role. Some family members are the gisa ba yom and velayla in beis medrash. Some family members sing. Some family members dance. Some family members chesed, a nice word in the dorms. We can't be an institution. What does it mean that the tamidim of Rebbe Kiva had to die because Shalom Nagu covered Zevazeh? In the world, you don't necessarily treat everybody with kavod. The world is a cutthroat place. Not everybody is going to be treated with kavod. There's competition in the world. In the world of competition, I want to win. Sometimes that means you're going to lose. In a family, you want to know the litmus test. If it's a family Are they mechabit each other? Mechabit each other doesn't mean that they have the same opinion.

22:57 Lord knows. In our community, in our family, we have lots of different opinions. Lots of different opinions, but we love each other. We love each other so much because we're a family. Kavod we have for each other. Givaldik a kavod. I want to share with you. Being in the hospital every single day, you realize You realize. What things really mean in a hospital? There's no more communities in the sense of different factions in Kallah Yisrael. In a hospital, there's no such thing as Chilonim and Datiim. In a hospital, there's no Charedim and Zionim. In a hospital, nobody's modern or Yeshivish. Mamish. In a hospital, everybody just sits together. Everybody wants to do everything for each other. It's a beautiful Chesed organization. I just met this guy, a Gvult of a Jew. Eitan, you should meet him. You could be the next guy like this. Eitan, this mamish, this is like what you're gonna be. This guy, his name is David Sarfati.

24:00 David Sarfati, some of you might be familiar with his organization. He runs an organization called Osem Sameach. He's an unbelievable Jew. It's a crazy story. I met him for the first time this week. He told me a ma'isa. He was in a terrible car accident. He literally was dead. They saw him bleeding out of his ears and out of his nose in the ER. They helicoptered him to the ER because of this crazy car accident he was in. They left him for dead. A pulmonologist walked in and realized he could be saved. It's just like a broken thorax. They saved his life in the hospital. He started doing chesed. And from that experience in the hospital of him sharing the food that his Moroccan mother made with him. So he's going around sharing the food. Now they have this massive chesed organization called Osem Sameach. David Sarfati got a phone call from people in the five towns who knew rehearsal, and all of a sudden, rehearsal's getting VIP treatment from David Sarfati. This guy David Sarfati, he knows every doctor in every hospital. He's just standing next to rehearsal. We're going to find out that he doesn't know rehearsal from a hole in the wall. Twenty-eight year old guy. Twenty year old guy walks around with a computer.

25:17 Walks around with a cell phone. All he does is help Yidden all day long. Why is he helping with rehearsal? It's my family member. He got a phone call. Rehearsal needs him, so he's helping. In Shari Tzedek Hospital, there's a sign up. You're going to walk by. None of you will ever see the sign. I walked by the sign. I didn't see the sign. I just heard the story today. There's a sign up in Shari Tzedek Hospital. That the food section of Shaarei Tzedek Hospital on the fourth floor, where you get your Beefresh and your Aroma and your Angels and all the things that are there, all the restaurants that are there, it's sponsored. That area is sponsored by Richie and Deborah Parkoff. Those of you from the Five Towns, some of you probably know the Parkoff family. Max Parkoff is coming to our family next year. He's going to be Shnail in Yeshiva. His father, Adam Parkoff, and I have been friends since we were 18 years old in Mevaseret together. David Sarfati told me this story today. He said that Richie Parkoff was meeting with the head of Shari Tzedek Hospital, and he sent Adam out to go get some food. Adam was running around. Half an hour later, he came back. He said, 'There's nothing local. There's no food local.' Richie Parkoff said, 'How could that be? That there's no food in the hospital?'

26:33 He paid. He sponsored the entire fourth floor so there should be food in the hospital. He said it's going to be perfect. The hospital is going to make money. It's going to help the hospital service the patients. Patients are going to have food in the hospital. The whole thing is sponsored by Richie Parkov. He made that happen. One yid who doesn't live in Eretz Yisrael came to Yerushalayim Hakodesh and said, "How can I make this better for yidden? Why do you do that? Because you're a family." I'm sitting with this group of people every morning. I have new friends. I have new friends. I just met them. It's also a terrible situation. A father who loalenu is going through terrible things. His wife, his family, they come to the hospital every single day. Sfardecha family. On the outside, it doesn't appear that they keep Shabbos. On the outside, it appears that they're not religious. I have to tell you, these people are so deeply connected to Hashem.

27:27 They don't dress in a way that appears they're observant. They got terrible news, unfortunately Terrible news. So they asked me that I'm overweight with a beard, so they think I'm a rabbi. Don't laugh at that joke; it's not nice. Now you don't know what to do. The so they said Rabbi, give us a bracha. Shachar, mazonos. I'm not a bracha guy. I don't know how to give brachos. They said, no, give us a bracha. I've been sitting with this family for the whole week. We say Tehillim together every morning. I come in, I sit down next to this woman. She's crying. She's crying. Nase, Shamayim, nase. That's all she says over and over again. Her husband is in critical condition. The doctor gave them very bad news. I sit and I say Tehillim. Rev Hershel, when he's in with his wife, I sit and I say Tehillim with these Sfarati ladies.

28:27 And when he comes back, I shmoos with him. This morning we were singing together. I have a terrible voice. Rebbeim Shlom blessed me with a lot of things in my life. He didn't give me a voice like Reb Shimon's. I sat and sang with them. I sat and I sang Tov Lo Hodos Lashem. I sat and I sang with them Ain Araych Locha. They just want to sing. They just want to sing. It's so precious to sit next to a group of people. I'm going to tell you honestly, we're probably not going to keep in touch. I don't understand them. They don't understand me. They speak very fast Hebrew. The end of the day, I'm a Five Towns kid. My Hebrew's okay. It's not that good. We can communicate with each other a little bit, but we could sing together. Why am I singing with a group of strangers? If I was living back in America and I was sitting in L I J Hospital, would I be sitting with a group of strangers? Absolutely not. I wouldn't.

29:23 I would feel compassionate. I wouldn't sing with them. You only sing with family. We are an unbelievable family. Chaver, don't forget for one second what an unbelievable family we are. We don't call nine one one. We call Hatsala. We don't call for triple A. We call chavirim. For those of you who pronounce a chavirim It's time to level up. We're an unbelievable family. When things go wrong We're an unbelievable family. When things go wrong, all the defense systems go down, and the truth comes up. The Talmidim of Rav Akiva—they died not because there's an achiyu of misa for not being mechabed, your friend. That's not the pshat. I think we could say for us tonight in yeshiva, the pshat is Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives life to Klal Yisrael. You're part of the family, you get life. You're not part of the family, you don't get life.

30:37 It's a very simple equation. They weren't chayev misa because there's an iser not to be to say a not nice thing to your friend. I'm sure the Talmidim of Rav Akiva were unbelievable tzaddikim, but maybe they didn't appreciate that every member of a family is precious. There's no such thing as expelling a family member. There's no such thing as saying this family member is out because they think differently. Other rabbi families fight. We have hard conversations. We see the world differently. But at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, family is there for each other. How many stories are there? Terrible stories of brothers that didn't speak to each other until one of them was on their deathbed, and then all of a sudden they were brothers again. We're a family, Rabbi Yisai. This is not academic. This is real. We're living through it right now.

31:33 One of the rebbeim of our yeshiva, his family is going through something, and our family is going through something. Where's Aiden? Aiden told me. Aiden told me that Reb Hershel Shear went to the hospital to visit him. Aidan, tell me if I'm getting this right. And when Rev Hershel got out of the elevator, you guys must have been up there before he came. Rev Hershel got out of the elevator and he sees his talmidim and he bursts out crying. And they brought him beefresh. The talmidim also sent a sushi platter. They brought him beefresh And he said it was the first time that he's had an appetite all week. Where does he get an appetite from? Because he's back with his family, things are a little bit better. He can eat a little bit. I'm telling you, I've been pushing Rvershal to eat the entire week. He sees his talmidim, he sees his family. He gets a little bit of an appetite again. You guys gave him an appetite.

32:41 I'm sure it goes without saying. Every guy in yeshiva doesn't matter. If you have a relationship with Rvershal, you don't have a relationship with Rvershal. Send a message, send a WhatsApp. You could blame it on me. Let his phone explode with WhatsApps. Say, Rev. Berg said, 'I just want to message you to say we're davening for you. Every word of learning, we're not davening for a random person. We're davening for our family. In truth, every yid is our family.' But there is such a thing called our family. Every Jew is part of our family. There's something when it hits closer to home. There's a difference in a first cousin and a second cousin. This is not a first cousin or a second cousin. For many people in this room, it's a mother. How many people went to Rav Hershel for Shabbos? All the food that was made by Rabbits in Hershel. All the work that Rav Hershel does in yeshiva, Rabbits in Hershel is the backbone that makes that possible. Every word of Torah that we've learned in yeshiva this year, it's her. She made that happen. She facilitated that.

33:44 She facilitated that. That's real. When Rachel, when Rivkah's wife Came to visit him And she couldn't get by because all the talmidim were there, and Rivkah had to part the seas. He said, "Shaliev, shalcha, shalal. It's hers. Every word of Torah belongs to my wife Rachel. Rachel made it all happen." Rabbi Zin Herzl has enabled Rabbi Herzl to do all the unbelievable work that he's done in his life. Every single word of Torah that's been learned in this yeshiva, his talmidim, all of the years, it's a schuz for her. We're confident. We have unbelievable b'tachon in the Rebbeinu Sholom that everything is going to be great. We have unbelievable b'tachon in the Rebbeinu Sholom. The Rebbeinu Sholom wants to do good, and he will do good. She has unbelievable, unbelievable merits Unbelievable merits. We put up Mishnayos. Mishnayos is finished. We start Hillel groups. How many Hillel groups? Thousands of people are saying Hillel because it's family.

34:52 And because it's family, it can't stop and it won't stop. Because it's family, it can't stop and it won't stop. Ariela Chava Baschan Amalca. Shame has to be shugr before her name has to be on the lips of every single person in this yeshiva. Every single person needs to know that name. It's just something. It's natural. You say Mo da ani lo fanacha melachay v'kayim shachazati min yishmasi bechemlo raba emunasecha. Everything I do today should be a s'chus Ariela Chava Baschan Amalca. It's our family. It has to hit close to home. It is hitting close to home. I'm not saying this kiu like you guys haven't been doing it all week. You have been, for sure. You have been. I'm saying that it can't stop, not for one second. We can't get accustomed to it. Bez Hashem It's going to be soon. Rav and Rabbits and Hershel are going to walk down the hallway of our yeshiva. She's going to come to the entrance.

35:50 She's going to come to the entrance of the doors of our beis medrash. The whole yeshiva is going to say, 'Amein to her gomel. And we're gonna sing Tov L'Hashem together.' I'm telling you, I believe it be'Emuna Shleima. I really do. I know Rav Hershel believes it too. Up until that moment, we do not take our foot off the gas. We don't take our foot off the gas because if we learned Torah this year, if we are the Talmidim of Rav Kiva, then we're a family. We can't let up for one moment. The sharei dima are never closed. The gates of tears are never closed. I know how many tears have been spilled for the Herschels this week. We can't stop crying. We won't stop crying because our family is going through this together. We are a people. We are a family that yearns for kedusha.

36:41 Kedusha only happens together. It only happens as a living, breathing organism. Sometimes we forget because things are going well. October sixth, we forgot. October eighth, we remembered. And in the interim period We had our ups and downs of remembering that we're a family. I just want to share with you one last story. I think sometimes people think that I'm making up the stories. You could ask her if Hershel. He sees a lot of the stories because we hang out together. If Hershel says only you, these stories only happen to you. I missed Seder today. In the afternoon I didn't want to miss a very special thing with my family. My brother-in-law is in intelligence in the army. My brother-in-law got a promotion today. He became a major in the Israeli army in the intelligence unit. He's been in the army for many years. Baruch Hashem, he got a year. He got a promotion a year ahead of time.

37:53 He missed the seder this year because he was working during Pesach. In the intelligence unit, things are mamish, life or death every minute of every day. It was a very special thing that he got this promotion. They were only allowed to invite three people. There's basically a secret base where this happens. Every person who got promoted—only a couple people got promoted today—every one of them was allowed to bring three people. My sister is considered one of the three. My parents are the other two. I reached out to my sister. I said, "Chaval, I really wanted to come." They made a special dispensation. I was able to come. It was a beautiful ceremony. I'm so proud of my brother-in-law and my sister, the Mesiros Nefesh for Am Yisrael. I thought that I went to support my family. I'm leaving this base today. I'm leaving the base.

38:41 It's serious business. This base. I'm leaving the base. As I'm walking out, this Jew comes over to me. This guy, you can see the picture. I'm not making this up. This guy comes over to me and he goes, "Do you have tefillin? 5:30 in the afternoon, at a random Israeli army base, secreted away in a certain place. This guy comes over to me and he goes, 'Do you have tefillin?' Why in the world would I have tefillin on me at 5:30 in the afternoon at a random army base? Hashem runs the world. This morning I davened in a later minion. I'm very tired. Mamish wasn't sleeping. I davened in a later minion, so I had my tefillin in the car. I didn't go home to drop off my tefillin. My tefillin were in the car. I said to him, 'You're not going to believe it. I actually do have tefillin on me.'

39:31 We went to the car. He doesn't have a yarmulke. He rides a motorcycle. He asked me to get on the back of the motorcycle. He'll drive me to my car. I said no because. Two reasons. Number one No. And number two, I'm not that guy. There are people that could go on the back of a motorcycle. I'm not one of them. One time in my life, I went on the back of a motorcycle. I was so terrified. Never again. I wish I was cool. I really do. I just, it's, I'm not. We, I said it's not that far. He drove down to my car. I walked down to my car. He said, I don't have a yarmulke. You have an extra yarmulke? I said, of course. I handed him my yarmulke. Happens to be, I have my hat in the car. I really had a big tayva to put it on and pinch the brim to go full CIA Chabad in action. I really had a big tayva. I really had a big tayva to do it. I didn't.

40:26 I stood in front of Yomtov. This guy takes out my tefillah. He puts it on. He doesn't pull it tight. He hasn't made the bracha yet. He says, "I want to tell you my story." You want to put on my tefillin first? I don't know. He wants to tell me the story. This is what he tells me. On Pesach there was a terrorist attack. And he tells me a whole ganza ma'isa. I'm not going to tell it to you now. It's going to take too long. He tells me a whole ganza ma'isa how it was crazy. Exactly where he was, all these people died in this terrorist attack on Pesach. He said he wasn't a religious Jew. Something got in his head. I shouldn't eat chametz on Pesach. He said, "Punk, that morning I shouldn't eat chametz on Pesach." It came into his head from nowhere. They were about to go to a certain place, and he demanded. He said, "No, we have to go to that restaurant instead because that restaurant is kosher on Pesach and this one isn't." And because they did that, it saved his life. He wasn't in the terrorist attack. He was immediate. He said immediately when this terrorist attack happened, he told me a whole story. He said immediately. He said there is a rebona shalom. He was makabel on himself to wear tefillin every single day.

41:36 He hasn't missed a day of tefillin since. Here he is, 5:30 in the afternoon at a random Israeli army base. I don't know what he was doing there. And we were both going out of the army base at the same exact time. He runs into me and he says, "You have tefillin." Puts on tefillin that day. I want you to know, I've davened many tefilos in my life. This guy is a real Jew. He said Shema. He put on his tefillin. He's wearing my yarmulke. He says Shema. He covers his eyes. He says Shema slowly. He drew out the word Echad exactly like you're supposed to in halacha. Carefully, slowly. He says every single word of Kriyas Shema. And then he was wrapping up my tefillin together. I said no, I'll wrap it up. I start wrapping up the tefillin shalosh. He goes, don't take away the sechut from me that I should be able to wrap up the tefillin shaliyad.

42:26 And then he got on his motorcycle and drove off. I doubt we'll ever see each other again. I have a big regret. I should have asked him for his number because it only occurred to me afterwards that if he's asking for my tefillin at 5:30 in the afternoon, he probably doesn't own a pair of tefillin himself. I said to myself, I really messed it up. I wish I would find out who this guy was, because I would say, let's get together. Everyone in the chevrel donated a couple shekels. We'll get him a pair of tefillin. I love that. Every year we look at some year, and some people look at it in negative ways. They see people. There's no Jew that's not deeply connected to Hashem. But I love that he came over to me, a random guy, and he said, "Kabar yitzfilin." Every one of us would do that. There's such a thing called bageling. You know what it means to get bageld.

43:20 To get bagel'd means you're on a flight, you're sitting next to somebody who doesn't appear to be Jewish at all, and as they're getting off the flight, they go Shabbat Shalom. Scored to get bagel'd. They let you know that they're Jewish. I have a game that I play when I'm walking through airports. I don't mean airports like LaGuardia. Anyone could rack up a million points in LaGuardia or JFK. I like walking through random airports, like in Columbus, Ohio. You're walking along, you see another Jew, and you do the Jew nod. You know the Jew nod. This is the Jew nod. It's a small little nod. If a Holocaust breaks out, you and me are together. It's like a small we're together. No matter what, we're together. Sometimes in a random airport, there's a Jew nod. But if we walk down the street on Shabbos, we won't say good Shabbos to people in our community.

44:08 In small communities, out of town communities, every Jew says good Shabbos to every other Jew. If you live in big communities, sometimes we don't say good Shabbos to each other. Families say good Shabbos. Families say good morning. Every guy in the yeshiva, you wake up in the morning. You're walking through the halls. You say good morning to each other. Family says good morning to each other. Family says good Shabbos to each other. Let's not wait. Let's not wait for October seventh. Let's not wait for missiles to fall. Let's not wait to be in hospitals to take down the walls. We're family and blessed Hashem. We should be noig, covered zebuzet, and in that schos we should be zayecha to a lag baomer this year. Where the light of Rosh Hashanah should shine from one end of the world to the other, revealing the fact that every Jew is part of this beautiful organism called Klal Yisrael.