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Moshe Rabenu introduces himself to Klal Yisrael this week. We all know the story; we grew up with the story. The story is that Moshe Rabenu saw a Mitzri hitting a Jew. And he killed the Mitzri. That was day one. The next day Moshe Rabenu sees two Jews fighting with each other. He steps in. And they said to him, "What are you going to do to us? What did you do to the Mitzri yesterday?" And they threatened him. They said to him, "We're going to go to Paro, and we're going to tell Paro that it was you that killed the Mitzri." And Moshe Rabbeinu was astounded by this And he says, "Now I understand why Klal Yisrael is not being redeemed." And he ran away to Midyan. And at Midyan He comes to the well and sees that these women were being threatened. Either they were being threatened to be killed Or there was a threat of ones. Girls know what ones means. There was a threat that these girls would be taken against their will.
And Moshe Rabbeinu stepped in and he beat these people off. And ultimately, he married one of these girls, the daughter of Yisro, and he becomes a shepherd. And so the question is. What is the inner message that the Torah is trying to teach us here? When you learn the stories of the Torah, you have to pay attention not only to the words but also to the subtleties. You have to listen to the tone and the texture of the story. And so, what's the deeper message here? I'd like to share with you a pshat. Moshe Rabbeinu had a question. He was growing up in the house of Paro. He knows that he's a Jew. His question is Why hasn't Klal Yisrael left Mitzrayim? It's like in the South when there were slaves. The slaves outnumbered the white people who were their masters. So why weren't they leaving?
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And so Moshe Rabbeinu had the same question of Klal Yisrael. There were many Jews enough that they certainly could have waged war against the Midrash. Why didn't they? And so Moshe Rabbeinu understood. He thought that perhaps the pshat is that psychologically these are very weak people. If you're a slave for hundreds of years, you start to develop a slave mentality. And so even though you're very strong, you think to yourself, "I'm very weak." I'll give you an example of this. Do you know how you park an elephant in India? It's an amazing thing. An elephant is very, very big. How are you going to tie an elephant down? When an elephant is very, very little, they take a peg, and they put the peg in the ground and tie the elephant to the peg. And the elephant is not strong enough to pull the peg out of the ground. And so, what does the elephant learn? I'm not strong enough to leave when I'm tied to a peg.
What happens to an elephant as he grows? The elephant never learns. That I'm strong enough to pull out the peg. So they have these pegs in India that are knocked into the ground, and they have enormous elephants that are tied onto these pegs. And the enormous elephant thinks to himself "I'm stuck here now." And that's how you park your elephant in India. And Moshe Rabbeinu thought perhaps it's the same thing. Perhaps the Jews need a very strong warrior to come and tell them, "You're no longer weak." So the pasuk tells us, 'Va'yigdal Hayeled, Va'yigdal Moshe. Moshe Rabbeinu grew up, and he became Moshe Rabbeinu.' And he goes out to his brothers, and he sees a Mitzri hitting a Jew. So he says, 'Here's my opportunity to lead Klal Yisrael.' Moshe Rabbeinu was exceptionally powerful. He knew some of the secret shemos of Hashem, and using the secret shame of Hashem, he killed this Mitzri.
And he thought to himself, now the Jews will know we have a leader who's capable of taking us out of Mitzrayim. It spread like wildfire throughout the Jewish community. The next day, Moshe Rabbeinu goes out to his brothers again, and he sees two Jews fighting with each other and he steps in. And he imagined in that moment that because yesterday everybody heard that Moshe Rabbeinu, this person who grew up in the house of Paro, this very spiritual person who's capable of killing a Mitri, they thought that Moshe Rabbeinu thought that now these Jews are going to look at him and they're going to say this is the Mashiach of Klal Yisrael. But a very strange thing happened. Instead of celebrating Moshe They attacked him. And they said to him, "Don't get involved in our business. This is our fight." And we're even going to tell Paro. They threatened him. We're going to tell Paro what you did.
And in that moment, Moshe Rabbeinu realized that the state of Klal Yisrael's gullus was not because they were not strong enough. But something else entirely. What was it that kept Klal Yisrael in gullus? The challenge of Klal Yisrael in gullus has always been a state of disunity. A lack of achdus. That's what Moshe Rabbeinu saw. He saw that it wasn't because they weren't strong enough to leave. But because they weren't unified enough to leave. It takes. If you want to leave, you need to. Everyone needs to trust each other and we need to leave at once. That's what it's going to take to leave. It wasn't because psychologically they were crippled. It's because each one of them was doing their own thing. The fact that two Jews could quarrel with each other in a state when everybody in Mitzrayim was against the Jews tells you about their lack of harmony.
We find a way always to fight with each other. You've seen this The Lubavitcher Rebbe said, "When do you know somebody's a Jew?" When a Jew walks in, you say to him Shalom Aleichem. The first thing he says back to you is Aleichem Shalom. We don't even agree how to say hello. You have to go in the exact opposite way. Jews always manage to fight Except that's a very corny Rebbe joke. Thank you so much for laughing with me. I appreciate it. I want you to know it means a lot to me. Baruch Hashem is not my joke. You know when Jews stop fighting? When we have enemies from the outside. Bez Hashem, it shouldn't happen this year But there are some years. Lo Aleinu, it shouldn't happen this year, but there are some years where we start having rockets fired in from Gaza. And an amazing thing happens in this country: the moment we're attacked.
Everybody gets together. It's a very special thing. It doesn't matter if you're Chiloni or Charedi or Charedal or Dati Luumi. It doesn't matter what you are. When enemies are attacking us from the outside, Jews know how to get together. You would have assumed that in Mitzrayim, when the Egyptian taskmasters were mamish beating people to death, the Holocaust pales in comparison to what happened in Mitzrayim. The Holocaust was a six-year blip on the radar screen. Mitzrayim was hundreds of years. Imagine the Holocaust, but times hundreds of years, and the atrocities. If you look in the Midrashim, the atrocities that were happening in the times of Mitzrayim were enormous. Were enormous. So how could it be that in that state there was a Jew who could fight with another Jew? How could it be that in that state, when there's a Jew that stands up for other Jews and says, "I will not let you guys be abused," the response of a Jew is to say, "We're going to tell Paro what you did."
There was a total state of a lack of harmony, a lack of achdus in Klal Yisrael. The reason that Jews go to Galus and stay in Galus is because of our lack of achdus. And Moshe Rabbeinu realized in that moment that he had a problem. Because when it came to killing a Mitzri, Moshe Rabbeinu knew exactly what to do. But how do you create achdus? It's like It's like nothing bothers a parent more. Than when their kids are fighting You know this. It drives parents crazy. So when my girls are fighting, you know what I do? When I really get in, like really get upset, I'm like, "Will you girls just stop? " You ever, your parents ever snap at you and go,"Just stop fighting with your sister." You ever have that? If you have a sister, or a brother, you just stop, right? When a parent does that, what have they achieved?
They've achieved a state of obedience. Maybe they've stopped the fight. But have they really created love between those siblings? Of course not. Sometimes parents have this very clever move when they tell two kids, "Go in a room and don't come out until you've made up." You ever have that? I've done that. So I overhear sometimes. What do my kids do if I do that? Let's just stay in here for a bit. Let's not say anything. We'll come out in 20 minutes. We'll tell Abba that we worked it all out, and it'll be fine. But have they really achieved achdus? Have they achieved love? Of course not. Because we can't force people to love each other. So Moshe Rabbeinu is sitting there and he realizes, I'm stuck. If it was just a question of defeating the Mitzrayim on a physical level I have this incredible power. We could go out.
But the problem is I can't make Klal Yisrael love each other. I have no idea how to do that. So Moshe Rabbeinu ran away. Why did he run away? He ran away because he said, "I can't possibly save these people." But of course, Hashem had other plans for him. Hashem said, "In Midyan, where you run away, I'm going to teach you the secret of true Jewish leadership." The secret of true Jewish leadership can be found in Midyan. So we know the story. Moshe Rabbeinu shows up. They're attacking the Beno's Yisro. Moshe Rabbeinu saves them. He marries one of the daughters of Yisro. And then what's his job? What does he do next? Anybody know? He becomes a shepherd. Per chi? Per Yisro. Now I imagine that Yisro was a fairly wealthy person. He was a prominent priest in Midyan. He probably had a lot of sheep.
The Medrash tells us an amazing story. The Medrash tells us the day that Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Moshe Rabenu, 'Now you'll be the Mashiach of Klal Yisrael.' What happened on that day? Moshe Rabbeinu was tending to the flock. One imagines that it was a rather large flock. When he noticed that one of the kids—kid is a word for a little sheep—had disappeared. So Moshe Rabbeinu ran off and found him, and he found him by a stream. This little sheep, this little kid, was drinking. Moshe Rabbeinu said, "Oh, you are thirsty." And so the sheep drank what it needed to. Moshe Rabbeinu picked it up, cradled the sheep in its arms and returned it back to the flock. And on that day, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Now you can be the Mashiach of Klal Yisrael." " So the obvious question is, what was happening on that day? What were the things that Moshe Rabbeinu learned that now he would be able to lead Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim? How does one create true achdus? That was the question we asked, right? If it was a question of physical prowess, Moshe Rabbeinu was certainly strong enough.
But it wasn't a question of physical prowess. It was how do we create love? What did Moshe Rabenu learn by being a shepherd? And what was it specifically on that day that Moshe Rabenu did that showed Hakadosh Baruch Hu? Now you can be the Raya Mehemna. Now you can be the faithful shepherd of Klal Yisrael and lead them out of Gullus. And I'd like to share with you tonight In the coming couple of minutes that we have I'd like to share with you three things about this story that every Jewish leader needs to know. I'm sitting in a room of Jewish leaders and Jewish women who will be leaders in their communities and families. So listen carefully because this applies to every one of us. Rule number one: If you want to be a faithful shepherd, a raya mehemna to your family. You have to know that if you have Six children And five of your children are unbelievable.
Five of your children are learning in Brisk and in Mir and in the best yeshivas in the world. And five of your kids are in the best Beis Yaakovs in the world, and they're the frumest kids, and they're the biggest balechesed, and they're the most sneias. They're sneias. Nobody could even see them. That's how sneias they are. These are the most unbelievable kids. If five of your six kids are amazing And one kid is off the derech, As a parent, you must know. That it doesn't matter if you've done great with five You must do great with every single one of your children. Every single one of your children must know that they are of infinite value. And that no child should be left behind. Moshe Rabbeinu was sitting with a giant flock. He has all these sheep. One kid wanders off. Moshe Rabbeinu could have made the following argument. I think he would have been justified.
If I leave this flock of sheep. To go search for that one sheep that left. What's going to happen to all these sheep? So what does Moshe Rabbeinu say? Maybe you're right But I have to make sure that I give everything that I can to come back every night with every single one of these sheep. That's what it means to be a shepherd. To be a shepherd means you take responsibility, not for the group. There's no such thing as a group. A group is a myth. There are no groups. All there are people. When we talk about a group made up of people. So people say, "Be gadol," they're doing well. The group in general is doing well. That's very nice. But what about that one kid that's left? As a parent, we know, leave no child behind. As a parent, we get frustrated if the teacher says, "Look, I've got a class of thirty-two girls."
Baruch Hashem, twenty-eight of them are doing great. If you say that as a teacher. As a teacher, you're a failure. Because those four girls that aren't doing well, they're also your responsibility. You don't get to say we're doing great in general. Every one of those kids needs. We don't get to say as an Orthodox community; the Orthodox community is doing great. Look how many girls are in seminary for the year. Look how many boys are in yeshiva for the year. Look how these kids are growing. We don't get to say that. Because there are, and in this case, it's not one kid. There are hundreds of thousands and millions of kids out there getting no Jewish education. That don't have the same privileges as you And we don't get to close the wagons and circle the wagons and say, "But our community is doing great." Because what about the girls that aren't?
What about the girls that aren't? What about the boys that aren't? What about the boys that didn't get a yeshiv education? The ones that even NCSY doesn't know about to get to them. The head of West Coast NCSY told me there's 15,000 kids that he knows about. 15,000 is an astronomical number that he knows about in the West Coast that he could get to them with NCSY. He just doesn't have the money or the manpower. That means that as a community, we are failing. We're failing. Because yes, we've done an amazing job of building up our community, and in general, our community is doing awesome. But what about those fifteen thousand kids? How could we pat ourselves on the back and say we're doing awesome when one Jew has left? How could we do that? You understand the disease. So the first lesson that Moshe Rabbeinu learns is every single sheep matters.
And when he comes back to Mitzrayim, what does he need to communicate to the Jews in Mitzrayim? Don't be satisfied that you're doing well. Every one of us matters. And once a Jew has the consciousness that every single one of us matters, you know what a Jew starts to think? Says, "Okay I matter. You matter. Why do we all matter? Because we're together. We're not a group. Every one of us matters. That starts to build unity in Klal Yisrael. That starts to build Achdus in Klal Yisrael. That's lesson number one. Lesson number two. That little sheep. That little kid. Moshe Rabenu sees it by the river, and you know what he says? You were thirsty. You didn't leave because you were a bad sheep. You left because you were thirsty. There was something you desired, and you didn't find it where you were. People don't leave for no reason.
They rebel because something's not working. And kids in our yeshiva and Beis Yaakov system are leaving today, not because they're bad kids, but because they're thirsty. They're looking for a transcendent connection. And some kids are finding it And some kids aren't. And the kids that are leaving are not leaving because they're bad. They're leaving because why should I stay? There's something that I'm looking for, and you see these kids. That lo alenu are ending up in places where they're doing drugs and they're drinking and they're getting into all sorts of inappropriate relationships. And you might, on the outside, chas v'shalom, look at these kids and say, "Oh, those kids are bad kids. They're not bad kids. They're just looking for a connection." And even though it's inappropriate, we will experience some sort of fake connection when we involve ourselves in those things. They're poisonous and destructive things, and we shouldn't be involved in them.
But people who are involved in them are some of the most spiritual people you'll ever meet in your entire life. An addict is somebody who's so deeply spiritual that if he's not feeling a connection to Hashem, he's going to do anything he can to fill the God-sized hole in his life. So Moshe Rabbeinu sees a sheep that leaves and he says, "you were thirsty." I'm reminded of the story of Shlomo Freifeld, Zecharzadik Levracha. Have you girls heard of Freifeld? He was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Shaiyoshev. He was one of the biggest balekirav in America, and he loved every single Jew. When he was the Menahel of Chaim Berlin, when Chaim Berlin was in Farakway before he started Shoyashuv So there was a boy in the yeshiva that refused to cut his hair And he was growing his hair very long. And Refreyfeld could not convince him to cut his hair.
And years later Years later, Refreyfeld saw him. I think I'm getting the story right. Years later, Rofrjfeld saw him. And he saw him, and he and the boy had really grown their hair out, and it was like a certain look that he had. And Rofrjfeld realized That's what it was. The boy didn't want to wear a yarmulke, and Rofrjfeld said, 'You have to wear a yarmulke.' He didn't want to wear a yarmulke. And years later, when Rofrjfeld saw him, and he had this long, wavy hair, Rofrjfeld realized it wasn't about the yarmulke; it was about the hair. Sometimes when we're educators, we have to stop looking at the symptoms and start looking at the causes underneath. You can treat the symptom, but it doesn't really help. So you can say to a guy, stop smoking, and maybe he will. But did you really solve the problem? Because maybe he's still not feeling connected.
You have to ask yourself what's going on underneath the surface. We have to do a better job in our community of quenching the thirst of those who are leaving. They're not leaving because they're bad. They're saying, "I'm tired of davening the words of a sitter and feeling nothing." That's what they're saying. Girls, are they wrong for saying that? They're not wrong. They're right to say that. Why should they open up the sitter and say those words? I want to feel connected to Hashem, and if I don't feel connected to Hashem, I'm not opening the sitter anymore. They're not wrong for saying that. When they say, "I don't want to keep Shabbos" Are they bad? They're saying, why should I keep Shabbos if all Shabbos means is being bored and sleeping and being off of my technology? That's sometimes you ask girls, what do you like about Shabbos? They go, well, it's a good break from technology. Girls, I'm going to tell you a secret. Gayim also know how to turn off their phones.
You don't have to be Jewish to turn off your phone. Shabbos is about much more than just a break from technology. And for those of you right now that just looked at me puzzled, it's true. It's an off. There's an off button on the phone. People know how to press it. You could take a break from technology. Shabbos has to be more than just taking a break from technology. It has to be more than just getting a good shlof. It certainly has to be more than being bored. It has to be a feeling of connection. And when we have that feeling of connection, how gishmak is? I remember rabbi barry nathan, olav ashalom. He was the NCSY director in Long Island when I was growing up. And Rabbi Nathan. It was a classic NCSY Shabbos. I'm talking about classic NCSY Shabbos, NCSY Avdallah, and breakout sessions, and the davening was spirited, and there was dancing, and there was majrichim, there were advisors, and there were majrichot. It was also exciting as a kid. And there were all the girls that were there. It was a matziv. It was a matziv. And I remember Rabbi Nathan told us that he was talking to a high school principal, and the high school principal said, "I just can't get these kids to daven." And Rabbi Nathan looked at him and he said, "Really?
They daven when they come on the Shabbaton. Why were they davening when they came on the Shabbaton, and why were they not davening in their schools? Because they were looking for a davening that was alive. And they weren't finding it in their schools. They were finding it in NCSY. They're finding also other things in NCSY, if we're being honest. And maybe that's the reason some of us went on those Shabbatonim to begin with. I can't tell you that it was lishma. It certainly was not lishma. Some of my best Friday nights in high school were on those Long Island Densias Yisha Batonim, and not only because of the chaver that I was hanging out with. But because there were great advisors there, and I was feeling connected, and I could be open and be myself, and talk about the issues, and have a great time too. There was something very special about that. When you find a place where you can get your thirst quenched, then you don't want to leave anymore.
Which means that it's our responsibility to widen the roads. We need to make sure that our education system is not only for the best. And not only for the second to best, but it's also for those kids that have that holy chutzpah to demand more from their education, and they're right to demand more. We need to do a better job. Which means that probably in our school system today, we need to teach why we're doing what we're doing. And I know that we're getting better at it, but we need to do an even better job. And we need to continue to encourage these kids to ask the hard questions because we believe we have good answers. And we're not going to get to these kids if we don't give them the water they're searching for. They're going to find it one way or another. They're either going to find it within our community or they're going to find it outside of our community. The choice is up to us.
The last lesson that Moshe Rabbeinu learned And to create Achdus and Klal Yisrael. So far, we learned two lessons. Number one, every single Jew matters, no exceptions. Number two. We have to find a way to quench their thirst within our community. Because every one of them matters. So we got to keep them in the fold. These are the things Moshe Rabbeinu learned that he would bring back to Mitzrayim to teach how there could be true achdus. There was one last lesson that Moshe Rabbeinu learned And it's probably the most fundamental. If you want to bring the kid back to the flock Which is by the way where the sheep needs to be Because it's dangerous for a sheep to be on their own. They survive because they're part of the flock. A wandering sheep on its own is going to get eaten by a wolf.
But as long as they're part of the flock and the shepherd is tending to them, the shepherd is watching over those sheep. The kid needs to be back with the flock. But the way you bring a kid back to the flock is not intellectual; it's emotional. And rebbeim and teachers need to be smart enough to know what the covert issue is. There's an overt issue and a covert issue. Here's what it looks like. An overt issue is a girl comes to Sharfman's and she says to Rabbi Sharfman or to Rabbi Green or to Rabbi Fold or to any one of the amazing teachers that you have here And she says, "I don't know, maybe I don't believe in God." That's the overt representation of the problem. So sometimes the Rebbe will say, "Okay, great." You don't believe in God? Let's open up one of the Lawrence Kellman books. You have permission to believe, permission to receive. You have all these books today that have been written to answer all these questions.
That's the overt presentation and the overt answer. Sometimes rabbis and teachers get frustrated because they say a girl comes to me and she says, "I don't believe in God. I read through the entire Lawrence Kellman 'Permission to Believe' with you, and you still won't get up in the morning and daven, and you still won't keep Shabbos." Because that was only the overt presentation of the issue. There's a covert issue underneath. And you have to know what that covert issue is. Very often, the covert issue is not intellectual. I would say 99.9% of the time, it's not intellectual. It's emotional. And if you ask the girls, they'll tell you what's really bothering you. There's a rebbe in yeshiva, and I don't like this and I don't agree with this. But there's a rebbe in yeshiva that any time a guy comes to him and he says to him, 'I'm having a hashkafic issue. Could you answer the following question for me? I don't know if I believe in God.'
So the Rebbe has the same answer every time, and I don't like this answer. I'm telling you, I don't like this answer, but I understand where he's coming from. His answer, his response to the boys, is always, 'So what's her name?' Because the Rebbe is saying you don't have a hashkafic issue; you just need permission to do whatever you're going to do with this girl. So you're saying, "I don't know if I believe in God," because that gives you permission to go to the shul. I don't like that. I don't like it because if a kid's asking a question, we shouldn't respond like that. We should answer the question. But what the Rebbe is saying, which is true, is what's going on underneath the surface. What's driving this question? Where are you coming from? And I want to share with you where this is coming from. You know what most kids are feeling today? The kids that it doesn't work out for them in the system. Rejected. They're feeling abandoned.
They're feeling lonely. They're feeling less than. How many times over the years have girls and guys said to me It's just like I don't fit in. I just don't know where my place is. We had a boy in yeshiva. Came from a family that was not Orthodox, and he found out that he had Orthodox relatives here in Israel, and they were distant cousins, but somehow he found them, and they were in Har Nof. And he went for Shabbos, and he came back after Shabbos on fire. You know this family. He came back on fire. I said to him, "What was so great about Shabbos?" I got a family. I have people that are religious now. I have people that like Like they're where I am. It was such a good feeling for him. Because no matter how far he had come, and no matter how many accolades he had—he certainly had accolades—how many people kept saying to him, "You're amazing. You're the best."
But it doesn't help if you don't feel like you're part of a family. When he found the family, he was like I have a family. I'm part of something. When we test our guys in yeshiva In high schools, and the girls, when you get your test back and you get a fifty on your test That test is not grading you as a person. You know that, right? But how many of us feel that way? You get a fifty, you say, "I'm a fifty." I'm thirty. I'm twenty. I'm seven. You don't say. I know 50% of the material. A test grades a teacher. How successful were you at giving over the material? But today, it's become the best kids in school are the ones that can get 90s and above on their tests. That's not true. You know the famous joke. The A students are there to challenge the teachers. The B students are there to challenge the A students. The C students are there to pay tuition. But it's the D students that will ultimately pay for the endowment of the entire school.
Just because you don't do well in school doesn't mean you won't do well in life. A friend of mine in high school could not pass a test to save his life. I guarantee. I don't know how he passed. I don't know if he ever passed. I don't know how they gave him a diploma. There's no way that he passed enough tests to get a degree. And in my class, he is by far the wealthiest person in my entire class. Because school is not a measure of life. It doesn't measure how successful you are in life. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes it's the kid that gets 90s and above on all their tests that they become corporate, and maybe they make their five, six hundred thousand dollars a year. But that's actually not so much money. But it's the kid that's entrepreneurial in nature. It's the kid that starts that business and they can see it through. They have fortitude and grit and street smarts. They know how to speak to people and they have great relationships. Those kids are really successful sometimes.
But kids are walking around with that 50 on their test, and they're feeling like a piece of garbage. And they're not good at Gemara, and they feel terrible because they see the other kid is sitting and learning, and he's a big masmid. And maybe they see a girl. There's different types of girls. I know this. Some girls, they're daveners. Those girls I'm talking about hold the seder to their face. They like to shuffle back and forth like this for hours on end. There's some girls that are daveners. The girl that's next to that girl, she doesn't like davening necessarily. But in school, they look at the girl who's a real daver, the one whose makeup is smudged all over the sitter, and they say she's amazing. There's a veritable rainbow of colors on her sitter. She's an amazing daver. This one, whatever. Unfortunately, Nebuch, this kid's not a daver. This kid's also a great kid. She just hasn't found her way yet.
These kids need our emotional support, not our intellectual answers. They need us like Moshe Aben, who cradled that kid in his arms. He cradled that sheep in his arms and he brought him back to the flock. The way that we return people back to the flock is emotionally we raise them up. That's what it's going to require. That's the lesson that Moshe Rabbeinu needed to bring back to Klal Yisrael. If we want to be in a state of achdus, then we need to go out and find those kids that have left. We need to bring them in our arms. We need to put them on our shoulders, and we need to bring them back home. I'll tell you a true story. It's a very sad story, but it's a true story. Many, many years ago, it was a boy who ran away from home. It was a boy that was suffering terribly. And he didn't just run away from home. He ran far, far away from home. His family was on vacation in a different state, and one night he got on a train and he left, and nobody knew where he was.
There was a rumor that he had ended up back in New York. And my father came to me and he said, 'Do you know where?' I was older than this guy. This kid was a teenager. I was already post-Israel. And my father said, "Have you heard anything about where this kid might be?" And I said, 'I don't. I haven't heard any rumors, but I'm pretty sure I can make a phone call, and I know somebody who knows somebody.' And my father said, 'Well, if you're ever going to do it, this is the time to do it.' So I called up a friend of mine, a guy who is not necessarily the most observant person in the world And I said, "Hey" Is Plony in town? And the guy was hesitant to tell me. He says, "Why are you asking?" I say, "Look, he's a kid." He ran away from home. His parents are nervous.
Have you seen him? And this guy goes, 'Yeah, I've seen him.' I said, 'Where'd you see him?' And he told me where he saw him. And a group of the fathers got together. They got in a van. And they went to where this kid was. And they said, "Come" Come in the van. Your parents are nervous about you. It's hard. You're a 16 year old kid. You've run away from home. His family was on vacation. He came back home. His parents didn't know where he was. This is the pre-cell phone days. There was no tracking him. It was scary for the parents. So the boy got in the van. Some of his friends stood up and said, 'You don't have any right to tell him where to go.' The fathers were all in their 40s at the time. They said, 'What are you gonna do about it?' They put these kids back in their place and put the kid in the van.
And this kid, unfortunately, had a group of friends that were probably not the best influences on him. They were probably the kids that were very thirsty but searching for water elsewhere. There was a group of kids that this kid had grown up with. One of those kids was my brother. A group of four or five friends that were pretty wholesome kids. They were the kids that really fit the system. And they got all those kids together and that night they all spent the night together. And I remember thinking I was already post Israel. I remember thinking how special it was that they didn't just grab the kid in the van and hold him like in one of the houses overnight. They had a sleepover. They got his old friends back together and they said You belong here. You have a place here. And unfortunately, it didn't take.
The parents came back home, but the kid was. He had his issues. He was a very hurt person. He was suffering terribly. I don't blame him for any of it. The boy's father was part of a yeshiva. And yeshivas have perm shpils And perm shpils can hurt. And the boys in that yeshiva, they made a. There were older men who were. Learning for a very long time, and there were also guys in their twenties who had been learning for a short amount of time. The guys in their twenties decided to put together this Purim spiel, and they made a very bad decision. They decided in the Purim spiel to make fun of this boy. This young man who had gone off the derech. And the scene was that the boy's father was sitting in the beis medrash, and they had somebody dressed up as this boy with an earring and with certain type of hair.
And he peeks his head into the beis medrash and he goes, "Is my father here?" And he looks around and he doesn't see his father, and then he leaves the beis medrash. And I saw the father's face as they put that on in their Purim spiel. I saw the father's face. That here was a kid who came to the beis medrash looking for his father and he didn't see him and he left And it wasn't funny. And people laughed. And I cried because there was a kid who was coming to the base medesh looking for his father. I remember that this kid used to do that. He used to come and go. Is my dad here? And they would leave. He also wanted to be part of yeshiva. Was it a smart idea to make fun of him? And I don't know if he ever heard about that story. I have no idea.
But let's say chas v'shalom that he did. And unfortunately, the story doesn't have a good end, and it doesn't matter what the end is. I'm not going to share it with you. I don't want to make it any sadder than it already is. But we did not do a good job of cradling that young man and returning him to our community and telling him this is your place. We didn't do a good enough job of listening to him. We didn't do enough of a good enough job of hearing his experience and allowing him to tell us what it was like to be him. We didn't listen to his abandonment. We didn't listen to his rejection. We would have been better off for it because then our community could have become more expansive. Tell us why you're feeling rejected so we could stop doing it. We didn't do that. We didn't listen. Moshe Rabbeinu comes back to Klal Yisrael, and now he embodies these three things.
He comes back not as a warrior, but as a shepherd. Because it wasn't a warrior that Klal Yisrael needs to take us out of Egypt. It's a shepherd. A shepherd that says every Jew matters, and Jews who leave don't do so because they're bad, but because they're thirsty. And the only way to bring them back is to love them back into our community. And I imagine, as I'm speaking to you today, and I'm looking around the room, I imagine that some of you probably identify a little bit with that sheep. I imagine that there are those in this room that have not always felt like you were the creme de la creme The ones that the teachers were most proud of, the ones that were really celebrated in schools. I imagine there are at least some of you like that. And I'm hopeful that in your lives you've had people, teachers, rabbis, principals, camp counselors, madrichim, madrichot, advisors.
I'm hopeful that you've had people in your life that sought you out. And as you were leaving, they chased after you to say you're important. I'm hopeful you've had people in your life that looked beneath the surface to see not what's the overt presentation, but what's the covert issues, what's bothering you, how can we service you better, and I'm certainly hopeful that in your life you've had people that have loved you into being, that have cradled you in your arms, and returned you to the flock where it's safe and where it's good and where it's warm. Not just giving you cold, sterile, intellectual answers, but telling you that you are loved and that this is a great place to be. And if you haven't Just want you to know that's not your failure; that's ours. That means we haven't done a good enough job of letting you know how important you are. In bez Hashem, we'll get better at it. As a community, we're slow learners, but we're getting there. So teach us Teach us how to be better because we're really listening. Girls, have a good Shabbos.
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