Chapters
Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
My dear friend Avdani Fine His son Chaim Shaga Ben Eli Sheva Aviva is having surgery today. He has to shilu because Tishav is not a time where generally a person has surgery. It's not a good mazel. He has to shilu, and he was told since it was the only day they could do it, so he's having surgery today. So this shmuuz is dedicated to the rufu shalem of Chaim Shraga ben Eli Shav Avir. On Tishah B'av we ask a question The question of Eicha. Eicha means how. How did we arrive at this moment? Person needs to understand. There are two types of responses to the question of Echah. The first response is what we call theodicy. Trying to determine why Hashem does anything in this world. That is an answer that can only be given by a Navi. It's cruel. It's not appropriate. For anyone to say on any level why Hashem does anything
But on the other hand, we're called upon to ask the question of Eicha: How should we respond to this tragedy? We need to understand the origins of the tragedy. It's incumbent upon every one of us to look at the events. Of Tishah B'av, and to ask How did we arrive here? Not because Chassvah Shalom were trying to determine what Hakadosh Baruch Hu has in mind But because a growth-oriented person, by his very nature Is not looking for signs from Shamayim But observing the world and asking himself what needs to be different. Yimaysa, you hear this building? You hear the rattling? Somebody's building today. Somebody is doing construction. Must mean that they're already holding by Yimaysa Mashiach, building Mamish on Tishavuf. We shouldn't get distracted from the noises of the building. We should only think how excited this person must be to bring Mashiach. Far be it from any of us to talk about why anything happens. But because everyone here in NCSY Kol is a growth-oriented person.
Read the full transcript
We have to ask ourselves How did we arrive in this moment? R. Salavetchik famously was not—I don't want to say he was anti—but he was not pro the idea of Yom HaShoah. He didn't like the idea that there was a separate day of Holocaust Remembrance Day because he said we have a day. A day when we commemorate all Jewish tragedies. That day is Tishah B'av. And when a person looks at the events of the world, we have to understand that all of the tragedies that befall Klal Yisroel, all of the calamities that befall Klal Yisroel Are really an extension of the fact that we don't have the Beis Hamikdash. This year For us, Tishah B'av is exceptionally real. It's incumbent upon all of us to take a look at the events of October seventh and to ask ourselves, "How did we arrive at this moment?"
And you'll forgive me, I'm not Chas v'Shalom saying why anything happened But I think it's important for us to examine the messages that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sending to us. What message can we learn when thousands of rishayim arurim smash down the walls of our border like animals? They came across doing unspeakable acts. To call the acts of October seventh barbaric. Is to give barbarians a good name. Some of the most depraved things that a human being could do to another human being—things that one would never imagine a human being is capable of doing—happened on October seventh. There's not one person in this room who is remotely close, Shayach, on any level, to do any of the things that happened on October seventh. In your wildest dreams, you could never perform such despicable acts. Even if you had to attack someone for the sake of your own defense.
To do those things that happened on October seventh is unbelievable. It shocked us to our core. In some ways, it was more barbaric than the Nazis. They came across our walls. They came across our borders. What lesson? Can we say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu did it, but what lesson can we learn from this? And so, I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about the value and the challenge of walls and what it means to us today. We know that when Klal Yisrael entered Eretz Yisrael for the first time, when Yehoshua led Klal Yisrael into battle The walls of Yericho came tumbling down. Yericho means that when there's no walls, victory is assured. When the walls crumble It's already over. We live in a world where the notion of existing without borders is something that's like no borders. It's an amazing thing. And I'm not just speaking about American borders.
Speaking about the idea that a person speaks about, they say it's basketball without borders. It's doctors without borders. There is something very beautiful about the notion of having no borders, but that idea of no borders is also a very dangerous one. The entire world is created with borders and boundaries. All the way from the beginning of creation, there is a distinction between heaven and earth. There is a distinction between light and darkness. There is a distinction between the waters and the land. Everything has a distinction to it. Every week By havdalah, you say, "I'mavdul ben kodesh lechol, ben er lechoishek, ben yom hashvilah she'asiyamei hamasa." " There's a there's a hevdal, there's a difference, there's a border between a Jew and a gentile Between that which is holy and that which is mundane. The nature of this world is that we live in a world of borders.
The Beis Hamikdash is a place of borders. It's a place of boundaries. It was a field, and upon that field, there was a courtyard. And in that courtyard, there were rooms, and in those rooms, there were doors, and in those rooms, there were curtains. Everything in the Beis Hamikdash was separated. Certain avodas happened in certain places. The notion of borders and of boundaries is fundamental. Why? Because there's something called human dignity And human dignity exists. Only when there are borders and when there are boundaries. Don't say those things. It is what it is. Maybe when freedom speaks, it's still moving. Today, we live in a world and it's tragic, and most of us don't even realize it's happening. Where a person's entire life. Is broadcast out for everyone to see. That's not a normal human way of living. There's no dignity to that. There's no modesty to that.
Our lives are not meant to be broadcast. Thoughts can be private. Not everything in the world needs to be heard by everybody else. Not everything in the world should be seen by everybody else. We lose our essence when everybody has access to our deepest self. There's such a thing called shame. There's good shame and there's bad shame. Bad shame is I'm unworthy of love and connection because of my averas. That's bad shame. But we are called a nation of baishanim. But to be a baishan doesn't mean to think that Chas Shalom Hashem loves me any less because I made a mistake. But to be a baishan means to be a little bit embarrassed. To hold yourself back a little bit from being seen in the public eye. I remember years ago, the Shechter Shlita, the Rashi of Yitzchak Zvi Kolol, the Rashi of Yisheva Zerbeinu Yitzchak Chanan.
He gave a shmuus here in Kolol And he was talking. Somebody asked him something about getting an aliyah and being insulted that they didn't get an aliyah. I remember Shechter didn't know what to do with the question. You're insulted? It's embarrassing. He said to get an aliyah. Who wants to get up in front of everybody and make a bracha? This is not the way of Yidden to jump into the public spotlight and say, 'Look at me.' The loss is not small. A person thinks, "I'm just putting it out there. I'm putting it on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram." I'm just putting it out there. This is what I'm doing in my life. Everything is a WhatsApp status. Look where I am now. Look at this. Look at that. Not for the sake of bestowing something upon the world, but for the sake of self-aggrandizement, look at me.
There's a loss to that. The loss is that we lose our sense of dignity, our sense of majesty. Every single yid is a ben melech. But we are proud to have the pride of a yid means to be tsanua, to be modest. And there's a nachamina to this. It makes a difference. Because when a person chas v'shalom loses their sense of modesty And they lose their sense of dignity The price that we pay is conflict with each other. When we don't know how to build walls for ourselves, things should be private, things should be modest. The walls that we build instead are not healthy walls, not healthy borders. The walls that we build are walls of a fortress. Walls that are built of scarcity and fear Walls that are designed to protect ourselves, walls that are designed to keep us distant from each other. If a person has a deep sense of self Then he knows that just because somebody is knocking on the door doesn't mean that he needs to open that door.
But if a person has a deep sense of self, they're also not terrified to open the door. They don't need to build moats. They don't need to build walls so high that keep each other out. The root of sinas chinam is sinah of one's own self. We don't actually hate each other; we're terrified of our own selves. What will be if we actually let somebody into our lives? The reason why we haven't rectified sinas chinam after all these years is not because we're not an unbelievable nation of chesed. We are an unbelievable nation of chesed. There is nothing in the Jewish community that you can't find. If a person suffers from any tragedy We're right there for you. If a person in our community passes away, we could raise a million dollars within 24 hours. If a person doesn't have money for tuition, we have scholarship campaigns.
If a person has a special needs child, we have Oah. We have Hask. If a person Chassidisholim, when's the last time any Jew called 911? If Chassidisholim anything happens, we call Atzalah. We have multiple Atzalas. We have Atzalas fighting with each other about who's the real Atzalah. You break down on the side of the road. You have chaverim. You have mizaskim. What chesed don't we have? We could turn to the Rebbeinu Sholom and say, Rebbeinu Sholom, how could you not send Mashiach already? Is there a nation of chesed more than Klal Yisrael? Mika amcha Yisrael. But that's not what sinas chinah means. It's pasha. It's pasha that every single Jew will do anything for another Jew, but just because we'll do anything for another Jew doesn't mean that we actually love them. We built walls and we separated ourselves from each other. Who's from? Who's not from?
Who's zeicha to be and who's not zeicha to be? Who should be in our yeshivas and who should not be in our yeshivas? Who's yeshiva league and who's not yeshiva league? There are no words in the Torah called Orthodox Judaism. They don't exist. There's no word conservative. There's no word reformed. A chaver of mine showed me. I think it was on the UJA Federation website that they had Orthodox shuls and a whole list, Conservative shuls and a whole list, Reformed shuls and a whole list. And then they had non-denominational shuls, shuls that don't belong to conservative, reformed, or Orthodox. It was all Chabad shuls. Because the idea is, if you are a Yid, you come daven with us, and we're not paying attention to what you look like, or what you observe, or what you don't observe. That's the appropriate way. We build walls to keep each other out because we're terrified.
Not only are we terrified of each other, we're terrified of ourselves. Because if you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. Because we're so deeply Impacted by the trauma of the loss of our own dignity We don't know how to love each other. You see this all the time in marriages. People grow up; those who have a deep sense of self, those who are raised with a healthy attachment to their parents, to their community. To their siblings, to their cousins, to their grandparents. They grow up. They could be in healthy marriages. They have walls in those marriages. Homes are made of walls. But they're not living in fortresses distant from each other. A husband knows how to reach out to a wife. A wife knows how to reach out to a husband. Sometimes they go to their separate corners, but they always come back to each other. But if chas v'shalom, a person grows up in a situation where they don't have a healthy attachment to themselves, how could they have healthy interdependence? How could they exist in a marriage where they're deeply connected to each other?
I want to share with you a story. A beautiful story, a painful story, but a story of the Temach Tzedek. Temach Tzedek had a group of Hasidim. They were very wealthy. They were considered the elite of the Hasidim. And they came to the Temach Tzedek on Sunday. The Temach Tzedek would sit with people and be a chidus. And this group traveled to Labavitch. And they wanted to have the tzemach tzedek, say a mimer of chassidus. But they knew that the tzemach tzedek would be sitting with all the regular townsfolk all day, meeting with them individually. So this group came up with a plan. They went outside of the tzemach tzedek's room They started to sing the Alter Rebbe's niggun, knowing that the Tzemach Tzedek would come out. They started singing the Alter Rebbe's niggun, and the Tzemach Tzedek came out. And he smiled at them and said, "Chaver, welcome." What are you here for?
And they said, Rebbe, we're here to hear a mimer in chassidus. Say some chassidus to us. We want to learn something. We came all this way to learn something. But we want to hear it not with everybody else, not with the hamonim, not with the peasants, not with those unlearned Jews. We want you to say something very high. So we want you just to say it to us. Clear everybody else out. So Semach Tzedek said, Yes, let's clear everybody out. He instructed the gabbai to take everybody out, and everybody went home and was very disappointed. And the tzemach tzedek finally said to this chevre, he said, "Is everybody gone?" They turned around and they said, "Yes, all the locals are gone." He said, "Good, then I'm leaving too" Because I'm a local. And he went inside and closed the door on him. That was his mimer in chasidus that day.
We are locals; nobody's better than anybody else. There's such a thing as looking around. Shmiras enayim doesn't just mean don't look at inappropriate things. Shmiras enayim means how we look at other Jews. And you hear it out loud, and it's painful to the ears. Guys are saying it; they don't even mean to say it. They don't even know how embarrassing it is to say it. Guys talk about other kids in their class. Oh yeah, he's like He's this, he's that. Could you talk about another year that way? When guys are choosing yeshivas in Eretz Yisrael I'm this guy, not that guy. Ah We speak that way. How could we speak that way? It's a crazy thing to say. I want to go to an elite yeshiva. Good for you. Go to your elite yeshiva. I'd rather be with the locals. I'd rather be with the hamonam. I have a fight every year in Mevaseret with the Rosh Yeshiva Shlita.
I always tell him, Rebbe, please go sit on the Mizrah, go sit on the eastern wall of the Beis Hamadrich. And he won't do it. In the Beis Hamadrich, he sits in the front because that's where his sheir is, but he won't have an established seat. And in Davening, he sits in the middle of the shul. I said, Rebbe, you're the Rosh Yeshiva. And he looks at me and he says, Every year B'toych amcha ani yishves. I sit with the people. To sit with the people means that you are mine and I am yours and we are together. That's the right way to lead. A leader doesn't lead from the front. The leader leads from the middle. He says, "I'm one of you. Let's go together." But we're so terrified. If Chassid Sholem, my kid, is going to be next to that kid, what's going to happen?
We're so terrified. If I'll be in that shear or if I'll be friends with that kid, and it wasn't always this way. It wasn't always this way. When I was expelled from Haftar in fifth grade. Rebbe Bender Shlitah took me into Yeshiva Darke Torah. Today it would be a cause for whispering. Did you hear they took a kid from after? Back then it wasn't that way at all. They took me in, even though I had a different Ashkafa than the yeshiva did. My family came from a very different place. And nobody was worried. Berg's going to have a negative influence on the other kids. They were saying maybe the other kids will have a positive influence on Berg. And the truth of the matter is, it did go both ways, because I had more exposure to things and I did share certain things with my classmates.
But I don't think any of my classmates went off the derech because of the things that I told them. But I'll tell you this: if I'm sitting here today in NCSY Kollel on Tishah B'av and talking to you, it's not in my own schuz; it's because of the chaverim that I had in those years and the rebayim that I had in those years. People that took me into their homes, even though I had a different ashkafa My home didn't look like their home. They showed me what it meant to be a bentaira. It's a fascinating thing what happens when you don't live in fear. I had the opportunity to go to Chicago not that long ago for a chasna for a guy who I met here in NCSY Kolah. And in the airport, I ran into a man whose name is Sunny Gutkind. Sunny Gutkind, who lives in Farakwe.
And I know Sonny and Rivka Gutkin for a very long time. They grew up several blocks away from me, or I grew up several blocks away from them. They're much older than me. I went to school with their daughter when we were in fifth grade. I was talking to Sonny Gutkind. I said, "How long have you been a part of Shoyashiv?" He said, "I've been a part of Shoyashiv from the beginning. The Roshlomo Freifeld biography is one of the most powerful books I've read in my entire life. It's a shulchan aruch in chinuch. So I said to Sunny, "You must have amazing stories of Rofrifeld" The founding rishiva of Shaiyashiv. He said, "I do." "Could you tell me the secret? Tell me the secret of Rofrifeld. I want to know what made him such an unbelievable machanich that everybody came out of Shaiyashiv so passionate about their yiddishkeit.
So Sunny, without beating an eye. He said, "Refrayfeld had an ayin tova for every single Jew. He saw every single Jew positively. I wasn't so impressed. I'll be honest with you. I read that in the book. In the book, it talks about how he had such an ayin tova. So I was pressing Sonny, and I drove him actually from the airport to the chassan. So I had time with him in the car, pressing him. Tell me more. Tell me more. And then he said something, and it seemed to be at first glance very simple. And I realized it was the key to everything. He said, "Rafryfeld, when he opened up the yeshiva in Farakwe" He sent the bachrim out to eat their meals on Shabbos by families. I said to Soni, "Why was that such a big deal?" He said, "Because those families didn't necessarily share the same hashkafa as Rafryfeld.
Could you imagine a yeshiva that says on Shabbos, Bachrim, go out, go eat in families' homes? He wanted them to see what families look like. Go eat in families' homes. Today they'd be ayvei, but what if that family doesn't have the same hachshar? Or what if that family is going to say tzvartor at the Shabbos table? That's going to be a little bit different. Zuny said the godless of Rofrivel is that he had no fear. He wasn't afraid for us to hear other ideas. And because he wasn't afraid for us, we weren't afraid for ourselves, and that's why we grew so much. I said that's the key. The key is that Rofrivel lived with no fear. And he communicated that to his talmidim. Maybe because he had no fear, he had an eye in Tova. Refreyfeld also had walls, big walls But walls that had doors, walls that invited other people in, not walls that kept each other out.
We walk around today, all the chesed in the world, but we walk around with pride about the elitism in the Jewish community. Look how many people we didn't accept into our yeshiva. Look how many people we didn't accept into our seminary. This is the way a family behaves. There are different rooms in a home, but there's a dining room, and everybody sits together. Rishaga Feivel Mendel Lavish, the Chatsavik of Ralch, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Tarvadas The architect of education, an American Jewry, a very broad man. They asked Rishaga Feivel how it could be in Tarvadas that they had Hasidish Rebbeim and Litvish Rebbeim. And they had Hasidish shatayr and Litvish shatayr. In Europe, they never had that. What right do you have to make such an innovation? An innovation that's become commonplace in our community today. You can't find the yeshiva that doesn't have a mix of both.
So Roshagaf Ivel answered with a mashal. He said, "Imagine there's a father-in-law and he has two daughters. Used to be that when a person married off their daughter, they would eat in the father-in-law's home." That's how he would support them. So the oldest son-in-law he preferred Fleishik's, and the younger son-in-law he preferred Milchik's. So what would they do? The father-in-law was a wealthy man. He would sit at the table in the middle, and there was a table on the right, and there was a Fleishik table, and there was a table on the left, and that was a Milchik table. But one day the father-in-law fell on hard times And he said to his two son-in-laws "He said it's no problem. I can still feed you." But I can no longer afford to have a Fleishik's table and a Milchik's table. On one day we'll eat Fleishik's, on the next day we'll eat Milchik's, and we'll go back and forth. But I can't afford to keep separating it like this. It's just too much.
No problem. So what happened? On the first day The son-in-law came in and he sat at his table. The other son-in-law came in and he sat at his table. And the father-in-law looked at them and he said, "What are you doing?" And they said, "Tati, these are our seats." And he said, as long as you are having fleishes and as long as you are having milchiks, it makes sense that we sit at two separate tables. But if we're all eating the same food, we should sit at the same table. Says Rosh Hashanah, yes, in Europe there were gadolay chasidus and there were gadolay rashi yeshiva, and they learned different things and they sat at different tables. But here in America, he said, we're impoverished people. So we have to draw from the well springs of all of the Torah of Klal Yisrael. We may as well sit at the same table. I found out a couple of weeks ago that there's a public school. I won't say which neighborhood. I don't want to say anything negative.
But there's a public school in an area that's heavily Orthodox. One of the Yeshiva League communities. There was a boy who I met a couple of weeks ago. He's a great kid. He's a great kid. And he went to this public school. And he comes from an Orthodox Jewish family, and he decided, for whatever reason, to go to this public school. I'm embarrassed what I'm about to tell you. I'm embarrassed. He went to this public school. I asked him how many Jews are in this public school. He said, in my grade alone, there's seventy Jews. I said Seventy Jews in your public school? He says seventy Jews. I said, what are we doing for these seventy Jews? What are we doing? There's yeshivas. I kid you not. There's got to be in the neighborhood that this public school is in. There has to be. I'm guessing. I'm guessing now. Thousands. It's got to be thousands. It might be tens of thousands. There's got to be thousands of high school kids, high school yeshiva league kids, just like yourself.
That are literally around that public school. And what programs have we made for them? Happens to be. That I was on the phone with a rab from the community last week Called me to hack about something else And I said, "Did you know that in your neighborhood there's 70 kids in the junior class that are Jewish kids?" We have to set them up. We have to create a program. Let them go learn Thursday nights in this yeshiva. Somebody will sponsor barbecue. We'll make a ball. We'll make it awesome for these kids. And both kids will benefit from it. The kids who are in the public school will learn Torah. The kids who are in the yeshiva league, they'll be able to teach Torah, and that will embolden them as well, and it'll give them dignity back as well. It broke my heart. What this Rav said to me
He said, "You should know. I inquired about this with one of the rabbanim of the community, and I'm confident that this Rav is lying because if he's not lying, the answer is heartbreaking." He said, "I inquired with a major rab in the community, and he said, 'We're not creating a program like this because we'll allow kids to go to public school because parents are going to say, you see that my kid could go to public school and he could come learn Thursday nights in TABC or in MTA or in DRS or whatever it is." "I said, 'That cannot possibly be true.' I was so hurt by his answer. I said, 'That cannot possibly be true.' Are we so afraid to reach out to another yid? Because of the impact on our children That cannot possibly be true. Those are fortresses. That's a fortress, or the moat, and the moat is filled with alligators.
Rabbi, say it's you're going to be the ones that have to do this because it's not going to come from the leadership. I see already if that rabbi is telling the truth and I'm sure he's not because there's no way that any self-respecting rabbi would ever say anything like that. But if the leadership won't do it, then it has to come from you. You have to be the leaders. You have to be the one to tear down the walls that our community built. To reach out to other Jews and think creatively. Don't just reach out to kids in your class. Don't just reach out to other guys in Encyclo. Look around. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Who, in a moment somehow of I don't even think it was just I don't think it was Ruch Hakodesh or divine inspiration or anything. Just a moment of kindness.
He saw my mother on Shabbos, and he saw that she felt awkward because she wasn't dressed so Shabbosic. He walked over to her and said to her, "Good Shabbos." My mother was so inspired that somebody like the Lubavitcher Rebbe would take time to just look at her. And to make her feel comfortable. Today, people might look the other way at a girl who wasn't dressed so tznius. But the tzaddik knows how to go over to that girl and say, "Good Shabbos." I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for organizations like NCSY. My mother was also involved in NCSY. YU had this thing called a seminar, which was also like a type of NCSY. That's where my father became from. And I want you to know that those kids that were madrichim on seminar back in the day They became the leaders of Klal Yisrael. It's an amazing thing.
I won't say all of their names, but many of the leaders today in Klal Yisrael were madrichim on seminar. My father jokes around about this rub and that rub. He goes, "Yeah. He was my madrich." He was my advisor. Today we're too frum to be advisors. Today the shmuzes. How much Torah did you learn? Not how much Torah did you share. I don't know. I went to Darchei for four years. And all the years that I was there, I heard shmuzin from Rabbi Bender every single Friday, and I don't know that I can recall any shmuz that he gave about Limerat Torah. But I can tell you that every shmuz that I heard from him was about Beinavim Lachaveru. And did you learn with somebody who was weaker than you? That comes from a place of dignity. That comes from people who have a deep sense of self.
Look at what was happening in Eretz Yisrael before October seventh. We were on the verge of civil war. Judicial reform was a major fight. People were saying Nachareidim. People were saying, "I don't know if I'm going to go to the army anymore." I don't know if I'm going to go to the army. I don't want to participate in this. We built massive walls between each other last summer. I had the opportunity to speak on the TJJ off Shabbos. Which was in Yerim, maybe twenty-five minutes from my house And it took me an hour and a half to get there because the protests on Kfishechad were massive. Is it surprising to any of us that as we built up our walls As we separated Charedim from Dati Lumi from Mizrahnikim? Mizrachnachim from Chardal, Chardal from Chiloni Isn't surprising to any of us that as we built these walls of fear That our enemies overtook our walls.
If we don't build healthy walls, the walls will come crumbling down. Tishah B'av is not just a time of mourning; mourning is a type of healing. When we mourn, we come in contact with the essence. We come in contact with the godliness that resides within each and every one of us. If we'll really grieve for our own lost self Then perhaps we won't just create chesed organizations where we service each other. Perhaps we'll finally get to the level where we don't look at each other as other. We're not other. There will come a time where a yid will walk into a hospital, and there'll be a beker cholim, and there'll be samur chasidim that filled up that beker cholim, and you'll say it wasn't a samur chasid that made that beker cholim. You'll say it was a Jew. It was my brother. It was my sister.
They might be a samur chasid, but that Jew is me. I have to learn echah kamocha. I love him because I love myself. I'm deeply in touch with myself, so I'm deeply in touch with that Jew. Instead of looking at that samur chassid and saying where don't we agree Where don't we agree will become irrelevant. Healthy people can disagree. Siblings don't need to be alike; they just need to love each other. My mother always says that the thing she's most proud of in her family is that every single one of her children are different. But we love each other very much. My brothers and I were not like each other on any level—not in personality, not in hashkafa. But in Yiddishkeit and our love for every single Jew. That's what my mother taught us. That's what my father taught us. I don't know when the system became like this.
I don't know when we became so afraid, but I know this: it's yours to solve. It's yours to solve. People like me can't solve it anymore. We did what we could. We tried our best. We told the community, "Please stop. This is a bad idea." A couple years ago, I accepted two boys into yeshiva. It's a true story. Two boys into yeshiva. They were good boys. They didn't do so well in high school. They were good boys, and they had started to turn it around in twelfth grade. And I believed in these boys. I met them. I said, "I think you know they'd be good." And their high school told me, "I think they'd be good." These boys were accepted into yeshiva, and there's a Google Doc. For those of you that don't know, you'll learn about the Google Doc. Google Doc should be destroyed.
Google Doc, where everybody signs up, what yeshiva you go to, and everybody's looking to see who goes to what yeshiva. These two boys were so excited to come to yeshiva, they were the first guys on the Google Doc. And I got a phone call from a principal in one of our yeshivas. He said, "I just want you to know that because these two boys are coming, you now have ten boys who are literally taking interviews now." Interview season was over. They said, "They're taking interviews now for other yeshivas." "What are you talking about? What are you talking about? He said, "Yeah, they're taking interviews for other yeshivas." I said, "Why?" He said, 'Because these boys, they have a reputation. They're known as not such good boys. The other boys, the ten boys from my high school, they thought that.' Your yeshiva was a certain type of yeshiva.
So I said, "Well, can you speak to them?" Can you tell them that's crazy? Can you tell them that's nuts? He said, "What do you want me to do? These boys have a bad reputation. Their parents don't want them going with those boys. They don't want to be with those boys." I said, "There's 120 boys in yeshiva." Two boys Two boys. These boys, honestly, I think they're going to be good boys. Two boys, and you running for the hills? He said, 'What do you want me to do?' I couldn't get any help from him. I couldn't get any help from a leader in the community. I did. I called one of the Mivaser alumni who's from that neighborhood. I said, "Do me a favor." You speak to the kids. You speak to the parents. You tell them that when you come to yeshiva, there'll be a lot of different types of kids, and that's a beautiful thing.
Baruch Hashem, come out! All those kids came to yeshiva, and not one of them was impacted negatively by those two boys. But I want to tell you, those two boys definitely impacted the yeshiva positively. Those two boys went through their own struggles that year, but Baruch Hashem, they stayed, and they were in an environment that cared about them, in an environment that loved them, and not in an environment that made them feel like less than or pogum in any way. We can't turn to the rabbis to solve problems, guys. You see what happened in the story of Kamtse and Bar Kamtse? The rabbis were silent. They were silent the entire time. It's got to be from the people. The Toich Am Chan Yeshivas. I'm sitting with you. You guys have to be the leaders now. You have to stop looking at each other and go. And your parents go. But you're really going to go to yeshiva with that guy? You go. Because that's the yeshiva that's right for me.
And that guy next to me. And maybe it's the yeshiva that's right for him too. And Beis Hashem will stay together. We have to destroy this elitism. These types of walls are deeply unhealthy. Beis Hashem. We'll be zeihe to rebuild the walls of Yerushalayim Yerakodesh, the walls of the Beis Hamikdash, the walls of the Kodesh Hakodashim. There'll be healthy separation and healthy boundaries, the boundaries that preserve our dignity, not Chasvah Shalom boundaries that destroy the dignity of others.
Is this shiur filed in the wrong place? Let us know.