Yom Kippur - No Jew Left Behind: The Yom Kippur that Ronnie Greenwald z"l Spent in the Lobby

1:37 There to be mechazik the program. The man was walking charisma. He was walking. He was really an electric personality. They go to the hotel. And they're at the hotel, and they're about to go into Sudama Stekes, and a group of ten Hasidic kids who were specifically going to the hotel to not have Yom Kippur showed up at the hotel. These were kids who were not observant Jews anymore, and they were literally needing a place to be from Yom Kippur away from their families. They rented a hotel. And they were going to be at the hotel specifically to get away from being with Jews over Yom Kippur. Could you imagine their disappointment when they showed up and there's literally like a Kier of organization running an event in the hotel on Yom Kippur? What were the chances? Ten kids, seven boys and three girls. They showed up. They took one look around and they said, "Oh, this has to be a joke." They went to the front desk and they started arguing with the clerk at the front desk. Can we please get our money back?

2:38 Like this, like we did not mean to be with a group of Jews for Yom Kippur. The clerk said to them, and rightfully so, he's like, "You can't just cancel your reservation at the very last minute. You rented the room, this is what it is." They were feeling very stuck. Rabbi Portnoy saw what was going on, so Rabbi Portnoy went over to them and he said, "Listen We're not going to bother you. I promise you, we're not going to bother you. This is the Jewish Heritage Center. It's a Kehr organization. You could be here. You could do your own thing. You're invited to be part of us, whatever you want, but you don't have to. So you want to come to Sudama Sake? You're welcome to, but you don't have to. You want to come to any part of davening? You're welcome to, you don't have to. You want to come to breakfast? You're welcome to, you don't have to. And the kids are like, 'All right, what are we going to do? We're stuck. We already rented the hotel room. We're not going to take the loss. We're not going to go somewhere else.' The rabbi is telling us that he's going to leave us alone. What can we do?

3:24 So we decided to stay in the hotel for Yom Kippur. Comes Yom Kippur morning, these kids come downstairs, and who's in the hotel lobby? Ronnie Greenwald. Good morning, guys. How are you doing? And he starts to schmooze with them. No judgment, just pure where you're from, what's going on in your life. They were headed to the pool. And so he was there talking to them. They said, "we're going to go to the pool." He goes, "guys, have a great time." He stayed in the lobby. They went to the pool. They're sitting by the pool. They're drinking their beers. They're chilling out. Ronnie Greenwald did not walk into Yom Kippur davening that year. He stayed in the lobby the entire time and he davened the achidus. He davened in the hotel. He didn't walk into the shul. He davened. But he was there in the lobby. The kids come out of the pool. They're coming out with their beers. There's Ronnie Greenwald in the lobby, waiting to schmooze them up.

4:13 And they sit there and they're chilling out with him and they're having a great time. Then they went to their rooms. They came back down again. They're hanging out with Ronnie the entire time. By the end, a couple of the kids decided to go in for Neilah. At the end of that Yom Kippur, Ronnie Greenwald said to Rabbi Pornoy, he said, we really need to open up a division for these kids who are coming from these Hasidic families who have kids who are going off the derech. These kids were invited back. They felt very safe. They came back the next time, not with 10, but with 25. They came back again by Chanukah, had even more kids. The Jewish Heritage Center opened up a program for kids who were from Hasidic background who needed a special type of kiruv. It was born because Ronnie Greenwald did not go in to daven on Yom Kippur with everybody else, but he stayed in the hotel lobby to schmooze with those kids.

5:00 My question for you is, and I don't want you to answer this. I'm going to try to answer it together with you. My question is: Did Ronnie Greenwald do the right thing? Did he do the right thing? Did he stay in the lobby? Was that in the spirit of Yom Kippur? Or was it actually what Yom Kippur is about? Girls, most people don't know this because they don't pay attention to it. What's the very first words that we say on Yom Kippur? What would you say? What's the first davening on Yom Kippur? There's a line that we say right before Kol Nidrei And I say it's the first line because most of us say Kol Nidrei. That's the beginning of Yom Kippur. The first words that we say on Yom Kippur are "Be Yeshiva Shalmaila," "Ube Yeshiva Shal Mata," in the Yeshiva upstairs and in the Yeshiva downstairs. "Al Das HaMakom" with the consent of Hashem, "VaAl Das HaKol" and with the consent of the entire community. Anumatirim lehispalel im avaryanam. We give ourselves permission to daven with those people that do averus.

6:04 Why is that the first line of Yom Kippur? That's the first line of Yom Kippur. The first line of Yom Kippur is I'm giving myself permission to daven with people that do averus. If you remember, anything you do in the beginning that tells you what something is ultimately going to become. The beginning of something is very precious, like a child when they're first born. All that DNA, right? All those just—it's just a clump of cells, but it has the capacity to become a full person. Whatever you say in the very beginning of something, that's ultimately what it becomes. The first words that we say on Yom Kippur is we give ourselves permission to daven with people that are sinners. Why is that the first thing that we say on Yom Kippur? I want to tell you the truth, it's a Gemara. The Gemara says, "Kol Tainus she'en ba miposha Yisrael." Any tainus that doesn't include sinners Ain't a tainus. It's not an actual fast. Girls, you know what that means? That means that a Jew could come to Yom Kippur, they could fast the entire day, and not a drop will pass their lips.

7:04 They could daven like with unbelievable kabbana. They could shackle like their mamish having a seizure. The whole nine yards. I know how you girls daven. I've seen this show before. I don't really understand it. Be honest with you. I don't understand the holding the elbow. It's just it hurts your hand. It's so comfortable. What do you mean? My hands are just. I'm like one of those things outside the car wash the entire time. For me, I dive and it's like a workout. It's a Jewish arava. I know every word by heart. You put your stender. You have whatever you hold it. It's part of the problem. Women's liberation movement. We need to have stenders for the girls in Toma Devora. Girls, you could have all the kavannah in the world in davening on Yom Kippur. Not a drop of food could pass your lips. You could come to a kodesh baruch hu and you could say, "Forgive me for all of my sins." The Gemara says You didn't even have a fast.

8:11 If you didn't include members of the community that are struggling in their Judaism That's what it means to come before our Kadosh Baruch Hu. It's the Navi Yeshayahu tells us this. The Navi Yeshayahu tells us that Klal Yisrael came and they said, 'How come our Kadosh Baruch Hu is not paying attention to our sins?' Hashem said, 'Umi besarcha lo t'salim' Because you ignored the people next to you. You ignored your own neighbors. You ignored your own friends. The Lubavitcher Rebbe gives the most powerful mussar in the entire world. Girls, when did galus begin? Galus began when Yosef HaTzaddik was thrown into the pit. That was the beginning of the exile into Mitzrayim. Where was Reuven? Where was Reuven? Where was Reuven? Reuven was doing tshuva for an avera that he had done over 20 years before. What was the avera that Reuven had done? He switched the beds. That was a long time ago, and his brother was in a pit. And he was doing tshuva for the aver that he did a long time ago. You know what the Lubavitcher Rebbe said?

9:10 Gullus begins when one Jew cares more about his own frumkeit than he does about a Jew who's languishing in the pit. There's a famous mashal. I like this mashal very much. It's a famous mashal about a father who is making his final son's wedding. He has six sons, and he's making his final son's wedding. He says to his other five sons, "For this wedding, I want you guys to go all out. I want you to buy new suits, new hats, new ties, new belts, new shoes, new dresses, new shetles. Buy everything. Just keep the receipts. I'll pay you back for every single thing." Buy everything. I'll pay you back for every single thing. Four of the brothers had money. One of the brothers he didn't. So the four brothers go out and they bought it all: new hats, new suits, new ties, the whole nine yards, shirts, shetles, everything. They kept amazing receipts. They came to the wedding. They were decked out. But the fifth son, the one who didn't have so much, he couldn't afford to lay out the money. So he came in his regular suit. He didn't look bad, but it wasn't new. He came in his hat. It wasn't bad looking, but it wasn't new. His wife came in her old shaytul. Wasn't bad, but it wasn't new. Their daughters came in their old dresses or maybe rented gowns. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't new.

10:25 At the end of the wedding, the four brothers come to their tati and they say, "Tati, here's the receipts." They were mamish like accountants, and they showed every single thing. And the father sits there and he's looking at all their receipts. And they put it down in front of him, and it's tens of thousands of dollars. And he looks at them You think I'm paying you for this? And the brothers go, 'Abba, what are you talking about? You said you were going to pay us back.' He said, "You see that kid right there?" And he pointed to the fifth son. He said, "That's my son. That I know for sure. That's my son." If you were his brothers, you'd be my son. If you were his brothers, you would have been sensitive enough to look at your brother and go, 'We have money to lay out, but what's our brother going to do? He doesn't have money to lay out.' You guys would have come to him and you would have laid out the money. You would have said, 'Don't worry, Abba's going to pay us back. Here's ten thousand dollars. Go get what you need.' But you didn't care about your brother.

11:11 He's my son. If he was your brother, you'd be my sons too. I said I'm paying my sons back for everything, but you guys didn't behave like my sons. We come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu on Yom Kippur and we say, "Forgive us." And Hashem says, "Absolutely, I'll forgive you." I'll forgive you if you're my children. What does the Rivkaiva say? Amar Rivkaiva lifnei mi'atam etar u'mi'etar eshem avichem Shabbat Shamayim. Who purifies you on Yom Kippur? It's the fact that Hashem is your father. How do you know if Hashem is your father? It's very simple. How do you treat his kids? The frumest thing in the world is to take care of another Jew. But unfortunately, sometimes nobody's fault. We're all hurt people. I'm not blaming anybody. But sometimes in our community today, we have a feeling of I'm holier than thou. I'm better. I'm frumer. And we're going to close our arms real tight, and we're going to lock arms, and we're not going to let anybody in. And we say that it's because of frumkeit.

12:08 We have to keep the walls high, and we have to keep each other tight. Because if we let somebody in, then chas v'shalom, you don't understand. They're going to destroy the whole community. That's Hashem's kid. What do you think Hashem wants from you? That's Hashem's kid. I'll tell you a story. When I was learning in Kailo, I got a job offer to be a rebbe in DRS. And at the time, it was very hard to get a job as a rebbe in DRS. DRS was still just becoming a building up the yeshiva. Rabbi Kaminetsky invited me to come be a part of the staff. And I was really thinking about it. I had been in Kyiv for three years, and I wasn't sure. So I called my rebbe. My rebbe is one of my rebbeim. He's an amazing tzaddik today. He lives down the block. You girls know the shul or the yeshiva of Zucker down the block. He's very big tzaddik of Zuckerman. I called Rav Zuckerman and I said, "Rabbi, what do you think? Should I leave Kail and take this job, or should I continue sitting and learning?" Rav Zuckerman said to me, "Take the job."

13:04 "Rabbi, what's going to be with my learning? Rav Zuckerman looked at me like I was insane, and he said to me, "Mordechai What do you think? Imagine the king has a son, and the king's son needs a tutor. So you go ahead and you say to the king, 'I'm going to tutor your son.' But you don't work out the salary. But you assume that the king, who's exceptionally wealthy, will say to you, 'Listen, we haven't discussed salary, but I see how you care about my son. Don't worry, I'm going to take care of you.' Rav Zuckerman said, 'You think you're learning in Kailah right now is amazing. Wait until you start teaching. You're going to see unbelievable siyata d'shemayah. Your learning is going to get so much better because you're taking care of the king's children. You're actually giving back.' Now the truth is, I didn't end up taking that job. But for a totally different reason. I ended up staying three more years in Kailah.

13:50 After that, I started teaching. We moved to Eretz Yisrael, and I came to Mevaseret. Girls, I want to tell you, I spent six years learning in Kollel, some of the best years of my life. I would never, in a million years, give it up—not in a million years. I want to tell you something. That seventh year, when I started teaching, I saw the most unbelievable thing. My learning, because I had to give it over to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's children, Rav Zuckerman was a hundred percent right. Unbelievable siyata d'shemaya. A person who's giving to others, you see how Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives them bracha in their life. The job of a Jew is, if you want to be purified before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, to ask yourself a very simple question: Where's your chesed? What are you doing to help somebody else? You might say to me, "I'm in seminary. What do you want me to do?" Girls, there's chesed around the corner at every single opportunity. My yeshiva's a chetzalek of racham. His name was Rav Abba Bronshpigal. Rav Bronshpigal was an amazing, amazing person. He was a Holocaust survivor, and he was a tremendous tamu chacham. And I had the schuz of being in his yeshiva for eight years. Rav Brunschvig gave the same mussar. Rav Arzi, you know Rav Brunschvig? Rav Brunschvig was a special person. Rav Brunschvig used to give the same mussar every single week in yeshiva.

14:58 He said the same thing, almost to the point where it was like we know what Rebbe is going to say, but he said it and we loved it. He had a European accent. He was a Holocaust survivor. He would say, 'Boys, you have to say good morning.' He said, 'Say good morning to every guy in yeshiva. Say good morning.' He said, and you'll say it to me like I'm just gonna walk around, go good morning. He goes, here's a tip, mean it. And I'll tell you something, it works. If you wake up in the morning, you have an opportunity to do chesed. You know what your opportunity is? There's a girl in the seminary. You walk by her in the hall. You wish her a good morning. Watch people's faces when you give them a legitimate good morning. It's an unbelievable thing. You wish somebody a good morning. I would also need a drink.

15:45 Everybody It's my opportunity to do chesed. I don't need all this water. I'm not a camel. The parrot, l'chaim. The you wish someone good morning. You watch their face light up. You know what good morning means? Good morning means you're a person of value. Good morning is an unbelievable gift. There was a minig in Klal Yisrael. It used to be that if you wish someone a gutmargin, they would wish you back a gutyar. Have a good year. You say good morning. They say have a good year. Sir Shlomo Freifeld, Zecharia of Vrachu, was the founding Rashiva of Shiyashiv. He said, "For a good margin, you get a good year. Just for wishing someone a good morning, you get a good year back." You know what he said? Because the gift of seeing somebody in the morning and saying good morning with a smile on your face, telling them they matter, it's worth an entire year. Chesed is there at every opportunity, and people like, "No, we have to do Chesed programming. Chesed programming is not Chesed. That's a type of Chesed." A yid who lives with chesed sees chesed at every single opportunity.

16:42 Your roommate's having a hard time. Put your arm around their shoulder. Stop fighting about the temperature in the dorms. It just doesn't matter. Don't make fights about silly things. You have an opportunity this year to learn to be a balas chesed, and that's something that's the defining feature of all of Judaism. Olam chesed yivana. Kol D'Shmaru creates a world of chesed. Hashem says, "I want you to be like Me in order to connect to Me. What do you need to do? It's very simple. Chesed is everything." Now I'm going to tell you a story, girls. Sure. I was thrown out of school in fifth grade. The school that I was thrown out of was a coed school. I don't know if you know this, but when you get thrown out of school, they don't jump to be like, "Oh yes, he's a free agent. Let's take him."

17:38 In my neighborhood at the time, there were only a couple of schools. I grew up in the five towns. Today, Baruch Hashem, there's a lot of schools. Back then, there weren't so many schools. I was thrown out of a coed modern Orthodox school. There were two schools in the neighborhood that were willing to take me in. A yeshiva called South Shore, where Avchana Hertzberg, Zeicher Sadik LeBracha, was the rasha shiva of South Shore, Rabbi Menal of South Shore. Rabbi Hertzberg was a Talmuder of Shlomo Freifeld, a tremendously warm person. He was willing to take me in. And Rabbi Yaakov Bender Shlita of Darchei Rashi of Darchei was willing to take me in. Now I didn't want to go to South Shore because I didn't have any friends in South Shore, and to go to Darchei was weird because I was coming from a coed modern Orthodox school. I wasn't going to a black hat school, but I chose to go to Darchei because at least I knew a couple of kids in Darchei. Now I want to tell you something. I don't know if you know what it's like to go to a school where it's black hat.

18:27 Hascholas Gemara was in fifth grade. I was thrown out in fifth grade. We were just starting Chumash with Rashi. To come to Darche for me wasn't just a jump; it was a leap of astronomical proportions. You know how Neil Armstrong said, 'One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.' Leaving Dar, leaving Haftar and going to Darche was one giant step for Mordechai Berg. I went from Matberg to Mordechai Berg, and I want to tell you something: it was not comfortable. It was not comfortable. Rabbi Bender used to give us shmoozin, anti-television shmoozin. You shouldn't be watching television. It's not good for a bentar. You're taking things into your eyes that are not appropriate, girls. In my house, television was at the center of our universe. Not only did we have a giant TV in the house, my father literally worked in the television industry. Television was our entire parnasa. My father worked in advertising. Eventually, my father became the president of a company called the Syndicated Network Television Association. That's how much television was in our lives.

19:25 Almost all the television that you girls have never seen was the shows that literally my father ran. Shows like Friends and Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond and Oprah and Ellen and Jeopardy. You shouldn't know these things, but just in case you do. These were my father's shows. Do you think it was comfortable for me to listen to Rabbi Bender give those shmuzin? It wasn't comfortable. I never felt uncomfortable because of Rabbi Bender, but I knew my family was different. I knew that we weren't like every other family in Darche. But I want to tell you what else I felt. I felt like Rabbi Bender really cared about me And because of that, I loved Darche. I was in Darche for almost four years. Even though at the time they didn't have a high school, I would have continued onto the high school. I think if they had one at the time. I want you to know I never felt more comfortable in my entire educational career than those four years in Darchei because I knew that Rabbi Bender was saying and this is why he took me in.

20:17 He said, "There's a Jew who needs a school. I can help him." That was a gift. And you want to know the secret? I did have a negative influence on my classmates because I kind of told them about some things that they didn't know about. So I'm not going to sit here and pretend like. Today Darke is like an airport, and there's 2,800 kids in the school. Whatever. It's a lot bigger than when there were 500 kids in a bunch of trailers on Cedar Boulevard getting broken into before Everett Olivoshalem took over and guarded us. But I want to tell you something. As much as I might have had a negative impact on those kids, I promise you that the negative impact that I had on those kids paled in comparison to the positive impact that they had on me. And there is no way that I would be here talking to you today if it wasn't for the fact that Rabbi Bender opened his arms and said, "Come on in."

21:08 Yom Kippur is not one day. Yom Kippur is a worldview. Yom Kippur is the way that every single Jew is meant to approach Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Be yeshiva shal myalo, be yeshiva shal mata. A yeshiva upstairs and a yeshiva downstairs. A yeshiva is a place where imperfect people come to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Al das ha makom Hashem agrees to this, and our community agrees to this. We daven with imperfect people. If you're davening without imperfect people, it's not a davening. If you're fasting without imperfect people, it's not a fasting. Umi b'sarcha lotes aleim. Don't turn away from your own flesh and blood. You know why? Because that's your b'sher, that's your kin, that's your. It's not just a friend. That's you. Every single Jew is part of this one organism. If you turn away from that Jew, you're turning away from yourself. The secret of Ahavta L'rayacha Kamocha is you're not loving somebody else. You're loving yourself. Every single Jew is one. That's all of Yiddishkeit. All of Torah is just to recognize the oneness of Hashem. So you say every single day in Shmash, Shmai Yisrael Shemal Keno Hashem Echad. God is one. You know what that means? The girl sitting next to you She's you. The girl in the dorms, she's you. The girl that you don't like, she's you. And I want to tell you an unbelievable story that happened 45 minutes ago.

22:27 45 minutes ago, I got to be careful how I say this because I don't want to give away any details that are inappropriate. That's going to embarrass this girl. 45 minutes ago, this story happened. Ready? 45 minutes ago, it's an amazing story. I gave this shmuus 45 minutes ago And a girl asked me. She said, "Can I walk you out?" I said, "Yes." She walked me to the car, and this is what she said to me: "I got to be careful because I don't want to give away any details. I don't want to embarrass the girl." The girl said to me, "Rebberg" All I want is to love every single Jew. How do I love those Jews who literally look at me with disgust? She said, "How do I love them?"

23:08 How do I love them? They look at me and they look at me weird, and I feel like they're judging me. I don't want to give away any details about what she said because maybe you'll figure out who it was. And I told this girl, I said, I want you to know, I wish I had an amazing answer for you. I don't. I don't have an amazing answer. I could tell you to forgive them. I could tell you to have compassion. Their judgmental looks towards you are really just the judgmentalism that they have towards themselves. I could give you answers, but I promise you, none of the answers are going to be satisfying because I see that you're in pain. But I want to tell you one thing: your energy right now, this question—that's the question that brings Mashiach. For a girl to show up and feel like there's a community of Jews that are mamish looking down on her. That are mamish looking at her and we don't want anything to do with you. The fact that that girl can come and say, 'How can I figure out how to help myself love those Jews?' That's the girl that's going to bring Mashiach. That's Yom Kippur energy.

23:59 We live in a world today where we think we're protecting ourselves by locking arms. All we're doing is amputating parts of ourselves. Every time we push a Jew away, we're amputating parts of ourselves, and it's not working. This defensive posture of if I could only keep out every bad influence, then maybe my kids will grow up from girls. We can't build walls high enough to keep out every bad influence. At some point, we have to be confident enough in ourselves to be able to say, we have a winning tool. We have Taira. We have light. Light is not afraid of darkness. Adarabba, the darkness is afraid of the light. We feel we have the most precious thing in the world. We feel like we have a kadosh baruch hu. Let's invite people in. When I was a kid growing up in Young Israel Farakway, we used to have a group of kids that came only on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They were like these four Russian kids. They weren't in yeshiva; they were in public school, and they would only show up on Yomim Noraim. And I'm going: they looked different than us. They were Russian immigrant kids. They had Russian immigrant parents. They weren't yeshiva league. We didn't have the term yeshiva league back in the 80s, but they weren't like they looked different. They smelled different. They acted different. It was different. It was an immigrant culture.

25:11 And one Yom Kippur, I made a huge mistake. I would only see them three times a year: first day Rosh Hashanah, second day of Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. I never saw them ever during the year. So one, I was a little boy, maybe I was eight or nine years old. This kid, he was bigger than me, and I meant nothing disrespectful from him. I went over to him and I said to him politely, gently, not at all threatening. I just said like "Why do you guys like come to shul on Yom Kippur?" I meant, "Where are you the rest of the year?" But the way it came out was like, why do you come to shul on Yom Kippur? Why do you bother? But I didn't mean it like that, mamish. The kid took me. He was a big kid. He took me and he threw me up against the wall of Ingushoferakwe in the basement. He said, "What do you think you're more Jewish than I am?" And you know what? I never forgot that because here was a kid who didn't come to shul, whose family wasn't from Rishabitz. But you know what was real for him? He was a Jew, and he wasn't gonna let anybody tell him that he was less Jewish. I started apologizing. I remember I was a little kid. I was afraid for my life.

26:07 It's like this like Russian kids. You know what I'm saying? Like maybe he was like 10, but like didn't have to work out well. Baruch Hashem it did. But I remember Adi Yomaz's the look in his eyes. Don't ever tell a Jew they're less Jewish than you are. Don't ever. You'll see what happens when you do. I want to tell you a story about a girl. This an amazing girl. I met her this summer on Mechlela. I was playing Jewish geography with every single girl. That's what Jews do. We play Jewish geography. So I said to I was saying to all the girls, "What's your name? Where you from? Who's your father?" Oh, your dad, my brother-in-law, and your father used to be thugs together in Queens.

26:40 You know that story that your father tore out a parking meter on Main Street in Queens, and then they stole it and broke it open. There was thousands of dollars in the parking meter. That was your dad. One time your father cut down a traffic light in the middle of Queens and took all the electricity out on all of Main Street. That was your dad. Some playing Jewish geography, embarrassing all the different fathers, telling all their daughters about the things they crazy did in high school. And then one girl comes and she goes, "Don't bother playing Jewish geography with me." I was like, "Oh, this is going to be good because I can play Jewish geography with the best of them." I said, "Okay, where are you from?" She goes, "You don't know it." I said, "Where are you from?" She said, "Michigan." I said, "Do you know Rav Sally Friedman?" Rav Sally Friedman is the head of NCSY in Central East. Do you know Rav Sally? He's a tzaddik. So the girl goes, 'No, I don't know.' Now, truth is, I spoke to Rav Sally afterwards. Turns out, Rav Sally knows the girl. The girl doesn't know Rav Sally. She goes. So I was kind of right there. I was only off by one percent.

27:33 She goes, "In my town, there's only three Jews: me, my mother, and my father." How in the world did you get to Mechalalit? If I can't play Jewish geography, I understand there's certain NCSY programs that we can't play Jewish geography. How did you get to Mechalalit? She knows. She told me October 7th. She woke up October 7th. She said after that nobody messed with me again. I'm Jewish and nothing's gonna stop me. This girl is unbelievable. Jews are Jews through and through. Yimam, she cut them open. They bleed Jewishness. My grandmother, Aleihashalom, she became a Balash Tshuva at 70 years old. At 70 years old, she started keeping Shabbos. At 70 years old, she started keeping kosher, not only in the home but also outside of the home. At 70 years old, she started dressing sneis. At 70 years old, she started becoming judgmental of all of my cousins that weren't from. We had a bar mitzvah once in Crown Heights on Shabbos. In my family, all the bar mitzvahs take place in Crown Heights because nobody's religious. So where do you have your bar mitzvah if you're not religious? You got to come to Chabad. So we would go to Crown Heights for Shabbos, and my grandmother was like, she saw one of my cousins walking with an umbrella on Shabbos, and she's like.

28:37 Doesn't he know that that's violating Shabbos? And I'm like, Grandma, he drove here. I don't think the umbrella is the issue. My grandmother was an amazing person. She became a Balash Tshuva. She didn't go to an Eishat Torah class. Not that there's anything wrong with Eishat Torah. Eishat Torah is amazing. She didn't need anyone to prove God to her. She didn't know anything. You know what she knew? I'm Jewish. You know why she became from? I'm Jewish. I should do the right thing. Now her sister, my great aunt, who was like her best friend in the world at my grandmother's 90th birthday party, which was the last birthday of her life. My grandmother passed away from COVID. And in January of that year, she had her birthday. It was her 90th birthday, and they made a matzeget. What do they call a matzeget in English again? Like a video, like a slideshow. They made like a thing, and thank you so much. And my aunt, my great aunt, she spoke And she said Sarah, and you have to see the video. It's so beautiful. She said, "Sarah, I'm so proud of you for becoming frum. You're doing the right thing, and our parents are so proud of you that you're keeping Shabbos and that you're keeping kosher." She's like, "It's so beautiful." And this is my aunt who's not frum.

29:44 And she's like, "maybe I'm not Shomer Shabbos, but I'm deeply Jewish. These people are Jewish. You can't stop a Jew from being Jewish. All we have to do is welcome them in. All we have to do is tell them there's a place for you in our community." And chaval Chaval, that we're missing out on that opportunity. What do we want on Yom Kippur? We want kapara. The Gemara says that in the absence of the mizbeach, what gives us kapara? Today it's our dining room tables. That's what the Gemara says. Our dining room tables give us kapara because that's the place where we invite others in and we give them bread to eat. That's what gives us kapara. Shucking doesn't give you a kapara. Davening doesn't give you a kapara. Fasting doesn't give you a kapara. You know what gives you a kapara?

30:26 Taking care of other Jews, then all the fasting is meaningful and all the davening is meaningful. Make sure you daven in a minyan. Make sure you daven in a shul. Make sure you're sending your kids to yeshivas and seminaries that are community yeshivas and seminaries. It's not cool to send your kids to elite schools that say no, we're only for the best of the best. The by the way, because what happens? So you go, no, this kid, he's elite. But then, when your second kid can't get into the elite school, and all of a sudden you're like, but I don't want him in the other school with those kids. But you created that. You created that. When you send to the elite schools, you're creating an elite community. And Klali Yisrael has never been an elite community. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave the Torah. What do you think Hashem was giving the Torah to RCNI? And he goes, everybody gather round, but Brisk, you hang back. I'm going to give you the real Torah afterwards.

31:14 No. This is for top seminaries. So all the regular seminary girls, you go first, but then I'm going to hold back. Then the real top seminary girls, I'm going to give them Torah. That's not what a kaddish baruch hu does. He gave the Torah to imperfect people. 49 days earlier, were idolaters in Egypt, and I know that we did tshuva over 49 days. But the truth is, we weren't complete people. And they know what the proof is, because a short while later, we did the Aghla Zav. Imperfect people receive the Torah. Imperfect people make a beautiful davening. An imperfect community is a beautiful community. A perfect community is not interesting. Ta'kadosh Baruch Hu. Hashem is perfect. He's interested in imperfection. He's interested in being invited into imperfect places. Girls, I give us all a bracha that this Yom Kippur we should be zeiche to see ourselves as people who belong to a community of imperfect people.