Young Leadership Awards @ the 2012 Colel Chabad 'Two Centuries' Dinner

the talmud teaches us that pilgrims traveling to jerusalem would be kurim gifts of their first fruits would be celebrated and heralded along the way with great fanfare and parades by contrast wealthy pilgrims bringing their masa their tithe the 10 of their worldly goods would not be celebrated in this grand way why was it that the wealthy person bringing wagon loads of gifts to the temple would be taken for granted but the young men with their first fruits would get not such a great honor the answer is simple and beautiful the pilgrim with the truckloads of produce was giving up ten percent of his wealth but he was keeping the first 90 percent for himself by contrast the young man with the gift of bikurim was giving away his very first fruits he was just embarking on life's journey yet already he was thinking of others long before there was ever 90 percent sitting safely in the bank tonight is proud to bestow its young leadership award on some outstanding young people who represent this tradition of bikurim of giving from the very beginning of connecting their lives and their careers to the very idea of tadaka and ghasset which is why it is my special privilege now to call upon owen alexander casey klein and aaron and elana wallace dean all true young leaders today we honor them for their bequarim for the gift of their early fruits but we know that we will be seeing and hearing much from them in the years and decades ahead as they grow into giants of caducca and serve as an inspiration for others who will surely follow in their footsteps uh thank you arthur for the very kind words and the kind introduction and i do take it upon my responsibility to carry on the tradition that um my mentors russell galbet sonny khan and bruce menon who's here with us tonight have instilled please who have instilled in me as a young leader of the organization but also the core values of crescent heights the true meaning of sadaqa and that's why we're here to work with rabbi duchman and all of khal al-fabad you have heard all the wonderful things that kol does the seders the medical services the food for the poor and this has been essential aid for israelis for so many years finally i just want to thank my family and friends for being here tonight especially my grandmother who came very far from the warm weather in florida uh to the cold new york so thank you grandma and lastly uh to congratulate my fellow honorees the blavatnik family oren the wallensteins and i urge everyone in this room to continue the steadfast support for this special organization and all the wonderful mitzvoth it does thank you foundations good evening i want to start by thanking my parents who are here tonight for introducing me to chabad from the day i was born by introducing me to my spiritual father rabbi shalom lipsker thank you to the rest of my family friends and guests and i want to especially thank alex and len and the rest of the honorees for their generous contributions and for setting the bar high which has given me goals to strive and reach for what i've realized is i'm not going to reach these goals by doing another deal or in the case of these honoraries a lot more deals but rather by not taking anything actually the opposite by giving back as i grew up i began to understand more the importance and need to give without giving i found whether it's my family my home my business or my country nothing can flourish according to jewish tradition the spiritual benefit of giving charity so great that one who gives benefits even more than the recipient there's no single organization that i've ever come across that understands the need to give more than chabad i cannot thank this organization enough for giving me the opportunity to comprehend the importance of charity and allow me to pass my experience along to you with great hopes and strong promise that you that your involvement and experience with chabad will be as meaningful as mine thank you everyone i have good news for everybody it seems as if i just got word from the higher uppers of kolo khabad that they were not happy with the length of time of the speeches and they've asked me to speak double time so you're all in for a treat distinguished distinguished rabbis fellow honorees cola chabad supporters family and friends first and foremost on behalf of alana i would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for coming out tonight to celebrate this wonderful organization that does so much good for so many people tonight is the climax of another year of hard work and dedication by those people behind the scenes who make the success that it is today i would like to acknowledge and thank all of our new friends from great neck who are here to support us and call of chabad a special acknowledgement and thank you to rabbi paliakov and robert lifter from the great neck synagogue who came here tonight in support we appreciate the effort and are glad that you have been welcoming and supportive in our recent move to great neck i would like to acknowledge and thank all of our close and dear friends from manhattan and englewood and all the other locations who were able to come tonight to support us and this great organization your efforts in coming on a sunday night before the work week with so many responsibilities in dealing with your children and other important things to do do not go unnoticed i guess it's a good thing the jets and the giants did not make the playoffs we would like to acknowledge and thank all of our family members who've come tonight as well alana's sister and parents we thank you for all you've done and for coming my sister and some of my relatives my aunts and uncles we certainly appreciate the effort and realize that there are many other things to do on a sunday night so thank you for coming a special thank you to my parents for surprising us in shortening their vacation from miami and flying in today for the dinner to support us we had no idea that you were coming and wanting you to know that we appreciate that you cared enough to be here finally i would like to take this opportunity to answer a question that many of you posed to me after you found out that cola chabad had chosen us as one of its honorees at the dinner this year many of you had come up to me and told me that you didn't realize i was so involved in kolachabad and asked me and how i got started in my involvement in kalahabad for those of you who are interested here is my story it was around nine years ago i had just left my position as a district attorney in the office to start my own law practice centering on criminal defense like many people who take on the task of starting your own business my challenge was to find clients who could pay me for the service that i could provide i was renting a small office space from a friend of mine's brother who was a lawyer as well who had a partner working in the suite there were other attorneys in this we were renting space and other paralegal secretaries and office staff then one thursday afternoon in the offices my fortunes would change in walked in this rabbi to the suite with a hat and a long beard the attorneys in the office took him into the conference room where i could see they were in heavy discussions a little later one of the attorneys came to my office at the rabbi knocked on my door and said to me in a serious tone the rabbi needs to speak to you i said rabbi come sit down talk to me what is the problem in my years as a d.a now a defense lawyer i've heard it all what is it drugs dwi fraud let me know so i can help you the rabbi said to me no that's not why i'm here i'm here because i have a special project that i want to involve you in you see i work for an organization called kolachabad and we at this organization are starting a new soup kitchen in israel and i want you to be my bread man meaning i want you to give a donation in support of the bread that we need for the soup kitchen i said rabbi i think you have it wrong you see i'm not like the other guys the well-established lawyers in the suite i'm just starting out and struggling to find business i don't think i could be your bread guy the rabbi turned to me and said no i think you have it wrong you see it doesn't work that way god is a smart businessman as well and he only invests in those who are good investments for him you need to show god that you are a good investment and he will provide you with the parnassa because he will see that you know what you are doing and that the funds that he's in and that you know what you're doing with the funds that he's entrusting in with you in essence the rabbi was challenging me to challenge god would i step up and show i wanted to be a player for god to invest in realizing that it was really a no lose situation as worst case scenario i would be giving a little sadaka and being from a home where i learned the importance of giving charity i proceeded to write to write the rabbi a small check to be one of his bread man maybe more of a crumb guy i thanked the rabbi for his little talk and i wished him well soon after this meeting i began to see some results as some of the advertising i had been investing in yielded some clients and a little bit of parmasa the rabbi came back into the suite a few weeks later and i joined him with the other attorneys in the conference room for a little learning a little little muslim schmooze and a few lachaims the rabbi turned to me and said so can i count on you for a donation again i said rabbi you sure can coincidence or not after i saw you the last time my business has picked up somewhat i don't want to mess with any karma let me write you another check i proceeded to write him another check in the same amount the rabbi looked at me gave the check back to me and said our own this is not good enough for you you see you are capable of doing more you can make your cup for parnassa as big or as small as you want it to be and again the rabbi was challenging me to challenge god this began my relationship with kalahabad and with rabbi khazreel sudak of kola khabad who i now consider a friend a habarusa somewhat of a posing and important parts in my life and my family's lives but i would be a fool to invest in a charity that i didn't know anything about the torah teaches us the importance of not only giving stakka but even more important giving sadaka to a place that we know will use it wisely so i began to ask questions about this what was it all about where was my donations going and what is this good and is this a good halachic investment and the answer you will hear if you ask anyone from as to demonstrating what this organization is about and what it does is always the same just come to the dinner i also began to see and realize that many of my friends and associates were just like me closet chabadnicks who gave a lot of their resources to kolachabad so i attended my first dinner and was floored by what i saw graphs and pie charts of revenues coming in charts of how it was dispersed this place was run better than most private businesses i was comfortable seeing that my money was being maximized to doing good for people that needed it with very little waste if any that we sometimes hear from other charitable organizations for those of you who are here for the dinner that have been here before good to see you i hope to see you here next year in good health for those of you who are here for the first time look around the room and take advantage of the resources just like any other business networking dinner seek out some of the shiloham like rabbi khazreel sudak and some of the other backroom people involved in kohler don't be afraid to get involved and invest yourself we don't know for how long god will bless us with the means to make a contribution more importantly don't be afraid to challenge yourself to challenge god thank you and enjoy okay uh i guess the bad news is everybody on the day has asked me to skip my speech so everybody enjoy dinner