Toys for Simha - Event Coverage

[Music] may this day be an alah for ysim benx and for Abraham Masuda thank you for all that donated [Applause] schoolv good afternoon I want to start by thanking our dear con and Jonathan Suri for asking me to join and asking toys for SIM for being involved um is actually have a big part in the work of toys for S which I'm going to share with you in a few moments but first uh my name is JJ H I'm the executive director of toys for S I want to give a big shout out to Eli Cohen from our board of directors and behind every man so Helen where is Helen still here you'll make sure oh hi Helen uh so Eli and Helen Cohen thank you uh as well for bringing me here today um before Rabbi mizaki shares with everyone a few words I want to share with you a quick story just six short weeks after October 7th niot Isel led a Mission to Israel and adir and Jonathan reached out to me before the mission and said although we're going to help Claudia in general and we're going to be visiting the army bases and the the places in the South and the soldiers we all also want to volunteer with toys for Simka and visit some of the children in the hospitals it was right before Kaneka so they threw this huge party in the hospital uh for the kids uh in Maya Medical Center in banra um and they really went all out like they did today uh they had uh music and live entertainment and food and drink and it was a really huge fun event for all the kids in the hospital uh Morty fax that's also the fax connection here today Morty fax was on the trip with them Mor's a dear friend of mine and he was at the hospital and they were going when they finished the party they went room to room is what we really do is go room to room visit every child in their room spend some time with the child spend some time with the family talk with them give them support kuk and of course give them a toy to put a smile on their face so um there's a picture of Jonathan and Morty standing by a bed with a A young teenage girl sitting in the bed and the story behind the the photo is Morty came into the room and the girl was looking very depressed and the Morty says okay what's going on and they said that the girl is being treated for cancer and that morning she found out that the cancer treatment was not working and she would have to up the regimen um so of course it was a very sad time so Morty turns around to John and says John do we still have any iPads in the car so John says yeah they R so JN ran down um for whatever reason Hashem put the idea into his mind you took two iPads threw them and a backpack came upstairs and Morty tells the girl so it's B so it's a very community so our staff are always very sensitive to know what type of toy to give to what type of kid so he pulled the mother to the side and said would it be okay with you if we give your daughter an iPad and she's like of course like she would love it and would really help her and we call I we call iPads it's under our tablets for teens program we call it your get well buddy and the goal is that it's it helps them with education it gets keep up with school work it helps them be in touch with friends and family and also it's just fun Entertainment Games movies whatever um so Morty goes to the girl and says I have a gift for you and he he pulls out an iPad and she says thank you uh but I have a question do I have to keep the iPad so Mor's like why would you not want to keep it she's like well I have a younger brother at home and since I've been sick my mom is here with me in the hospital my grandma's here with me in the hospital hospital my dad's always visiting um and no one's giving him any attention I want him to know that we love him as well so at that point there's no dry eye in the room and Morty said yes on one condition and he P pulled out the second iPad from the from the backpack gave it to her and said this one's for you um that is what we do at toys for Sam we look for opportunities to uplift the experience of a child to take them out of the depressed sad mindset and just make them happy because we believe Happy Kids heal faster thank you very much for coming to support it's a really special cause to all of us I'm going to now introduce Rabbi mrai which we are all very much looking forward you're hearing from Rabbi mrai some words of inspiration thank you so much everyone that came everyone that showed up to show support for this beautiful and very important organization toys for and the interesting thing about is that often in life when we think we're giving Sim to other people in a weird way we find that actually we found s our ourselves like the ram says there's no greater way to find happiness than by giving happiness and often in life when we look to take happiness for ourselves we find that we're nowhere to be found the trick the key to happiness is by giving it and I want to thank the hosts Danielle and David should always have in the home you should always host all for you for your children for your family should be together to see the Redemption as well the class today is going to be that's being done today should as well be a source of and finally today's class is who passed away unfortunately way before his time if we could say that when I went to visit the parents I met two of the most remarkable strongest people that I ever met in my entire life people that just days ago lost their son to be able to have the reaction of aaren the reaction ofon the reaction of surrender to no complaints only faith and to be able to take that pain today of losing their child and to decide that they want to help other children in the world to turn their p pain outward there could be nothing greater that is a definition of what a Jew does and we are here to show support for the family at the end of the day we cannot com Comfort them we say may they find Comfort solace in these very difficult times so today's class as well will be Ben which means y he should have extra life a boy who was not able to live a long life in this world we are able to add we are able to we could add days to his life with the learning with the MIT that we do today and forever more we my friends are in the days called the nine days nobody likes the nine days they're days that we are they're days that we decrease in happiness so as an example we're days that we're supposed to go to our in-laws things like that just a joke but today is more important that we focus on benam the days that we're supposed to focus on our relationship with the people around us there was a great Rabbi his name was Abraham yushua H he was known as the O Israel he was known as the lover of Israel whenever he would speak you knew what he was going to talk about only one topic you know certain rabbis when they get up you know oh he's he's the IM Rabbi oh he's he's going talk about Shabbat for sure I bet you right oh that Rabbi he's always about you know self-esteem he's the I like listen he's a self-esteemed guy well the he was the is guy whenever he would get up you knew it was going to be about and he used to say that you could connect any and every P to is he said you could go any you want that's how important the topic is that every single in the Tor connects to how important it is to love and so the students came one time they started to challenge the rabbi said yeah Rabbi well we found a per how about perat balak go ahead R find us a connection to to balak balak the whole thing is about cursing try to curse the people how do you connect balak to without breaking his sweat the rabbi said what are you talking about that's the easiest one said how he said what do you mean balak stands for they started chuckling they said come on Rabbi that's not going to fly with a is a okay you got is a the rabbi smiled and he said but if you want to love people you can't be so precise you can't be so exact if you're going to look if you can use a magnifying glass you will find the reason to hate to dislike you could invalidate anybody you could dispose of anyone if you look hard enough you could find you can't be so precise the people that we love in our lives it's not because they're perfect the people that we lie is not because they only have good to them people are very complicated people have good people have bad the people that we love our children children our spouse our parents the people that we love we love them because we choose to see the good it's not because they're only good but that's what we focus on is comes down to one thing what do you see nobody is all good or all bad but when we go through life and we talk negatively about people and we dismiss individuals or communities it's because at that moment in life we are deciding to Zone in to focus on one specific piece of this person's life we are isolating an event we are isolating a trait and as Jews we've been too often the victim of this how many times the media such a does such a good job at taking one story and then taking a piece of that one story and then blowing it up on a headline soldier kills unarmed Palestinian and when you take something out of context you can make anyone look like a bad guy but means you got a wide in the lens you got to realize there's so much complexity and yes maybe this person it's true it's true maybe they have that problem but is that the totality of that person person when we look in the mirror every morning what do we see we see God's gift to the world if only everyone was like me mashia would have been here already are we perfect we're far from it but there's so much good to me Rabbi and we have to realize that that is everybody when bam tried cursing the Jewish people into at first he was not successful and listen to what he says he says to balak he says come it didn't work from here but let's try to go over there because from there from there I think we could see a part of them and then from there we could curse them and what he was telling balak is that in life if you want to curse somebody all you need to do is see all you need to do is see a part of them all you need to do is slice out a part of that person's day a part of the person's life and then you'll find a thousand reasons to curse them but the question is what do we see what do we choose to see because good and bad everybody's got both and comes down to being able to look for the good in Hebrew that's called you got to look for the good matter of fact the first was a very sad day it was supposed to be a happy day it was a day that Moshe send 12 men righteous men calls them and he sends them on a mission to go to Israel to find out about the land and to report back and they go for 40 days and they report back after the 40 days they come back these 12 men and unfortunately 10 out of the 12 they came back and all they had was negative things to say it's a land filled with giants we're there for 40 days and all we saw was death funerals people dying people being buried constantly that's what we saw and God said you cry tonight you'll cry every year tonight and of course that night was T and the only question I have is what do the spies do wrong they didn't lie they didn't make that up they were funerals they were giants there were people dying and the answer is they did nothing wrong except they decided to focus on the bad it's true people are dying but that's what you see you see death you don't see that God was coming to actually distract millions of Kim from noticing 12 Spies in their country you didn't see that you didn't notice the good why is that what you saw and sayra desler every holiday has an energy has got an energy Yip has energy G Energy every holiday's got a certain energy puim we get drunk right every holiday's got its gas what's the energy of T what are we tapping into say the energy is to learn to see the good that person in your life that you think is all bitter horrible annoying toxic and sometimes there are exceptions I'm not going to say say no but for the most part ask yourself how many people in your life do you I have a hard time with at a certain point you got to ask yourself maybe you're the problem he had a beautiful wife her name was K before she was named Adam God says you know not good to be alone let me give him a wife there wer many options it was you know just her imagine Adam on J swipe Eve Eve Eve all right I guess I'll go with Eve it was just her so they get married the next morning he wakes up he smells beautiful smell of eggs and and a fruit honey you want some breakfast he goes sure she hands him a thing he eats it then all starting it gets cloudy and Hashem comes down what did you do how' you thereare eat I told you he's like I didn't know she gave me I didn't do anything and because you ate death is going to come to the world and now for the rest of History we're doomed okay it is what it is what are you going to do next page age God says to Adam okay your first job I need you to name the animal kingdom okay he goes through all the animals now Adam had a tremendous power Adam didn't just name arbitrarily you know cat Adam looked into the essence of a cat and he saw that this animal it's got a and a and a and a l you you're a and you ah you you touch a man's heart very much we're going to call you a k we're going to call you a dog and you and you and he named all the animals and then it comes EES online soam what do you name me right and he says you we're going to name you life what life you sure you mean you mean the an you mean the opposite you mean death is what you mean Adam right cuz that's what she did she brought death to the world we should call her mavit says Adam it's true but she also brings life what do you see what do you see and part of this month my friends we have to train ourselves to be there was a great Rabbi his name was R's wife we I guess you could just say she wasn't in whatever he would ask for dinner she would make the opposite can we get mjedra she would make chck chicken can we get some meat she would make pizza whatever you wanted the can we go healthy today I'm on OIC you went you know okay finally one day his student he caught on he decided to trick the wife so he said go tell my wife I would like some meat for dinner so the student knew if I tell her meat she's going to make dairy so you know what he outsmarted the system let me tell her da so he goes the rabbi would like pizza for dinner of course she made meat the rabbi got home and dinner was just as he wanted and he was surprised what in the world's going on what' you do with my wife and the student he understood he called on and he killed him how dare you don't you ever lie to my wife but Rabbi and then he said I don't understand Rabbi a wife like this how come you're always thinking about her you're always sensitive to her and the rabbi listened to what he said he said one line it's enough that she saves us from sin and that she raises the children the that and for that alone I am forever indead to her person could come home and they could look at their spouse what do we see some people are only complainers and no matter what comes they find reasons to complain they find what's no good in the situation they find what's no good with the family they go on dates and they find why this person is not good enough no one's good enough that's what they see they see problems everyone's a problem that's why you should know that a they all met their wife at a well because at a well there's no water on top you got to dig you got to look deep you got to search you got to find the good everyone has good but you got to look hard for it there was a great Rabbi his name was from Hal kidding one time he saw a guy eating on so he ran over he said my dear Jew you must not know that today is he said no Rabbi I'm aware today's tab he said ah so you must not be aware that the law is that it's forbidden to eat onab he said no RAB I know eat he said ah so you must be sick he said RAB I've never been better and looked up at the heavens and he said master of the universe look how beautiful your children are here I gave this man three chances to lie and yet he only tells the truth that's what he saw he didn't see a guy eating on the shab of course he does of course he's eating but is that the is that what we see a man complained to the rabbi said I understand this guy comes to schulen the whole time he's reading the newspaper and the rabbi said back it's true but you know what I see I see this Jew who's so alienated he doesn't even care to pray he doesn't even understand Hebrew he can't even open the seur so so much so that when he comes he has to open the newspaper and yet on top of it all he cares enough to come and complete a minan I don't see guys talking in ch I see a guy who cared enough he's not out there he's in here it's true he's talking but that's not what I see I don't see a guy talking in SCH I see a guy talking in sh when we come home what do we see my kids made such a mess or a person could say my kids made a mess what do we see when our husband is out at work late I don't understand he's never home is that what we see but I have a husband who has a job who able to provide for my family that we could put our kids through a beautiful school that we could afford all the luxuries that we could want in life but it comes down to a perspective it comes down to a to being able to see the be the beauty in people around us because in life you need that you need that with everything we could look at our own lives how do you what do you see in your own life do we feel blessed do we feel cursed what do we see I had a student calls me from a trip not in winter vacation not in the summer a shoulder holiday weekend was one of those side ones you know the president's weekend one it's going on skiing somewhere out in Europe beautiful where you staying which hotel he sends me ah you know it's a fourstar rabbi I'm not rich I said you're not rich you're skiing with your wife that means you're married with your four beautiful children that means that you have children that are healthy in president's weekend in Europe if that's not rich then I don't know what is what do we see we got to realize there's always good and there's always is bad but what do we focus on that is a choice that we have to make to be first started because of a few men that decided to come back and to see the bad they started to notice the problems and even David reminds us you could go to the most beautiful country you could go to Israel today and you come back how's the audits you know nice not for me but you know nice a lot of fighting people don't get along very Israelis are fight you know what I mean they're very feisty these Israelis very tight they live I don't know how they live like that but it's nice you know it's nice for once every three years bmers for trip you know over there is that what we see says you got to see the good of Jerusalem even Jerusalem you could come back and you could slander it you could come back and you can knock it you can posel anybody you can find flaw with anything you sit you look hard enough take the biggest guy you could throw him down it's a choice that we have to make things go wrong in life something breaks in the house the glass broke that's one way of looking at it but at the very same time a person could say that means I have dishes that means I have a home unless he's staying by the in-laws and then it's their dishes and you break them on purpose inah we never come back anymore so this is um something that we have to decide and I'll end with this there was a navi his name was Elisha Elisha Navi he um he had a lady she came to him and she complained she said you know my husband died my kids are very hungry could the rabbi help and we know the story the navi says what do you have in the home and she says I have a little bit of oil and he tells her okay beautiful bring the oil get as many bottles and jugs as you can and St filling and fill and see you'll see magic will happen Baba Sali Style you know what I mean so he comes in she gets all the things and she fills it up she filled up all the bottles she could find with oil and she lived the rest of her life beautiful Miracle beautiful and the only question the commentaries have is why did he ask her what do you have in the house why does he say that for why didn't he just say here get here's a little oil o here's oil take the oil now fill up all the things that you have fill up all your bottles and pots and pans no no no he couldn't give her oil she had to have a little bit of oil why so one answer simple answer is because a miracle could only happen if you first have something you have to have first something and then Hashem can make a miracle that's what the Zohar says but I want to tell you a beautiful answer that I fromon answer is going to change your life raon said what the Nai was teaching her he says wow you have a horrible life I hear your husband's gone you have two children they're struggling NOA but he looks at her and he says but what do you yes have in your life what yes what yes do you have in the home I know what you don't have you made a beautiful list of all the things that are going wrong fine but can you count your blessings can you open your eyes can you answer what Hashem yes gave you when you could start noticing that then the Miracles start pouring in when we could open our eyes for the oil that blessed us with and so this is our aod this month ladies to start training ourselves to start opening our eyes to start feeling the blessing to seeing the good the good that Hashem has given us the good that of this person that we're married to the good of the person that we may be going out with on a date or the good and the people that that are around us but to start seeing the good a girl came she was going out with a guy she came to Baba triby she said I think I'm going to break up with him so why said listen I like him but my parents they don't they don't want me to go out with him how come he's you know he's religious kid but his parents they not your his parents are not and what about the boy no the boy's very good boy but he comes from a home that there's things going on and my parents they don't want me marrying such a problem the rebi looked at her and he said such a problem problem you see a problem I see a boy who was raised without any of this religious lifestyle and on his own he decided that that's how he wants to live I don't see a problem actually I've see if here a strength that's a reason to yes marry a kid it wasn't shoved down his throat it wasn't thrown on him he didn't choose it he didn't he it wasn't chosen for him he chose it on his own I see if here only good it's an Outlook I'm sure you've read for your child very famous book brown bear brown bear what do you see that is the question of tab my friends what do we see do we see a wife who brought death to the world or do we see do we see a wife who's always not giving us what we want for dinner do I realize she takes care of the children my husband provides for the family what do we see my parents are so annoying always calling me can't didn't he take me here go there book a trip for me learn how to use Expedia UN book your own trip already or a person could say that means I have parents that are alive parents that are still calling many people they wish their parents could call every challenge has a blessing every challenge has a blessing may Hashem bless every one of us to be able to open our eyes to the most beautiful blessings that he gave us to only be able to see it to be able to walk around with so much Sim so much joy to be able to bring Sim to these children again I want to thank Eli I want to thank adir for giving the beautiful Z the opportunity of bringing me here I want to thank the hosts I want to thank everyone for coming we should be together to welcome the Mas to be able to put an end to all the suffering that's in the world