5. Interview with Boris Musheyev & Yaniv Kaikov

[Music] right now we have a very special opportunity we're going to get to meet some emmett students alumni and really friends of emmett and i want to introduce uh to my right is going to be yaniv kaikov and to my left is going to be boris mache so yaniv um i want to ask you a question how did you get dammit how did you hear about them and what attracted you to emmett well uh for starters thank you very much for having me here it's a pleasure being here being a question by the rabbi um grilled well for for starters you know i i've known him for so many years since it started uh 15 16 years ago a bit real and the start of it was such a so phenomenal that uh you know i was i was really connected to it somehow but when the first retreat happened uh this was what six or seven years ago yeah i remember january 1st like 2000 something my wife and i just wanted to get away and we came to the retreat and i saw and i saw things that i've never seen in so many in so many years i mean it's not an organization i mean first of all not an organization it's a family it's a family connection that you just have to be a part of and and what i saw with the staff members and the rabbis how they connect to the alumni from students it was just for me was wow and i said to myself i took my wife but we have to be a part of this this is just amazing and just you know it grew on me and like it and it was just it was just some sort of a connection that you had to have to be with it it attracts a person from many aspects all right okay amazing that is so that's how that's how you just came randomly to the retreat and then like everyone else basically emma you were hooked we start off with the food and then we get the person um i so i want to ask you when you think of the queen's community imagine the queen's community without emmett what would that look like uh community it's a boss community first of all for starters emmett brought out for so many years it brought out judaism to the to the right the right route for the current community it's it's just uh without emmett i think we've been losing so many so many family members behind that got lost in many many colleges and many schools or whatnot but emmitt is doing a phenomenal job and the staff members obviously are connected to the students it's connected to the families connected to all the all the each and every bahar community out there in in whether it's in arizona whether it's in miami whether it's in queens or wherever it is it's just a beautiful connection that it just you can't you can't uh you can't miss and it's just so beautiful i'm so happy you were it like makes us feel good as a staff that you're able to pick up on all this really in a little bit it's just coming from the outside and seeing right away what the inside is so now we're going to talk with boris michelle who's that he went through the ranks like this is the way we dream for every emmett student to really go through so boris if you can go back to baker real 12 years ago or so when we're doing those fellowships but you're probably how old were you 1920 go ahead take us back there what was that like if you remember when you were a college student thinking about being an accountant so a little correction there i actually joined them when i was 24 just when i finished college 24. okay you looked young 22 22. and then um so the way it happened is that i when i graduated peru college and um i started working in the city and i was like man i'm con completely disconnected from the jewish community um and you know i don't really have many jewish friends and you know i know there's like shabbat zones of programs but i don't know nothing you know emmett was i think one of the very first programs that was kind of doing these shabbatons and then of course i heard of emmett doing this free trip to israel but even if you went to birthright you get to go again so i kind of you know inquired about it and left it alone and then sarah b will just i think she would text me or send me messages for like six to eight months or something until i finally sign up so um yeah so when i signed up and where you know when i signed up it was a 10-week program with two shabbatons the first shabbaton i had to miss but the second shabbat zone as i would say where where i really saw what an unbelievable thing that emmet is doing and how it brought me uh to it is that it was it was the shabbat and rabbi klotzko and i've never seen a shabbat like that i've never seen that shabbat can be spent like that with so much happiness with so much uh partying right it was just a lot of dancing and there's always singing and there was just so much happiness and then um that's where i had that's where i had my aha moment uh about it and then um and i would say from there which is it was just history uh just that first image of atone just really changed changed changed my life and did anything else happen on that treble tone well i made my wife right there and you never saw her before i've never seen her before before and it was just uh this was her already you know she was already part i met that she was going on shabbat ons with emmett and this was my first one i know nobody in that shabbat tone uh rabbi klatsev's house is full and it's just me a couple of friends and there we are there's barely any seats for anybody uh there are barely any seats for anybody and then what happens is that just two seats are empty in front of me and everywhere is packed and those two seats are empty and i'm wondering why these two seats are empty then all of a sudden the next thing i know my wife and her friend sit across me and then the rest is history wow that is really amazing hashem and then ha you know how much would you say uh ahmet impacted your judaism relationship with hashem it has impacted a lot and it continues to impact on a continuous basis i started with ahmed about 10 years ago um about 10 11 years ago as a student who just came on their first shabbaton did their 10 uh you know 10 semesters of completing the fellowship and you know what was amazing to me is that what's amazing is really that i'm growing with emmett because ever since then emmett has been educating college students but at the same time now all these college students are growing up and getting married and then emmett said you know what we're not going to stop there we're not just going to stop con at our you know continuing doing just fellowship we're also going to continue the couples and the students that get married and then you know bring judaism into their life and ever since then emmett is still part of our life we're still uh a part of ahmed still called emmett rabanim for any questions that we have i always call you know rabbi yochanan is my rabbi from emmett always call him with questions my wife and i uh we always have a support from ahmed and you know we're always going to their uh shabbatons that they have lectures that they have classes that they have for couples uh and they just continue continuing and giving that to us and non-stop giving and that that has you know not only changed our life but also i would say improve their life that is so beautiful and that's by the way the reason why we're growing with you so we don't have a choice like we can't abandon the students you know it's like what are we okay great you're 25 see you later we can't do that because like jenny said we're family that's like rumor would say that would be like saying goodbye to your kid you can't you don't say goodbye to your kid we're we're together so hashem um you know this one of the main reasons why we're doing this campaign is like for this whole extra part of our expansion project which which is necessary for our growing students we have robert mushayev always says that we have about on average before corona anyway we have an average of one couple getting married a week you know and so after 12 years imagine that's a lot of couples hashem i'm going to switch it back to yani for a moment i have a point you have to use that microphone okay no problem you can share as long as you're social distancing so um so here let me just perfect so i wanted to ask you and if you most people uh don't don't you know most of our students they don't get to know rabbi rubenberger ceo so well i know you guys have a very special relationship and he's very humble loves to be in the background he's not even here tonight so i i wanted to ask you if you can describe him in a word or two you know what what would you say how could you how would you describe them at ceo in a word or two in a word or two yeah maybe five whatever in a few cents i have other two yeah hashem the shame he is he him and all the rabbis and all the staff members of ahmed is all hashem that's how i even got connected to emmett um it's not or again it's an organization it's it's the family that is connected to one another and and what i saw when i saw the first uh dinner that i was years ago and then and the first retreat it was all the shimsha mine it was selflessness and it was uh it was all giving to the alumni to the students to to the family members to to the community and that's what i saw and that's how i i got connected to robert ruttenberg and robert craft and and is that probably a main reason why you you're choosing to be a partner with them at their lash absolutely all right that's the first thing i see that's the first thing you see you know i'm just thinking just being part of the staff and say i i agree with you obviously but you can you can't try to be the shane chemist just like you are or you are yeah exactly that's that you can't trust right i'm so humble you you just can't do it so we have a lot of sea after the shamaya that's really amazing okay i before i take it away from you i have i have a very interesting question for boris okay now boris not only did he come to emmet get connected through jewishly meet his wife keep on growing but then and this is like where it really gets good he got his younger siblings involved now i don't ha myself i don't have any siblings so i have a very curious question for you how i assume you're the oldest how are you able to influence both your sister and your brother to come to emmett and you know and just experience what what they did and grow with us as well so um i followed the example of emmett which is they were an example to me in a in a way that you know you learn from the actions so when i joined emmett and i just saw however you know everybody is calm and welcoming and how you know learning a torah and bringing it into your life can be can be nice and calm and beautiful and you know it's just that you know just learning from the example of the rabbis that i was around from emmet i was able i think influenced my brother and my sister simply not just words but really with actions i there was not much talking there it was just them seeing me what i'm doing and what what uh how i am part of a bigger cause and and that i think that what kind of drew them more nearer to it and they and they saw uh they saw what what a beautiful thing it is so you led by example right all right correct beautiful beautiful okay we're gonna we're sharing like so we're gonna give the anime the mic back we have eddie i have a first i'm going to ask you a slightly personal question and then i'm going to ask you a general emma question so here here's my getting uh grilled by the rabbis not easy so i hope it doesn't remind you of high school so okay so my questions like this when you mentioned you come to our retreats brosham i think you're there every year i i hope to be there every year too it's a beautiful at the deal ocean place resort right on the ocean every thanksgiving weekend we get to pray over looking at the ocean everyone as long as you're a couple you're welcome that we can fit a thousand people there um we actually have last time i think we had a kid i was always curious well uh yes since i was bar mitzvah well before that actually i was reading the uh small little portions mustafin um when i was a kid and it grew on me and i loved it and from there was it was history i even i was when i was 15 i started teaching bar mitzvahs or mitzvah lessons for public school kids just when you're 15. yes wow and you know because you know the the the the fathers or the whatever was the rabbis heard me in the show in synagogue and they wanted to you know why they want me to to prepare their their son or grandson whatever it was for uh bar mitzvah lessons and and you know what it wasn't about the money it was just that something that i really like doing and giving over to the younger boys to learn how to read the torah right beautiful you know it's just this whole conversation something's popping up to me it's like when you love something then it's shame shamayim and that's when it's the shame i mean i feel like that's how the emmett staff feels they feel like bringing people close to hashem introducing people to the torah and even when they're connecting if they're already connected connecting them more it's connecting with shaman bias and to their spouses and their family if you do that with love it it i think it has to be lashing my mind so i wanna i'm gonna ask you one last question before we pass it over to boris for who's gonna have the final say um what is even though you can't you know you joined us not as a student you really join us as a participant became a partner and really uh you know are so involved in planning many of the things that we do what is one thing that you learned from emmett from the emma staff from rabbis what would you say is your one of your takeaways uh there's many things but uh the one thing that really really uh opened my eyes as you can say was giving your your own time and effort for the community that they really need it's it's uh it's something that you forget about yourself you forget about your family your own self and family and you're giving over your your your time your valuable time to community so that so that community shouldn't forget about judaism and it's very important in our community hashem that's that's why i saw from all the staff members here in uh in emet well for starters you can you can see emmet the word emmett it just connects to you all right so uh that's that's that's the drive i got from all the staff members and all the rabbis and all the alumni and all the students everybody's just amazing here in a minute okay beautiful okay that's that's very inspirational thank you thank you very much nani okay boris i want to ask you one last question so what would you say you know we just finished off our spring semester we did not expect the spring semester to end off the way it did we started off in bake reel with a bang we had 75 80 people there one week two weeks three weeks then corona hit we quickly adjusted started doing everything on zoom first week on zoom we have 70 people everyone came back and it was like in a way it was a little bit you know it wasn't the same but it was social everyone sort of saw each other on their uh screens we had interaction it wasn't the same but it was something it was a connection and we we're hoping and we know we know bez hashem that we're going back next semester things are starting to open up already the people are going to go back to school but back to shul we're very excited for it maybe some social distancing but hopefully as september rolls around as rosh hashanah rolls around things will be back to normal what advice would you give to a young college student male or female just starting off for that first 10 weeks at the met fellowship 10 weeks and two shoved tones and that free trip either israel or poland the the new student that's sorry yeah well what advice would you give to a new student this starting that uh they're in for a ride all right so uh it's it is going to be uh that you know by joining emmett and their you know the first ten semesters and the two shabbatons it is completely going to change their life for the better i don't think i've ever met i've been with emin for over 10 years i don't think i've ever met a student that that life has been changed for the worst after joining emmett everybody's just life is changing for the better they meet new friends good friends the right friends they make great family members uh you know they're going to make friends with the rabbis they're probably going to stay with them friends forever i personally started learning in my first semester with rabbi weiss yehuda wise who is in arizona right now that's a part of emmett you've kept it whatever yes and i'm still learning with him on zoo once a week because he's part of my family he has he had a huge impact on my family and any emmett student that is that is just joining their you know their life is just not going to be the same they are going to have an extra family member in their family that will only change their life for the better for the positive and uh for the best [Music]