Luciano Kolodny at Project Inspire Motzai Shabbat Keynote

[Applause] ladies and gentlemen tonight this is the highlight for me for tonight everyone here knows by now that project inspire has a one-on-one learning program and of course you'll get your opportunity momentarily to sign up but during the pandemic many programs were run through project inspire with the sole focus of getting people to learn one-on-one isn't that right stewart one-on-one learning and so using the shabbat show and using the many online projects that we ran throughout the pandemic we pushed everyone to sign up to learn one-on-one and one such person flew in to be here with us tonight he is a beneficiary of our program with our 101 learning program and the best beneficiary people very similar to you in this room so especially in from minneapolis minnesota i'd like to ask dr luciano kolodny to share his experience with us today thank you very much i wrote some remarks but i like to start by saying that i'm truly humbled and honored to be invited to be here and humble to hear the stories of people who change hundreds of thousands of people's lives i've done no such a thing my name is luciano kolodny my hebrew name is ithac my grandparents were from pinsk poland and my grandfather was a deeply religious jew very observant but he was the only one in the family my grandmother my parents my uncles no no one of us observant and frankly as a child growing up in brazil i attended the chabad synagogue for shabbat services primarily especially because the rabbi's wife would prepare a really good egg salad and that was very unusual in brazil so that's the reason i attended most of the time when i was 19 i moved to the us to continue medical school and i would go to shabbat sometimes go to high holidays in whatever synagogue was nearby then i got married and we decided to become members of a reformed synagogue which we would attend but really we didn't have much knowledge of torah the years went by and about a year ago i read a story about project inspire it was a story about a jewish young man from the western u.s who got involved in in some kind of friendship with some neo-nazis and when they realized he was jewish they they threatened to kill him and he started thinking about gee what am i doing with my life so he started he called project inspire and he got a learning partner a partner to study to learn a few months later he moved to jerusalem and then he became an observant jew in his froome and i was in awe of that story so i immediately called the number or emailed i forget and this lady called danielle hass i don't know if she's here she called me back [Applause] and she connected me with my study partner and mentor julian leibovitz from thornhill in canada julian is an orthodox jew from south africa a software manager and just the embodiment of loving your fellow jew is a true mensch he immediately opened his arms and his heart to me he was so non-judgmental and taught me with such love um we started learning together he started teaching me principles of torah gemara we then started studying the weekly power shot and every week he would start sending me materials he would send me materials on whatsapp or my email and then we learned together on wednesdays and every wednesday i he had other things to show me and he was always so open he allowed me to text him and ask him questions so he would be prepared when when we had our time together i learned about shabbat about purim about pesach about shavuot and about sukkot and the reason i say sukkot is because i only have one son moishe who's 16 years old my son moishe was born on the first day of sukkot and despite that i had never celebrated sukkot before last time last sukkot was the first time ever in my life in 52 years that i built a sukkah and we celebrate it and we ate every meal in the sugar this is one of many firsts i spent the weekend this weekend with shabbat a wonderful family dr david rasnick and his wife um and julian and i continue meeting on a weekly basis and frankly we talk several times a week he texted me i don't know six or seven times while i've been here waiting and because of his friendliness because he'd never made me feel embarrassed or ashamed is why i thrived with him and why i look forward to learning with him and there are so many jews like me out there we just don't know where to go and we're too embarrassed or too proud to admit it so what i would ask you is please please please volunteer for project inspire it's a life-changing program for jews like me and there are thousands i'm sure are like in around the world or hundreds of thousands like me so please please volunteer you can change the life of a fellow jew thank you very much and i'm sorry hi i'm israel hi i'm gonna put up on the screen now away for everybody who has a card on their chair you receive the card out of the way and you could scan the qr code please use the opportunity to sign up now for a one-on-one 101 student to be a one-on-one mentor i wanted to ask you just if you don't mind i know there's a little bit off the cuff have you ever met julian no as a matter of fact i'm looking forward to meeting julian for the first time in april to meet him and his wonderful family on his son's wedding in april well just one more question you told everybody here about julian and what it meant to you what would you tell julian you're wonderful man i love you stop stop why don't you tell him yourself julian do you mind coming up here [Applause] thank you the channel there was a very very amazing speech i have to say not because it was my name in it really beautiful i have to just i wrote down a few words it's very emotional this only project inspire could connect a guy from brazil living in the u.s with a guy with a guy from south africa living in canada and get them to meet in person in stamford connecticut we have to thank daniel has project inspire and all of the wonderful staff for everything that they do for us and connected us together it's really amazing to meet you in person you know i'm i'm so very proud of you one year ago we were learning about building a sukkah and this last sukkah is like you said you built an actual sucker one year ago you used to say to me that you're not sure what the parish of the week is now you've learned the parsha by wednesday every week when we when we meet up our one hour sessions each week seem like minutes they just fly fly by you ask me such good questions that i have to i have to be honest with you that i have to study the posture each week and make sure that i know it by wednesday how many people in the room have learned posture by wednesday each week but really after we learn and this is you is that you thank me so much each week for learning with you but i really have to say that it's me who should be thanking you more i literally learned parasha in depth better than i ever have ever i've also studied topics that i haven't touched for years and years and years so really a big big thank you for you you are inspiring me to learn better thank you he has a gift [Applause] thank you luciano thank you julian glad that you finally met keep learning and bring others into the fold as well thank you thank you [Music]