Alex Clare at The Project Inspire Convention 2017

got dig deep cuz your mind it screams and I can see can I [Music] see open your mouth I read your [Music] M I grew up in a very very secular family and I grew up in southeast London famous for David Bowie and Peter Frampton and Billy Idol I didn't really have a sense of being Jewish I didn't think there was we were any different to anybody else until I was at what would be called Junior High in America I guess there was another kid in my class who was much more traditional than me and I heard another kid in our school in our class say to me that he wasn't allowed to play or hang out with this other kid because he was Jewish and his father told him not to and that shook me up when I was 7 years old they were offering free music lessons at school and uh I got a drum kit and I started playing in different bands when you're a musician as a kid is like a gateway to get into all the parties and all the bars when you really shouldn't be there and uh 17 years old I decided to really take music seriously and follow it fulltime sure enough I started working for a small publishing company in London working in studios working on my way up from her first just making Cups of Tea but I started creating my own type of music which was blending Soul music with electronic music I was playing live almost every single night and before too long the recording industry in the UK started to notice me eventually there was some sort of boothing war between pyone and Island Records which is where I ended up signing and becoming a an Island Records artist famous for signing YouTu and Bob Marley and like various other big big musicians [Music] you know the real moment of sense of achievement was when I played aalaa in Chicago that feeling of seeing 30 to 100,000 people singing every word to every song back um marks a real sense of achievement it's the it's the dream [Music] today I live inesh yeah I Lear Kaba in the mornings Lear in the afternoons I learn in a k learning youra fantastic you know the very fact that I had so much sh in the music industry means that I can sit and spend most of my day learning toyra I said when he says this what does it mean it means that everything else is it means to an end for Jew the priority is shess it's cashless to understand the bras the benevolence and the goodness that comes from learning TOA and trying to build a meaningful relationship with AES it's infinite [Music] [Applause] thank you very much for uh for having me I'm very humbled um by that wonderful video very surprised um thank you Yi um so I'm gonna tell you a couple of stories if that's okay about my journey and um how individuals like yourself made such a implicit and massive difference to my life one second so about 9 years ago I was living in camam toown in Northwest London um about as far away even though it's in terms of distance very near to the Jewish community it's as far away as you could possibly get and I started asking questions about myself about my yish guy and how I could connect kage baru and I decided to go to Stanford Hill Stanford Hill is the The Hub of the kidish community in the UK and I uh I found myself walking into a very large Sho asking someone if there was by any chance on a Friday afternoon a Shabbat I think is what I said you can't say Kabal Shabbat in Stanford hillal shabas and a man called Dr naali Lal very special person he grabbed my hand and he said sure where are you eating tonight and I said I have no plans and he said okay you eat eat by me and he said where did you where did you live and I said I live in camam town and he said oh camam Town said so where are you staying for chabas and I said well I was probably going to get the bus back to camam town he looked so shocked but with his sweet smile he said nonsense come stay by me he went out on a limb with someone he'd never met before in his life a year two turned up in a T-shirt and jeans and a flat cap and he welcomed me into his home and for the first time in a long time I felt a sense of Schamus I was with a family a Torah family who embraced me lovingly into their world really changed my perspective on things to see people who were truly content truly happy when I was living in a world where people were chasing after their desires chasing after the fruitless ambition for the sake of self-gratification and suddenly I was sitting with people who had Schamus who had a love for the tah had love for a Jew that never met before Second Story when I was on my journey growing inish kite I was offered a job on the south coast of England in a town called Brighton Now Brighton doesn't have a very large Jewish Community but I was growing in my shabas observance and the only really sha shabas people there were the two rabbis rman Lewis and rapu Ru made a sim a b Mitzvah and while at the the the suda for the B mitzvah a yid with a shiny black coat and a big beard walked up to me and he said Shalom and I said shalim and he said um I hear you're from London and I said yeah I'm from London originally he said okay he said are you moving back at all and I said yeah yeah probably probably at some stage and he said okay well as soon as you do look me up my name is AKA fella and I would love to have you for a meal love to have you for meal whenever you need just look me up so 6 months later it just so happened that I'd moved back to London and [Music] um for some reason it was suck us and I'd made plans with friends whatever friends you weren't necessarily from but were much more traditional than myself I had no Jewish you know upbringing no real from kite in my life whatsoever and all my plans had fallen through and I remembered oh those one years those one year who said to me whenever you need a meal come to me I knew where he DED he DED in kingsy waya in in in um hamard on subb near Gold's green and I remembered what he looked like so I made my way on a on a on just Arab circus to this Shore and he saw me and with a big smile he said H you're supposed to be eating about me now and I said yeah well how about tonight and he said absolutely and this this man re fellow he welcomed me into his home after that he asked me if I wanted to learn and for two hours every week we' me and we would learn a little bit of Al some and I grew and became very much a part of his life and he became very much a part of mine subsequently I learned with his nephew redmy Eun and uh about two years later Jing Kusa with meni his nephew he said to me um just so you know there's a there's a girl who's interested in you I said oh really they said yeah he said um Rea fella his daughter I couldn't believe it I couldn't believe it first coming from a non-religious background I never had an assumption in my mind that such a thing was even possible and uh six months later I got married to my [Applause] wife one kind gesture one offer of a meal grew into a relationship with a man who became so much like a father to me and eventually I became his son Mish ladies and gentlemen I want to let you know I heard from Red benan clo a few months ago he said something very profound that rang so true in my mind he said when you put yourself out on a line for another Jew when you go out there to be Makar of somebody and bring them close to yishai bring them close to Hashem firstly you have to be their friend you have to be their friend you have to be there for them whenever they need you and believe me b have enough M they need a friend he says then you have to be their R you're the connection to tah even if it's you yourself are not holding on a great level you have to understand that you are their Paradigm that they have to Aspire to in Torah we have to be their love thirdly when the time comes you have to be their mommy and their TTY you have to be there for them through the Simas through the celebrations through shalam the opposite and I felt it so truly when I heard reenan tell me this because I thought of my own family my wife my beautiful children my sh and how it all came from just a chance meeting and a few kind words and an offer of a meal at a shabas table so thank you so much for letting me speak and uh please please please know that you can make such a tremendous difference to someone like me to some other kid you might meet on the street so a good thank [Applause] you you know today Alex lives in Yim and I'm to have him come by my office in is tor every so often and watch how he sits with other students college students who are searching and to be able to talk to them and to sing to them Alex you're a true inspiration Alex it wouldn't be fair to everybody here for you to just leave without a niggan can we can we hear a niggan maybe a little different than the niggan that we saw up on the screen but can you can you share a with us get [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh oh oh my [Music] oh oh am my oh I am I am I [Music] oh oh am oh am I am oh am I am oh am oh am oh I [Music] am oh yeah oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] him me [Music] [Applause] [Music] she she [Music] me [Music] [Applause] she now she's [Music] now [Applause] [Music] she the your death [Music] and you see I'm trying to be all that you want of me but it's so cold now it's so dark what can I do it's not very clear shine a little light show us the way lead us to a brighter day shine a little light show us the way lead us today thank you so much [Applause]