Rabbi Berel Lazar - Project Inspire Convention 2025

for over three decades one man has stood at the Forefront of Jewish life in Russia leading with unwavering commitment courage and Faith Rabbi barl Lazar Chief Rabbi of Russia has not only revitalized Jewish communities across the former Soviet Union but has also been a global Ambassador for the Jewish people from rebuilding shoes and schools to ensuring that every Jew who no matter where they are has access to their Heritage Rabbi lazar's leadership has been a beacon of light in times of Challenge and Triumph his work extends far beyond Russia's borders whether standing before world leaders advocating for Jewish rights or bringing Torah and Yiddish kite to the farthest corners of the earth Rabbi Lazar embodies the responsibility of claw Israel caring for every Jew in every place tonight we are honored to welcome a leader a Visionary and a true servant of the Jewish people please welcome the chief Rabbi of Russia Rabbi barl Lazar [Applause] a first of all great great great being here I think for each one of us but especially for me so I think it's a eye opener for me everything that I saw here the shabas and I'm sure each one of the participants feels the same we're empowered to go out and bring mashiach how do we do that that so just imagine that somebody will tell you you can save the Bas children what are you ready to do to save them I could promise you that if you turn to any Jew anywhere in the world and you tell him these words you're going to say am in I'm ready I'm ready to do whatever is needed to save these children so you know what there rambam it's a big issue but the rambam says that a Jew that is out there that is not part of project Inspire doesn't go to kabar house doesn't join a minion every day he is a he's a child that was captivated he's being held hostage by non-jews he's actually maybe living in the Free World but deep inside what is going on with him he's a hostage he's in Gaza he's suffering he's hurting and you are the one that can save him and this is really what we have to realize that these Jews that say no I heard tonight somebody says you want to learn and he says no I always say oh you are my client those that say yes somebody else will take care of them they don't need me when somebody says no I say oh wow that's who I was looking for and let's start talking and invite him for shabas send him some mat send a big book Put unfilling on him make a small change this will trigger bigger changes bigger changes if a shabas meal can bring this beautiful family to be of others it's like Herbal Life I don't know it's called you know it it goes and goes and it grows and and the at the end of the day we are the ones that get thear from his B and his Bas and his Bas but people say people are not interested in listening I look at them in their eyes they don't want to talk to me so let me share with you a very famous a person goes over to shamai and he says teach me the whole teror while I'm standing on one foot shamai takes his STI and starts running after him I don't know if he hit him or didn't hit him but he managed to run away and he ended up by H and he tells the same story again can you teach me the whole to where I'm standing on one foot so first of all how long was he planning on standing on one foot if you ask a person how long can you stand on one foot tell you I don't know try it try it at home see how long you can stand on one foot every person stands a different time if he's a good Sportsman he could stand longer he he not so balanced less what kind of time limit is while I'm standing on one foot say I have five minutes I'm running later meeting what's on one foot and also he says teach me the whole Torah what is he stupid he thinks he could learn the whole Torah on one foot and what does he answer him oh he has a good trick don't do to him what you don't want somebody else to do to you to you that's the whole tah the rest is commentary now go learn oh you tricked me you said you're going to teach the whole T and then you tell me go learn so you didn't teach me the whole tah so what is going on over here there many many many perim I want to share a thought that I had this person is telling him I'm standing on one foot what does shamai see he see somebody mocking T laughing at us you guys are learning T every day you learn what are you learning you can do it all in one second sh gets angry starts hitting him say why Mak he goes to h what does H say what does he see he sees somebody picking up his foot and he's ready to take one step that's why he's standing on one foot he wants to take one step he says tell me can I do one step is that going to be enough or you're planning to turn me into somebody with a black hat Black Beard or white beard what do you tell me the truth what do you want from me and you tell me you know what I want you to do one Mitzvah one Mitzvah don't hurt one person you know who you're not going to hurt you friend why does he say it in the negative way because he's telling him even though he hurt you he did something against you he's your competition he built a business right next door he did something to hurt you this person is terrible he was your friend and look what he did to you exactly what he did to you don't do to him you can't stand it how could he do such a bad thing to you and you say you know what I'm going to do it back to him no exactly the opposite now go learn and you're going to take a second step a third step a fourth steps you can already imagine what this person became and who he was if the tells us this whole story around a year and a half ago after October 7th all of a sudden I got a phone call we heard you're traveling to Israel there's somebody that wants to see you and I always say the answer is always going to be yes and who's nuding me this time oh it's actually a lady that was a hostage she thinks you can help I said listen I don't know if I can help but to meet anyone I'm always ready and I'm in Israel with my wife and this Elena trufanova comes with her future daughter-in-law and they come to meet us and they ask me to do things that are not too realistic but I tell them you know what we're going to do it we're going to do it together whatever it's going to take we're going to do it don't worry your son Alexander is going to come out of captivity I promise you let's go to the queso anyways I don't know if that was the first time that she was by the CLE but when she came there barem she decided on the spot that she's going to start start keeping shabas now to understand how far this family was from idesk her husband that was murdered was not Jewish her son that was at that time in captivity was far from idish kite as far as you can go zero connection when I say zero it's zero and you know you all heard the story of sapir Ken the way she was tring the perim and the whole there was also she started ding a month before s there was no connection even though our parents are from from family and this Elena was completely disconnected far forward all of a sudden she's keeping shabas she's daving three times a day where every little detail and she has questions am I supposed to say this way or that way and tell me here and tell me there she says still him every shabas takes her four and a half hours to say till him and then during the week again she says till him and the question she asked on him she understand what she's saying and I'm telling her don't worry I promise you one thing first of all good good think it's going to be okay you'll see it's going to be okay positivity you have to and the mid they are doing the feel it's for sure going to help and throughout the whole time after I promise her everything's going to be okay she has one question she says you know my problem real problem I start believing you that it's going to come out but once he sees what happened to me what happened to his girlfriend he's going to think that we went crazy why he's going to keep shabas are you crazy do you know what this guy is's going to see when he sees us keeping shabas it's going to be terrible I have nothing to answer her but I tell you you know what if you're going to DAV while you DAV you should come out of you should also DAV that he should be strong over there and that Zuna should come back anyways they came to mcow to visit just you should understand how close we got to them my wife who's here tonight and the whole shabas thanked her for bringing me here you can applaud her my wife became her sister Kip every single day they're on the phone their future daughter-in-law became my daughter's sister and they're on the phone every day and they became really family and this is really the connection we have to have with every single Jew they are family and you soon see how family works anyways you all heard the news that he came out but let me tell you one interesting point we've been telling them not only is he going to come out we'll be there to greet him when he comes out we promise you we'll be there in Israel and they ask us how do you know how well you're going to move to Israel how do you know you're going to be in Israel said listen we are also ding we want to see him as much as you want to see him he's our brother he's our son we want to see him if we're going to be there and you all heard the story of the wedding barem Friday all of a sudden we find out the wedding was on Wednesday Friday we found out there is on the list coming out on chabas and Elena trova calls me up and she says I'm keeping chabas what should I do am I allowed to go meet my son by the border or I have to keep shabas trust me it's a tough question and I answered it that she's allowed but she made sure that no news will take any pictures or nothing to be they shouldn't publish anything until m but the whole time she's telling me on Friday already when she already heard that he's coming out he says you know what I'm really worried about when he's going to see your hat and your beard is going to run away so I I'm not so scary you know like the lady on the plane she was scary I'm not so scary and I tell her don't worry we'll figure out I'll be nice don't worry I'm not so terrible anyways M shabas the first phone call that he asked to make was he called our family while we were still in the middle of sh we all said the and he was Thanking us for helping his mother and helping his girlfriend and being connected to the family and he's actually he saw me with a hat in bed and he wasn't so shocked but I still didn't know he knew that we helped him he found out but I didn't know what he was going to do actually when he's going to see me you know face to face anyways I'm supposed to go to him at shabas and they tell me it's still not going to work tomorrow morning okay how do we get there they tell us they allow in the hospital only very close family members so this Elena told them actually their family it's not just you know friends rabbis it's our family these are our family that's my sister and that's my brother-in-law and that's uh so we came there as family we come there to the hospital they look at us they can't figure out what kind of family are with with them we pass the face control and we're standing there by the door and they say how many are you so we say we're actually six we came with our daughters because they're also sisters and whatever all brothers and sisters and they say six people maximum they allow one or two people for maximum 5 to 10 minutes and no phones so I'm already hiding my phone I have two phones one phone goes here one phone this is my phone I'm already thinking how am I going to take a picture I want a picture with him they don't allow phones they don't allow you to go in for more than 5 minutes and at a certain point they ask how many are you and my wife says we are actually one and that statement we are actually one broke the I and he said if that's the case we're going to make you meet them not in the hospital there's a cour outside and we're going to open it for you that you should be able to sit with him there anyways able to go down to the court yard and wait for him every second felt like a million years and when he came out of that door and he saw me and he came over to me to hug me I can't describe what happened at that moment I broke down I couldn't believe it such a special Nish hugging me holding me tight and we're able to be there for an hour and a half with our phones and with it fill in and I put on filling in him and I keep on saying and I'm going to repeat it again and again if once in my life time ater I'm going to be at the D that this Alexander Ben Lea was when he put on filling the way he was ding went to the core of my I was so touched I was so in a different I was in ecstasy I couldn't believe it this this is the boy that they were saying they going to be afraid of a hat and a beard this is the holiest Jew that I ever met I'm not going to repeat what happened in an hour and a half I'm not going to repeat all the discussion that we had from then from here we're flying to Israel to sit down with him to plan IM mitem their future life but I want to just share one small story he came out and he tells his mother that every hostage in Gaza had to have a nick name a nickname a name in according to the Muslim tradition so you can choose Muhammad or I don't know all the names and they gave him a whole bunch of a list of names to choose from and he crossed it all out this not good that's not good I don't like it I don't like it and at certain point he chose a name and he tells his mother the name that I chose you know who I became I became Yousef and when she heard that she said oh my gosh when she was in the most hard moment in this whole history when she was giving up hope she decided she's going to open up AES and see what is the message the t is telling her and what did she open thees on the the story of yadik being in the pit and everybody G up gave up on him his brother his brothers his father and you can think that there's no future to this boy and all dullah he saved the Jewish people he saved the world and she said that's what my son is going to do this is the message I'm not giving up he's going to come out he's going to change the world you have no idea how many messages I got of people that decided to put on Fillin because they saw Sasha truan of putting on filling this boy is going to change the world and each one of us could be the yadik yosf fredman you are the yadik [Music] [Applause] I have a lot more to tell you I'm afraid he's going to fire me on the spot yie you better buy me a watch anyways I'm I'm going to stop right now even though believe me I could go on forever I want to just share one bosha yesterday there's a beautiful safer that one of the first F the Reb gave out it's called y every day has a message yesterday the message was that every single Jew is a some people know a met every Jew is a each one of us is the to go out to every single Jew and every single Jew is a SAS that we think he's so far away he's so scared of us we don't bite we Act actually are hidden that care for each other and when we see somebody that is missing the beauty of idish kite the we barem are able to celebrate it's not fair not to share it with them so we have to do it with a smile we have to show them how beautiful it is how special it is to be a yid to be a Jew to be involved to help other Jews to get involved and have no doubt that this shabas and what's going to come out of the shabas is going to be a big big step not only a regular one big step that we all going to take to go now