Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky The Project Inspire Convention 2021

hi this is devin rolofsky and welcome to project inspire 2021 what a pleasure it is not to be here with you this is a virtual convention and uh what can i tell you having a little trouble making eye contact with some of you out there since i don't see anybody but uh this is coven this is the new reality you know we have to try to connect in a way that is disconnected right a little bit of a little bit of a contradiction there so when i was asked to speak at project inspire this year i said okay what are we going to talk about and i thought what a great thing to talk about connections because it's not what key river is about kiribati is liquidate to come close and uh in our minds somehow that means the firm community reaching out to the non-firm community but that's not what it's about it's about connections with all of us so let's start off with a little torah can't go wrong a little idea on purim so in yeshivas they have what's called the mishma right mishma is thursday night people stay up and learn later than they usually do some places go till 1201 sometimes stay up all night there used to be towns in europe where the whole town stayed up all night and uh and learned the whole night the whole thursday night mishma and one of the things they would do is they'd give you a particular sheila what they called the mishmashila to sit and work on and uh remember scheinberg was famous for this in fact he put out a series of safari called mishmarus hayim which is just a collection of his mishmashis that people used to sit work on so he asked the following question we have a concept in halakha called amatona it's a technicality what does that mean i give you a gift and it's completely yours on condition that you give it back to me so if you don't give it back to me it was never yours it's only yours if you give it back to me well that doesn't seem terribly practical how does that apply so we know this applies on circus you have to on the first day of circus own the lulav and esrag will a cocktail has to belong to you so i give you my little of an ass rig i have to give it to you completely but of course what if you're a wise guy and you decide to walk off with it so i give it to you as a matonna it's yours you can now shake it and it belongs to yours but it only is yours if you give it back to me so um asks uh s or scheinberg can i send you shalach monas as a matano i give you the manus and it's yours only if you give it back to me now some of the shahman's we get i think that would only add to the simcha right because you don't want these things in fact the repackagers out there you know that you could send somebody a shmonis and then it makes the rounds among five six or seven people until you finally get it back yourself you think somebody would have the decency to at least remove your card from inside of it but anyway can i give it to you i remember many years ago seeing this scene with groucho marx where guys walking by with a drink for somebody he says i'll take that and he says it's for mr you know jones so he pulls out a twenty dollar bill he says you see this he goes oh yes sir he drinks the drink and he says come back later i'll let you look at it again yeah so i bring you the monis is it nice it's very nice okay i give it to you as a maternal master absolutely give it back to me and i just go around to all my friends with the same one shahmanus giving it to them and taking it back now since technically i have to give you sherlock moniz i gave it to you i took it back does that work or not that's the question i won't go through all the alumnus but the conclusion is it does not work because the purpose of shalochmanos is to make shaolin banish rayu and i give you a gift and i take it back that doesn't create shalom that creates rehook it creates bad feelings why would you give me something only to take it back in the words of mark twain a banker is a person who lends you his umbrella and asks for it back when it starts to rain that's not much of a gift so if i give it to you with the understanding that i'm going to take it back doesn't create shalom and that's what shalom says that's what purim is i said this word over at a project inspired convention years ago i i apologize for repeating it because i know that everybody watches my speeches over and over and over again i understand the appeal i do it too you're still the most fascinating things out there i have a particularly wonderful one on the evils of guyver that i just watch over and over again because it's probably one of the best shurim i ever gave but in any event um there's a idea that beloved says we all know this from the shelagh where it says yom kippurim kippur is a yom kippurim it's like purim it's like purim yum kippur which is such a holy day is like purim it's not even as great as purim so answers for lovitz and sikhs musa that's because any kipper it's a time of actus everybody goes around apologizes to each other sorry i said this i'm sorry i did that right and we come together that's good but it's not the same level of achtus that you get on purim purim is an interactive actress we're not fighting that's good but it's not the same thing as the sense of desperation that comes from knowing i need you not everybody appreciates that they need people in their lives especially today when things are so distant yeah i saw an interview with jerry seinfeld not that long ago he was a somewhat popular comedian he had a number one show in america yeah and uh and someone asked him do you think you could make that show today and he says no i couldn't do it today he says why would anybody ever walk into anybody's apartment you know you had those scenes where kramer would walk in you know and everybody will like you know you know all the interactions he says now you would just text you would text you would what's up you would just communicate electronically people don't have that ability to interact there was a poignant cartoon in the hamodia i think it was 1995. if i recall correctly i saved it it showed purim and jewish line 50 years ago and you see two people they're wearing patched jackets everybody's barely but each one's carrying a plate of homemade treats that they're bringing to share with their friend and now shows you everybody's just sitting on their phone surrounded by giant packages wrapped in cellophane that they went to some service to deliver the more you move away the less purim is perm perm is supposed to be interaction it's supposed to be that interface because there's nothing that brings people together like knowing we're all going to die tomorrow yeah mecha one day everyone's gonna die you're dying tomorrow me too you can go first yeah but gentlemen if we do not hang together then we will certainly hang separately we need each other there's a there's a a dependence so purim is a time of kesha purim is a time of connection and that is what i want to try to talk about uh with the time that we have together how do you connect how do you connect to family how do you connect to friends tom lehrer who was a professor of mathematics in harvard who's best known for writing funny songs which says something about our society but uh [Music] here's a here's a here's another little tidbit for you somebody asked once um j.r.r tolkien who of course wrote the lord of the rings uh um book series and he says how do you think you'll be remembered for all of your work as a philologist in an oxford or for the lord of the rings he says for sure the lord of the rings the fantasy series that i wrote will last much longer than my academic accomplishments so he was a professor of mathematics in harvard but i remember that he wrote funny songs and in one of his introductions he said the following he said so much of contemporary literature and and media talks about people who can't communicate parents who can't communicate with their children spouses who can't communicate with their spouses and i feel like instead of writing so much about this if you can't communicate the least you could do is keep your mouth shut yeah no we should not we should learn how to communicate dibor dibor is kesha it's always connection amira i can say something without anybody there but dibor is as promising shapiro always used to quote the mishnah in suvis you saw her talking to somebody it doesn't mean that they were talking but that's the word that we use for kesha for connection to be able to communicate with somebody to talk to them there a friend is from the word lechabare to connect that's what a friend is it's a connection it's figuring out how to form connections with people in general what's ahava abba is le karev when you love something you go close to it you form a cache with it when you hate something you're miraculous interesting um counter-intuitive thing in psychology when somebody stares at something it's because they don't like it when people are embarrassed to look at something it's because they desire it and so they're they don't want to be caught looking you know at this uh big stake they want the biggest piece you know i mean i don't want everybody noticed yeah but the more we want something the more we are mccarran to it we come close to it we want that connection to it that's the difference between ava and of course the difference between sinner and that's why ahava leads to what vegas vacation where you stick together so how do we connect yeah it says by aaron cohen oh shalom vero dave shalom oh eva sabrias and mcavon latoya how did he bring them to torah or he was a prius he loved people when you love people then you become close to them that's the nature of love love brings us together yeah let's face it very few people in this world are black and white very few people are completely good or completely evil we're made up of different parts that's why when an amore in the gemara says i'm a bananee and everyone says if you were abandoning me what does that make me he doesn't mean that i'm a banananee and therefore you're russia what he means is everybody's a bananee because that sadik only does good and russia only does bad and abandonee is pulled in two directions and all of us are pulled in two directions we're all contradictions we all have positive and negative parts sometimes at the same time we could do something positive and there's some negative mixed into it it's the nature of people people are contradictory the way that you're making to somebody is by looking at the good and the way that you don't like somebody is by looking at the bed you ever see when people have a fight have a fight two friends that fight he says i'm not even talking to that guy again why because he's this and he's this and he's this and he's this and he lists three or four horrible things about the person and eventually they make up and you say how can you be friends with this person you just told me all the horrible things he says no he's this and he's this and he's this and he's this and he does all his wonderful things so which one was true they're both true what do you choose to focus on if you want to love somebody you focus on all the good that doesn't mean the bed's not there but i don't choose to focus on it rakhim kraisworth zatzal was the rev of antwerp and a lot of the jews in antwerp are involved in the diamond business and uh you know as in every business there are rules that most people don't observe this is always true there are always a certain number of rules that people don't observe for example yeah i had a book once called a hundred ways to win a monopoly this is not terribly important which explains why i would have a book like this yeah and they say a lot of the strategies is based on the rules unfortunately most people don't keep the rules so for example under equipment yeah it says there were 12 hotels and 32 houses now that might seem uh pretty innocuous you could just count them in the box but he says that's a rule therefore if there are no more hotels in the box you can't put up hotels the rules also say a hotel is defined by putting up four houses and then adding another house so you can't build hotels unless you have 12 houses and if there aren't 12 houses in the box then you can't put up hotels because there aren't enough houses even though there are hotels nobody keeps these rules yeah but there are always rules that exist even though people don't keep it and it's true in business too so there was one rule in the diamond business i really don't know what it was that nobody really kept but the government decided to make an example out of this one from yid and they arrested them on these charges and chrisworth came down to meet with the judge and he says rabbi you have information bearing on this case and he says yes i do he says well i'd love to hear it so he says we have a book in our mishna called ovo's ethics of the fathers and in there is the following line dan adam lakafskos judge should have just said judge a person favorably in which case it should have said don adam what's don call adam says the only way you can judge a person favorably is by judging the entire person you can look at any one action that a person does and understand why it's a terrible thing and this is a terrible person but if you can see ko adam everything about the person judge him in his totality you'll come up with a different idea so robert criesworth said to the judge i'm here to fill in other aspects of the picture that you need in order to judge this person things you may not know about him as a family man as a community member as a citizen you can't just look at this one thing that he did that's the way that you make connections by looking at the total picture uh a guy comes to me he's about to go into jewish outreach he took a program here in jerusalem he was moving to a town someplace in america and before he moved he says what do you think should i divorce my wife before i go or when i get there interesting question i said why do you want to divorce your wife says because she's terrible i said you know what let's do an exercise tell me three good things about your wife it was an agonizing two minutes as he stood there like this [Music] nope can't think of anything i said you can't think of anything good i can meet somebody on the bus and tell you three good things about them and this woman the mother of your children yeah who's cooked for you and clean for you and done your laundry and you know and all the things for years and years and years and you can't tell me three good things about her because you're so angry and you're blocking out all of the good you know a lot of it comes down to our mindset north weinberg used to have this thing that he would do where he would say to somebody do you want to learn about life do you want to learn about happiness do you want to learn about how to have a meaningful existence and people would say sure he says i want you to stay for six weeks he says well i i can't says you can't he says no uh i have a ticket back he says you know you can you can change a ticket in fact i'll pay the fee so he says uh well uh i have a job he says what if i paid you 25 000 could you stay here for six weeks the guy thinks about it he says yeah he says then you could stay just say i don't want to the guy says okay i don't want to he says but i thought you want to learn about life and learn about happiness a lot about meaning so don't say i don't want to say i don't feel like it says okay i don't feel like it he says good lesson number one to a meaningful life do what you want not what you feel like [Music] if we want to find good in people you can find good in everybody your mind is a tool you can use it however you want and therefore our attitude has to be not if i feel like connecting to this person or not connecting to this person i have to connect to this person i need this person you ever see two people go out to eat and they're both playing on their phones neither one of them is talking to each other people exist inside of these make-believe little worlds and there's actual people there and there's no connection because i don't think i need you but if i feel like i need you desperately i'm depending on you and your attitude changes my mother of michelle had a wonderful laugh a very contagious laugh she was very loud yeah and uh she was on the plane with her sister coming from my son my my brother's bar mitzvah and she was laughing she was laughing the people in front of her turned around saying be quiet be quiet stop laughing stop laughing well of course that just made my mother laugh louder you know anyway fine you know before they left the plane they probably said a couple of unsavory things to my mother and that was it we came in for the bar mitzvah we brought in a large group and we had a bus we had a tour we were traveling around and um and uh my um my uh at one point in the the territories uh they weren't as dangerous back then but certainly not as safe it was 1975. anyway it was getting towards night and we passed by a minivan that had broken down and our tour guide says to us listen this is not a good place to be at night would you mind if we gave these people a ride and my parents were like sure of course who is it the people who are sitting in front of my mother and they get on the bus and you can imagine they look a little embarrassed and my mother says to me we had some yeshiva guys on the bus says everybody sing as loud as you can and uh these people were clapping they were very happy to be on the bus their attitude changed why because they understood that they needed each other when you when you come from a point of view that i need you it's not just if i feel like it my attitude changes maybe one last point we'll make with the little bit of time that we have left no say but help another person carry the burden there's no better way to connect than when you see somebody in need and you help them i'm schlepping packages and you go over and you help them with those packages doesn't that make a tremendous difference doesn't that make a tremendous connection most people look at the other person and think what can they do for me there's a story in the first chicken soup of the soul where this guy has a new car and he goes to pick up something in a store in a sort of run-down neighborhood and there's a little kid staring at his new car he's wearing hand-me-downs they're too big on him you know and he's staring at the car and he says you like the car kid he says yeah where'd you get it he says my brother bought it for me and he goes i wish says i know what he was going to say i wish i had a brother like that he says i wish i could be a brother like that he says you want to go for a ride he says yeah can we go to our house my house so he figures okay he wants to show off he's in a new car he goes to the house he says can you wait one minute and he runs in and he carries out his little brother who can't walk because he had polio he says you see billy one his brother brought him that car and one day i'll buy you a car so it'll be easier for you to get around you want to have a brother like that or you want to be a brother like that so i end with a story i heard this story from nelson street fingers gabai he used to come to my uh homicide he told me this story he was there the first part of the story you can find online it's a famous story howard schultz writes an email about his trip to israel and he met with a lot of important people him and a lot of these very wealthy jews and one of the people they met with was renault street finkel shiva the mir and he said he asked us he says what do we learn from the holocaust he says you know never again we have to a jewish country he says no what we learned is that five jews can sleep with one blanket you have the blanket go back to america and share it with your fellow jews now how would you to write this but the godby told me he came back a second time by himself and he writes out a check signs it and he says rabbi fill it out for whatever you want at the time the budget of the mirror was two billion dollars a month i'm sure if nelson's fee could have written two million dollars and howard schultz went to put the blank he was a billionaire he says i can fill it out for whatever i want he fills it out for fourteen hundred dollars he says take it across the street to that house that store and buy a parrot's filling and put on every day that's what you can do for me because he didn't want a brother like that he wanted to be a brother like that kira verkhokhim helping our fellow jews it's not only people who are religious helping secular it's all of us connecting connecting to our family connecting to our loved ones connecting to our neighbors and the way we do that is by seeing the entire person and looking for all the good emir in this course of all of us working together and hopefully next year this will be in uh in person because if you haven't been to a project inspired convention the food is great trust me i'm very disappointed they offered to send me some virtual food but i find it doesn't have the same taste in any event we should all have that shalochamonos have that connection have all of that power that comes from being claustro our family and all the jewish people you