Chanukah and the Heart Attack - Rabbi Benzion Klatzko

hello everyone and a happy hanukkah felix and chanukah i hope that you're all doing well and you're feeling the beauty of this time of the year i want to share with you something that happened to me recently and i feel that there's a real tie-in to the holiday of hanukkah about a month ago i began feeling uh chest pains and it was more of a pressure than a pain but it it grew and and i sort of ignored it you know i knew i had been eating a lot and it's just uh health-wise exercise i wasn't where i should be but i just let it go and kept doing my thing and a few weeks ago i ran a shabbaton in chicago and throughout that shabbat i just felt this pressure on my left side my heart but radiating to my arm just it didn't feel right and then the following the following day i flew back to new york and i went to a wedding that evening the wedding of my niece and during the chupa i just felt the pressure was getting really really severe so after the khutba i turned to my father who was there at the casa at the wedding of his granddaughter and i explained to him what that pain was and he happens to be an er doctor and i explained to him the pain and he said you should go to the emergency room right now and i said well maybe i'll go after the wedding he said no no go now. so i said okay i'll you know i'm i'm in new jersey maybe i'll go to new york in case they keep me overnight he says no go to the nearest emergency room so i said okay i guess i'll drive to the nearest emergency room he said no you have to call out salah okay you know he says to call outside i shouldn't drive we call that cell and they brought me to the er and they treated it like a heart attack now it was not a heart attack it was a warning sign there were a lot of warning signs that i wasn't where i should be with the cholesterol and triglycerides and the stress test later on and all sorts of other things that were going on in my life that really were unhealthy and in particular when it came to uh to eating i ended up spending the night in the hospital there and i took tests the next morning and they decided that i needed an angiogram and so they took me by ambulance from new jersey to columbia hospital in new york and the next day they scheduled an angiogram and uh that's you know taking a tube sticking it through your groin into your heart and uh they just wanted to make sure there were there was no blockage and um and you know they it would there was nothing that could even lead to a heart attack so they did those tests on me and it was it was scary you know i'm not an old man you know and uh but i do have a history my uh grandfather passed away at the age of 45 from a heart attack and i'm 45 today so there was reason to be concerned and they did the tests and thank god i did not need a i i didn't need anything more than just medication i didn't need a stent they put me on medication and they told me to lose weight and take much better care of myself and they sent me home and it took a few weeks to recover and i'm back to myself but there were three lessons that i learned and this is really what i want to share with you lesson number one is the following you know we we live for today and living for today sometimes is used that expression is used for those who live in the moment and they're just running after pleasure and desire and that's living in the moment for the truth of the matter is a person can be doing great things and still live in the moment right we're doing what we need to do we're just trying to get by and the reality is that we have to think long term and you know i may be preaching to the converted here but i'll tell you the truth you know what goes through the mind of a person who doesn't take care of themselves who sort of doesn't eat correctly and doesn't exercise so i'd sure i i sort of looked at myself and tried to figure out what my thought process was and i thought two two things were running through my mind before this incident number one the thought of really controlling my eating meant in my mind an austria life a difficult life where uh every food has to be sort of weighed and figured out is this okay is this not okay a lot of holding back and a lot of restriction and you know my lifestyle and the life that i live is sort of a gregarious open happy kind of a life that involves focusing on many things besides that kind of a fixation or focus on on on my health and the thought was you know i can either live a very austria life all my life or sort of do what i'm doing and eat what i want and you know live life and eat as many bowls of challenge and as many helpings of a chopped liver and then when i'm you know 65 70 i'll pay my dues i'll spend my two weeks in the hospital and um and uh you know that's the price of not living in austere life for the for the for 50 or 60 years beforehand uh of course that's nonsense because here i am 45 and i'm in the hospital but it's it's a little bit more than that you know i think that we think to our ourselves those who spend all this time and this money this effort trying to take care of themselves perhaps they'll live a few extra years so at the tail end instead of dying at the age of 75 or 80 they'll live until 85 90. but those those years those years in the end well you know what can you do in those years anyways you're going to be in a nursing home you may have alzheimer's you know it's it's sort of like those there's the end i don't know if that's worth the trade-off of all of those years beforehand where i want to sort of not have to fixate on the day-to-day of watching my weight and spending half an hour a day doing exercise there's a lot to accomplish and a lot to do now that's all nonsense and i know that and i knew that before but i want to share with you two thoughts about that number one and this is sort of a very jewish thought you know when we think of a bucket list you know those things that we want to do before we die before we kick the bucket what what's on that list you know is that list all about i want to bungee jump i want to go bungee jumping beforehand or i want to drink my ties on a beach right what's on that bucket list that that extra pleasure that adventure that we are not doing now and when we think about it you know all of those things sort of the standard things that people write on their bucket list are not the pleasure that the jewish people really really enjoy others what is the jewish bucket list what is the pleasure that we consider the ultimate pleasure now i'd love to tell you well it's obviously learning torah or doing mitzvas but you know to be practical sometimes that's difficult and sometimes we're not in the mood but what is the jewish pleasure that is much more pleasurable than my ties on the beach or bungee jumping or traveling to spain what is the pleasure and the answer is it's something called nakas it's the great jewish pleasure now it is that feeling when our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren grow up to be amazing human beings over the hashem serving the almighty and serving humanity seeing our life's work bear fruit other amazing human beings that we nurtured that we created that we molded and we we taught that we sweated over and we cried for and to see all that blossom and grow that's called nachas that's where it's at now when we're young nachos is a little bit you know few and far between perhaps we get married it's wonderful we have perhaps we have a baby and then maybe a few years later another child and then a bris or a kiddush you know 13 years later we have a bar mitzvah another 10 years later perhaps we have a wedding and the nachos is it exists and it's wonderful and we see our children come home each day with their projects but the amazing knockouts the knockouts that that really inspires and animates us it's a little bit far between but as we grow older and as our family grows and as our children get married and have children of their own the simchas the happy occasions begin to pile up they're hot and heavy and they're exciting and it's wonderful that's when the nachos begins to bear fruit that's when the dividends begin to have their own dividends that's when you have one bar mitzvah one press one wedding after the next after the next month after month my father was an only child of a widow mother only child the only classical doctor naftali kladsko one man from one widow-russian mother and that man had nine children and those children have many children 8 9 10 11 12 13. each of those children have many children and at this point in his life every month there's another simcha a bar mitzvah a wedding a kiddish a bris an upsharing he can't even keep up and the knock us that we cherish so much it increases tenfold so therefore when we get to be a little bit older on this greatest of pleasures begins to become our lot why not be around for that it could be the ages of 70 and 80. those are when those are the most enjoyable times of our life that's when we see all of our work come to fruition could you imagine a scientist who works really hard 20 years trying to prove a theorem and then a month before it has proven he passes on and he never has a chance to see his life work bear fruit sad isn't it we have that opportunity we can watch our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren so why not be around for that let's take a little bit better care of ourselves and so i was sitting with my good friend michael prell and he asked me the following question he said rabbi class let me ask you something how old is your youngest i said right now he's three years old he said how old would you have to be to meet your youngest child's grandchildren my youngest child's name is mayor mayer's three i'm 45 so most probably the age of 87 88 that's accurate if i'm 87 years old if i make it to 87 i will meet my youngest child's grandchildren michael said there you go that is your goal to meet your youngest child's grandchildren work at it take care of yourself be there for the jewish people be there for your family watch yourself a little bit you don't have to eat every jelly donut on hanukkah and you know two three latkes may be enough it doesn't have to be ten with lots of applesauce and lots of sour cream and it's funny because as i'm making this video i'm thinking to myself how would i how would me the me of two months ago have responded to this video i would have probably rolled my eyes and said okay another you know take care of yourself but you know it's it's so i mean i'm living proof there you go but there are two other lessons that i want to share with you and i think you know these are canonical lessons the first lesson is also a hanukkah lesson you know the greeks they very much uh uh vernerated the body they worshipped the body they idolized they put the body in a pedestal their their their olympics had people uh competing in the nude because they want to show off the body there's nothing to be ashamed of and we may think well since we're not greek we have to go the opposite extreme and therefore we don't have to take care of our body at all but that's not so either there's a there can say there's a middle road between competing nude in the olympics and eating four bowls of chunk there's a middle road and that middle road is a pretty good road and it's a matter of self-control and i'll tell you something very interesting and i heard this from a great person that self-control and eating will help a person learn self-control in the other aspects of their life that they're struggling with so if you're struggling with a smear saying i am watching your eyes if you're struggling with the with with laziness if you're struggling with getting up for davening in the morning if you're struggling with anger controlling your self when it comes to food will help exercise that self-control muscle and will help you in other areas as well okay number two when i was brought to the hospital so i had my phone on me and i uh took a um a picture i had someone take a picture of me and i posted it on facebook and i posted the words chest pain plus wedding equals emergency room please daven for and i gave my name and i put it on my wall and i figured maybe people will dive in for me and it will help we didn't know what the prognosis was and we didn't uh you know we didn't know what the what the diagnosis was we just didn't know and i really wanted people to dive in and i figured there'd be a few messages and a few people dominate for me well the reality is that after posting that on facebook it sort of exploded in a way that i had no idea that it would i'm flattered i'm embarrassed i'm honored the jewish people picked up the ball and they ran with it and they took that post and it was reposted and reposted and reposted and reposted and and ultimately it ended up on an insane amount of walls and the comments that came in the blessings the messages uh we figured out that it ended up being seen by half a million people and people were davening and i i can't even describe the outpouring of love from the jewish people that i felt and i learned an awesome lesson and a powerful lesson and this is idea number two the idea is that our reach is greater than we give a credit for our friends our acquaintances people that we come in contact with when we think about who we know and who our circle is it is really much much greater than that at the moment we have a certain amount of friends but we also have a certain amount of people that we meet at school or that we meet in the gym or that we meet at work and then we have friends from our past who still still feel close to us we still have friends from our high school days and perhaps from our elementary school days we have people we have mentored people we have trained people we have touched people we have serviced people who know us from facebook our reach is so great and sometimes in our humbleness we don't appreciate this and when we don't we're willing to do things that maybe aren't okay because we think come on how many people will we affect we should be aware that if we do the wrong thing we affect many many many more people than we realize just like when we do the right thing we affect many more people than we realize our reach is great and in today's day and age our reach is larger than we ever could have dreamt before it's huge you are significant to more people than you realize if god forbid something happens to you many more people will cry many more people will be sad your loss will be felt by people that you don't even know their names because you've touched people now i know i'm in the public eye and because of that i reach a lot of people but this is this is not exclusive to me by any stretch every one of us is in the public eye if we go to school if we go out to work if we interface with people if we interact with people in our community it's much larger than we realize so we must be extra careful to do the right thing to take care of ourselves to not do anything that's incorrect and this leads me to concept number three years ago when i first started off being a rabbi i was what they call a fighter i was a fighter i was a kanoi i was hot and heavy and strong for judaism to the point that i was a little bit of a polarizing figure now my reach at that time wasn't what it is today but whoever i spoke with i was very strong and ms or bust and when a person is a fighter the nature of the fighter is that they'll make their friends and they'll have their allies and they'll have their followers and then they'll have their enemies they have their adversaries they'll have those who don't like don't agree with them and will be outspoken against them that's the nature of the fighter and if you're a fighter and your cause is just there is a place for you in this world there is a place for the fighter but personally i've transitioned i'm no longer the fighter i've transitioned to become what i call the lover the person of positivity i want to be i worked very hard for this it wasn't easy for me it didn't come easy to begin to look at each person no matter the background no matter their denomination khasid litvak reformed conservative orthodox chabad bresliv you name it anyone out there and see the good in them because there is greatness and it doesn't mean people don't have faults and it doesn't mean that i don't i don't uh understand where i feel they may fall short but i also know where i fall short but i love and appreciate everyone and therefore right before they brought me to the er for the angiogram i thought what zuchus what merit can i post on facebook that people can do in order to help me spiritually and i thought of a lot of different mitzvoth but in the end i wrote the following i wrote in the merit that i should be okay whoever's reading this please take upon yourselves that you won't go negative on facebook that you won't write any negative posts on facebook that was that was what i asked and that was passed around over two hundred thousand people read that read that for a week don't go negative on facebook and i'm hoping of course that that week should turn into a month should turn into a lifetime because when you go negative you lose i have to believe i i do believe that one of the reasons that people had an outpouring of support for me was because i try to go positive that that no matter who they are i accept them and hopefully they accept me and will grow together each one in the relationship called judaism each one tries to grow in that relationship and i will stay positive i will not be naive i will not say that there are no problems within judaism there always have been and there always will be you know why because judaism is made up of human beings but but just like human beings have their faults and their foibles they also have greatness they also have nobility and i see it i want to tell you that one of the great things that depress me today and pretty much every day in the past little while it gets me down it really i i can't i can't adequately describe what it does to my spirit our people who post negative things on facebook particularly about my people and it's not because like i said i'm naive no it's the fact that people live such small lives that they make a living out of negativity and maybe their posts are accurate and maybe so and so did something wrong and maybe this scandal should not have been and maybe that there does have to be a fighter here or a fighter there but what happens when we transition from a fight to becoming just an ugly negative person there is a fellow i know who post lots of negativity uh about the jewish community on on facebook and he gets lots of comments there's more than one and i don't think whoever is watching this will know who i mean there's more than one obviously there are people who make a make a living out of this and this particular person i'm thinking of gets a lot of negative comments or a lot of comments that back him up from all the haters all the haters they've got a lot to say sometimes hundreds of comments so i thought to myself isn't that amazing you know here i am in the hospital and i'm getting a lot of comments positive comments comments to bolster my spirit and pick me up and make me feel loved and here's another fella and he also has hundreds of comments to his post but there's a difference you know the difference is if that fellow ever ends up in the er he's not going to get hundreds of positive comments people will not be knocking the doors down to try to visit him in the hospital you know when he goes to the er and we all end up one day needing treatment there will not be people around to support him because the very nature of negativity is selfishness you got a gripe you know what i have in common with you i have the same gripe so let's fight this together it's the power of negativity and the power of negativity doesn't unify it's selfish it's a lot of angry people coming in a room together and you know what happens if this person ends up in the er it's very simple it's like piranhas that you take a piece of meat and you drop it in the fish tank and they all go and they all munch on this piece of meat and they rip at the shreds and when there's no meat left they're not going to stick around they'll just move on they'll go on to the next uh person or the next cause that animates their negativity that energizes uh their their their negativity stay positive my friends it is uh it it's the it's the power that will allow you to affect the world you want to be a fighter pick your spots great people can be fighters and lovers as well but they have establi established a reputation of being lovers and therefore when they open their mouths and they have to say something negative people will listen but negative people who are negative in general it's just negativity and it's sad and it's pathetic and and it's it's being a bully and i always say don't bully my nation they're my nation don't bully them are they perfect no but neither are my children but i still wouldn't want anyone to bully them and this is all hanukkah this is hanukkah in a nutshell you know staying positive on hanukkah we light one light and that light brings us to another light and that light a third light it's a positive growth and how do you influence people point number two well the whole idea of hanukkah is about influencing people we take our menorah and we put it by the window or by the door and let other people see our positivity let other people see our light and who knows with that light and that positivity and that energy perhaps this is the last year we'll be in exile so to recap number one take care of yourselves i'm working on myself we'll be partners in this it's not easy but i'm feeling it's worth it and obviously if i don't take care of myself besides that one day i may end up in the hospital i don't feel great in general and i can't be as productive and i can't serve hashem with all my energy so take good care of yourself number two your reach is greater than you think just like the light of hanukkah you put it by the window people will see people will learn from you don't underestimate how powerful you are and how many people's lives you touch and point number three stay positive about life and specifically about your people stay positive i don't mean be blind i don't mean be naive but look for the good the almighty didn't even like when moshe benu bad-mouthed his people when moshe bennu said hey i mean lawyer meanwhile they won't believe me hashem got upset how do you know what are you speaking lashinahara about the jewish people don't speak lush and hard about the jewish people they're hashem's children and believe me he's going to stick up for them thank you very much have an amazing hanukkah spend time with your family play the dreidel eat the latke and i wish you only love only positivity and holiness holiness holiness thank you you