Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back for this week's episode of the Practical Parasha podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well.
[00:00:09] Last week, before we started the podcast, I made an appeal, and I told each and every one of you about the m'tsehelim Jewish Outreach center and how that my wife and I were being honored at the upcoming dinner.
[00:00:26] And for those of you who responded, um, with a donation, thank you tonight, Thursday night was the dinner, and I decided that instead of not doing a podcast, what I would do instead is maybe do one more appeal to ask, you know, for those of you who maybe didn't have a chance yet to, um, give a donation for this dinner campaign, there's still some more time. We're still accepting donations. If you could take a moment and hit the link in the show notes to give towards this worthy cause that, you know, my wife and I are trying to help make us the biggest success as possible would really mean a lot to me.
[00:01:17] And furthermore, I decided that not just I'm, um, gonna make this appeal again, I'm also gonna tell you the speech that I said at the dinner.
[00:01:26] So even if you weren't there, you'll be able to hear the message that I said at that event.
[00:01:34] So before we begin, and, uh, we'll still do the parsha as well, so don't get nervous. I'll say, uh, just a short story that I said over.
[00:01:42] I won't include all the thank yous and bore you with that.
[00:01:47] I'll just say the short message that I said over to the crowd. I think it was a crowd pleaser, but you'll tell me yourself what you think of it. And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email@rabbishlamocon kohnmail.com I'd love to hear from you.
[00:02:06] So, as I mentioned before, my wife and I, we were the guests of honor at the annual Bensalem Jewish Outreach Dinner in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And really, the crowd was. It was a nice crowd tonight, thank God. There was over 200 people that showed up to support this worthy cause. And there were people of all types and stripes. There were Jewish people, There were religious people. There were people who were not religious, people who were becoming more observant. All types. There were politicians, government officials.
[00:02:38] So I really wanted an idea that would be shava lechol nefesh. That would be equal for everybody. That's something that everybody could relate to, obviously. Torah Ideas are always relatable to everybody. But tonight I felt like I was going up. I had competition. What was my competition?
[00:02:57] The competition was, is that the guest of honor always speaks at the end of the dinner, right before dessert. And it just was my luck that as I was getting up to speak, the dessert tables, fully stocked with all the different delicacies of dessert, were rolled out into the hall.
[00:03:18] So I had a room of 200 people competing with, uh, the dessert tables. So I had a short amount of time to give a nice message over and had this stiff competition from the dessert table. So I got right into it. But the idea I wanted to share is really this very beautiful story that I heard.
[00:03:41] And the story goes as follows.
[00:03:43] The British cycling team was one of the worst teams in Europe in over a hundred years.
[00:03:53] They'd only won one gold medal and never won Viking's biggest prize, the Tour de France. One day, everything changed.
[00:04:04] What was that?
[00:04:06] They hired a new coach.
[00:04:08] Their new coach.
[00:04:10] His name was Dave Brailsford. He wasn't like other coaches they had hired in the past.
[00:04:15] But what made him different was that he believed in a concept called the aggregation of minimal gains, that if you take small things, 1% issues, and you improve on them, it'll have a significant impact on the performance of the biking team.
[00:04:39] So Mr. Brailsford started looking at normal things that a coach who wants to improve a biking team would do.
[00:04:47] He looked at the tires, he looked at the seats.
[00:04:50] But he didn't just stop at these regular, you know, aspects of a cycling team. He started looking at very small things to make changes in them for the positive.
[00:05:03] He had a doctor come in to teach the team how to wash their hands properly so they shouldn't get sick.
[00:05:09] He checked the pillows and blankets of each one of the cyclists to make sure that they had the best one possible so that they should get the most rest that they could.
[00:05:21] He painted the inside of the trucks that carried the bikes so if there's a speck of dirt, he would be able to notice it.
[00:05:31] And it wouldn't get into the bikes to ruin these high performance vehicles.
[00:05:38] And these small 1% changes affected the team more faster than anyone could have imagined.
[00:05:49] In a 10 year span from 2007 to 2017, the British Cycling team won 178 World Championships, 66 gold medals, and captured five Tour de France's.
[00:06:05] Some people refer to this era of the British cycling team as the most successful cycling dynasty of all time.
[00:06:15] Now, what happened?
[00:06:17] How did they go from being so bad that the fancy Bike companies in Europe wouldn't sell them bikes because they didn't want their brand to get a bad rap to winning all these championships, gold medals, Tour de France, becoming known as the greatest dynasty in biking.
[00:06:39] What changed?
[00:06:41] The answer to that was the recipe that the coach, Dave Brailsford, put into practice for his team. The aggregation of minimal gains that he found, the small things that the team was doing wrong.
[00:06:58] And all these small things added up faster than anyone could have imagined.
[00:07:04] That these small 1% changes, things that we would overlook, that we wouldn't even think made a difference, right? A racing suit makes a difference. Which type it is, is going to actually, you know, help them go from the worst to the best, getting better, rest, you know, all these different small things. And the answer is yes.
[00:07:25] And I think there's a very important message here when it comes to our lives that, you know, we live in, uh, a world in a generation where people feel the only way they could make an impact is if they get a million downloads or they get a million likes, or watches on their YouTube channel, or they make a performance in front of 90,000 people, or they do something to change the whole world.
[00:07:50] That's what people think, you know, is affecting change in the world.
[00:07:54] If you only influence thousands of people and you go viral, but it's really not the truth because long term, real effects on the world don't happen from going viral. You know, people don't change their lives from those viral moments.
[00:08:11] What changes people's lives and what makes the world a better place?
[00:08:16] The small 1% changes.
[00:08:20] It's the, uh, aggregation of minimal gains.
[00:08:24] It's the things that me and you do every single day or try to do every day. Giving someone a smile, giving someone a good word, taking advantage of the opportunities you have in front of you, right? If there's opportunity to do something good, to do it. Small thing, walking the old lady across the street, whatever it is, I'm giving small examples. It's these small examples of person to person which make a lasting impact on the world around us. And that's really, that was my message to the community at large. I feel like that's something that maybe I'm part of a smaller community and maybe we're not the biggest, but we're making an impact because those small things that we do really change the world for the long term.
[00:09:14] That was the small idea. And my blessing to you, everyone in the Practical Parsha podcast family, is that we should utilize these opportunities that we have in front of us, the small ones, the large ones. But more than that, to recognize and to realize that it's the small things that we do that make the lasting change, and they add up faster than we could ever imagine.
[00:09:46] So that was my spiel at the dinner, and I can't leave you hanging without a thought on the Parsha. And I saw something very beautiful which I wanted to share with you. So before we begin the, uh, Parsha, just to give a quick overview, Parshas Chayasara and Parshas Chayasara primarily deals with the death of Sarah as well as the, you know, Avram's challenges that he has in burying his wife, dealing with Ephron, buying her a burial place. The Torah speaks out the story, the challenges that Avraham Avinu had.
[00:10:24] The Parsha continues with Avramavinu sending Eliezer, his trusted servant, to find a wife for Yitzchak, find a wife for his son Isaac, and he sends Eliezer to go to his family and to find a wife for Yitzchak, his son.
[00:10:47] The Parsha tells us how Eliezer miraculously meets Rivkah Rebekah and how he brings her back eventually to be a wife for Yitzhak. The Parasha concludes with Avraham remarrying and the genealogy of Yishmael.
[00:11:05] Now, the idea I want to share with you today takes us to Avraham Avinu, to Abraham, sending his loyal and trusted servant Eliezer to find a wife for his son Yitzchak.
[00:11:20] Now, it's interesting.
[00:11:22] The Parsha tells us that when Avram um sent out Eliezer to find a way for Yitzchak, first the Torah tells us about Eliezer, who he was and what he was in charge of.
[00:11:38] And then after that, Avram um makes Eliezer swear to him that he's going to fulfill the mission.
[00:11:47] So it's not just that the Torah is telling us who Eliezer is, but he also makes him swear that he's going to get the job done.
[00:11:58] Now, if you look at the verses for a minute, it's very interesting because we know even from last week's Parasha that Eliezer was in charge of Avraham Avinu's whole house. He was in charge of everything.
[00:12:11] He was the head of all the departments. Avram trusted him implicitly with all of his belongings, his wealth, and everything that he had.
[00:12:22] But yet the Torah repeats that he was in charge of everything again.
[00:12:30] And yet, Avramavinu, uh, what did he do? He made him swear.
[00:12:35] It is interesting if Eliezer was in charge of Everything. He was the trusted advisor of Avraham Avinu for years.
[00:12:44] Avraham implicitly trusted him in everything.
[00:12:48] So why did Avraham Avinu need to make Eliezer swear again? And, you know, telling us who he is and how he trusted him, it's repeating everything again in this parsha that he trusted him. He was in charge of everything.
[00:13:02] And yet on top of everything else, he has to swear to Avram Avinu. And not just swear to him. He had to do it in a special way that Avram Avinu would know that he's going to fulfill the mission. If he trusted him with all his wealth, wouldn't he be sure that he would get the job done and make sure that he finds a wife for Yitzchak? Right. Why did Avraham Avinu need to go through this whole process to make sure that he's going to stay true to himself?
[00:13:29] So Rabchaim Soloveitchik asks this question and he answers it by giving an example.
[00:13:38] You have scenario number one. A person is traveling and he's getting hungry.
[00:13:45] And when he pulls into town, he sees this deli, looks really good, but he keeps kosher. So he can't just walk into any restaurant. But he sees that, uh, the deli, it's a kosher style deli. It looks good, but it has to have a kosher mark. And he sees on the door it says kosher.
[00:14:06] So for him it says kosher. It must be kosher. And he goes into the deli and enjoys it.
[00:14:14] There are other people who be in a similar situation.
[00:14:17] They're hungry. They see, uh, a restaurant that seems, maybe it's kosher. It says kosher, but that's not enough for them. They have to go into the store and to see, to speak to the owner. Is he somebody who's God fearing?
[00:14:32] Or maybe more than that. They need to see if there's a kosher certification. Not just that it says kosher, they want to see is there a kosher certification on the store.
[00:14:42] And there's other people who are more scrupulous. They not just that they have to make sure there's kosher certification, they want to know that the kosher certification is a reliable certification. So they'll do research, they'll speak to the rabbi in charge, the rabbi machsher, to make sure that they do all the proper steps to make sure that the food is kosher and all the steps are ensured to have the quality control, that nothing's getting lost in the process.
[00:15:07] There's different levels to it.
[00:15:10] Now let's flip it for a second.
[00:15:13] Somebody, they worked for many years, or maybe not so many years, but they actually acquired some money for themselves. They work, they put some money away.
[00:15:24] And this money, he wants to invest, to invest in the stock market. And it's a significant sum of money and happens to be when he's walking, actually just after he's thinking about, he makes this decision with his wife that he wants to invest the funds. They're on a walk together as a couple and it happens to be, they turn onto this block and this new store, storefront just opened up. And you know, what is the, uh, you know what type of store it is? It's not a store. It says investment opportunities. Invest your money in the stock market. There's a sign there.
[00:16:04] Do you think that this fellow would just walk into the store or walk into this office to invest his hard earned money with this fellow that has a store? It just says, investment, great returns. Do you think he would do that?
[00:16:20] No, of course not. He would research this fellow. He would see if he's true to his word, he has a good name to make sure he's actually delivering on it, what he says. And he's not just running a Ponzi scheme. He would do a lot of research. He would speak to people, do research, get disclosures. He would check back and forth to make sure that everything was legit. He wouldn't just walk right in and say, oh, it says just like the store with the kosher, it says kosher must be kosher. And that's it, right?
[00:16:51] And sometimes, you know what, it's interesting sometimes with people for the kosher, we'll just walk right into it and say, uh, oh, it says kosher must be good. But that same fellow, when it comes to investing or to their money, they'll research the person a hundred times over, right?
[00:17:12] And if you ask someone why they are this way, they say, oh, it's just kosher, or kosher is kosher. But at the same time, when it comes to money, they'll have a different tune.
[00:17:22] So the lesson of the parsha here, and I think this is a very powerful lesson for us, is that Avraham, Avinu, what was important to him, Important to him, it wasn't the money.
[00:17:37] The money wasn't important to him. So even if Eliezer was in charge of everything and you know, he was trustworthy, this was, he was giving him a task now of the future of the Jewish people was the, was the wife of Yitzchak you know, we know a wife can make a home, right? So he was. He was entrusting with finding him a mate for Yitzchak, his son, who's one of the avos, one of our forefathers. And she would have to be someone on par with him.
[00:18:08] And that mission was way more important than the money of that he had.
[00:18:14] It was. It was. It was like the guy who's looking for his money to be invested. This is what his money was for Avraham Avinu. And that's what the Torah tells us, who he was and that he had to swear to him and go through this process. Because to Avraham Avinu, that was truly important. It was the spiritual side of things, which, you know, outweighed everything else.
[00:18:37] And I think this is a very important lesson when it comes to our outlook.
[00:18:42] You know, obviously, when we make decisions in our lives. You know, we're not going to go to that store, that office that says, ah, come to our. Invest with us just because it's there and just because we passed down the block. It's that investment. We're not going to do that. We have to do our due diligence, and we have to do our research, and we have to make sure that everything is in proper order.
[00:19:02] But when it comes to our spirituality, when it comes to our Yiddishkei, when it comes to our. The way we view our relationship with Hashem, our mitzvahs, do we treat it in the same way, with equal importance, if not more?
[00:19:17] Because what's important in the long run, you know, sure, we need money. Sure, we need to survive. But what's eternal, eternal is our neshama. What goes into our neshama, right, is the food we eat. We are what we eat. So the point is that we need to make our priorities in life, the spiritual priorities, more important at least. And if not more important, at least the same importance to our physical, uh, needs as well.
[00:19:45] To not just look at the sign and say, oh, it's kosher, therefore, I'll be good with that. Uh, do the same due diligence you would do with other things as well, and to give the proper importance to the things that are truly important. I think that's a very powerful lesson that we learn from Avramavinu that we could take to our daily lives. To not let the things that are not really important become important, but the things that are really important to stay important and to take the top place in our mind. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed my little spiel from the speech.
[00:20:22] And if you're able to donate still, we're still taking donations. The link is in the show notes below and I look forward to speaking to you next week. Everyone, have a great day.
