Guest Speaker: Rabbi Dr. Michael Schiffman

0:00Rabbi Dr. Michael Schiffman and Rabbi Michael grew up in New York in a traditional Jewish family. He earned his BA from Arizona State University and MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, also a DMin from Ashland Theological Seminary. In addition, he has engaged in private study of Talmud, of Shulchan Aruch, and Hasidic thought for 12 years with a Hasidic rabbi that resides in Israel as of this day, um a great rabbi there. He has led four Messianic Jewish congregations in Arizona, Ohio, New York, and Florida and served as associate rabbi in Connecticut. He has authored two books and has been a frequent contributor of articles to Boundaries, Kesher, Messianic Outreach, and other Messianic Jewish publications. Rabbi Schiffman also is a lecturer on Messianic Judaism, in history, in Torah, in Messianic worship, and the Union of Messianic Jewish congregations of our very own UMJC, and also a a professor at at a Yeshiva at Saint Saint Petersburg Theological Seminary called Netzer David, as well as an adjunct professor at The King's University in Dallas, Texas. And he lives and resides with his his

1:25amazing wife, Michelle, and Ari in Cape Coral, Florida. So, everybody give Rabbi Michael Schiffman a warm >> [applause] >> hand. >> Is this thing on? Okay, you can hear me. That was really great. I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say. But, it is good to be back here. I was here once, I think, three three years ago, wasn't it? Um it it's a blessing to be here. I was thinking about what I would talk about with the Torah portion. This passage of the Torah is what most people would consider, you know, flyover area. It's like, you know, let's skip over to Deuteronomy because it's, you know, just

2:19uh interesting things that are important and things we can all learn. Uh the first problem with it the section starts in chapter 21 of Leviticus. And when it starts you know, it's something that people tune out right away because it says, "The Lord said to Moses, speak to the priests." Everyone goes, "That doesn't deal with me. I'm not a priest. I don't have to worry about it." Unless you are. Um I am. And this stuff in impacts me. Because it talks about what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do. And sometimes when we worship, people think everybody is the same. Everybody gets to do the same stuff. But not according to this. Uh it says that if you are a cohen you're not allowed to make yourself ritually unclean. That sounds strange. Can we make ourselves ritually unclean? Yes. Touch a dead body, you're ritually unclean. I don't go around looking for dead bodies to touch, but nevertheless uh it says that if you're a cohen, you're not allowed to do that. Not unless it's a very close relative, a mother, a father, God forbid, a child. Uh a sister, a brother, but otherwise

3:46you're not allowed to make yourself unclean. And you might think, "Well, what's the big deal?" How many of you have ever gone to a funeral? How many of you have ever had the experience where it looks really bad if you don't go to the funeral? Well, guess what? If you're a Kohane, you look really bad every time someone dies cuz you can't go to the funeral. And it's not that you want to be at the funeral, but you want to show respect. Uh usually what I tell people is I'll go to I'll go to the Shiva house. I'll see you after the funeral. Why? Because God says if I go to a funeral, I've made myself unclean and I've since I've sinned against God's commandments. But if you go, you haven't sinned, you've done a mitzvah. You went and you encouraged people and you were there to show respect. How can the same act apply differently to different people? It's an important issue. I teach class in Talmud and we talk about how things apply because that's what really this is about, not just what it says about the Kohane, but how different things apply to us as we seek to worship. Because God is very specific here about

5:02he what he wants people to do. You know, we like to say, well, we could do this and that, we can fudge a little bit, do what we want. That's not what the Torah is teaching us. It's saying God has certain things in mind for certain people. You know, I I was thinking, what's a good illustration of this? Have any of you seen the movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark? I love that movie. Any movie where Nazis get, you know, burned to death, I mean, it's great. But um I was thinking about one of the end scenes, if you remember. The The Nazi is dried is dressed up in the clothes of the high priest and he is about to open the Ark of the Covenant. Stop for a second. Is anybody allowed to open the Ark of the Covenant? No. Is anybody allowed to just go to the Ark of the Covenant? No. When they carried the Ark through the wilderness, they covered it. The parochet, the curtain that they had in the Temple, they covered the Ark with it so people wouldn't see the Ark because it was something so holy, people didn't get to look at it. It wasn't a museum piece. And so in this thing, you got a Nazi who opens it up and he looks and first he

6:19sees just sand and then it's like this powerful thing, you the only thing you call it is a spirit of God comes out of it and kills all the Nazis. And I'm sitting there thinking, God is great. But only thing is, God didn't make the movie, Spielberg did. But you know, so it's not really the Bible, but it illustrates the fact that not anybody can do anything. If you wanted to be a priest, you can't be unless you were born one. And this is telling us certain things you can't do if you're a priest. You can't shave your head. Not not something I really want to do, but if I wanted to, I couldn't. Uh it talks about not defiling oneself. But it raises a question. If you can defile yourself, it raises a question for all of us. For whom will you make yourself unclean? Something that could be a mitzvah for some for someone hurting, you know, helping somebody in need. Sometimes you have to trans- transgress a lesser mitzvah to perform a greater mitzvah. So, how does that apply to us? Certain things were not permissible. But on a grander scale, it was more important. Uh King David, it taught Yeshua talked about King David going to

7:56the tabernacle. And he had his men and they were hungry. And he gave them the bread that was supposed to only go to the priests. But David gave them to the people and he wasn't condemned for it. Even though it violated a mitzvah because there was a greater mitzvah. And that's the thing. There are We need to be discerning because some mitzvahs are greater than others. You know, we see this even in the words of Yeshua when he says uh greater than the temple is here. Meaning himself. I'm the son of man is lord of Shabbat. He was greater than Shabbat. And to the point of this passage, if you were a kohein and you touched a body, you were ritually impure. Was there a cure for it? Yes, you had to go to the mikvah. You had to immerse yourself and be unclean until evening. And you got past it. But Yeshua would touch the unclean and what happened? They became clean. You couldn't make him unclean because his cleanliness was so above everybody else's. So, Yeshua would touch a leper and they were clean. He didn't do anything that would bring down, only to build up. We find there are things that are really not

9:26supposed to do, but um when we do them, there's an importance. When I was traveling in Ukraine, when I first started traveling, I was very strict on the type of kosher I kept. Only kosher meat. Uh I don't mean just like chicken or beef, but it had to come from a kosher butcher because I was living in New York and it was very easy to do that. But I would go to Ukraine and I'd visit these old people and they were very poor. I mean, they were living on like $35 a month. And I would sit down at the table and they would my friends were very clear with them saying, "The rabbi doesn't eat pork." Cuz that's a big deal in Ukraine. So, they would put chicken out in front of me. And it was I knew it wasn't kosher chicken. And I had to look at them and say, "Well, if I violate this commandment, what happens?" Well, nothing. I'm still going to live, but in my head, I have to figure, "What am I doing?" And I realized these people were very poor. And the cost of meat over there was the same as here. And if you're living on $35 a month, you can't afford chicken. Even at prices 20 years ago, you couldn't afford chicken.

10:45So, these people begged and borrowed to get enough money to put chicken in front of me. It wasn't kosher chicken. I wasn't fulfilling that mitzvah of kashrut, but if I didn't eat that chicken, it would be throwing something precious back in their face. You see, because most of the things we do with mitzvot are like offerings to God. I don't know about you, but when I was 18 years old, I made a vow to God. I don't make too many vows, but I made one then and it was this, "I will go wherever you want me to go and do whatever you want me to do and I will serve you till the end of my days. And that's why I may be hobbling up here, but I'm still serving him. And we should all think about that because it says in Romans that we are to present ourselves as living sacrifices. What does it mean to be a living sacrifice? It means you're taking your the whole of your life and making an offering to God with it. Your life is an offering. And that's something we can do, but you have to ask yourself what am I presenting on the altar cuz the next passage here, chapter 22, talks about what are the suitable offerings.

12:27You know, you can give whatever you like, but that's not what God wants. It says, "Look, if you're going to give me an offering, I don't want any diseased animals. You know, you think it's going to die anyway, so put it on the altar? No. Don't give me any blind animals either for that matter. I want the best. I want good. Why? Because you're presenting it to God. You have to give God your best. I like what it says in the book of Malachi. Says, "Stop stop putting diseased animals on my altar. Present them to your governor and see if he likes them." It's a great passage. But you have to look at yourself and your life. We We have all kinds of traditions. We have all kinds of rituals. And they're good. We learn from them. But they're more than just things we do. Cuz later on it goes into chapter 23 and it talks about the holidays, Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. It talks about all of these holidays, Passover, things that we run our lives by. And what are they? Are they just Jewish things we do? Because that doesn't seem real have much depth. When you do something for God, it should be a bridge between you and

13:58him. I teach a course on Messianic Jewish spirituality and we talk about that. And I ask the question of all my students, so I'll ask it of you, too. What does it take to transform a moment into holiness? You know? Have you thought about it? Because spirituality is about transformation. Because you can light a Shabbat candle, it's just a candle and it's just a bunch of words. But what transforms a moment, an act, into its holiness? Have you ever Any of you have dogs? I have dogs, more than I probably should, but I I love dogs. You know where you stand with a dog, but have you ever seen a dog eat? You take a bowl of food, you put it on the floor, and before you can take your hand away, the snout is in the bowl and they're eating. You know what it's like? People when they go to restaurants. You're sitting there chatting, you know, talking, having good time, wondering, "Where's that waitress?" And then they put the food down, the minute the food goes the the the talking stops and they start eating. Eating is like an animal act. But when we stop beforehand and we bow our heads, and we bless God

15:26for the food, and for him in our lives, we've transformed an animal act into a sacred act. We do that every Saturday morning here. This is just Saturday. I could be home watching Rocky and Bullwinkle on the cartoons. I love Rocky and Bullwinkle, but when we stop, and we pray, and we bless God's name in this place, which was built for his glory, we are transforming this moment into holiness. And that is why God wants us to live our lives specifically like this. We can't always do the same things other people do. If you're a Kohain, you get to do stuff that if you're not a Kohain, you can't. For example, you know the ironic benediction? You guys do that here. You know, the Lord bless you and keep you, you know. In Jewish tradition, if you are not a Kohain, and you say that, the response is can you hear it sound? May it be so. You hope so. But if you're a Kohain, and you recite the ironic benediction, you know, you say amen. Why? Because God said in the Torah when he commanded it, that the sons of Aaron will bless the people of Israel with this blessing, and when they do, I will put my blessing on them.

17:04So, in other words, if somebody's not a Kohain, you say may it be so. In other words, you hope for the best. But when a Kohain says it, it's a sure thing, and you say amen. Not my words, it's Jewish tradition because they understood that certain things said by certain people had a certain power to it. We have many things in the world that we can do, many ways of serving God, but not everybody serves in the same way. Some people like the different traditions and they want to do things, but everything isn't for everyone. It just isn't and it doesn't always seem like, well, it's not very American that way. Well, the Bible isn't very American, although in a way it is, but in a way it's not. It's America's based on it, but still the thing is when we serve God and when we choose to do any mitzvah, any holiday, anything we do are we using it as a bridge, as an opportunity to draw near to God, to glorify his name? Are we just doing a Jewish thing? Are we just playing around with it? I don't believe God gave us this stuff to play. I mean, there are a lot of people who like to play with my toys and I let

18:33them, but but nevertheless, they're not there for that reason. They're there that we might draw near to God. And if you really want to get something out of your spiritual walk with God, you need to be transforming those moments into holiness. You need to be taking the things you do and cognizantly draw near to God. I mean, you got you have Passover seder every year, right? Well, how close are you with God with that? Are you just going through the thing? Oh, we've got to eat matzah. Uh we'll make some matzah balls, which are delicious. You know, we'll have the seder, we'll have everybody here, it'll be a lot of fun. But where do you draw near to God? If you take the words of the Haggadah and even this morning, take the words of the Siddur and you pray them back to God, it can be life-changing. If you just say the words, they're just words. They're They're very nice words, but I think you know this, prayer isn't just a formula. It's not like an incantation, and I'm going to take something and go Baruch atah Adonai, woof, and something happens. It doesn't work that way. When you open your heart to God

20:01to do what he wants you to do, there's a closeness that comes and begins to manifest itself, and we grow spiritually. And that's the point of the whole thing. That's why Yeshua came. You know, there's You know, Yeshua They asked the question, why did Yeshua speak in parables? He said, "Why don't you just tell us plainly so we'd understand?" And he said, "Because seeing they don't see and hearing they don't hear." In other words, if you lecture somebody, I can fill your mind with figures and facts. But when I tell you a story, a parable, it touches the heart. And it's in the heart that you change. It doesn't matter how much theology you study, unless you're taking my class, but it's not the theology that changes you. It's the encounter with God as you do these things. And it affects your whole the whole of your life. Um when we serve God, it should have certain outcomes. A number of years ago, many years ago, Elliot, 1985, I think, or 86, we were at a conference Pennsylvania, and they asked all the leaders to come up and pray. And I looked at Elliot, should I pray? Should I go up? He goes, "Yeah, sure,

21:44pray." And he set me up. But, uh we were up there and people would ask me to pray for them, which is funny. One lady came up to me and she's shaking like a leaf and I'm thinking, "Oh, no." And I said, "What would you like me to pray for?" She goes, "I just want whatever the Lord has for me." And I'm thinking, "Oh." So, I closed my eyes and I just said, "Lord, please show this woman your mercy." I opened my eyes and she's laid out on the floor. And I just I didn't know what to say, so I looked up and said, "Next." But, that wasn't what prayer is about. Um late later later I had two teenage girls come up to me. I said, "What can I pray for you for?" And they said, "We want to be slain in the Holy Spirit." I gave them a lecture. I said, "This is not an amusement park." By the way, that's why I'm sitting in a chair. I have low blood pressure and I could keel over and you'd think I was having a religious experience, which would be okay if that was what was happening, but it's not that, it's low blood pressure. I'm not against religious experiences. But, when you have an encounter with God,

23:04it's not just a fun thing to do because I asked people who were getting slain in the spirit, "How did this affect you afterwards?" "Oh, nothing. I knew the power of God, you know." It sounded canned. When I have an experience with God, and I do, I would assume it would create a greater depth in me. And spirituality doesn't come about because we went to the right conference or because we go to the right service. Real spiritual depth happens through pain. When I meet people who are very spiritual, I wonder, what did they go through for that? I went through a horrible time once. I don't talk about it, but it was really the worst thing I've ever gone through in my life. And the one thing that came about through it is my experience with God became much closer. And that stayed with me. So, I didn't get slain in the spirit. But, what God left me with was a constant awareness of his presence. When I pray for people, I put my hands on them and I feel his hands over me. Maybe, you know, you might think it's my imagination. Who knows? But, I sense God's presence, and it's a powerful thing. It enables me to do

24:30things I couldn't do otherwise. It enables me to serve in ways I couldn't serve. You know, what did they say? I led four congregations. I helped with others. On top of that, and I teach. My main work is my work with Hevra, which means friendship. It is a humanitarian work helping elderly Jewish people in the former Soviet Union and Israel. And some of you know that from the last time I was here. And it's because when I look at my life and the things I do, I want to know at least some of the results of that sacrifice, that sacrifice being myself on the altar. You pay a price to serve God. It doesn't come for nothing. The real issue is is it worth it? Just like if you make your own self unclean, is it worth it to do it? If you serve God, is it worth it to do it? I saw God do many things and I'll talk about some of them about my serving, but I'm going to ask my son Ari to come up. Ari is an intern with Hevra and I've asked him to read a recent letter of what our people who are doing ministry in Ukraine are dealing with right now. And this letter just came to me last week. All right. Hello everyone.

26:01Uh thank you for having us. I'm just pulling up the text here. My name is Ari. As my dad just mentioned, I am an intern with Hevra. Uh started a few months ago and uh it's been great. It's been great. Uh all right. Quote, "Dear friends, we would like to inform you about a recent tragic event in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine. On the 3rd of April, a large-scale air attack targeted the northern part of the region causing significant damage to civilian infrastructure and residential areas. According to official reports, 18 buildings were destroyed including nine

26:43Uh nine residential houses, uh more than 100 homes, over 50 outbuildings, and several commercial properties were damaged. Tragically, one civilian, a woman in her 70s, lost her life. Several others were injured and are currently receiving medical assistance. Emergency and rescue services continue to operate at the site, conducting debris removal, safety inspections, and recovery efforts. Temporary accommodation has been arranged for those affected, while local residents and volunteers are actively supporting displaced families. We kindly ask you to keep Ukraine in your prayers during this difficult time. Thank you to everyone who continues to pray for us and support us. It truly means more than words can express. May the Lord bless and protect you and your family. Yours sincerely, Arkadi, who is one of the employees at Kevra. >> Okay. Thank you. Arkadi is an interesting person. He is a Jewish believer, and he made aliyah. He went to Israel, and we talked him into moving back to Ukraine. We don't usually do that. But he oversees all our soup kitchens. We're feeding We were feeding 1,400

27:55people a day before the war. With the war, you can imagine, you know, there are certain obstacles. First, we had COVID, and that in itself was a, you know, to We We delivered food at that point because you couldn't gather together. But after the co- COVID, I went over there when the war started, and I caught COVID from it. But we were working with the refugees who were coming out of Ukraine, over a million, uh that we were working with. And uh we were still operating the soup kitchens because a lot of the people are elderly Jews, and they didn't have bread to eat. They don't have electricity because Russia knocked out the infrastructure. Now, understand something. I'm not This is not a commercial for Ukraine. This is not about Ukraine. It's about helping elderly Jews in need. I don't care where they are. If they're Jewish and they're in need, I want to help them. When I started with this ministry, what got me was I was meeting Jewish people who had nothing. And we have so much in this country. I felt so blessed and I was ministering out of the abundance of what God has given us. But it bothered me. I stayed up all

29:16night pacing the floor. What can we do for these people? How can we feed them? They look like my grandparents. And I couldn't stand the idea that they didn't have bread to eat. And I felt that it would be a mitzvah to feed them. I I thought of the words of Yeshua, Matthew 25. I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. And they said to him, "Lord, when did we ever see you like this?" When you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it for me. I didn't want to go to Ukraine, but my friend David called me and said, "You really need to come here." And I was like, "No, I really don't need to come there." And he said, "Why not?" This is right after communism. And you know, it was in the news, you know, and they you know, he goes, "Why don't you want to come?" I said, "Well, I heard, you know, I saw on the news 4 hours you wait online for a roll of toilet paper." And my friend is from Brooklyn. He says, "Michael, bring your own toilet paper and come." I can't bring my own I I brought

30:40Charmin. But, you know, I said, "What do you need me for?" He said, "There are 150 Jewish people who accepted Yeshua and there's no one to teach them except the Orthodox priest and he's telling them that they light Shabbat candles, they go to hell." I was like, "Why did you tell me that?" I couldn't I couldn't stand that either. So, my congregation chipped in, bought me a ticket, and I was winging my way to Ukraine. And we had an amazing opportunity. I brought a paper Torah, you know, those little ones, and I gave it to the guy who was leading, you know, the group there. Uh his name was Grigory Katz. And I handed him this and he looked at it and he started crying. He said, "When I was a little child, my father took me to synagogue and I touched one of these." You know, it meant something to him. It's a connection. Makes you think with all the stuff we have and all the stuff we do, it should mean something to us. From there we started a congregation. Well, not a congregation, we started a soup kitchen in Kishinev, Moldova, which is Moldova is where my grandmother's family was from. And it's where the first Messianic

32:02congregation in modern times was reestablished. And it was it was in the 1800s. And so we reset we restarted it under the same uh registration. And so we set the soup kitchen up. We had a lot of people coming and then we decided to set up a second one in Tiraspol, which was about 30 miles away, but when uh Moldova broke off from the Soviet Union, it was in two parts. There was one part that was pro-Russia and the other one that was, you know, wanted to just be Moldova. So, uh there was fighting between them and we had to go from one region to the other cuz we weren't political. We wanted to feed people. So, we were on our way. We had a couple of vans and you go through four checkpoints and the last one was what I would call mafia police. They were the local police and you had to bribe them or whatever and you know, the guy had an AK-47, you know. So, we stopped at this last one and they stopped us and they're arguing and it's in Russian and I'm not fluent in Russian. I I know how to ask how to go to the bathroom, but that's about it. It's important to know that. But, uh I was sitting there. I I was reading a

33:19newspaper while they're outside arguing. And then all of a sudden they everyone got back in the cars and we went and I said, "What happened?" They said, "Well, they wouldn't want to let the other van go, just our van." But, we the and they were arguing and they didn't like the license plates on the other one cuz they were from Moldova with ours was from Poland. And so, one of our workers, a woman named Esther from Canada, but she's fluent in Russian. She said, "Look, you've kept the rabbi waiting 20 minutes. You must not offend the rabbi." And the guy said, "Really? Okay." And we went. And I thought that was pretty funny. So, I got back I I called the guy who started our work, Leszek. And I told him about it. He goes, "Oh, you think that's funny, don't you?" I go, "Yeah, I do. I think it's pretty funny." He goes, "Michael, do you realize they could have shot you? You think they care about offending a rabbi?" And I said, "Oh." Maybe you realize it's not what we do. It's the fact that God is with us and God protects us. You could give all the money in the world to the work. It wouldn't protect

34:28me from bullets. God protected me from bullets. It's something I'm very grateful for. But we need funds to be able to do the work we do. Over when the war started in Ukraine, people was very popular to give for Ukraine, and we got a bit of a um you know, like a cushion. So, we could do our work, but over the last couple of years the cushion's going. You know, we have more money going out than coming in because the cost of food during a war has tripled. And the amount of money coming in has dwindled. So, we're we need to do to just to do as much as we did cost us more money. So, we're doing the best we can. And our friends have been helping, and we're asking people to help. But through it we're the main thing is Jewish people are being fed. And they're being blessed. And we often don't get a lot of opportunities to bless Jewish people. You know, um but these are people that really need it. And I believe that God watches over them. Cuz I read the passages in the in Proverbs that God watches out for several groups of people, widows, and orphans, and the poor. He watches over them. And it says when you give to the poor,

36:03you lend to God. God holds us accountable. And what that means to me is that that is part of our offering to God. It's It translates out that whatever you do it should always if it's for God, be the best. If it's ever in God's name, it should be the best. You know, a lot of times we're looking for a bargain. You know, worshipping God isn't about bargains. For that, you go to Macy's. If you want a bargain, that's not the place. What you do give is your best. There was um my teacher who was a Hasidic rabbi. We were talking about it once and there was a a rabbi who came to a student that came to his rabbi and said, "Rabbi, I cannot do all the mitzvot with the same intensity because I'll burn out. I can't do them all with that much uh gadol strength." And the rabbi said, Rebbe Nachman said, "Take one mitzvah and make it your special mitzvah. And with that, do the best you can. Give it your best and all the other ones you fit in as well as you can, but focus on the one mitzvah." And over time, different mitzvahs have meant different things to me. At one point, uh feeding the poor has always

37:41been one of my main mitzvot because how will they eat? People say, "Well, what about, you know, do you share with them?" Guess what? Feeding the poor is part of the gospel. It's what it is. And they come to me and it's funny the responses. Some of them, you know, come to us and say, "What do you believe? Why are you doing this?" And we tell them. And they they want to know more. And then you have others. I had a guy who came up to me and goes, "You know, let's not play around here. I'm I was a communist before and I'm still a communist. You don't change it overnight." And he I said, "I don't care." I said, "You Jewish?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "You need food?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Here." So, he came back the next day, big smiles. He was all like, you know, he was open to our message where he wasn't before because I didn't care. I did care, but I mean, I told him I didn't care because I wanted him to eat first of all. And then I told him, "Don't talk with your mouth full." And I did. The thing is, life gives us, all of us, opportunities to serve him. In your own life, there are people who

38:58you can reach out to, and I would encourage you to do that. Maybe you're not a priest, but some things a priest can't do, but you can. We should all seek to do the things we can. God doesn't hold us responsible for what we can't. I mean, look, I can barely walk and yet I'm still going around. So, I mean, you can find a way and you can serve God. But whatever you do, you should do it in his name. You should do it for his glory. I'm giving you an opportunity to help support our work because our people need it. And this is a work almost entirely supported by Messianics, by our community. And so, if you don't, nobody's going to call and complain to you. But if you help us, it enables us to do a lot more. When the war first started, it's my last story, I I promise. Uh when the when the war first started, we got uh different calls about different things we could do to help. And I got a call from Leszek, my boss, and he said, "We need There's a group there're two Hasidic rabbis, Lubavitch rabbis, who run Jewish orphanages, and they want to bring 250 Jewish kids out of Ukraine into Israel. Now, normally you can't do that because,

40:35you know, they're afraid of, you know, internet tra- you know, child trafficking, you know, all that stuff. But during a war, you can get away with more, and Chabad had the clout to be able to do that. I said, "That's great." And he said, "They need more money. They have most of it raised, but they need more, or they can't do it." I said, "What do they need?" He said, "$10,000." I said, "I'll find it somehow or another." I called up our board cuz I'm not allowed to authorize that much money at one time. So, I called up each member, I'm sneaky that way. I called up each member of the board, and I explained the situation, and I said, "If we don't do this, we don't deserve to exist." And I meant it. Helping 250 Jewish kids in Ukraine in the middle of a war. And so, we sent the money. I told them, they go, "Michael Shipman sending you the money." So, um like it came out of my pocket. It didn't, it came out of yours. But I didn't hear anything for a few days, and then I was watching CNN cuz it was the beginning of the war. And it said, "Two Hasidic rabbis violated Shabbat and got 250 Jewish kids out of Ukraine

41:55into Israel." I was watching that, and all I could say was, "We did that." We had a hand in it. And our name was on nothing. It doesn't matter. You know why? Because Ronald Reagan said this, if you don't like Reagan, uh Truman said it also. It's a good statement. Said, "There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit." We didn't care about the credit. We got to do it. There are so many things that we can do that will be a blessing. That's why we're here. We're supposed to be a blessing, aren't we? I wasn't looking to get blessed. I'm always looking to get blessed, by the way, but that's not the point. God put me here to be blessing others, as we all should. And we were able to do this because people gave and we had it available. That's why it's so important, because if we don't have it, we can't do some of these good things, with or without our name on it. I don't need our name on anything. In fact, if people don't know who you are, you can go anywhere and do anything. If suddenly everyone knows you, you know, you're going to have roadblocks. So, we

43:20would prefer to be unknown and yet doing. And that is what we all should be seeking. Not to be known, but to serve. To be God's hands in a world that really needs him. Shabbat Shalom.