I'm an audit partner at PwC and I don't like auditing.
I actually hate it. I hate auditing itself.
But what I do like about it is teaching, reflecting, mentoring,
business development, getting new clients, developing new
relationships. I gave a sharing between Nicola
Marv and Rosh Hashanah once and he's like, wow, I really enjoyed
this year. You want to give a Hamish here
on Thursday nights? And I think that's a little bit
of a lost art BE and Hamish. And then I got into fundraising
and I realized that I honed that skill in terms of being able to
help organizations fundraise as well.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't pick something that is
not fulfilling. Of course it should be
fulfilling. But I think we might be erring
too much on the side of, well, it's not fulfilling.
I'm not going to do it. I I need to feel good about my
life. Chalam Alaikum and welcome to
Start Tank. Start Tank is a podcast about
the challenges and opportunities of being a mentor in the
workforce. This week we are joined by Dove
Adler. He's an audit partner at PwC.
He learns and teaches a lot of Torah, is involved in Hassed and
nonprofits and fundraising as well.
I look forward to discussing all this with you, Dove.
So welcome, and thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you Yaakov, which really is a host to be on.
I listen to Start tape all the time.
It's one of my new favorite podcasts.
Awesome. So let's jump into it with your,
you know, upbringing. You grew up in a, a rabbinic
home. You are a rabbi's son.
So also know what that was like growing up in such a home.
What were the enjoyable things, less enjoyable things about
that? Sure.
I really appreciate that. So I grew home.
I grew up in Teaneck, NJ, and my father was Rabbiosi father.
It's a corner of the Braja. It was just nipped there in
September. And growing up overall, I had a
brother and two sisters and my parents never forced anything
upon us. I think that was really the
mantra, the home. And understandably, as anyone
could understand, the rabbi is busy day and night.
But I could tell you that it's very different than nowadays
from what I see, because there were no phones.
So when my father was busy, he was on a physical phone, calling
people back, doing his shoe room, doing his learning,
constantly dealing with the Tibor.
But he always made time for us. And every night he would come
home for dinner. We'd have dinner between let's
say 6:00 and 7:00 and then he would go back out to the show,
teach the room, deal with the deal with the Balabata and deal
with the phone calls, deal with the follow-ups.
But to me is really is a host. And each one of our siblings,
you could see from the Hespaden that we did at the Leviah, each
one of us have our own personalities and that really
comes forward and we each dealt with it a little bit
differently. I always went, I always went to
show with my father when I was even 5-6 years old, sitting
right next to him. He was sitting in the front of
the rabbi's seat. I would sit right next to him.
I would stay in for his Joshos, I'd stay in for his Urim.
But I could understand what I can't understand.
And to me, it was just something that I was always proud of.
But of course, it came with a lot of different challenges.
Overall, we only took two vacations.
I tell my I tell my kids this all the time.
We took two vacations, went to Eric this row once when I was a
kid, I went to Orlando once and every other winter break was
home. We would actually go to his
school sometimes. That was some of the fun.
So you can imagine some of the financial struggles or details.
But we never felt like we missed out on anything and never felt
like we didn't have anything. And it was really the host to
grow up in a shul. We're not your straw.
And it was a principal TIPC also until nobody started later on to
really own that from as a horse in terms of that relationship
and the covered that I think the community really gave to him and
I really built up on that over the years.
The way you describe those vacations, it almost sounded
like, you know, you got, you went to vacations like you went
to Orlando artist Charl like every year, Like that's like the
normal thing, right? And you'll leave.
How far from it Nowadays it's a little bit different.
And my kid, I tell my kids this all the time and then they're
like, ah, but we know when you were a kid, you never did
vacations. You went to your Israel trip
when you were 10. We went to Eric to strong.
Actually, we were, I was 10 years old and my siblings a
little were a little bit younger.
My father did not. We actually went for the whole
summer. My father did not come for July
because he was teaching Lincoln Square summer school, Summer
Shuran and Summer Tamidim. He was teaching Lincoln Square
and my mother took us for the first month and he joined us in
August and that was one of the trips.
And then Orlando 1983, still remember it.
We went as a family and that was the last time that we did that
until much later in life. And it just gave us an
appreciation of family time, but also recognizing that you just
can't do what you want. You have to do with what's in
your means and within your boundaries.
Right. And so obviously, you know, as
you indicated, times do change and everyone has their own their
own situation. Every, every generation, every
family is different. But I'm sure there must have
been a lot that you learned about as you alluded to.
I just like to maybe zoom in a little bit more on a living a
very happy and fulfilled life despite not having tons of
money, extravagant externalities.
And how do you communicate that to children and inculcate that
in them? Like I said, there was nothing
that we felt like we were missing.
And I think that's really because my father spent the time
with us and my parents, my father and my mother, both of
them, in terms of raising us, really dedicated a lot of time
with us. We didn't feel like we were
missing anything. We would talk to him all the
time about we had and what we hadn't.
But it wasn't like we can't do this or we can't do that.
It was let's go here for the summers, went to a bungalow
colony dictionary's bungalow colony until was a little older
and we could go to camp for a couple of months and that was
it. That was an amazing experience
for us and we had a whole cover there and for us that was just
the way that we were brought up. That was our life.
It was this is the way it was. We didn't know anything better,
but it wasn't like we were looking to our right, looking to
our left saying I wish I had this.
I wish I had. That was also a lot simpler
times. I don't think as many people
want to weigh in general like you have nowadays with a lot of
people going to job for circus and pay sock and winter break
and doing all different vacations, yada, yada, yada.
The times were very, very different as well.
So I don't think it had a significant differences, so to
speak, even though we didn't feel it.
So you grew up in a rabbi's home.
You had a great relationship and a great household growing up.
So did you consider following your father's footsteps as a
rabbi yourself? That's a great question, Yaakov.
I get that all the time. I actually did.
I love teaching and even as a young adult, I would say 2021,
my father would go on vacation and he let me give the drasha in
Rena on Shabbos. And the first time I did that,
really, really nervous. 400 families, a lot of comedic
hamem, high level of learning in the shul, have to prepare
something. Well, I'll go over with him in
advance. Just what I wanted to say.
And I realized that that was something that I liked and I
enjoyed and I could do that. But I also saw the life of
rabunas, the constant, constant busyness, every single minute
without the financial reward. And to me, I wanted a little bit
of a different balance. So I thought about that.
I spoke to a lot of people. He really, my father set me up
with a lot of members of the shul to talk about finance,
accounting, different professions.
Two things I knew I didn't want to do.
I did not want to be a doctor. I did not want to be a lawyer.
So after that, the world was open to me in terms of that.
I chose accounting because it was more reliable, so to speak.
There wasn't as many fluctuations in the market, ups
and downs. We have our busy seasons every
every job you got to work hard at.
But I chose that and I realized that I could be fulfilled in a
lot of other ways getting involved with the community,
continue to do serious learning and continue to build on that as
my life progressed, which really has come to fruition a lot of
different ways. It's interesting, one of the
things that you mentioned is that you had these early
experiences, a very young guy speaking in front of a big kila
in front of a Accomplishability Hamim.
And that's not what scared you away.
That's not what turned you down. You did find yourself, you made
it sound like that that was you were able to handle that.
And I'm wondering how you did handle that because, you know, a
lot of people, they come up, they, they're young, they don't
necessarily see themselves as rabbis because like, they're
older people who have been around more and maybe learning
more. And then they that that in
itself is a factor that turns them away from Henra Bonos,
forgetting all the other things. So what do you think gave you
the confidence to do that? A stand up in front of a whole
show at 20 years old. My father gave me the
confidence, There's no one else that gave me the confidence
other than my father. I would learn with him a lot
growing up and like I said, me and my brother are very
different. But I would take advantage of
the fact learning with him on shop this afternoon, learn with
him a little bit during the week.
I learned with him from my bar mitzvah consents and study
around Michnayas. So we constantly had that ideas
after Joshua's that he would give.
I would love to give him her arrows on the Joshua's and I
still do today. Can that's Robbie Newberger.
It's one of my favorite things. I go with Robbie Newberg and I
give him a nice little horror and he likes it.
He's like, oh, that's really good.
He does. He's like, OK to work on that a
little bit, a little bit quiet, but you got to keep trying.
So I never had that lack of confidence.
And my father said the first time he asked me to do it, I
said, I can't do this. I'm 2021 years old.
I can't get up in front of the entire shul and give a drusha.
And he's like, no, you can. You really have something to
say. Think about develop it, work at
it with me and, and the key was just going ahead and doing it.
And I realized that people get highs for all different things,
all different ways that they go performances in front of people.
It really gave me the confidence.
Once people reacted in a different way and they were
like, wow, though, that was really good.
Love to give you something else. You give me another opportunity.
It got to the point where Yum no Rahim, there were too many
Miyama. There was a rabbi, an assistant
rabbi, and we had three to four Miyana, sometimes 5 Miyanaim.
I'd get a slot on Yom Kippur Knight.
I get a slot on Rosh Hashanah because the Tebow was asking and
they really appreciated what I could bring to the table because
of me modeling. My father and I tell kids days
nowadays all the time I see kids walking out for Josh's.
It's the worst thing to do. Even if you're not learning
anything, stay in for the Rabbi's Joshua.
Even through osmosis. You're going to pick something
up, but you'll pick up a style. You'll pick up a mahalif in
Drush that I really modeled after my father and tried to
take in my own direction as I grew up, so I wasn't scared
about getting up in front of a crowd.
I model professional speaking. I model public speaking all the
time. It's something that I really
crafted and honed on when I was a kid.
I was much more shy, 891011 years old, did not want to speak
the Gabe. I always asked me to do a Dona
Lump, always asked me to do Yagda.
Never wanted to do it. Never, never, never, never.
But once I got it to be more of an adult, so to speak, even a
young adult, I was able to really weave in the speaking
aspect and that's something that I love doing.
I love speaking at work, conferences, all different areas
and of course giving Torah. Amazing, amazing.
And I also certainly appreciate the the importance of public
speaking as a skill and something I also sort of
developed slowly over time. It will come to enjoy it also
the the importance of staying in for Joshos.
I I I believe my Rebbe Ravaran Friedman, who today the Russian
Shiva of Karen Bavina once told me that he has tremendous across
for his father forced him to stay into draw shows for his
local shore of who I believe was of Shoma Volbe.
But at the time he couldn't stand it, but he looking back,
really does appreciate it. That's very interesting as well.
So let's go a little more into your work.
You said you became an accountant.
So maybe tell us about what that was like in the early days,
starting out as a young guy, a from guy in the in the
accounting world. What were some of the shocks
that you encountered when you started out?
Sure. I graduated Yu in 1997, started
at Cooper's and Library and that was before they merged with
Pricewaterhouse PW for to make PwC.
That happened in July 1998, started as an associate in our
capital markets practice dealing with financial services clients
and then we were developing a hedge fund practice, an asset
management practice, small startup hedge funds.
We're starting. But the first decision that I
had to make working into the workforce was do I wear a
keeper? And even in the in the late 90s,
most people did not wear keepers.
And when I got to troopers in Lybrand, there was nobody
wearing our keeper. And me and another friend, we
decided that we're going to CNL. And another one of my good
friends, Mark Rosenbaum, went to Price Waterhouse.
And we always joke about that. And I spoke to my father,
understood the halacha and I just felt more uncomfortable not
wearing it than wearing it. And I felt like it's going to be
a good heck. Care for me going into the
workforce, understanding who you are, representing our cutters,
broker, representing Torah, all of that that we preach.
I had the opportunity to put into practice and I wore a
keeper and I can tell you that it had an impact.
It had an impact both ways because you definitely felt
people looking at you in a little bit a different way.
Even if they know you're Jewish. When you're from and you're
wearing a keeper in a conference room with 15 people and you're
the only one, it's a little bit jarring sometimes.
As I became manager, I started thinking about will this impact
me becoming a partner, yes or no?
I didn't think it would, but you never know down the road how
things work out or Hashem. PwC is a very, very diverse
environment and encourages all that.
And as I worked throughout my career, I had different
experiences, had different opportunities to go on business
development and a partner in 2008.
And I was one of the first partners to wear Keepa.
And to me, I was really, really proud.
And I look back now over the last 20 years, PwC is filled
with people from Brooklyn and Lakewood and Teaneck and five
towns all over the place wearing Keepas.
I'm very proud of that, that we're able to start that.
Amazing. And you mentioned that you, when
you were deliberating about this, you saw it as a real
opportunity to Mika Hashem to apply the values that you learn
in Shoal and at home and in yeshiva in the outside world
and, and spread the light onward.
Was that saying that you had considered before when you were
deciding between being a rabbi and not?
That's sort of Part 1 of the question.
And to add a Part 2 is you think that people appreciate this
point enough that you can really have a very important mission in
a Kershboro whose world specifically through making
Kershaw at work or do people sort of just try to like get by
at work and then really realize and express our voice Hashem
back home in the base pages that night.
Your question is so poignantly on target for today's times.
So I'll start off by reflecting in terms of the decision of me
to become a rabbi or not, it had nothing to do with it.
I just like to teach. I like to learn, I like to
teach. I like that aspect of
communicating. I like mentoring at work, One of
the things that I like doing at work.
And I'm an auto partner at PwC. And I say this all the time and
my teens laugh. I don't like auditing.
I actually hate it. I hate auditing itself, the
blocking and tackling of deciding two different things.
You issue an opinion on the financial statements at 99 out
of 100.99% of the time. You know the answer before you
start. But what I do like about it is
teaching, reflecting, mentoring, business development, getting
new clients, developing new relationships.
And that's the same thing with teaching.
And that's the same skill set that I enjoyed as to what I
decided to do with my career. So that really Kiddush Hashem, I
know had no aspect in that. But at work, we talk about this
all the time. And at work we talk about this
all the time around the fact that you have, whether you're
wearing a keeper or not, everyone knows you're Jewish.
They for sure know that you're firm when you're leaving early
on Fridays and deal with the Yamato Ven and whatnot when you
have that opportunity in a lot of different ways.
But as I roll the camera forward, as I look to today's
days and age, I'm constantly talking to kids but not taking
the shortcuts, not leaving early, not walking out because
your second cousin is getting married again and it's busy
season or your best friend or so and so on.
How do I work things out? Or working from home
consistently and never coming into the office because it's
more convenient. So now I think we really see an
ebb and a flow around. It's more of an attitude around
the kids nowadays. And I hate saying that from a
perspective of just preaching. I don't want to preach around
that. But it is something that kids
that are coming out of college, coming out of Yu, coming out of
other organizations have to be more understanding that when
you're taking the lazy way out, it reflects poorly on your
Yiddish kite, on everything that you're trying not to do.
And you have a tremendous opportunity to be the exact
opposite. That's so interesting.
So there's a few things I want to follow up on that first, you
know, maybe we'll start with that last point about the
shortcuts, which is very interesting.
You know, I at the certain point in Yeshiva, I I came across this
book by a guy named Tim Ferriss called the four hour workweek,
and I thought it was very interesting concept because I
was like, wait a second, Doesn't missiles Sharm quote the mission
of Perico Avos, which says that you're supposed to be my ASIC
Laso Patora and the Masil serum elaborates that you're supposed
to really try to minimize your work as much as you can and
really maximize your time for learning as much as possible.
Those two ideas seem to come together in my mind and you they
all seem to be expressed in what you described as sort of an
unhealthy attitude towards work. You're Dafka saying, no, you
shouldn't be my basic. You should be my basic because
you're making kiddo Sasham. So how do you think about that?
Mama has all that source and how it pertains to the current
reality that you described. To make Camacho in Torah it goes
both ways. I'll quote that Mama kazal that
from an overall perspective you have to know the balance.
Going out every single night with the non Jews on your team
to a bar is not needed. Hanging out once in a while,
understanding which ones. If you're an associate, when the
partner's gonna be there, that's important.
When the client's gonna be there, that's important.
It's much more important to time management and pick and choose
when you're going to be going above and beyond.
But to get the basic job done, there is a given time frame and
I tell my team all the time, I don't care how many hours you
were as long as you get the job done.
So if an associate could get the job done in a four hour work
week, which is impossible, we're actually in the middle of busy
season right now. March is the busiest month of
the year for many public accounts.
If you could get the job done in 4 hours, call it a vote.
But if it takes you 18 hours a day between January, February,
March. So in the summer you might be
able to work 4 hours a day and that's OK also.
So you have to be able to know what the system requires of you
to put your hole in and while you're there, give it your
whole. What I'm finding is that even
while they're at the office, people are constantly
distracted. This is nothing new.
It's 2026, you're distracted by 1000 things.
However, if you're able to focus on getting that work done,
developing relationships. A lot of kids don't realize how
important it is to develop relationships because
relationships drive business. Relationships drives everything
in your life, but it takes time and effort to put that time in
after work. Sometimes going out for a lunch
that yes, if I spend an hour going out for lunch with a
client, I might have to stay an hour later doing my work, but
that's worth it. So you really have to be able to
balance what you're doing and what you're choosing.
And it's not replacing your Torah learning.
And we can get into this a little bit later, but Torah
learning is primary and has to be a part of your life
consistently if it's something that's important to you.
It's interesting because, you know, you mentioned the, the
tendency or the the temptation to work from home every single
day if there's a room for that. And so there's another sort of
thing that came up was that I was starting to think a little
more about my transition from yeshiva to the workforce.
Right as the pandemic was hitting and the entire world,
the work was shifting. I was like, wow, this is a great
opportunity for people to shave hours off of their week and
maximize their potato learning. So all these things started in
my mind where like there are there are all these
opportunities that come up that could, you know, lead you to
human eye basic besopa Torah. But on the other hand, you're
saying there's also a value in doing the best job you can, even
if that may becomes a hushbone or an account on, you know,
instead of certain hours of Tor learning, maybe not the
curiosity, but other opportunities.
So it's just really a balance that you have to strike. 100%
you have to strike that balance and people talk about work life
balance. Work life balance to me, one of
my early mentors on his name was Brendan Dewar.
He was an old partner at the firm and he would say work life
balance is on an annual basis, not a daily basis, sometimes a
monthly basis, sometimes a three month basis that I know as an
accountant. When I was 24 years old, I was
working from eight, 9:00 in the morning till 2:00 in the morning
every every single February March and I was not changing.
I still would try and stop learning in here and there.
Could I have my consistent seder with my Carusa?
It was way before any remote learning, any type of Zoom
activity. No such thing.
It wasn't in person. It wasn't happening.
So I knew that that had to be sacrificed during that mini
takufa of time. But then you have to pick it up
again. You have to make sure that
you're making up the hours or when you have more time, do what
you're doing with the more time. And our video Burger talks about
this all the time that when you have the free time and when you
have the ability to set aside time to do whatever, if you set
aside that time for learning, that's showing you where your
mindset is. And I call this bro who really
treats it as if your other busy time is the same Shamayim as
well. You're taking the time to spend
time learning on a Sunday morning when you're not going to
work. And even during busy season when
you're working till 2:00 in the morning, your Sundays are a
little bit lighter to take 1/2 hour in the morning to have an
extra seder. When you're doing that, it's
showing where your mind wants to be and what your heart wants to
be. And I call this bro who treats
it appropriately. Amazing.
That is very, very beautiful. The other thing that you were
speaking about is the fact that on the one hand you hate your
work, on the other hand, you love your work.
So it's very interesting how you describe that.
And the other sort of dynamic that you touched on is the fact
that the industry that you're in, the job title that you have
and the skill sets that you have, you know, there's a way to
make those two things work together.
So I'm wondering if you could describe how you think people
should go about finding careers that are fulfilling, meaningful,
to what extent you should be looking for that, not for that.
How do you balance your skill sets, what you're passionate
about? What's gonna make you the most
Paranasa? How do we put all things things
together? Because you, in a very few
sentences, sort of smashed some of the paradigms around, you
know, following your passion, following your calling and all
that stuff. So it's a lot more nuanced.
It's very different. I'm wondering if you could try
to give an overview on that topic.
Yeah, of course, Yaakov. I mean, I mean, I don't mean to
smash the paradigms, but the first thing you have to do is
establish your goals. What do you want out of your
career? What are your goals in terms of
long and short term, but also your attitude To me, this is
also a shift in generation. I don't mean to be harping on
it, but when I started work, I was 21 years old.
I got married young. I had to pay my bills.
The number one requirement for a job was am I going to be able to
pay my bills, the nachos over the course of my career.
And it is going to give me the ability and the flexibility to
live within a certain amount of nachos.
And the attitude was I got to go to work.
I got to work hard. I got to, I got to be able to
advance and work my way up whether I like it or not.
Nowadays you are going to be changing firms a lot more than
we are in terms of as we're growing up.
But picking and choosing a career is very important.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't pick something that is
not fulfilling. Of course it should be
fulfilling, but I think we might be erring too much on the side
of, well, if it's not fulfilling, I'm not going to do
it. I need to feel good about my
life. You know what those jobs are?
You want to be a doctor, You want to be a Rebbe, You want to
be a Takinov, You want to be a Rub.
Everyone knows what the real fulfilling jobs are.
You want to be a psychologist, I try and do is and it's possible
to do this to pick the fulfillment even in the
professional jobs that on the surface don't seem fulfilling
and make them fulfilling. Get involved with mentorship,
get involved with business development, get involved with
helping someone else. Just get a job.
So you're part of a big firm. You could make a referral.
You could speak to people how to practice their interviews.
You could help that Sieber by just going back to alma mater.
Let's take let's take Yu going back to Yu as a second year
associates. Now you're 23 years old, you're
going back to why you to give back, to tell these people how
you made it through, what you do, what were your processes and
that sort of helps you with the fulfillment.
So do you have to be fulfilled? I think yes, to an extent, but
you also have to appreciate life is very expensive.
It's not getting cheaper. It's expensive to be affirmed
you, especially in the where we live overall, whether you're in
heritage or in America, wherever you're living, it's expensive
all over the place and there's different parameters of that,
but you have to be able to assess what is your passion
balanced by what your needs are for your family.
And you mentioned that, you know, you, you said that when
you were a young man and maybe these things are different
nowadays. You just you had bills there on
you to pay. That was the end of the story.
And today things are very different.
You know, guys often they'll get married and they'll learn a
little bit and their parents will help them.
So, you know, I'm not expecting you to say anything bad house
talking about some extra Torah learning.
But you know, I think you were alluding to a phenomenon where
people have financial depends for a lot longer and that's sort
of creates different expectations and different and
different standards. So is that something that you
view with some level of concern? I said no, I'm a big supporter.
I mean, I have kids right now in Ramada school who I have a
son-in-law learning the mirror. I have another son-in-law who
took a year off to learn also when they got married.
I'm a big supporter of if you have the ability and I could
this bro who has blessed you with that and you want your son,
son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law to learn for a
couple years, call a cavote. And I think it gives you a
foundation of you learning as building a house building
building blocks. It's not the time and effort
that you're doing for that moment, but you're building a
foundation for your career and for your life of Yahadus and
Ababo de Sasha. So the more that you could get
in and the bigger, the bigger the foundation you have.
If you don't have the, if you don't have to go to work, let's
say, and you have parents in laws that are willing to support
you. But after a year or two, so to
speak, there has to be a plan. There has to be an ability where
you're going to become self-sufficient, where you're
going to recognize that. And I'm not speaking down on
anyone that's doing it for longer or shorter, but I don't
want you to think I don't support that.
I fully support if it's in the realm of your financial ability
to support people in learning. I think it's very important, but
as well as to train the younger generation, sons, sons in law,
daughters, daughters in law, etcetera, that there has to be a
plan as you're moving forward for self-sufficiency.
It's interesting because, you know, even when I was like, you
know, young, before I was married, I was in yeshiva and
people talk about plans and it was like, I don't know, it was,
you know, it's exactly what you're talking about.
Like it sort of didn't resonate with me so much.
And now I'm a little bit older and some young people a little
earlier than me speak to me and I, I end up talking about plans.
I guess maybe at the heart of that is like maybe there's a
certain sense of responsibility that if you know, if you're not
really on tab and on being counted on for a certain
something financially, then you know, deep down it's sort of
like it doesn't resonate as much.
Is that possible? 100%, I think, I think that's, I
think you hit the nail on the head.
It doesn't resonate. If someone's being supported and
they don't find the ability to where they're at.
And I don't know how much people give, how much people do, what
bills they're paying, what apartments they're living in.
It could create the perception which is in the child's mind.
My parents are going to do this forever.
I think one of the issues also is around this topic.
Kids see a lot of affluence, Bharat Hashem, Kali.
Australia is a lot more affluent than they are nowadays than they
were 25 years ago. Now.
There still are a lot of people struggling and there still are a
lot of people that struggle to pay their bills day-to-day.
A lot of people, don't get me wrong, but what the kids see is
and what the 21 year old sees is the real estate guru, the guy
that's making his $100 million deal.
They see the guy that's a partner at PwC, they see the guy
that's a finance partner at Goldman Sachs.
They see the guy that's running his hedge fund and pulling in
10, fifteen, $20 million a year. That's what they see and they
think, oh, I could do that and they want that tomorrow.
They don't see. When my kids were eight years
old, seven years old, six years old, I was in the office till
2:00 in the morning to get to where I am today to have a lot
more flexibility. They don't see that.
They don't see the growth. They don't see the effort that's
been put in with the mazel from Akadis Barko.
They just think, and there's more of an expectation.
I could learn for 3-4 years and then yeah, I'm going to make a
lot of money. That's just the way it's going
to be. And that is far from the truth.
Wow, so you mentioned those sort of early years that you were
really had to push yourself hard as a, you know, accountant in
the busy seasons and and you and you give an interesting
framework. You could have Neuberger how
like, you know, they're ebbs and flows and you have to be able to
be able to, you know, transition from different stages and and
keep things going. So, you know, looking back on
your Torah learning, what were some of the things that sort of
kept you going or allowed you to?
You know, I think everyone can resonate with the feeling of
being swamped at work and cutting back on learning.
That's like it just comes at you and it, it's just how it is.
But then how do you make sure you're in a place where when
things open up a little more, whether it's within a year,
whether it's in your career as you know you're growing older
and more senior, as you indicated, as your kids are
coming out of the house, that you're able to really wrap up
the learning when that time comes?
I would say start with, to me it's consistent.
Have a Carusa. You must have a Carusa because
you have to have someone that holds you accountable whether
it's morning or night. I used to have a morning seder
and a night seder. I would learn with John Tiger in
the mornings 53545 to a 630 evening.
That wasn't for me. I was missing too many times.
I was oversleeping. The morning seder just wasn't
focused, and I had a night seder as well.
Always having that night say it, or always having that consistent
time frame within the framework of the day forces you to plan
your day around learning. What time can we learn tonight?
When can we put it together? What can we do?
And this way, if you have that Carusa that understands, he's
gonna have things that he can't miss as well, and he's gonna
have things that he can't do. And nowadays, even with Zoom and
FaceTime, it's a lot easier to connect, to take that half hour
break at work, potentially let's say 8 to 830, do a quick Carusa.
When I was growing up, I couldn't do that.
So either I was in person or was not there.
But having the Carusa framework was huge.
And also as Karvitzheim and many suggest, you should have two
sedarum. You should have a formal seder
and you should have an on the go seder and on the ghost theater
is have a pocket Machinias have something you could pull out.
Have something to do. Show them by a theater as like
lots, lots of people like to refer to when your wife is
getting ready for a SIM card changing dress as many times
learn another mission. So you have a couple of
different sodarum that keeps you focused and as your career
progresses, as you move, you potentially could have time for
more learning. And it goes with the ebbs and
flows as your kids as well. When you get home, you got to
spend time with the kids. You want to be helping them with
their homework, carpooling, going to games.
I'm a big sports fan. Watching your kids play,
bringing them to sporting events, doing whatever you're
going to be doing is obviously top of mind and that's part of
Nirvo de Sachem. It's part of your family
responsibilities. But as your kids get older, I
have two kids that are married, one kid in college and I have a
16 year old in 10th grade at TABC.
So the time at home is not as focused on them.
So what I do this year, this year on my son's night sitter at
Yu, which I think is tremendous, he asked me to learn with him.
He loved learning. Get into that story, how we got
each other to really enjoy the learning together.
And he asked me at the beginning of the year, he's like, ABBA, I
want you to be my night sitter. He's a different morning sater.
And I wasn't sure that that was the right answer.
I'm like, maybe you should learn our kids your own age.
I don't know if that's the right answer answer.
I'd be Neuberger and I've never said though, I've never gotten
this shot in 40 years. But if your son is asking to be
the night sater and you can figure it out and get to why you
a couple nights a week and do it over FaceTime the other couple
nights a week and you'll be there 8080 to 92 or 90% of the
time grab the opportunity. And to me that's tremendous.
So he's my night set. Also a regular night setter,
Yakov Alpha Baum. You've been learning for many
years consistently. So when you have the night
setter sort of anchors you in your form of learning, which is
very, very important. You alluded to the story about
how you and your son got into Into Harusa together, so I think
you mentioned it to me before and it was a great story, so we
could share it here as well. Oh, this is a great story.
He's going to kill me anytime. He's going to kill me for saying
this on the podcast. But I got to mention it.
I've said it many times in public venue.
So he's not embarrassed about it anymore.
He was a senior at TABC and not as into learning, to say the
least. Not as into learning, but a
really good kid, played on the hockey team, love sports.
And he was coming up to be a senior and he said to me, I'll
be, you know, I love a car as I'm a senior.
And I said, OK, that's great. I would love a lot of things.
It's just not probably not going to happen.
But my lease of my car was coming up and I realized that I
had an opportunity to bribe him. Now, I grew up in a house where
my father would constantly bribe us.
My father was a big briber, but the way that he bribed me was
baseball cards. Come to shul on Sunday morning,
you get 2 packs of baseball cards.
And to me that was like, all right, that's amazing.
If I'm going to give my son a town a pack of baseball cards,
that ain't going to cut it. Even taking him to a game might
or might not cut it considering how many games that these kids
have the opportunity to go to. So I said a town.
I'll make you a deal if you decide to learn with me.
The entire misaka's time is tomorrow, an hour a week will
commit to for the entire year. I will extend the lease of my
car for a year and I will give it to you to drive to TBC drive
to drive it and your own, whatever you want.
It's your car. And he had to think about it and
he really thought about it hard because he's a man of his word
and he wanted to be serious. And he said, ABBA, I want to do
it. I extended lease in my car.
We started learning and we learned the entire year.
And Barack Hashem, we made a seam at the end of the year,
Miss Sekhar's Highness. And at that seam he said, ABBA
Kadaka Bakodesh, I don't want any friends at this CM.
I just want family. He's very humble, doesn't want
to show off what he's doing. And he said at the CM, he said,
I started learning for the car. Who am I kidding?
You promised me a car. I'm going to sit and learn with
you. But halfway through, I don't
know when it changed. I realized I just love learning
with you and I want to learn with you more and more.
And we continue to do that. And then the the following
summer he went to NCSY Cola. I was able to be a Caruso with
him during NCSY Cola and I went to Israel for the first couple
of weeks and I was his Caruso and then I left.
But then he was left without a Caruso during NCSY Cola because
he was a junior. My drift.
He didn't have someone to learn with specifically.
He's answer a couple Shyler's doing things in the base Madrid,
doing sports. I said to myself, I have two
choices. I learned my son for two weeks
and now it doesn't know Caruso for the next three weeks.
Morning status, 9 to 12. That's about 2-3 in the morning.
So I went to bed at 8-9 o'clock. I woke up at 1:00 in the
morning. I learned with him from 2:00 to
4:00 every morning for three weeks.
And we finished the 8th parrot above Messiah.
And that just gets him going. And to me and all of his
friends, parents are coming on me say, Oh my God, you're like a
legend though. If you're a legend, you wake up
in the middle of that. You're learning with a time.
You're doing this, you're doing that.
I'm not trying to my own horn. I'm just saying when the kids
see you acting in a way that that gives such Hashivas to your
learning and learning with them, they want to do more.
And he's feels so comfortable with me, with the learning that
he wanted to be me, me to be his night sitter this year.
And I grabbed the opportunity. But it takes a lot of time and
effort to get to that point. But don't be afraid to bribe
your kids. That's that's a really great
story. And you mentioned something, I
don't know if this question really relates directly to the
story, but it did remind me, you know, you mentioned that even,
you know, senior year, the learning was not high priority
for him. And this sort of helped take it
up a notch And it was learning before and, and it, but I guess
the question is right. We're talking about this
conversation a lot about ebbs and flows, things that come and
go. Have you thought about the
experience of being patient for a child, allowing them to
approach things when time is right, not getting too
disappointed or frustrated at various things that you may want
to see from them? You know, I'm now starting off
my journey as a parent and you know, some of the kids, I love
the kids, they're amazing, they're wonderful.
But you know, there's certain me, those that I, I certainly,
I'm quite frustrated by and, and, and their challenges.
And I also see the community, other kids at different ages
doing different things. And it's a little bit nerve
racking to be, frankly, to be honest, someone you could talk
to that point as well about allowing kids their time,
allowing them their ebbs and flows and sort of being loving
and present along the way. 100%. I know that you love your kids.
I don't doubt that for a minute, Yaakov.
I think that setting an example, this is the way that I was
raised from. From the beginning of our
conversation, my father never forced me to do anything, but he
was always present. The alternatives.
So every Sunday morning, I'm gonna wake my kids up to go to
Minion. I'll wake up my Tanya, my 10th
grader to go to Minion. Will they go to Minion every
Sunday? No, but I'm going to wake him up
because you know that he's going to know that there's an
opportunity and he will go a lot and he will choose to do that.
So I will always educate them on what I think the right thing to
do is. Do I think it's the right thing
to be sitting in your room on your phone a little bit longer
than I would like you to be? No.
Am I going to force you? You have to have ebbs and flows.
You have to have boundaries. Very important filters, all very
important, but in terms of forcing, I was never someone
that forced my kids to do anything, especially with
learning, especially was trying to do a their vote this session.
The more you force, the more they go the opposite direction.
And nowadays the distractions, the things that are
inappropriate are too close and too easy the access for you to
take that risk of turning them off even more just by you
forcing them to do something from drill comments or drill is
one of my favorite from drill comments.
And he says that the father that is shushing his kid in shul the
whole time not to talk, get a kid that shushes and talks
consistently, as opposed to the father that just lets his kid
deal with how he has to deal with as long as he's not
disturbing davening too much, but understands that his house
mother is in his sitter and he's diving into a Cuttersburg with
full Qivana. And if a kid wants to ring it to
to read an English book, to be quiet, call a cavo.
Don't force him to be like, look in the sitter one page here up
to Shema, up to this. That's not the way to do it.
I think that's an excellent way to model Chino.
Not forcing, but present thinking alternatives and giving
your opinion. And there are a lot of different
ways that I could talk about this over the years with my
father was with us and my siblings.
Whether it's dress code, skirts, pants, boys, girls, etcetera,
things of that nature. There's so many touchy topics.
Present what you think is correct.
Present the alternatives, but don't force and model the way
that you want them to follow. So I, I will follow up on one
point. I'm sure it's not by far the,
you know, the least controversial of them, but, but
it is something that I, I actually been thinking I
recently, I have, you know, 2 girls and then two boys.
So my, my, my older boy is 3 and I was recently doing a hush
bone. I was like, you know, it'll
probably be around 3 or 4 years until he'll be in show with me
on some level of consistency. Hopefully we got him four years,
five years. And I was thinking about the
fact that. So first of all, Davni is enough
for struggle as it is do with Kavana do properly and to stay
awake and not be distracted by either learning or or phones or
all these things that enough challenges there.
And then he's also going to be there and you want to sort of
educate him and be a role model. And if you're only for the
cutters, borrow who. So you touched on this point,
but I wonder if you can give me some more advice and physic in
that regard about a dominating with kids around in a way that
you're on a Voda, your kids kind of putting it all together.
Amazing. I'm a start with a story for my
father and the stories, you can find it on you.
You can find it somewhere on the Internet because someone sent it
to me. Someone told this story, but he
was the principal of TABC. It was a family from Muncie that
was struggling and couldn't find the yeshiva Muncie.
I don't think he was kicked out. I don't know what the story was.
The kid was a little bit off the directly and they came to TABC
and the rub, the rub of the community and the rub who was
trying to interview the possible principals and leaders of
schools and rabeim to see would this be a good fit for this
potential Talmud? And he walked into my father and
he said, I've one question for you.
How do you get the kids to daven?
What do you do here for davening if the kid doesn't want to
participate and the kid is struggling with Davini and my
father said to him, why would a kid want a davin?
A kid has everything he needs in life.
These kids are growing up with everything they need.
Their parents have food on the table.
Barack Hashem, the parents have jobs, they have clothing, they
have vacations. Why would he want a davin is
ready. Walked around the desk.
They gave my father a hug, emotional and he said this is
where I want my kid to be. This is the type of place that I
want my kid to be. I get emotional nowadays talk
about my father. Sorry but I model the same thing
and you have to model the same type of response.
Come from the perspective of the kids.
We understand why they don't want to dive in.
I get it, dive in. Talk with this bro who asked him
for your basic needs. Refer Anu Hashem.
I'm healthy. I don't have any friends that
are sick. If you do love Aleno, then
you'll understand it a little bit.
My parents all have jobs or even the ones that don't have jobs.
Many kids don't realize that their parents don't have jobs.
Barack Aleno doesn't apply to me.
I'm talking about a semak David Mushiya.
What does that mean? It's hard.
It's really, really hard to communicate.
So the modeling and the understanding of that to be able
to teach them in a way that gets them excited and says, OK, do it
step by step. I tell my kid, I tell my son all
the time before a hockey game. We have a good schmatestre today
and Smackoleno ask our Cutters Baraku to play well.
And I said, no, I'm I'm not talking to you about the fact
that I think it's important to dive into our channel about a
hockey game. But I want to train his mind
that you ask our Cutters Baraku for what's important to you and
if that's important to him in his life, which it is.
Championship game is this upcoming Sunday diving for it.
It just, it shows the muscle memory around what diving is
about to try and connect them to that.
I do 1 bracha. I tell the kids sometimes all
the time. I teach you Shiva, Noah Mishmar.
I teach 8th grade Mishmar Thursday nights, which I'm going
to right after this and I love doing it.
And I would tell them, focus on one bracha.
Say it like a Lambdin. Pretend that you're
understanding what you're doing in terms of what you're acting
to focus on one area. One small thing.
That's something that my father always said as well.
Focus on one mitzvah, one improvement, and you'll get
there year over year. So thank you for sharing those
memories and specialty here. You reflect on, you know, the
deep impact of your father, you know, but it does lead to an
interesting question, which is, you know, that empathy and that
understanding. So I struggle with a lot of
things in my role. So I have a lot of things that I
could be doing a lot better or should be doing a lot better.
So do I. And so the question becomes that
when you when you drive mechanic, so do you go fall in
on sharing that or you trying to express a certain strength and
the level of accomplishment that maybe you don't feel as
comfortable? How do you sort of balance your
own shortcomings and struggles and and allow that to to empower
yourself as a Mahane and not have it like drag you down?
I think you got to be honest with people.
I think you have to sell them. We all struggle.
We all struggle with life. We all struggle with, you know,
give them examples of when you were in their shoes and you
couldn't get up for Minion or even nowadays you're struggling.
This year. I'm saying kaddish.
And I can tell you it's been a big muster for myself at work
because as an example, I'm modeling my miniature schedule.
I block out one to 2:30 now every day because I don't know
if I'm going to be able to get to 145 and I'm going to a little
bit later. I'm going to get it to two
o'clock 20 to 4:00. There's no myths of it.
I say Kaddish, the mitzvah to dive in Mitzibo, there's no
mitzvah to say Kaddish and everyone takes the Kaddish year
to the NTH degree, which I understand covered for the Mace,
covered for the father and mother.
I fully appreciate and I could tie into that.
But it's giving me physics to say, OK, in the past, if I had a
meeting and I missed minion, if I and I missed the mint car and
I had to dive into the conference room, I talked to my
kids about that. I talked to the kids about that
that I teach. I dumped in a conference room
and I to me, I was like, OK with it.
I was like, listen, I couldn't make it today.
That's OK. But now that I'm giving myself
my own physical round bond, then I'm saying college, I'm not
going to miss a minion. Why not carry that through?
And I want to carry that attitude forward as I continue
to do that. I just said this to to my Caruso
last night. I got home late last night from
a work thing from, from from a work event I learned with Yak
Alphenbaum. We we learned every night
proudly, you know, proudly to say we have missed the night
since May 1st, 2020. That's a different story.
But I said, I got to go to 11:00 modern.
That's the latest Marvin Teaneck.
And I said to Miak, I'm so tired.
So I was not saying cottage In my olden days.
I probably was just diving at home, fully admit that.
But I got to get to I got to, I got to say the cottage.
And I said, yak, this is the kizuk that I'm giving myself.
And you're going to remind me about this next year at this
time when I'm not saying cottage.
And I come up with 10:45, I'm going to that 11:00 Meyer.
So talk to you about your kids. Be vulnerable.
It's OK. We all have to grow.
OK, so you spoke about your love of Torah learning, your love of
public speaking. So talk about how you found ways
to bring those together. And you know, you mentioned the
early days, the Josh shows, but now you're doing a lot of
teaching. You just alluded to the Mish
Meyer, which is coming up. But so how do you get sort of
started to get more involved in teaching and, and how do you
find the time and the energy to to invest in that in addition to
continuing to be a busy, especially now they're busy
season, but all year round. Great question.
I love teaching and I teach a home share Thursday night, a
resume for Beth Abraham that started three years ago.
Morty Rothberg, give him a lot of credit.
I gave a share in between Nicola Meyer on Rosh Hashanah once and
he's like, wow, I really enjoyed this year.
You want to give a home share on Thursday nights?
And I think that's a little bit of a lost art be Ian Hommesh.
People talk about the Ian Gamara, they talk about
different topics, they talk about different things.
And every week we pick one pasta, one idea.
It's all on Why You Tour. I started putting them on Why
You Tour a couple years ago, and it's Thursday night over Zoom.
We get 10 to 15 people on a live basis and then 100 to 150 people
are listening on Why You Torah, which is really, really nice.
Sometimes more, sometimes a few less, whatever the week is.
But it gives me the kiosk to continue what I'm doing at work.
The fact that I have more time and as you become more senior,
I'm not working till 2:00 in the morning.
I have a lot of different pressures at work partner than
my staff do and they understand that, but it also gives me a
little bit more flexibility when needed.
So it's a lot of preparation. Giving shoe room is a lot of
preparation. I like to step in Couple weeks
ago I was I was at a shul because of rub went on vacation
for a week out of bar mitzvah. I like to step in and give
Joshua's as well whenever rub on them our way always volunteer my
services and but our question people enjoy it.
They like listening for some reason.
They like to get through it and and the home machine really took
off and then people ask me to give up the shoe room and things
for someone over Hanukkah things for a perm thing, etcetera,
etcetera, which gives me that opportunity, but it's putting in
the time at night. The nights are busy.
The nights have to be busy late at night.
There's a lot of learning that goes on to prepare.
Every she rested takes the time to prepare.
But I say that if you have the ability, how could there's bro
who finds ways to put ideas in your head during the week?
And it keeps me constantly focused on the parsha during the
week. And also, I have two dailies, I
have two daily chats that people ask me to start.
After I did the parsha show on Thursday night, someone came
over to me. I said dog, what?
I do a daily homage, a daily in Yana Dioma.
I said great WhatsApp chat. We've got 220 people on it under
3 minutes. And I will always leave it under
3 minutes and I'll record it three times sometimes to get it
to 2:59. But to get a key aspect from the
parsha and Yana Dioma, we're doing pays off.
We're doing Pura and Hanukkah, etcetera because that's
something that people could digest and it's easy, but it
keeps me focused on the learning throughout the day and thinking,
oh, what am I going to speak about tomorrow?
Am I going to pick up an idea? And someone said to me, we'd
love for you to start some type of be tough on chat.
I said OK, but before I committed to that, do I have the
time to do it? We started to be talk on chat.
There was someone's grandson that had cancer, Glenn Pfeiffer,
our our own Benagliatha, and that's someone that we learned
for every single day. And I said, we're going to
dedicate this Bitakon chat where we started Bitakon of the base
Alevi. I'm going to be talking of the
base Alevi, the babe Salevi. And we finished the entire safer
going through under 3 minutes a day, not just reading, read a
little bit, you say a little bit off the Duff.
And now we're doing the Kazonish.
And it just when you have that type of Kiyas preparing late at
night, it gives you the energy to keep going.
And I'm a big believer in this. The more that you learn, I find
that I cut this bar who helps you be successful at work and it
goes hand in hand. So I don't have to spend as many
hours. But Barack Hashem, things are
working out, I think. And I give a lot of credit to
that because you spend the time and effort your whole life.
Like I said, it's a foundation. I would not be able to do this
today if I wasn't learning those Carusos when I was 2526 years
old. So you describe the the.
Teaching really picking up over the last three years or so, and
you describe the theists that it gives you.
Do you regret not doing more teaching earlier or now?
It's the right stage in your life and career to really throw
yourself into it. I can't forget.
I never had the opportunity. No one asked me.
So do I regret pushing it more? Maybe yes, maybe no.
But I don't know if I would have had the time to dedicate because
as you're continuing, like I said, I made partner 2008.
So I was 3132 years old. Continuing to build that brand
of your business, to continue to build, to build your network.
I don't regret it. I think everything comes at the
right time because there's both who wants you to be where you
are. You also have to have to have
opportunities for speaking opportunities.
But throughout all the years, I was always giving dusters in
shoes. I was always giving this year on
shuest night. I gave a shit this past fewest
night. Interesting share on can you
down from a cell phone different type of sheer harsh kafa halakha
weaving it in and people sort of like that as well.
So I've always been giving enough.
I felt like I taught enough, but not consistently to keep me to
keep me happy, so to speak in that area.
And as I do more and more, it like feeds the beast.
You really just want to continue that aspect of it.
That's very beautiful. So I want to transition to the
last. Part of our conversation, you
are involved in addition to everything we described until
now, and it's a lot in a lot of different nonprofit initiatives.
So tell us a little bit about how that started, what some of
the big projects you've sort of built and I'm most proud of and
most happy about. Sure.
I've always been involved in, not for.
Profits, I think it's important. I think that when my when my
daughter Leora started going to Shiva Naam and I got very
involved with the board right away, I felt like it was
important to give back. And when it's important to give
back, you get involved. And that's something that my
family, my, my, my, my mother, my father, obviously my father,
but my mother was always involved in organizations as
well, our schools, our schools, PTA, etcetera.
And that's something that's an Achais I viewed as a
responsibility. And once I started getting
involved, I realized, oh, I like this aspect also.
It fits a lot of the personality in terms of what I'm looking for
in terms of helping other people, helping organizations,
helping them grow. Eventually I became treasurer of
a Shiva Noah, my transition to become the president.
I got involved with a Maya note, got involved with TABC recently.
Well, I wouldn't say recently past 7-8 years and Beth Abraham
and then I got into fundraising and I realized that I honed that
skill in terms of being able to help organizations fundraise as
well. And I'm proud to say that
fundraise for a number of different institutions.
Fundraise for the Ishiba Nolan building with Abraham building
led the campaign for the TNBC building right now, which we
just named and honor my father and never my father and honor my
father, which is really very emotional as well.
I did the Myno campaign. I started a school, helped start
a school called Yeshiba Shal Shalat for kids with language
based learning disabilities. I don't have any kids that
needed that that needed it. Just got approached and said he
seemed like a guy that could get things done from a community
perspective. Did a significant amount of
fundraising, got that school off the ground.
That was in 2022-2023. That school now has about 60
kids graduating it's birth, 8th grade.
Not involved with it anymore. You have to transition over to
other people. I just started an organization
with Rebecca Liassen called KFAR, which is an after school
program for kids that are in public school right now for
whether it's learning issues, whether it's behavioral issues,
anything but financial issues, because any financial issue, you
got to go to your day school. That's why there's a scholarship
program. That's what we do, the
fundraising. And this is our first year doing
the during during the program. And we just had our first sitter
play about a month ago. And Robbie Neuberger presented
as a Durham to each one of these kids.
And this is one of my most proud things.
I've been to a lot of school events.
I've been to a lot of organizations seeing
grandparents with their child who's in 4th grade get a sitter
for the first time, tears streaming down their eyes saying
I never thought this would happen because my kids in public
school. And if he got a sitter, I
figured I'd buy him a sitter. To have a full, full ceremony,
music, balloons, presentation, the whole 9 yards was something
that was very, very emotional. So that's a great organization
as well. And I think it's a passion of
mine to get involved. A lot of people don't like
fundraising. I always get inspired by it.
I get inspired by the small gifts more than the big gifts,
honestly. But I realize that someone has
to be the conduit to help match up potential donors who have
wealth with people who want to build organizations.
Because if you don't have money, your organization's going
nowhere. So you have to develop those
relationships, which I think is important.
You have to be honest about it. You have to be really, you have
to be unique and you got to be able to talk through it and
develop relationships to help that happen.
And I'm not afraid of that either.
So I mean you sort of touch this towards the end.
But you know, a lot of people you think of fundraising as like
you have sort of your network and you're going to try to
maximize your network for your cause.
Well, you have like a number of causes and you're trying to
fundraise for all of them. Like how does that work?
Are you approaching the same people again and again or
different people for different causes?
How do you manage that? Yes, I know.
I mean, I think some people are scared.
Like, if they see me, they they probably run away.
They're like, oh, those coming out for money.
But most of the donors that I deal with say Kolakov, vote, you
say, Dove. I don't know how you find the
time to fundraise all these organizations.
You do have to find the right match and not every single
organization is going to match with every single donor.
And that's where the leg work comes in and honing your skills
around relationship management, around being really authentic.
I'm not just going to show up. You don't just knock on
someone's door and say, hey, you give me $100,000, you give me
$1,000,000, you give me $500,000.
That's not the way it works. You have to introduce them to
the organization. You have to see or do something
that they're part of. So parents, let's say parents of
a school, that's the first place you start.
Grandparents of a school, that's the first place you start.
Members of a shul, that's the first place you start.
You start a, a school with kids with language based learning
disabilities. You go to people that have gone
through that issue because they understand it the most.
And then you expand. So I'm constantly expanding that
network, so to speak, to make sure that you're speaking to
different people. But of course, there are the
people that you know that you that you could rely on helping
individuals. People call me to help them with
a variety of different things that they're struggling with.
Knowing who's going to be able to line up what is very
important. But having that real
relationship, it's not just about fundraising, but a true
relationship that you're building with the Kahila, with
the community, and they know that they're not doing it for
you. I'm not asking for myself.
I'm asking for an organization that you feel passionate about.
If you're not passionate about what you're doing, they're going
to look right through you and they're going to say no.
But if they feel the passion and they feel that you really want
to support this because of the case for support, you hire
professionals sometimes to help you guide with the materials
showing why it's the right organization for this family,
what you need, what the goals are, etcetera.
It really is something that's important and needed and is
recognized throughout the community.
And you don't mind me? Asking, you know, is this
something you do completely volunteer base because I'm, I'm
guessing that, you know, fundraisers are there are
professional fundraisers and, and there is, you know, if
there's a need for that in the community as well.
But I'm assuming that if you're coming completely with SCHMA,
you know, just because of your passion, then it's a lot easier
for you, a lot harder people to say no, a lot harder people to
be, you know, nasty versus someone who, you know, they're
raising the funds and the end of the day, they need to hit a
certain quota for their monthly year.
I'm 100% free. I probably pay you.
Know pay donate so I'm actually paying two fundraise.
I'm 100% free if you want to hire me to speak at A at an
organization, I call myself a non rabbi, Rabbi 100% free there
pay also from a membership perspective.
So I'll be net out as opposed to that.
But I think it's important to develop relationships with
professional fundraisers, which I have a lot of relationship
with professional fundraisers, but also have relationships with
organizations that help you manage the fundraising process.
They don't do the fundraising, but they help you manage it.
And I learned a lot over the years by going to seminars,
honing my skill and working on it.
But a lot of lay leaders don't appreciate is that when you put
in the time of doing something, you can't just check a box and
say, well, I'm not getting paid for it.
So I won't put my whole heart into it.
I can't put all as as big of an effort into it.
But you know, the return's just not there.
You still have to put everything into it just as you would your
professional life, your professional job, your family.
How do you learn to get better at something is by practicing
understanding it and going out and doing it over and over and
over again. So no, I don't get paid for it,
never will get paid for it. But I think it's important that
lay leaders appreciate that the effort that they put in has to
be on par with what they're giving their professional life.
And not everyone has the time, and that's OK.
Also, not everyone has the time, but everyone has the time to do
something given where they sit within their ecosystem of life.
Amazing. It's very beautiful and very
inspiring. To hear and it's really great
we're we're running a little on time here, but I do want to ask
you, you had some, you reached out to me with some very
interesting follow up. You know, this last part of the
conversation very much connects to last week's episode with Alan
Pfeiffer and Hillel Scheinfeld, both guys who are involved in
our profits and fundraising. And so, you know, there's a lot
of talk about there a lot to follow up, but specifically you
were talking about people who DACA itself is question is not
taken for granted even on smaller scales is something they
struggle with. So what have you seen with sort
of younger people or people who aren't making as much money and
how they struggle with SUKA and what your advice is to them?
Yeah, it's great. I mean, I love hello.
I love Alan, I thought. That was a great episode.
I love all your episodes. Give you another plug.
But I think that as people of the Hammon AM, the people that
struggle a little bit or the people that struggle a lot,
there's a big disconnect. They can't relate.
They can't relate to the guy that's making that type of
money, that's giving 6 figured stuck allocations to different
organizations. And they do struggle.
And I'm talking about Yashar people, Ehrlich Haidian that
struggle with how to allocate their money and do they take
advantage of Kulas, quote UN quote, where they're paying
tuition, but they want to allocate the amount of the mute
Khodesh, the mute Khoul. How do I do that?
What type of calculation do I make?
What type of expenses do I write off?
And these should be consulted with your rough 100%.
I don't want to, I don't want to mitigate it, but they should be
shilers that should be consulted with your rough because every
single situation is different depending on there's so many
different needs, special needs, cost of fortune, as we brought
up, those people are going to struggle a little bit more.
But then there are people that are just not intentionally
cutting corners and not giving their mice Sir, in their hearts,
they don't believe that they could afford it.
And I think they need physic as well.
They need physic to understand that even if I'm making $50,000
a year and I could barely put food on the table, if I give $5
to Stocker, that's my allocation, whatever your
allocation is. And if you want to talk about a
mice, Sir, perspective a 10% how you allocate that, But they need
physics to understand, make it part of your billing system.
Make it a bill just like your electric bill and your gas bill
and your tuition bill to allocate that even on a smaller
amount. Some of the most inspiring notes
that have gotten over the years. When I'm running campaigns
though, I'd like to contribute 360 dollars.
Can I pay it over three years? That's amazing.
That's someone who's Yashar that
wants to contribute and of course Cole Hakavod.
But I don't think, I think that when we talk about the stock
decisions, how to allocate, these are all important
conversations amongst the wealthy.
Of course, people that are blessed from our cutters, Bark
who because like we said and like Alan said over and over
again and like Halo said over and over again, because there's
Bark who's giving you the money, it's not yours.
However, when push comes to shove, we all have 8 Saharas and
we all have issues. And I think that is an area that
needs Khizuk, that people need to be trained in a much smaller
crowd. I'm not sure if a podcast is
going to do it for them. Maybe yes, maybe not.
I'm not sure if someone's going to be have the guts to come on a
podcast. I would say Cola Cavol, let
someone come out and talk to you about their struggles.
I think it'd be tremendous because it gives them the physic
to say, wow, I'm not the only one that's struggling with this.
There are a lot of people that are struggling with this and
there's a lot of avenues and ways that can help me deal with
it to help me overcome to admit Hashem one day, become a little
bit more successful. Amazing.
This has been a really really. Enjoyable conversation and let's
just run through our rapid fire here. 3 short questions, 3 short
answers. We go here coming out Eric
Tescherl and we still have winter time for a couple more
weeks. We still have long Friday
nights. So what do you like to do with
that? Time, Family time?
You. Know it depends how many people
we are over also love to learn. Obviously I quoted before a drop
H Tommy is a big is a is a big fancy one.
I know sometimes you like to like rapid fire in terms of
giving them give you a little preview what this farm are, but
a great new one that just came out the English version of the
Mesha Hochma by Rabbi Emmanuel Bernstein.
I'll give him a plug because he brings the Mesha Hochma.
It's hard to read and I love it. I love the Mesha Hochma for a
lot of reasons, but he brings it down to people picking out a
couple of different essays and points on a weekly basis in the
parsha and I highly recommend that one.
The one that that just came out amazing and your father was
such. A prolific marbet.
'S Torah. Do you have a favorite?
Vort idea Drasha, saying that you got from him of all the you
know, Torah that he taught that you would point out as your
number one favorite or most inspiring.
Wow, I wish you'd have asked me. This to prepare this this, this
just goes to show that it's not prepared.
And my father always used to say on his answering machine back
then, answering machines after the VORT leave a message.
So after the void, leave a message.
But I'll give you one. I'll give you 1 on this week's
parsha, Parshas by Yaqel, the release to a lot of the topics
that we're just talking about in terms of fundraising as well.
And this is one that my father spoke about from the RUV, the
quotas. My father's a big time out of
the RUV and always would quote the RUV in terms of his Torah
learning, in terms of what he was appreciating.
So the Torah tells us he who made hem trumala Hashem called
nadivli Bo yavela trumas Hashem zaba cousin hoshas about the bus
I was looking for Yeah, here it is beginning of Cheney by a
vocal ishinas alibo bakola shinadvo ruko O so he be was
true masasham. What does it mean the difference
between someone that's Nasalibo that gives over his heart and
someone that's nadva ruko that really understands and has a
spiritual aspect to it as well. And there's two different ways
to give. And the rub explained that
Nasalibo and Nadvaruko could be explained in two different ways,
that there's the individual that gives from the perspective of
allocating what he could afford and he goes through a
calculation and that person is giving the tsaka as he should to
Daco Bakodesh on a weekly, monthly, annual basis, doing
what he has to do in terms of being a NASA Libo.
But another Ruko is the spiritual aspect of it.
Taking it to the next level is someone that doesn't necessarily
do all the full calculations in your head.
And I'm not recommending not doing calculations, but it gets
inspired and he realizes, he says, you know what, I'm just
going to give to this organization.
I'm going to give to this because I feel like it's
important. I'm going to give to this
because it's inspirational. But most rabino was telling
Claudia Soil at that time was no matter what your personality is,
if you're another valibo or you're a or a or a, if you're a
nasalaibo or another rujo, however you are, it's very
important that you participate in contributing to the misgun.
And my father would talk about that all the time in terms of
not just giving stucco, but he would relate it to us in terms
of our day, of the day of ODA sashem, because he would say you
could be calculated in terms of your Odessa Hashem.
You got to get 2,000,000 on time.
You got to make sure you're diving in busman.
You have to do the kriyeshma. You got to do the learning, you
got to check the box. But what is really
underappreciated with the emotion that my father put into
things, There's a tremendous about filler understood what it
meant to represent at Seabor. But learning from an emotional
perspective just because you want to learn to shoulder his
lavas when there's no schedule and you're not going to make the
time and you're just going to figure out 30 seconds here, a
minute here, whatever it is, is just as important, if not more
important to make sure they get your heart into it.
Amazing. OK.
And finally if. You were forced to quit your
job, quit your fundraising, find a new something that you maybe
do you doing as a kid, something else that you have a itch to do.
What would that be? Come on, you know the answer to
that, Yaakov, but I'm going to tell you that's.
Going to be my second career. So PwC, we have forced
retirement at 60. I just turned 50 and that's what
I'm doing with my teaching aspect to try and get there.
I dream is maybe to go back and get Smeetha.
I'm trying to plan that out as well in terms of getting Smeetha
just from a credentialing perspective as well in terms of
learning. But definitely teaching,
Definitely teaching some sort. I'm teaching with one of your
former guest laser cornwashers. I'm teaching at Yu right now,
Monday Nights entrepreneurship. I'm his Co teacher.
I'd love to maybe get a Sheeran Yu one day.
Who knows, you know, putting it out there, but definitely
teaching something like that 100% that you have some very
senior Yu figures to do with. The show regularly all right
though. Thank you so much for coming on
during busy season. No less than we really
appreciate all of your Thank you for having me.
I really had a great time.