Transcript
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I had a friend named Ben
was born in Israel
and if you
needed to find a profile of someone
who had every excuse in the book
to not achieve to not make it dare I say
not even continue as a Jew this was Ben
basically never knew his father
his father passed away when he was one
year old
he was raised by his mother and by his
brother who was seven years older than
him
Ben as a young child was labeled as
having learning disabilities and when
his family came back to Israel and moved
to the Boston area
and the school that he was put into
children with learning disabilities were
all lumped together
so he was from first through third grade
was in classes with children with Down
Syndrome but children with severe autism
and somehow Ben made it through
Elementary School
eventually went to high school through
his brother's perseverance he decided to
go to Yeshiva in Rochester New York for
high school
after Yeshiva his career was as
challenging as his childhood he would
have one job
he would have success the company would
go under he would move to another job he
would be successful they would have
Shady business dealings he would have to
leave for something else and he went
from company to company to company
somewhere along the line marrying a
wonderful woman who saw the
determination in this man
to make it and to stand up to adversity
whenever it came its way
eventually Ben built his own company
from scratch
a company where they built websites
e-commerce websites for Fortune 500
companies with much success Ben became a
true Oscar as we would say in Hebrew a
pillar of his community he became
successful he became financially
successful but he saw his success as a
conduit for cassid for kindness and
Prince DACA and for charity and to be
able to give to others and even in his
business he sought to hire people who
maybe couldn't get a job anywhere else
and to give them a chance and to bring
them under his wing and this was the
life that Ben lived
Ben lived a beautiful built a beautiful
family with seven beautiful children
and then one day in the community there
was a child whose mother had ALS the
father couldn't take care of the child
anymore Ben and his wife adopted this
child and brought the child into their
home because that's how Ben was
when Ben would visit a school and he
liked what the school was doing he
became a supporter of the school
there was a family in Ben's Community
where there's a terrible accident the
kids were in the hospital for a long
time Ben gave the family whatever they
needed to get back on their feet
he provided for the parents they could
be there with their children through all
the rehab because that's the type of guy
that Ben was
a few weeks ago
Ben was flying back from New York
for paying a Shiva call
Ben was a pilot he was flying back with
a friend was another pilot
and their single engine planes shortly
after taken off from JFK Airport
failed
and the it was clear that the end was
near
as the plane was going down
Ben pulled out his phone
thinking he was texted his wife
ended up texting the entire Cleveland
Jewish community
with the following text messages
I love you and the kids
I am sorry for everything I've done
we lost engines call and have the
community say to him say Psalms
a few hours later the plane was found
and neither Ben nor his co-pilot Roberto
survived the crash
at the funeral which literally brought
my community the Cleveland Community to
its knees
Ben's funeral
the families of Alexander khalab told
the story of the family told the story
of Ben
how I described it to you how Ben had
every reason not to be where he was in
life
and he turned to the children he said
and now you
as your father's greatest Legacy
you can do exactly what he did
you've just been knocked down in a major
way
and now you can be just like your father
and get up and be stronger
so as Ben's friend I realize
that we all have the opportunity to be
like Ben
we all have challenges in our lives
that we feel like we're not going to be
able to get through it we're not going
to be able to go to the next step we're
not going to be able to get up again
but for those of us who
were close with
and loved Ben we now all have that
challenge to be like Ben
because we are part of a Nation
the nation that like a lioness gets up
and like a lion
always Rises
