Reb Meir Schuster Tribute Video at Project Inspire Convention 2019

If I have to think about how many great people I met in my lifetime, he was one of the greatest people that I knew. Uh his accomplishments were unbelievable. He couldn't talk. He was shy. May Shuster's going to go up to complete strangers and and and then talk them into going in to Yeshiva or something. They would say impossible. He had he he was so uh naturally uh an introvert. I remember that when I saw the Kotel, I was approached by a tall man who asked me the question, uh are you Jewish? And would you be interested in having a Shabbos meal with a religious family, with an Orthodox family? And I guess the rest is history. He was not um charismatic. But something in his eyes was so sincere, like sparkling, like family that you trusted. He was on a mission. He was driven to relight the flame of every neshama that was checked in or possibly could be lost. He was going to spread as much Torah and light to the world as possible. And he knew that this was his mission, and he certainly believed it was ours as well. There was no ego. There was no shield between him and the people. It was just him saying, this is what I want you to do, this is what you need to do. Mr. Shuster didn't see a people, he saw neshamos. It didn't matter what color their hair was, it didn't matter how many earrings they had, it didn't matter what they looked like. He wanted them to give them an opportunity to grow. He didn't see where they were coming from, he looked where they could go. Rebbe Meir was in one word real. He was authentic. He sincerely and really cared and loved every single Jew, and that came through in the few words that he spoke. He was driven by love of God and love of Torah and love of Am Yisrael. And if you care about people, you just want to go out there and share it. And that's what he was doing. It wasn't about the numbers. It was really it was there was something greater than himself, and he was he was just Hashem's shaliach. I once asked Rebbe Shuster, how many people did you approach? How many people do you think you sent to the Yeshivas? And he was very hesitant to answer me. Then he said, I don't know. I said, you have to have some type of idea. I said, do you have a number? He says, more than 5,000. One-on-one, I don't think anybody had a bigger effect. My wife Robin and I have eight children, whereof whom five are married. Uh those five married children have resulted in at this point, I believe I have 13 grandchildren. It was really the dedication and the warmth and the mesirus nefesh of Rebbe Shuster. We went to visit the Shusters, and we brought all the kids. Said, these are your grandchildren. You know, it's all ripples effects from one tap. When my first child was born, Mr. Shuster made a knitted sweater for him, which we still have, which all of my kids wore, and which is a uh prized possession. He taught us that you just have to care, and if you don't care enough, then that's something that we have to work on, and that we can use him as an example. When I just look at him, I used standing in awe of a of a man like this, what he could accomplish. Could you and I always thought to myself, could you imagine if you had such a passion, you also have other things going with it? I mean, how much could be accomplished? I mean, what are you going to tell the Rebbe in shalayim after 120 years? Where were you? Where was I? I mean, what you know, what we could have done. I wasn't that person. But you know, sometimes you have to do something, you do it. That's all. Kiruv is is the most important thing in the world today. Because we're losing so many. It's the most important thing. So that it's imperative that you do kiruv. To to to reach out, to to try to help somebody.