We Never Show Our Badge: Exclusive Insights Mendy Coën

June 24th 2021 at 1:23 in the morning a 12-story building in Surfside Florida collapses in 12 seconds literally 12 seconds the whole thing came down 12 seconds right pancake style 98 people lost their lives it was chaotic it was very very painful none of your business SOI none of your business Michael it's the none of your business podcast hosted by Michael and welcome back everybody to the next episode of the noneof your business podcast ushi I I'm exhilarated I'm excited I'm at a loss for words for Who we're going to be sitting with today chaplain meny Cohen is not only a good friend he is a leader in his peers he is a pillar in the community of kabad he literally lives next door to 770 Eastern Parkway uh his family is a uh owner of Doo Foods Distribution Company which many people in our industry know and we have him joining us today and we're going to learn a lot about chapy you I I think that you're going to learn about chapy and what it is I don't know did you know that I was a chaplain I only discovered that recently when you told me that you're a chaplain and if you would have told this to me two weeks ago I would have said okay what's the big deal um I don't really know what a chaplain does I'm not sure what you know what what function it serves but uh I would be very interested in in learning about men is going to join us today and he's not only going to talk about the Chapan se but I asked them to give us a little bit of insight on kabad and uh that whole you know the idea of kabad and the magnitude of what it brings to the world and uh we have a lot to look forward to but it's my understanding that he's not just a chaplain himself he's actually the head of all the chaplain across the country right he has like 600 chaplain that work Underneath Him yep that's unbelievable so I'm just where do you find these people Michael how how did when did you cross paths with this person meny was a Salesman and I want to talk about that on the podcast we'll we'll save it for then and how I met him uh years ago but uh we' We've since then joined forces as families we're family friends now and uh he's just an amazing person with amazing background he's French too so that also will bring a unique part of the discussion does uh did he give you the shirt yes I have the shirt my badge my plaque in my car with me everywhere I go in case I ever need it okay wonderful I'm looking forward to it let's do it Mendy thank thank you for being with us pleasure it's an honor thank you myy who you named after myy not Abby okay explain most meny everybody know I was born in 74 the l r passed away 94 and in our community we don't name after people that are alive so I'm probably named after the Tamar who's a rabbi um about 200 years ago and his name was manak Mand Mand yes so that's where the re got his name from that's right Manda you have a amazing amazing history so much to talk about and you're responsible for a lot of my growth in my life I became a chaplain because of you I'm wearing the shirt proudly we do uh events or we go and do you know Outreach community outreach I make sure to have this on I also to make sure that when I'm speeding I show this to the cop when he pulls me over I have a badge it's listen this is more than just the membership fee this is training this is courses turn around turn it around here we go we never flash a badge oh okay I forgot that part of we don't flash badges so one second one second back up a second what exactly is a chaplain and what does a chaplain do all right I'm going to give you a definition for Champlain this definition does not exist in the world if you go on Google and you type Champlain definition it's going to give you a bunch of things but not what chaplains do cleric Christian other stuff a Champlain is a person who's trained to diffuse pain and ease tension by means of language psychology and emotional support like a therapist almost interesting okay so you being ordained as a Chaplain what does that mean it means that I took my natural ability of being compassionate and being uh you know there for people and learned how to utilize all those skills that I have natural ability need to do and then take that to the next level so that if I'm at a place of Crisis I know how to deal with the situation because I'm trained properly and one of the crisis uh you know that we've experienced in our history recently was the Sur side disaster and mendi was there leading the emotional stress that was happening around everyone everyone need to decompress to search and rescue people the the sergeant that came from Israel he needed to decompress every day mendi was the one to compressive all right it's called debriefing and let me back up a little bit the training of chaplaincy is based on emotional intelligence skills social intelligence skills social communication skills what that means is we learn how to read people's expression so body language verbal cues non-verbal cues facial expressions because not always someone in pain will come to us for help sometimes we need to identify we need to detect pain that's like a like a sense that you read people once you identify pain if you want to help as a Chaplain you need to do an assessment what's going on in this person's life that is producing so much pain here's the challenge people in pain don't want to talk people in pain don't want to share that is what pain does pain isolates people within themselves so what is the language you need to use words what are the communication skills you need to have to create what we call in chaplain c a rapport of trust Ro unless you do this successfully right from the beginning you probably will not be able to help that person how do you do this successfully in minutes there is a sense that people in pain have about you the chaplain that you have the power to help them because when they feel that way they will open up to you wow now they open up to you how do you gather intelligence quickly without sounding like an interrogation because if it is you have to be like a super therapist because the therapist at least have the advantage of first listening to you hearing what's going on in your line of work you don't have that luxury it sounds like you're dealing with such traumatic events with such people that have real big issues that they're not opening they're not sharing you have to pull that out of them and extract it on your own right so you have to have them open up to you and for this there's a science to it there's a science to it to to let people put their G guards down so they could actually trust you right away you do your assessment you find out some details about the person then you learn how to grade the pain based on the grading you know what to do with it so speaking of learning Mindy we have so much to learn about you we've been listening to the feedback of our listeners and one of the things that they absolutely love and they're eating up alive is the lightning round so uh our team got together and we decided to start the podcast with the lightning round so if that's okay with you we'd like to learn about you and start off with just a top five questions that we have and and you get one none of your business to respond if you can pass on only one question I got you if you don't want to answer it but the other questions you got to answer with the cuff don't think about it too much just first thing that comes to mind just spit it out here we go who is the person Mendy past present or future that you would like to have lunch with King David King David wow okay who is the most respected person that you already did lunch with Colonel Golan B wow I can't wait to get back can't wait to get back to that how many times have you seen the rebba hundreds or thousands of times wow in person yes did you get dollars every time I hundreds okay we'll go back to that in a minute did you yourself go through the tunnel in 770 none of your business and finally how many chap Mendy do you oversee 642 whoa and over 200 in the making in in training that's great that's a lot yeah and you have interactions with each of them uh I wish I had 25 hours a day so I could actually have more interactions but yes by the way chaplain in my mind what I always thought they do or you know where you see chaplains is in a prison right in a prison you have chaplain that come to visit with the prisoners that's kind of where I thought of a chap or or in war sometimes they have to go onto the battlefield people that are dying all the times have a chaplain that is there you know as needed like that's to me what a chaplain is but I never really understood what they do or what's behind it your explanation when we started it sounds like this is an art form it sounds like that this is something that you have to have years of training until you get it right well I well the first skill for a chaplain the first skill it's called Ministry of presence it's the ability to give you self your presence to someone who needs it but for that you need to block all your background noise in your mind which is very hard in fact they did a study how many times a person on the average day gets interrupted by their smartphone do you have an idea give me a number interrupted what has interrupted me whether a call a beat a message a vibration a message WhatsApp on your own you asking how many times a day or day a day many times a day yes it's got to be uh 50 no I would say more than 50 I say give me a number 50 what do you say if we're understanding each other it means like how many times a person would look at his phone for one reason or another interrupted means that for for a call pick your phone up and you look at it you look at even if you want to go online for something want to check soci media you receive a text you send a I would say probably 250 times all right you want the number I'll give you the number this is based on 44,000 people 1,400 times wow that means that the mind doesn't know how to focus more than a few second at a time few seconds 1400 times a day the average person picks up his phone to engage with his phone how many people told you I'm add or ADHD everybody today everybody moves everything is racing because the mind is racing chaplain when they give Minister a presence they have to stop that very complicated very difficult they have to make you focus right exactly you have to focus and you have to remove all the background noise from your mind that voice that talks to you every time you see things like right now you talk you're looking at me you're thinking about what I'm saying is to remove so you could bring you presence to someone that is what Ministry of presence is and at the core level you're able to co-regulate emotions every time you meet someone you make them feel better so the first job is to settle things down is to just remove all of the distractions and have that person focus on you so now you can start right okay interesting that's called Ministry of presence Min of presence so how do we do that there is a science to it you know I travel a lot and I have to tell you that I wish there were chaplain in the airports more than there were police because every time you have Chaos on a plane with someone who didn't listen to one of the flight attendants police come they don't ask questions they bring them out and they just everybody's flight gets ruined as opposed to a chaplain who can come and diffuse the situation or perhaps you should start training all the flight attendants and turn them into chaplain we'd probably have a more pleasant flying experience for everybody in fact we do work in one airport Miami International Airport sure we have chaplain there and when I travel I always put this cap on I have a lapel like a little badge here and my ID that's how I walk does that invite people to talk to you about challenges they not only that when I walked onto a plane where the first one I walk over and I say I'm an I'm an active Champlain I would need to get on plane right away before everybody now when people come in I look at them see who stressed start to see and I'll tell you something those are about to start you could tell the way they walk inside because I'm looking at them I'm looking at their eyes I'm looking at their body expression body language and I take two business cards and I give them to the pilots and they always tell me thank you for being on board you have a special message on the back of your cards that I've seen you give to police officers here this is for police officers and this is for people in hospitals where people are going through a hard time wow and the back of it we're going to put this on our video we're gonna we're we're going to put this out there and this is an art therapy picture dear Lord watch over me and protect me from danger and evil grant me the courage to do justice wow this is amazing the and over here as we wait in and hope for good news please guide me to stay whole and Serene fantastic fantastic and I want to know how this affects you on your daily basis I get phone calls every day um today I got a phone call from neww federal prison the guy's being arrested for nine months and nobody knows about it I just found out this morning how did you find out about it what do I mean arrested for nine months I mean he he's in jail for n9ine months he's already in jail in a whole up in a and he can't get out is a Flight Risk oh right now he's in a holding he doesn't speak English well how did this come to you I went yesterday for launch for business launch in Manhattan I was wearing my my lapel my chaplain badge on my jacket and the owner of the restaurant came over to me asking me what is a Champlain and I explain to him I need your help this morning he calls me to tell me about this uh very very unfortunate situation where this guys was arrested seemed to be an a normal actually a very successful businessman he doesn't know how to pull strings here wow so he's stuck for n months in what was he arrested for I don't know what were the charges I don't know I know he has to call me soon and this is going on for nine months already months you're going to be all over it and I'm gonna and I told his wife already we're gonna get him out from wearing a lapel I don't know what I don't know what the story is but I know in the depth of my heart you know I feel like I feel like I want the world to know you know there's a there's a special signal a hand signal you know this if someone's kidnapped that they do a hand signal to let people know abducted yeah there's a hand signal to what's the hand signal to show that you've been abducted it's uh I think it's something like this that you have to show somebody like this with your hands and um I feel like Mendy you're wearing a lapel is a signal to others if you need help I'm here for you what an amazing thing you wear the lapel and it invites the challenges that people have to come and you're on top of it and I want to tell you another a secret which I tell chaplain we today in very difficult times there's pain everywhere at all level of our communities toddlers teenagers young adults middle-age elderly married single female male there's pain everywhere how do you protect yourself from pain from society just listen to the news you'll hear pain the best way to do this is to help someone else that's the best cell therapy it subsides some of your own pain is if you help it blocks it blocks the negative energy from outside to enter your mind and your heart why yeah no go ahead because once you're busy giving two forces opposite forces cannot operate at the same time so either you give or you receive when you give from yourself to others nothing's from the outside could go inside you and this is a this is a this is a fact yeah yeah no l giving sometimes people say is almost a selfish thing because you're really helping yourself because by giving to someone else it makes you feel better as well because I think humans we're we're wired that way is that you know we're always trying to do things to make ourselves feel good right that's what we want to do and by seeing an impact that you make in someone else that's something that makes you feel very good so I it's almost like a distraction of what's going on in your own life when you're involving yourself in someone else's life and you're helping them and you're doing good you're doing positive I I have to say this CH think to me is fascinating I I think I'm the Casual uh person as well that doesn't know much about chaplains I think if you ask just the average person hey what's a chaplain what does a chaplain member do we won't know we have no idea people don't know but guys like you exist I mean chaplain sounds like there's a lot of people out there that are chaplain and you helping people in a big way you're also trained it sounds like to really like you were saying identifying people just by looking at them by picking up on Q's their body language which I'd love to hear like some examples of like what you look for and what does that tell you when you see somebody like what are some of those things that you look for when you see someone to detect what's going on with them and if they need your services you know what myy take us back to Surf Side because in the lightning round you mentioned that you had lunch with someone who was very important to the you know that disaster and the and just being there and managing the situation I remember the first few days it was chaos no one knew what to do or how to do it people were afraid to touch anything and then in came the leadership of Israel the the search and rescue team and that's the person that you mentioned earlier please tell us more and and maybe you can get into Us's question and talk about what that was like and how do you detect and how do you know when give us a real time experience give us some of that actually happened and what what occurred and what transpired how about who he was yeah so June 24th 2021 at 1:23 in the morning a 12 story building in Surfside Florida collapses in 12 seconds literally 12 seconds the whole thing came down in 12 seconds right pancake style wow 98 people lost their lives it was chaotic it was very very painful and the national Rescue Unit of IDF this is a a division of IDF who train all year round to assist in disasters around the world the commander his name is Golan V was he on TV yes many times I've seen him go talk yeah right so he came with his team of Engineers and what they did it was astonishing they put together Engineers interviewers Intelligence Officers who interviewed every single family member who had a family in that building to know where how was the layout of each apartment they landed in Miami with blueprints of every single apartment as they talking to family members they enter the data in the computer that was sent to Israel to Tel Aviv they send back simulations of where that apartment would fall and where to look for it so the beds wear this way and that way they followed computer simulations to find and they would basically Mark spots on the pile and then you would have the task force of a couple States dig there and with with with dogs and different Technologies they would find people exactly where they took said it what what did you do there how was got experience for you so for us we had the special unit the first responder special unit and I have to mention chapl Lisa Mermelstein who was uh there with me for a long time I was there for 61 days and managing 30 chaplain and what we did was there were hundreds of people hundreds thousands of people family members didn't know what was going on they did know where they loved one where where they alive where imagine you go through this constantly at the certain point people fall apart psychologically mentally I had a woman who came to me and told me I want to die I don't want to see pain anymore three days later and we chaplain provide spiritual care so we have to find a way to speak with them and to interact with them the problem and this is why we are trained with PFA psychological first a training which gives us the ability to be there when trauma is involved psychological first age is is that a is that a phrase that is known of course py training we train with John hsk University our chaplain took the training we have a special division of First Responders chaplain who attend disasters wow so those chaplain and I'm part of them we had to find ways to stop people to think because at a certain point they could not listen to anything because the mind was in a cycle in a loop of pain and when you speak to them they're not there they look at you but they somewhere else how do you enter that mind so they could listen to you that's a skill wow to stop that Loop so they could stop and just listen for even five minutes and I could tell you that after a conversation with a chaplain they would tell me chaplain M how how did you do that you took me on a trip right now you took me away from my pain and I would say let's thank God because that's he makes this happen so there is an amazing skill to this there's an amazing need there's not enough Champlain there really isn't I mean this is the most delicate this is the most vulnerable this is like the epitome of pain in that Surfside story where a building collapsed the family members are there on scene and they're feeling helpless there's nothing that they can do about it and they know that some of their family members might actually still be alive under that that rubble and they're suffering and you're just on the sidelines you can't contribute towards anything you have to let the professionals do what they can I mean their minds must have been going to some really dark places very bad butt very dark places and to have people who can deal with that to have somebody like you with the experience with the training I mean this this has to be more elaborated we we do need more people like you and and we don't talk about this enough we don't know what goes on behind the scenes this is shocking for me to hear this and I never thought about it because I'm living in my own world and I don't really know what goes on I know the basics of the story but I don't know behind the scenes of What's Happen like you're exposing me now to something right and I think you're exposing a lot of people something we never even thought was needed and what's going on and this is this is crazy I have to share with you that we don't have to wait unfortunately to a Surfside situation to get involved this happens one in a lifetime there are trauma everywhere today a diagnosis is a trauma a divorce is a trauma a car accident is a trauma did you which happens all the time did you ever drive and you see a car stopped you have a police presence you have an ambulance and you have people outside so these people who are outside standing they're not hurt otherwise they'd be in the ambulance what happened to them well they just went through a trauma MH they're shaking they I would stop take out my badge and go engage them every time I do this there's a benefit for them wow I have to tell you I witnessed this personally when I was invited by Chaplan Mendy Cohen to a weekend a shabat tone at Fort bregs and it was one of the most uplifting weekend shabat tones that I've ever had in my life besides the fact that I found out that Mendy here plays piano and sings that was fun but uh there were many chaplain that were at the Surfside disaster and they were Witnesses and they were giving their account and their story I even at that weekend got to meet the first cyclist for bike for Kai right chaplain David the first one he was telling us the story about how he started bike for Kai by being the guy who's like no no no I'll take my bike and I'll go there I don't know if you know the story but there's one chaplain who started bike for Kai and he just took his bike and he's like oh I'll meet you guys there and he was the first rider ever and uh that weekend I got to learn so much about chapy how integrated they are into the United States Army you say you know about chaplains in hospitals in prisons in armies and I love where the conversation is going needing those chapes around us and us being trained just the training that I've got alone from this program was very helpful for me to know when I pull over instead of just my instinct kicking in and let me letting me help people around me but understanding how to take a step back and listen in a whole new light a whole new light which was which was amazing to me I loved it and by the way you know Mendy there's a lot of trauma going on right now in the world that I want to talk about for a minute that's that's hitting me home personally every time I go to Manhattan every time I go out to New York City and I go out at least once a week to New York City every time I go out I'm a little bit nervous there's a little bit anxiety there's a little bit of trauma you know what that trauma is that there's going to be protesters and haters that are going to walk around and and and they don't just raise their flag they're dangerous I'm scared for my life sometimes in fact I know that this is something that we we talk about that happens in the city and everywhere else but something that you don't know where she is men's from Paris Mendy's from France Mendy you you come from an environment of the entire country feels like New York City on a Thursday night demonstration or a protest how does that feel how do you know tell us about that I mean just just what am I supposed to do when I go to New York City and I feel that how do people in Paris relate to all that hate okay I so yes I was born in Paris I grew up in Paris my first language is French English is my third language third language what's the second one Hebrew oh okay um and my parents still live there in Paris um so growing up in Paris knowing that people don't like you people hate you almost makes you stronger because when you go out you always always on your where about you look around you're you're on guard you're on guard constantly but also it becomes a habit it becomes natural to not be afraid we also know how to detect early signs of problems okay in America we not we don't know how and that's why we're afraid that's of the unknown I I mean I I just don't that experience yeah so so even though I would say today there are more hat crimes in New York City than in Paris today is that is that right I know that's true yeah today you have more problems hate crimes in New York City hate crimes towards Jews or hate crimes in general well in general that you could look at the stat statistics but to uh in regards to Jew to the Jewish Community um just look around I mean it's not in the papers because it's too often like school shootings happens every month we just don't hear them I heard it happen every week school shootings around the country exactly and they stopped reporting it because it's just become so Habit St become so common practice that they don't even report last week there were two air crimes in Brooklyn in konits there's a lot in um in other place other areas in Brooklyn in Manhattan but let's understand that's not what defines us I was yesterday had a meeting with the mayor of New York City and he spoke very nicely he said you say the mayor of New York City you're talking about mayor Adams mayor Adams yes you met with him yesterday yesterday morning and how much time did you spend together we were two hours together wow with group Facebook we could have a whole episode of just I like how we just slid that in over there that yeah yesterday I was the mayor and I had lunch yesterday this let me tell you something you could always join me number one and this happened follow you around by way Mendy Mendy invited me once to come to La I I missed him by a day where he went with lap in their helicopter up in the air and you know in La they have what is it do they have helicopters all the time 24 hours yeah 24 it's the only city only city in America that has helicopters in the ear all the time trolling all the time yeah and he went with them up and he was following cop cars and he kidding tell us about the meeting with the mayor um so he acknowledged that there's a lot of pain around and the only way to get out of this is through faith and he asked everybody to get more involved and what he said he said that it's okay to be angry anger is a natural reaction to life but when anger becomes hatred that is not okay that is something we have to speak about because if anger already turns into a a destruction behavior that is not fine I was glad that he said it very very very he spoke very well yesterday yesterday morning and this is what I invite everybody listening to this show because everybody could become a chaplain everybody could be there bring your life experience bring your skills which only you and you and me have we were given specific skills in life from our birth let's use those to help other people that's the only way out of this what I was just curious was there any accomplishment in terms of meeting with the mayor in terms of ideas of what can be done because yeah what came out of when a protest happens in New York City like for example now it's happening almost every week um you know like I said I'm a little bit nervous so like what ises the mayor do about let's say let's let's let's understand one thing when you meet um the mayor and his office and other commissions and other services you have to believe that since they are government they could do everything so you complain to them about everything the answer is they work a lot they will not be able to answer all all problems or to resolve everything so for example one thing that I uh was speaking yesterday about is sometimes from the shelters from the Asylum Asylum Seekers which is 200,000 200,000 people came to New York I don't if you understand this before the crisis we had 47,000 people in homeless shelters wow on top of this we got 200 more than 200,000 Asylum Seekers who are now flooding the the city they don't know what to do with this they are so overwhelmed the problem we have as chaplain is sometimes the phone rings 50 times one night and for a week is nothing so I said to to them maybe someone coordinate so we get a little bit every day we can't be overwhelmed with 50 phone calls cuz we don't have the resour who's actually calling you like you know if you need an ambulance you know you call 911 you need a a police officer you got you call the police line right how do you get in touch with a chaplain somebody's in need of a chaplain who calls you like how you find your customers let me explain a chaplain is a center of resources a chaplain is a leader a Champlain who who's a Champlain and his community doesn't know about him he's not doing his job so you have spread around in different communities and different places where there are people who are ordained as a Chaplain 32 states we are in 32 states and chaplains are pastors from to rabbis to lawyers to doctors every day people that have other jobs to CEOs CEO whever they are also as a secondary as a secondary skill they also a chaplain you said 32 states why is this not Nationwide because first of all we don't advertise it's word of mouth okay so and that's amazing because we grew to 600 chaplain plus based on Word of Mouth one second there are 600 total chaplain in these 32 states in uscc in the United States chaplain core the Army has 3,200 chaplins oh that's part of the army the arm meant for them right internally and they need another 5,000 there's a shortage of champlin and they pay very well you know that you can make three six figers after three years as a Champlain in the Army wow and they give you a house and give you everything El plus benefit really yeah so it's really an important job there why not bring this to Everyday people living their lives that are now suffering from traumatic events just like people in the Army are you know it's been it's bleeding into our communities in so many ways having chaplain is such a necessary I applaud you I really do and everything that you're doing and the work that you're doing because you know I think people are much more open today to mental health issues than they ever were this was something that for many years was being was being shoved under the rug and wasn't being talked about and now we're all recognizing that we didn't do ourselves any good by doing that and it's just festering and it's becoming worse and it's just escalating and by diffusing it with Chaplin that are being made available to to communities all over the place I mean this has to be more publicized I don't know I didn't know in my community I wonder who's a chaplain of my community I mean Michael actually doesn't live too far for me he's a chaplain so maybe your community knows about it but there has to be more word of mouth we have to get this message out that chaplain can really make a difference in people's lives I mean this this is really wonderful what you're doing they they're not they could they are they are doing it we see our Champlain have to report once a month on one Mission they do uh the way they are and that's why they're in a way independent that they manage their own time and their own missions but they have to stay active within the USC so when we go to the system we see them active Okay in order to continue being a chaplain I receive hundreds of thousand literally thousands of mission reports every week and read them it's absolutely unbelievable you read mine I was a pointed that I read every single one today I can't anymore because there's too much meny you mentioned about the laab Reba and how you have thousands of I mean you actually have them hundreds hundreds is there a value now a monetary value on those dollars yes they Yes actually I make um so I received them when I used to go uh to him and he used to give me coins and and dollars uh today I make a business to give them out really yeah I give passing them along I give them out to people to my friends to my so you're now you're you're your own version of a rebba giving out dollars now well I say I am my own dollar my buddy is my dollar he's the conduit from I absolutely dollars out because the dollar has a lot of a significance there's an energy to it that people value there's a tremendous am when you have one you know there there is what it is the number of dollars that there doesn't grow yeah it is I'm a very big believer in this I gave one last week do you know that you could take the serial number I just found this out this week you take the serial number of the dollar that you have and find your own picture of when you went to the rebba based on a serial number and you can find based on AI they have a technology now on the on a website where you can put in your faith and you find the facial recog I had the privilege to know the rebie and to grow up with him and to meet him I used to speak to him in French you should know he spoke French how many languages did the re speak many and French was one of them fluently he spoke French he lived in French for eight years how would you say hello in French to the rebbit why would he say hello to the rabbit differently I don't know hello no no that's not French that's Hebrew I remember you say it in French that's what I'm saying he bourj the rabbit speaks the same French that every other person French person once my mother wasn't well and I went I was young I probably was maybe 15 or 16 years old I came to New York I was in New York like every other other month or every holiday I was there and I went to him and I asked him for a blessing for my mother and he looked at me and he gave me wine says tell your mother to drink it he poured you wine on the spot he was take it home to your mother and he said this is for your mother and when I left left I called my mother and I came back to friends and she drank it and there was over you kept that all the way back to France yes how did you how did you store it how did you secure it when you left the rabby after he gave you wine they would sell little plastic bottles of course somebody made a business be a of course I love it though I love it course right by the way you know I've learned this trick when traveling you know you can't take too much liquid with you yeah you C amount right A friend of mine taught me this he takes wine and he pours it into Ziploc bags and he has separate Ziploc bags so you could travel with it 3 o right exactly each bag is unlimited bag you could take different bags of 3 o as long as it's three ounces or less you could have different creams right so I can take like 53 oz bottles as long as 3 o you might get arrested for other reasons yeah but I imagine that they accumulate it give you better idea on the plane to actually serve drinks yeah to get drunk on the plane legally wine that you got from the rebba that you're tempted to drink you know not for nothing this uh you know laich I'm going to say cult I hope nobody gets offended by it I I happen to think that it's just one very unique Community let's go Community is probably a better word sure I said cult I didn't mean it in a negative okay in a negative way but it's cult like in the sense that you guys are all intertwined with one another like I imagine when you meet somebody else that's labovich you instantly feel connected to that person like right away like you share some type of bond because of you know you're following and I don't know if even other kidas have that type of camaraderie between each other and it's also so vast you you know the babich has grown into it's a worldwide phenomenon you're everywhere what's your question sir I don't have a question but I'm going somewhere I'm going somewhere I'm sorry it's also more identifiable their hats are smashed and their beards are long their features you can tell exactly one of the things that I'm mostly and I think most people will tell you that one of the biggest things that stands outage is that you could go anywhere in the world and no matter where you are I don't care if you're in if the Himalayas or if you're you're you're in in an Iceland wherever you might be there's going to be a kabat house there's going to be a laish place that is is there just to host those people to make sure that they have food to make sure that but that's the entertainment of laich of kabad what do you mean by entertainment it's entertaining when you go somewhere you have nowhere to go and you need food and you need he's talking about from our perspective from our perspective we like the old saying is wherever there's Coke there's kabad so from our perspective hey you need a I think there's kabad in places that there aren't even Coke where Coke doesn't even go they still go they go to far ends of the world it's unbelievable yeah but but take us further into that I'm take you further first of all you said when aabad meets anotherab or right there is there is a sense of connection yes I have to tell you that connection is not per seich is just any Jew so it's about it's about connect with a brother M connecting with a sister I'm sorry I undersold it he's right it's not just I I hear that it's to really any other Jew like they have a bigger connection than us have to each other I think kabad really exemplifies know I have to tell you there was obsessed with two things mainly two things two ideas number one was time time was of the essence not just one time during the day but every second people would come to him and say hey hey look what I did this is what I built this is what I have done this is the book the first thing that every would do is give another dollar or Another Blessing for the next one one second one second one second r i just kill myself with this did you hear what I just told you right no this is the past move forward the idea of moving forward it's about time time is so important okay don't waste number one don't waste time number one number two he was obsessed with love because we are born with it life changes it but we are when we born we know what love is and we lose it and he says to us catch it it's within you just just get it back because when you do it hatred goes away resentments goes away pain goes away anxiety stress and so on so every second of the day there is an opportunity to grow and to be free of this demonic life that we live in which is crazy I have to ask you you know to be a breast right to join that cult so to speak um you have to go to uman I think there's like three rules from what I understand you have to study the teaching and you have to do what's called which means you know isolation those are three things like you know I've asked people in the past hey you know I like this whole uh breast thing what do I need to do to be a part of it meni what do I need to do to be a part of kabad love love people and you are you saying I don't have to grow my beard okay what else is there is there anybody could just become love people is so easy to hate so easy to you know hate and love are both four-letter words hate is four letters and so is love success and failure also has the same amount of letters and there's a whole list of these things uh yeah you can count it yeah isn't that fascinating right because for you know you could Channel your energies for one way or another way equally as much right so here's an Insight on this mhm okay light and darkness darkness is not the opposite of light it's the absence of light the absence of light so when you bring light in Darkness Darkness evaporates same thing with love and hatred when there's so much hatred and you mention you go to Manhattan you see you feel hatred you feel you know the people the hate out there and what does he do to me well he makes me fear I'm afraid I'm fearful I'm anxious I'm stressed and so on creates pain sometimes we feel we have to engage them to undo that and the answer is not true the answer is to engage first is to create in ourself love so when you feel afraid do something loving anything that's beautiful do something that's and that will basically dissipate that's really good advice I mean I feel like that's so advice and he's translating that into being is that way of life which is beautiful as well you know it's just like hate is the absence of love so pain is also the absence of feeling good so if you want to eliminate that pain or you want to lessen that pain it's to hone in on the positive things and why good things and that will slowly diminish the Pain by the way very insightful very insightful I want to share one you know I'm using your services right now you know you're a chaplain and I want to tap into this I'm I'm by the way I'm going to be a big advocate for this because I really believe that chaplain you guys are trained in in so many different things that you know you can really bring a lot of value to so many lives and you need to we need to we need to make this bigger we need to magnify this and I want to tell you some one of my fears one of my anxieties and this is for me something that I live with all the time okay and I want to give you an example and I'm going to get a little emotional about it because I I it's about my family and I promise you all the time Michael I have this fear okay and I want I I imagine others to when I take my kid to a movie theater my son I've taken him a couple of times and as a treat my son loves you know to go to a movie theater it's like a big deal for him and I only save it for like you know when he really deserves it you know a big award a big accomplishment I take him I do not rest the entire movie I'm just sitting on guard I make sure to take a seat at the very top so I can keep my eyes across the entire movie theater because I have have this anxiety in a public place like that where we're easy targets that some psychopath is going to come in there and shoot up the place and we've all heard this these stories it's happened before and any public place that I go to a theme park when I'm with my kids when I'm by myself I don't think about it as much when I'm with my kids I go to a public place I'm on alert I'm on constant alert of something bad's going to happen and I want to be there to protect my kid and I'm I promise you every kid that every person that leaves the movie theater in or out I'm watching saying where they going what are they doing you know and if I see something I'll grab my kid I'm about to run I don't know I'm on alert I have this fear I have to ask M before you give your response to it does your kid feel it no I don't think so he doesn't I've never told him right he doesn't know this no my kid's seven years old I didn't let him in on what's going on what's going on in my mind no not at all my kid doesn't feel he's oblivious to it my kid's oblivious to it but I certainly have this anxiety and this fear what's the question my question is how do I how do I alleviate that fear how I know that it's not so realistic I know the odds of something happening like this is so minuscule I know that but yet still it's on my mind and I and I and I have this anxiety get a carrying permit you can't just carry with it by the way I did I did I got a carrying permit about a year ago I did get one because everything that's going on in this world and I think everybody should get a carrying permit we should all be prepared if they go through the classes every week yeah yeah for sure but you can't just take it with you to I disagree I'm not allow to go to a public place with respect I disagree okay I disagree with guns I don't I don't think guns are the answer I don't think carrying a gun will help you because even if you use it you're G to get in trouble right okay if you use it for self-defense so there's got to be a better way so so the first thing that I I could tell you is that there's a lot of negative energy that comes to you on a daily basis from somewhere could be from the news it could be from the internet but your mind is constantly thinking about something negative okay and I won't be surprised if it's the news or the internet because that's what most people go through it has to be the internet I've seen lots of school shootings and things like that it's the internet 100% the internet I I also do listen to podcasts okay News podcast and you know what he does to me it makes me anxious it puts me on the verge on a cliff so I'm now looking and I'm seeing everything what does it help does it help me in anything the answer is zero makes it worse okay so if I'm going to be on my guard constantly because I'm listening to what's going on in the world which is absolutely insane we live in a very very dysfunctional world and dysfunction is constantly a how can we really how can we survive this so you have this challenge when you take yourself to a movie theater he has this challenge when he goes to Manhattan I have this challenge when I go to a restaurant or take the subway I don't take the subway anymore I'm afraid cuz I have to always be looking around so how are we going to live if we're going to let the outside negative energy get coming to us then we're not going to live our lifestyle is going to go down pain stress anxiety and so on is going to establish itself and it's very hard to get out of it so the only thing that I think we could do and that's what I do myself is to minimize our exposure to the news because it's entertaining all those po podcasts all those newspapers what do they do they want you to read it they want you to listen to it right and and why are they doing this because they have to sell ads at the end it's a it's a business for them so we without knowing we're smart people but without knowing we get hooked on those Loops that constantly going they make money they're happy I could guarantee you that a guy like those big podcast without mentioning names they don't really care about how you feel they want you to listen on clicks right because when you listen to a podcast they have numbers and those numbers they sell those numbers so the more people listen the more money they make what does it do to you well you know what it does to me I'm anxious every time I take my son I'm anxious every time I go to the subway I'm anxious yeah Mandy I really appreciate that perspective and um you asked me to raise the alarm when we're out of time because I know you have a busy schedule ahead of you and uh we are about to run out of time so so I just want to end with saying Mendy it has been so nice getting to know you on the ear pleasure um I I'm so thrilled that I got to introduce you to my co-host ushi and the pleasure was all mine and uh Michael like if you know of any other people in your life that are half of what this man is don't say that stay tuned guys you are you are holding back and you're not helping and I don't appreciate it I I don't appreciate you we're getting there and I have to tell you withholding from me because I this was like spur the moment as well okay this is like Mendy like you you know you should be proud of yourself what what you're doing is is there's a place for you in the next world that's reserved and I I'm I'm envious of you like I'm not going to make it there and and lots of are but you you'll be surprised people like you have a special place in the Next Room if you say I have a place I'll make sure for you to have a space next to me grab me when you see me grab on take me wherever you're going please just listen we all have gems into ourselves and we have to take them out stop being silent come out really come out everybody has good you give me a call and make sure you're invol I love that men on that note and we'll finish with this about coming out uh we have to ask you because we like to end the none of your business podcast with asking our co-host who would you recommend would be a good person to be on the podcast that should come out and speak with us I have to tell you first of all many people number two if you make this podcast as interesting as it is today I'm going to listen to it every single week oh we got a new listen we got a new listener no I have you have me already so okay excellent um I know that we we say the name and everything you can say the name I know that you went to we're all waiting with a baited breath you went to an event last week yeah and you met a person who really made some kind of effect on you and you asked me do I know him and I told you I know him who was that his name is Mandy klaski Mandy who call I want to call him see if he is very very busy guy Mendy we could do hours and hours with him I mean he is a force to be reckoned with I mean tell us a little bit about him and then get him on the horn what what's who so man the kotlas family um goes back many generations but um Rabbi mosha klaski was the head of uh all the emissaries theab emissaries in the world passed away about a month ago let maybe six um well about five weeks ago six weeks ago and his son um Mandy who's been working with him um took over so he's basically managing the kabad and I think we should give him a call so he's like the Pirro company for all of these emissaries around the world for kabad yeah wow he must have a lot of stories to tell he runs kabat on campus which I have to give um a hello to Rabbi Yosi Gordan who is the executive director of kaban campus and he's doing an amazing work on that note I have to give a hello to ABI Weinstein who overse SE the Kat on campus let's get him on hi is this meny I am here with Kim Greenfield you met him at the wedding you know has a very important P podcast in the community and he wants to invite you be honest with you in general my enthusiest to I I just have to tell you sir we haven't met yet but I'm already inspired by you because by the mere fact that you said that you're lately saying yes to everything that is fascinating and I want to hear all about that what that's such a positive way to live your life start saying yes to things why are we always knowing things all the time our first instinct is to say no and then I'll think about it maybe your first instinct is to say yes and we would all probably miss out on a lot less if we said yes to more things so I'm I think you're actually extremely interesting just by the first thing you said you got lots to offer so I'm excited I'm looking forward to doing a podcast with you Mendy thank you so much for that attempt I hope it works out and uh we give you a lot of credit for everything that you're doing personally professionally and intertwining your personal and professional life to always be helping others amazing I'm I'm at a loss of words yeah yeah so much so that I would love to talk to you offline to see how I can advocate for this how I can be a part of this to spread the word and get this messaging out because I think a lot of people could benefit from this m such a pleasure thank you so much for being here I appreciate it thank you myy thank you it was an honor it really was it true honor Wow all I could say is wow I mean uh I loved watching you getting to know Mendy I loved watching you as an average American Jewish person learning about what a chaplaincy is we learned so much from this session that we had today we learned about time the preciousness of time we learned about love and the idea that that's what it takes to be kabad we talking about giving and the opposite of giving and the importance of it the search and rescue from the Surf Side disaster I mean there were a lot of teachable moments the main one for me is learning how precious time is and learn how important love is Michael I want you to know that during the podcast for me I'm discovering what I'm actually really loving about this is I get to meet these kinds of people I had no idea about the true nature of what a chaplain does it was this is completely new to me that's a totally new landscape and I'm so happy because I was missing out on this information until now so quite frankly I don't care the people that are listening to the podcast what they're taking away from this just for the mere fact what I'm learning from this in this podcast is incredible it's absolutely incredible the people that were me that were bringing on now yeah I mean they have so much to share and finally you know we're giving these people a platform a guy like this he's never been on a podcast he's never been exposed nobody knows what he does and what what he's about where he's been and where he's going and I'm so thrilled that we had the chance to sit with him and get to know him a little bit and what did we do we did like you know 40 minutes with him we could have done 5 hours with him yeah yeah it's amazing I love love watching ourselves get vulnerable I love watching you get vulnerable and the things that we can learn and um I have to mention thank you again to Prime source for sponsoring the none of your business podcast and I ask everyone to like subscribe follow engage you know people have been giving us amazing followup about the lightning round we started this off with the lightning round it set the tone for the podcast of what we're trying to do with our theme of meshing our personal and professional lives and adapting you know stories and debates and learning from it and and we're having a great time doing it obviously yeah I'm loving it I I really learned a lot today and I'm also learning that a lot of these people they've experienced so much and they're doing so much that they have a lot of worldly advice as well that's applicable to anyone anybody can take that away from it not necessarily just because you know you're a chaplain you're not a chaplain who cares what he was saying today um the messaging was was so profound and and I'll just share with you one thing that really stuck with me is he was describing when someone's in pain and when someone's going through a difficult time in their life it's not about trying to lessen the pain and telling someone get over it snap out of it or don't harp on it you know don't harp on the pain and that's how you'll no no no no the pain is there acknowledge it it's real and it's going to stay there and the way to subside that pain is to focus also on the good on the positive on the nice things that's happening in your life the good things that are happening around you and in the absence of darkness in the absence of light is Darkness right in the absence of good is when there is pain and if you start focusing more on the good things then the pain will slowly start moving away and it will slowly lessen and this is why people say you are who you hang around with 100% you are who you hang around with because that is what you surrounded yourself with and that's ultimately where you're going to be and yep and don't forget we are in this together and we're here to learn from one another and I'm loving everything about this podcast and I'm looking forward to more to come this was amazing all right thank you till next time everybody