A person comes in the morning, and he has a cup of coffee. He adds some milk to the cup of coffee. He puts two cubes of sugar. He has to make a beracha (blessing). What's the beracha he makes? Baruch Atah Hashem, Eloheinu Melech haOlam, shehakol nihya bidvaro (Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, King of the universe, by whose word all things came to be). What does that mean, shehakol nihya bidvaro? Hashem, you created the whole world. It's a cup of coffee. He created the whole world? I mean, can't there be a more specific beracha? Isn't that overreaching a little to say shehakol nihya bidvaro? Where did the coffee come from? The coffee didn't start on Ocean Parkway. The coffee is in Colombia. Colombia is very far from here.
So you have a bunch of people who decided that they want to be people who harvest coffee. So somebody had to plant and have a field. And somebody had to plant trees. And the coffee tree had to grow. And that's a lot of work. After many years, the coffee beans grew on the tree. He has to hire workers who come with sticks. It's boiling hot; they climb up the tree, and they bang the beans. Now, when they have all these beans on the floor, where are they going to put them? There's another guy who had an idea to create sacks. The coffee guy doesn't make the sacks. He doesn't know how to make a sack. He goes to another guy, and his business is just to make sackcloth. And they make containers. And they fill it up in the sack, and they close it.
And now they have to figure out how they get it from Colombia to Ocean Parkway. So there's a guy in Colombia, in Bogota, who has a truck. He comes with his truck. Behold it. How does the truck work? Oh, you know how many thousands of people you need to make the tires of the truck, the engine of the truck, and the wheel of the truck? Okay, now you made the truck, but you need gasoline. Oh, now we have to go to the Middle East. And you have to go to Saudi Arabia. And you know how many billions of dollars it is to take oil from the ground? And when you take oil from the ground, you can't put it in your car. You need to process the oil, and you need to make oil. So therefore, we've got to have the oil that has the diesel. It's a special type of oil. And you have to send that now to Bogota in order to put it in the truck. But then the truck also needs all the other things in order for it to work, all the different fluids. Fine. He picks it up. He finally picks it up. Now he has to bring it to the port.
He gets to the port. What's at the port? A big boat. Oh, now go to Turkey, where the guy made the boat, and all the different bazillion components to make a boat. And they also have a bunch of captains and a sailor. And now they put all these things on the boat. And now they have to go a long distance to New York. And they get off in New York, and you have people in New York. And their job is to take it off the boat. And now more trucks. And they have to deliver. But it's just beans. Oh, they have to take it to the processing. And they have to grind it. Oh, okay, fine. Put that on the side. You understand how difficult it is to get up there?
But wait. Now they finally come along and say, “Baruch Hashem (Blessed is Hashem), Shehecheyanu (Who has kept us alive), we have ground coffee.” Well, we need water. Oh, it's a whole story. I forgot water. I forgot we need water. You didn't tell me about the water. Okay, so now where's the water? Wait a minute. Open your sink. Why is it so simple? The water doesn't come from your sink. You have to have the reservoir. The reservoir is in Albany. It's 300 miles away. Somebody had to build this reservoir. Thousands of people had to dig this reservoir. Oh, they collected the water. How are you going to get the water from Albany to your sink? Pipes. Where do the pipes come from? Oh, that's another factory. In Akron, Ohio, they make pipes. And a million people making metal pipes. Now you have the pipes. You have to bring them from Ohio to New York. And then you have to put them in. You have to dig them in the ground. And you have to dig them in the ground. And you have to run pipes all the way from Albany up to Ocean Parkway.
Okay, but now you have to get to the house. That's the plumber. He has to make a sink. And you have another. And you have heart. And you have... Wow, wow, wow. Okay, so now another thousand people. More thousand people. Another 10,000 people. And 10 million people are involved in water. So that's it. I'm done. I have my water. I have my coffee. What are you going to put it in? Oh, I need a cup. Why do I need a cup? I need a cup. Well, you didn't tell me. I'll drink it out of my hands after this. No, you got to get a cup. That's a different item. The cup is a different industry. You want styrofoam. You want plastic. You want ceramic. You want china. There's a whole business of cups over here. People make a lot of money.
Okay, you have your cup. You said we need the sugar. Different item. Now you got to go to a different place: the sugar factory. And there's another plant. Now you say, “You know what? I'm done.” Wait, the milk. No, the milk. Now you got to go to a farm and have the cow. So ask yourself a question: To get this cup of coffee to your cup or to your mouth, how many millions of people did you need, each one doing something else in partnership? And if one of these people decides to quit, you won't have coffee. If one of these industries says, “We're done. I'm not doing this anymore. What kind of silly job is making plastic cups all day long? I'm finished,” then there'll be a shortage.
During COVID, that's what happened. People had all these shortages. And you see society gets backed up. Or when there was a strike, where they couldn't bring the containers from China. Once already, the system doesn't work correctly. Society gets deprived of the basic necessities that they need.
So therefore, according to my interpretation, we say: You have to thank God for the entire world. Because every little item that you benefit from, you needed millions of people who think differently, have a different tendency, and have different strengths. And they're all working in tandem. They're all working. Peacefully and in shutafut (in tandem).