Do you know why people have to go on those vacations? Do you know why people have to make those kinds of parties? Listen carefully, rich people. Listen carefully, popular people. When your event looks like that, and people who are less wealthy or less popular want to feel like they’re part of the club, they’ve got to match you. You hold incredible power. I can promise you one thing. If all the cool and rich people in the community, for one year, decided that there was a maximum amount that they would spend on a wedding, on a brit milah (covenant of circumcision), on a bar mitzvah (son of the commandment) for one year, we would have killed it in one year. That’s how long it would have taken. The people with the right names.
But, my friends, it’s not just weddings and money. If the people with the right names decided that 12-year-olds and 8-year-olds don’t need TikTok, then you know what happened? Well, the sheep of the world would follow meekly. We have power to change things. We have power to make demands when things are unacceptable. We have the power: either we have the power to change things or watch it burn to the ground like in Noah, or we have the power to build a Teva (ark) where we could live inside the subject of the class yesterday, live inside this Teva in the middle of the flood, but create conditions which we design and we feel are acceptable for our family, or the final opportunity: go somewhere else.
I’m not saying we all have to leave. All I’m saying is one word. And that one word is Okeechobee. Okeechobee. Some of you are looking at me with smiles. Some of you are looking at me with disbelief. Who is this rabbi? What is he talking about? How did I get here? I feel like I need to go to sleep earlier Saturday night. I’m hallucinating. Okeechobee is in Florida. It is a place that a bunch of Hasidim (pious ones) decided that the housing market is insane. We need to go and build a place where you have housing that’s cheap enough for young families to be able to buy into. But not anyone can buy a house in Okeechobee. You have to meet with the Vaad (committee). And you have to agree to certain things to be part of this neighborhood. They’ve created a safe haven. There’s a policy for phones in Okeechobee. Certain families who are not part of this are not going to get in. And we look at that and we’re like, “Oh, I can’t believe that they’re doing that, these Hasidim, these Hasidim.” Not that much different from any condo or co-op, sorry, when they approve you to be part of this building, right? When we build a school, we are entitled to be able to decide the way we want our children to be educated. We’re allowed to do that. We’re allowed to decide what the city should look like, and if we have lost the ability to do that, and we can no longer build a the Teva to save our community within it, then it’s time to go. Vatimale ha’aretz chamas (And the earth was filled with violence), build a Teva, lech lecha (go somewhere else).