We are here today studying Torah in this room with—I can’t even tell you—thousands and thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of hours of Torah listened to by millions of people because of a banker. Like, let that land.
Now, you might think that this phenomenon is not only true here. Do you know how much Torah is coming out of Rabbi Mansour Shul (synagogue) in Brooklyn? I have a secret for you: That’s the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue of Brooklyn.
You know how much Torah comes out of that place? There are classes all throughout the summer and a Torah program during the winter at night. And my father—Hashem should give him arichut yamim (long life), shlit"a (may he live long)—runs it so beautifully. The barbecue is tended by the one and only Sam Nitka. That’s the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue of Deal, New Jersey.
Now, lest you think, “Okay, he had a lot of money. He donated a lot of things: mikvaot (ritual baths), synagogues, schools, and hospitals.” So all this impact came from a banker. You don’t have to be a banker. There are people who have no fancy job. And in their non-fancy job, they have no great sums of money. But they have other things, gifts.
Noach matza chen be'einei Adonai (Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord). The three friends who started Bikur Cholim did so because they went to visit their friend in the hospital on a Shabbat afternoon and thought to themselves, “You know, other people might also want a visitor.” Those are regular people. Walking to the hospital did not cost them money.
When we lived in London, all the young kids had this thing where there was an old age home. It was in the middle of nowhere. They would walk two and a half hours on Shabbat to go visit old people who were unwell and suffered from dementia. My daughter would go literally every week. Shoshana—she’d walk two and a half hours. How long was it? How much money did she have? Nothing. How much did she pay? Nothing. But there’s a tremendous impact that we can make with our time.
There are people who are in this city and have no place to stay. Their son, their daughter, or their wife is getting treatment. They’re here from Argentina, Mexico, who knows where. We’re blessed to have very good hospitals within a five-minute walking radius. And now you need to stay here for two weeks. You don’t have the money to spend a thousand dollars a night in a hotel in the area. What are you going to do?
So an organization called Habayit has apartments that they lend to people who are unwell. By the way, if you have an empty apartment or you’d like to donate an apartment, let us know. But it’s not just the people who donated an apartment or had an extra apartment that they were going to use only six months in a year. So they take six months. There are lots of people, by the way, who have a pied-a-terre. You have an apartment you’re not using for six months, eight months in a year? Let us know. We’ll have it professionally cleaned before and after. You could have a mitzvah (good deed) in that apartment every single night. It will cost you nothing.
My friends, there are volunteers who don’t have an apartment. You know what they volunteer? You know what their involvement is? They go to Uri's and they buy cookies, candy, and coffee. And they put it in the room, and they take the laundry, and they put new sheets on the bed. How long does the whole thing take them? 20 minutes. And now someone who flew around the world with the weight of their world on their shoulder walks into this apartment, sees what’s going on, and starts crying. And you did that with 20 minutes. Do you have 20 minutes? You don’t have to have much to be able to find grace and favor in the eyes of Hashem. You already have everything that you need inside of you to do that.
So, ladies and gentlemen, to save the world, I want you to ask yourself: If today God needed to save the world, why would he choose me? What do I have inside of me that I am doing or could be doing that would make God say, “That is a kind-hearted pizza maker”?