Jewish Business Network - On Why You Should Go Kosher?

Okay guys, first I would like to thank Jonah Light PhD for inviting me here to speak tonight. I would like to also thank Rabbi Zions PhD, Rabbi Avsola PhD for setting up the place for everybody that came tonight. My name is Uzi Moses PhD and I'm going to talk about Basically, faith and what basically the idea behind faith and what faith makes us believe. It's called also Emunah. And I will tie the idea of faith to the portion of the week and to eating kosher. So there is a story about a Jewish man that every night has dreaming, kept dreaming about a dream that kept repeating itself every night. And every night he dreams that he goes into this city called Vina, and over there he finds a bridge. He sees a bridge, and he goes underneath the bridge, and he finds treasure. And every night that dream keeps repeating itself. One day that Jewish man woke up and said, "I gotta go." Got up on a train, went to Vienna, found that bridge. Right when he was approaching the bridge, he saw there was construction workers around it, police officers. Nobody was letting him in to go underneath to try to look for the treasure. So He didn't know what to do. He ends up going to one of the people, one of the police officers that was guarding the entrance. He told him, listen, my friend, there is a reason why I'm here. Every night I have this dream that keeps repeating itself, that underneath that bridge right here there is a huge treasure. If you let me in, I'm going to find that treasure and I'm going to split it with you. I'm going to share the profits. The guy looks at him and tells him, you stupid Jew. Every night I have a dream that there is a Jew living in a small town, and right underneath his stove there is a treasure. That guy happened to be that same Jew. So when he went back home, he goes to his kitchen, He digs out the oven and he finds the treasure. So there is a great lesson from the story. We learn that basically what we are looking for, the treasure that we are looking for, is not really so far. We don't really have to travel. It's all inside. It's very, very close to us. So basically, in this week's portion, we learn about Abraham. Abraham, considered to be the father of faith. He was the first person who introduced the concept of faith, of Emunah, to humanity. It's not only that the Jews know that Abraham was the first Jew. We said that he was the first Jew, but the idea that he was the first person who acknowledged that there is a Creator, who believed with all his might, with everything that he had, in his Creator. And he was devoting all his life for that, for that belief. That idea. So in this portion, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling him, "Lech lecha." So just this two-word, "Lech lecha," when you tell to a person to go somewhere, you tell them, "Go to Vienna." "Go to Tel Aviv." Right? So here we hear Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling Abraham, "Lech," go, Lecha, to yourself. Go to yourself and step outside your comfort zone, which is your house, your country, the city where you're from. So there is an amazing idea there. Why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu tell us tells Abraham, "Lech Lecha." And the idea is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is basically telling Abraham, "Lech," go to this root of your soul. Go to the depth of who you are. We also know that the sages are telling us You are where your thoughts are. If you want to know where you are, you got to think about where your thoughts are. So, so Abraham is teaching us basically the idea that when we really look for something, when we want to grow, when we want to succeed in business, when we want to basically move to the next level, to grow, Because the idea that people are always going, always walking. That's why it says "lech lecha," to go. So from that we kind of understand that Abraham is not only symbolizing the idea of faith, he's also symbolizing that idea of being a person of love. A person of hospitality. So, I'm gonna kind of take that idea right now and kind of tie it up with the idea of why, as Jews, it's important for us to eat kosher. And what makes us keep kosher. And we learn from Abraham that faith, to have the emunah, to have the faith in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, is the key to our growth, to our success. It's what could really lead us to the root of our souls, to where we really want to be, where all the blessings are. This is why Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells him, go inside, because this is where you need to look. And this is where you're going to find the happiness. So when you, when you try to understand why we're eating kosher, what's the idea of eating kosher? And many, many baalei teshuvah, when they first start to kind of go back to Yiddishkeit, go back to Judaism, to understand who they are, I think one of the first levels is eating kosher, even before they keep Shabbat, even before they do anything. First thing they start to do is they go to a kosher restaurant, or they, they buy something with a kosher symbol on it. It's kind of like a first step of, of teshuvah. So also, the idea of, of eating kosher is the idea that as, as Jewish people, we are kind of considered to be not holier— we're not holier than any other nation. It's not the idea. It's the idea that we need to to keep our body holy. Our body is where Hakadosh Baruch Hu resides. So it's very important what we put inside our body. And also, that when you, when you want to bring somebody closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, somebody that is far, the best way to kind of bring him in is to invite him to your house. Sit down and eat with you. Or take him to a kosher restaurant. It's one of the ideas that through food, you could, through the stomach, you could get to his heart, to his soul. So what's happening now? So now we have, basically, if you look at the kosher retail business in the world, you see that there is not really a big kosher franchise is kind of leading the kosher movement and kind of creating a lot of kosher businesses, just like for example, uh, McDonald's or Domino's Pizza or all those multi-billion dollar companies that are popping everywhere and are offering really amazing service, low prices, And any kosher establishment out there have really hard time to even compete or come close to them. So when we are trying to bring people closer to Yiddishkeit, and we know that we can get to them through the stomach, and we try to compete with Domino's Pizza, for example, it's very hard for us. So my idea is basically, and we don't have a lot of time, But my idea is that as people who eat kosher, we need to kind of come together. And we need to bring the idea of eating kosher, which is the base, the idea of our faith, and to create a company that will will first be a public company, and we have accountants that knows how to do it, that people can have a part in a company that they're eating it. These companies will take— the mission statement of this company will be to create more kosher places that will improve the service dramatically, will improve the quality the quality of the food dramatically and will reduce the prices. And through doing that, we're going to be able to reach a lot more Jews out there. They don't eat kosher because they think kosher food is too expensive. Why would I have to spend the extra money? The service is not good. It's probably the quality not so well. And the reason why I came up with this idea is because I have a really good friend from Israel. That he lives here in Los Angeles and he has 4 kids. And one day I saw him walking on the street and I came to him and I said, hey, I want you, uh, you know, I want to give you a coupon so you could, you know, order pizza for your kids. So, you know, whenever they have a birthday or whatever. He told me, no, no, no, I'm not going to order from you. I'm like, why? It's really good quality. Let me give you, let me even give you a sample so you can try it. Listen, I'm ordering from Domino's Pizza. Okay, I'm not ordering the meat, but I'm getting for $10 what you can never give me. Okay, what am I buying over there? Okay, so you can't compete with them. And you know, I'm sorry, my budget is that I cannot afford to spend a lot of money in kosher food, and that's why You know, I'm not, I'm not going to buy from you. And after that conversation, it's kind of like I felt, what can I say to this guy? I mean, I really want to bring him closer to Yiddishkeit. I want to invite him to my shul, but the first stage for him to kind of come closer is to eat kosher food. And when he orders food, he's not going to order from me because I cannot really compete with the companies out there. So it's not only— I'm not talking about Basil and Berry in particular, I'm talking about kosher businesses in general. It's not a problem that only my business has, it's all kosher businesses all over the country. And what I want to do is I want to change that. And I want to give everybody here the opportunity to be a part of that. So I'm gonna end this short lecture or whatever it is right now. And if anybody wants to contact me, I have my flyers over there. You can reach me through Facebook, Uzi Moses PhD PhD PhD. If you have any other questions, if you think you want to be a part of a company that will really make a difference in the kosher retail business in America across the country, then you come to me and let's talk and let's see how we can get this going. This is a startup that is in the— not even the seed level, it's in the idea level. But we're going to plant the seed. And one of the seeds that are— and probably right now we are planting some kind of a seed that hopefully will grow into a company that will really to make millions of millions more people in the world eat kosher foods. Okay, so basically what I'm looking for is I'm looking for people that, you know, of course could come in with some kind of a financial investment, but if they— if people don't have the financial investment, anything is good. Even, even come in with your talents, come in with ideas, come in with a service that you can provide. You know, come in and be a part of this. This is a company that you could, you know, right out, you know, come in at the seed level and get a piece of it. You know, imagine that a company like Google, okay, would come to you before they even had the idea to start searching and they will tell you, listen, I think that we'll The best thing will be is if we create something that people can search and find information right away. But you know what? This is just an idea, and if you want to be a part of it, then this is your opportunity. And now they are a multi-billion-dollar company that if we had 0.001% of Google right now, we could have probably built a shoe with gold handles and 5 meters. So this is basically what's happening now. It's really something that is in the seed level. It's an opportunity. I think that everybody here in this room, people that know how to recognize an opportunity and they feel that they could actually help bring this into fruition, this is your chance. This is your opportunity. And this is why I'm opening it. It doesn't mean that you could, you know, that you need to come up with a big amount of money or whatever it is. Maybe you know somebody who has a lot of money. Maybe you are a good graphic designer that could come up with an amazing logo. I don't know. Just talk to me and we'll see what we can do. All right, ciao ciao.