Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For someone who's not exactly like you, then you have to sort of go deeper and find ways to love, ultimately all of Hashem's children.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Chorome podcast. Thank you so much for joining us again, or if it's the first time, you're listening. Hello and welcome.
This week we will be speaking to the wonderful Benjamin Bini Kasper, who developed the new life of family edition, Koren Yedid Sidor. We will talk to him about that in more detail, but it really is something fantastic.
Bini is wonderful. He's amazing. And so we will jump right into our conversation with him to learn his Torah, Al Ragil ahat.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: We are excited to have with us Binyam and Caspar, otherwise known to us and friends as Binny, joining us here on the Quran podcast. Binny, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Such a pleasure to be with you today.
[00:01:08] Speaker C: Can you tell us and teach us your Torah Al Ragh el Akhat?
[00:01:12] Speaker A: So a lot of very profound answers have been given on this podcast to that very clever question.
I think I'll take the question maybe in a, maybe a slightly different direction and sort of talk about what the study of TORah is MEANT to engender, and then maybe from that, what TORah is. And the answer that what I've heard from my rabbiim in the past is that TORah study is always meant to engender two things, or the litmus test as to whether you're studying ToRah in the proper way. Does it make you more HumBle? And does it make, is it increase your avas Yisrael? Does it make you love jews more?
And I think the underpinnings of that is, of course, that, you know, Ainu and Bil Vado, there's nothing in the world but Hashem.
And so Torah is, yeah, Torah is Meant to do those two things.
And so if that's Torah regalachas, then, then I hope that's helpful.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: First of all, I've been waiting for that answer, and so I'm very excited to dive deeper into it. But before that, if I can ask you to set aside your answer for 1 second and not be humble for a moment, if you're able, and just, I mean, tell the listeners who you are. We've had plenty of people on the podcast who need no introduction. And to your friends, you certainly need no introduction, but perhaps quite apart from other authors or other guests from the podcast, you're not necessarily the most widely known jewish personality.
So, I mean, who is Binomin? Binny Casper?
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Okay, so Binny Casper is a simple jew who lives in Modin, who has the privilege to live in Modin with an amazing wife and four incredible children.
I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey.
It was privileged to get a great education at Yavne Academy and then at Ramaz, and then study at Gush and Yu.
Studied law, never practiced law.
But, you know, I think over as the years have gone by, in addition to my professional career, which was in real estate and now is in venture capital, I've definitely had the time and space living in Israel to do what I think my real passion is, which is to share Torah, and maybe in ways that in the past hasn't been as, hasn't been shared in quite the same way. I like to kind of like take complex ideas and try and simplify them, mostly because I need it simplified. And I like to think that others would benefit from it.
So, you know, trying to take big ideas and package them into smaller, more digestible bites.
Again, very fortunate to have incredible influences in my life, from my parents and my in laws to various teachers.
And I enjoy kind of sharing the things that I'm passionate about, the things that really speak to me. I enjoy sharing that with other people because I'd like to think that others would enjoy them as I have.
So, yeah, try to be a good friend, a good father, good. A good son and brother and all that good stuff.
And.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so that, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. Why you're the perfect guest for the podcast. You'd like taking big ideas and simplifying them to their core and then sharing that with other people, which is probably the most important part. So then going back to your answer, learning Torah, the Torah should be making you more humble and love jews more, which is great.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: How sure?
So I think when we think of Torah, and part of why your question is such a fun one and gets a lot of different answers, because the Torah is infinite.
And so there are so many different answers. Obviously, we have Hillel's answer in the Gemara, but there are so many different answers because the Torah really has everything in it. And so when you realize that what you're studying is infinite and it comes from the infinite one, it was his gift to his people and to the world, really.
So when you study the Torah, and there's so many examples in the Torah of humility, of personalities, different character traits, the way that it manifests itself through different stories and through different speeches. So when you study that, it's. I think it's hard, you know, unless if you're out studying Torah for the wrong reasons, then you might miss the humility part.
But if you're studying Torah, Lishma, and you're studying Torah to get a better understanding of how Hashem. And in that way, a better understanding of who we are, since we all have a piece of Hashem that Khalek Alok Hamimal.
So I think humility is just a natural outgrowth of that. And to also realize that there's so many things in this world that we're not going to have answers to that are satisfactory spoken to. Many people, especially now, in a time of turmoil and sadness and loss and tragedy, a lot of people have expressed, and it's okay to be angry and be confused. Some people sort of take that to a place of, how could this be? And there's humility that's needed in saying, you have a human brain and it's finite.
The world is a place that doesn't have all the answers. And just because we can't come up with a logical explanation for something doesn't mean that it's not Hashem's will and that there will eventually be an answer.
So I think that's on the humility side. And in terms of loving other jews, it goes to that same idea, right? That if we're all a piece of hashem, we all have.
So increasing your Torah knowledge shouldn't make you feel that you're higher or better than another person.
If there's someone who you don't like or you don't agree with, you sort of have to fight through that, or someone who's not exactly like you, then you have to sort of go deeper and. And find ways to love, ultimately, all of Hashem's children. That's what he wants. Certainly in the writings of the hasidic masters, the Balatana talks about how we're all part of the same guf. So the same way that if your index finger hurt, you wouldn't hate your index finger, you would want to heal it. You would want to figure out a way to kind of ameliorate that pain. So it's the same thing with other jews and with other people.
That Torah is supposed to give you a broader sense of the world and find ways to love everyone we ask. And in Sim Shalom, that Hashem, you know, Hashem bless us like, as one. And I think certainly for these times, that's an important message, because, you know, we get taught this by our enemies all the time, that they don't distinguish between religious, not religious, you know, wealthy, less advantaged for jews, then, unfortunately, by many people were hated. And so we need to increase love between ourselves. And Torah should never be used as a weapon to find more divisions amongst Hashem's people.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: You talked a bit about your influences before.
And for myself and others who've kind of read the Torah that you're sending out there, there's a broad range there. Can you tell us a little bit about who your kind of Torah influences are and how you've kind of got to this point where you do kind of connect to Torah different kind of geisha approaches to Torah? That's quite broad compared to kind of just people who stay in one lane for lack of a better way of describing it.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: If I can refine Arya's question a little bit, how does one go to gush and then end up being so learned in, like, the more hasidic leaning elements?
[00:10:44] Speaker A: I love that question.
So I think start at the beginning, but also something broad, and then maybe go back to the beginning.
You know, kind of always felt that I could exist in different spheres.
And so, you know, I got a great education at Yavne Academy in New Jersey. I think it was there that I really appreciated Torah.
I had an incredible revie, especially in 7th grader, by Mayor Beller, who I think it was in 7th grade, taught us something like 250 mitzvot we went through during the course of the year. And it's from that year that any. My ability to navigate anywhere in, you know, whatever my ability is, I should say, to navigate within torahs from. As an outgrowth of that year.
And what I think that gave me was a real love of the text of Torah. So that was more of, like, the pshat. And so after that. So I chose to go to Ramaz, which is not where most people from Yavne or from New Jersey went to. I like to joke that I was probably one of the few people who was debating between TABC and Ramaz. Those aren't two schools that necessarily are like, kind of the last. The last two. But I like the idea. As much as I love Yavne, I didn't necessarily want another four years of it. I wanted to do something different. I was attracted to, like, being in Manhattan Place, a lot of, you know, a lot of place, a lot of activity. Maybe it was from the. My first two years I lived.
I lived. My parents lived on the Upper west side. So maybe I was just going back to my roots. But, you know, it was one of four think people from Yavneh who went to Ramaz, but I wanted to be exposed to other ways of thinking, to people with different backgrounds.
But still it was there. Definitely cultivated more of my love of text, of the text and Gemara. And so that led me, I think, to gush, where I had wonderful experience.
Many of my friends from, gosh, are actually fellow Brits, so I certainly always been drawn to the Brits. A bit of an anglophile, I suppose.
But I felt that even with sort of what I had gained in Yeshiva during that one year, and it was the intifada that year, so it was not an easy year by any means, but I still felt that there was a warmth, a romance of Judaism that I hadn't yet tapped into. And I don't think at that time I could have put my finger on what was missing. But sort of, in retrospect, now, I can see that that was something that was missing.
And fairly early on, I met my would be wife my last year of Yu, and it was actually her father, my father in law, a wonderful, wonderful human being by the name of Shimmy Klein, who really helped open me up to the world of Hasidas through Rabbi Moshe Weinberger and eich Kodesh in Woodmir.
Started going to Sha'el Shuddhis, started hearing more of, you know, the Torah of the Baal Shem tov. That really gives a person a sense of.
Yeah, of the romance of trying to bring a lot of meaning to what we're doing, as opposed to just doing it, but understanding sort of the Panemius, the inner elements of what mitzvahs are and what our. What our job here in this world is.
It was always great to sort of have the backbone that I think I got from my parents. Of Torah is something that's really important, and doing mitzvahs is something that's really important. Carrying on tradition, being kind of loyal to the people who came before us. But this was a great added layer, I suppose, a different sphere, that I didn't get so much from my youth, but that I was very fortunate to get as a young adult and as a newly.
As a new husband and someone who would then be able to have a family, have children. And I think it's such an important thing to be able to give over to children as opposed to just telling them to do things, but to explain how much Hashem loves us, why the mitzvahs are there, to refine us into better people, and how each mitzvah is there to connect us to Hashem and how it does that and those messages, and certainly helps us in Tefilah, which is obviously something that's very important to me. So that is. I think that's a trajectory that I would.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: What role do you feel like the Torah of the ghush of revaronous? Do you think that still plays a role in your Torah output you're teaching?
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think that plays a big role in.
If I'm learning, let's say, hasidas, then I want to understand kind of where the ideas are coming from, sort of the idea that we have to have proof in something. We can't just make things, make things up.
The notion that the ideas that come into our head have to have a source in something.
And certainly being a hezdi yeshiva, the appreciation for Ert Yisrael, the appreciation for people who want to, you know, live a jewish, I should say, live a Torah life, but also be committed to the people of Israel, to defending the country, you know, all of the. All the sort of this more spiritual stuff, of course, has to be grounded in something.
And so. And the same thing with Hashem, right? We have. We have the romance, we have the relationship aspect of Hashem, but we have practical things like mitzvot, that.
Where it takes a lot of expression. So I think I'm always kind of reminded of speaking of humility, of course, of Aron was incredibly humble and his brilliant, but you wouldn't necessarily know it just from. From looking at him or even hearing a few minutes of him talking.
So I sort of think very definitely think fondly of my time in Goshen. I still have a connection to the yeshiva and certainly to my friends from the yeshiva.
And Modin has got plenty of Gush alum.
Everywhere I look, I'm reminded of the yeshiva, but I think it's great to dip into various different pools of our very rich religion.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: You've used the word now a couple of times of romance, the romance of Judaism, the romance of Tara, or relationship with Hashem.
You seem to sort of focus more on. Not focus more, because, as you say, you know, you're finding. You're looking for the reason behind lots of these more intangible things that we learn or parts of Torah. But this idea of. I'm, like, really attracted to this idea of, like, the romance in it. Like, we recorded the episode. Hopefully it's going to air on Rosh Chadesh Elul. The famous acronym of Elul is Anila Dadiva da Dili. We start using all of this language, whether it's in Tefilah or just, you know, the rabbi standing up and giving a drasha or whatever it is. There's much more, like, emotional, emotional language, especially when it comes to our relationship with each other and relationship with Hashem.
And, I mean, something like, something that has always spoken to me as well, is Rasuloveitchik talks about how can there be a mitzvah to love Hashem? And the idea he brings down. Obviously, I'm super, super, super simplifying this, not because I have the ability to simplify, but I've only got the ability to understand on a simple level.
Talks about how the commandment to love is. It's sort of a reaction, as the more you learn, the more you come to love, which goes back to your answer to the original question, that learning Torah should make you humble and love jews more.
So how, like, for you, just on a day to day basis, and, I mean, you brought up the idea of tv, which is something we'll definitely talk about a bit more in a moment, but, like, through Tefillah, through the language of davening, through the vocabulary of Elul and Tishrei and that kind of thing.
How do you use those to connect to Hashem? How do you use those to increase your humility? How do you use those to connect to whether it's other jews and being able to sort of, as you said, live in those, like, multiple spheres, whether it's like the rational gush or the more emotional and mystical Aish Kadesh world.
So how do you use the language we're given to, again, whether it's tefila or Tara or whatever, how do you use the language that we're given to increase your level? I guess? Level up in your humility or level up in your ahavat Yisrael or whatever it is.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So, first of all, so much of the language, right, is given to me and to those who are. Who have the ear to listen to it by, you know, by incredible rebaim and, you know, svar Makdosham, there's so much in there, and I, for some people, it could sort of sound repetitive, but for me, kind of caught the bug a while ago in that the notion that hashem loves us and that we're supposed to keep Hashem next to us at all times, it's like something simple, but sometimes the most simple things are the hardest things.
Or because it's so simple, we don't need to think about it so much. We just, like, know it and we catalog it. It's way back in the back of our brain, but different influences and different Svaram that really pound that message home for me. I sort of can't get enough of that, because I think it is so important that throughout our day, to see everything that happens to us and every encounter that we have and the people that we see, that's all a way of Hashem connecting with us. We say a bracha, one of the shah, Salih Kultzaki. And so it's sort of like looking backwards. And that Hashem has given me everything that I needed.
That's a big statement, if you really think about it.
And to say that kind of in a genuine way, you have to kind of look back on your life and say, wow, all these different steps that I took, somehow, that was Lezorek. That was. That was for. That was. I needed that. It was for my own good. It was. It shaped me.
Obviously, it's harder to think about those things when, you know, when you've. When you've. When a person has gone through something very difficult, but that is still part of every person's. Whatever pathway they're given, that is, that is their story.
And so there's a. For some people, the idea that Hashem is always there is crushing.
And for a lot of people, I think they have this unfortunate picture of Hashem as, like, this judge who's sitting on high, who's recording everything that we do, who's nitpicking on whether we put our left shoe on first or our right shoe on first. And there's this crushing sense of, why does Hashem care so much? Just let me live my life. You put me here, and you've given all these mitzvah. And I guess in the best case, if a person falls into that category, then they'll do the mitzvah sort of out of, like, kabbalah, ol kabbalah soul, of feeling like the yoke of heaven on them. And I'm gonna do it because I want to be a good boy or girl.
But there's a much, I think, more pleasant way and a way that you can live in a way with a lot more happiness and joy, which is more of the vehicus of sort of feeling this great connection and magnetism and being stuck to Hashem in a good way. And that is, Hashem isn't there as this overbearing judge or king or father, but rather, he's with us at all times because he loves us and he's constantly trying to communicate with us. Like, I try to tell my kids when we have to drive somewhere. And we get from point a to point b, even just for a second to think when you get to your destination, thank you, Hashem, for getting me here safely.
Even that little tiny moment, and you start to make that a habit. And we say also in Targilenu, vitarotecha, not Targulenu, as if, like, it's by rote, but rather that we should become. It should become a.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Habit.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Habit, exactly. It should become habitual for us to do mitzvah, to think about Hashem. And so when you get into that mode of everything that happens, constantly thanking Hashem, constantly seeing Hashem in that, then that brings someone, I think, to a lot of, like, menuhas Hanefesh and a lot of comfort and a lot of, you know, when you constantly feel gratitude, right? We all know that gratitude is such an important thing. It certainly makes you humble. It certainly makes you. Makes you an appreciative person.
I think it rubs off on others when you express gratitude. It makes other people feel good. So when you can, throughout the day, find so many reasons to be grateful and so many reasons to see Hashem's hand may not be in the most sweeping way. Right? Miracles, big miracles, don't happen all the time, but every little step, if you can think of that as a miracle, then your life is infused with Hashem. And it's not just that you are.
This is an idea that is in the safer Belvavi Mishkan Evnetzhe. And this really changed my whole perspective on being, trying to be an observant jew of Schwartz. And that safer talks about the difference between, of how you identify. Do you identify as a body that happens to have a soul, or are you a soul that's encased in a body? And if you identify the first way as a body that has a soul, so then that soul, every once in a while, you have to do, like, soul things. You have to do jewish religious things. I have to make a bracha. I have to go dominion. I have to daven. I have to say whatever it is. So throughout the day, there are a bunch of things that demand your soul to get involved.
But it's a very different perspective to say, I'm a soul. That's who I am. And in order for a soul to exist on earth, it has to be encased in a body, right? Because souls don't just drift around here, here on earth. And after 120, hopefully, or whenever Hashem decides when the body, when the soul leaves the body, then the body is, you know, we bury the body but when you think of yourself as a soul, so then everything that you do during that day is directed by the soul, even if it's nothing, you know, the most traditionally thought of as, like, a religious, you know, action, right? Drinking a cup of water or, you know, walking to the market, you know, driving your kid to school, whatever that is. But you. But all of that can become religious activities. When you think of yourself as constantly having Hashem next to you and thanking Hashem for the things that you have and Hashem helping you to do the things that you want to have, to have intellect and be able to hopefully function and be a contributing member of society. All that good stuff. That's all powered by Hashem.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: When did you feel like you wanted to start focusing your learning of Torah and also your teaching of Torah on Tefillah?
[00:28:56] Speaker A: I don't know exactly when it started, but I can tell you sort of what the feeling was that that launched it.
I'd like to think that I should say I try to be a genuine person, that the things that I say are a reflection of how I really feel, that I think it's incredibly important to think about our words. That was something that my parents always taught me not to. If I don't understand, you know, something, then don't say it. I remember as a kid probably, you know, saying a phrase or using a word that I had heard somewhere, and my parents would say, do you know what that really means? And say, no, not really. And say, well, you probably shouldn't say it, then.
So I think there's a lot.
It's an incredible ideal to be people who really mean what we say. And in davening, we say a lot of things.
And then one of the biggest challenges is that we didn't write these words right. David Amelach wrote the words chicken. Hassagidola wrote these words.
So. And I always, you know, I was a pretty obedient child and a decent student, and I did what my superiors, for the most part, told me to do.
But there came a point in my adult life, probably, I don't know. I guess maybe my mid. My early to mid twenties, where I wanted to move from sort of just going to shul and saying words, but to actually start to feel some of the things that I was saying and to think about it and, you know, try to add layers to what I, you know, my upbringing and my background. Very fortunate to have had, you know, an orthodox upbringing, but to add layers to that, I think Weinberger once said that, you know, if you're saying if you say shema when you're 40 or you're 60 or you're 80, the same way that you did when you were 20. So something. There's something wrong there, right? We're supposed to progress.
Reveal. Goldberg also likes to talk about how we like to upgrade so many things in our, in our life, right? We.
The new phone or the new laptop or, you know, the next model of whatever, you know, a car or whatever it is like to upgrade our homes, but we have to also upgrade our spiritual makeup and, you know, in our votes. Hashem. So in the hopes, I guess, of upgrading kind of my tefilla, I started to, in my learning, I guess I would love finding, I would love finding teachings that plucked out words that we say in daving that gave them another layer.
There's a lot of that in the Noah Melimelech, for example.
But once I found some more ways to connect with the words of tfilah, and then certainly, I guess, in my early to mid thirties, when I received a copy of Corinth Anit Fila sitter by Rabbi Golemit, which is an incredible Ian sittere, I found myself wanting to underline certain things in dobbing. There were certain words that now that I had a better understanding of what they meant and how I could personalize it, because that's also a huge part of davening, I believe, finding ways to personalize the words that we're saying, because, as I mentioned earlier, these aren't words that we wrote or came up with ourselves.
So once I was doing that, finding words that I didn't want to miss, I found myself also, there were certain paragraphs that I guess in the past I had found to be hard to say or I just would want to skip them, or probably, like many people used to get excited about getting to skip Tachonan.
But how sad that is, because there are so many beautiful things to say. So when you look forward to something in davening, when you're looking, when every morning when you open up the same sea door that you had the day before, and there's something that you look forward to saying. So that's an incredibly.
That's a great feeling. And then from that, from certain words that I didn't want to miss and then starting to find different patterns, that's sort of how I came to the sitter that I was Zoha to publish with Corin and Tefilo then started to become something that I really looked forward to and something that I wanted to share with others. Because it is such a difficult thing, certainly, for our generation to connect to. And that if I could feel some of this, then I again want to help others to do that.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: That leads us very, very nicely into talking about that. You did Siddhor.
So you say you got Siddhor, a wonderful Siddhor, the Koran, anitifila, Sidor, beautiful thing, but you find yourself wanting to underline things and highlight and this and the other. So how did you go? I mean, not even. How did you go? Can you talk us through the concept, I guess, of the yiddid siddle? What makes it different? Because from the outside, it's a very sort of lovely color of, like, grayish blue, but it just looks like a siddhul. And you open it up and it is very, very different. But it's also very simple.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
So when you think about the things, when you think about davening and many siddhu rim, it's kind of big blocks of text, and it's kind of very hard to really find ways to connect with those words. Kind of all starts to look a little bit the same for the people who really understand the Hebrew, then it might be a little bit easier for people who, and this is definitely a Myla to say, to say davening and not fully understand what you're saying.
There's something a little bit, there's something unfortunate there because there's so much more to gain. But on the other hand, to people who still come and say it anyway, but still, there's a lot of untapped potential.
So when you look at Tfila and this sort of from, I guess, from the underlining and from trying to get more and more out of Tfilah, when I looked at Tfilah, it started to become clear that there, you could mostly categorize tfilah into these three broad elements, which is things that we, on a very simple level, things that we say about Hashem, things that we request and things that we say about ourselves. And if you think about those three things, those are all very, very different. Right.
Talking about Hashem is something that should inspire awe, something, you know, for describing Hashem, we should say, you know, those, those words in a very respectful manner. We wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't approach a king or a president or a prime minister and say, your highness, without thinking about those words. And so Kal Vechomer, with talking about the Melech Malcheim, talking about Hashem, the master of the universe. And so I wanted to make sure that when I said anything about Hashem that I was really focused on what I was saying. And then requests that we make, we request a lot of really important things, even though in the sidur, requests are the color orange and there aren't derivations, or I should say, there aren't multiple shades of orange to tell us what type of requests we're saying. But within those orange requests are things that we have. There's spiritual requests, there's physical, there's national, global, all different types of requests, personal, social.
So those are presumably things that we really, really want, otherwise they wouldn't be in Tefila.
Ancik and Iguodolo wouldn't have felt that they were important to ask for. So, same thing in life when we're talking to a human being, if you want something, if you say that you want something, presumably you really want it. So it's no different, or it should be even more important in the feel out when you're talking to the ultimate benefactor, where everything comes from.
And then the third category of things that I guess are our essence, our responsibility, ways that things that were called, I like to say that it's kind of like our cv. And then we actually have to live up to the things that we've put down in our cv, I think.
And it's really values that we're supposed to have.
So those are constant reminder during Tefillah that of what was expected of us and where we're supposed to go. We're supposed to lead our life. I think it was rabbi Sacks who said that there's a masechet for almost everything in Halachah, but there's no masechet of Amuna. And he said that the masechet of Amuna is actually in the. The sitter. That's where we get. That's where we were taught about Amuna. That's where we're taught about who we're meant to be. And so sprinkled all throughout the words of the sitter and the sitter are reminders of who and what we're supposed to be, what our values are, what we're meant to aspire towards.
And so that's something, that's another thing that I think through colors and highlighting, a person can constantly be reminded. And I think a good dobbining can change an entire day. And so at the beginning of the day, the middle of the day, and at the end of the day, to have reminders of who and what we are, then that's a way to constantly tether us to what we're meant to be. And the meat dos and the ideals that were meant to evince.
[00:40:10] Speaker C: How do you think the siddhr is like a reflection of this, like your Torah, Ragallacha, of taking one of them, taking complex ideas, and simplifying them.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So, the sitter has no other commentary. Right. The only quote, unquote commentary are the colors.
And there are so many beautiful commentaries on the sitter. There are so many things written by people far greater than me, far bigger scholars than I about Tfilah. But at the end of the day, we have to say the words of Tfila and sort of in the hierarchy. I think that's just the tip of the iceberg of simply saying the words. And I've spoken to many elementary schools and high schools over the last bunch of months, and we sort of joke that, right, for. Especially because it's such a difficult thing in our generation.
Many schools just. Just want that. Just please say the words. Like, don't sit there with glazed eyes. Just say the words. And that's, of course, a great start, but there's so much more depth there, and.
And so the sitter just. With these colors and sort of the simplification of just being, you know, the sitter speaks to you through the colors, or you can't help but see the colors. And so, just simply, even if you don't understand what actual words you're saying, but even just simply, if you, I think, very quickly, can get a hang of the color system, and you just constantly know, okay, blue is stuff about goddess. Orange are things that I request, and green are what I'm meant to be. So then you know that as your eyes scan the page, the. The words are speaking to you. And so that. That, I think, is just quite simple. Um, but a person, you know, can. I don't. You know, an ideal world. We're focused on all of davening and all three of the colors and the black words and the words that don't have color. And the words that have color. The words that don't have color.
But a person can decide. Today, I really want to focus on this type of thing. This is how I'm feeling today.
I'm feeling. Wow. Feeling very close to hashem. I'm feeling I want to reach for the skies and be really focused on the blue words today or today. There's something that I really need, and hopefully, they have a familiarity with.
With the sitter, and they know kind of the things that they need where they can find that.
I said many times, like I wish I could sort of sit down with each and every, like, elementary or high school student and ask them what's important to you, what's going on in your life that's important to you? Do you have maybe a grandparent who needs a refor? Are you thinking about the soldiers in Israel? Are you thinking about your math test later this afternoon and show them that everything that they want in life, everything that's important to them, they can probably find in the sitter. They just maybe don't realize it. But, you know, if they can, if you can kind of make the sitter something that's a little bit more, a little bit less about, like, the big ideas and the beautiful poetry and the complex poetry of David Amalek and, and just boil it down to these three things, then it can really come alive. And, of course, also with the line breaks that we were very conscious of what we're doing, trying to really highlight certain words and phrases, kind of break up what I mentioned earlier, which is those big blocks of big paragraphs to make them a little bit more bite sized.
That's the goal.
And in the hopes that people can find themselves, in the words of Tefilah, a lot more and deepen their relationship with Hashem, with Hashem's creations, with realizing that there is so much that we don't know, I guess that's the humility part.
Realize how tremendous, you know, that there's this mysterious side to all of us and what an incredible nation we're a part of, and to appreciate more and more of the people within that nation and sort of try to bridge differences, those are some of the big aims of the sitter. And, yeah, and ultimately, everything rolling up just back to Hashem, that idea of echad, and from that, the world becomes a much more warm place.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: I think it's a great place to end.
You and I have spoken a lot over WhatsApp the last few months. While this has always been sort of getting ready to be published, now that it's here, and some of the best, well, the most consistent feedback you're getting is sort of the pseudo annoyance of people. Like, the biggest problem is now my feel is taking too long.
And I think it's definitely true. Like, we will have a vested interest around the table here, sort of to say that it's wonderful, but it really, really is a wonderful sidor that it does.
I mean, it literally highlights a new way of approaching Tefillah and understanding the tefillah and the words, and it literally will change the way that people approach Tvila and the fact that you're a living embodiment of your answer to our original question of humility and just trying to find ways to do things for the people of Israel.
First of all, as to the success of this adore I. But also I hope the listener really gets the sense of just how meaningful a tool this store can be. So with that, thank you very much again to Binny Casper for joining us.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Thank you. It's been a privilege.
[00:46:24] Speaker C: Well, that's all we've got time for on this episode of the Coren podcast. Thanks again for joining us. And thank you to Binny Casper for joining us on today's episode. If you'd like to pick up your copy of the Coren Yaddad Siddur, you can do so on our website, corrinpub.com. and if you use promo code podcast at checkout, you get 10% off that and all of your order. If you'd like to get hold of us, you can reach us on all social medias and on email podcastorinpub.com. we'd love to hear from you. If you have feedback, ideas, people that you want to hear on the podcast, let us know. We look forward to hearing from you. Until then, we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode. This has been the corinpodcast goodbye.
