Somachat Alayich - Special Couples Episode - Somayach Alecha

00:00 Speaker 1 Hello, that doesn’t sound like me.

00:07 Speaker 2 That’s AI. Okay, “I’m happy for you.”

00:13 Speaker 1 “I’m happy for you.”

00:15 Speaker 2 I like it. Yossi Levitin.

00:18 Speaker 1 Michal Levitin.

00:20 Speaker 2 A special podcast after vacation.

00:25 Speaker 1 Yeah.

00:26 Speaker 2 Ah, what’s so exciting?

00:29 Speaker 1 That we got back to Israel, baruch Hashem, on time, and everything’s completely fine.

00:35 Speaker 2 On time? How are you glossing over all the drama we had?

00:39 Speaker 1 It was the time Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted us to get back to Israel.

00:42 Speaker 2 That’s true. That’s exactly right.

00:44 Speaker 1 So that was the time.

00:44 Speaker 2 But I want to take you back for a moment to when we got the cancellation for our original flight.

00:51 Speaker 1 Ahhh.

00:52 Speaker 2 What a bombshell.

00:56 Speaker 1 It was stressful.

00:57 Speaker 2 Oh, oh.

00:57 Speaker 1 Yes.

00:58 Speaker 2 Come on, let’s talk about it for a moment.

00:59 Speaker 1 Okay.

01:01 Speaker 2 We get a message.

01:02 Speaker 1 Right.

01:03 Speaker 2 How many days into the vacation was it?

01:06 Speaker 1 About a week into the vacation.

01:08 Speaker 2 The vacation. How many days had we planned for it?

01:10 Speaker 1 Twelve days.

01:11 Speaker 2 Right. Which became...

01:14 Speaker 1 Three weeks and five days instead.

01:17 Speaker 2 Okay, wait. That was the plan, and then after a week we get a message from El Al.

01:22 Speaker 1 To confirm the flight. And we confirm it.

01:25 Speaker 2 That the flight is leaving on time.

01:26 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:26 Speaker 2 And we said, great, baruch Hashem.

01:28 Speaker 1 Fine, everything’s arranged.

01:29 Speaker 2 We’re coming back Thursday mor—Thursday evening, right?

01:33 Speaker 1 To Israel.

01:33 Speaker 2 A flight to Israel at six on Thursday evening. We confirm it.

01:37 Speaker 1 Right.

01:38 Speaker 2 Good. And then a few days later—

01:42 Speaker 1 Forty-eight hours, if that.

01:45 Speaker 2 More, I think.

01:46 Speaker 1 More? Okay. And—

01:49 Speaker 2 We get a message that this flight has been canceled.

01:51 Speaker 1 Canceled and moved up to 9:15 in the morning.

01:54 Speaker 2 The same day, Thursday at 9:15 in the morning.

01:56 Speaker 1 Right.

01:57 Speaker 2 Right. Now begins a whole series of, uh...

02:01 Speaker 1 Deliberations.

02:02 Speaker 2 Deliberations, because it means we have to get up at...

02:06 Speaker 1 Two in the morning.

02:07 Speaker 2 Two in the morning, and...

02:09 Speaker 1 Drive three and a half hours to Larnaca.

02:13 Speaker 2 Right.

02:14 Speaker 1 Return the cars, return everything we need to, and get to the airport.

02:18 Speaker 2 Basically lose a day.

02:20 Speaker 1 Yes, a whole day.

02:21 Speaker 2 A whole day. A day we’d made lots of plans for, and we’d lose it. Leave in the middle of the night with the little ones. And this time I’d specifically asked you that we take convenient flights for this vacation.

02:34 Speaker 1 Normal ones, yes.

02:34 Speaker 2 Convenient ones.

02:35 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:35 Speaker 2 Not lose a night or a day, so we wouldn’t get jet lag from a flight to Cyprus.

02:40 Speaker 1 Right.

02:41 Speaker 2 And this threw all our plans off, and we had a decision to make.

02:45 Speaker 1 That we wouldn’t take it. We wouldn’t confirm the flight.

02:47 Speaker 2 But before we reached that decision—come on, let’s talk about it—there was a lot of back-and-forth. What did you want?

02:58 Speaker 1 I wanted to come back that day.

02:59 Speaker 2 Right. You said, there’s a flight, we’re going home. And what did I say?

03:04 Speaker 1 No. We’re staying.

03:06 Speaker 2 Right. Because the way I see it—and I want us to talk about this too—is that you don’t take away from the abundance and the good you’ve been given. If you can add, then add, but don’t take away. In my mind, if we’d agreed on twelve days of vacation, I didn’t want anyone taking part of that away from me.

03:25 Speaker 1 Okay.

03:26 Speaker 2 That was my thinking, so I told you, no, we’re not agreeing to this arrangement. I just couldn’t get my head around cutting it short. Adding days, fine, but taking them away, no. And—

03:38 Speaker 1 We only ascend in holiness.

03:40 Speaker 2 Exactly. Only ascend in holiness. Right.

03:42 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:42 Speaker 2 And what happened was that there was no alternative flight.

03:47 Speaker 1 Right.

03:48 Speaker 2 And we were—and there’s no human being to talk to at El Al. You talk to bots.

03:53 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:53 Speaker 2 So we were left up in the air—

03:55 Speaker 1 Inhuman bots, like yours.

03:56 Speaker 2 No, exactly.

03:58 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:58 Speaker 2 You don’t get an answer until you’ve spent twenty-four hours with a bot. And we were basically up in the air...

04:07 Speaker 1 Until Wednesday afternoon.

04:09 Speaker 2 More than twenty-four hours. Yes, twenty-four hours.

04:12 Speaker 1 Less than twenty-four hours before the flight.

04:13 Speaker 2 Before the flight, and we didn’t know whether we were flying

04:19 Speaker 1 Or not.

04:19 Speaker 2 Or not flying. We had no idea. No other flights, no alternative, nothing, and all sorts of thoughts start racing through your head. What if there are no flights? We tried to book other flights, right? There weren’t any. No flights. What if we get stuck? What if we...?

04:37 Speaker 1 For you, the word is “stuck.” That’s...

04:39 Speaker 2 Right.

04:39 Speaker 1 That’s it. So there was no possibility of getting stuck. If we needed to be there, we’d be there.

04:44 Speaker 2 Right.

04:45 Speaker 1 But looking back now, sitting at home, we got to experience another Shabbos there. Thursday, Friday, Shabbos.

04:57 Speaker 2 So let’s update everyone: we got an answer, and they told us, there are no flights Thursday evening; we’ll put you on one Sunday.

05:07 Speaker 1 At 11:15.

05:08 Speaker 2 At 11:15. And we said, okay, so that added all of Thursday, all of Friday, Shabbos and Sunday to our vacation. And we actually gained another...

05:21 Speaker 1 Three days.

05:22 Speaker 2 Some people would say, you spent more money on another...

05:26 Speaker 1 That’s true too. But—

05:28 Speaker 2 How do you see it? Come on.

05:31 Speaker 1 How do I see it? I see it as money I spent. Better to spend it on that than on all kinds of therapists. I gave my children experiences they’ll remember, more good things. And if they had big smiles until Thursday at six in the evening, then I kept those smiles going until Sunday at eleven in the morning.

05:56 Speaker 2 Wow, that’s amazing. Yossi, neither you nor I grew up taking vacations with the kids. I don’t even remember going on a family trip. I don’t know. I remember one time we went to—I don’t know, some cemetery. Whatever. Some kind of memorial place.

06:13 Speaker 1 When we were little, they’d take us to our grandparents in Haifa. The train ride was the trip, and the biggest outing was going to the airport to watch the planes.

06:27 Speaker 2 Okay.

06:28 Speaker 1 And...

06:28 Speaker 2 And you still do that today, yes.

06:30 Speaker 1 And—

06:31 Speaker 2 You take the kids.

06:31 Speaker 1 Oh, and Ganey Yehoshua too.

06:33 Speaker 2 Ganey Yehoshua. But wait, they took you to see the plane. You take the kids to experience flying on one.

06:38 Speaker 1 No, they took me on a plane too.

06:40 Speaker 2 Oh right, they took you to the Rebbe.

06:42 Speaker 1 I had that privilege.

06:43 Speaker 2 That’s something rare.

06:44 Speaker 1 Yes. I had the privilege, when I was seven, of my father and mother taking us to the Rebbe in 5748, and I spent a whole month with the Rebbe.

06:54 Speaker 2 The coins I wear, those are...

06:56 Speaker 1 Right.

06:57 Speaker 2 Those are what you received.

06:58 Speaker 1 Right.

06:58 Speaker 2 From the Rebbe.

07:00 Speaker 1 Right.

07:01 Speaker 2 That was a rare thing at the time.

07:05 Speaker 1 Yes, my father—

07:05 Speaker 2 Chassidim didn’t take their entire families.

07:07 Speaker 1 Right, because it was very expensive. It cost a whole year’s salary.

07:14 Speaker 2 Wow.

07:15 Speaker 1 To fly all of them over.

07:17 Speaker 2 The whole family.

07:18 Speaker 1 The whole family. And my father flew the whole family over twice. In 5740 too, if I’m not mistaken, the whole family, and then in 5748, sorry. In those two cases, my father was there in 5740, and I came into the world in 5741. In 5748 I traveled there, and my brother, who’s the shliach in Cyprus, arrived in 5749.

07:46 Speaker 2 I actually remember the story of how you asked the Rebbe for a yud.

07:49 Speaker 1 Yes.

07:50 Speaker 2 That really was a miraculous story. Wow, wow, wow. Anyway, again, you didn’t grow up going on vacations.

07:58 Speaker 1 No, no.

07:59 Speaker 2 Traveling to the Rebbe is something else. It has a higher purpose—

08:02 Speaker 1 Yes.

08:02 Speaker 2 And it isn’t a trip like the ones we take.

08:06 Speaker 1 No, but when my older brothers already had licenses, and they were here after their time in the group, they came back with licenses, so to speak, and took us—we went—

08:15 Speaker 2 “So to speak”—we’ll keep that part between us.

08:17 Speaker 1 We used to...

08:18 Speaker 2 But

08:19 Speaker 1 We used to...

08:20 Speaker 2 You went on trips.

08:21 Speaker 1 Yes, we went on trips.

08:21 Speaker 2 In Israel.

08:22 Speaker 1 Right.

08:22 Speaker 2 Right. All over the country.

08:24 Speaker 1 Right. Whenever we saw an orange sign, we’d turn in.

08:27 Speaker 2 What’s an orange sign? A minefield? What is that?

08:30 Speaker 1 Orange is the color of the JNF signs.

08:31 Speaker 2 Oh, okay, okay. Fine. Okay.

08:34 Speaker 1 We didn’t pay for attractions.

08:36 Speaker 2 Ah, nice, nice.

08:38 Speaker 1 We only paid for gas.

08:39 Speaker 2 That’s nice. Actually, that’s very nice. Um,

08:46 Speaker 1 Was I supposed to have a drink?

08:46 Speaker 2 About—go ahead, have a drink. About not paying for attractions: you still hold that view, and we really are, you could say, very, very different in the way we think.

08:57 Speaker 1 Okay.

08:57 Speaker 2 And I think that in our families too—not everyone in my family takes the kids on vacations, and it’s the same in yours.

09:10 Speaker 1 Okay.

09:11 Speaker 2 How does that make you feel?

09:13 Speaker 1 How does what make me feel? Why they don’t take them, or why we don’t...?

09:16 Speaker 2 No, look, we’re a little unusual.

09:19 Speaker 1 We’re unusual in general, compared to what a normal home in Israel looks like. Our home runs a little differently—a lot differently. And these vacations, taking our children on them, are about giving them strength and fuel, and something that stays with them for life. I tell them you need to enjoy yourself in every situation, even during the hard times when they’re at home and their friends are having fun. Like during summer vacation, when everyone goes off somewhere...

10:01 Speaker 2 Yes, let’s really put it on the table. Our children are at home on Chol Hamoed.

10:06 Speaker 1 Chol Hamoed.

10:07 Speaker 2 During bein hazmanim, during summer vacation. Every time everyone else is going out and enjoying themselves, our children are at home and we’re working.

10:15 Speaker 1 Right.

10:15 Speaker 2 So this vacation is really all the outings they don’t get to have throughout the year, concentrated into one trip.

10:22 Speaker 1 That they don’t go out. Not that they never go out during the year, but again, this is the foundation of the strength, of the drive, behind this whole thing called Michal Levitin, who brings joy to Jewish women and girls all over the world. The children make sacrifices, and we give back to them.

10:42 Speaker 2 Why do you call it making sacrifices?

10:44 Speaker 1 I know you don’t like that word, but—

10:47 Speaker 2 Now I’m going to have a drink. Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, through Whose word everything came to be.

10:54 Speaker 1 Why is it a sacrifice?

10:55 Speaker 2 Yes.

10:56 Speaker 1 Because I’m still—because I’m not in the Shomachat Alayich club yet.

10:58 Speaker 2 Oh. It’s for women. I’m sorry.

11:01 Speaker 1 Never mind. Uh.

11:04 Speaker 2 Yes, with us there’s sacrifice, but no victims, and we’re working on that.

11:08 Speaker 1 We do what’s good for us.

11:11 Speaker 2 I—I see them as partners.

11:14 Speaker 1 Right.

11:16 Speaker 2 So, so...

11:17 Speaker 1 Like our partner here, our Dovi.

11:19 Speaker 2 Yes. What a production we have here.

11:22 Speaker 3 If I can clarify the question, I think he meant: why call it a sacrifice? Maybe they simply grew up in this situation and nobody asked them. Is that what you meant?

11:33 Speaker 2 Listen, at the end of the day, in the storehouse of souls they asked you whether you wanted to come into this home, so don’t say there was no choice.

11:40 Speaker 3 So maybe you would have taken three or four performances a month, not like today.

11:46 Speaker 2 But Hakadosh Boruch Hu sees far ahead. He knew this was how it would be, and He aimed high for me—and for you, too. Look, if I didn’t have this whole workload, you wouldn’t be here as the producer.

11:55 Speaker 1 Right, you’d be the one dwelling...

11:57 Speaker 2 Dwelling in tents.

11:58 Speaker 1 Dwelling in tents. Clearly he thought—clearly he thinks that...

12:04 Speaker 2 Look, there’s room to talk about the workload, to ease it, to reduce it, to experience how hard it is. Yes, I’m not saying—I’m not dismissing that. But I still think there’s a kind of partnership here.

12:23 Speaker 1 Okay.

12:24 Speaker 2 No? What does the...

12:26 Speaker 1 Who, the doctor?

12:27 Speaker 2 Yes.

12:28 Speaker 3 It’s your podcast. I’m just, uh, your sound technician.

12:34 Speaker 2 Well, uh—

12:35 Speaker 1 Okay, let’s get back to our trip.

12:38 Speaker 2 Yes.

12:38 Speaker 1 How did it happen, what happened, and why did it happen?

12:42 Speaker 2 First of all, um, Cyprus wasn’t the destination—

12:45 Speaker 1 Right.

12:45 Speaker 2 We originally planned, right? We usually explore the world, and we like to, uh—

12:50 Speaker 1 It was what Hashem wanted us to do.

12:52 Speaker 2 Right. We like going to all kinds of other places, and because we didn’t know what the security situation would be, we said: where would be the nicest place to get stuck if—

12:59 Speaker 1 At my brother’s in Cyprus.

13:01 Speaker 2 Exactly. We’d already done that during the first round with Iran. So, um, it really was lovely. And I think the word “recreation”—you know, the Rebbe didn’t like to say “vacation.” In Chabad we say “recreation,” because “vacation” suggests throwing off the yoke.

13:19 Speaker 1 Okay.

13:20 Speaker 2 And recreation is something you take for, uh...

13:22 Speaker 1 The soul.

13:25 Speaker 2 To recharge—something like renewing your strength.

13:27 Speaker 1 Really.

13:28 Speaker 2 Yes, I was trying to find the word, but restart, whatever.

13:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

13:33 Speaker 2 And it’s all in your head. It just is. You can even have a break at home.

13:41 Speaker 1 Okay.

13:42 Speaker 2 It’s just a mindset. Because it’s so hard for us to make that shift in our heads, we pay money and go away and do something concrete so we can feel that we’ve gone on a break. But honestly, you get to Cyprus and—come on, Tel Aviv is prettier. Let’s put that on the table, okay?

14:04 Speaker 1 Tel Aviv may be prettier, but it’s crowded. There, there are simply no traffic jams, no pressure, and people don’t honk their horns.

14:11 Speaker 2 Right.

14:11 Speaker 1 People are relaxed. The Cypriot gets up at ten and goes to rest at twelve.

14:17 Speaker 2 Yes. Let’s also put this on the table: Cypriots are simply people of leisure and vacations, and they just don’t like working. They don’t like working.

14:25 Speaker 1 I—I think the Cypriots, to me, are content with little.

14:32 Speaker 2 You—you like that?

14:34 Speaker 1 Yes. They don’t have big wants, they don’t have...

14:36 Speaker 2 They don’t have ambitions. But you run into that too—like just now at the airport, with everything that happened. Let’s tell the story. Okay, speaking of El Al’s service, I hope this reaches you. So what happened was, because they postponed our flight until Sunday, and Mendy had to start work Sunday morning—we’d planned to get back on Thursday—we decided to fly Mendy home ahead of us.

15:04 Speaker 1 On Wednesday morning.

15:05 Speaker 2 Right. From an airport that was closer, not Larnaca, but—

15:08 Speaker 1 Paphos.

15:09 Speaker 2 Paphos, okay. Then we wondered what to do with his ticket. He wasn’t going to fly with us. Should we cancel it? Then we said, no, we won’t cancel it, because there’s a suitcase under his name and we need that suitcase. So we’ll just keep it. Never mind, we’ll pay for the—

15:26 Speaker 1 Ticket for—

15:26 Speaker 2 We could have canceled and gotten a refund.

15:28 Speaker 1 For the ticket, right.

15:29 Speaker 2 For the ticket, because they were the ones who changed the flight.

15:32 Speaker 1 Right.

15:33 Speaker 2 But we decided not to, because we wanted the suitcase allowance. Then we get to the airport and meet El Al’s local staff, who, you know, don’t like working. And now what? You arrive with a businessman’s energy, full of energy and motivation. It collides, Yossi, it collides. I can already see the meteor coming. And then they tell you to pay for the suitcase. Yossi, what did you feel at that moment?

16:03 Speaker 1 That they were robbers. What kind of thing is that?

16:08 Speaker 2 Uh...

16:08 Speaker 1 I mean, because he isn’t on the flight, they strip you of all his entitlements. Listen, we paid for that suitcase.

16:16 Speaker 2 Right.

16:17 Speaker 1 Fair enough.

16:18 Speaker 2 We paid for the suitcase, we paid for the ticket, and now we have to pay for the suitcase again.

16:23 Speaker 1 And... I have to say, El Al’s local staff don’t make you feel at home at all.

16:32 Speaker 2 Right. And then I see the situation escalating. You take out a camera. By the way, I’m asking myself: is it actually legal to film them?

16:42 Speaker 1 I think they’re afraid of being publicly shamed. Look—

16:45 Speaker 2 Because they’re public-facing employees.

16:47 Speaker 1 Right.

16:47 Speaker 2 In principle it’s allowed; with public-facing employees, you can take out a camera. They’re not security personnel. They were just clerks. Are they considered security?

16:55 Speaker 1 I don’t know.

16:56 Speaker 2 Just wondering—it would be interesting to check. Yossi took out a camera, like a lawyer in the making.

17:03 Speaker 1 Oh no.

17:03 Speaker 2 And then, okay, they call the police on you, and this is where I step in.

17:06 Speaker 4 A lawyer or Mordechai David.

17:10 Speaker 2 Who’s that?

17:11 Speaker 1 What? You don’t know Mordechai David?

17:13 Speaker 2 No.

17:14 Speaker 1 The one who stops all those people. You know, all the left-wingers.

17:20 Speaker 2 Okay, okay, the podcast has turned into a guys’ conversation. Folks, I’m not up on this stuff.

17:24 Speaker 4 The ones who stop Brothers in Arms for the sake of the hos—of politics, of course.

17:29 Speaker 2 Oh, okay. So yes, out comes the camera.

17:31 Speaker 1 Right.

17:32 Speaker 2 Then I see the El Al representative: “Okay, police.” He’s calling the police. I told him, “Take it easy, stay calm, calm, calm, calm, calm.” I come over and calm things down. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, everything is okay, everything is okay.” And I tell Yossi, “Delete it quickly. Show him you deleted it.” Never mind that there are backups, but okay, delete it, show him. Okay, you deleted it, you deleted it. And really, the way I see it, it’s only money.

18:01 Speaker 1 Right.

18:01 Speaker 2 It’s only money.

18:02 Speaker 1 But there are principles too.

18:04 Speaker 2 Right, but the question is whether you need to stand on your principles when you’re under pressure, when they’re in control of whether they let you board the flight or not.

18:19 Speaker 1 That whole idea of someone having control over you is scary.

18:25 Speaker 2 Look—

18:25 Speaker 1 I was taught that only Hakadosh Boruch Hu is in control.

18:27 Speaker 2 Right, but if you can get them to...

18:33 Speaker 1 Ah, what can I tell you? I don’t have—I don’t have many explanations for that.

18:39 Speaker 2 The question is whether you learned anything from it.

18:45 Speaker 1 No. I learned to sue El Al.

18:50 Speaker 2 First of all, you can always sue. So why create a scene? Understand, everyone was looking at us; suddenly there was all this commotion, and—

18:58 Speaker 1 Israelis have to create a little action.

18:59 Speaker 2 No, listen. That’s what I’m saying. Why did we have to come across as such Israelis there?

19:04 Speaker 1 Because I’m not ashamed of the people I was born into.

19:07 Speaker 2 Yes, but let’s do it with class. If you can sue them quietly, why make all that noise? You were angry there. And I’m not saying it wasn’t infuriating. When I explained it to him, I was furious too. But look, I kept my tone pleasant.

19:28 Speaker 1 She just wears me out. She does. What’s going to become of us? This woman wears me out.

19:36 Speaker 2 All right, l’chaim, l’chaim.

19:38 Speaker 1 L’chaim.

19:38 Speaker 2 My dear husband, who really—

19:41 Speaker 1 L’chaim, l’chaim to making it through.

19:42 Speaker 2 May those be the worst of his troubles. And what do you recommend to people? Listen, come on, it’s a very big expense.

19:51 Speaker 1 Uh, here we go again. It’s a big expense, but if we compare it to a vacation in Israel, it’s a small expense.

19:57 Speaker 2 Ah, exactly. I really do want to say that we looked for a vacation here in Israel.

20:05 Speaker 1 Something like that in Israel would have cost me, if I’d taken my family away for two weeks like that.

20:11 Speaker 2 Forget two weeks like that—even one week like that.

20:13 Speaker 1 A week like that would cost me what I just paid for two weeks, including all the treats.

20:18 Speaker 2 I think even more.

20:19 Speaker 1 Including the treats.

20:23 Speaker 2 Okay, so the sad conclusion is that our country is—

20:27 Speaker 1 Very expensive.

20:28 Speaker 2 It’s not fair.

20:29 Speaker 1 Yesterday, I was talking to one of the producers who works with us, and she told me that for bein hazmanim—

20:35 Speaker 2 Yes.

20:36 Speaker 1 They’re looking for an estate for their family. Well, not an estate, like—

20:43 Speaker 2 A villa, something.

20:44 Speaker 1 Not a villa, just beds. They’re a family of—

20:49 Speaker 2 A hotel, or I don’t know what.

20:50 Speaker 1 A family of eighty, ninety people.

20:52 Speaker 2 Yes.

20:53 Speaker 1 Just beds, nothing else. They’re asking between seventeen and twenty-three thousand shekels a night.

20:58 Speaker 2 A night—that’s about what the vacation cost. No, it’s not normal. I mean, ours included everything, even flights. It’s not normal.

21:04 Speaker 1 Yes.

21:05 Speaker 2 It really is a difference that’s—

21:07 Speaker 1 An insane difference.

21:07 Speaker 2 It’s impossible.

21:09 Speaker 1 Right.

21:10 Speaker 2 And it’s not fair. Ugh.

21:13 Speaker 1 Not fair, not fair. But what can you say? Here in Eretz Yisroel, we pay a lot. Am Yisroel chai. Someone has to pay for the missiles, pay for the—

21:23 Speaker 2 All the interceptions.

21:24 Speaker 1 All the interceptions.

21:24 Speaker 2 That’s on you.

21:26 Speaker 1 And we self-employed people get nothing out of it.

21:29 Speaker 2 You know what hurt me throughout this whole war? They don’t even talk about the performers.

21:33 Speaker 1 Nothing.

21:33 Speaker 2 A restaurant can open with three hundred people, but performances can’t. A mall opens—thousands of people in the mall at once—but performances, no. And there isn’t even any acknowledgment.

21:45 Speaker 1 Nothing at all.

21:45 Speaker 2 You see the restaurant industry making noise about it, and you... But performers have no representation, they have nothing, and—

21:52 Speaker 1 People can walk all over us, but they can call us and say, “Come perform”—

21:58 Speaker 2 For free, of course. Volunteer everywhere. And they don’t even mention us, our rights, or what’s happening with us.

22:04 Speaker 1 Yes, for us, Sefiras HaOmer started two days before Purim.

22:10 Speaker 2 But we keep smiling and being happy.

22:12 Speaker 1 Yes.

22:12 Speaker 2 Because you know why? Because we believe this really comes from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and whatever is meant to come to us this year will come. If not this way, then through that door, or some other way—it’ll come.

22:20 Speaker 1 Right.

22:20 Speaker 2 We’re not worried. It’s just the whole atmosphere and feeling—yes, it’s disappointing.

22:28 Speaker 1 We’re lucky to have bitachon in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and to be able to place it in His hands. He’s in charge, not all this.

22:39 Speaker 2 I want you to admit something else.

22:42 Speaker 1 Are we having a celebration of thanks?

22:44 Speaker 2 Yes. First of all, yes, a celebration of thanks. Give us that kind of feeling: thanks for all the miracles, all the wonders, everything. That we went, that we came back, that we’re healthy, that we’re safe, that everything’s good. Um, did you notice? Give us something dramatic here. Yes, dramatic.

23:02 Speaker 1 Bring the tissues too.

23:04 Speaker 2 Or give a little sigh. We’re in Sefiras HaOmer, even if it’s AI music. Um, Yossi—

23:13 Speaker 1 Yes, Michal, we can’t be serious—

23:18 Speaker 2 Every time—

23:18 Speaker 1 There’s some—

23:20 Speaker 2 No, no, leave our sound in. Every time there’s some expense you didn’t plan for, some attraction that came up, or some shop that wasn’t on the list, and we ended up spending money—

23:37 Speaker 1 There’s tax-free.

23:38 Speaker 2 Okay, come on, why are you ruining the... Never mind. What happened to us at tax-free? Stop, let’s tell them.

23:48 Speaker 1 Wow, you’ve got a lot to edit this time.

23:50 Speaker 2 So there’s the tax-free desk, where you stand and give them all the receipts.

23:55 Speaker 1 Right.

23:55 Speaker 2 And then you get the tax back. Right?

23:59 Speaker 1 Part of the tax.

23:59 Speaker 2 By the way, recei—part of the tax. By the way, sometimes they ask to see—

24:04 Speaker 1 The items.

24:05 Speaker 2 The items you bought. But here’s the thing—

24:07 Speaker 1 My dear wife—

24:08 Speaker 2 I hadn’t planned to spend Shabbos there at the Chabad House, right? Fine. The previous Shabbos, we didn’t have a shul. We were in the middle of nowhere.

24:18 Speaker 1 It was us, Hashem, and Waze for three hours.

24:21 Speaker 2 Right, so I’d brought a nice robe. I wasn’t planning to go to the Chabad House for Shabbos afterward and need to dress nicely. So of course, on Friday I went into a shop and bought gorgeous dresses for Shabbos.

24:35 Speaker 1 Very, very.

24:36 Speaker 2 Really gorgeous. I wore them, and of course, when I wore them, I took the tags off. And what did the people at tax-free want to see? Those dresses. And what did they see? That they’d been worn and had no tags. And I had to—we had to prove that we’d bought them in Cyprus.

24:51 Speaker 1 Right, and we proved it.

24:52 Speaker 2 Fine. In the end, we proved it because there’s Instagram, but it was still really frustrating. K-keep the music on. Just so you know, this can happen. Don’t take the tags off.

25:03 Speaker 1 Yes.

25:04 Speaker 2 That was the takeaway. Um, Yossi, I want you to—

25:08 Speaker 1 To what?

25:09 Speaker 2 Remember with me those moments when you spend the money and get that little “ouch” feeling.

25:19 Speaker 1 Ouch?

25:19 Speaker 2 Ouch—it hurts. You count the bills to see what’s left, and you see there’s almost nothing left.

25:24 Speaker 1 And?

25:25 Speaker 2 And the budget you planned is running out.

25:29 Speaker 1 Okay.

25:29 Speaker 2 Then in those moments, or a little later—let’s say a few hours later, a day at most—what do you get on your phone?

25:38 Speaker 1 Another performance.

25:39 Speaker 2 Aha!

25:41 Speaker 1 That, that, that’s emunah and bitachon. That’s—turn down the...

25:49 Speaker 2 Turn it down.

25:49 Speaker 1 That’s the great emunah and bitachon Hakadosh Boruch Hu taught me through you. Um, I don’t have much to...

26:09 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim. We can end the podcast.

26:11 Speaker 5 Mom, you’re driving Dad crazy.

26:16 Speaker 1 No, come on.

26:16 Speaker 2 But you see it firsthand.

26:19 Speaker 1 I see it firsthand. I see it—yes, I see that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu puts someone here to bring joy to Am Yisroel, He looks after that person. He makes sure to bring them joy all the time. There’s a saying my father always used to tell me: “When someone makes His people happy, He makes our people happy.” In other words, when we’re the channel Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave you for bringing joy to Am Yisroel, then through that channel where you bring joy, He sends you abundance through the other channel.

26:59 Speaker 2 Right.

27:00 Speaker 1 And you definitely have more emunah than I do. Whether I’m the one keeping track of the numbers and you aren’t—that’s also open to debate. But whenever I’m feeling low, I ask for one thing: “Michal, encourage me. Michal, say something kind to me.” Why? Because I know that if you give strength to others, then I’ll certainly get strength from you.

27:35 Speaker 2 Yossi Levitin, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you all for listening, and I truly wish...

27:42 Speaker 1 What about Cyprus?

27:43 Speaker 2 What about Cyprus? Where did we leave off? We didn’t finish.

27:48 Speaker 1 What did you say? You didn’t tell them where you traveled.

27:50 Speaker 2 Ah.

27:51 Speaker 5 Nothing...

27:52 Speaker 2 Where, where did we travel? All over it—across or lengthwise?

27:56 Speaker 1 Ah.

27:57 Speaker 2 What, are we giving travel tips now?

28:00 Speaker 1 People are trav—weren’t you suggesting it to people now because it’s cheaper?

28:04 Speaker 2 Ah, right, right, right, right. Fine, but you’re in charge of prices. Me, locations? I wake up in the morning and don’t know where I am.

28:12 Speaker 5 In the first town, you go into a mall, you walk through the door.

28:16 Speaker 2 Yes.

28:17 Speaker 5 Exactly. The door is now behind you, okay?

28:19 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

28:20 Speaker 5 And you already don’t know where the exit is.

28:21 Speaker 2 Exactly. So you want me to give directions?

28:23 Speaker 5 No, no, and not only that. The moment she walks in, the wallet starts screaming.

28:28 Speaker 2 That’s your wallet. No, that’s different. Okay, so Cyprus. Larnaca, basically.

28:33 Speaker 5 Why Larnaca? I haven’t told you—

28:34 Speaker 2 One second, but you land in Larnaca, right?

28:37 Speaker 5 I haven’t told them how we even got the kids out of the house.

28:40 Speaker 2 How did we get the kids out of the house?

28:41 Speaker 5 The kids went to school in the morning.

28:45 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

28:45 Speaker 5 They didn’t know they were flying.

28:46 Speaker 2 Oh, right, because it really was very spontaneous.

28:50 Speaker 5 Exactly, so we had to book—

28:50 Speaker 2 They knew, right. They knew there was a chance it wouldn’t happen this year.

28:54 Speaker 5 Right.

28:54 Speaker 2 Because there really weren’t any flights, Yossi. Then there was a ceasefire, and even during the ceasefire the flights still hadn’t resumed.

29:02 Speaker 5 Right.

29:03 Speaker 2 Because they were bringing back the people who’d been stranded here, they hadn’t opened flights for people who just wanted to—

29:08 Speaker 5 Get away.

29:09 Speaker 2 Get away and get some fresh air. So it took time. Anyway, when you found the flights, how did we tell them? How did that happen?

29:15 Speaker 5 When they got back from school.

29:17 Speaker 2 They got back from school. They’d actually been at school for one day.

29:18 Speaker 5 One day.

29:19 Speaker 2 Right.

29:19 Speaker 5 We told them they had three hours to get ready for the flight.

29:21 Speaker 2 Right.

29:22 Speaker 5 Except for the older ones who were at home. They’d already gone out and taken care of things and bought things.

29:28 Speaker 2 Right.

29:29 Speaker 5 And packed.

29:30 Speaker 2 What’s really nice about Cyprus is that you don’t have to pack food like we usually do when we travel to all sorts of remote places around the world. We take meat and everything else with us, but in Cyprus they have everything.

29:39 Speaker 5 They have everything.

29:40 Speaker 2 Right, maybe a little more expensive.

29:41 Speaker 5 Right.

29:41 Speaker 2 But that’s okay, and there’s also—

29:43 Speaker 5 There’s meat, there’s a shop, um—

29:45 Speaker 2 They have everything there.

29:46 Speaker 5 An Israeli shop, everything through the Chabad House.

29:48 Speaker 2 Really.

29:49 Speaker 5 I mean, everything.

29:49 Speaker 2 Down to soup powder and instant pudding. I mean—

29:53 Speaker 5 Everything.

29:53 Speaker 2 They have everything. Um—

29:55 Speaker 5 Dairy too. They have absolutely everything there.

29:56 Speaker 2 Right, when you’re going to Cyprus, you really can decide to go at the last minute.

30:00 Speaker 5 At the last minute, right.

30:00 Speaker 2 But if it were, say, I don’t know, some remote place in Poland or something, we’d have had to bring everything with us.

30:05 Speaker 5 Right.

30:07 Speaker 2 So that really was nice. Um, and where did we go in Cyprus? Come on, let’s promote them—unpaid promotion.

30:13 Speaker 5 Who? First of all, the Chabad House.

30:14 Speaker 2 The Chabad House, yes. So there’s a hotel.

30:16 Speaker 5 There’s the Rimon Hotel inside the Chabad House.

30:18 Speaker 2 Right, it’s a three-star hotel, isn’t it? But for a pleasant stay, if you need minyanim, a mikveh, and Shabbos meals, that hotel is very, very good. And of course, if you need to carry things around and can’t manage without a stroller, it’s a great choice. But if you want to see Cyprus, that’s not where you do it.

30:39 Speaker 5 Not from there. You can go out.

30:40 Speaker 2 Not from there. You have to go farther afield.

30:41 Speaker 5 Right.

30:42 Speaker 2 Drive to the surrounding villages.

30:44 Speaker 5 But you can set out from there with kosher food.

30:48 Speaker 2 Right.

30:48 Speaker 5 And a good breakfast at the Shamayim restaurant.

30:50 Speaker 2 Right.

30:51 Speaker 5 And there’s also a meat restaurant that opens in the afternoon, and a grocery store.

30:56 Speaker 2 Actually, there are lots of restaurants all over Cyprus.

30:59 Speaker 5 There are, right. There’s shawarma, there’s falafel.

31:03 Speaker 2 There’s a burger place.

31:03 Speaker 5 Burgers.

31:05 Speaker 2 Okay, there’s room for improvement. But listen, when you go abroad, you don’t expect everything to be at the highest level. You’re not that critical, either. You eat because you want to be full and have a pleasant time. So even if it isn’t quite up to your usual standard, you enjoy it because it’s fun, because you’re abroad.

31:22 Speaker 5 Right. Then we went to Protaras. We were there for a week. For Friday, of course, we had challahs from the Chabad House in Ayia Napa, which took care of the challahs and everything for us.

31:33 Speaker 2 Right. There’s a Chabad House in Ayia Napa too.

31:35 Speaker 5 A Chabad House, everything. With a shop—a little smaller, but there’s a Chabad House there that provides all the services. There’s a restaurant there too.

31:40 Speaker 2 Right, Shabbos and everything.

31:42 Speaker 5 And after that we went back through Larnaca to pick up more food.

31:50 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm, right.

31:50 Speaker 5 Because we were stopping in Latchi for a week.

31:52 Speaker 2 Right. And on the way we stopped at a restaurant in Paphos.

31:55 Speaker 5 Itzik and Chanele’s.

31:56 Speaker 2 Right. And there we ate—

31:59 Speaker 5 There, there, there’s a dairy restaurant.

32:01 Speaker 2 And they have sushi too.

32:02 Speaker 5 Sushi, and a meat restaurant too.

32:03 Speaker 2 Right.

32:04 Speaker 5 And there’s also—

32:05 Speaker 2 Listen, they really do have—

32:06 Speaker 5 A Chabad House and a supermarket and everything.

32:09 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

32:10 Speaker 5 We got to Latchi, and the Chabad House was under renovation.

32:13 Speaker 2 Right. It’s the second time we’ve been there while they’re renovating, but with Hashem’s help...

32:17 Speaker 5 No, but they moved. Their old place was small; now they’ve moved to a bigger one.

32:20 Speaker 2 Right. So Latchi is in the northern part, if I’m not mistaken, of—

32:26 Speaker 5 I don’t know.

32:26 Speaker 2 Of Cyprus. Israelis don’t know about this place, and we’re going to tell you about it because you’re our listeners. It’s like a mini Thailand. Turquoise beaches, palm trees, mountains and sea. Wow.

32:42 Speaker 5 A dream.

32:43 Speaker 2 The ultimate place to lie on the beach and relax.

32:47 Speaker 5 They have special off-road buggy tours there. There’s a tour—

32:51 Speaker 2 Last time we rented a boat.

32:53 Speaker 5 A boat too.

32:53 Speaker 2 For the whole day. Of course, in—

32:55 Speaker 5 This time the water was a bit cold, so—

32:57 Speaker 2 We took the big boat, but that was an experience too.

33:01 Speaker 5 But people jumped in too.

33:01 Speaker 2 They did. I didn’t jump in. No, there’s a limit to my stamina. But the tranquility, like you said, really is something special there.

33:10 Speaker 5 There’s a peace and quiet there like nowhere else. Even when you go grocery shopping.

33:18 Speaker 2 Wow, Yossi, you loved the supermarket there. I said, thank Hashem nothing there is kosher.

33:22 Speaker 5 It’s a dream.

33:23 Speaker 2 And we loaded up carts with fruits and vegetables in no time.

33:27 Speaker 5 Yes.

33:28 Speaker 2 Everything was local. It felt so farm-fresh. The potatoes were covered in soil, and the carrots still had that fresh-from-the-ground look. Everything was so rustic and...

33:36 Speaker 5 Yes, but the supermarket was on the level of one in America—even better than America.

33:39 Speaker 2 Right.

33:40 Speaker 5 Quiet. You don’t have someone calling out, “Three packs for three shekels,” or things like that.

33:45 Speaker 2 No, you don’t understand, you really don’t understand.

33:46 Speaker 5 “Don’t you want eggs? They’re on sale now. Five for ten in the fish department.”

33:51 Speaker 2 I wish I understood what they were saying. They make announcements, and you can’t understand a word of them.

33:58 Speaker 5 But you think it’s background music? It’s just—

34:02 Speaker 2 There’s an atmosphere of pressure. Right, in supermarkets back home.

34:05 Speaker 5 There, it’s just relaxed.

34:06 Speaker 6 “Kid, kid, leave the pickles alone. You’ve got Ashkenazi soup.” [unclear]

34:12 Speaker 5 It’s just... The refrigerators are neat, everything is. The fish department there is one of the most beautiful things.

34:19 Speaker 2 Well, Yossi, you used to manage a store, so this is close to your heart. How many years were you a grocery-store manager?

34:27 Speaker 5 Yes, that’s right.

34:27 Speaker 2 Quite a few years, so you appreciate it. You notice everything.

34:32 Speaker 5 A dream.

34:33 Speaker 2 Right. Okay. Every country and every place has its good things.

34:44 Speaker 5 Yes.

34:44 Speaker 2 And here we have a loving family. Even the people shouting in our supermarkets are doing it for your benefit, Yossi. They want you to get the special before it expires. So go out and enjoy yourselves with your children. And I really think the takeaway is simply to create experiences. I—

35:08 Speaker 5 I call it—

35:09 Speaker 2 I want to share something. I also shared it in a video in the club this week, after I got a response. I’m sharing it on my private status. I shared our vacation, and someone wrote to me that it made her feel really uncomfortable, because financially she can’t go away and have fun with her children right now, or whatever. I put that on my private status and got responses too. Some people related to her, some thought like me, some thought the opposite, and so on. And one woman wrote that she joined my club after attending several parenting courses and joining a few clubs, and that she understood what makes my approach different. I really loved reading that. She wrote that in other parenting courses she learned how to deal with challenges, while what she learns with me is simply to enjoy life and make an experience out of whatever is happening. Then it stops being a challenge; it becomes fun and laughter and an experience.

36:08 Speaker 5 Okay.

36:08 Speaker 2 So that’s something I really, really loved.

36:12 Speaker 5 So anyone who isn’t in the club yet—

36:13 Speaker 6 Yes, now’s the time to invite them. Anyone who isn’t yet. Exactly.

36:16 Speaker 2 Because, again, you really can approach it as dealing with a challenge, but then the challenge remains a challenge and dealing with it remains a struggle. You manage, but it’s still a challenge. Or you can take that same thing and... Why are you yawning at me? Fine, it’s morning and we’ve just come back from vacation. We got back yesterday. Anyway, never mind. And... that’s it. Just enjoy yourselves and create experiences. And with Hashem’s help, we won’t leave the children a penny. We’ll enjoy it all.

36:46 Speaker 6 I have no problem with that.

36:46 Speaker 5 I’m all for it.

36:48 Speaker 6 I’m not complaining about anything.

36:50 Speaker 2 Are you short a shekel?

36:53 Speaker 5 If you are, I’ll send you to [unclear]. Hashem will forgive you.

36:56 Speaker 2 L’chaim, l’chaim.

36:57 Speaker 5 L’chaim, l’chaim.

36:58 Speaker 2 May we always be blessed with health and joy. And let’s wish all of the Jewish people the chance to create these experiences. Again, if it isn’t a trip abroad or anything big, then even at home, find that place of togetherness and...

37:11 Speaker 5 Have fun.

37:12 Speaker 2 Have fun. Yes.

37:13 Speaker 5 Just fun. No, I’ll say one thing: children need to smile. That’s it.

37:22 Speaker 2 Right.

37:24 Speaker 5 When a child smiles, whatever else is going on in the world, that child feels good and is having fun. A smile.

37:34 Speaker 2 Let’s end with a smile.

37:35 Speaker 5 Yes.

37:39 Speaker 6 You can ask them to follow, like, help promote the... share it, promote the podcast.

37:45 Speaker 2 Wow! Right.

37:47 Speaker 6 You need to do that.

37:47 Speaker 2 See how good it is that he’s here? So I invite you to leave a like, follow, subsc—what’s it called? That thing. Sub... subscribe, right? What’s it called?

37:57 Speaker 6 Yes, yes.

37:57 Speaker 2 And join the club, that’s it. Be part of all this goodness. L’chaim, l’chaim.

38:02 Speaker 6 L’chaim, l’chaim.

38:03 Speaker 5 L’chaim.