InKredible Kids
A podcast with Kosher content geared toward empowering Jewish kids of all ages. We interview kids from around the world and have many interactive segments for all kids to enjoy. While having fun and learning new skills, kids will hear about responsibility, empathy, confidence, and more!
InKredible Kids
For Someone I Never Met: What a Braid of Hair and a Kidney Transplant Teach Us about Chesed
What does it really mean to give a part of yourself… to someone you’ve never even met? 💭 In this heart-squeezing, soul-stretching episode, we’re diving deep into two extraordinary stories of kindness that go way beyond comfort zones.
💇♀️ First, meet Binah, a 12-year-old girl from Yerushalayim who’s donated her hair not once, not twice, but FOUR times since she was just 4! Her mission? To bring simcha and confidence to children going through chemo. 💕 “It says mitzvah goreres mitzvah,” she reminds us. “If you do one mitzvah, it helps you do more.”
🧠 Then get ready for Menucha and her inkredible Daddy, who donated his kidney through Renewal to a total stranger. 😲 Seven years later, the impact is still rippling through their lives and their community. “It was the first time in my life I felt pain that I knew was good,” he says. “Every ounce of it went to save someone else’s life.” 😭
This episode is all about chesed that costs—the kind that’s not always easy, but totally transforms you from the inside out. Because at the end of the day, these aren’t just stories about hair or kidneys… they’re about what it means to be part of one big Jewish family. 🫶
✨ Whether you’re ready to jump into your own big act of kindness, or you just want to be inspired by what real giving looks like — this one’s for you.
🗣️ As Menucha puts it best:
“Try to do the chesed that’s harder for you… and you’ll get even more schar.”
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Visit inkrediblekids.org/unmuted to get your tickets for "Unmuted: The Experience" - an immersive celebration for families featuring Benny Friedman, Joey Newcomb, Moshe Tischler, Ari Kunstler, the Mendy Hershkowitz Band, hosted by Simcha on Wheels on June 24th at the Ritz Theater, New Jersey.
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🎧Remember to send all responses, questions, comments, and ideas to ikidspodcast@gmail.com.
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🎧Explore our website: https://inkrediblekids.org/
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You can be a sponsor too! If you are interested in sponsoring an episode as a zchus for something dear to you, email ikidspodcast@gmail.com.
Hey kids, welcome back to the next episode of the Incredible Kids Podcast. My name is Moritz Ciri and I will be your host. Through this incredible journey, we are going to meet many incredible kids. They are going to share with us their stories, some of them super cool and different like you've never heard before, and some you may say are just ordinary, but all of them incredible. If you have great ideas, email me today at ikidspodcasts at gmailcom. And now it's time for Incredible Kids.
Speaker 2:It's time for the joke of the day. Yay, today's joke is brought to you by Aliza G from Brooklyn, new York.
Speaker 3:Why did the detective stay in bed all day? She was working undercover.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody. It's Moritziri reporting to you live just days before the big Incredible Kids live unmuted event in New Jersey. I am like so, so excited, so excited, like I can't sleep, kind of excited. We even have people coming in from Florida and Massachusetts and Canada and Indiana, like unbelievable, it blows my mind. This is going to be a night celebrating every single Incredible Kid.
Speaker 2:You've worked so hard in school this year. You deserve to be celebrated for all of your achievements, for every single time that you You've worked so hard in school this year. You deserve to be celebrated for all of your achievements, for every single time that you go to school in the morning and face challenges. And now you've made it to the ends of another school year and you're going to go into summer with so much positivity.
Speaker 2:And at this time, with all the news coming in from Israel, from Eretz Yisrael, where our fellow Jews are really heroic, they are showing tremendous amount of Amunah and B'tachon, and Hashem is showing us His love for us through so many miracles, but also there's continued hardships, and so this event is going to strengthen our Achdus, our belief that Hashem could do anything, and our love for each other, and we're going to dedicate the night to all of the incredible kids in Eretz, israel, and we are going to unify, sit to Hillim together. It's going to be unbelievable, so I cannot wait to see you there. If you did not yet get your tickets run to incrediblekidsorg slash unmuted, go get those tickets and if you get there a little bit early, I hope I get a chance to meet you in person.
Speaker 1:And now for our topic at hand.
Speaker 2:What a beautiful topic this is. What a beautiful episode we have prepared for you. Today we talk about what it means to do a chesed for someone you've never met, and it's going to open up a discussion of what true chesed really is. What does it mean to do a kindness for another person? And the two interviews you are going to hear today are both perfect examples of what it means to do a chesed, to give of yourself for another person, even though you've never even met them.
Speaker 2:Bina shares with us about what it's like to donate her hair for an organization dedicated to helping those going through cancer treatments to feel dignified, with a beautiful wig made out of hair that was, yes, donated by another fellow Jew. And then we're gonna hear from a father-daughter pair, menucha and her daddy. Menucha's father donated his kidney and he's gonna share with us why he did it, why he thinks other people should do it, and Menucha's gonna share with us why she's so forever proud of her father and helps tell everybody to find the chesed that speaks to them. I hope you learn a lot from this episode and it gets you thinking about what more you can do for other people in Kal Yisrael, even if you've never met them. We asked our listeners have you ever donated anything for a chesed? Here's what they had to say.
Speaker 3:Hi, this is Esther Riva and I'm 10 years old. I donated my hair two times for Chaya Lifeline. Hi, my name is Esther Racha and I'm 15 years old. I donated my hair to a place for kids with cancer.
Speaker 4:Hi, my name is Devorah and I am a milrah. I know that rhymes. My name is Devorah and I am a Milra. I know that rhymes. But one time I had the opportunity to give someone money to be able to pay their clean lady to help clean the house for Pesach. Thank you for all you do.
Speaker 3:Hi, my name is Leah, I'm 11 years old, and every time I get money, I take myself from it. Hi, my name is Ephraim and I'm 12 years old, and every year we donate to Yad Eliezer after Pesach.
Speaker 2:And now please enjoy my conversation with Bina. Hi, Bina, this is really exciting. You are an incredible kid listener from Yerushalayim Israel, Lucky. That's so awesome that you're listening from Yerushalayim. Bina. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what brings you here today.
Speaker 3:So I'm 12 years old and I really, really love babysitting and I love baking, and what brings me here today was that I donated my hair four times to Zohar Manash. Wow, what grade are you in? Six?
Speaker 2:Is it a big school? It's about 700 girls. That's a nice size school. Right now you're not wearing a uniform. Do you have like that light blue uniform shirt? I actually just took it off. I know a lot of the Israeli schools have that uniform, right, the Bisako girls, yeah, okay, well, it's really really, really awesome that you're here and, like you just said in your brief introduction, you did something unbelievable and we're going to explore more about that in a moment about donating your hair. Obviously, the listener won't be able to see you, but I'm looking at you and I see your hair is in a pony. Can you turn around so I can see how long it is at this moment in time? Ok, ok, I kind of imagine that you were going to have like a little bob, you know, like a little short haircut.
Speaker 2:I had about two to my shoulder right after I cut it. Okay, so it's been growing out. So I guess, like bring us back to the beginning of when you decided or when this decision came, whoever made this decision, how old were you the first time you donated your hair and what was a little bit of the background behind that?
Speaker 3:So I was about three years old, my cousin donated her hair and my mother asked me do you want to donate your hair? I remember like I was probably scared and nervous and I said no. So she said okay, fine. And then the next day, when I was four, she asked me again and she like explained to me again how it is and like what a big myth that it is, and I decided I want to do it and I was like a little nervous but I did it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's explore that for a minute. So first of all, for somebody who never heard of the concept of donating your hair, what does that actually mean? I know donate means to give something to someone else.
Speaker 3:You need 12 inches of hair to donate and it's for kids and grownups who have cancer. They have to get a medicine, kind of thing, but it makes their hair fall out and then they don't want to get it because they don't want to be bald. And when you give this hair it saves lives because it makes them not be so scared to take the medicine.
Speaker 2:That's a really interesting and nice way of explaining it. Well, first of all, nobody could really donate their hair if their hair isn't long enough, like you just said. So in order to give 12 inches of hair, your hair has to be even longer than 12 inches.
Speaker 3:It has to be 12 inches from where you want to cut it.
Speaker 2:Correct. 12 inches is a foot. 12 inches is a nice amount. I know that when I was three years old I definitely did not have 12 inches to spare of my hair just because I was not blessed with that long hair at that age. You know, definitely not. At age three your hair must have been 18 inches long because you had to leave some hair on your head right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was very long and I had hair until a little shorter than my shoulder.
Speaker 2:And that's a really cute haircut for a three-year-old, four, a four-year-old, right, because by the time you donated it you were four. And I love how you explain that someone who gives their hair. They take the 12 inches of hair, they cut it and they give it to this organization. Repeat the name of the organization you gave your hair to Zichron Menachem. Zichron Menachem, exactly.
Speaker 2:In Israel, zichron Menachem is an organization that will take that hair, make it into a sheetal or a wig, which is the same thing, and provide that wig for children who are going through cancer treatments that make them lose their hair. And if a child is going through treatment like that especially for a girl, by the way, they do it for boys as well. Right, I think they like attach, like for Hasidic boys, maybe to their yarmulke Do you ever hear that? Like to make payas, anyways, but hair for a girl is like a crown, it's everything. So when a girl has to go through a treatment to make her get better and she loses her hair, that could be extremely scary and sad, and so this is something that was. It's like a gift that there's no, like, no words can explain how happy somebody would be. You did it. You said you were nervous about it. Do you remember why you were nervous?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I guess it's scary for such a little girl to cut so much hair off and like in one second it's all gone, like in my letters that I have. I get letters from Zichra Menachem every time I donate my hair. It says that like you cared so much for your hair and like you made it so pretty and then all of a sudden it's gone in like one minute you don't have it anymore.
Speaker 2:Right. It's interesting because in Israel especially, there's always lice, right, like was your. It's right before I donated my hair. Oh my gosh. So you donated lice-infested hair? No, no, no, my mother checked my hair before I donated it. I just know from getting a wig as an adult, like they always say, like you want to be careful not to get a wig with lice in it. It's an interesting concern because then you're growing out your hair. So a lot of Israeli kids with long hair, I noticed, wear braids. Did you used to braid your hair? Really, I don't really like braids. Brushing it must have been such a pain.
Speaker 3:I used to have to put it like before my shoulder and then I would like brush it down my chest kind of, in order to get the bottom Right, because my chest kind of in order to get the bottom Right, because how in the world are you supposed to arch your arm back like that and then I would brush the top afterwards because that I could get to without that much trouble.
Speaker 2:Is it easier anyways, to brush the bottom before the top when it's that long? Yeah, just so that you don't make it more knotty, you brush it and stage it.
Speaker 2:And the bottom of your hair is very knotty For sure. So you did it the first time. You said you were nervous, makes sense, because it was everything you knew. It's like part of you. And then when you cut it, do you remember what that felt like, when you like flicked your head around and just like felt what it felt like to have like nothing going on there? Not really.
Speaker 3:We have like this picture and I'm like looking at my braid, like this was my hair.
Speaker 2:They cut the braid off, that's even longer, because a braid that's 12 inches is like more smushed together, right, so really it's even longer. Whoa, okay, it's very cool that you had this ability to do it, and then you did it, but you didn't do it once and you didn't do it twice and you didn't do it three times. You said you did it four times already. Tell me about how that kept happening. Well, after I did it once, it was just like why not do it again, since my hair grows so fast? Well, let's say, between time one and time two, or between each time, how long would it take? Two to three years. So every two to three years you've donated it, and do you ever find out what happens with it afterwards?
Speaker 3:or they don't give you, like the exact details they don't give you the exact details, but, like this time, there was this whole thing that, like, you go to this place and then they cheer you and then they make you two braids usually they make me one braid and then they're like counting 10 and 8 as they cut off the braids. And then they like, they give you like this whole thing from Pantene, like conditioners and I don't know what, and then they take a picture of you with your two braids and then you could write a letter to the kid who's getting your hair. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So the whole system became more fancy and more recent, I guess every two years.
Speaker 3:Because usually, like hair lady, cutting this was like a whole thing of, like the human.
Speaker 2:It was like a haircutting party. Yeah, were there other kids getting their haircut as well at the same time as you? A lot of kids, did you know any of them? Or it was like total strangers? Well, I went with my friend and my mother. It must have been such an interesting experience. It was Everybody coming in with long locks of hair and they're all leaving with little haircuts. Basically yeah, I'm just trying to get into the zone of it Like you said before, like you took care of that hair, you brushed it, you shampooed it for two years, let's say right. And then you have this braid. I didn't know if I brought my twist or that I would be able to have a hairstyle. That was good planning. Well, then you have this braid, or two braids this time that they cut off, and then you hand it to them. Like what does that feel?
Speaker 3:like they cut it off and then they give it to me. Well, eventually you give it back. Yeah, you send it whenever you don't do it in the place and like the event. So you send like an envelope with your braid inside. So you literally send it in the mail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is a scary thing to send in the mail. I mean, like some people are afraid to send money in the mail Like I would. That's, you can't really put a price on that. I hope it's like overnight delivery. Handle with care, you know. But back to what I was saying before. Let's say, at this hair cutting party, when you hand over your hair, or even when you stick your hair in the envelope and you're actually parting with it like that moment, what does that feel like?
Speaker 3:It's like basically what the note says, like I grew up for so long and I cared and then, boom, it's not mine anymore.
Speaker 2:You feel like it's already not yours. Yeah, like once it's cut, there's no attachment anymore. It's like you've already done it. You've already donated it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like it doesn't belong to me anymore.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Wow, it's such an interesting thing because it's so personal, like it's so part of you and it's like everything about you, and it's almost like if somebody just walked over to you right now and started like touching your hair, I'd be like get off of my hair. It's my hair, it's my personal space, but suddenly, like it's caught and it's like now it's someone else's. I always think that like there are certain things that I never had that, like I said, I personally don't know what it feels like. That's why I have so many questions for you, because I've never experienced this. So I'm trying to ask questions that help me imagine what the experience might be like. But I think it's so cool when you're able to do something, that you're literally giving something of yourself to help someone else.
Speaker 5:Nothing in your life will ever be more meaningful than giving of yourself to help another.
Speaker 2:Hashem gave you something and you know you can share it for the good. Now, the good thing is it grows back right. So it's not like I don't know. I wish there was something that they could do with my fingernails, because they grow pretty quickly, If there was somebody who wanted my fingernails.
Speaker 2:Well, like, not everyone has that, you know what I'm saying. Like something that they, baruch Hashem, have in abundance that they can share, like that you know. Obviously, people know what their things are. Some people they donate money and some people donate time, and there's so many ways that you can give back. But this is a very personal way. Do you remember what you wrote in any of those letters?
Speaker 3:I wrote like I'm so happy that you're getting this hair. I really hope you enjoy it. And then I wrote refushalim, do you?
Speaker 2:feel like a connection to that person or you don't, but since you never met them, it's like hard to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's hard to like imagine how they look.
Speaker 2:Why is this mitzvah so important to you? Obviously, you said you did it and you're like I could do it, so why not? But like is there more to it? Is there something about it that's like personal to you that you want to keep doing this?
Speaker 3:I feel like it's such an easy mitzvah for me. It's not like such a hard thing to do and it's not like I have to do anything special in order to do it, so why should I lose a mit? And now it's almost like your lifestyle. It's like I grow it, I cut it. I grow it, I cut it. Yeah, it's a pattern. At this point, one time I was very scared because it was basically the first time in my life I actually got a haircut that first time it wasn't even like parting with your hair.
Speaker 2:That was the problem. It was just like the experience of a haircut was overwhelming. It was like an's not for everybody.
Speaker 3:I had a neighbor who wanted to cut it, but her mother was just like I can't deal with this hair, it's too long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it takes a really good mother to do it responsibly, like I'm sure your mother did, especially when kids are very little. Imagine your mother is the one who has to bathe you or whoever. Your father, your caretakers are the ones who are dumping thing in your head. I remember that when my son, slomo, had an upshower last year.
Speaker 3:The first bath I gave him after his upshower and his hair was so short I was like, oh my gosh, like that after I cut it's like my shower is two seconds, I know, but it was for me as a mother it was the best thing in the world.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, one, two, three dump. Okay, two cups of water. No more soap Was done in a second. Takes me a while to get out all the soap I literally cannot imagine. Also in Israel in the showers. Tell everybody about the hot water in the showers in Israel.
Speaker 3:Some people have like a yunkers. I don't know how you say that in English. What did you call it A yunkers? Basically it's kind of like Isn't it called a dud? That's whatever we have. But there's some people like a yunkils that they don't have to like turn it on in order for there to start being hot water, so that's just like more automatic. Yeah, a dud is what we have and it's like you turn it on when you like and then it makes hot water slowly, but it finishes pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:So that's what you have. So did your family like go nuts from you when you were using up all the hot water, or did you take a shower in cold water?
Speaker 3:Sometimes I take a shower in cold water and I usually shower last, on Fridays. I'm usually the one with the cold shower.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a huge messiah asnafash right there. I know in Israel it's a big deal. If you do have that system with the dud, when you turn it on it won't like you said. It warms up the water and then it doesn't last very long and then suddenly there's no more hot water. And I may have just explained that wrong, but that's what I understand it to be and that's it. That's your shower I'm trying to think about, like the feelings of everyone else.
Speaker 3:What could be so different in a shower from different countries?
Speaker 2:What do you mean? We don't have that in America. You just have hot water. Yeah, I mean, we just turn on the hot water and it's hot. Like I just turn the knob in the shower, it's hot and it's hot. We're very spoiled. By the way, it's actually very funny. I did an episode a few months ago with a really cute girl from Holland yeah, I know that. Remember she was talking about this bicycle like wagon that they use.
Speaker 3:Like that looks like. I don't remember what you were saying, but you said you were looking up in your phone and you found pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like a shopping cart attached to a bike or whatever. Anyways, it's called a Buckfeet or something. I never knew that. That's like a normal thing for them in Amsterdam. And afterwards I got an email from a different girl from Holland who was listening to the podcast and she's like I never knew that in America you don't ride those things.
Speaker 2:So I'm saying you'd be surprised, like whenever you learn something about a different country, it's like we all have what to learn that we don't know about other countries, and it's just so interesting how everyone's lives are. Just we take it for granted what's in front of our eyes, this is what we do, whatever, just like in some places they ride on elephants and they think that's normal. Every place, every place has their things. And I say back to you I never heard of that.
Speaker 2:Someone's like what? How come she never heard? Well, no, because it reminds you how different our lives are and there's so much that we all have to learn from each other. I love how this mitzvah just became part of your life and I think that in general, people do that a lot. I see that with people, especially adults, I mean, it's much more uncommon to find a kid, I think, who repeatedly just keeps doing this mitzvah? Now, maybe your mother gave you the idea initially, or your cousin or whatever, but eventually becomes your own and I'm sure that the second and third and fourth time you decided to repeat the mitzvah it came from yourself.
Speaker 3:This year was the first time. It was actually my mitzvah, because I was passed that mitzvah and that as well for sure, like you for sure, got the credit because you own it.
Speaker 2:It's like it's your mitzvah, it's part of your identity, it's part of who you are. It's a really cool opportunity once it becomes one in the same with like okay, I'm Bina and this is one of the things that I feel connected to, and I, you know, I gave, and the more you give, the more it changes you. Is there any specific way you can think of how giving in this way multiple times has changed you as a person?
Speaker 3:I guess it helps me do more chesed. It says mitzvah, go with mitzvah, which means if you do one mitzvah, it helps you do more. Maybe that's why it's easier for me to donate my hair like over and over and over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that totally makes sense. Once you do it, you kind of like get on a high from it and you're giving and you're like I could do this again. You kind of like get on a high from it and you're giving and you're like I could do this again, I could do this again. And even chesed in a general sense, like when you say like it helps you do more chesed as it opens your eyes, kind of, to realize that there's others who need things, there's things that I can do day to day that alleviate people's lives, people going through different things. We all have different things to give and take. Yeah, kind of it makes you just think about other ways you could be helpful. Oh, my gosh, what else can I do? Just looking out regular things it doesn't have to be the most biggest things or what we think is big. We don't really know the skhar of a mitzvah big, small, it's all. Hashem knows, right. We don't know the chajbin, but we know we can try our best.
Speaker 5:I'm trying my best and I hope you're proud. I'm rising up through the ups and downs. I'm trying my best and, god, I know that I'm not perfect.
Speaker 2:What do you want to say to kids who are listening, thinking of doing something that's going to take some bravery? Whatever it is for them, let them think of what that thing is.
Speaker 3:Might be a very hard thing to do, but once you do it you feel really good that you did such a big accomplishment.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's awesome. I love that, Bina. Let me ask you, just because you're in Yerushalayim, Ir Hakodesh, what does living in Yerushalayim mean to you?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm sorry to say, but we don't go to the hotel so much. I'm saying you live there. Yeah, because we live there, we don't go to the hotel so much. But it feels sometimes it's like I don't know like, and it's just very different With, like, the tzinias, everything like it just feels different.
Speaker 2:What do you mean in like the tzinias? Like what aspect?
Speaker 3:Like talking and like.
Speaker 2:You feel like, since you're in such a holy place, you need to act a different way.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is. Yeah more like day of year If you were out with your friends, which I would assume you probably do. The lifestyle in Yerushalayim is a lot more independent than other places in the world.
Speaker 3:A lot more Like. I have friends that since first grade they take the bus, they cross the street. My mother was more like like, since they were like three years old, literally you see like tiny, whiny kids. Like you see a three-year-old walking with her newborn sister and calling her two-year-old brother to like let's go, and my mother's like we better wait a little bit.
Speaker 2:I'm with her. In what way would that be something on your mind? You know the way you behave in public. You feel that sense of responsibility, like I need to conduct myself in a holier way because I'm in the holiest place. Yeah, wow, I just want to tell you I'm so like blown away by that answer Cause like a super advanced, like I want to say mature, but I feel like that word is like thrown around a lot. I feel like it's just such a special answer that you just gave.
Speaker 2:I feel like when you make an internal decision, like inside of yourself, like being a like I know that's not something you probably share all the time, but it's important to share it and now that you are sharing it, it's something that we all can think about. But especially in a place like that, with so much intrinsic holiness and the place where the base of Mekdash will be built, like, hopefully, today, it's like your decision to act that way is almost like a z'chus for all of those who don't know better that kedushah that you're choosing and that extra level of being sensitive to where Hashem put you right now and like your role. You don't know how much it's accomplishing. That's what I'm saying For yourself and everything you do in the world makes a difference. It's a ripple in the world, and the way Hashem made it it's not a coincidence, it's really special. Anyways, it's so great to meet you.
Speaker 2:I love hearing a story and then finding out from the source. It's great to hear things like hi, my name is Bina, I donated my hair. But then to hear it from you and to hear your innocence and your purity and to see how it was coming from such a Tamima's place, like a place of just wanting to do a mitzvah, just wanting to do something that you can because you can. So if I have the tools, then why not? That's such a great attitude and that's an attitude that I want to adopt for doing mitzvah also, like I can do it, I have the skills for it, I have the resources for it, so let's do it. Like sometimes we overthink things and we just have to kind of let go a little bit. I hope we can all be zoha to get that kind of mitzvah action like you have so many times over. Bina, it was so lovely to meet you.
Speaker 3:And I love that we have Incredible Kids listeners in your usual IM. It makes me feel like a piece of me is there and tell all your English speaking friends to listen to Incredible Kids, if they don't already Most of them do. I started listening because my neighbor has a 24-6. She was listening to it and I was like what in the world is this thing? And then she's like it's Incredible Kids. I'll show you where it is. Let's give your neighbor a shout out.
Speaker 2:Who is she? Adina Greenwald. Shout out to Adina. Thanks for being such a good listener and inspiring Bina. I hope to see you soon, hopefully on your side of the ocean. You're an incredible kid and I am so excited to share your mitzvah story with everybody. Thank you.
Speaker 5:Bye.
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Speaker 2:And now here's my conversation with Manuja and her father. Welcome to Incredible Kids, manuja and your daddy. Introduce yourselves to everybody, tell us who you are, where you're from and what you're doing here.
Speaker 6:My name is Manuja Freeman, I'm 14 years old and in 8th grade. We live in North Miami Beach.
Speaker 2:Florida. I've met so many people from North Miami Beach. How far is North Miami Beach from the beach?
Speaker 7:About three miles.
Speaker 2:Can you walk it?
Speaker 7:No, I mean technically, but no.
Speaker 2:Technically, but it's not something people do often.
Speaker 7:Or ever there's no like normal roads to walk it you have to like go over a whole overpass.
Speaker 2:Right, I was gonna say there's like a lot of like bridges and stuff and things going on.
Speaker 7:Okay, cool Miami Beach you can walk to the beach, but North Miami Beach is a whole. Uh, I always tell people that, like when they ask me like what's there to do here, I always say, like I don't know, ask a New Yorker or something.
Speaker 2:When you walk around Florida, you can spot a vacationer and a citizen or a local. I know, I know, I know what you're thinking. I can, though, because I'm a vacationer. I heard that tonight's your graduation.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Big accomplishment right there. Mazel Tov, do you go on to high school in the same school that you went to? Yeah, okay, I'm sure it's still a lot of change, it's like different administration. You're growing up and try not to grow up all the way. Okay, now your father, if you don't mind introducing yourself to everyone.
Speaker 7:My name is Abram Eliezer Friedman, more formally known as Friedman, minuha's daddy. I've lived in North Miami Beach for about 23 years now and we like it here and we're very proud of all of our children, and Minuha's our oldest child. She sort of leads the pack of our children and we're very proud of her.
Speaker 2:How many are you all? Kanai, Nahara and Minuha. We have five and we're very proud of her how many are?
Speaker 2:you all K'nai, nahara, menuchav, five, five, awesome, Five incredible kids, four trailing after you. Nobody chooses if they want to be the oldest or not, but at the end of the day you have this really important role. In some ways it's like so cool and in other ways it's maybe annoying, but at the end of the remember and it's cool because, well, actually it's not true. I won't say that. I was gonna say you get like double portion of of, uh, inheritance, but I don't, I don't think you do. You're a girl.
Speaker 2:I have the same problem awkward no, it's not so awkward because I feel the same way and I mean, I'm the oldest and I used to be so upset when I learned that in school that only boys got double right. Isn't that a thing?
Speaker 2:if there's no way, well that's okay, whatever, we don't have to talk like that, but you know, I'm just trying to think of, like, what the pros could possibly be anyways, okay, well, the real reason why we have two of you here together is because we're doing a special feature episode and I decided that I wanted to teach other people and I can't do this alone because I don't have this experience.
Speaker 2:I wanted to find people from the incredible kids community like yourself who can share with our listeners about something that they've done as part of the community, as part of khali as well, mitzvah, that they've done, that they are literally giving something of themselves, and this, really, it takes it to a whole nother level, because what we're about to learn about, mister, you're a mister, or just you said, freedman, you're freedman. That that's the formal way to really Okay, I understand, I know men and boys have a different way of addressing each other. So Friedman, over here, did something unbelievable that Menucha shared with me, and I thought it would be a beautiful thing to have you tell everybody about it together. I want to hear your perspective as the donor and I want to hear Menuchas' perspective as the proud oldest daughter who's perpetuating the mitzvah. We'll get into that in a minute. So, menuchas' daddy, if you don't mind taking it away and sharing with us a little bit about what we're talking about.
Speaker 7:So we're talking about kidney donation. About seven years ago, I had the tremendous chutz to be able to donate my kidney to another member of Kalal Yisrael who I did not know at the time. It's not something that everybody's able to do. Baruch Hashem, I had the ability to do that. I was able to literally save someone's life. I could only do it once, so there's no pressure to do it again and I can call you up next year and say hi, we're calling up for your annual kidney donation. You'll go through the rest of your life knowing that you went through physical pain to be able to help out someone else who, in my case, I didn't even know who they were okay, so seven years ago.
Speaker 2:I mean it sounds like a long time ago, but in reality it, I guess, pretty recent. And it's also important to say because minuha has a clear memory of it. If minuha's 14 now, you must have been around seven at the time, so a seven-year-old remembers what it's like for her as well. What is a kidney? Because I'm looking at you and you said you gave someone a kidney. It's not like you gave somebody your nose, because then I would see it on the outside, but you look like a normal person and you look like probably similar to the way you looked before. I would imagine explain to everyone what is the kidney and what does it mean to give a kidney a healthy person generally is born with two kidneys.
Speaker 7:It's an organ inside the body that you don't typically see.
Speaker 7:It helps your body process the food you eat, the things you drink, to keep the good parts in your body and send the bad parts out of your body.
Speaker 7:It basically helps you go to the bathroom and it's vital to have your kidneys functioning, or at least one of your kidneys functioning. You just imagine like in your house, like you have a garbage can and garbage goes into the garbage can but it never gets taken out. So for the first couple days it'll just be smelly, but after a certain point of time the garbage is gonna be so garbage you won't be able to live there and eventually you're going to be forced out of the house because there's just too much garbage. So the kidney is the organ that takes the garbage out of your body. Your body really only needs one healthy kidney to be able to function and survive. So if a person is healthy enough, you have the ability that the doctors can go in and, through surgery, take out one of your kidneys and give it to someone else who doesn't have functioning kidneys. Once they get your kidney, then you'll have one functioning kidney and they'll have one functioning kidney and you both could live normal lives after that.
Speaker 2:That was a very good description. If you were looking at a picture of the human body, a diagram of a person, there's two kidneys and they would be almost in the lower half of your body. Everybody's born with two. Most people Baruch Hashem have perfect kidneys that work and we thank Hashem for them every single day, which we'll get into, because if you're thinking what I don't thank Hashem for my kidneys every day, well, you might, and you don't even realize it.
Speaker 2:If somebody has both of their kidneys not working, then they're in trouble because now, not just one doesn't work, they both don't work. Like you said, you only technically need one to function, to work and to clean out your body, and so in that case, they would need a donor. They would need a person who is willing to go through a surgery which is like very scary and invasive. We all know what a surgery is. Take out one of your healthy kidneys and give it to another person who needs a kidney to live. There's so many scary things about that.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I can see how that mitzvah is huge because you don't get it back right, like you don't even know who you were giving it to. Like sometimes, when we do something and we give something to someone, we get a little bit of satisfaction, knowing like I helped that person. And then they look at that person. I know I helped them. This is like you're not doing this for yourself. There's no way. You're clearly doing this because you care about another person and call Israel what made you want to do this. There must have been something that one day you said I want to give away a kidney. What was that?
Speaker 7:There was no like aha moment that said I want to donate a kidney or any like major burst of inspiration. Really, what happened was I saw advertisements about Renewal, which is an organization that matches up people that need kidneys and tries to find kidney donors to give them kidneys. And I saw an ad that said that they're looking for kidneys, and I saw it a few times. I thought to myself and I saw it. That's crazy. That's just like totally nuts. Why would a person go through surgery to give up a kidney for a random person, another Jew, they don't know?
Speaker 7:And then as I thought about it, I realized that that's like a crazy mitzvah, that you kind of have to be a little crazy to do it, and I thought to myself I'm a little crazy.
Speaker 2:I was going to say are you crazy? He's very crazy. Is your daddy crazy in the best way? He's very crazy, Okay.
Speaker 7:Yeah, this is not your typical thing that a regular person would do. I said you know what, let me look into it. And I casually brought it up to my wife Minoukaha's mommy. I didn't think that it would go anywhere and she was like listen, if that's something that you want to do, go for it. Once she said that I'm like that's it, we're doing this.
Speaker 2:You said that was nothing crazy, but honestly I don't think there ever needs to be a crazy aha story for people all the time, and that's why this is really just a message. It's people at Renewal who are listening to know that those advertisements do work, and just maybe I'll just venture to say this. I don't know if there's truth to this because I hardly know you, but there must be something besides being crazy about you. Many people would see that ad and I'm sure there's thousands of people who see the same ad that you saw. We're looking for kidney donors for renewal and they just turn right past it. Even though your first reaction was who would do that? Eventually you thought about it and said, hey, maybe I should do that. So there's something about chesed and giving, wanting that big mitzvah that probably predates you seeing the end. That's my guess.
Speaker 7:I grew up in a home full of chesed. My parents are both people that not only work for Klal Yisrael but have done many, many hours and years of chesed. My bed when I was in eighth grade was behind the couch in our living room because my room was being used by a guest who stayed at our house the entire year.
Speaker 2:Oh see, I'm not surprised now that I'm hearing this. This is starting to make more sense.
Speaker 7:It wasn't just being chesed. It was finding ways to do chesed that you know other people aren't doing or can't do, or you have a unique ability to do so. Once I realized that this is something that I could do and other people couldn't do, it really was just like a hand fitting into a glove. There was no turning back.
Speaker 2:That's really, really amazing, menucha. At what point did you know that maybe your father was going to be giving a kidney? Did they tell you anything, or did you only find out once it was happening? I?
Speaker 6:think it was the day before he went. He called me into his bedroom and he gives me this little squishy kidney toy Adorable, Do you know what this is? And I'm like no. And he's like this is a kidney, I'm going to donate one. I guess he explained it to me. The main part I remember was being very scared because I didn't know what was happening. I remember crying. I went away so they wouldn't see me. I cried. He went to New York to donate his kidney. So he was away for two weeks. There was lots of people helping us. There was a meal train.
Speaker 2:Right, People were helping out because they knew it was like it's not a two second ordeal. You know, sweet to Manuka daddy's. Okay, Like I'm not sick. I'm doing this because I'm helping somebody else and I'm going to be a little bit acting sick for a while, but really I'm okay.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we tried to explain to them that I was having surgery and it wasn't because that there was something wrong. Just the opposite. I wanted to go and help someone else out, and that's something to be proud of. Chesed isn't always easy. Not easy necessarily for you and not necessarily easy for the people around you. When it's the right thing to do, sometimes you have to do that. It's very important as they get older, they won't have a chesed opportunity or opportunity to do something and it's like okay, that's too hard, I'll find a different chesed to check off the list. That's not the way chesed works. It was definitely hard for the kids, especially because I was gone for 10 days or so. They barely saw me. Zoom wasn't really the biggest thing back then.
Speaker 2:Seven years ago back in the dark ages.
Speaker 7:Crazy.
Speaker 2:We did speak on the phone. We did have a cell phone. It was wild times. No face time. What do we do? I gotta be a guy. Manuka, now I'm just gonna skip ahead for a minute. I know that you're involved in fundraising for renewal and helping other people know about how important it is to support them with money and also consider donating a kidney, so I'm sure you probably know a thing or two now about the process. Somebody says, okay, I would give a kidney, so what's the next step?
Speaker 6:so in the beginning, they do like this thing. It's like they swab, which is they put something they put well it's like a stick with a cut at the end of it. It's like we've all been swabbed for strep a million times they rub it against their cheek and then they send it to renewal well, basically, they get a sample of your saliva. Yeah, if you do get accepted, then you have to do a lot more things. Okay, like a lot of different tests. Eventually, if you pass all of it, you get matched.
Speaker 2:Then you donate a kidney. Those other tests that you're saying, I'm assuming, include blood tests, right?
Speaker 7:Yes, there's a whole slew of tests. Typically a person swabs at a swabbing event. I have swab kits at my house. I've had people come to my house and we mailed it in, but typically the most common is at an event where renewal comes and they have people swabbing you and you just hand it to them. They say approximately 10% of those people have the possibility of donating kidneys Once they get the saliva. They're able to learn a lot of information from that single swab to determine who you might possibly match with. It's not like you could just take a person who needs a kidney and take a person who wants to give a kidney and say, okay, you give it to them. You have to have the same blood type. There's a lot of antibodies that could potentially conflict. There's a lot of science-y stuff that thankfully, I don't need to know about.
Speaker 2:Thankfully they have a lot of scientists and doctors that do know about it.
Speaker 7:Yes. Eventually you get a phone call or an email saying you match with someone in our list. Do you want to take the next step? The fascinating thing about kidney donation is that most chesed organizations or tzedak organizations, when they have a person who wants to donate to them, they're encouraging you to donate. You know how much you can help out and please join us, and if you start hemming and hawing, they'll try to explain to you why this is so important and you can make a huge difference With renewal. It's really the exact opposite. They try to convince you, so to speak, not to donate. They want to make sure that, if you're going to donate a kidney, this is something that you really, really want to do. It's not something that you're just going to wake up one day yeah, let me donate a kidney today. It has to be well thought out.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you're becoming a gear.
Speaker 7:In certain ways I would say there's a similarity to that, because every step of the way they're like you're sure you want to do this, say I changed my mind and back out. They said yeah, as long as the anesthesia didn't hit yet, but once you're sleeping it's too late.
Speaker 2:Has anyone ever done that?
Speaker 7:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like literally in the operating room.
Speaker 7:Sorry, I mean, there have been people who have had second thoughts at that point, Right right, but it's usually just nerves, last minute nerves, once you say you want to proceed, then through a whole slew of appointments, I donated in New York. So I flew into New York and one day I did all my appointments, every single one. I would go into the doctor's office and they had a card that said potential kidney donor and I would hand it to them and I went just straight to the front of the line of all the appointments. Everyone's sitting there. Sometimes you go to the doctor and you wait for hours and hours. I probably saw like seven, eight, nine doctors in one day and I flew back home that night. They take blood, they do x-rays, they do CAT scans, they do stress tests. I spoke to a psychiatrist to make sure that my head's on straight, which is always the joke that no one's really sure how any of us actually pass that evaluation, because you have to be crazy to give a kidney. So how are you passing the psych test?
Speaker 2:How do you say that about astronaut? I've read up on the topic because I thought about going to Mars, but then when I saw that it takes a couple of years to get there and then a couple of years to come back and you probably want to spend a few years there once you've traveled for so long, my family told me no. But I'm saying they do all these psychiatric tests to make sure, like you know, you can handle being inside a spaceship for a few years. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 7:So yeah, I'm not going to Mars. Yeah sorry, but then eventually I got the call that says that everything looks great. You have to be perfectly healthy in order to donate. They said you matched and you passed all your tests. Do you still want to go ahead with this? I got really excited. I'm like, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We're just getting started, yeah.
Speaker 7:You schedule the dates for surgery shortly after Pesach. Short time after Pesach. I think it was two days after Pesach I flew in for pre-op and then, a few days later, we scheduled surgery.
Speaker 2:So in the whole process of like okay, you knew you were donating, you had a match, you went into New York, Was there like any very powerful experiences, any highs or lows that you felt during this whole process?
Speaker 7:Throughout life, everyone has their ups and downs, times of joy and times of pain. We Throughout life, everyone has their ups and downs, times of joy and times of pain.
Speaker 5:We know everything Hashem does is perfect for us, but it's hard to really internalize and understand it. I think Shweki has a song Ein Dabara Yorim Min Hashemayim Ki Ya Kol HaTovah right.
Speaker 7:What the words mean is that nothing bad comes from the heavens because it's all good. So there's really two pieces to that. There's number one that something's not only not bad, but it's actually good for you. So when a person falls Minucha cut her leg a few weeks ago and had to have stitches it's painful, it hurts and you have to you know, take care of it. And you want to think, like sometimes you want to think why do I get this pain? And it might be one thing to be able to internalize that Hashem's not going to do something bad to me, but then turn around and say this is actually good.
Speaker 7:When I woke up from surgery and I was in question, I was in a lot of pain. When I woke up from surgery, it was the first time in my life that I felt pain, that I knew that this was a good pain, this was a good thing. I just saved someone's life. In certain ways. It might sound weird, but it was such a sweet pain because I knew that every ounce of pain that I'm going through went to go and save someone's life, and I understood with clarity how you could have a painful situation that's actually good. Now, thousands of people have surgery every single day and they wake up and they're in pain and they say this is bad. So I was able to understand from that situation how this was actually good.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's really amazing. You woke up from surgery, you were in pain and like that was your immediate reaction. It just came to you like, wow, this is a good pain.
Speaker 7:I had this weird feeling I just did something amazing and I'm also in pain. But I'm in pain because I did something amazing. Every kidney donor has different recovery. I particularly had a much harder recovery than average and while I was in recovery people asked me would you do this again? And I was like I would do it today. I would do it right now, double this.
Speaker 2:I don't care, because you need your other kidney.
Speaker 2:But I'm kidding, I know the concept, you thinking if I could, I would right I would imagine that having a daughter like manuka who is, seven years later, so proud of what you've done and what you've introduced the family to in the process, that probably brings back the feeling of not the pain, but wow, look what I've done and that's really cool that manuka feels so passionately about that. So I guess I'm kind of gonna shift the conversation and drop to manuka and I want to ask you right now why does this story still mean so much to you? Tell me, like why your father's story and your family's story it really is your family's story.
Speaker 6:honestly, it's something that you're proud of Mostly because he makes a very big deal about it. It's just a big conversation in our house. I don't remember a Shabbos table that he never brought it up. The more someone talks about it and the more like you tell people about it, they'll be like, oh my gosh, that's so amazing, like I want to do something like that, or I want to do something to help other people do something like that, and it makes a very big impact on not just us but the people who are sitting at the Chavez table or the community. There's a few kidney donors in our neighborhood. Actually, when he donated, there was zero kidney donors in North Mary Beach.
Speaker 2:And now there's seven. Wow, and I guess your father had a lot of influence of helping them get to the point of donating. Yeah, lots of them. That's amazing. So you see that the more awareness and talking about it and sharing about it actually inspires others, and they see how it lights you up. Even years later probably think okay, maybe it's time I explore this. I know here in baltimore, I know of siblings who have donated or whatever like, because one inspires the other. I'm not saying to anyone they know, just to stranger jews that are really part of their family but they don't know them. One person inspires another and many people will tell you oh yeah, I gave because this one gave and because that one gave, and really it's the most beautiful type of peer pressure. It's really, it's a glorious mitzvah.
Speaker 7:There was a kidney donor a few months ago that donated kidney and he was talking to the surgeon who did his kidney transplant. The doctor had done thousands of kidney transplants in his career he's a non-Jewish doctor and he asked him he says, you know, being the fact that you saw how much it helps other people, would you consider yourself donating a kidney? And the doctor said to him he said I've thought about it a lot. At this point in my life, if I had a family member that needed a kidney, I would absolutely donate a kidney, but to a complete stranger I'm not really ready to do that. And this kidney donor responded and said you and I are the same, I just have a much bigger family.
Speaker 2:Wow, we just got chills. It's like almost like a cliche response, like almost like, of course that's what we Jews say, we're all one family. But to really believe that you know and to actually go ahead and give your kidney, that's somebody who I trust, you know, that's somebody who I know lives and breathes it. It's almost like it's proof You're right. I don't give my kidneys to strangers. We're not strangers, you know. It's not the right choice of words. Really. We're family that we've never met. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. The big question people always want to know is like did you ever meet your recipient, the person who got your kidney? What was your situation?
Speaker 7:I met my recipient in the hospital briefly for over a day or two while I was there. Her father texts me every other Shabbos wishing me a good Shabbos, and I text him back While we're all part of Klau Yisrael. It's not my business what goes on in their life, whatever they want to share with me is, you know, is up to them. The fact that you know I always had this chutz to donate my kidney doesn't make me part of their, you know, intimate life.
Speaker 2:But they must still have that level of Hakkar Satov if they're still communicating with you so many years later.
Speaker 7:Right.
Speaker 2:Are you allowed to say if it was a young person or like an old person? Are you allowed to share that or not?
Speaker 7:really it was a 27-year-old girl.
Speaker 2:Wow, unbelievable. Well, menucha, I know you mentioned to me that one of the things your family feels like is part of the whole story is appreciating, thinking Hashem for the things in our body that function every single day in a healthy person's body. You mentioned the bracha of Asher Yatzar. Asher Yatzar is a bracha that we say after using the bathroom and everyone at home is like giggling now and snickering because I said bathroom, but now that you're finished giggling and snickering, it's really nothing funny. When somebody's body is not working the way it's supposed to, when it comes to matters of going to the bathroom, things could actually go terribly wrong, and a person cannot live if things are not working properly. That's something that we do need to think, hashem, for. That's why, every time someone uses the bathroom, there's the Asher Yatzar Bracha. So what does Asher Yatzar now mean to your family?
Speaker 6:It's always been a thing we just do in our house. We have a big sign up by the bathroom that Renewal actually gave to us. We understand it much more because we see what happens to people who aren't healthy and they can't function normally and they can't do it themselves.
Speaker 2:It makes sense that Renewal sent you that poster, because they are an organization that helps people get those kidney functions back. It sounds like something that would be very much in line with what they want to do. Is it something that you share with others on a regular basis, or it's just something within your family that you focus on?
Speaker 6:My father goes and speaks in some classrooms about it. One Rebbe asks him every year and we talk about in school. Like in sixth grade we did a unit on Asher Yetzir and I had stuff to say.
Speaker 2:Do you remember anything that you shared with your class?
Speaker 6:Well, I talked about my father and how he donated a kidney and how special it is that he was able to do it and how lucky we are that we do function normally and we just take it for granted that we could do something like this. The human body is very complex and there's so many things that could just go wrong. And it works anyways, even though in a minute everything could stop working. Hashem makes it so special that it keeps on going.
Speaker 2:We say in the words of our shiratzar it's like Hashem made us with nekavim, nekavim, chalolim, chalolim, like all different kinds of openings and the different intricacies of our body. And then we say sha'im yipaseyach achad me'hem, like if something that's closed is open, o'yisaseym ach, if there's a blockage of some sort, right, like we were talking about before, when things are not working, ef Sharla Heskayim, v'lamo LaFanach, hafi L'Sha'Achas, Like a person, it's impossible for them to do anything. They can't live, they can't function, they can't do medsfos and they also can't breathe. I'm saying everything shuts down and so we don. It's really a gift to be able to thank Hashem for that when we come out of the bathroom. Is there any like tips that you have or that you share with people about how to remember to concentrate properly on Hashem out there, because it's so easy to just like come out of the bathroom and like mumble it really quickly or say it while you're like running to recess. Do you know what?
Speaker 6:I'm saying I try to read the words, not just like stand still, like look all around.
Speaker 7:You got distracted also, yeah, so I find that very helpful actually wrote out the entire asher yatsar by hand, with its translation, and it's posted near her bathroom and she reads it from there. I think Minuha doesn't want to say because she's modest. The number one step is to really first understand the words. Just understand what you're saying and writing them down gives you a much better understanding. And then, when you're reading from your own handwriting and you see that this is something that I wrote and it's meaningful to you, it gives you a much better understanding of what you're actually saying and how meaningful the words really are. It's a really short bracha but it has a really powerful punch.
Speaker 2:Tip number one is write it down on your own handwriting and post it, you know, outside of the bathroom and then standing in one place. Maybe it was during COVID. There was a time when a lot of people were suggesting that for us, for people to be healthy and whatever people should say, asher Yetzir with K, with Kavana, and I tried standing still in one place but for some reason I couldn't stay still. Like you know, it's hard, like even keeping my feet on the ground. So I heard somebody and I wish I remember who it was but somebody gave a recommendation in order to remember to stand still, you should put your hand on the wall. So then you're like really stuck when your hands on the wall and kind of feel the urge to move. But if you really just like literally put your hand on the wall and like stop yourself from moving, it will literally just take you 10 extra seconds and it really helped me to stay in place. And the reason why it's important to stay in place is because your mind's wandering off.
Speaker 2:My hardest time to say I've shared outside is in a rest stop, because when you're in a rest stop and you're standing still outside the bathroom, you look like a really crazy person, but I started not caring. I don't care. There's so many crazies in the world like let them think I'm one of them. I love that you're going around to schools because it's like meet a kidney donor. Here is somebody who did a mitzvah that you may or may not have the chance to do, but there are mitzvahs that you can do that you may not have known about before and it makes a tangible oh. I know somebody who gave a kidney. If you're in a third grade classroom when that kid is old enough to potentially donate, he'll remember that he once met a kidney donor, you know. So it makes a real difference and every single kid listening to this podcast has just met a kidney donor. I heard him on Incredible Kids podcast 15 years ago when I was seven.
Speaker 2:I also wanted to say what Minuka shared before. Minuka, you said that you could hardly remember a Shabbos meal where it didn't come up, and it just makes me laugh because I know that in general, when people, when something is important to you in your life, you bring it up, it somehow connects to every Parsha, connects to every Yontif, and it's an incredible thing because that really shows that your mitzvah became your identity. It's probably one of the things about you. I'm sure we can learn a lot more about what you do. That mitzvah became part of who you are, so it's very cool.
Speaker 7:Obviously, you can only donate one kidney, so I don't have the ability to donate a kidney again. As time goes on, anyone who follows Renewal or hears about what they're doing is they're doing more and more transplants every single year. Someone asked me a few weeks ago there's so many more people that need kidneys. Now, all of a sudden, they're doing so many more transplants and I said no, there's always been people that need kidneys. A lot of people weren't getting them because there just simply weren't enough donors that were able to and willing to do it. And the more you talk about it and the more you share it and the more you publicize it. You know I have a bumper sticker on my car that says you're following a live kidney donor. I have a sign in front of my house that said proud kidney donor lives here. Asked me how I did it? I wear t shirts. If I go to like you know, we go on trips If I'm wearing a t shirt, I'll wear a t shirt that says one kidney club.
Speaker 2:Asked me how people stop you and say what happened to your other kidney uh, yeah, I have had people stop me.
Speaker 7:Actually, last time, when we went to lego land at winter break, we had, uh, someone come up to us and she was basically crying. She said that she's in lego land on like a make-a-wish trip for their kid, who had kidney failure and got a kidney transplant as a kid, and she was like so grateful and thankful that there's people out there that are, you know, willing to donate the kidney. That wasn, that wasn't a matter of. You know, let's promote kidney donation, maybe they'll donate a kidney. That was just straight up. You know a massive Kidish Hashem moment where, you know, I had this person who came up to me just crying about it.
Speaker 7:I do get a lot of comments. I have people say like, okay, we get it. You donated a kidney, yay for you. Now let's move. This is about getting more people kinis. If that means putting on bumper stickers and signs and talking about it, every year, on the anniversary that I donate a kinis, I make a kiddish inshul. I speak about it. I speak about the idea that, even if you can't do this chesed, find the chesed that you're able to do. Find the chesed that's unique to you, that you're capable of doing more so than an average person. Try to figure that out.
Speaker 7:We're on this world, so serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you know chesed was one of the things that this world was built on A town like Baltimore Baltimore, I think, has 70-something donors. That happens because my neighbor did it, my friend did it, my uncle did it, my cousin did it and I hear about it. I see people the guy at the grocery store did it and they're normal, regular people. Maybe this is something I could do. Never thought I would do it, but maybe I should think about it. That's the way we could get more people to have kidneys without actually giving another kidney.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome. Minuka, is there any advice that you can give to kids and families who we can encourage to get involved in doing a chesed?
Speaker 6:Try to do the chesed that is harder for you, not the ones that's like okay, I'm going to go and pick the garbage off the kitchen floor because my mother asked me to, and you know what. I'm there anyways, I might as well go do something. You should also do that. Go out of your comfort zone, yes, and do something that's hard for you and you'll get it's much more scar. Have you ever done anything like that? A few months ago, my great-grandparents moved in with us. It's been a little bit hard, but I work on it and it's easier for me now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're saying that precisely the fact that it's hard is what's making you stretch that chassid muscle a little bit more. It's very rewarding now. Well, keep up that mindset. Thank you for sharing that example. A lot of schools and seminaries have like chassid programs or like required chassid hours, and I don't want to say anything negative about them because the idea is nice. You know, the idea is think of others, you know, get involved in doing a chassid. My experience was that a lot of people just would say, okay, I'm gonna go to someone's house who has cute kids and I'm gonna take them to the swings and check off. I did chassid for the week, right, and then you were able to pass the term with your chassid grade or whatever. It's just a shame because really, if they knew, maybe and I'm sure there are schools who do it differently, you know what I'm saying Like, I'm sure there are schools who maybe try to get people chassid opportunities that match with who they are and what they can contribute, but maybe not. Maybe, like you're saying, maybe also something that would be a little harder for them, but it should be more of a focus of like let's learn how to do chesed properly, but you know what we're learning it here, right? Because sometimes people think that what they're doing is the ultimate chesed and really it's quite easy for them.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was in seminary I said, oh, I have chesed hours because I had cousins who lived down the block from my seminary, had tons of kids can I know how in a little tiny apartment, and I thought I was gonna like be their Superman. I'm coming, I'm gonna make their life in order. Meanwhile, they didn't need me for anything. They had a two-bedroom apartment with tons of kids and they didn't need my help with anything. Their mother was like go outside and take them to the swings and of course I enjoyed going because they were cute, but didn't make me feel good. I didn't have that feeling of like I did a chesed.
Speaker 2:So ultimately and this is a much longer story I ended up seeking my own chesed in addition that I didn't have to do it for chesed hours because I wanted it. I wanted to find something that was going to be more of a challenge and stretch that muscle a little bit and also really make an impact and feel like, wow, I did something hard. Then you can check off. You did your chesed and then you feel the check inside of you. If that makes any sense, because we want that at the end of the day it makes us feel like we're doing a bodas Hashem. You guys are super inspiring. I love the dynamic going on over here where we can be open and honest with each other in a playful way, and I, like your little sister and brother who are popping up from behind, hi, hi guys. This is so exciting to meet you.
Speaker 7:Do you want to say, hi, this is our big Tehillim girl.
Speaker 2:What's your name?
Speaker 7:What's your name?
Speaker 2:Hi Bracha. Who's behind you over there, menucha?
Speaker 7:Who's that?
Speaker 2:Yisrael David. Hi, yisrael David. Well, it's so good to meet you guys. You're all incredible kids. Friedman family. Thank you so much. And, who knows? I hope that this conversation inspires more families to talk about chassad openly and what kind of chassadim their family could get involved with perhaps kidney donation or perhaps something else, thank you, thank you. It should be a big sluts for your family. Continuing on and keep it up. This has been really great. Thank you so much, and now it's time for homework.
Speaker 1:Oh, come on, not that kind.
Speaker 2:Okay, incredible kids. This week's episode was all about big chassad, that kind that like stretches you. You know, the kind that makes you like a little nervous but also makes a huge difference. We heard about Bina. She gave away her beautiful hair four times so somebody who's going through chemo treatment could feel confident again. We met a man and his daughter, mr Friedman, or Friedman as he's called, right, who gave away literally part of himself to save another Jew's life.
Speaker 2:So here's your challenge let's all think of something, something, something that you can give, not just what's easy, not what's convenient, something that will take effort, courage, a little more than what you would usually be comfortable doing. Maybe it's your time, time to help a sibling. Maybe it's your favorite toy. Donate it to someone who has less than you. Maybe it's doing something kind for someone in your bunking camp or a classmate you don't usually talk to. We're going to call this the chesed that costs, because real chesed, real kindness sometimes costs a little bit of your comfort, and that's what makes it so powerful and that's what has the power to change you as a person. So go out there, do that chesed that costs and then tell me about it. Email me your story ikidspodcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:I want to hear, and maybe even share your kindness with all the incredible kids, because when you give something up to give to another person, that's when you become a true leader, a real, true kind of superhero. I hope you all enjoy this episode as much as I did producing it, and I want to wish everybody an incredible day, and I can't wait to see you all at the Incredible Kids unmuted event on June 24th Tuesday in Elizabeth, new Jersey. Run to get those tickets, incrediblekidsorg, and I cannot wait to greet you there. And don't forget to like this episode. Share it with a friend. Comment below whatever you got to do to spread the mission of Incredible Kids to every single Jewish home in the world, till next time, everyone.
Speaker 3:Are you an Incredible Kid? Send your story to ikidspodcast at gmailcom. Subscribe today to the Incredible.
Speaker 1:Kids Podcast. Thanks for listening and remember you are all Incredible Kids.
