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
Made By Me: Big Ideas Start Small
Ever seen a kid turn a hobby into something you can touch, wear, or play? We sit down with two creators who prove that tiny steps can transform into big wins. First, Rochel Tzivia walks us through her sewing journey—from learning to thread a bobbin to designing and stitching her own Bas Mitzvah dress. She shares smart alteration tricks, how to rescue a too-short dress with a new tier, and why a dedicated sewing nook under the stairs changed everything. Along the way, she honors her great-grandmother’s seamstress legacy and reminds us that the real craft is patience: pin, cut, sew, unpick, breathe, repeat.
Then we meet Rafael, the ten-year-old cofounder of Mentsch Cards, a mitzvah trading card game you can find in Judaica shops and online. He breaks down how each card teaches a single mitzvah with fun facts and gameplay stats, how silver and gold cards work, and why you have to complete five real-life tasks to earn that shiny gold. Behind the scenes, he and his father researched Sefer HaChinuch and Rambam, hired an illustrator, found a factory, and partnered with a distributor—real product steps, kid-level heart. With 27 stores on board and plans for new languages, he’s building a brand that turns collecting into character.
What ties these stories together is a simple truth: small actions compound. A custom hem boosts confidence. A card pack nudges kindness at home. If you’ve got an idea, make the first version for yourself. Set up your space so starting is easy, share your progress, and let momentum grow. We’re celebrating kids who finish what they start—and inviting you to do the same.
If this inspired you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Your support helps us spotlight more incredible kids—and might be the nudge another young creator needs to begin.
Hey kids, welcome back to the next episode of the Incredible Kids Podcast. My name is Lord Seary, and I will be your host through this incredible journey.
SPEAKER_03:We are going to meet many incredible kids. They are going to share with us their stories.
SPEAKER_02:Some of them super cool and different like we've never heard before.
SPEAKER_03:Some meetups are just ordinary, but all of them incredible. If you have great ideas, email me today at iKidspodcast at gmail.com. And now it's time for Incredible!
SPEAKER_02:It's time for the joke of the day! Yay! Today's joke is brought to you by David Abba B from Wynwood, Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_08:I used to think air was free until I bought a bag of chips.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to Incredible Kids Podcast. And today we have a very special episode for you. But first, we need to announce the winners from this year's Sukhus Trivia Game. Every person who played and submitted their scores was entered into the grand raffle, and here are the results. The winner of our comic book from Torah Treasures is the Gorovitzes from Team Sukha Sitters. The winner of the first Parsha book donated by Mosaica Press is the Sokolov family of the Sokolov Sukkahopper team. The winner of the second Parsha book from Mosaica Press is the Rosenstock family from the Rosenstock team. And the winner of$50 to Amazon, donated by an anonymous sponsor, is the Shoket family from Team The Incredible Kid. And now for the very biggest, the grand prize donated by Naki Audio, the new Naki Bolt, with a six-month subscription to Naki Audio is none other than the Schwartz family of the Schwartz Hopper team. Congratulations to all the winners. And if you are one of these lucky winners, then make sure to send an email over to iKidspodcast at gmail.com and send us your full mailing address. So excited for you. And now for today's episode. A snack, a bracelet, a Lego invention. What if that little thing became something real, like your own clothing or even a product that's sold in stores? Today we're gonna meet two kids who did exactly that. Rachel Tevia and Rafael have big ideas and show us how they can make their dreams possible. But before we cut straight to those special interviews, I wanna say that I received a beautiful voice message from Toby Bender reminding us of such an important lesson. And I'm gonna play it for all of you now.
SPEAKER_09:Hi, my name is Toby Bender, and I want to tell you a story that sometimes you don't realize that small things can make a big difference. I was in the airport, I was going on the plane, I was like bored, so I decided I'm gonna write thank you cards to my teachers, like I usually did when I was younger. Sometimes I still do. And I went to write think yours and have a great summer. I drew like a small palm tree. There's like this nice toward us who walked by, she gave me a good drink and everything. I was like, okay. My mother was like to me, like, why don't you like write like a letter to the stewardess? I'm like, okay. Yeah, I was like so excited. I was like thinking in my brain, like a little like, I'm not sure if I want to like write like a letter to her, like whatever. I'm like, okay, I'll write her a letter. I drew like a small palm chair, we would have a great summer. And I gave her this like really pretty card, and she was like beaming. She was like so excited. She said on the intercom, like, thank you. I wanted to congratulate on Toby Bender, this girl on aisle nine sitting over there in the front seats. Please, round the applause for Toby. She gave me this beautiful card. I'm so impressed, and everyone's like clapping, Woo Toby. They were like cheering. It was like on the airplane, there's like a thousand people. I'm like, what did I do? And sometimes we don't realize the smallest little things, actions that we take in our day, can make a really big difference. And I didn't realize that even so I was little, and now I'm in sixth grade. I was in third grade then. I didn't realize that small things can make such a big difference.
SPEAKER_02:I loved, loved hearing that voice message. And it's such an important reminder for the topic we're about to do now, because you may listen and say, wow, these kids are so talented, they're doing such big things. But remember, little things, especially little things that you can take and brighten someone else's day with, they suddenly don't seem so little anymore. We asked our listeners what's something you made all by yourself. Here's what they had to say.
SPEAKER_08:Hi, my name is Ariella Small. I'm nine years old, and the thing that I made by myself is a book. Hi, my name is Salva Kahn, and I'm seven years old, and I made a teaching all by myself with rainbow limbs and beads. Hi, my name is Ricky and I'm 10 years old. Something that I made by myself is I made pancakes from scratch.
SPEAKER_04:Nurry Tepper, and I'm 11 years old. I once made a mini doll in my class and it came out really cute.
SPEAKER_02:And now please enjoy my interview with Rachel Tivia. Rachel Tivia, we call you both names. Yes. I love that. I've never met someone with that combination before. It's my first time. Yeah, I never met anyone either. First of all, you have a great mic, and I love that. It's so fancy and official. Do you own that? Or you had to get it from somewhere?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, we don't we bought it. Special for the interview? Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:That's dedicated. Maybe you'll start your own podcast now. Maybe. I don't know. That's awesome. Where are you joining us from? From Chicago, Illinois.
SPEAKER_00:Chicago. Chicago. I will show you around. I love it.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. Tell us about yourself. Let's meet you.
SPEAKER_10:Okay, so my name is Rachel Tivia. I go to Joan Dexbyakov. I have four siblings. Um, I have a bunch of hobbies, including sewing. I enjoy playing piano and I like reading.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. You know what I find? I find that kids who are talented appreciate different hobbies and activities often come in bundles. Usually it's not one thing. Usually it's like a few different things. Yeah. I'm not surprised to hear that you have a few interests.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, I like all these things a lot.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I mean, because a creative person is not just gonna stick to one thing, usually. They're like into learning about different activities and enjoying themselves in different ways. Yeah. That I guess describes you. Yeah. Okay, what grade are you in in Join Dex Week Sacco? I'm in seventh grade. Is that like a different section of your school or it's like part of one big thing?
SPEAKER_10:We have like junior high, it's like junior high school, and that starts sixth grade. Got it.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_10:So there's like sixth and seventh upstairs, and eighth grade has like their own wing downstairs.
SPEAKER_02:Fancy. Okay, you're almost there. But that means like you're the boss of like where you guys are. Like seventh grade. Yeah, we're almost at the top. Because eighth grade is out of the way. So it's almost like yeah.
SPEAKER_10:So like only the sixth and seventh are upstairs. So like we're just like the oldest of everyone up there.
SPEAKER_02:When I was little, I remember thinking the seventh graders were the coolest because the seventh graders were the bus monitors on our bus.
SPEAKER_10:Oh, so on our bus, there's like eighth graders and they're the bus monitors, but then all the seventh graders pretend to be bus monitors.
SPEAKER_02:We're here today to talk about your sewing. I was very interested when you reached out to me to say that you are into sewing and P.S. You reached out to me a long time ago and I didn't forget and I kept track of it. I think what got me the most excited was that you sew things that you actually use yourself. You're not just like doing sewing because you're like learning how to use a sewing machine. You're like getting right into it and you're creating things that you can use in your everyday life or for special occasions. Then you might be wondering, like, why do I care so much? Like, that's so random that I think that's cool. But little secret, I don't know if I ever shared this before on Incredible Kids. Right before I got married, a long time ago, my parents got me a sewing machine for my birthday present. Really? Because they knew that I always wanted to learn how to sew. And you ever learn? Well, what else would happen? I was dating my husband then, so things were getting serious around the same time as my birthday. And then we got engaged and we got married, and I was like, no, I still need to learn how to sew. So when I had my tiny little apartment, I took out my sewing machine and I made a big mess, cut up old skirts, tried to make things out of them, and I was pretty good until one day the bobbin got jammed. Oh no. Rachel to tell everyone what a bobbin is.
SPEAKER_10:So there's two parts like of a sewing machine, the top and the bottom. The bottom is called a bobbin. In order to sew, top thread needs to loop into the bottom thread so it connects. So the bobbin is the bottom thread that loops together to like sew it together.
SPEAKER_02:Correct. And it's very technical. A machine is cool. It almost like could operate by itself, but then there's like a lot of like little things that could jam, and like you have to be so patient. And I think when the bobbin jammed the first time, I fixed it. The second time I fixed it the third time, I just was like, I can't. It was too hard for me. Also, I was like getting used to being married and whatever. But I moved with it when I moved to Baltimore. And I still want to learn one day, but I'm so excited to hear from you about your journey. So take us back to the very beginning. Like, what got you into it and where did this come from?
SPEAKER_10:Okay, so my mother thought sewing was a very good thing to do. So she didn't have enough time to take sewing lessons because she's a very busy mother. So she brought up the idea to me and she asked me if I was interested. And I took the idea. I never knew I'd come this far. And I started taking lessons in fourth grade. How old were you? I was like nine or ten.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Is that like an organized group or like you found someone to teach you one-on-one? I had a friend in my grade.
SPEAKER_10:She was taking sewing lessons and she asked if I want to go with her. So I started taking sewing lessons with her, but hers only ended like for like a short time. She only took sewing lessons for a short time, and I just continued as a private lesson.
SPEAKER_02:Sometimes things don't speak to everybody. You bring someone on, and it reminds me, I was reading this book about someone who did a lot of Kirov, Rabbit Mayer's fish, sir. He would inspire somebody to try a Shabbos mill at the coastal, and that guy would come and maybe he would be interested, maybe he wouldn't. But then he would bring a friend just to schlep him along, and suddenly the friend is the one who wants to become from, you know? I don't know why that just reminded me of it, but like sometimes that happens where like you're the friend that joins because you're like kind of copying their idea in the beginning, even though, and I say copying in quotes, because like you're not really copying, you're interested. They have the idea of the other. Everyone has the same likes. Not everyone has the same likes. And then you see how it works. Exactly. Right. Okay, so then you started then, and I guess your mother, like, I could totally relate to that. She was probably just like, Oh, I wish I could. So she wants to like almost like live it through you.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, that's basically what happened. So now I just teach her everything and she's able to do tons of things. Oh now you're teaching your mom how to sew? Like, like basic alterations. Every house has things that need to be altered. So, like, correct.
SPEAKER_02:What are alterations for the listener who doesn't know what that is?
SPEAKER_10:So, alterations is like when you have like clothes that don't fit right or you want to change like how they are, and you can do many different things to make them fit right or to make them look different if you don't like the look. So, for example, we have like skirts that like the waistband is too big, so you can open it up some way and you can make the elastic smaller so then it fits your waist properly. Or like sometimes necklines on like not Jewish companies' clothing, they're too big, so we can make them smaller and we could wear them.
SPEAKER_02:Correct. It's amazing. So you're basically fixing things that are pre-existing and you're making it work for you.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah. Like once I made um a dress that was like my mother's, where there was a hole on the top that we couldn't fix, so we made it into a skirt. So she didn't have to throw out the whole dress, we made it into a skirt.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh, I love that.
SPEAKER_10:There is a such a dress that the sleeves were like really long, like they were like good, but the dress part was like too short. So I just took black fabric and I made a tear on the bottom, so I could wear.
SPEAKER_02:You added an extra tier. When you wear it, you probably think it came like that. Right, yeah. I love that. When I go shopping, that's I think when I really think about sewing the most. Sometimes I'll be shopping and I'll see something and I'm like, oh my gosh, if I only knew how to sew, I would probably use the sleeves from this and put them onto this and or more simple, like you said, just sew up the slit or take it in over here because it's two sizes too big, it could come sew in handy. So it's like such a practical. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10:Then I also sew things from like scratch, and it's really fun to do that too, because then I see like my fittest product. Amazing.
SPEAKER_02:What's the most recent thing that you sewed?
SPEAKER_10:Right now I'm in the middle of something. I'm in the middle of sewing a white dress for Yom Kipper.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_10:And before that, like I sewed my Bas Mitsu dress.
SPEAKER_02:And that was like the major recent one. Oh my gosh. Tell us about that. Because you must be at a high level if you're willing to try that. You want to look your best at your boss mitzvah, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_10:Right. So you could basically go online and look for clothes, but if you want to like design it yourself, it's like fun to design something that you're gonna be wearing at your boss metzo for yourself. So I decided to do that. My birthday's in the summer, but like started like in the winter. We went to the fabric store and we bought fabric. We took that fabric and I went to my sewing teacher's house.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I was gonna say, how do you even know how much fabric to get without like a proper pattern or something? Right.
SPEAKER_10:We we didn't have a proper pattern, like some of the pattern we like made, we took two parts of pattern, like it wasn't like one specific pattern that we stuck to. But the lady at the counter who was trying to cut the fabric for us, we kept on asking her, like, should it be two yards or one yard? Or one and a half yards and this and that, and how much of this and how much of that? And we got the right amount. I started sewing it, and of course I took breaks in between to sew things for like Yam and Tovim or anything that I wanted.
SPEAKER_02:You gave yourself a long time to work on it.
SPEAKER_10:Right, it wasn't so urgent. And my sewing teacher said it was good to start early because she once had a student who was sewing her boss master chest, and COVID came, and they only had one thing left to do. So they were able to do it, but if they would have started like sooner, then they wouldn't have like been able to finish it. So she said it was good to start early. So we started early and I finished it.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's amazing. Okay, that's uh so what kind of fabric did you use? What kind of material?
SPEAKER_10:My color was purple, because purple is my favorite color.
SPEAKER_01:P-U-R-P-L-E. Purple. Purple. P U R P L E. Purple's what that spells.
SPEAKER_10:The top was like a mesh or like tool, and then it had like flowers that were embroidered on it, stems and things, and there were like pop-up flowers on it. It's like, on the material. Yeah. I couldn't just wear it like that. I had a put lining under it. So what we did is kind of we like sewed a shirt out of the lining and we connected it with the tool part with the flowers so it wouldn't be like see-through. And then we got like a different type of tool that was like thinner for the bottom to be like flowy and everything. That we like attached to the top part. We're trying to aim for this certain look. My mother saw a picture and we wanted to like try to copy it. Like different. So you had some inspiration. Right. Usually when I we have inspiration and something that I want, and then sometimes it comes out like completely different. So we put this like ribbon ruffle thing, it looks like a ruffle. So it looked like you were kind of connecting two things. It was just like fake. So it made it easier. It looked like tears kind of on the bottom.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that sounds amazing. Now that you're sewing already a couple of years, do you feel like you need the help of your sewing teacher less? Like it's good to have her to continue giving you tips and skills, but do you feel like you need her help less and you're more independent?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, I I do need her help less. I do a lot of things at home. Like she sends me home with like homework. Um, I could like sew like a lot of basic things. A lot of times we try to do something new so I could learn a new skill. And then she sends me home with the parts I know how to do, and I do it at home, and then we do like the new thing. Like I recently sewed something with like a collar, and I never did a collar before. So we did that there. She taught me how to do snaps there. And it's just like a lot of things we try to do something new so I could learn different skills, and I don't have to do like one thing over and over again. Because if I'm just like doing like a straight line every time I'm making a dress or a shirt, it's like the same thing, just the dress is longer. So like that's not getting practice out of anything. It's like not like good to do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because then you'll be able to confidently sew whatever you can dream up at a certain point. In any skill we do, in any talent, in any hobby, in any profession, like you always need to be learning new things. Right. Really. Everyone, everyone. Otherwise, it gets boring. People will get bored of your talent eventually. You'll get bored of your own talent. If all your dresses looked like the regular A-line dress, that was just like the simplest thing to me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10:Like, yeah, I could do simple things at home by myself, but why would I continue doing it if I could learn something else at sewing and I could do that at home once I learn it.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. You mentioned that you have your own sewing machine.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So tell us about your sewing machine.
SPEAKER_10:Okay, so I had this sewing machine for a long time. It was my great-grandmother's, the one who I'm named after. Well. She came to America after like the war. At least she needed a job in order to go to America. So she said she was a seamstress. They tested her and they said she was a second-class seamstress, meaning that she could like sew in any like tailor store. She came to America and she married in America, and she had her like sewing machine and she sewed at a coat factory. And then she did like alterations at home for extra money. She actually didn't want her kids, which is my grandmother, she didn't want them to learn how to sew because she wanted some to get a good education. But now, like sewing is like a different thing today. Like maybe like a hundred years ago it was like not such a good job. You could get like a better job, but now I'm like kind of continuing her legacy, and it's like cool that I'm doing that. But I have her machine and I've been using it. And lately it was not working, so I got a new machine. I still have it. I still have it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Does it still work at all?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, it does work. It's just like sometimes I kept on like unthreading, and it was just annoying to use like a machine that was really old. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Well, first of all, it's very cool that it worked at all, even like when you used it in the beginning.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, we're sitting in our basement and I started sewing, and I'm like, oh wow, I already have a sewing machine, like I could start sewing. Like most people who start sewing, they don't have a sewing machine that maybe like their parents want them to work up to and see like that they actually are gonna sew in order to get the sewing machine. Yeah, but we already had the sewing machine, so we used it.
SPEAKER_02:And now you earned your right to get a new one.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, yeah. A modern one. Like, but usually the old ones are actually better. And I told my sewing teacher, like, you say like that they're better, but this one's like really old. It's like 70 years old. And like is the company singer? Is that yeah, I think. I think. Yeah, yeah. I have now a modern singer and an old singer. They look nothing alike.
SPEAKER_02:So vintage. Like things right, yeah, things change. They definitely do. But sewing is the same art. I want to go back to what you said before about in the olden days. I think like when your great grandmother was a seamstress, it wasn't so unique. I would imagine that most people knew how to sew in some capacity. Maybe not perfect, but like the one in those days, like like what do they do?
SPEAKER_10:Like what did they do already? Right. Like a lot of people like they sew their clothes. It's like wasn't like every like woman probably knew how to like sew up something. Right, like basic. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Like my great grandmother brought over I don't know if she brought them from before the war or she made them once she moved to America, but she was like very into embroidery and like we have in the family these tablecloths that she made. And like when you look at them, you're like, Whoa, these people, you know, they really they had such developed talent. They really, really focused on it, and it was probably something that their mothers taught them, and it wasn't like a unique thing, but the fact that you're bringing this back, so to speak, is yeah, so cool. Especially that you're named for her, that means that you probably never met her.
SPEAKER_10:My grandmother's like really proud of me because it was her mother, and I'm just doing it now, and she never learned how to sew. She embroiders, but she doesn't sew, and she's just like really happy that's it.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, that's really cool. Have you ever sewed a present for anybody?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, a talus bag for my father.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_10:And then I sewed a matching one for my grandfather. Wow. How long does that take you? Like each one? So a lot of people you might think like it's just a square. It would be easy if it was just a square, but you have to add lining to it. Right. And then since the ends of it like shred, but you have to do something at the end to make it not do that. So it's called surging. You have to surge like all the edges of the fabric so it doesn't do that, because otherwise it's just gonna shed all over. And then we put lining on the inside and we put a zipper. So it probably took like two to three weeks, so now they have matching talus bags. Do they use them? Yeah, yeah. My father and my grandfather they use them all the time. My father's a Tishabbas one, so he uses every Shabbos.
SPEAKER_02:How do you feel when you see them using it?
SPEAKER_10:I feel like really proud of myself, and I'm happy that they get to use something that I made for them. It's special.
SPEAKER_02:I've also seen Especially for a mitzvah, also. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10:I've also sewn an apron for my grandmother. It had like cookies on it. We have a cricket, so so we cricketed on number one softie for her, and I gave it to her.
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure she loved that.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, she did. Once for Hanukkah, I sewed my sister like a skirt and the hat, I think, for her American girl doll. I think I once sewed my brother a pillow. I sewed my cousin's pillows, and we like took a picture with all of them and we wrote all their names on it with fabric markers. And then I sew a lot of things for myself. I'm wearing something that I sewed today.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh, you made this dress?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, so we bought the fabric. There's like a thing called elastic thread. We put it in the bobbin and we sewed with it, so then it made it like scrunched up on the sleeves.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the sleeves are like uh it has a it has a name for that. Like, is it called like rouge, like rougeon or something? It's like the sleeves are like pulled and gathered. It's so cool. I can't believe we made that. Whoa.
SPEAKER_10:And then we put like an elastic on the waist to make it like a style.
SPEAKER_02:I never in my life would have guessed that what you're wearing is something you made yourself. I mean, now that I'm getting to know you, I believe it. One time in high school I made myself my own Chavez robe, but I didn't know how to sew. So not now. No, did you wear it? I got so many compliments on it, but I didn't sew it. I used a glue gun. I use a glue gun.
SPEAKER_10:Oh. That's so funny. Yeah, sometimes that's like an easy thing just to do, but it doesn't really stay so well. I mean stayed.
SPEAKER_02:It was like a very slinky fabric, I think. So like it just was very like glueable. It was just like an arts and crafts project. If you looked at like the inside of it, you would be laughing.
SPEAKER_10:Once I glue guns like pillows together for fun, because I didn't want to sew.
SPEAKER_02:Because for that kind of thing, it's okay to make an arts and crafts project out of it.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, but you definitely can't do that for a basement dress.
SPEAKER_02:What about perm costumes? Do you ever get involved in that?
SPEAKER_10:We hot glue our perm costumes. This past perm, our family dressed up as school supplies. That's okay. So I was like a notebook. We just took cardboard and wire and we like connected it with that. It's just like easier, and it's costumes, like I don't need to work so hard to sew something. Sometimes it's annoying to go down and like no one's down in the basement. My sewing room's in the basement, and I just don't want to go down, or I'm doing something else that I think is better for the moment.
SPEAKER_02:And it's not the kind of thing that you could bring with you anywhere if you have a whole clunky sewing machine, you're not moving everything.
SPEAKER_10:I I used to not have a sewing room. I used to have to bring my sewing machine everywhere to slap out my heavy sewing machine. The old ones are really heavy. I had to get all my supplies, my pins, my needles, thread, and matching thread, and this and that, and I'd have to slap it all out onto the dining room table. And I couldn't just leave it there because it's a dining room table. I'd put it away right after, and I didn't want to do that every time. So I asked my mother, and we have like a place under basement stairs, and we used it for storage. So we emptied out the storage and we put it somewhere else. We put a table in it, my sewing machine, and now I actually have a sewing room.
unknown:Yeah!
SPEAKER_10:Woo-hoo! So I have all my supplies in there. That's awesome. I have like a set of drawers so I could keep things in. That's an actual place for me to sit and sew so I don't have to slap out my sewing machine every single time. And I go. I do so because when I get into it, it's fun. Sometimes it's hard to just get down there when everyone's doing something else, but I really enjoy it once I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_02:What would you say are some of the challenges that come up? I mean, you just kind of set a challenge because sometimes you're just not in the mood of going down and doing it and starting a big project.
SPEAKER_10:But what would you say is like the main challenge that you So besides for like going down, it's like when you do something and you think you did it so right, you're so like sure that you did it right, and then I take it out of the sewing machine, cut the threads, and I see I sewed it on backwards. My heart drops. I'm like, this is so annoying. It looks perfect besides for the things that the seams are on the outside. I can't do it like that. But then I have to like seam rip it, I have to like take out all the stitches, and it's annoying to do that. Because my favorite part of sewing is like the actual sewing part. But there's not only like sewing and sewing.
SPEAKER_11:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10:You have to like pin the fabrics together. You need to cut the fabric first. If you mess up, you have to seam rip it. And things sometimes like doing that is just like not fun at all. So sometimes I just get really mad and like I get worked up. So I try again usually. Sometimes when I'm so mad I don't realize what I'm doing. So there's no point on just doing it again because I'm just gonna mess up again. So then I take a break and I tell myself, I'll come down tomorrow, I'll come down in ten minutes, I'll come down in a half hour when I'm more calm because I can't do sewing when I'm mad. It just doesn't work.
SPEAKER_02:It takes a lot of patience and having high frustration could really just mess you up even more.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, no one's like logical when they're mad. We're learning about Korach and the Hamesh, and he just wasn't logical, he's doing. He lost his entire life just for the silly fight. Like you don't do anything normal when you're mad. So 100%. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:If Korach would have taken a break, maybe things would have turned out differently for him.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, or if he would have realized that Moshe wasn't like the one making up all these things, because Moshe doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_02:When you learned that in school, were you like thinking about your sewing?
SPEAKER_10:No, I just connected it on the spot. I mean, because I don't know. Sometimes we just like sometimes I just say something and then like, oh, this reminds me of this. Just like your No, I love that.
SPEAKER_02:For sure. I'm the same way. And I also think that the reason why we learn these stories in the Torah is for many reasons, but one of the reasons is because there's Midos lessons to learn from every single occurrence in the Torah. It's not just a storybook, like for us to like, oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_10:We just learned that like the Torah only writes things down that we can learn from. They only talk about the things that we can learn from.
SPEAKER_02:So Right. No extra words. Right. Yeah. Everything is there for a reason. Right. Yeah, that's a really good lesson that you took away from it. What's your next like big hope for the future? Like, do you feel like sewing's gonna be something bigger for you?
SPEAKER_10:So a lot of people ask me, like, do I want to be a seamstress when I grow up? And my answer to them is like a straight no. I don't. I don't want to sit all day and like be a seamstress because that's not my thing. I like moving around. I like getting up. I'm sewing fine. Like my sewing lessons are for an hour and a half. That's not that long. I could sit. But like I don't want- That is a long time. Right. I don't want my profession to be like sewing all day. I mean, I sit in school, so that's like good enough. I don't like wanna like sit when I get older. I'd rather do something more exciting, and I'd rather do like sewing maybe like as a side thing. Like, of course, I'll be able to do like tons of alterations for my kids, and that's gonna be nice. I don't have to like pay extra money to buy like super expensive Jewish clothing.
SPEAKER_02:Or even so, I'm saying like things happen, and you probably notice when you buy clothing that some of the skirts and dresses that we buy, us girls, some of them have a large hem and some have like a tiny little hem on the bottom. And if it has a big hem, that means that if you grow two inches, you could actually take the hem down and get more use out of it.
SPEAKER_10:Sometimes we actually do that. We make it like long and that it won't like look good on me now, and then we make a big hem, and then a few years later I could just let it down instead of just working hard on something and sewing it, and then I could use it also for like a long time. Sometimes things like turn out sort, and I'm like upset. Like, what am I gonna get out of this? One and a half years, like that's not good. I wanna like wear the things I sew.
SPEAKER_02:It's like if you're lucky, one and a half years, I mean you're still growing at twelve years old.
SPEAKER_10:I yeah, right. But like I wanna wear things for a long time. It's like sad to say go back to things that I sewed and I worked so hard on. But then I have I have two sisters under me, so then I get to see them wear it.
SPEAKER_02:So what advice would you give to other kids starting out with sewing specifically? If somebody is interested in this as a hobby, but you've been doing it a couple years now, so what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_10:So it's an excellent hobby. It's a good thing to know how to do. You really just need to like start. It's like really relaxing and it's fun to do. You kind of just need to like get into it. Like maybe it's like annoying at the beginning, like mess up a lot. Like, you need to just get into it.
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure there's a lot of disappointments that happen. You mentioned before. How would you tell them to deal with those disappointments? And this could be advice for anyone dealing with disappointments.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, disappointments are hard. Like when you expect something and it doesn't like do like kind of like the right thing, like what you're thinking. But Hajam has a reason for everything, so whatever he wants you to do is what you're gonna do. And you just have to try. Really, that's all you have to do.
SPEAKER_05:You don't have to be afraid of God. The journey is beautiful, be fun. Find your way.
SPEAKER_02:Don't be afraid of you. I don't know that there's a successful person in the world in any industry, in any profession that didn't mess up or didn't have disappointments on a major scale. And the way they get to success and the way they get to that like amazing status that they're at, and in your mind you could be thinking, oh, a big lawyer, oh, a rabbi, or somebody who's an expert seamstress, or whatever. Like, let's think of anybody, they had to pick themselves up and try again. Otherwise, they would be nowhere. No one's perfect. If they would go the other way and say, forget about it, like this is just you know, sometimes you try something and it's not for you. Yeah. Sometimes it's just not your thing, and that's okay, but don't look at yourself as a failure, right?
SPEAKER_10:Sometimes I wish I could just like give up. Like, like, why am I even doing this? Like, I just get so mad, like I can't do this. It's just like so annoying, and I just wanna give up. But then I realize, like, I could do it. Look how many things I've sewn. I could look at the things that I really liked sewing and the things that I really enjoy doing, and I I don't wanna quit anymore. I don't want to just quit because I'm mad at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:You have so many tangible things, like you have so many actual reminders of how far you've come, also. Like when you see the tallest bag and you admire your bestmas and like these beautiful milestone moments, it's like right in front of your face. Sometimes you have like a talent that is not so measurable. This is like, wow, I couldn't have done this two years ago to this level of professionalism and seamlessness, no pun intended. Does it ever come in handy for school at all, or you have to wait till like production in high school?
SPEAKER_10:Well, we have a uniform V neck sweatshirt. So like the V-NAC was really wide. So once I sew that, I sew scrunchies. Every time I go to school, I wear a scrunchie. I sometimes just sew like any colour scrunchies with like extra fabric because it's like a really easy thing to make and it like takes five minutes. Everyone asks me, like, Ralphia, did you make it? You make it, did you make it? Sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's no. I mean, sometimes if I'm already sewing something, then I'll just quickly do it. People ask me, you sew it's so cute, it's so good. And then I feel proud of myself, like I did it. Or like I go to sewing right after school. So I have to bring a bag of like the things I'm sewing so I could bring it back to my sewing teacher after I did my homework. Everyone asks me, like, is that your sewing? Is that your sewing? Can I see it? Kaisiya. And everyone's like looking at my sewing, like, well my gosh, it's so cool. And they call the next friend, and the next friend, like, oh, she's doing it. It just like feels so good for people like deconfliping on it. Like, I'm just like so proud of myself, like that I did.
SPEAKER_02:As you should be. Do you ever go to the store and see like a cute scrunchie, a skirt, like anything in the store that you're like, oh my gosh, I could totally make this myself.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, yeah. A lot of times you go into this and you're like, oh, this is so cute, maybe I can make it. Sometimes we get inspiration from different like things. Sometimes it's just like pictures, not even like clothing stores or my ideas. Like, I want something, like I'm picturing it in my mind, and I want to make it. So I make it.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing. So what about this Yom Kipper dress? In the very beginning, you mentioned that's what you're working on. Yeah. What are you up to with it?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, I never had like a completely white dress, and I thought it'd be good because Yom Kipper's coming up and I wanted to make something special for it. And I could use it for the summer after that. It's white.
SPEAKER_02:Make sure to leave the hem pretty big because you never know how to get it.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, yeah, that's what we're doing. We've already played that. It's having like bubble sleeves and it's like a high waist. And there's something called gathers. It's really cool how like thread works. If you put the machine on lower tension, it becomes loose. And when you cut off the bottom threads and you use the top, then you pull it and it scrunches up. That's how you make the waistline. Or like something that you want gathered. So you pull it and then you sew it together, and then it like looks like really cool. And then you could just take out the threads after and it keeps like in place.
SPEAKER_02:That sounds really cool. I have no idea what you're talking about, but I feel like I'm very visual. I would have to look at it.
SPEAKER_10:Planning on using like lace or trim somewhere to make it like look fancier. Because it's just like white material. So you want to make it like look nice, and it's for Yum Kipper. So you want it to be nice.
SPEAKER_02:Amazing. Are you nervous about getting it dirty? Um well you don't eat on Yum Kipper, so that makes it easy.
SPEAKER_10:Right, yeah. Yeah. My first year fasting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, for your baths for now. Good luck. It's hard. You should just know. Did you fast Teshuba? Yeah, I fasted Teshuba because my birthday is too bad. So Okay. So you were getting ready?
SPEAKER_10:So, yeah, kind of getting ready. I was like nervous and I just wanted to do it so I could just see how it felt.
SPEAKER_02:Like, was it awful?
unknown:Fasting?
SPEAKER_10:I don't know. Because I feel like fasting before is probably much easier because then you think I could eat if I need to. Like if I really I'm really hungry, then I can eat because I'm not actually Bas Mitzvah. But now like I'm thinking, like, I'm actually Bas Mitzvah. I can't actually break my fast. Like, I'm not.
SPEAKER_02:Like it's the real deal. Young Kippur is the most important one. But you'll survive. Everyone survives the fast.
SPEAKER_10:We're gonna be in Seal, so that's a good distraction. That's why a lot of kids like we're having school on a fast day. We usually have half a day of school on fast days. And I'm like, why are you so sad about that? Like, what else are you gonna do at home? Like, just complain to your mother? It's a really good distraction to have school on like Chong. You need distracting.
SPEAKER_02:You're very smart. I agree.
SPEAKER_10:Young Kipper is hard because you're sitting in Shaul Davning and you could just feel your stomach. It's hungry.
SPEAKER_02:Like that's why it's easier to like fast on like I do think that it's also an extra level of hard for bas mitzvah and bar mitzvah age people because I think your bodies are still growing and your body needs fuel. You might feel it a little more, but I think it gets easier as you get older, honestly. Okay.
SPEAKER_10:Thanks for the good advice.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if it's good advice or horrible advice, actually. I'm not gonna tell you it's easy. It's a big mitzvah and you're kipper, and obviously.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, it's such a like special day like that.
SPEAKER_02:You're like you're like a malach. You're gonna be like a malech in your white dress.
SPEAKER_01:Angels in the sky, in a garden full of glory.
SPEAKER_02:I brought you on here to talk about the sewing, but I'm realizing that you're an incredible kid for so many reasons. Beyond the hobby that you picked up and that you're perfecting and working at, I see that you're so easy to talk to. That's number one. Like you're so I was I was really nervous. Even if you're nervous, it doesn't show on the outside.
SPEAKER_10:And I wasn't just telling to be myself, so I keep on reminding myself mentally to be myself, be myself. Like, I I can't like have a conversation when I'm not myself, really.
SPEAKER_02:No, you can't. You end up saying like things that are like just weird, or you just freeze. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_10:I was nervous. Like, what if I'm gonna say something wrong or like it's like don't worry, if there's anyone to say something weird to, it's me.
SPEAKER_02:It's fine. That's what editing is for. Rachel Tsevia, I'm so privileged to meet you. You're inspiring me to perhaps think about getting back into sewing, but you should. I know, I really should. I wish you so much luck and I wanna see what you make. So I did. I happen to be, I didn't mention, I did see the picture of your Bas Mets Vadras. Your mother had sent it to me.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, my mother, she told me she's secretly gorgeous. You all did it's gorgeous.
SPEAKER_02:And the talus bags. I try to explain my hardest, but like I just have the picture in my mind. You did a very good job explaining it. It's so beautiful and so professional. It's awesome. I think that following your interests, your dreams, and they can change, and you'll see how it goes now that you're also honoring the legacy of your great grandmother, who literally like seems to have saved her, like it sounds like her life was helped. I we don't know what would have happened if she stayed in Europe, but like coming here saying she's a seamstress, that must have been a scary thing for her.
SPEAKER_10:And yeah, she had to sew in front of like this guard, and like it's like, am I going to America or not? Like it's it's scary. Like it's contingent on her sewing. I mean, Europe, like she really wanted to come to America. She told her husband in Europe she wouldn't marry him in Europe. She didn't want to marry him in Europe because it was like the blood soaked Lynn. She would only marry him in America. She wasn't with him before they came to America together, but they weren't married yet. She wanted to go to America and like they would have said, like, sorry, you can't sew, like, we don't know what would happen.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. One thing we could learn from that generation is like how productive they were. They always were like wing things.
SPEAKER_10:And she really never gave up. She sewed back into Europe and she could have just gave it up and did something else. Like if she decided to do what she was good at and just continue it in America, and now I'm continuing it for her.
SPEAKER_02:I'm sure she's so proud of you looking down at you and getting like all the nachas. Her name was Rachel Tivia. Both names? Yeah. So cool. Amazing. Well, thanks so much for joining us at Incredible Kids. I loved getting to meet you. You're an incredible kid. Bye. Bye. Sit back and enjoy while you got to hear my conversation with Rafael. Hi, Rafael. Welcome to Incredible Kids. I'm so excited to meet you today. Yeah. Where are you joining us from? My basement. Where is your basement located? Five Towns, Lawrence. Nice. Tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into our topic today.
SPEAKER_07:So I just turned 10. I have three siblings. Two of them are twins. Okay. And babies. And a sister. My sister is six years old, and the twins are ten months. So cute. So you're the oldest.
SPEAKER_02:A lot of responsibility over there. What grade are you in? Fifth. How's it going so far? We just started Gamara. Oh, Mazletov. That's exciting. Is it challenging so far or they ease you in slowly? It's a little challenging. Do you feel like you got this? Yeah. Amazing. You have a really cool gig going on. I know that you and your father started something together called Mensch Cards. Could you tell us about it?
SPEAKER_07:So, Mensch Cards is a game that each card has one mitzvah. For example, keep it of aim. You could collect cards, you could buy them in fun stores, Judaica stores. Each pack comes as three cards and one instruction card. Like here's what a pack looks like. Oh, that's so cute. It looks like baseball cards. Yeah. We wanted to make mitz cards because we wanted kids to get into mitzvah's in a fun way, and we saw a lot of people were trading cards. What kind of cards were people trading? They were trading like pedylum cards or baseball cards.
SPEAKER_02:So you figured, like, why not hop on the trend and get kids to get excited about mitzvahs?
SPEAKER_07:So each card has a mitzvah, and they have four tasks. Mm-hmm. But by the white part Mentch card number, safe refinakh mitzvah number, Rama mitzvah number, and action difficulty level. Each task next to it has a number. The youngest player goes first. Youngest player says a task and the number on that task. And everybody else play says the same task, the same number on that task. And whichever task is the highest gets all the cards and picks the next task.
SPEAKER_02:So these are not just collectible cards. You could actually play a game with them. Yeah. When somebody starts out collecting, how many cards do you need to actually play a game if you're only getting three at a time?
SPEAKER_07:You're only getting three. You could already play with three cards. You just ask a friend to play, and you just take those three cards and say a task. There's three types of cards regular, silver, and gold. Regular and silver you get in packs in the Judaica store. Silver is very rare to get. But to get a gold card, the best card, a gold card, it's like shiny. And to get a gold card, each card has one task. Like keep it up in the task is pass food to your parents three times. If you do five tasks, then we deliver you a gold card. And it's very rare to get a gold card.
SPEAKER_02:Cool. So you have to send it out. Like the person would have to reach out to you. You're like the headquarters. Yeah. Would send out the gold card. We have a website. Through the website. What's it called? Mensch.org. Amazing. Wow. I can't believe that was available. Mensch.org. Yeah, you could also buy cards on the website. Wow, fantastic. I have so many questions for you because I think that this is such a cool idea. The minute I heard about it from you guys, I right away was thinking, wow, this is an incredible kid doing an incredible thing. And I'm always curious to find out about where your ideas came from and what you're trying to do here. To find out like some of your goals, like what's driving you to do this. You know, most kids who are in fifth grade don't have uh fully functional business going on. So let's start with what inspired you to want to start this.
SPEAKER_07:So a lot of people were training cards in like my grade and my school, and we wanted to make mitzvahes more friendly with kids.
SPEAKER_02:Where did your desire for kids wanting to be comfortable with mitzvah's come from? Why is that so important to you?
SPEAKER_07:I just thought that it was very interesting. What's your favorite mitzvah on the cards? There's one mitzvah, it's lending money. I learned a lot from it because it's actually a bigger mitzvah to lend money than to give tadaka. Because it's embarrassing just to give tadaka to someone. To lend it to them. It's not embarrassing because they're gonna pay you back.
SPEAKER_02:It's like you're treating them with a certain level of dignity.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That they feel like more willing to accept it because they know that when they're back on their feet, they'll be able to pay you.
SPEAKER_07:You should try you should try not to like let them give it back. Like if they forget about it, it's like don't remind them.
SPEAKER_02:Like be mochalat, like it's okay. But it's about the way you gave it also. It's like a lesson in that. So how would you know those details? It says that on the card, like there's facts.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, each card also has a fun fact. Me and my father searched it up in the safe rachanach and ramom. We got a lot of fun facts for every card. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So you did a lot of preparation for this as well. Yeah. Unbelievable. And you didn't use Chat GPT, did you? Nope. You know what? It wouldn't be like the worst thing in the world, but then imagine you took a shortcut like that, then you wouldn't have the experience of learning and exploring and discovering and the work that goes into it. It's Torah, also. For anyone who doesn't know what the Sefarha mitzvos is, could you explain what that is?
SPEAKER_07:So um sefrahinah is I meant that. Yes, it's it's it's uh safer and has every mitzvah and explains a lot about it. Rambam has like the order of the mitzvahis, and if it's uh mitzvah sase or loisase.
SPEAKER_02:So that's always detailed in the mitzvah description so that you know an asse would be a mitzvah that you should do, like do this thing, like heburabaim, and a lo sase is something you should stay away from, like, give me an example.
SPEAKER_07:I'm like, don't steal. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:Don't say la sanara, don't hurt a friend. Yeah. That kind of mitzvah. Are your friends into this? Yeah. Did you get it popular in your own peer group with your buddies?
SPEAKER_07:My whole class knows about it. There's a few kids that have now, and I said, like, you know, made them, I'm in them. And you're like, wait, do you have a pack?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, because they always want more. Do you carry it around with you?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I do. I do.
SPEAKER_02:Do you give them out or it's like no? I give them out.
SPEAKER_07:Whoever asked me, I just give them a back.
SPEAKER_02:That's so nice. Okay, so tell me what the process is like. So I know that you had to do a lot of research, and this was a project you did with your father. Yeah. I love that. Yes. What does your father do, by the way? What's his experience?
SPEAKER_07:He owns a business. He owns a lighting business. Mm-hmm. And he also in a different business. He's one of the owners. Okay. And he's a good businessman. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What's one of the things your father taught you about business that really helps?
SPEAKER_07:Didn't really teach me anything about business. He taught me a lot of stuff about lights.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I guess what you can learn from that is that when you're in a business, know your business very well. Because the thing about business people and entrepreneurs, you know what an entrepreneur is? Okay, that's a word you should know because you're basically an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is somebody who Yeah, and might have heard of it. An entrepreneur is somebody who starts businesses, gets them off the ground, and builds them up so they're successful. So they look to see like what's the need, right? Like what do people need? Like what you did. You're like, hey, there's people collecting cards, but what's missing? We don't have a mitzvah one, right? We don't have mitzvah cards. So like you look to see what's the need in the market, but a real entrepreneur, a real businessman is gonna always be looking to see what new holes in the market are. Like, hmm, oh, there's no lighting company in this area, right? But then you gotta really know your stuff. The same way if you're doing mensch cards and you don't really study those mitzvos and you don't really understand like how to make it interesting for kids, and you don't understand the consumer, which is probably kids, kids are the ones buying it, or parents for their kids, or Rebbies for the students, then you're gonna mess it up if you don't understand it. So you gotta learn the people. I think that's why it's so cool that your father knows so much about lighting, and that's why he's teaching it to you. But that's why when he helps you with this business, he doesn't have to use his lighting knowledge, he has to use his business knowledge, like hustling. So what's the hustle? What's the steps?
SPEAKER_07:So first we came up with the idea, then we um like researched this stuff. We hired a graphic designer and uh illustrator for the cards. Nice. And they designed the card. Then we hired a factory in China and they print the cards for us.
SPEAKER_01:China, China, China, China, China, China, China, China! I have to have my China.
SPEAKER_02:Did you have to go to China? No. That would have been cool though. So that you had to find the factory that would manufacture it for you. Yeah. When they sent the first cards, were you happy with them or did you have to ask them to change things?
SPEAKER_07:Nah. I love them. It changed some of the stuff, like a little bit. I like the way they printed it. Is it like glossy? It's like shiny. And they came in packs already, or they came as loose cards? No, first they gave us a sample. Two boxes. Like, here's what a box looks like.
SPEAKER_02:Nice. Looks like something you would see in this firearm store.
SPEAKER_07:So they gave us two boxes, and they gave us just a full set. We changed the color to blue, and then they printed like 10,000 cards and sent it to us for the first batch. We're just gonna keep printed like batches of like 10,000, give it to those farm stores, and once we run out, we tell them for a new batch, and they're gonna print it.
SPEAKER_02:What was the process like to get them into the stores? Like, how do you get a new product? Like, nobody probably knows you.
SPEAKER_07:So we hired a distributor. We're making like posters. I tell a lot of people in my school about it, and we put it on like a chat. They call it like word of mouth.
SPEAKER_02:Like, oh, did you hear there's a new thing? Yeah. How many stores are you in now?
SPEAKER_07:Right now we're in twenty-seven stores. Whoa!
SPEAKER_02:What's the best feedback that you got? Like people telling you about their experience using it.
SPEAKER_07:Some of my friends are telling me, like, we got munch cards. It's actually very cool. Did they get them for like a prize or like just because they asked for it? No, I told them about it and they came and they said, Oh, we bought some of them from the EJA store. I love that. Oh my gosh, how does it feel when they tell you that? Very good. And one of the kids in my class got a gold card.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Okay, so then who's in charge of that? You have to like enter the info on their website and then you send them out.
SPEAKER_07:My father gets an email when somebody does it. To the kid in my class, we didn't we didn't ship it to him. I just brought it to him from school, E. B. Keelsen. That's his name. Shout out. Um, yeah. My cousin also got a gold card. We put it in the mailbox Thursday. It's like a golden ticket.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I've got a golden ticket. I've got a golden chance to make my way. And with a golden ticket, it's a gold day.
SPEAKER_07:So what do you recommend they do with their gold card? They use it to play, because it has very good tasks. Also, the silver cards and the gold cards. What are the stats? They say silver, and that means if you say that when you're playing, the card automatically goes to you. They're very rare.
SPEAKER_02:How rare are they? Like in how many packs are they? Like if there's 20 packs in the store, how many will have a silver card? Like five, four. So it's a mystery. Is there a Judaica store near your house that you've seen them in? Judaica Plus. And when you go there, like what's it like to be in the store and see your product on the shelf?
SPEAKER_07:One day, my father took me to drop cards off at a store, and we also went by Judaica Plus and we saw the cards right at the counter. Oh, that's the perfect place. Yeah. Right? Yeah, and we took a picture.
SPEAKER_02:We gotta get them to Baltimore. There's a couple farm stores.
SPEAKER_07:Merza Sham.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Slowly, slowly. You're gonna expand the Merza Sham and and see how the you know the business goes. We're probably gonna also make the language in Yiddish and Hebrew. Nice. So you're constantly thinking about how you're gonna get this into more houses.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Who do you recommend should buy it? Like what type of person should buy it?
SPEAKER_07:If you collect like baseball cards or you've collected cards before, it's for you.
SPEAKER_02:What if you're a girl who plays with a dollhouse? Is this for you?
SPEAKER_07:Yes. It doesn't sound like it's only for boys.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's not only for boys. It's just to get kids into mitzvahis. That's awesome. What do you hope that kids are gonna learn from using these and playing with them?
SPEAKER_07:I hope that they're gonna learn a lot more mitzvahis. They're probably gonna learn a lot more stuff. Just a lot of good knowledge. And to get a gold card, you have to do five mitzvahs. So we wanna get kids to do mitzvahis.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, amazing. And it's really a schuss for you. Like when these kids are collecting schos and practicing these really important mitzvos, it's really cool that you're behind it. What advice would you give to other kids who have big ideas?
SPEAKER_07:It takes a lot of time to get it. You have to have a lot of patience for it to get famous. And also you have to advertise a lot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Is this the first big idea you ever acted one? Were there any others before that you tried? That's the first one. Well, okay. So you need a lot of Siata Deshmaya help from Hasham. Doesn't really go that far. And then sometimes there is something that we never would have expected, and it just soars, and we know it's really all Hashem, but it's really cool if we could be the ones to get it off the ground on this earth, but Hashem is powering us to do it. What makes you the most proud from beginning to end of this process?
SPEAKER_07:I see a lot of kids have it now, so probably a lot of people are gonna be into it. You sound like you're a very influential business guy.
SPEAKER_02:Do people call you like the bench cards kid? Not yet. But do you want them to? Yes. Like, oh that boy, right?
SPEAKER_07:That boy in fifth grade, he's the bench card kid. Yeah. Also, a few of my friends helped me ship the goal cards. And they Oh, cool. Also, they helped me advertise. How's that? We made a video and we put on my clash chat, and that's how everybody knew about it. Nice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you gotta start small and then anything's possible. Curious to know, a kid like you, do you have any ideas of what you wanna be when you grow up or what you wanna do with your life when you're an adult?
SPEAKER_07:I wanna join my father's business because I know a lot about lights. Mm-hmm. And maybe this will continue for a long time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:How do you think it could grow even more mensch cards? When we get into different countries, change them and like the languages.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think there's any more categories you can make?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, we might make like a mensch cards too or like a second season after this. How did you come up with the name mensch cards? I mean, it's the way it is. Like we're trying to teach kids to be a match. And we want to try to encourage kids to know more mitzvah and do more mitzvah and make them a match. Wow. Are you a mensch?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. You seem like a mensch right now when I'm talking to you, who inspires you to understand the importance of being a mensch, somebody who is like a balmidos and was always looking for mitzvah opportunities.
SPEAKER_07:My great aunt, her name is Henny Machlus. My great aunt, every Shabbos, she invited like 400 people came to her house, Jewish and non-Jewish, and she was very nice to every one of them. And she had a lot of stories. Did you ever have a chance to meet her? No. She died before I was born.
SPEAKER_02:Hmm. Has it been that long already? Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_07:I might go to one of her kids. Her kids invite like a hundred people every Shabbos.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. I went to her for Shabbos a few times, actually.
SPEAKER_04:Really? Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02:When I was in Israel. It's really amazing. It was really amazing. And I'm sure that her kids are very special and that they're also continuing her tradition. Did you ever read the book about her that was written?
SPEAKER_07:There's like better.
SPEAKER_02:It's called Amuna with Love and Chicken Soup.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, there's also a And then there's a kids' one. I read the kids one as I differed stories.
SPEAKER_02:You might enjoy the adult one also. It has a lot of stories in it. We haven't read it in a while, but I used to read it to my girls at Shabbos and just like little like stories from it. And they would be like, Can we read more about Mrs. Mahless? Because she was such a legend. The amount of people in her home, but it wasn't just about the numbers. She treated each person, like you said, with so much love and respect, especially people who nobody else wanted to take care of, like people that were living on the streets and they may have been dirty. It didn't bother her. She looked at them as an ashama. That's really amazing. That's that's an inspiration for you because you never even met her, but I guess you're growing up on the stories. Well, Rafael, I wish you tons of hatslacha with first of all, with school this year and everything good, and then also this business. It's hard to balance sometimes doing something outside of school, like running this little business, and it's great that you have your father to help you and guide you, but then also taking your responsibility as being a student also seriously. Keep being incredible and thank you for sharing your story with us. And I hope that lots of people listening check out Mensch.org. Yeah. How do you spell it?
SPEAKER_07:M-E-N-T-S-C-H. We put a T in it and we got a trademark.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_07:It's usually not spelled with a T.
SPEAKER_02:Mmm. What does the T represent? Trademark. Torah.
SPEAKER_07:Oh yeah, Torah.
SPEAKER_02:Rafal, so good to meet you. Thanks for joining us. Bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_03:And now it's time for homework. Oh come on, not that kind.
SPEAKER_02:In today's interviews, we learned that following a passion for something, starting small, can really have potential to grow into something much bigger if you only believe it to be possible and you try and try and work really hard. And when you see progress, be so proud of yourself. Look at what you accomplish and say, look what I did. I'm so capable. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable and weird to think that way and talk that way about ourselves. But that's the way that we are going to accomplish more and more and more. By stopping to notice how far we've come, especially when there's challenges. I want you to think of something that you can try to create on your own. Something using your talents, your passion, your creativity. What gets you excited? Remember, it can be something really small. And then I'd love to hear about it. Let me know once you get that feeling of, wow, I got this. I can really do something if I truly believe in myself. I'm so happy that you joined today to listen to this newest episode. And if you enjoyed it, please send it to a friend and make sure to give us a five-star rating on whatever podcast platform you're listening on so we can create more content featuring kids just like you.
SPEAKER_08:Have an incredible day.com. Subscribe to the subscription kids podcast.
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