How to Succeed in Business

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Welcome to everybody who's joining us. We're going to start in a few moments; we're just letting everybody into the webinar.

Thanks for joining. We're going to be starting in about two or three minutes, we are just letting people sign on. Okay, shalom alechem, bruchim habaim. It's about 10:33 Israel time, 3:33 here in the United States. On behalf of the Touro College and University System I wanted to welcome all of you to this very special webinar. I want to thank the Rabbi Dr. Shmuel Klammer, dean of the Touro College Israel, whose brainchild this program was and is. We'll be hearing from him after Mr. Gade addresses us. We’re about to begin the parshios of Teruma and Tetzaveh we're going to be talking about the clay hamishkan [and] the bigdei kahuna. We're going to define over the next two weeks the essence of something that has kadosh, something that has intrinsic holiness and sanctity. There's a basic concept in taharos, that dvarim shbikdusha require hachana, ain kedusha beli hachana, and as benei Torah that are contemplating their futures and their ability to earn a livelihood—be engaged in a career, being involved in business, but to do so as a ben Torah. Nothing requires more hachana, more preparation, than a ben Torah who is contemplating a transition from the bais medrish into the world of parnasa, into the world of careers.

The Touro College and University System was started nearly 50 years ago by Rabbi Dr. Bernard Lander and the essence of his goal was to provide a place for benei and benos Torah to receive an education to be able to enter their careers. But, more importantly, [his goal] was to give them the ability to have that hachana, to have that preparation, so that their lives, their careers, and their professions would be infused with a sense of kedusha as a ben Torah. To be able to have chulin, if you will, al taros hakodesh, with the element of kedusha that that is required for a successful career, but one that is based upon the ideals of a ben Torah. When we discussed having this program and having someone from the business world address benei Torah that are currently learning and that are looking for opportunities and contemplating moving into the business world, there was really one person that we all thought of immediately and that's Mr. Yakov Gade who's the founder, president, and CEO of Cross River Bank. He has been its chairman since 2008 and Cross River Bank has been at the at the epicenter of using modern technology in the banking industry and creating financial vehicles that help service the financial community in ways that were never even imagined beforehand. But what's more important for this discussion is Reb Yakov is not only a lomed Torah and a tomeich Torah, but he is a ben Torah who lives his life as an example of what a ben Torah can do as a captain of industry. Cross River Bank has been at the forefront of ensuring that the United States government is able to provide financial assistance during this pandemic to mosdos haTorah because Reb Yakov has made that a priority for his bank and for his financial institution to be there as a beacon of support, as well as a standard by which they function. Without any further ado, I want to thank Reb Yakov for giving of his very valuable time to spend some time with us and giving us some guidance and hadracha. I should note that this is the second in a series of shiurim that we've been giving in professions in halacha and hashgafa. Last week we hosted medical students—people going into medical and health careers. In a very special shiur by Hagoan Harav Rav Asher Weiss shlita, a very well received shiur, for those that are contemplating a career in those disciplines. This is in the same vein and we've turned to Yakov Gade to be able to give us hadracha and divrei chizzuk as we contemplate a career transitioning from the beis medrash to a career in the business world. Reb Yakov, thank you on behalf of all of us and the floor is yours. Yashar koach.

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: Thank you, I don't know what to do with an introduction. It's embarrassing. So, first of all, I would like to thank—

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: But it's true!

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: Well, we'll see about that in a minute. Let the people be the judge. Dean Klammer, Dr. Steen, and Reb Moshe, thank you very much for inviting me it's a pleasure to be here. I was looking—I was just smiling, even smirking—because I'm looking at the list of attendees and I see a lot of familiar names so it's going be a lot of fun to hear the friends and families comments on this. All of them are either alumni of Touro or students of Touro, some of them are employees actually. It's very interesting to observe, and hopefully I'm going to I'm going to do them well. I would like to just to start briefly about the background, about how we got here.

To deserve an introduction like this, or not to deserve an introduction like this… I was born and raised in Paris, France. And I did my studying in France. I learned, I went to yeshiva in France, but then shortly thereafter, I did not go to yeshiva in Eretz Yisrael. I had a lot of family pressure to continue studying and that got me a business school degree. I started my career at a company called Citibank, which you may be familiar with, based in Europe and working in venture capital. That really gave me the push to come to the United States and try to discover the financial world here, and so I ventured by myself, without family, with basically just a resume and not much in the pocket. To venture here and try to look for a job without even a visa was a daunting task as some of you may know. For foreigners, it's not that easy to obtain a visa, which is an H1 visa or an H1 B to come work in the US.

And I was very fortunate, probably about two weeks before I ran out of money, I got a job at Bear Stearns a company that is no longer amongst us. Bear Stearns was one of the monsters and a phenomenal success stories of Wall Street from the 1920s, and one of the only Jewish firms that was formed because they were not accepting any Jews in other firms, such as JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. Bear Stearns is no longer around, but it definitely was very formative for me to be part of this tremendous adventure.

In 1995, I got married decided to take off a couple of years to learn in Kollel, which hopefully would cement the walls of the family and of the household, which was a tremendous experience in something that was probably the best thing I ever did in my life. But, as you may encounter, hopefully not, it was extremely difficult to come back to the working world, and particularly when you take a hiatus like this. When you start your career somewhere and you stop for two years and then you come back, people feel or think that there is something wrong with you and did not understand the fact of learning the talmud for two years while you're married it's absolutely responsible financially, because you can sustain yourself.

So that was a very interesting item to debate in the interview process for me to get back to the to the working life and I got 250 rejections. And mostly from Wall Street firms, hedge funds, and even though it was a pretty good time to get a job at the time was the dot com era.

It was quite difficult to stomach the fact that I thought I had a decent resume, I had a business school degree, I spoke various languages and I had the four wonderful years at Bear Stearns and yet it was not enough. I was in investment banking at Bear Stearns in the banking and insurance sector, and then the only job that was offered was at Barclays and it was in the technology space, something I really have no clue about. I did not even know how to use emails at the time and that's back in 1997.

And the interesting thing is, I was interviewed by a woman, a Persian Jew totally unaffiliated, a bas cohen. And, and she actually was very intrigued by the fact I was wearing a yarmulke at the interview and she just kept asking me questions about Judaism and that's how the interview was conducted and not at all, about my disability in technology or my lack of understanding.

And I was very fortunate she offered me a job literally on the spot or shortly thereafter after you know, like I needed to go through the wringer nonetheless with probably about half a dozen interviews.

But somehow, she carried a very strong voice within Barclays, and she hired me, and so I got, a not only an acquaintance, but an expertise and technology for the following seven years. And we branched off ultimately; we moved away from Barclays, we created a firm together, we were partners, and that was a tremendous experience. And then, what followed, is a small stint in a in a mortgage company, as the CFO for Meridian. After that experience I was presented with an opportunity to buy into a charter application. Charter application means a licensed institution by the FDIC, but it was not yet licensed, it was just in formation. The people that proposed that to me just asked me if I was interested. I definitely answered, yes, to the call. I raised the $10 million that was necessary’ I took the helm of the enterprise, and that was the condition for me to get in. Now 12 years, 13 years later, it's actually exactly 13 years since we started on February 13, 2008—when we got our certificate of designation for the State of New Jersey.

And then, four months later, we open our doors, with a certificate of the of the SEC, and so that was really a phenomenal experience and one thing led to the next, now be able to do the rejoinder. And finally understood why HaShem put me first on the path of banking and then, you know, four years later on the path of technology. [It was] two totally different world, and this was the rejoinder, this was really basically the enterprise that enabled me to hopefully bring some level of expertise in both. And then everything that followed was just a pure Hashgacha Pratis, but like from one point to the next, from one development to the next, from one challenge to the next. Everything, every challenge. This is something that I really learned over the past 13 years, particularly.

There isn't such a thing as a challenge, it's only an opportunity. There's a great quote, that I keep using over and over for my staff particularly and every time I get an opportunity to say it: The difference between the stumbling block and a stepping stone, is the way you use it. You may decide to say no to the obstacle and that's a stumbling block, or you may decide to use it as a stepping stone to move way higher than you currently are.

That’s really a big lesson in life: we need to turn our challenges into opportunities, and we need to look at the glass half-full and not half-empty. There is a tremendous mashal that I learned recently. When you look at the glass half-full, you look at it from the bottom and that's why it appears full. If you look at it from the top, with a sense of arrogance… So if you stand from a sense of humility and you look up then you seeing a glass half-full. If you look from the bottom right, so, in other words you're looking for the top—I’m sorry—looking down with a sense of arrogance and basically in haughtiness, then you will look at a glass that is half-empty.

And this is a really a big lesson in life: in humility number one, leadership number two, and how to overcome obstacles. And now fast forward so we got a brilliant introduction, which I would not have been able to express myself about our business. There is a lot of literature about our business today, you could Google it if you have access to Google, God forbid, you should.

But in case you do and so we're in the business of financial technology and we enable transactions for small businesses, as well as for sizable financial technology companies to gain access to the financial networks. We facilitate, for example, loans to consumers and we only have 500 employees today. We're growing very, very quickly, we had about 250 a year ago, so we are doubling every single year. We're due to actually reach about 800 by the end of this year. But with that small crew we're originating almost as many loans as some of the biggest banks in the country. Last year alone, we originated about 12 million loans. We touched 12 million lives. That's the way we look at it. We have a lot of Hatzala folks on this chat, on this lecture, so a salute to them, but I really love to compare it to somebody who perform CPR every single day.

It may become routine, but at the end of the day, you're saving a life when you perform CPR. By pushing that button, it may seem innocuous and easy, but what I tell my employees is that, on the other side of that button, there's a life that needs to be saved, there is money that needs to be dispersed. There is a loan that needs to be made, because if not, these people will not be able to put food on the table, or to buy themselves basic necessities.

And that's the way we have to look at everything that we do. If we look at it with a sense of purpose and a sense of kiddush Hashem, then you know. I always say to my staff, this is the motto of Cross River Bank, we're doing well by doing good. If we do a good and it starts by doing good, by the way, not the opposite, not the other way around. It's not about doing well and then I'll see if I do good. No, you invest first in making a kiddush Hashem, invest in doing the right thing. Always 24/7, 7 days a week, and then you will do well invariably, and this is the promise that Ribono Shel Olam made to us in the time of Avraham Avinu.

Talking about Avraham Avinu, this is where the name Cross River Bank comes from. It's not the fact that I'm crossing two rivers every single day when I come from the island to Fort Lee, New Jersey. It's the fact that it's Avraham HaIvri, evar la'nar. Because Hashem commanded Avraham Avinu to cross the spiritual river. The world was a world of infanticide, human sacrifices, famine, and human indecency. The Ribono Shel Olam asked Avraham and said, ‘You will be standing on the other side of the River. You will cross a spiritual river.’ He also crossed the physical river, but because it needs the physical crossing in order to understand the spiritual ramifications.

So we wanted to exemplify that by calling ourselves cross river, and this is our journey. This is what we're all about. We only attribute our success—im yirtza Hashem it should continue—but we only attribute our success to the fact that hopefully we will continue to be a kiddush hashem and to exemplify that message from our forefather Avraham.

I would like to touch upon a concept that is very dear to us. It is the concept of the concept of happiness or simcha. In general, and in leadership, how do they correlate with one another? Oftentimes you could ask yourself a question, and this is something I asked my staff during the holiday season, how many people do you know that you would consider successful? Then I asked, how many people do you know that you consider happy? And how would the people of the first category, respond to the people in the second category? Are they the same, or are they radically different? And what do we want most? Do we want success, or do we want happiness? As we very well know, the mishna in Pirkei Avos says, ayzeh hu ashir? Hasameach bichelko. [English translation: Who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion.]

You define success that will lead to happiness ultimately, and that's really the answer to the question. You have nowhere else to look to find success than Silicon Valley, which is the bedrock of the most entrepreneurial and probably the most successful companies in the entire world. Facebook, Google, Stripe, Lending Club, Coinbase—you name it—hundreds of companies with multi-billionaires. Tens of billions of dollars of wealth accumulated overnight, literally over the past 10 years. And yet, in the words of very prominent psychiatrist Adam Strassberg, there's a very well-known shortage of psychiatrists nationally. However, most specifically in Silicon Valley Bay area. Maybe that's the nature of supply and demand and the economic system. Maybe some of this imbalance is certainly due to supply, but I suspect most is due to a far greater local demand. And he [Strassberg] says ‘Every single day there's a parade of stressed-out ‘middle-class’ multi-millionaires that marches through my office on the hour, by the hour, over the decades. As both a psychiatrist practicing in Silicon Valley and a civilian living there, I have witnessed so much success and yet so little happiness. The two are regrettably too often in opposition.’ And it's really a tragedy of our times is that people associate success with happiness.

If you start your career, or if you entertain a change of career, that is really a premise for you to be successful: to understand the difference between success and happiness, and that there's really no correlation. At the end of the day, you by being happy will be invariably successful and that's where it starts from.

It's also a matter of how you start your day. What makes you happy that is really very fulfilling in your daily lives. There is a tremendous book, which I don't recommend for you reading except maybe the excerpts, called Make Your Bed by Admiral Mcaven who ran the Navy SEALS for decades. He says, why is making your bed is so important? Because that's the first thing that you do in the morning. And even though you may go through a very hard day, at the end of the day, you going back to a bed well-made.

And this is really a very interesting lesson, a mussar haskil, that we may ponder on: How do you want to start your day? How early do you want to start? If you start your day by waking up at the crack of dawn—let’s say 4:35 in the morning—and then you go to shul and you learn for 45 minutes to an hour, then you start on the right foot you put yourself on the right premise, because now you frame your mind on what is truly important in your life. If you end your day by learning exactly the same thing, you're kovea itim at a certain time during the day.

Everything revolves around that time, around those actions. If you're involved in chesed, for example, you know, covering a shift for hatzala or visiting the sick, but having a koveah itim for that as well, then you invariably will have a successful life, no matter the financial outcome of your life. This is really what makes us happy. By giving [we] will invariably be on the side of the givers always, and that will make us invariably happy.

There is a one more point I would like to touch upon. One of my mentors and now unfortunately never had the chance [to meet]. I was not fortunate to meet Rabbi Lord Johnathan Sacks, alev hashalom, but I've been an avid reader of his entire compendium of books including his weekly divrei Torah, plus all the things that he wrote during the year; his TED talks and whatever else he says, he says beautifully in terms of the concept of leadership, particularly pertaining to challenges in life.

And he points to the fact that a prophet, visionary, a trailblazer, is required to speak, regardless of whether people will listen or not. This is really what our prophets, our naviim, have done throughout history is to speak because hopefully somebody will listen, and that person will make a difference. That's really our test, the collective responsibility that we have. Not only as individuals and as a family, but also as a nation is to stand up [against] what is wrong as a sense of collective responsibility.

[Rabbi Sacks says] a righteous human being that is lacking collective responsibility is like a man without a fur coat. There are essentially two ways of keeping warm on a cold night, you can wear a thick coat or light a fire. If you wear a coat, you will always be warm yourself. If you light a fire, you can warm others too. We're supposed to light a fire.

Do we want to be good people and not leaders? If you want to be leaders in society—leaders in every aspect of life—you need to light a fire. it's not enough to do good, you must encourage others to do good as well and that's going back to doing well, by doing good. And leaders don't conform for the sake of conforming. We follow an inner voice, a call; we have a vision, not of what is, but what might be. Leaders think outside the box; they march to a different tune.

And there are crises and, by the way. Some of the greatest inventors, leaders of our time and in the previous times, like Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Beethoven, Martin Luther King Jr.—they all have bouts with depression and depressive illnesses in adult life as well. The same holds true with great creative artists like Michelangelo and Van Gogh.

The question is, is it the greatness that leads to moments of despair, or is it moments of despair that leads to greatness? And there is no convincing answer to this, but the ability to survive and recover is part of what it is to be a leader and part of what it is to be Jewish. Life is going to be full of obstacles like I mentioned before, but it's the way you use those obstacles that really will define you.

There is a fantastic quote [from a speech] called The Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt. It is said to be one of the greatest speeches ever given at la Sorbonne, by the way, which is a French university. He said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

At the end of the day, in the words of Winston Churchill, ‘Success is going from failure to failure without a lack of enthusiasm.’ This is basically the history of the Jewish people. If you look at Tanach, it's replete with our failures, but it also points to something that is far more important: the fact that those failures led to who we are today, because those failures are the secret to our survival.

Failure is a privilege, don't forget this, failure is a privilege for those who try. You owe it to try—whatever comes to mind—you owe it to have ambition. And these ambitions are basically the definition of who you truly are. The Rebono Shel Olam is looking to you to fulfill your ambition to fulfill your potential. That's why he called Avraham twice. Avraham, Avraham; Yakov, Yakov; Moshe, Moshe Shmuel, Shmuel, only four times in the entire Tanach did he mention that. This is when both images the Avraham di'la'ayle and the Avraham di'la'tata, they both coalesce, they both actually correspond to one another. And this is what we're being put on earth for. Whatever you choose, whatever your destiny, whatever your ambition is, make sure to fulfill that potential to its fullest. Don't hesitate to dream and dream big because you're here to change the world, every single one of us. We're here to make a kiddush Hashem and we're here to change the world, this is our responsibility. Thank you for listening and we'd love to hear your questions and comments.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you Reb Yakov. Just to give our listeners a sense of a day in the life of Yakov Gade, besides being the president and chair of a bank, he's also a member of the board of trustees of the Touro College University system. He's involved in so many different facets of chinuch and kids-at-risk. As a lark, he and some very caring people decided to create Hatzala Air and that is doing incredible, incredible chesed internationally. I recently reached out to Reb Yakov with someone who, nebach, was in need for medical transport literally cross country. He put me in touch with the one of the people that do the administrative work for Hatzala Air—this is renting planes and medical equipment and medical personnel and life support, so you have to ask: what is this cost? This is not trivial, and the answer was simply, this is what we do, because we want to serve klal Yisrael. I think that's the mantra that Reb Yakov puts forward so. I want to encourage all of you to put questions in the Q and A and we'll try to get to as many of them as possible. While you're doing that, I want to just ask Dean Shmuel Klammer to introduce himself. This session was created for kollel yungerleit, benei yeshiva that are in Eretz Yisrael now, that are thinking about making the transition from Israel to the States. We just want you to be aware of Touro College Israel and what opportunities we have available for you there and then we'll come back Reb Yakov to ask him some questions. Dr

DEAN SHMUEL KLAMMER, TOURO COLLEGE ISRAEL: Thank you very much Rabbi Krupka. I wanted to thank Mr. Gade so much for the amazing hashkafa and Musser schmooze. you truly lit a fire under all of us and we're ready to jump into the arena with you. [This] reminded me of [a story about] Rav Simcha Wasserman. One of his students, talmidim, wasn't making his bed, and he went in and made the bed for him. He left a note, ‘Bed made by Simcha Wasserman.” It conjured up a lot of ideas, then from your hashgafik discussion. Thank you so much for giving so generously of your time and your expertise. Rav Krupka, who oversees so much of the operations of Touro College University System, we thank him for taking of his time to introduce this program and Mr. Gade. I also want to thank Dr. Stein, who is the head of technology, my colleague Elisheva Stadler and the deans of the Lander Colleges in New York and the student representatives of the Lander Colleges. Thank you so much for the time that you put into this. If you are addressing the audience and the participants, we encourage all of you to continue, as Mr Gade said to learn Torah as long as you can. Even though Mr. Gade had a hard time explaining why took off time from his business career to learn Torah, we encourage you to continue to learn Torah as long as you possibly can on a full-time basis, but when you are ready to earn a parnasa, Touro College, the Lander Colleges. and Touro College Israel are here for you to provide you with the opportunities and our business chairman Mr. Humphries is on this call, as well. We have trained advisors to help you and advise you, in your specific case, whether here or in New York. I just want to leave you with one thought as Mr. Gade was talking about simcha and true simcha, we are in the month of Adar. Adar, of course, all the seferim say chedushei harim, ben yehoyada, and many others say, Adar is aleph-dar, the aleph stands for the alufo shel olam, which makes a dira in the tachtonim. And this is true, of course, while you're learning Torah in beis medrash, but also, as Mr. Gade pointed out, it can be true, as you move into business. Keep the alufo shel olam constantly here and she-dar batachtonim in all aspects of your life. We here at Touro College are here to help you through that. Thank you so much.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, thank you, Dean Klammer. Reb Yakov, they're asking some interesting questions here. The first one: what do you see as the greatest challenge in transitioning from yeshiva life into a career?

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: I think that yeshiva life is actually a phenomenal preparation to a career in anything that you undertake, provided that you took the yeshiva life very, very seriously. In other words, yeshiva life, I found to be a heck of a lot harder than the professional life, because in a professional life you get to see a lot of different things. Sitting and learning for 12 hours on end or three sedarim is not easy. It's not easy to not fall asleep. It's not easy not to stay focused; it's not easy not to get upset at your chavrusa. It's not easy to stay awake in the rosh yeshiva's shiur. It is a difficult thing, but if you take it seriously and you pull through it teaches a discipline that is unparalleled. And that's why some of the most brilliant minds in the yeshiva world turn out to be some of the most brilliant minds in the professional world. One comes to mind, obviously, is the Reichman family, a family of bnei Torah, learning in yeshiva for many, many years before they turn into businessmen. Look at what they accomplished. The amount of chesed they manage to invest in over the decades, the previous decades, [helped] shape the entire Jewish American chesed organizations and also in Russia, in the former Soviet bloc. I think the transition is easy if you actually have the discipline to fully embrace the yeshiva life. That's really the way I feel. At the end of the day, it's all about discipline. It's all about rigor, about taking seriously what you do day in, day out. If you’re serious at yeshiva, you're going to be serious at work. And there's no reason that if you didn't have siata dishmaya in yeshiva, you're not going to have siata dishmaya [in the business world] because you are a constant walking kiddush Hashem. That's really the key to success and the key to a positive transition.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Somebody asked, what are two or three of the most important things that a yeshiva man should do when making the transition from the beis medrash to the workforce?

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: So there are a hundred and six important things that you can do, but I'll start with a couple. Number one, sign up for Touro college. How is that?

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: [laughs] We didn't we didn't pay you to say that, this wasn’t a paid statement.

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: I've got to ensure the viability of the organization. Really seriously, I believe that it's very important to equip yourself with a certain level of education to be able to succeed. Just because there are some peers, and particularly in the professional world, that look at a diploma and not necessarily a four-year diploma, full bachelor's degree, but they look at a certain educational exposure in a positive light. Number two, it does bring some tools that are essential to succeed in certain trades. For example, if you want to be in the technology world, if you want to be a developer, it so happens that there are a lot of yeshiva bucherim that learn programming and succeed exceedingly. We have hired about close to 150 benei Torah in Eretz Yisrael, who have been trained for six months to a year in the boot camp or in another institution and whether it be Touro college or Machon Lev, Machon Tal, whatever else, it's very important to equip yourself with some basic elements of one of the trades that you're interested in. Number three, explore. Not everybody can be a real estate professional or in nursing homes. I understand that it's an easy path and the path of least resistance, but that's not what we're all about. We like difficulties, right? Jews, in general, with you the 613 commandments. We like difficult lives. We like difficult stuff. Don't take the path of least resistance. That's counterintuitive and that's not your nature because we strive for perfection and we strive to to fight in life because that's how the reward comes. Like I just mentioned from The Man in the Arena, you want to sweat. You want a tear, you want to be able to go through adversity, because that will make you much stronger than ever in order to conquer the world out, which is a ruthless world.

If you want to seek a career in professional services such as lawyer, consultant, a doctor, or any other medical fields, for that matter, so be it. But again, it requires discipline. So number one, explore what you're good at. There are certain tools that you could utilize for that such as the Gallup Strength Finding poll. I advise every single individual on this chat to actually conduct—whether they're adults or kids or students right now or professionals--everybody should go to the Strength Gallup Poll. My dear friend Ben Rappaport, who is a PhD in positive psychology from Wharton and who is a ben Torah, lives in Ramat Eshkol. He is a tremendous talmid chacham, this is the first thing he asked me to do when he first met me. Now he works with us; he does a lot of things for us, consulting and advising. A lot of young kids, yungerliet, spend 10 years in kollel and want to transition to a professional life. This is the first thing you need to do in order for you to understand where your strengths are. There are no weaknesses, by the way. We refuse to look at weaknesses in an individual. The way we look at them is a lesser strength, not weaknesses. [The poll] will teach you which are your true strengths and your lesser strengths, and what you should be focusing on in your career. And then seek an education, because that's really critical. It doesn't matter how long it takes. Then, obviously, be disciplined in anything that you undertake.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: You mentioned before that you were rejected so many times when coming back to work after your break from Kollel, how did you keep your skin thick enough to keep going through all the rejections?

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: That that's part of the upbringing and that's part of who we are, as Jews, we embrace [rejection]. A tzadik sheva nafel veyakum, a tzaddik falls seven times and gets up. What does that mean? Does that mean that he needs to fall seven times to be able to be a tzadik? That's not the answer. The answer is that somebody who is prepared to fall seven times and to get back up and that's what qualifies a tzadik. So if we have that standard in mind that was given from chazal, then that standard should be applied day in, day out. We can’t have a cop out, we can't be looking for comfort. That's the difference between you know simcha and taanug: Are we looking for comfort? Are we looking for complacency? Or are we looking for pain and simcha at the same time? No pain, no gain. That's just inevitable.

Rav Noach Wienberg, zatzal, said, there are five levels of pleasure. I advise everybody to read the book, [co-authored] by Yakov Solomon, The Five Levels of Pleasure. Invariably, you have to go through episodes and periods of pain, but you can transfer that pain, if you focus and keep your eyes on the ball. It's like taking a bunch of kids to play basketball, and you say, ‘Today we're not going to give you a ball. You're going to play. You're going to dribble. You're going to pass. You're going to dunk. You're going to shoot. You're going to do anything you want, but you don't get a ball. How long you think those kids are going to last? Not even two minutes. Why? Because they focus on the effort. You give him the ball and they keep their eyes on the ball, they could play for two hours. We need to keep our eyes on the ball. That's what keeps us going. What is the ball? What is your goal? Define your goal. Keep your eyes on the ball and then you manage to go through adversity. It doesn't matter how many rejections; keep your eyes on the ball, forget the pain. It's painful, but the pleasure that goes with it is so far more commensurate. If you ask any parents, who gives you the most amount of joy? Your kids. Who gives you the most amount of pain? Your kids. There is your answer.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Someone here asks: what do you think yeshiva guys struggle with most when starting to work, to go into the business world?

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: It's a tradition, like you're in yeshiva and you have a certain heimishkeit. In the professional world that doesn't jive very well. Making the transition from being heimish to being professional is difficult. That's what I mentioned before: you could be in yeshiva and be professional if you take it really seriously. The sooner, you make that transition, the sooner you can actually transition away, from not away chas v’shalom, but let's say a transition professionally from a yeshiva. Set out to [become] a professional. It's very important to understand that there's a difference [between the yeshiva and the professional world.] Don't look for comfort. That means don't look for a company that is run like a like a heimish organization, because you're not going to learn. You're not going to be able to actually practice your profession and your professional aptitude. And you don't know where you're going to end up in 10 years from now, or 20 years, or 30 years. We don't know what Hashem has in store for us, but at the end of the day, you'd better be prepared.

That is all about the mishkan. As Reb Moshe said before—the hachana, the preparation—why is the Torah going into such minutia of every single component twice? Twice about the build-out of the mishkan and the bigdeh kehuna. Why? Because it is so important. Every detail is important. That is professionalism. That's a procedure. It's a guidebook for life, and the Rebono Shel Olam is going through such methodology, how dare we be heimish? And that's really, I would say, the biggest obstacle is that you need to understand that there's something different. You don't necessarily have to be heimish to be successful. You need to step out of your element; you need to understand that there's something else. Open your mind, dream, and understand that there is an alternative to life.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Yakov, can you repeat the exercise that you mentioned in terms of determining your strengths? I think it was a standardized test that you referred to.

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: Sure, it is the Gallup Strength Finding Poll, I believe it costs like $50 or $55 and it is basically a poll that surveys your strength. It asks a bunch of questions. They're not binary, there's no right or wrong answer, but the answer will determine what kind of strength you have, and you have your five primary strengths. Like, for example, your aptitude in analyzing, your aptitutde in critical thinking; your aptitude in being entrepreneurial or empathetic or leadership and so on. You discover your strengths, which will lead you to career success, based on your strength. The Gallup Poll for Strength Finding. Now you can find it online, it's not expensive and it's a very useful tool. By the way, anybody takes it we will sponsor it.

I will personally sponsor every student who wants to take it, and then not only that, but I will also get you a private audience with Ben Rappaport or myself to evaluate your strength and to go through your strengths.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Wow. Wow. Wow. All right, yashar koach. Can we make the caveat that we arrange this through Dean Klammer's office at Touro College Israel?

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: Absolutely.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Very good. Those of you that want to take Reb Yakov up on his offer to take the Gallup poll, and to have a yechidus with him and Dr Ben Rappaport please be in touch with Dean Klammer, and we'll get that going.

Reb Yakov on behalf of everybody, thank you. People are putting comments in the Q and A just amazed at all the different things that you're doing in terms of kiddush Hashem and in terms of service to klal Yisrael and also being a professional. We appreciate you giving us of your time today, hopefully we'll invite you back you'll agree to do this again. I think what we learned today is that you have to think it through, you have to prepare the hachana; you have to have a rebbe and you have to have a discipline to move forward. You certainly have a role model in Reb Yakov to follow. Thank you all for participating Reb Yakov, thank you for your time. Hopefully we will be following up with all of you. Remember, in terms of opportunities, we have a boot camp for programming at Touro Colleges Israel if that's of your interest. Thank you all and be matzleach.

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: Amen, you too.

RABBI MOSHE KRUPKA, TOURO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Take care, all the best. Thank you all.
D
EAN SHMUEL KLAMMER, TOURO COLLEGE ISRAEL: Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Kol tov.

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: I hope we meet in person soon.

DEAN SHMUEL KLAMMER, TOURO COLLEGE ISRAEL: Im yirtzeh Hashem. You should stay healthy and well, thank you.

YAKOV GADE, CEO, CROSS RIVER BANK: Amen, you too. Looking forward.

DR. STEEN: I will make recording available. I'll send it to Elisheva and Shmuel.