On Speaking Terms

On the Dais

Rabbi Manis Friedman author, public speaker, dean of Bais Chana Women International in Minnesota
Rabbi Aryeh Zev Ginzberg rav of the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center of Cedarhurst
Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Jacobson  world-renowned lecturer and dean of TheYeshiva.net
Rabbi Paysach Krohn mohel, writer, world-acclaimed speaker and author of the Maggid series
Rabbi Avrum Mordche Mallach popular Yiddish inspirational speaker, maggid shiur in Brooklyn’s Yeshivas Meor HaTorah
Rabbi Yisroel Stern international badchan and speaker from London

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ometimes even the most polished speakers find themselves derailed by circumstances beyond their control. Just a week before the Israeli elections, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was rushed off an Ashdod stage by his bodyguards as an air-raid siren went off, yet those 15 seconds of security protocol were fodder for his opponents, who leaped at the opportunity to criticize his cowardice. Returning to the stage 20 minutes later, he tried damage control, quipping that it wasn’t clear who celebrated the incident more — his rivals or Hamas leaders in Gaza. But even his supporters remembered a fearless Bibi who, smack in the middle of an international CNN television interview during the First Gulf War in 1991, donned a gas mask when an incoming Scud missile air-raid siren wailed — and calmly continued the interview.

Rabbi Yisroel Stern, international badchan and speaker from London, had a similar experience when a bomb alarm went off in Lakewood. The hall was evacuated, the emergency squad piled in, and when the building was deemed safe again and the crowd returned to their seats, Rabbi Stern took the mike and announced, “Rabbosai, I’ve spoken at many dinners, but this one was a bomba fun a derashah!” The crowd erupted in laughter, and although his speech might have started off as a “bomb,” he quickly recouped his losses and got his audience back.

Speakers often start with a joke to engage their audiences — it’s good advice that comes straight out of the Gemara. Sometimes, the audience itself can serve as an unplanned springboard. International lecturer and educator Rabbi Manis Friedman of Minnesota once quipped to a crowd, “Every daughter eventually turns out to be like her mother,” a remark which always elicits reactions. One lady got up and started ranting in front of the audience, “That’s absolutely not true. I’m nothing like my mother. She was a loud, opinionated woman!”