.
Welcome to Balancing Life's Issues, the podcast. Uh, my name is Kai, your host,
and I'm here with c e o of b l I, Wendy Wallner. How are you today? Good.
And you forgot baby miles. You've introduced baby Miles.
Miles is with us, uh, for today, uh, because we're moving quick. Yeah. Um,
obviously there is a lot going on in Israel.
And Wendy, I know you have a deep connection there, and I just, we wanted to,
um, shout out, uh,
the organization you can support if you don't know what to do. But really,
Wendy, I just wanted to ask you your advice.
You know what's interesting?
I've always thought that companies have such a social responsibility to make the
world better. Um,
and big companies and small companies can all contribute in so many ways.
And my contribution is to help other small businesses, other single mothers,
other dads that are figuring out how to have a baby on their lap. Um,
and now these small businesses are in war and they've left their homes
in the middle of the night,
which my family left their homes in the middle of the night and had to start
over. And they need sheets and toothbrushes. The list goes on and on,
and we want to make sure that they get it.
And we also wanna make sure that they are buying supplies from other small
businesses. So I can't control hatred. I wish I could. Um,
I can't control so many different things,
but as a c e o of balancing life's issues and the president of Mata u s a,
we can control sending a dollar over to the small businesses to keep
them going during a war.
Before we listen to, you know, our two guests, like,
I'm feeling desensitized, right? So I think this morning was the first time,
'cause a lot of the images and videos are coming out now that they've taken back
the cities that, um, had been taken over. Um, and I think it,
it hit a little different this morning as I was drinking coffee,
holding miles and realized I can't be consuming this while I'm with my baby.
But, you know, as someone who's so far separated, like,
I'm gonna go on a walk later today with Miles and our dog, Elroy,
and I'm not gonna be afraid of something like this happening.
So in addition to donating, how do we even begin to process what's happening.
Become educated, really learn, you know,
maybe it's not through the media, but reach out to people.
Use the positive parts of social media to connect with those so we can show
them our emotional support.
I loved when I was so scared to reach out to Uri. I, it's been a,
a little bit of a time I haven't reached out to him. And I was like, oh,
you know what? I don't wanna upset him. I don't know what to say.
He's in middle of it. He's literally, he's, his home is right there, you know,
where you can see the bombs.
And as scared as I was to send the text,
I remembered the feeling that I had when my father died,
and how many people just ignored me.
Ignored because they were afraid to upset me.
We are not upsetting people when we connect and tell them we care.
And that's such an important message.
One thing to doom scroll news or images and videos,
it's another to reach out to someone who might be affected just to not only hear
their perspective, but what they, what they would get from you in that moment.
Yeah.
And that's why, you know, I, I keep talking about your son, but you know,
you guys can't see him, but I can see him. So let me do a visual picture.
He's an adorable, the chunky little teaks, and he is chunky. And, uh,
I've seen Kai not be a father, and now he is a father, right? And,
and so we at balancing life's issues, we're a work-life balance company.
So we've got the best thing in the world on this podcast, a brand new baby,
and we have the worst thing on the world in this podcast, which is war
I I really have to say that, you know, where you spend your dollars,
how you spend your dollars buying from small businesses, supporting,
going on Etsy and continuing to support the Israeli business owners.
So you're gonna listen to the president of Mati Israel and to Yuri,
who's one of the students, um, a graduate and a friend. Um,
and, um, we're asking for your dollar, $5, no judgment,
any donations. There'll be a, a link on where to donate, um, to Mati U s A.
The money goes directly to Jerusalem and directly to the people that
are being evacuated or to the small businesses.
We'll leave it there and we will, we'll hear from our guests.
Take care everyone. Thanks.
For listening guys, and thanks for donating.
My name is Svia. I was born in Israel, raised in Israel,
did the army in Israel, have two kids married to a Phil and work in Jerusalem.
We are working in Jerusalem.
Our main goal is to have the economic in Jerusalem for all the people who
live in the city. Five days ago when I woke up, it was six in the morning,
six and a half something. And I woke to the sounds of the alarm,
and we ran into the safe room as all the country,
or a lot of people in the country. But that wasn't the, the worst thing.
It took two hours from there when we found out that all our brothers and sisters
are suffering now.
People are being attacked in their houses being shot.
Both of my friends lost their kids. And I'm going from one place to another,
all around me. My friends are sending their boys and girls to the Army.
And what we're trying to do in our non-profit organization called Mati is to
help those people who are coming to the South with their suffer and staying in
Jerusalem. And combined with that, we wanna help them,
them and the people who live in Jerusalem,
those who are have businesses and at the time of war, do not work. So we said,
if we'll raise money to buy the people from the south, the needs,
they need all kinds of stuff for themselves. They don't have beds,
they don't have shits, they don't have clothes, nothing.
So we're raising it for them. And at the same time,
we buy it from people who have businesses in Jerusalem.
So we feel that we'll have to both of the things that we wanna do,
our people in Israel and our businesses in Jerusalem.
Thank you. You know, um, my, I'm first generation American mm-hmm.
. Um, and I've often thought a lot about what I would do,
and I watched my mom go through watching this,
and I think we wanna know what we can do.
And so I'm happy to bring and ask to all of us listening.
No donation is too small.
We're gonna have all the information about where to send your money.
Your money is gonna go directly to the residents that have been relocated to the
small businesses and to tis Jerusalem Business Center. And vie,
I know you jumped on here. We're gonna continue this discussion. Um,
our thoughts and our prayers and our dollars are with you.
So thank you for joining us today. Thank you.
And to all the people from America and all over the world are supporting us.
We really appreciate it and we need it. It helps us to get through the days.
I've been lucky enough to be friends and colleagues and and coworkers with uri.
And we met ti um, we were lucky enough to be assigned to be friends together,
if I remember correctly. That's how we met, right? That's.
Absolutely right. I was blessed. You were my mentor.
Uh, I don't know about that. I think it was vice versa.
But you said something yesterday in my voice message that I'm hoping you'll
share with our listeners. Can you share your,
your voice message that was so powerful?
Um, sure. I mean, I don't remember the exact particulars,
but the thrust of it very much was as terrible as it is, and it is,
um, the world is not ending. I get that. The world is not ending.
This is a horrible blow. It's a horrible blow.
Scratch the surface of the people suffering this horrible blow.
And I am witness to greatness of human beings. I, I,
I'm not a preacher. I don't talk it. I'm, I'm witness to this stuff.
We're all witness to this, and it is inspiring beyond measure. I'm Jewish.
You know, there's this prayer in the Jewish liturgy, the,
I dunno if you're familiar with any of it.
I'll call it the end of prayer services, the end of morning, afternoon,
and evening services. And it appears in the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kira liturgy.
Like this is a big time prayer. And it has two paragraphs.
The first paragraph speaks about the particularity the relationship of the Jews
and God. The second paragraph,
the culminating paragraph of prayer has no mention of Jews or Israel whatsoever.
It is about a, a sense of universal monotheism,
which is to say the pursuit of good everyone is part of the symphony.
Universality emerges from particularity not at the expense of
particularity. Think of a good relationship.
The best of relationship is when the,
the entities are demarcated and that allows them to integrate
and become something greater than ourselves.
The whole is indeed greater than the sum total of its parts.
And so this is devastating. Don't let my energy right now fool you.
It's devastating. And the opportunity to give,
to do something from, do it from, from a smile to somebody else,
to spending $5 to a million things that seem
banal. But it, it reinforces and,
and enables connection, contribution and meaning. Yeah.
And at the end of the day, that's what we pursue.
And you know, it is interesting because it is why I started my company.
Like when I was yes. Like, so down, right? It was like, geez,
if somebody would just greet me with a nicety, it would make me feel better. So,
you know, yeah. I, I do think we've lost sight of how important our control is.
We're scared to talk to you. People are really scared. Like, they're like,
how are you? How do you have the nerve to call someone? I'm like,
how do you have the nerve to leave them alone?
Yeah, just you have, when I receive a message, it feels so good.
When someone says hi, just check in. How you doing? Look, I'm a goose, bumpy,
proud American. It's very special to me. Being here in Israel,
being part of a community, um, which is not just Jews, by the way.
This is a rich culture here. Um,
the commitment, the bonding, the support, the volunteering.
I wasn't alive in the, you know, during World War ii,
but I would see little pictures of everyone stepping up.
Everyone here is stepping up. Um,
rides in the middle of the night to bring some medicine from the north to the
south. Food places to stay. Baby formula, you name it.
I have a hundred different groups on my WhatsApp right now.
People just wanting to give, contribute and volunteer. Focus on the positive.
The terrible is terrible. Believe me, we all feel it.
I'm just returning from a funeral. But
what this country is focused on, helping people, air, water,
food, technology, you name it,
what we want to do and create an estate,
we want to fashion and we want to be able to share that with the world.
It's as simple as that. Don't let the corniness of it fool you.
It is as simple as that. We want to do good.
We want to, to fashion as a society. That is a mix. It is multicultural.
If you ever knew the meaning of the word.
We are committed to doing something great in this country.
This has been a horrible weekend and there are gonna be some really hard times
in the weeks to come. But the opportunity to support Mati,
to support Mati supporting us, we who moved here and create,
helped us grow and build businesses and,
and attract customers and become part of the tapestry of the fabric of the state
of Israel is a blessing with exponentially great outcomes.
And it's a blessing to be here.
Uri. Thank you. I so appreciate I took you off the streets of Jerusalem.
We ran to your apartment to get this done,
to get the message out and to help us really help and be part of
a solution and be positive. So thanks for joining us today.
You're very welcome, Wendy. All good things. Bye.
To donate to Mati Jerusalem's Emergency Campaign,
please go to tiny url.com/three map,
P D six X. This link will also be available in the episode description.
Again,
100% of your donation will help a small business in Jerusalem that has been
affected by the ongoing war.
This has been a production of balancing life's issues with your hosts,
Kai Sorenson and Wendy Wallner, produced by me Kai Rate.
Leave a review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen so you can get
brand new episodes as they drop. Got an idea for the show. Email me,
k i@balancinglifesissues.com. Anything to add? Miles.