I want to talk to you today about being an everyday hero or heroine.

There was a woman who posted a video to TikTok. She’s a poll watcher in the Bronx and she talked about seeing irregularities, and when she reported them in the moment, she was basically told to pipe down. She made a video, she shared it with the world, let the world decide. She spoke truth so that others could carry it forward. That woman is a heroine, and it doesn’t matter if she is Democrat, Republican, independent, or whatever. What matters is that she, as a citizen, exercised her conscience within the law. She is exemplary.

In Judaism, which is my religion, we have a prayer called the Shema, and I say it every day. We all say it every day, a few times a day, and one of the sentences in the Shema says that “I am commanding you things”—being God commanding—”and you will speak my commandments everywhere you go.” It is very important to speak the truth wherever you go, and God is telling us as Jews to remember that the Torah that we were commanded is the truth, and it’s not enough to know it, and it’s not enough to do the things we’ve been told to do. We need to talk about it.

Wherever you go in this world, you will find two kinds of people—well, three kinds. One kind of person speaks truth wherever they go. They just, whatever the topic is, they have to say something about it; they feel compelled; they want to set things right. Sometimes it’s on many topics. The other type of person specifically does not want the first type of person to talk. They’re just never happy until the first type of person is silenced. And the vast middle, the vast majority of people, say nothing. They say nothing because they’ve been smashed down by the system, by their family, by school, by some sort of external punishment being imposed on them at some point, and they have learned in order to get by. All tyranny in the world persists because that vast middle group is scared out of their ever-loving minds.

You know, I’ll tell you a story. I knew someone who had a big job, and I’m not going to say much about it. The person who had this very big job—and I mean a really, really, really big job, okay, really big, the kind you get into magazines for and on magazine covers for—do you know what that person said? They can’t express an opinion. They live a life of pure luxury. They can’t express an opinion because the fact that they have that job is a censorship on them. If they want to keep that job, they have to.

Now, imagine all the people who have big jobs, big names, big salaries, big influence, or worse: they speak as if they’re truth-tellers, but really they are advancing the agenda of people who want to do what? Silence the truth-tellers. And they look a lot like truth. They look a lot like they’re just sharing, they’re just thinking out loud, they rope you in, but there’s something funny about it and there’s a place beyond which you cannot go.

Remember, you may think that you’re nothing. You may think you don’t count. Nobody’s listening to you. I am telling you, it is the most fundamental thing in the world to know that your voice, your words, your opinion, your truth, sticking to it, articulating it in whatever way is safest for you is the boldest thing that you can do as a citizen. It is the strongest, boldest move you can make. It is so incredibly empowering.

Now, do we all have to know the right place and the right time and to be strategic? Absolutely. But do we have to unlearn this concept that survival means “shhh”? 100 percent.

So it’s not just your vote on voting day; it’s your voice every single day. Take it from me.