It’s harvest season in Sakon Nakhon, 500 miles from Bangkok, Thailand, so Zevulun Brewer has been spending 10 to 12 hours a day driving his tractor up and down his three fields, hoping to bring back 15 tons of rice. But that doesn’t mean he can’t squeeze in some time for a side endeavor as well. Since he was connected to the Internet four years ago, he’s been downloading daily Torah study classes by Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon—executive director of Chabad of the Valley in Encino, Calif.— and replaying them on his iPod as he works.
Aside from appreciating the rabbi’s precise explanations, Brewer says Gordon’s personal anecdotes and wisecracks make the classes easy on the ear. “Rabbi Gordon draws upon a great reservoir of personal experiences, Chassidic stories and anecdotes of his father,” he explains, “so you really get to know him, and to get to know him is to love him.”
Gordon has been teaching a live class available on video and audio that follows the daily study cycle of Tanya, the seminal work of Chabad Chassidus, as well as the daily study of Chumash (The Five Books of Moses) with the commentary of Rashi since 2009, and on Sunday, Dec. 14 he will complete the entire 1,017-chapter series of Mishneh Torah—Maimonides’ codification of Jewish law—following the three-year track established by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
The live class was the brainchild of tech investor and regular class attendee Daniel Aharonoff, who says it took more than a year of secretly taping the classes given at the Chabad House before the rabbi agreed to open the course to the public.
“A few years ago, I had a meeting with Rabbi Gordon,” says the 40-something Aharonoff, who was born in Germany and grew up in Los Angeles, where he attended Modern Orthodox Jewish day schools. “I told him that I’m doing well financially, but something was missing in my life. He told me to come to his daily Torah and Tanya class for three months. I replied that I’ve never been good in school and doubted that I would do any better in his class. He told me to take what he calls ‘the Gordon Challenge’—to study with him every day for three months and then take it from there.
“After three months, I was hooked,” he continues. “Tanya transformed my life, and I learned that starting the day with Torah study gives you more energy than a good shower and a cup of coffee. Rabbi Gordon says it fortifies you with the minerals you need to get going—and it’s true. Learning sets your head in the right direction.”
Aharonoff then began asking the rabbi if he could use his expertise from the technology sector to broadcast the classes live, so that others could take advantage of what he describes as the rabbi’s ability to paint vivid pictures that bring even the driest aspects of the subject matter to life.
After Gordon demurred—noting that the camera’s presence might inhibit him—Aharonoff began to secretly record the classes with a handheld device in his pocket.
‘The Rabbi Was Speechless’
“After a year, I took the rabbi out for lunch, telling him I had a special gift to present him,” relates Aharonoff. “Afterwards, I took out an SD card with his classes and told him what it was. For a rare moment, the rabbi was speechless.”
Around that same time, the staff of Chabad.org’s Jewish.tv reached out to Rabbi Gordon, requesting that he broadcast his much-talked-about classes … and he finally relented.
Aharonoff says he brought in all the equipment needed to start streaming and enjoyed watching how many people logged on in real time.
As the class gained popularity, the rabbi says he was pleasantly surprised to learn just how many lives he has touched. “I travel widely,” he has stated previously, “and I often meet strangers who tell me that they ‘know’ me because they learn from my classes on Chabad.org. It’s incomparable to anything else—an aspect of life that I never imagined—and it’s wonderful.”
‘Drink From the Wellsprings’
Brocha Taub, who listens to the classes in her van while driving her children to school, says the rabbi, his teachings and his jokes have become part of her family culture. “My 2-year-old daughter came up to me the other day while the class was playing,” she wrote in an email, “and she said to me, ‘Rambam? Yeah, Mommy!’ I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was actually the Chumash class.”
With just two weeks to go until the class will complete the entire Mishneh Torah following the triennial cycle the Rebbe set in motion back in 1984, Taub says she and her children are already planning their grand celebration and thinking of ways to get others to join in the learning as well.
For his part, Brewer says he’s “grateful, inspired and motivated by the strengths of Rabbi Gordon—strengths that invite and welcome even people from the furthest fringes to drink from the wellsprings of Judaism and Chassidism to find a satisfaction that seemed only possible as a dream before. I’m grateful for Rabbi Gordon’s kind, loving patience that shines through his elucidations of the most abstract concepts and humble humor that helps give over the content.”
According to the latest statistics, the rabbi’s classes have been viewed nearly 2 million times since Chabad.org began tracking hits to the site—and reached others via word of mouth as well.
Reports Aharonoff: “I know that I often share things that I’ve learned throughout the day with business acquaintances and family, and other people do that as well. And when you add that all together, the effects are just astronomical.”
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