Remembering Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon, Beloved Host of the World’s Largest Daily Torah Class

by Menachem Posner – Chabad.org

Rabbi Yehoshua Binyamin (Josh) Gordon, the beloved Torah scholar, congregational rabbi and educator who taught thousands of students around the globe through the world’s most widely viewed daily Torah classes, passed away yesterday in California after an extended illness. He was 66 years old.

A consummate rabbinic and communal leader, Gordon was the founder and executive director of Chabad of the Valley in Southern California, established in 1973, and spiritual leader of Chabad of Encino. The rabbi oversaw a string of institutions, including 26 Chabad centers, Hebrew schools, adult-education institutes, summer camps and a host of other closely linked communal institutions.

Gordon was an internationally acclaimed teacher of Torah, speaking in a style that was both lucid and highly engaging. Since 2009, his classes have streamed live on Chabad.org’s Jewish.tv, bringing Torah to thousands of eager students all over the globe, including extraordinarily popular daily classes in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Chumash with Rashi’s commentaryand Tanya.

“Rabbi Gordon’s success guiding the many Chabad representatives and centers under his aegis made him a role model to manyshluchim,” said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch—the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitchmovement— in a statement this morning. “His many accomplishments, and the inspiration he brought to so many individuals and families through his classes and his leadership, make this a very sad day. His premature passing will leave a huge void.”

‘It’s in My DNA’

Rabbi Gordon was born in 1949 in New Jersey to Rabbi Sholom B. and Miriam Gordon, Chabad emissaries to Newark, then a thriving Jewish metropolis. His father was rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Zion, at the time one of the largest synagogues in Newark, while his mother taught at its Hebrew and Sunday school, and led the city’s Chabad women’s organization.

After studying at Chabad yeshivahs in France and in Montreal, and then following his marriage to Deborah Pozepoff, the young rabbi and his wife moved to Detroit in 1972 to join the growing network of Chabad rabbis in the city. “There wasn’t even a question of whether this would be our purpose,” the rabbi would reflect. “It was something theLubavitcher Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory] was speaking about on a constant basis, and we knew that it was the life for us.”

In 1973, the Gordons were recruited by West Coast emissary Rabbi ShlomoCunin to establish the Chabad in the San Fernando Valley. Beginning in a small home under the rabbi’s stewardship, Chabad in the Valley grew to encompass 26 centers, each one a vibrant generator of Jewish life.

Commenting on the rabbi’s outsized impact on the Jews of the Valley, radio talk-show host Dennis Prager noted: “This was a Jewish desert largely, Southern California, and there came a few rabbis, including Rabbi and Mrs. Gordon. If you would have said there will be 25 Chabad centers in the San Fernando Valley, they’d think you are as nutty as I am when I say I just visited Chabad of Cambodia.”

He Was Persuaded to Record

Although Rabbi Gordon had been teaching a daily class for decades, he had resisted recording the sessions. After regular attendee Daniel Aharonoff persisted locally—and Chabad.org’s leadership in New York relentlessly worked to convince him—the rabbi finally agreed to let the camera roll. In June 2009, Rabbi Gordon entered living rooms and boardrooms across the world.

Following the daily study cycle, the rabbi taught his quickly growing audience all of Tanya, Chumash and Rashi, until every portion had been recorded. The group then began studying Mishneh Torah, Maimonides’ codification of Jewish law, following the three-year track established by the Rebbe.

The recordings remain on Jewish.tv, where thousands continue to study them on a daily basis.

In the last year alone, his classes have been viewed more than 1.86 million times.

Off-camera, the rabbi was a patient and caring mentor to his community, as well as the many Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries who sought his advice from all over the world. Drawing from his own experiences—and from the directives he received from the Rebbe—he could be relied upon for support, wise counsel and a listening ear.

Despite the pressures of ministering to a large congregation and overseeing a large number of Chabad centers (more than 35 emissary couples serving the San Fernando valley, with an estimated 250,000 Jewish people), the rabbi was fully present when giving his classes. “At all other times, my mind is always wandering as I think about the pressing issues of the day,” the rabbi said in a 2014 interview. “When I’m preparing a class—and especially, when I am teaching—and I know that it will be recorded and I need to get it right, I’m able to push myself to focus 100 percent. If anything, this is my most relaxing moment of the day.

“I guess you can say it’s in my DNA,” he continued. “My father, of blessed memory, taught in his synagogue in New Jersey every day for nearly 60 years, and it’s something he taught his children to do as well. There are many scholars more learned than myself, but I’ve been given the gift of clarity—the ability to make things simple and understandable. One of my greatest joys comes from hearing from people who tell me that they learn with me regularly, and that they now understand better than they did before.”

In addition to teaching the three daily classes of Chumash, Tanya andRambam, the rabbi also streamed lectures on other subjects as per the directives of the Rebbe: Chassidic discourses germane to special days, special lectures for the “Three Weeks” period before Tisha B’Av and even aweekly class drawing life lessons from the Torah portion.

“He was extremely humble and unassuming,” says Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch. “He was a guide to shluchimaround the globe and a trusted confidant to many of them, but he never saw himself as anything more than a simple person.

“Rabbi Gordon had a special kind of warmth and wisdom. He was a natural people-person who was uniquely positioned to help with interpersonal issues. Beyond his work for others, both locally and globally, he was extremely dedicated to his family, to whom his care was readily apparent,” continues Kotlarsky, who was his roommate in Montreal in 1968-70 and remained a lifelong friend. “And he had a tremendous sense of gratitude towards his wife.”

“Wherever I traveled for Chabad,” says Kotlarsky in a phone conversation from London, “I would meet people who told me that they are students of his—that he turned them on to daily Torah study. He had so much more teaching to do. His was a life cut too short.”

‘Grateful, Inspired, Motivated’

Among the rabbi’s thousands of daily students is Zevulun Brewer, a rice farmer in Sakon Nakhon, 500 miles from Bangkok, Thailand, who tends to listen while driving his tractor.

Brewer said Gordon’s personal anecdotes and wisecracks made the classes easy on the ear. “Rabbi Gordon drew upon a great reservoir of personal experiences, Chassidic stories and anecdotes of his father,” he explained, “so you really get to know him, and to get to know him is to love him.”

His admiration was mirrored by Daniel Aharonoff, who reflected that he “learned that starting the day with Torah study gives you more energy than a good shower and a cup of coffee. Rabbi Gordon said it fortifies you with the minerals you need to get going—and it’s true. Learning sets your head in the right direction.”

When the rabbi was diagnosed with the illness that claimed his life, he asked that it not be widely publicized in order to spare his students pain and worry.

The Chabad.org team sent a letter to its website users today, stating that it would bring Rabbi Gordon “the greatest nachas, the greatest joy and satisfaction” if in his memory we would each:

1. Rededicate ourselves to the Rebbe’s daily learning programs of Rambam, Chumash, Tanya and Tehillim to which Rabbi Gordon gave his all; and

2. Inspire at least one more friend who does not yet participate in these classes to begin learning with Rabbi Gordon daily.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children: Rabbi Yossi Gordon (Woodland Hills, Calif.), Yochanan Gordon (Tarzana, Calif.), Faygie Herzog (Encino, Calif.), Eli Gordon (Encino, Calif.), Dena Rabin (West Hills, Calif.) and Chaya Mushka Drizin (Los Angeles); in addition to his children-in-law and grandchildren. He is also survived by siblings Yocheved Baitelman (Brooklyn, N.Y.), Chani Friedman (St. Paul, Minn.), Rabbi Yosef Y. Gordon (Melbourne, Australia), Bluma Rivkin (New Orleans), Rabbi Mendel Gordon (London) and Frumie Posner (Birmingham, Ala.).

The funeral will depart from Chabad of Encino, 4915 Hayvenhurst Ave., at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. As per the rabbi’s wishes, he will be interred in the Mount of Olives Cemetery at 7231 E. Slauson Ave., in Commerce, Calif.

Memories of Rabbi Gordon and condolences for the family can be shared here.