After Year of Massive Growth, Global Movement of Young Professional Scholars To Converge on Crown Heights This Weekend

A growing movement of young Jewish professionals is turning to traditional Torah texts for guidance in navigating modern life. This weekend, they’ll connect with a global community of young learners at the CYP Encounter, the largest international gathering of young Jewish professionals, featuring a special advanced study track.

Eric Steibelman walked out of his first CYP Academy class in Houston having grasped how Jewish law’s four distinct categories, written, received, derived, and legislated, form the architecture of halachic reasoning. “I’m really thankful for the CYP Academy for continuing my Jewish education and bringing my friends and people that I don’t know even closer through amazing classes like this,” he said after the session taught by Rabbi Chaim Lazaroff.

Eric is one of nearly 1,000 young professionals currently enrolled in Academy courses across 75 chapters worldwide. Created by Chabad Young Professionals International, the CYP Academy offers substantive Torah learning designed specifically for today’s young professionals.

Each year, three professionally developed courses explore topics ranging from Talmudic reasoning to Jewish perspectives on success, relationships, and mental health. Students attend four classes per course, and upon completion, earn a $200 voucher toward any CYP Encounter Shabbaton.

For many, the program has become transformative in unexpected ways.

“At times I feel like I don’t belong in certain circles, but this class helped me come to terms and realize I DO belong and not to feel like an imposter,” shared Samuel Moss of CYP Long Beach after completing a recent course. “The most meaningful takeaway was to be myself and not let the fact that I perhaps don’t belong scare me.”

That sense of community is about to expand dramatically. Next week, hundreds of Academy students will use the $200 vouchers they’ve earned, awarded upon completing each four-class course, to attend the world’s largest international gathering of young Jewish professionals: the CYP Encounter Crown Heights Shabbaton.

“Despite the day-to-day challenges of being a young professional today, these budding scholars have spent months grappling with complex texts and ideas in their local communities,” says Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, Executive Director of Merkos 302 and Chabad Young Professionals International. “This week, they’ll experience firsthand what they’ve been studying: Judaism not as abstract philosophy, but as a vibrant, lived reality with answers to the very challenges they face.”

Scheduled for MLK Weekend (January 16-18), this year’s Shabbaton is expected to draw nearly 1,000 young Jewish professionals from across the United States, Australia, South America, Europe, and Israel, the largest gathering in the program’s nine-year history. A special advanced learning track throughout the weekend will allow the young professionals to engage in Torah texts on a Yeshiva level.

“The CYP Academy has engaged an entirely new movement of young professionals eager for authentic Torah learning,” says Rabbi Eli Sputz of CYP Academy at Merkos 302. “They’re encountering authentic Judaism in ways many never have before, with peers who are on the same journey.”

The weekend will feature freed hostage Eliya Cohen (who survived 505 days in Hamas captivity), former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary Mitchell A. Silk, and Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet, among other speakers. Participants will tour 770, visit the Ohel, experience authentic Crown Heights Shabbos hospitality, and join the largest in-person Jewish speed dating event.

For students like Samuel, who added “Looking forward to Encounter!” to his course feedback, the Crown Heights Shabbaton gives them a chance to experience the joy of being part of a global community of young Jews returning to their roots and drawing guidance from Torah’s timeless teachings.