Rambam Class Spans the Globe
In a few short months, Marco Jenau will be completing the three-year cycle of the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah with “Rabbi Gordon Live” as he whips along Germany’s autobahn highway. Michael Hirsch, who has been streaming Rabbi Joshua Gordon’s classes on Torah and Tanya for years, will toast the completion with a slug of coffee as he studies at dawn on the east coast of the United States. During the wine dark night in Norway, Ole Mads Sirks Vevle will tune in for a class that started in Chabad of Encino, CA, and has grown into one of Chabad.org’s most popular online video classes worldwide.
Rabbi Gordon, executive director of California’s Chabad of the Valley, debuted his live broadcast of the Mishneh Torah, a dense legal work written by Maimonides a medieval scholar, after completing videocasts for the daily study of Torah and Tanya. On Jewish.tv, the website where the classes are streamed live and archived, Rabbi Gordon Live offers 2068 web classes. Jewish.tv’s daily list of the most watched videos includes at least two of Rabbi Gordon’s classes – usually those linked to the current Torah portion – in the top ten.
Simplicity is what Rabbi Gordon sees as the secret of his popularity. He has a gift for taking the numbingly complex and breaking it down into easily digested niblets of thought — without dumbing down or condescension. Years spent attending Torah classes taught by his father Rabbi Sholom B. Gordon, legendary rabbi of Chabad of Maplewood, NJ, honed his style. “I have three teachers: the Lubavitcher Rebbe, my father, and – it must be said – Jackie Mason.”
Slogging through the legalistic Mishneh Torah pushed Rabbi Gordon to draw on the strengths of all of his mentors. During one recent videocast, in the midst of saltine cracker dry discussion of witnesses, Rabbi Gordon told an anecdote about his father, cracked a joke Spanglish slang, and served up an insight from the Rebbe — all in a span of six minutes.
Jack Scapa, whose linen import company is headquartered around the corner from Chabad of Encino, said Rabbi Gordon’s style helped him stick with the course.
“The passion and enthusiasm of Rabbi Gordon pulls you in,” he said. “I marvel at the Rambam’s organization, his attention to detail and order. The details are overwhelming at times, but the challenge to stick through it is most worthwhile and rewarding. It sparks the interest to learn more.”
Jewish tourists have started to stop in to Chabad of Encino to take part of the live studio audience during a class. Some ask to meet Scapa. He enjoys a whiff of celebrity as the fellow Rabbi Gordon mentions on camera to manage the air conditioner to keep the classroom a frosty 68 degrees.
When Rabbi Gordon quips on camera that the difference between being in class face-to-face and viewing online is the food, the web learners don’t know what they are missing. Each day Chabad serves breakfast – scrambled eggs, fruit and bagels – adding a breakfast club camaraderie to the scholarly journey.
A different kind of connection has been built between Rabbi Gordon and his faithful, if far-flung community of students. They write questions on the website comment box, and Rabbi Gordon answers. They visit. They stop Rabbi Gordon on the street, and they invite him to lecture — all around the world.
A touching example of the bond that has formed between this rabbi and his video flock was the mass of condolence notes that poured in when Rabbi Gordon’s mother passed away at the end of 2012. The students wrote in; their 196 messages cover 45 pages in single space type, and spoke of their sadness at the news. They wrote in English, Hebrew, French, Dutch and Spanish. They reassured Rabbi Gordon that his mother was surely proud of her good and giving son. Some signed their Hebrew names in parentheses. Some had no Jewish name at all. Sister Regina F. Miller wrote Rabbi Gordon words of comfort and added: “I consider you a new friend.”
Dr. Les Rosenthal conveyed his condolences in person. He has been learning with Rabbi Gordon for more than 30 years. When he started out, navy blue volumes containing linear translations of Rashi’s commentary into English were Rabbi Gordon’s most high tech teaching apparatus. Now he sits before a slick camera and with a velvet black backdrop, and a web link that flickers as it transmits the web feed.
It took Daniel Aharonoff, CEO of a digital media company and longtime Encino community member, a year and a half to persuade Rabbi Gordon to take the online leap. Rabbi Gordon feared his folksy and often funny delivery – a perfect match for his laid back Valley congregation – would be off the mark for an international audience of all stripes. Persuasion continued via Aharonoff and fellow rabbis connected with Chabad.org who chanced upon the class. When the rabbi finally said a hesitant yes, Aharonoff became the class’s default video producer.
Aharonoff attends the technical details and sits down to learn, “I find it a very calm way to start your day and kick-start your brain with Torah thoughts,” he said. “It’s a part of my daily ritual now so I certainly don’t see myself stopping.”
Nor does Rabbi Gordon. New live broadcasts will be on hiatus for two or three weeks following the completion of the Rambam, and then Rabbi Gordon will embark on his next video yeshiva semester. This time when the camera goes live, Rabbi Gordon will be taking his trademark style to teach The Babylonian Talmud. Starting with the first tractate – Berachos – blessings – Rabbi Gordon will go through a page a day, and should complete this grand masterwork in seven years.
It’s a big task with huge potential, and Rabbi Gordon is ready: “We will take it day by day.”
