Online Students Honor Teacher

Every day for over two years, students from all over the world have joined Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon, director of Chabad of the Valley, for daily Chitas shiurim on Jewish.TV.

To date, more than 234,000 unique visitors have studied with Rabbi Yehoshua B. Gordon at his daily Chumash and Tanya lessons. So when the Chabad.org/Jewish.TV staff heard that Rabbi Gordon and his wife, Mrs. Deborah Gordon, were being honored at the upcoming “Celebration of Leadership Banquet Gala” in the Valley, they seized the opportunity to have Rabbi Gordon’s students from all over the world express their appreciation.

“If you have been inspired by Rabbi Gordon,” a message posted to the Jewish.TV/RabbiGordon page stated, “we at Jewish.TV would like to encourage you to share a message of appreciation.” The congratulation messages have not stopped coming in along with numerous moving stories of people returning to yiddishkeit across the globe because of the rabbi’s shiur.

Bringing Rabbi Gordon’s teaching to the global audience began when Chabad.org’s executive director, Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, heard from shluchim who traveled to Rabbi Gordon for mentoring how amazed they were that for a full hour after shacharis each morning, a large group of professionals spends close to a full hour learning Chitas from Rabbi Gordon.

Chabad.org staff are always on the lookout for additional content and teachers for Jewish.TV audio and video broadcasts, so Shmotkin approached Gordon to join the Jewish.TV faculty. The latter was hesitant, citing the enormous responsibility of relaying Torah to a global audience, and expressing concern that the presence of the camera could compromise the experience for his community — his first priority.

In the meantime, Rabbi Gordon celebrated a birthday and reflected upon the Rebbe’s insistence for resolutions on that day; he thought of his father, the esteemed chasid Rabbi Sholom Gordon of blessed memory, who would never turn down a request to teach Torah; he heard from his wife (and fellow honoree this year) who weighed in heavily on the “go ahead” side; and he consulted with his community.

In the end, he found it impossible to say no to the possibility of impacting the more than 1.5 million unique monthly visitors of Chabad.org, and agreed to the class.

Community member and internet multimedia expert Daniel Aharanoff helped greatly when he presented Gordon with a year’s worth of audio recordings he secretly made of his teacher’s classes, thus softening the transition to video for the rabbi.

Chabad.org IT Director Moshe Berghoff and his colleagues at Jewish.TV immediately jumped into action and worked with Aharonoff to perfect the technical aspects of the live daily webcast.

In addition to its tremendous popularity, the class also represents a monumental achievement. This is the first time that the entire shiur Chitas of both Chumash and Tanya, for both regular and leap years, have been recorded on video.

In summing up the sentiments of the Chabad.org/Jewish.TV staff, Rabbi Shmotkin called the class “an invaluable contribution to klal yisrael for generations to come,” adding, “We all know how much the Rebbe promoted daily study of Chitas. I can think of very few in the world today who have done more to heed that call than Rabbi Gordon.”

To send your message of appreciation in honor of Rabbi Gordon, go to Let’s Salute Rabbi Gordon.