My Speech from the AJOP Conference
NCSY’s Goal & Mission: Passion
Since I became National Director of NCSY, some of the most commonly asked questions I have received include, “What is NCSY’s goal?”, “What is NCSY’s mission?”, and “What does NCSY hope to accomplish on behalf of the Jewish people?”
Thank G-d, NCSY has been around for over fifty years and in that time we have touched the lives of tens of thousands of teenagers. I believe the following story illustrates the “secret” to NCSY’s success, our goal, and how we achieve it. About five years ago, when I was Regional Director of West Coast NCSY, West Coast NCSY opened a state of the art teen drop-in center. Soon after the center’s grand opening, I received a call from a rabbi in a neighboring community who asked if he could come down and see the teen center. I replied that it would be my pleasure.
The rabbi came down and I proudly showed him around the center. I took the rabbi to our “rec” room, complete with a pool table and all the accessories. We then visited the new Beis Midrash that was filled with Hebrew and English seforim, allowing every teen on any level the opportunity to learn in a comfortable environment. After the grand tour, we moved into my office to chat. Immediately, I could decipher that something was vexing my guest and I inquired as to what was troubling him. The rabbi uncomfortably explained that he believed I would never be successful. I was aghast by his response and questioned how I could not be successful with such an incredible new center.
The rabbi replied that, in his experience, an organization has to have one clear mission, one goal in order to achieve success. Meanwhile, NCSY has two totally disparate goals that it hopes to accomplish. On the one hand, NCSY seeks to work with yeshiva day school teens that have been learning the aleph bais and all about Torah and Yiddishkeit since nursery school. On the other hand, NCSY works with public school kids that have little or no background and do not even know who Avraham, Yitzchok, and Yaakov were.
The rabbi could not comprehend how NCSY intended to reach out to two totally different and diverse populations. I told the rabbi that he brought up a good point and through a d’var Torah he could better understand NCSY’s goal. In parshat Chayei Sarah, there is a beautiful story where Avraham is marrying off his son Yitzchok and needs to find him a suitable bride. Avraham turns to Eliezer, his trusted servant, and asks him to travel to the land where Avraham’s family resides to find a wife for Yitzchok. Eliezer quickly acquiesces, but as soon as he leaves Avraham’s tent he cries out to Hashem for help.
Eliezer is very distressed, as he is not a matchmaker and he does not know how to find Yitzchok a proper bride. Eliezer therefore devises a sign with HaKadosh Baruch Hu for when he arrives in the land of Avraham’s family. The sign that would illustrate who would be the perfect soul mate for Yitzchok, would be the girl who comes and gives water to Eliezer and his camels. This action would demonstrate to Eliezer that this girl is the perfect match for Yitzchok and Eliezer would bring her back to Avraham.
Sure enough, as Eliezer approaches the land of Abraham’s ancestors, little Rivka is nearby and sees Eliezer. Rivka rushes over to Eliezer and gives water to him, as well as his camels. With this gesture, Eliezer is overcome with excitement - Baruch Hashem, this is the sign! Eliezer proceeds to take Rivka back with him and Yitzchok and Rivka get married and live happily ever after.
I related to the rabbi that, while this is a beautiful story, I have always been bothered by the sign that Eliezer picked. Our commentators tell us that Eliezer did not come down empty-handed. As Avraham was a wealthy man, Eliezer came down along with camels laden with gold, silver, silk, diamond, and jewels. Eliezer was obviously radiating wealth and prosperity. Rivka was an eligible young girl who sees Eliezer with his riches and brings water for Eliezer and his camels. How did Eliezer know that Rivka was of pure heart and bringing over the water for the right reasons? How did Eliezer know that Rivka was not simply after Eliezer’s vast wealth and possessions? It does not appear that Eliezer picked a solid, foolproof test.
I believe the answer to these questions lie within the p’sukim themselves. If you read the verses carefully, you will find two verbs repeatedly in the story. It says, “va’t’maheir” - that she hurried to bring him the water and it also says, “vataratz” - she ran to bring him the water. What Eliezer saw within Rivka had little to do with the fact that she brought the water and everything to do with how she brought the water.
When Eliezer looked into Rivka’s eyes, he saw passion. Rivka was passionate about what she was doing. It was not only about Rivka’s kindness in bringing the water; rather, it was the manner in which she brought the water - she ran, she hurried to bring it. Eliezer took one look at Rivka and realized she had to be the girl that Avraham, his master, wished him to bring back. Yet, how did Eliezer know this? How did he know that passion was the character trait that Avraham was searching for in his daughter-in-law?
In parshat Vayeira, three angels came to visit Avraham Avinu right after he had a circumcision and was in tremendous pain. To ensure that Avraham would not have to receive any guests, Hashem made the sun excruciatingly hot. However, since Avraham became upset as he lacked guests, Hashem sent three angels to visit him.
If you look in the p’sukim, you will see the exact same two verbs. “va’y’maheir Avraham”, he rushed to his tents. He’s running, he’s rushing. His whole tent is in a frenzy to prepare food for these travelers, these angels. Eliezer, who had spent so much time with Avraham, understood that the key to Avraham’s success and the key to Avraham’s dedication to Hakadosh Baruch Hu had little to do with act of preparing food itself. The key was how Avraham approached and performed his actions. It had to do with Avraham’s emotion, his passion, his wanting, his devotion, his love of Hashem and his love of serving his fellow man.
After relating this d’var Torah, I turned to the rabbi and I said, “The basic goal of NCSY is to instill passion within young Jews. Whether they do 613 mitzvot or they do one mitzvah, whatever they do, they have to do it with passion.” This has been NCSY’s mission for 51 years and will always be NCSY’s mission. NCSY is for the teen who went to a day school yeshiva his entire life but is uncertain why he celebrates Shabbos. He has known about Shabbos for years but he counts down the minutes and hours until he is freed from Shabbos to go out with his friends. NCSY teaches him to be passionate about Shabbos. He may know about tefilla and kavanah, but he does not understand it and it is not a positive experience for him. NCSY shows teens the passion in tefilla and in all of the mitzvot.
At the same time, NCSY is also there for the teen who cannot read aleph bais, who is ignorant about all of Yiddishkeit. NCSY comes into teenagers’ lives and introduces them to foreign, remarkable concepts referred to as ‘Torah’ and ‘mitzvot.’ We have the incredible zechut to reach out and inspire thousands and thousands of Jewish teenagers each year, we have the honor of helping young Jews all across the continent find passion, meaning, and relevance in Judasim. Creating passionate Jews is the ultimate goal of NCSY.
NCSY Success Stories
The impact one person’s passion can have on an entire community, an entire generation, is immeasurable and NCSY recognizes this potential. That is why NCSY is dedicated to unleashing young Jews’ passion and potential onto the world, so that their love of Hashem and mitzvot can grow and they can blossom into gedolim and leaders of their communities. There are endless stories of former NCSYers whose lives demonstrate the unmatched potential of NCSY.
NCSY has inspired young Jews who have gone on to open dozens of yeshivas, kollels, and seminaries all over Israel and North America. I am exceedingly proud that many of our NCSY alumni are sitting in this room this evening as kiruv professionals and that they are among hundreds of NCSY products who have dedicated their lives to outreach and Torah. As National Director, I travel all across the country and attend a great many dinner receptions and events. As soon as people discover my position, I am often delighted to find that the biggest “balabatim” and greatest Torah sages in the community come over to thank me for all of inspirational experiences NCSY gave them as teenagers. The ripple effect of NCSY is phenomenal and as many NCSYers grow up, they move on to inspire and to lead others and to give over the passion that NCSY instilled within them.
Timing is Everything
NCSY is very fortunate to have the singular opportunity to reach out and to rescue Jews during their formative and most impressionable years. Teenage years are watershed years when adolescents transition into adults and individuals who begin to make an ever-increasing number of decisions for themselves.
The Torah tells us that a Jew becomes a “bar daas” at the age of 12 or 13. This is the same point in a person’s life when NCSY enters the picture. NCSY enters a teen’s life when they are still forming their individual identity, when they are determining who they want to be, and who they wish to date. Hashem has given NCSY the remarkable opportunity to reach Jews early enough that we can truly impact the entirety of their lives. We can educate them and cause them to re-evaluate their life’s course and purpose.
Due to the grace of HaKadosh Boruch Hu, NCSY employs over 250 staff members and close to 900 collegiate volunteers in 15 regions and 237 chapters across North and South America. All of our staff work tirelessly to direct these teenagers to their 3,500-year-old heritage, to their roots, and to their place as part of Hashem’s chosen nation. Each year NCSY runs thousands of Lattes and Learning, Chavrutas by Phone, Jewish Student Union public school clubs, Shabbatonim, regionals, and sixteen summer programs that take hundreds of teenagers to Israel for the first time in their lives.
All of these efforts are due to the Ribono Shel Olam’s extraordinary chesed when, about a hundred years, ago a great neis occurred. An organization of synagogues decided that kashrus was an important issue and they formed the OU. About fifty years later, they also decided that Jewish teens were an important issue and they formed NCSY. The Orthodox Union has been the admirable catalyst that orchestrated this “match made in heaven.” It is with a deep debt of gratitude that I thank the Orthodox Union for their commitment to Jewish teens and their religious growth and commitment. I shudder to think what North American Jewry would look like today without the immense support of the Orthodox Union.
Innovative Informal Education
As NCSY works steadfastly with our mission to instill passion in Jewish teenagers, we recognize the need for novel means to inspire different groups of young Jews. NCSY understands that innovation is key in attracting teens and truly inspiring them. Over the decades, NCSY has cultivated a myriad of unique, fresh programs, including the Shabbaton, JSU public school clubs, Latte and Learning, Hebrew High, Teen Drop-In Centers, Friday Night Lights, and Kollel and Michlelet, to truly name only a few.
The greatest legacy NCSY has given to the Jewish world has been the Shabbaton. The Shabbaton is one of the most effective and impacting means to ignite passion and love for Torah and Yiddishkeit among teenagers. Over the past four years NCSY has also developed an expansive network of Jewish public school clubs called JSU, the Jewish Student Union. Every evening, Monday through Thursday, there are several Latte and Learning programs taking place across the country, providing NCSYers with a thought provoking shiur and discussion as they get a dose of caffeine at their local coffee joints.
NCSY provides more structured Torah classes with Torah High, which attracts 350 teens who earn high school credits as they learn about their heritage. In regions all across North America, you will find Teen Drop-In Centers that provide teens with a comfortable environment to hang out, play pool and Xbox, and also ask questions about their Judaism and learn in chavrutas with NCSY staff. Our latest initiative, FNL, or Friday Night Lights has been so popular that the New York Times wrote up a story about the program just last Sunday and a copy of the article can be found in your packets. With FNL, a dedicated group of NCSY advisors travel to isolated Jewish communities one Shabbos every month to bring Shabbos food, religious fervor, and fun to local teenagers while they also provide support to the local community’s synagogues and patrons.
Of course, don’t think we take a break in the summers, because that is when we offer 16 different summer programs to cater to various interests. Interestingly, despite our trips to Europe and general Israel tours, our most popular summer programs continue to be Kollel and Michlelet. These are single sex programs that take teens to Israel to learn for the summer with an incredible array of rebbeim and teachers.
I truly could go on for some time, but I simply want to emphasize that NCSY is committed to furthering informal Jewish education and ensuring that today’s teens grow up to form tomorrow’s thriving, committed Jewish communities.
Unaffiliated and Orthodox Teens- Everybody Needs Kiruv
I am proud to note that over the last half century, NCSY has demonstrated an illustrious track record. According to the National Jewish Population Study, of those people brought up as Orthodox, only 30% consider themselves Orthodox today. At the same time, 94% of NCSYers who were Orthodox in high school continue to consider themselves Orthodox as adults. NCSY is fighting a battle on two fronts and many people in the Orthodox world are loathe or scared to admit that we have a grave battle to save our own communities.
Recently, I was speaking with a principal of a modern Orthodox high school for girls. She was touting her school, explaining that going off the derech was not a risk for her students. This led me to inquire why a former student of this principal’s school just sent out lovely invitations to her upcoming marriage to a non-Jewish boy. IT HAPPENS, and we must recognize these problems and attempt to address them with constancy and perseverance.
The truth is, many people and institutions are beginning to “get it.” Twenty years ago, Orthodox day schools refused to let students miss a Friday of school to attend an NCSY Shabbaton. Fast forward twenty years later and every modern Orthodox day school across North America runs their own Shabbatonim and most of the high schools in the Tri-State area have hired former NCSY staff members to run their Shabbatons and other NCSY-like informal Jewish programming. These schools have recognized the need for informal Jewish education to help keep their constituents in the Orthodox community as committed Jews living a Torah life.
Of course, we also recognize that our NCSYers need further chizuk after they are finished with high school and NCSY. That is why NCSY staff and advisors are responsible for sending hundreds of teenagers each year to Israel to learn in yeshivas and seminaries, while we also encourage teens to choose colleges that will foster, not inhibit, their religious growth. NCSY has also hired Rabbi Dave Felsenthal as our Director of Alumni to provide our former NCSYers with a means to connect to the fervor and commitment to Torah and mitzvot they experienced with NCSY. We are committed to ensuring that the fire and passion we kindle in our NCSYers remains strong after they graduate.
As I mentioned earlier, we are fighting an uphill battle on two fronts and we cannot neglect either struggle. On one front, NCSY is carrying on in our mission to ignite passion among frum teenagers who have become jaded with Judaism and who are on the road to becoming another statistic in the National Jewish Population Study of people who formerly considered themselves Orthodox. Simultaneously, NCSY is striving to ignite love and interest in Yiddishkeit among teens who are barely aware of their Jewish identity.
The most formidable challenge in servicing unaffiliated Jews is trying to locate them. Unaffiliated Jews are not in synagogues, they are not in JCC’s and, once they become adults, there is no one place you can look for a concentrated group of unaffiliated Jews. Yet, working with teens provides NCSY with the marvelous advantage that no other kiruv organization has- we know where 99.9% of our target audience is every Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. Every day, tens of thousands of Jewish teens are in public schools and that is where NCSY connects with these teens.
Over the past four years, NCSY has created a dramatic, expansive network of JSU public school clubs where NCSY staff offer teens free kosher pizza and then educate thousands of Jewish teens each week about the importance of their Jewish identity, Torah, chagim, and Eretz Yisrael.
These public school clubs have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has even ruled that prayer is allowed in these clubs. You should all be aware that Christian groups take these clubs very seriously, administering clubs in high schools all across the country, where they target our own Jewish teenagers! You can look for yourself on campusrevolution.com and see the tremendous efforts they are expending on their agenda.
Baruch Hashem, NCSY has more than 150 JSU clubs across North America with in excess of 10,000 members. The only thing that is preventing us from reaching more young Jews is a lack of funding and manpower. If we are truly dedicated to reaching out to unaffiliated Jewish teens, we have to put a JSU club in every public high school across the continent.
JSU clubs are there for impressionable, young Jews across the U.S. and Canada as they begin to seriously consider momentous decisions such as who will they choose as their friends? With whom will they form meaningful relationships? Who will they date? If you want to stop the rampant intermarriage rate among American Jewry, we have to reach our brothers and sisters during their teenage years when they are beginning to question and form their identity. We need to be there early on to instill faith and ignite passion about Yiddishkeit within Jewish teens. We need to be there to enlighten Jews about their heritage and ancestry, so that they will comprehend the importance of committing to living as a Jew and establishing a viable Jewish home with a Jewish spouse.
Several years ago the Lilly Endowment conducted an independent study about NCSY and few people realize the following remarkable statistic they uncovered: 98% of NCSY alumni marry Jewish. Of the tens of thousands of teenagers who have gone through the NCSY system over the last half century, 98% of them have gone on to make the conscious decision to marry a Jewish spouse. NCSY seeks to educate and inspire young Jews before they grow up and make decisive and irrevocable changes in their life and before they reach the hurdles and temptations of college and post-college life.
Closing Remarks
Of course, I do not need to stress the dire threats of assimilation and intermarriage that world Jewry currently faces. To be frank, I stand before you humbled and in awe of each of your pains and dedication to stem these threats. No matter how many Jewish Population Studies come out detailing the skyrocketing rates of Jewish intermarriage and assimilation, most of our communities tend to bury their heads in the sand. Yet it is your work, your time away from your families, your dedication, and your ahavat Yisrael that is striving tirelessly to save klal Yisrael and for that I and all of the Jewish people are continually indebted to you.
I only ask that if there is anyway NCSY can partner with you and your organization or if there are any means by which NCSY can be of service to you, please let me know. I would like all of you to realize that NCSY is available to you as a resource in any way we can be of use.
Thank you for your time this evening. It is my hope that with the koach in this room, we can help save and impact klal Yisrael and look back at this time as short period of decline for the Jewish people before they reached a new Golden Age of talmud Torah and yiras Shamayim.
This must have been an amazing speech i ddi not see one untrue thing in there. when Is FNL coming to phoenix
DanaPosted by Dana Schechter on 04/04 at 07:04 PMi want to get ajop
Posted by ahmed mohammed abdallah on 07/02 at 07:09 AM