Nothing like a regional
Over the last two weeks NCSY held 14 regional Shabbatons throughout the US and Canada for thousands of Jewish teens. I was privileged to attend Atlantic Seaboards Regional held in the Wyndham Hotel in Princeton NJ. The All Star team of Bonnie Pollak, Rabbi Yitzchak Dinovitzer and Rocky Caine did an awesome job and the 175 participants definitely felt the magic of NCSY. Being that I am a former regional president of Atlantic Seaboard and went to Pikesville High, Bonnie asked me to be the speaker as Shabbas ebbs away and tell the story of how I became Shomer Torah and Mitzvos through NCSY.
Whenever you speak, you never know who is listening and what the effects will be. I was just afraid they would say, “I don’t want that to happen to me!” Well, the NCSY magic took over, I told my stories of where I thought I knew what was happening but Hashem had other ideas such as agreeing to not go to my prom when running for Regional President But going to my girl friend’s prom instead who then decided to become Shomer Negiah… and I shared the main point throughout that the power of a simple decision to try keeping Shabbas, wearing a Kippah in public school, learning Torah and see if I liked it cause I had nothing to lose, changed my entire life into the life of my dreams.
Well, they laughed at my jokes, paid attention throughout and I felt pretty good afterwards, but you never really know.... or do you??!
Yesterday Bonnie and Rabbi Dinovitzer called me yesterday to tell me that the Regional President was not planning to go to Yeshiva in Israel next year and that at banquet he announced that because of the message at ebbing he was going to make that simple decision that would majorly impact his life and go to learn in Israel next year. What do you think happened? So far two more seniors have joined him as the effects of Regional still linger on....
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