Got five minutes?

Posted
By Michael Orbach
There’s a joke told about a radio announcer and a rabbi.
One Shabbos morning, the rabbi gives a speech that goes on and on for 45 long minutes. After davening, one congregant, a radio announcer, approaches the rabbi and tells him he’d like to offer him a slot on the radio, but could only put him on for two minutes or so. Could the rabbi, the announcer asks, get his point across in such a short time?
Dreaming of fame and fortune, the rabbi shouts, “Yes!”
The radio announcer looks at the rabbi sadly and asks, “Then why didn’t you?”
That joke, half-serious or not, is the pitch for a new website JWisdom (www.jwisdom.com), that features lectures from rabbis and scholars from all over the world with one catch: each must take no more than 11 minutes, and most are much shorter. A version of the rabbi-radio announcer joke actually appears on the website. According to founder and editor-in-chief Binyomin L. Jolkovsky, a former contributing editor to the Forward and publisher of the Jewish World Review (www.jewishworldreview.com) and Political Mavens (www.politicalmavens.com), the site’s original tongue-in-cheek tagline was “our rabbis know when to stop.”
Jolkovsky spent the last two years challenging rabbis across the globe to get their point across in not much more time than it takes to make the Shabbos morning announcements.
“I believe it was Rabbi Yisroel Salanter who said if you don’t move forward you move backwards,” Jolkovsky, who is from Brooklyn, told the Jewish Star. “I think there tend to be a way to compartmentalize your behavior and you can’t do that with spiritual growth, it has to be something we’re willing to take stock of on a daily basis.  I just don’t see people listening to forty-minute shiurim, especially when cell phones are going off and people are talking in the audience. It’s possible, but to the average person I don’t see it happening.”
His answer to this was what he calls a “godcast” — small doses of Jewish spirituality on a daily basis. JWisdom is also a tribute to Jolkovsky’s late father; his father’s death at a well-known hospital was at the center of a successful malpractice lawsuit, the proceeds of which are funding JWisdom. His father loved shiurim, Jolkovsky says, and would walk miles on Shabbat to attend one.
“I decided I’d do something constructive instead of becoming embittered; thinking along some of these lines. His death really pushed me to go forward,” Jolkovsky maintained.
So far the site has over 250 lectures from both men and women, from famous lecturers like Rabbi Abraham Twerski to Rabbi Jonathan Rietti as well as a number of less well-known contemporaries. Several local personalities are featured, including Rabbi Dovid Fohrman and Rabbi Eytan Feiner of the White Shul in Far Rockaway. While Jolkovsky hesitates to describe the site as modern orthodox, he says that each lecture is from “a traditional Jewish viewpoint.”
“If a person does not believe they have a personal relationship with G-d they should not be listening to people on this site,” Jolkovsky said.
The lectures, he says, stress what he calls “positive Judaism.” He hopes the site will appeal across the religious spectrum. Jolkovsky noted that he has already had web traffic from chaplains.
“I think Judaism is the ultimate contemporary religion and I think it has a message in how to approach modernity,” Jolkovsky explained. “The point is that Torah values should not be limited to a Beis Medrash, and this site is clearly an exponent of these values. It should teach you the values and give you a moral backbone, whether issues of marriage, philosophy, love, or faith.”
Gavriel Aryeh Sanders is a former Baptist minister who converted to Judaism and currently lives in the Five Towns. In addition to being the announcer who intros and outros each piece on JWisdom, a dozen of his own lectures are currently available on the site. It is far more challenging to say less than more, he said.
“I had a mentor that taught me: Don’t speak just to say and don’t speak just to be heard. Speak to be remembered. I keep those words in mind.”

JWisdom's got something for you

by Michael Orbach
Issue of September 25, 2009/ 7 Tishrei 5770
There’s a joke told about a radio announcer and a rabbi.
One Shabbos morning, the rabbi gives a speech that goes on and on for 45 long minutes. After davening, one congregant, a radio announcer, approaches the rabbi and tells him he’d like to offer him a slot on the radio, but could only put him on for two minutes or so. Could the rabbi, the announcer asks, get his point across in such a short time?
Dreaming of fame and fortune, the rabbi shouts, “Yes!”
The radio announcer looks at the rabbi sadly and asks, “Then why didn’t you?”
That joke, half-serious or not, is the pitch for a new website JWisdom, that features lectures from rabbis and scholars from all over the world with one catch: each must take no more than 11 minutes, and most are much shorter. A version of the rabbi-radio announcer joke actually appears on the website. According to founder and editor-in-chief Binyomin L. Jolkovsky, a former contributing editor to the Forward and publisher of the Jewish World Review and Political Mavens, the site’s original tongue-in-cheek tagline was “our rabbis know when to stop.”
Jolkovsky spent the last two years challenging rabbis across the globe to get their point across in not much more time than it takes to make the Shabbos morning announcements.
“I believe it was Rabbi Yisroel Salanter who said if you don’t move forward you move backwards,” Jolkovsky, who is from Brooklyn, told the Jewish Star. “I think there tends to be a way to compartmentalize your behavior and you can’t do that with spiritual growth, it has to be something we’re willing to take stock of on a daily basis.  I just don’t see people listening to forty-minute shiurim, especially when cell phones are going off and people are talking in the audience. It’s possible, but to the average person I don’t see it happening.”
His answer to this was what he calls a “godcast” — small doses of Jewish spirituality on a daily basis. JWisdom is also a tribute to Jolkovsky’s late father; his father’s death at a well-known hospital was at the center of a successful malpractice lawsuit, the proceeds of which are funding JWisdom. His father loved shiurim, Jolkovsky says, and would walk miles on Shabbat to attend one.
“I decided I’d do something constructive instead of becoming embittered; thinking along some of these lines. His death really pushed me to go forward,” Jolkovsky maintained.
So far the site has over 250 lectures from both men and women, from famous lecturers like Rabbi Abraham Twerski to Rabbi Jonathan Rietti as well as a number of less well-known contemporaries. Several local personalities are featured, including Rabbi Dovid Fohrman and Rabbi Eytan Feiner of the White Shul in Far Rockaway. While Jolkovsky hesitates to describe the site as modern orthodox, he says that each lecture is from “a traditional Jewish viewpoint.”
“If a person does not believe they have a personal relationship with G-d they should not be listening to people on this site,” Jolkovsky said.
The lectures, he says, stress what he calls “positive Judaism.” He hopes the site will appeal across the religious spectrum. Jolkovsky noted that he has already had web traffic from chaplains.
“I think Judaism is the ultimate contemporary religion and I think it has a message in how to approach modernity,” Jolkovsky explained. “The point is that Torah values should not be limited to a Beis Medrash, and this site is clearly an exponent of these values. It should teach you the values and give you a moral backbone, whether issues of marriage, philosophy, love, or faith.”
Gavriel Aryeh Sanders is a former Baptist minister who converted to Judaism and currently lives in the Five Towns. In addition to being the announcer who intros and outros each piece on JWisdom, a dozen of his own lectures are currently available on the site. It is far more challenging to say less than more, he said.
“I had a mentor that taught me: Don’t speak just to say and don’t speak just to be heard. Speak to be remembered. I keep those words in mind.”