Polishing Souls Until They Shine page 2
For the next four months Rabbi Silver spent nearly every waking moment on his new project. He translated all of the materials from Hebrew to English and developed new resources. He trained other teachers from Aish HaTorah.
On December 16, 1985 he and other lecturers presented the first program, a week-long seminar in the community of Maala Amos. Of the 32 men who attended the program, 28 ended up gong to yeshiva.
Years later when Rabbi Silver was back in America, he walked into a synagogue in Far Rockaway, NY. A yeshivish-looking man approached him and said “I know you don’t know me, but I was in the first Discovery seminar. It changed me life. And you see that guy, he was there too,” he said, pointing to another man fervently learning.
Rabbi Silver still looks back in wonder at how much the program has grown since its inception.
“When I listen to those tapes [of the first seminar], I cringe. We were so unprofessional, but it worked. People saw that it was really true. It was a very special moment,” Rabbi Silver recounted.
Success breeds success, and everyone knew they had a winning product after the first seminar.
“After everyone came back with such glowing reports Rav Noach said to me, ‘Yudi, now you’ve got a gun. You have to turn it into a machine gun.’”
Rabbi Silver refined the materials further and presented the program to more audiences in Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Weinberg sent him on a six-week tour to bring the program to cities throughout America. He delivered it in England. People around the world were electrified by the program.
The Discovery Seminar has since spread throughout the world and has become one of the most successful Jewish educational programs. To date, more than 250,000 people have attended Discovery programs.
Trying Out The Queen’s English
Rabbi Silver had planned the first seminar in December 1985 to conclude so he and the other presenters could go to the chasuna of a student from Aish HaTorah who was marrying a student from Neve Yerushalayim, named Avraham and Gila Manolson. The chasuna was a significant moment in Rabbi Silver’s life as well. There he met Rabbi Joey Grunfeld, the National Director of the Seed UK kiruv network. Rabbi Grunfeld had a prominent role in Avraham’s teshuva journey and so had come in for the chasuna.
Seed UK ran 50 centers throughout England where frum Jews and non-frum Jews were paired up to learn bechavrusa. Rabbi Grunfeld felt that he needed a powerful program to help propel the spiritual growth of the participants. After meeting Rabbi Silver at the wedding and seeing firsthand the program when it was brought to England, Rabbi Grunfeld approached him in 1986 to propose bringing Discovery to England fulltime.
Rabbi Silver’s wife Gail gave the move her complete blessing and encouragement. Rabbi Silver asked Rabbi Moshe Shapiro shlita, whom he turned to for shailos and guidance after the death of Rabbi Hutner. Rabbi Shapiro said it was a unique opportunity which he should definitely take.
“He said absolutely you have to go. I did not want to leave Eretz Yisrael, but for my family it was the right thing.”
Rabbi Silver accepted the opportunity and the family moved to England at the end of 1986.
In England the program was renamed the Challenge Seminar. Rabbi Silver ran it for thousands of participants, both inside and outside of Seed. He also became the Menahel of a large Jewish school system in London. During the ten years he had a tremendous impact on countless adults and children throughout the country.
He was then contacted by the Wolfson Foundation, the major international kiruv benefactor, to bring his experience and programs to America. Rabbi Silver agreed and helped to found and lead the successful Gateways outreach organization. Rabbi Silver simultaneously took a part-time position as the Rabbi of a new synagogue in Memphis that had been founded by some of his former students. The Silvers moved to Memphis and he traveled frequently to New York to oversee Gateways and deliver seminars.
In 2003 the Memphis synagogue had grown large enough that it needed a fulltime Rabbi. At the same time Rabbi Grunfeld approached Rabbi Silver to ask him to return to England to help breathe new life into Seed. So the Silvers made the trip back across the Atlantic again and settled for the second time in London. There Rabbi Silver helped to expand the organization and develop new materials and programs for it.
In 2009 Hashem rearranged the details of the Silvers’ life yet again. Rabbi Silver received a call from Arachim asking him to return to Eretz Yisrael to lecture for them. He immediately jumped at the chance.
“Hashem was telling me, ‘Yehudah, the time has come. Go. Lech Lecha.’”
In the fall of 2009 the Silvers moved back to Israel and settled in Ramat Beit Shemesh. They were initially undecided as to which community to choose, but one experience clinched it for them.
“When we were looking around Ramat Beit Shemesh we were going around with a realtor looking at different apartments here. A guy was jogging past us on the street with a baseball cap and headphones. All of sudden he stopped in tracks and ran back to us. ‘Rabbi Silver!’ he said. ‘I’m listing to you right now on my earphones, and here you are right in front of me!’” Rabbi Silver said with a hearty laugh. “My wife said ‘that’s a siman from shamayim that this is where we should be.’”
Rabbi Silver describes his return to Israel as the highlight of his life. He now delivers kiruv seminars in both English and Hebrew throughout Eretz Yisrael for Arachim. He delivers shiurim to ba’al habatim and bnei Torah in Ramat Beit Shemesh and elsewhere. He also travels frequently outside of Eretz Yisrael to deliver seminars for Arachim and other organizations throughout the world.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
The Silvers have six children, all married, four in America and two in Eretz Yisrael. As Rabbi Silver says proudly, “they’re all in the family business.” His children and their spouses include the principal of a day school, a community Rav, a Maggid Shiur in a yeshiva, day school teachers, Kollel yungerleit and the head of an organization for kids at risk. He attributes the success that he and his wife had in raising their children entirely to Hashem’s kindness.
“What I brought into my home – people so totally inappropriate at the time. What these kids saw, and the fact that we moved around so much, if not for enormous siyata deshamaya, who knows what would have happened,” Rabbi Silver said. “I can’t give enough todah and shevach to Hakodesh Baruch Hu for them.”
Rabbi Silver has seen plenty of Hashem’s chesed on the job as well. He says there are literally hundreds of times that people have asked him questions that he had never thought of. But just when the question was asked, Hashem planted the exact answer into his mind that gratified the questioner.
Related to that is a key rule for anyone in chinuch or kiruv, be them a full-time paid teacher or a frum Jew reaching out to a coworker:
“When people ask questions, I say never answer the question. I answer the questioner. You have to see where the guy is coming from.”
For example once while he was teaching a class on Hanukkah, a woman asked a question completely off topic, regarding her mistaken perception about how Judaism views women. Rabbi Silver said that her question was very important and he would like to discuss it with her afterwards.
After the class he spoke to the woman and realized that the real source of her question was difficult issues that she was having in her marriage and in her personal life. Upon hearing this, Rabbi Silver framed his answer to her situation.
“If I had said some nice offhanded answer to get back on track, I would have lost that lady. You have to know where the person is coming from before answering the question. Nine times out of ten, the question is not the real issue.”
Rabbi Silver also has plenty of advice for kiruv organizations. He says in many cases one organization may have introduced a person to Yiddishkeit, but another organization with different strengths or a slightly different hashkafah may serve the person’s spiritual needs better. However he laments that organizations are sometimes afraid to recommend a different organization out of fear of losing a student or donor.
Another important point for anyone in kiruv is to remember the true source of a person’s growth.
“I have a pet peeve: people who say I was mekarvev him, I was mekarev her. I don’t think it’s true. I don’t think anyone is mekarev anyone else. You provide the necessary info, the keys to open the doors so they can be mekarev themselves. It’s them and the Ribono Shel Olam,” Rabbi Silver said. “Ultimately it’s the decision that the person makes that he wants to be closer to the Ribono Shel Olam.”
At the end of the day, Rabbi Silver says the real technique to reaching out and teaching Jews is simply showing them pure love.
”The key is you have to love Jews. And the reason you have to love them- they’re betzelem elokim. It’s amazing what a Jew is capable of doing.”
Rabbi Silver’s love for other Jews is obvious. It’s the force that has helped open the hearts of so many Jews over the last 50 years to the true beauty of Judaism.