The Mayanot Blog

The Mayanot Women's Learning program students were involved in a worldwide campaign to assist Rabbi with ALS celebrate his 46th birthday.  Written by: Menachem Posner  VIA: Chabad.org/news  Rabbi Yitzi Hurwitz has ALS and can no longer walk or talk, but that hasn’t stopped him from motivating 10,000 people in 15 countries to do extra  mitzvahs  this past week. In honor of the rabbi’s 46th birthday, a group of rabbinical students in Los Angeles, where the rabbi lives with his wife,   Dina , and their seven children, decided that an appropriate gift would be 4,600 Jewish men putting on  tefillin  and sending him photos of their  mitzvah . Using social media and  an article posted on Chabad.org , the campaign went viral, and photos of  tefillin -wearing men bearing #tefillinforyitzi placards began to pour in via text message and email. Almost 6,000 miles away in  Israel , a group of young women studying at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in  Jerusale

We are very proud of our alumni worldwide making a real impact in their home communities. One such story is the Tikvah Lake Recovery Center in Florida, jointly run by  Mayanot Alumni, Rabbi Adam Nesenoff, and his father Dr. David Nesenoff. With overdoses, substance abuse and many forms of addiction making national news, the Jewish community has not been edited from those tragic headlines. In fact, the statistics are dangerously growing with minimal sustaining solutions to the problem among all Jewish denominations. After traveling to over 600 Jewish communities in the world, this catastrophic problem did not escape the attention of Dr.  David Nesenoff  who this year opened Tikvah Lake Recovery, a unique oasis for those who need to overcome their addictions. "I learned that there was a 90% relapse rate of addicts who actually went to rehab," Dr. Nesenoff said. "I knew that there had to be a better solution." Nesenoff, along with his son Rabbi  Adam Nesenoff