New York—While studying at Yeshiva University-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Rabbi Marc Spivak was training for a career as a pulpit rabbi outside the tri-state area, but he didn’t want to miss out on the advanced learning and shiurim [Torah lectures] he loved at YU. He began taping shiur after shiur at the university, building a collection of Torah lectures he’d be able to listen to anywhere, any time. Eventually, Spivak turned to the emerging world of online media, uploading all the shiurim he had recorded to a single website where they would remain accessible, for free, to any Jew, anywhere in the world, who wanted to broaden his/her Torah horizons.
That turned out to be just the beginning. Spivak joined what would eventually become known as YU’s Center for the Jewish Future to embark on an even more ambitious project: recording and uploading shiurim yeshiva-wide. Excited donors contributed recording equipment and initial server space, while students and YU faculty added a growing number of shiurim to the site daily. Before long, the site had expanded beyond YU’s borders, receiving submissions and listenership from Torah figures and institutions around the world.
Today, that website is known as YUTorah, and with over 90,000 shiurim—and counting—it’s the leading site for online Torah study. In 2014 alone, YUTorah received more than 4 million pageviews from 185 countries worldwide and thousands of downloads of its mobile apps for Android and iPhone.
“It’s grown exponentially,” said Rabbi Robert Shur, director of YUTorah since 2007. “We made a decision to expand it to become more of a forum for the Torah happening throughout Yeshiva University and the YU community, a one-stop shop for high-quality Torah content from a whole range of speakers and topics. Today, all kinds of Jews from nearly every country on the planet come to YUTorah to learn—you don’t get a broader audience than that.”
Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz, host of the site’s extremely popular “Ten-Minute Halacha” series as well as a Daf Yomi series, can attest to that. “The most eye-opening thing for me has been the incredible reach of YUTorah,” he said. There’s the listener from Phoenix, Arizona, who sends fresh-picked oranges to Lebowitz’s shul in North Woodmere, New York, to help him get through the cold Northeastern winter. Or the Hollywood director who requested a 10-minute halacha shiur on what can and can’t be filmed according to Jewish law. Or the Reconstructionist rabbi who reached out to Lebowitz after Hurricane Sandy to ask how his congregation was doing.
“It’s a big mitzvah to be marbitz Torah b’rabim [spread Torah to the masses] and if there’s something you can do to make it so people won’t have to pay, many more will be able to listen,” said Dr. David Arbesfeld, a donor who got involved with YU Torah more than 10 years ago and stayed involved as the site expanded under the direction of the CJF’s Isaac Shalev. “YU has such great roshei yeshiva and shiurim to offer; some of the lectures we’ve put up have gotten over 2,000 hits.”
The addition of other historical material, such as uploads of recorded shiurim that were given in YU over the past 50 years, has also created new learning opportunities, for new students, distinguished Torah scholars and even, in some cases, the original lecturers themselves. “People can ask me questions now about shiurim I gave in 1994!” said Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, professor of rabbinic literature at YU’s Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Institute in Jerusalem and one of YUTorah’s most popular speakers, who has posted more than 1,000 shiurim on the site in categories that range from Jewish law to Zionism and Jewish thought to reflections on Torah personalities.
“I’ve gotten letters from Australia that say, ‘Thank you for making it possible for me to stay frum [observant],’ signed, ‘your talmud [student],’” he said. “A virtual talmud is just as good as a regular talmud. YUTorah is the tomorrow that has already arrived today.”
With the help of Yoni Cohen, CJF director of operations, Shur works on the site constantly to ensure it’s always evolving, adding exponential amounts of content and customizing it to make it more personal and user-friendly for each user. That innovation is possible because of the vibrant communal support the site receives: In 2006, Marcos and Adina Katz gave a generous gift to endow YUTorah, and users can sponsor days, weeks or months of learning. In 2014, 219 days were sponsored.
“Since YUTorah’s inception, we have convened the academic talent of our roshei yeshiva, our academic community, and our alumni to create one of the most robust Torah sites in the Jewish world,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, the David Mitzner dean of the CJF and vice president for university and community life at YU. “Our research has shown for close to 50% of our users that YUTorah has been their first connection with Yeshiva University. Throughout the past nine and a half years it has been a personal privilege to be involved with Rabbi Shur and the Yeshiva University community in the development of this initiative, sharing Torah with 250,000 Jews annually from across the world.”
