Photos: Anna Makarova
A Countercultural Summit
A hedge fund billionaire, the Chief Rabbi of Russia, top tech founders, and C-suite execs joined over 500 growth-driven young Jewish professionals on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for something radically countercultural: a day focused on purpose.
The scene looked like something out of a high-powered networking event: name tags, conversation buzzing, and business leaders from every industry in the room. But this wasn’t just another networking event.
Against the backdrop of rising antisemitism, anxiety, burnout, layoffs, and swipe culture-induced dating fatigue, Summit500 transformed the historic Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun into a launchpad for clarity and purpose.
The program replaced podium lectures with interactive workshop sessions that asked one question: What’s your purpose, and how will you live it?
“Now more than ever, we’re surrounded by so much content, ‘inspo,’ and noise, it can be quite overwhelming and distracting to find “your” lane and your contribution to the world,” said Zoe Jonasz, Head of Affiliate Operations at Archer Affiliates, and a leader at Chabad Young Professionals UES. “This event really helped me hone in on what matters and narrow down my true value add to the world at large.
Organized by Chabad Young Professionals of the Upper East Side, West Side, Chelsea, Hoboken, Cong. KJ and JLC, the event marked Gimmel Tammuz with a day pulsing with urgency and purpose. The mission: to help a generation ground itself, find its voice, and walk out with their life purpose in hand.
The goal was blunt: leave with a life-purpose game plan, and the format matched the promise: Panels tackled everything from emotional burnout to dating with dignity, from feminine spiritual leadership to overcoming burnout with Torah fire. Chabad Binghamton Shlucha, Rivkah Slonim, unpacked practical solutions to finding your soulmate. Akiva Carlos Wigle, CCO at Morgan and Morgan, shared how to discover your creative voice and run with it. Yankel Meislin spoke of his transformation from drug dealer to Torah scribe, and Chaya Abelsky tackled how to fight burnout and rediscover your passion.
Every presenter led not just with theory and inspiration, but with practical tools.
Late afternoon, the crowd packed the KJ sanctuary for a fireside conversation between tech entrepreneur Joe Teplow and hedge-fund billionaire Dan Loeb, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of the Rebbe. Loeb came in direct, strong, and unapologetic:
“I was 57 when I started,” Loeb said in the candid on-stage conversation. He traced his spiritual journey to a single, transformative moment: the day he called his friend Rabbi Sholom Lipskar, hospitalized with COVID, and asked how he could help. “Say the Shema,” the Rabbi responded. Loeb admitted he didn’t even know what the Shema was. “From that day forward,” he said, “we started with Modeh Ani, next they FedExed me a siddur. I used my tefillin that had never been taken out of the package, and what began as daily Zoom prayers became a full embrace of mitzvos, Torah learning, and Hebrew study.
What stuck with him most, though, was the Rebbe’s message of spiritual responsibility.
“We have the best content,” he said. “We have all the tools for living that people are searching for today. Being Jewish has to be more than just calling out antisemitism; we show up with joy, mitzvos, and meaning. I wasn’t looking for religion. I was looking for meaning. And I found it in Torah.”
Next, sharing from his own experiences of being a proud Jew navigating the tech world and finding his own purpose, Tech Entrepreneur Joe Teplow challenged the audience, “One of the Rebbe’s underrated teachings is for everyone to teach,” he said. “Not from ‘I have something you don’t,’ but from ‘This is precious to me, and I think you’d love it too.’”
Living that line, he shared how in a JPMorgan suite last week, he asked a senior exec to wrap tefillin, the instant response, “Of course,” inspired the room, proof that being your authentic self works no matter the environment.
Then he addressed the AI question: “Competency is being outsourced; what will matter more and more are empathy, generosity, spirituality. So if you have a choice in front of you, choose the one that aligns with your soul.”
That sense of mission was a central theme throughout the day, including in the keynote by Rabbi Berel Lazar, Chief Rabbi of Russia. Sharing personal stories, some for the first time publicly, Rabbi Lazar described how he was once “the shyest person on earth.”
But one line from the Rebbe changed everything: “Why can’t someone ask another Jew to do a mitzvah? Because of their ego.”
“I thought, what do you mean ego? I’m shy!” Lazar said. “But the Rebbe explained that fear of rejection is ego, because we’re afraid of what they will think of us.”
If you love a Jew, you don’t let your fear stop you from helping them.”
Rabbi Lazar didn’t stay shy. As a Shliach of the Rebbe, he went on to become a public voice for global Jewry, leading the revival of Jewish life across Russia, building schools, shuls, and thousands of individual soul-connections.
“The Rebbe didn’t say, ‘You’re perfect as you are.’ He said, ‘You can do more. The Rebbe didn’t just believe in people, He demanded we grow beyond ourselves.”
The talk struck a timely chord according to Izzy Sakhai, a young Jewish professional on the UES and leader at CYP, “right now it’s very easy to focus on the darkness in the world. It almost feels like we’re left with no choice but to be adding “just a little more light each day.” That’s how we’ve made it through hard times for thousands of years, and I have no doubt that’s how we’ll make it out and through this challenging time as well.”
As dusk settled, attendees filed downstairs for a gala dinner that flowed into a rousing musical farbrengen led by Yossi Zuker Band, Between niggunim, participants stood to share the takeaways they’ve had from the day, for some it was a commitment to lighting shabbat candles or putting on tefillin, for others it was having the difficult conversation they’ve been avoiding, begin hosting friends for shabbat, or not being afraid to wear a Kippah in the office or on the street.
“Community is oxygen right now,” said Jake Zalman Freedman, a leader at CYP Hoboken, “In a time when so many feel isolated, misunderstood, or even targeted, coming together to support and uplift each other is not just meaningful, it’s essential.”
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