“When Covid hit, some people ran around asking “What would the Rebbe say?” But there were others who were discussing actual teachings of the Rebbe week in and week out that had sat under an inch of dust on their bookshelves.”
That’s how Rabbi Yossi Serebryanski, Shliach in Denver, CO, characterizes the impact of Project Likkutei Sichos.
For the first time, there is a global, coordinated program facilitating the study of the Rebbe’s Likkutei Sichos in its original form, week by week, and it is taking the world by storm.
Approaching its first anniversary this Yud Shvat, Project Likkutei Sichos already boasts 7,070 subscribed participants, though unofficial estimates put it closer to 10,000.
From seasoned shluchim to anash in Crown Heights, Russia, France, and Argentina, to the uninitiated student of the Rebbe’s Torah, the Project is simultaneously reviving old passions and igniting new ones for the study of Likkutei Sichos.
One of those students is Pamela Reiz from Overland Park, Kansas. Her local Chabad shluchim, the Weinbergs, introduced her to the Project. For her, the weekly sicha has become a comforting ritual in the midst of the pandemic. In a typical week, she’ll first familiarize herself with the material by listening to the 10-minute sicha overview. That way on Monday she’ll be prepared for Mrs. Rivky Slonim’s live-streamed, text-based class.
When Mrs. Sara Morozow, a teacher at Beis Rivkah Seminary, learned of the Project, she saw it as “the perfect gift to the Rebbe.” Not only would she embark on the eight year journey through Likkutei Sichos, she would take her 10-year-old son with her.
“Every sicha deepens our connection with Hashem, with Torah, and with our fellow Jew. Project Likkutei Sichos gave us the resources to access that clarity every single week,” Morozow said.
Morozow learns the text of the sicha along with one of the audio classes, then she shares the content with her son. Afterward, they’ll listen to a summary or Dvar Torah distillation of the sicha, and then to the Young Scholars overview, delivered by Levitche Lazaroff from Houston, TX.
Rabbi Chaim Dovid Wilhelm, a teacher in Yeshiva College in Melbourne, has been learning the weekly sicha with his wife on Shabbos afternoons for the past year. “I haven’t spent hours on a sicha like that since my days in Yeshiva,” he recalls.
On Hei Teves, after the Young Yeshivah Community purchased several sets of Likkutei Sichos, he was asked to begin a weekly class. “The response to the class and the follow-up interest told me that there is a deep demand for this kind of immersion in the Rebbe’s sichos,” he said.
Rabbi Leibel Fine of Chabad of Dollard in Montreal has been giving classes based on sichos for close to fifteen years. For him, the English translations of the weekly sicha provide a new opportunity. “This is a new level in my shlichus. To be able to teach a sicha to my community in its original form in a consistent fashion, every single week, is an incredible asset to have.”
Each Sunday morning across dozens of Russian cities and towns, thousands of men and women study the weekly sicha as part of the Kolel Torah program. The translation and distribution of the Russian material is facilitated by Rabbi Shevach Zlatopolsky.
Fine, Wilhelm, and the Kolel Torah participants are just some of the over 950 classes being given by shluchim and anash internationally.
Online, though, is where the unprecedented numbers are unfolding.
Over a quarter of a million visitors frequent the site Projectlikkuteisichos.org, with 200,000 accessing the 3,000 audio classes available, and 97,000 taking in the 825 video presentations.
Weekly classes are now available in seven languages: English, Hebrew, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Yiddish.
Rabbi Eliyahu Shvartzman helps coordinate the Spanish wing of the Project. Two Whatsapp chats dedicated to the Spanish material of Project Likkutei Sichos are full.
“That’s 500 Spanish-speaking people engaging with the weekly sicha through our audio and video classes, and the weekly translations,” Shvartzman says. “One member of anash was so taken with the work that he sponsored the printing and distribution of the sicha in shuls.”
One year in, members of the Project have completed 107 sichos, availing themselves of the 5,350 PDF resources, the thousands of video and audio classes, the 350 and counting in-depth podcasts and 10-minute summaries, live-streamed classes and slideshows and even children’s videos. The number of personal, one-on-one study arrangements that have been inspired by the Project is untold.
“G-d provides the medicine before the illness,” Serebryanski says “When the world shut down and we were estranged from one another, Project Likkutei Sichos gave us a common language, a shared study that we could all partake in.”
With the first year’s cycle coming to an end, it’s a perfect time to get on board and join the movement for volume 16 this coming Yud Shvat.
To fuel the growth and expansion of Project Likkutei Sichos, a campaign is being held for 48 hours, from Sunday, January 3rd until the 5th. To partner with PLS and help bring the Rebbe’s sichos to the world, please visit Kibbush.com.
To learn more about Project Likkutei Sichos and to join the movement, please go to Projectlikkuteisichos.org.
