70 Tough Questions, Director's Edition: Behind the Scenes of the First Digital Seminar

It was a hot and humid summer day in 2019. I was invited to a meeting in the large conference room at the Hidabroot office, where a group of talented writers gathered for a brainstorming session on Hidabroot's new initiative – the world's first digital seminar.

The invitation to the meeting came shortly before from Dudu Cohen, the editor of the Hidabroot website, who typically starts his day with an idea in mind and pursues it with full force. Hidabroot is the largest Jewish outreach organization globally, with its own distinct style and approach. Dudu felt that certain people were distant from their Jewish roots and needed a different approach to connect to Judaism where they were.

Around the time of the meeting, my book "Just Curious: Judaism at Your Pace" was published, aimed at making Judaism accessible to precisely this audience. However, it quickly became clear to me that questions of faith trouble everyone: one day, I brought a draft of the book to the synagogue, where occasionally veteran members of a famous Hasidic sect would come. I saw one of them browsing through the book and joked: "You know, it's not meant for people like you..." He looked at me seriously and said: "Really?! And what do you think, that I know everything written here?..." That’s when I realized that even those raised with a religious or even ultra-Orthodox education don’t always feel they’ve received answers to all their faith-related questions. Thus, we endeavored for the '70 Tough Questions in Judaism' site to provide answers to anyone curious and wanting to know more.

After the meeting, Dudu suggested I become the project's principal writer. I knew it would be an immense and demanding task, but I still didn’t grasp what I’d gotten myself into...

In the initial phase, after clearly defining our target audience, we needed to decide on the seventy toughest questions in Judaism. This might sound like an easy task, as each of us has many questions about Judaism. But at some point, we felt our reserve was drying up. We asked Hidabroot's readers to share their questions, making sure to avoid repetitiveness and over-specialization. We wanted to cover as broad a range of topics and areas as possible, which bother non-religious individuals concerning Judaism.

Long Hours of Research and Writing

After finalizing our initial list of questions, we moved on to the real challenge: writing. The work on the project commenced just before the first lockdown of the COVID-19 period, forcing me to seclude myself in a room for long hours of research and writing. After writing several "pilot" answers, we shared them for feedback with other professionals in the outreach field, but then an interesting (and not especially surprising) matter emerged: As with the number of readers, so was the number of opinions... Some connected very well, while others criticized harshly. Nonetheless, the team knew this project needed to communicate in a slightly different style and language than the usual outreach discourse, to reach those who currently show no interest in Judaism.

There were several rounds of writing and re-editing until we reached a harmonious agreement, from which point the work pace picked up. For me, it was an exceptional experience, as every question required me to first conduct extensive and serious research, including reading various materials, articles, and books, and often consulting scholars and even professionals. Is there one "right" way to answer a question like "Why does Hashem care about the commandments I perform?" or "Where was G-d during the Holocaust?" Due to the project's nature, I found myself in a long marathon of intensive research and tiresome drafting of multiple drafts over several days on a particular topic, then sharply transitioning to the next question. Thus, in one month, I jumped from delving into ancient Egyptian archaeology to questioning how one can believe in something unseen, from questions about women's status in Judaism back to questions about vegetarianism and veganism. It was a long journey that amassed much fascinating material, though we couldn't include everything.

Another challenge was writing WhatsApp conversations. "Listening" to personal WhatsApp conversations provides an important glimpse of how the question manifests in real life and adds some humor and excitement – not a small feat for such a "serious" site. Initially, we thought the conversations would only occur between a rabbi and a student, a relatively known concept. But quickly, once we realized the genre of correspondence allowed for much more, our creative juices flowed, and you can now find family members, friends, an education ministry inspector, an ophthalmologist, a workshop facilitator, a romantic couple, and even a conversation between fish in the sea among the participants... It wasn't always easy to think of a way to illustrate concepts like morality and Judaism or how one knows the Torah isn't made up in a WhatsApp conversation. Many times, I would go for a walk in the neighborhood (remember the 100-meter restriction?), concentrating all my might on thinking of a successful idea that would illustrate the question in an original way.

Another area we worked on was collecting videos, references to articles and other websites, and stories, of course. The team invested many hours in this area to accurately provide the most relevant and interesting material. Indeed, based on the feedback we receive, the outcome seems to fulfill its purpose.

The project involved many great people. This is the place to thank all partners for the meetings, brainstorming sessions, writing, editing, proofreading, design, and typing, especially Shuli Shmuelli, who wrote, edited, and helped in many consultations, Rabbi Yaron Ashkenazi, who refined the site from a halachic and Torah standpoint, Chaim Benisti, the talented site designer, and, of course, Dudu Cohen, who led the project. Thanks to Rabbi Zamir Cohen and David Tovik, CEO of the Hidabroot organization, for their support and encouragement all along the way, even when the work got long and complicated. With Hashem's help, we will do and succeed.

Click here for the "70 Tough Questions in Judaism" site >>