![]() I recall Rav Tabory’s comment that it is “our world” that struggles with the legacy of Theodore Herzl. I would estimate that some 30% of the people I went to high school with now live in Israel. All of our Jewish Studies teachers were shlichim, some of whom barely spoke English. Or Chaim was, and I believe still is, the only Bnei Akiva yeshiva outside of Israel. And of course, he gave over much of the Torah of his Rebbe, Rav Soloveitchik, z”l. It was in his shiur that we first heard of the kuntresei shiurim of Rav Gustman, z”l and were told of the accomplishments of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. We were introduced to the three great Aarons: Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, z”l, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, z”l, and Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, z”l. Through his many stories, he introduced us to some of the great leaders of the day, many of whom spoke at the Yeshiva. But being a person of integrity-that is what matters. I recall him once asking, Does it really matter if you know one blatt less or more? It will make little difference years from now. Yet as central as learning may have been, he stressed that being a mensch was vastly more important. At the time, I thought that was crazy but BH, today I fully understand. I remember him telling us that he could not survive learning only two hours a day. Rav Tabory’s commitment to, and love of, learning was immense. I found this synthesis of Torah U'mada quite powerful, as it showed me the connection between Torah to the broader world. math student from the University of Toronto to offer his insights in understanding the Gemara’s use of pi. A few dapim later, when the Gemara discusses round sukkot and the like, Rav Tabory brought in a Ph.D. The (printed squarish) samech represents a sukkah of four walls, the three-sided kaf represents a sukkah of three walls, and the heh represents the sukkah that can be built with only two-and-a-half walls. I recall his opening shiur on masechet Sukkah when he told us-I believe he mentioned the Vilna Gaon had said this as a child-that the letters of the word “sukkah” reflect the three types of sukkah one can build. We immediately recognized that this teacher was different. Rav Tabory soon took over our Gemara shiur. We gave our rebbeim, shall we say, a run for their money. We covered a great deal of material in his 10-minute devar halacha that he gave, in Hebrew, every morning after davening. It is amazing what one can accomplish in just 10 minutes a day. Coupled with his sharp wit, his sense of humour, his breadth and depth of knowledge, and his encouragement of excellence, his influence was profound. Even as young, immature high school students, we recognized his phenomenal knowledge-he was still only in his early 30s-and great teaching ability. There have been many shlichim over the years who have come to teach in Toronto, yet I think it’s fair to say that very few, if any, reached his level of learning. Rav Tabory made aliyah in the early 1970s, and his four years of shlichut to Toronto corresponded to my four years of high school. In his honour, I share a few personal and incomplete reflections. Much of the credit for my growth in learning must go to our Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Binyamin Tabory, z”l, whose sheloshim we commemorate next week. Yet by the time I graduated from high school, I had begun to take my learning very seriously, and had no problem with the 15-hour days of yeshiva in Israel. We, and I speak first and foremost about myself, were a rowdy bunch, more interested in sports than in Gemara. My school day was some two-and-a-half hours longer, added to that was another five hours of school on Sunday, not to mention that we started school- limudei kodesh only-a week before Labour Day. It is also excellent for senior leaders who need to find better methods to inspire their teams to step into change.The transition from elementary to high school was quite a jarring one. This workshop is a powerful lesson for technical professionals who struggle with information overload in presentations and have a need to present a better story. The iSpeak Corporate Storytelling workshop will provide you with models and techniques for telling stories to build a business narrative and to support a single point you’re making. If you want your information to tell a story and not just be organized data, you will need a template for creating that flow. But, if there is no through-line to create a cohesive message with flow, then you don’t have much of a story. We would all agree that the data has been delivered with structure. If you think about a message being structured, it could contain three compartmentalized buckets of unrelated information. When was the last time you heard someone say, “What is the story here?” during your presentation? Storytelling is just another way of creating message structure. Do You Struggle With Wandering Messages, Inability to Inspire, or Difficulty with Simplifying Complex Ideas? ![]()
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