The Commentator

The Torah Learning Network, a Center for the Jewish Future program focusing on large-scale learning programming for high school students across the country, has seen burgeoning success in the last few years.

TLN was founded nearly a decade ago as TTC, a small program in Teaneck for high school students who wanted to continue the learning they had pursued over the course of the summer in NCSY Kollel. Recently the CJF adopted and revamped the program, successfully expanding it nationwide.

At its core the Torah Learning Network is exactly that, an attempt to link high school learners into a larger network. As Rabbi Phil Moskowitz, part of the Department of Community Initiatives at the Center for the Jewish Future said, TLN seeks "to make students be a part of a broader learning community," thereby positively reinforcing and encouraging them in their religious interests.

Under CJF auspices, the program has achieved much success. Last year TLN ran four Thursday night mishmar programs at YU, drawing in between 250 and 400 students from across the New York area. At their first mishmar of the year in September, over 300 students attended.

At the same time, TLN offers high school students learning opportunities, it also gives YC students the ability to see what Jewish education would be like by becoming madrikhim on the program. By testing the educational waters in an informal setting, students can then decide if they would like to pursue these studies in a professional capacity.

Though part of the success can certainly be attributed to CJF’s persistent and capable programming, the large-scale response and wide-spread positive feedback from both high school students and rebbeim reflect a hitherto unfilled void in programming. For though within every Modern Orthodox high school there exist a select few who develop a consistent commitment to learning during their teenage years, their nature as a disparate minority generally has kept the population unorganized and latent. Yet by developing a network with which such high school students could be tied together into a social unit, TLN has tapped into a latent dynamic energy, generating large and positive responses across the country.

With every new year TLN seeks to grow in new directions. Last year a "Shabbat in Yeshiva" program brought 31 high school students to YU for the weekend to learn and interact with YU rebbeim and students.

This year the program will seek to add a recruiting bent to its shabbatonim. Rather than invite all high school kids to one Shabbat at YU, TLN plans on inviting 4 or 5 high schools from the New York area for the weekend. The students and their rebbeim will enjoy the facilities of Yeshiva and interact with its students and faculty. As Rabbi Moskowitz said, "This is a unique experience for high school students to be exposed to all that YU has to offer."

In addition to shabbatonim at YU, TLN runs a national retreat for high school students, seeking to tie the New York learning community into a larger national union. Last year the program ran for the first time, and with 125 students from Boca Raton, Boston, Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the New York area in attendance, TLN achieved its national foothold.

Besides programming from high school men, TLN sought to reach out to high school girls as well, attracting 250 girls to a mishmar at the Beren Campus. A similar program this year drew roughly 100 and the organization hopes to conduct shabbatonim this year based on the successful men’s model.

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