NCSY Launches ‘1,000 Hours for Mo’ Learning Program in Memory of Moshe Berkowitz

23 Dec 2010

NY NCSY LAUNCHES ‘1,000 HOURS FOR MO’ LEARNING PROGRAM, IN MEMORY OF MOSHE BERKOWITZ, ADVISOR AND ROLE MODEL

Moshe Berkowitz a”h became an NCSY | Jewish Youth Leadership advisor at the beginning of the current school year, but in the short time he served in this position, he made a dramatic impact on NCSYers with his love of Torah conveyed through his warm and sweet personality. As a result, a shocked and saddened New York Region of NCSY has created the “1,000 Hours for Mo” program, as a way to commemorate his life following his tragic death in an automobile accident just prior to Chanukah.

The program is a thousand-hour learning campaign in memory of Moshe Yehuda ben Yaakov Hacohen. NCSYers and their families are being called on to sign up online at NYNCSY.org. If participants request a learning partner, one will be provided. Already, in the early stages of the campaign, 7,600 minutes each week (or more than 126 hours) have been pledged. Those who sign up, and their pledges, are posted on the website.

“The tragic passing of Mo left many of us with a void that we had no idea how to fill,” reflected Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, director of the Cedarhurst-based New York NCSY. “The NCSYers bonded together in the most trying of times to suggest that we as one people and one region would not only replace the hours of Torah that Mo would have taught us but we will increase it many times over. This is what Mo would want — more Torah learning, more simcha (rejoicing) and more achdut (unity).”

“With NCSYers leading the way, there are literally hundreds of teens learning Torah who have never opened a sefer (sacred text) before, all in tribute to someone who dedicated his life to bringing the Torah to Jewish teens, whoever they are and where ever they may be,” declared Adam Jerozolim, Director of South Shore NCSY, and the creator of the website in Moshe’s memory. “The thousands of hours of Torah learning will forever be part of Moshe Yehuda ben Yaakov’s legacy.”

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