an exciting announcement ahead of the festival of our freedom 🍷

Published: Fri, 04/15/22

Shalom ,

I'm writing to you ahead of Pesaḥ on behalf of myself and the Vision movement to express our appreciation for all of your encouragement and support over the year. Without your partnership, we wouldn't be able to accomplish even half of what we do.

Last week, we successfully concluded the fifth and sixth cohorts of our online ATID leadership program (we're already interviewing applicants for cohorts seven and eight).

Part of what I think makes the online ATID program so impactful is that for many participants, it's really the first time that their Jewish identities have actually felt real. Not just as their "religion" but as the story of their family and people. And this is actually central to what we aspire to teach our children at the seder tonight - that it was really us who left Egypt and moved through history as the people of Israel until this current chapter of our national story.

The Maharal of Prague teaches us that by enduring Egyptian bondage, Israel reached a higher level of freedom than if we had been born free. Genuine freedom is the ability to secure one's liberation after having smashed all shackles, shaken off all bonds and overcome all obstacles. The free person is one who can defeat any and all powers that oppose their living a life of truth. This is how Yair was able to say during our struggle for freedom against the British that "a freedom fighter doesn't fight to be free - he is able to fight because he's already free."

Freedom begins with truly knowing our deeper selves. The Vision movement's efforts are central to the current awakening of national consciousness among young Jews around the world. In addition to reconnecting young Jews to their identities in such a way that makes the Jewish people's story the larger context of their lives, we're also empowering them to experience themselves as active characters in that story.

Here's the new and exciting part:

As a result of both the incredibly positive feedback we've received and the desire expressed by so many of our ATID alumni to stay involved and continue learning with us, we've decided to launch a number of post-ATID online courses that would each focus more specifically on some of the topics broadly unpacked on ATID.

We hope this to include courses on our Torah, philosophy, postcolonial studies, Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, effective methods of organizing, political communication and more.

Beginning next month, we're excited to roll out the first two of these courses - a weekly philosophy class taught by Yonah ben-Avraham and a class on the Book of Bamidbar taught by me.

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Wishing you and yours a Shabbat Shalom and a Ḥag Sameaḥ v'Kasher

Yehuda HaKohen

Vision Movement