Beginning the morning of March 18, 2020, UJA-Federation of NY Scholar in Residence Rabbi Menachem Creditor began broadcasting a 15-minute daily opportunity for the New York Jewish community to come together and start each day with learning and inspiration. Born as a timely, local response to the dislocating impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, these broadcasts quickly grew into an unprecedented online Jewish learning platform, engaging people from all around New York and spanning the globe, reaching as far as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Holland, England, India, Canada, and beyond. Regular participants became more than 'viewers' over the months; they coalesced into a new form of community, centered on sharing Torah and personal moments every day. To mark the completion of learning the entire Torah together, Rabbi Creditor convened rabbinical students representing the amazing diversity of American Jewish expression to each study two weeks of the broadcast and express the core ideas in their own voice, which Rabbi Creditor then edited into this special volume. This contemporary Torah commentary is testimony to the kind souls who turned screens into portals every day, and who built something sacred together during a very difficult time.
