One-minute daily videos of chizuk and inspiration

Nachi Gordon is the founder and operator of Meaningful Minute, one-minute daily videos of chizuk and inspiration. He’s based in Lawrence, New York

W

 hat I do

 Every day, I put together one-minute inspirational videos from famous speakers and send them out to subscribers on WhatsApp and other platforms.

 How I got started

 I deal with social media a lot for work. One day last March, my brother and I were chatting, doing pshatim and vorts back and forth. Someone was watching online, and he said, “You should do this every day for five minutes.” I got thinking: Five minutes is too long, and who really wants to hear me every day? Better it should be everyone’s favorite speakers, clips from their favorite speeches, and only one minute. That night I found a video of Charlie Harary speaking about how if we realize Hashem is speaking to us and living with us, we can attain success. I posted it to the new WhatsApp group I’d started that day.

 Why I kept going

 I wasn’t sure if I would, but I started right before my brother got married, and unfortunately, motzaei his aufruf, my father’s mother died. We had shivah that whole week, and I was doing the videos in her memory. I wasn’t sure if I’d continue after, but then motzaei sheva brachos, my mother’s father died, so our family had shivah for a whole other week. It was a crazy few weeks, very emotional, and there was a moment I felt I should do something. I said, “I’ll keep it going l’illui nishmas my grandparents.”

 When it all blew up

 One day, a week or two in, I woke up at 4 a.m. and my phone was going crazy. A guy from England messaged me to say my Meaningful Minute group reached its capacity — WhatsApp has limits on private groups, and this was still a private group — so he went ahead and started another one, which then also filled up, so he started a third one, ultimately reaching over 700 people. Meaningful Minute was still on my personal number, and when people responded to the videos — “Beautiful!” “Nice,” and so on — everyone who was on the group saw their responses. That got annoying, people started leaving, and it was getting hard to manage. I bought a separate phone with a separate number, and I created what’s called a broadcast list — only I can post, and responses are seen by me only. Over time, thousands of people signed up.

 Meaningful material

 Every video is one speaker, one minute. There’s an abundance of shiurim and lectures available online from a large array of sources and personalities. Producing a meaningful minute is a matter of capturing the essence of these presentations. Also, people send me material on an almost daily basis for consideration. Most of the speakers are totally on board, they request that their videos be used — some have told me they’ve gotten speaking engagements because of Meaningful Minute.

 My subscribers

 More than 17,000 people are signed up, and many of them forward the daily message to their contacts. It’s cool to see that you just send it out there, and it can just go, go, go. You know how many times people sent me videos I made with a message to “check it out”? As far as who we’re reaching, it’s difficult to find a Jewish community around the world where we don’t have subscribers. There are even some non-Jews on the list. I got a message recently, “I’m not Jewish but I really respect your commitment to G-d.” They see the speakers talking about Hashem, how Hashem is really part of our everyday lives, and it makes an impression.

 Where they are

 I once used a piece from a rabbi in Israel — he told me that the morning he was on, he was in a store in Geula and the person behind the counter told him, “I just watched you on Meaningful Minute.” I’ve heard from high school students, “They showed this video at our Bais Yaakov morning assembly,” and at the Agudah convention, Shai Markowitz said to me, “I get it every day. Can we interview you on Agudah Live?” Umm, yeah! Until people meet me, they don’t chap I’m a 22-year-old schnook from the Five Towns.

 My favorite Minute

 It has to be a moving piece by Rabbi Moshe Weinberger of Aish Kodesh in Woodmere on the subject of how we’re dealing with at-risk youth in the community, that Hashem wants us to love the kids who are struggling and they’re the ones looking the most for Him. This message evoked the most reaction — almost 1,000 e-mails and texts from people around the world.

 Gratification (though it’s not instant)

 It’s gratifying when I hear from people how these one-minute soundbites helped them get through a problem or crisis and it made a difference in their approach to their personal lives. This whole thing is less than a year old, but it’s had such an impact. When Malky Klein’s father was sitting shivah, he told people that he was very despondent, but he got a Meaningful Minute clip with Rabbi Manis Friedman speaking about how the barometer of success of a parent isn’t if you succeed but if you did what was right. That video gave him a lot of koach, because he felt what he did was right. Mr. Klein said that in his sorrow, those words brought him nechamah. That was touching and, what can I say, very meaningful. At that moment, it really clicked for me — this is real.

 Meaningful vs. Minute

 We’ve rediscovered the famous saying of Chazal, that words from the heart penetrate the heart. Long dissertations are necessary to delve into a topic, but sometimes just a few of the right words can change a person’s life. Some people think the appeal is the minute, but I think it’s the meaningful part —it’s not a schmooze about lashon hara or tzniyus, these are messages that speak to struggles and challenges. It’s the message “sheva yipol tzaddik v’kam”— it’s the “v’kam” that makes you a tzaddik.

 My most frightening feedback

 I’ll never forget the time in Elul that I used a non-Jewish speaker — he had great things to say — but... I got a call: “This is Paysach Krohn. I love Meaningful Minute, it’s amazing. But use Jewish speakers, we look up to the people we hear from and get inspired from.” I was shaking in my boots, it was one of the scariest days of my life, but it was exactly what I needed to hear, so I was grateful for the call.

 In Brief

My day job(s): I’m in yeshivah in the mornings, and I run a sports league in the Five Towns and work for a sports law firm. I’m certified to do contract negotiations with the National Basketball Association and its athletes. I try to end my days in yeshivah as well.

 Equipment I always have on me: My Macbook Pro, I use iMovie to make the clips. As for the speakers, I tell them it’s pretty simple to record: Take your iPhone, turn it sideways, press record, and then send it to me. My videos aren’t going to be Hollywood style, but the content will be even better.

 Technically speaking: If there’s anything tedious about the process, it’s the editing I do on my laptop and the need to maintain a cogent message even though different clips may be from different parts of a one-hour — or more!— presentation.

 On schedule: At first I was sending the message out at 3 p.m., but I realized that means that in Israel they’re getting it at night, so I switched to sending it out at seven in the morning, which means the last person gets it about ten. It’s going everywhere — Argentina, Quebec, Chicago, Lakewood, Cleveland, Israel, and Europe.

 Number one reason this doesn’t take over my life: Because I keep the phone on silent. I have it down to a science: I send out the video in the morning, people respond all day, and I check in the afternoon.

 Best advice I ever got: To take advantage every day of the platform I’ve built, to continue spreading the right messages, and to never, ever forget that I have the power to change the world. That I learned from my father, Larry Gordon. He’s involved in Jewish media as the editor and publisher of the Five Towns Jewish Times. And when I’m sitting late at night editing a minute, it’s my parents who infuse me with the confidence and fortitude to keep going full throttle.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 695)