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Mendy Dickstein, Beis Moshiach

An odd ad appeared a few months ago in Yediot Acharonot in Eretz Yisrael which drew a lot of attention. The ad space was blank. On the bottom of the ad was a picture of the Rebbe giving dollars to one of the owners of the newspaper, Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes whose parents are the publisher of the newspaper. Under this unusual ad it said, whoever wants more information should scan the bar code on motzoei Shabbos when the story behind the ad would be told.

In a video shown on motzoei Shabbos, people saw that the ones behind this initiative are the members of the Lenchner family of Rechovot, founders and directors of “Yemot HaMoshiach.” For those my age and older, the phrase, “Nechayeig V’Nishma” brings back memories. This was a phone system set up in the 90s and along with recordings of shiurei Torah and farbrengens, pressing on #2 connected you to live updates on the Rebbe’s health in 5753-4. This was the “oxygen line” for Lubavitcher Chassidim in Eretz Yisrael who wanted to know what was happening in Beis Chayeinu and mainly, what were the latest health updates (this was long before whatsapp and the speedy news apps we have today).

Over the years, they upgraded the technology and turned into a full service company named “Yemot HaMoshiach,” which has branched out far beyond the original recorded shiurim. Today, it is a business empire in the technology field of telephony.

During the first round of corona, the company’s impressive capabilities made Yemot HaMoshiach the only one able to provide an advanced technological system that enabled schools to function for chareidim who eschew the Internet. When Omicron quickly shut done one class after another and sent students home, in chareidi schools they used Yemot HaMoshiach to provide long-distance learning.

Back to the curiosity-provoking ad – we spoke with Rabbi Yaakov Lenchner and his sons, Menachem and Yosefi, about the company and, of course, the ad.

Tell us about the ad.

We got hundreds of comments, no exaggeration, that conveyed people’s excitement over the ad which provided a platform in anticipation of the hisgalus of the Rebbe MH”M.

Before we speak about the ad itself, when did you get started?

Yaakov: When Nechayeig V’Nishma got started, it wasn’t via a telephone system; we printed “fresh” sichos and maamarim that came from 770 by fax. Fax machines weren’t common among Anash and the ability to receive a summary of the sichos that the Rebbe said on Shabbos by the next day was an amazing thing.

Every week, light went forth from Rechovot to the entire central region of the country. On Sunday afternoon, children in yeshiva and men in kollel went home with “headlines” from the farbrengen that ended not many hours earlier. Today, it’s hard to understand the chiddush in this; at the time, it was an enormous accomplishment.

People were eager to know what the Rebbe said and the demand spread far beyond Rechovot and the center of the country. I became the address for these requests. As a result, I bought a device which the young generation is unfamiliar with: an answering machine. You were able to record a message and when someone called our telephone line, he could hear our message. I bought a phone line from Bezeq and that is how the first iteration of Nechayeig V’Nishma began.

Rabbi Efraim Demichovsky, who was a bachur in 770 at the time, made sure that the first one to receive the fax with the summary of what the Rebbe said was Nechayeig V’Nishma. Whoever called the line on Sunday morning was able to hear me read the summary of the farbrengen.

We expanded to eight phone lines that had one phone number (R’ Shlomo Eidelman a’h donated the answering machine). Eight people could call simultaneously and hear the message. From Sunday until Tuesday you could hear the summary from Shabbos. From Wednesday and on you could hear tidbits from “dollars” on Sunday.

The number of listeners grew and we wanted to enable people to choose between the summary of Shabbos and the tidbits from dollars. Back then, the IVR (interactive voice response) systems that tell you “to hear X press 1, to hear Y press 2,” did not exist.

By divine providence I got in touch then with a sweet person by the name of R’ Tzvi Kamil a’h who helped me tremendously in setting up the first computerized analog system. That is when the Nechayeig V’Nishma system went from answering machine messages to a computerized system and really took off.

From Nechayeig V’Nishma you became the serious, respected Yemot HaMoshiach. When did this happen?

The big change occurred in 5769/2009 when we moved from a company that provided Chabad content exclusively to a platform that provides services to other organizations. We enable whoever wants a system like this to easily have one.

Until we started Yemot HaMoshiach, whoever wanted a set-up like Nechayeig V’Nishma had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for it and then hundreds of dollars for monthly maintenance. Yemot HaMoshiach, as its name indicates, brought the era of “delicacies like dust” to the world of communications. It provides for free what used to cost a fortune.

300,000 TALMIDIM IN YEMOT HA’MOSHIACH

Corona changed everything. Within a short time, schools were closed and hundreds of thousands of students were sent home. The world discovered Zoom which enables a class to meet and see and hear one another. What would those who eschew the Internet do?

The heads of the Yemot HaMoshiach company rushed to set up for the new situation and after investing over a million shekalim, they built a “server farm” that can carry a massive system of distance learning.

The developers of the company worked to develop a special interface between the teachers and students which surpassed even Zoom’s capabilities since students participate in class by using a regular phone. They don’t sit in front of computer distractions that can lure them elsewhere.

A special function that the company developed is the ability of a student to “raise his hand” and answer questions by pressing buttons on the phone. They also enabled a student to answer verbally while the teacher saw the answer transcribed as text.

In short, Yemot HaMoshiach provides a solution to distance learning for those who don’t use the Internet. Today, Yemot HaMoshiach is the leading system for distance learning in the chareidi sector.

“When Omicron hit and thousands of students were sent home to quarantine,” says R’ Lenchner, “this system was ready to service schools when more and more students had to learn from home.”

As a teacher myself  I’d like to know how many students did you service at the height of the lock-downs and how many classes were given every day by your service?

“Our data shows that Yemot HaMoshiach’s distance learning serviced over 300,000 students daily. Tens of thousands of lessons were taught daily.”

WORDLESS BUT WITH PLENTY OF CONTENT

Back to the present. There was an almost empty ad that drew a lot of attention. Please tell us why you placed this ad.

“Due to corona, Yediot Acharonot/YNET held a contest for small businesses in collaboration with Bank HaPoalim, for all small businesses that provided benefit to the public during corona. We had not even thought of participating but at the last minute we decided to join if only to advertise ourselves and to reach new audiences who would see the list of participating small businesses.

“However, G-d had His plan and in Tishrei we were told that we had won first place out of hundreds of businesses. Part of the prize was 100,000 shekels which could be used only by advertising in Yediot Acharonot.

“Interestingly, both I and our devoted manager of sales, R’ Shmuel Yankowitz, thought of the same opportunity. The Rebbe asked years ago that the coming of Moshiach be advertised in Yediot Acharanot. The time had come to do it.”

R’ Lenchner is referring to the visit that took place on 8 Teves 5752, when the Rebbe asked Mrs. Shalom Nir-Mozes to leave space in the paper for the headline announcing the arrival of Moshiach.

Thirty years passed since then. How did Mrs. Shalom Nir-Mozes react when you told her what you wanted to do?

We were very surprised by her immediate, positive reaction, with such happiness that we could never have anticipated! She didn’t even try to hide her warmth, love and admiration for the Rebbe and his shluchim and immediately agreed to the idea.

Thus, the Rebbe’s request to leave an empty space in the newspaper was fulfilled thirty years after he spoke about it. On the bottom of the ad was a line that asked readers to use the bar code so they could see the video in which Mrs. Shalom emotionally tells of her parents, Noach and Paula Mozes (founders of Yediot Acharonot) and their connection with the Rebbe and about her visit to the Rebbe and the Rebbe’s special request.

That wasn’t a “waste” of a rare, valuable opportunity to advertise your business to an audience that never heard of you?

I’ll answer you with an incredible story of divine providence. Two years ago, our marketing director printed huge pictures of the Rebbe for all our offices. Underneath was an entry from the HaYom Yom for Friday, 27 Teves, “The Alter Rebbe declared: The material [concerns] of a Jew are [in truth] spiritual. G‑d gives us material things in order that we transform them into spirituality.”

When the ad went to print on Friday, one of the workers sent us the following message: “Did you notice what the HaYom Yom of the day is?” It was the day the ad was printed, 27 Teves.

Out of the advertising package, we used 60,000 shekels for the ad and we still have 40,000 left for other ads about our new products like ‘Shopping Phone,’ a sales system for stores that operates in sync between the Internet and regular phones, with a complete administrative infrastructure like EBAY and Amazon but which is accessible both via Internet and phone.

I’m sure you’ve been asked – wouldn’t it have been better from the perspective of publicizing messages of Moshiach and Geula to have used a regular ad about the Rebbe with a message about the imminent Geula rather than have people scan a bar code …

That is precisely what we discussed when we thought about how to reach the biggest possible audience with a strong message about the Geula and the Goel. We consulted with professionals, some of them not Lubavitch. We also had Mrs. Naama Tochfeld help us. She explained the idea of a ‘disruption.’ The key to success in advertising is when the ad ‘disrupts’ the reader’s routine and then he is more likely to remember the message. An empty ad with a bar code is a big enough ‘disruption’ to get the reader’s attention.

Feedback showed that this was correct. Aside from those who saw the ad in the paper, it was also seen in the paper Shacharit, on Channel 7 which also appears on the rotter.net website and in hundreds of whatsapp groups. There was tremendous exposure, way more than if it had been an ordinary ad.

What feedback did you get from those who scanned the bar code?

We got hundreds of comments which can be divided into different groups. The main group were regular folks who were amazed by how every Jewish heart is truly awake. They were impressed by what Mrs. Shalom Nir-Mozes said, by how she understands that the mission of Yediot Acharonot is to publicize the coming of Moshiach!

Among Lubavitchers, some were impressed that finally the shlichus was carried out and was funded by Yediot Acharonot itself, which demonstrated the fact that ‘We are ready for Moshiach.’ Some people complimented Yemot HaMoshiach for carrying out the Rebbe’s hora’a to prepare a place in the largest newspaper in the country about the hisgalus of the Rebbe, thus fulfilling what it says in the HaYom Yom.

What do you have to say to readers of Beis Moshiach?

“Most importantly, that Nichayeig V’Nishma, which is run with great dedication by R’ Menachem Mendel Zalmanov, continues to provide its tens of thousands of listeners the option to write to the Rebbe in the Igros Kodesh as well as to listen to all the recorded Sichos Kodesh of the Rebbe and thousands of niggunim. We have recordings from dozens of Kinusei Geula, shiurei Chitas, Rambam and HaYom Yom, numerous shiurei Chassidus, stories for children, and much more.”

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The magazine can be obtained in stores around Crown Heights. To purchase a subscription, please go to: bmoshiach.org

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