OPINION: Welcome back to an intense learning environment that’s nothing like school

Anyone who has been in a long-distance relationship will know that it’s doable but eventually you just have to spend time together in person. So much of Jewish life over the pandemic had this quality. The technology worked remarkably well, but it lacked the intangible value of being physically co-located.

Limmud Festival has just finished, the first in person since 2019, and it was a triumph.

For those who have never been, it’s hard to truly describe what it is like. I tried with my non-Jewish colleagues last week and ended up sounding a bit ridiculous. Their kindly-but-bemused facial expressions said it all. A conference? Kind of. A camp for all ages? A bit of that too. An intense learning environment that’s nothing like school? Yes – but so much more. They couldn’t get their heads around it. The best way I have found to describe Limmud Festival is as a theme park and spa retreat for my Jewish identity. It’s a few days each year where I go for intellectual, emotional and social recharging of my Jewish batteries. I see friends, hear new ideas, engage with a vast range of Jews and their views and then kick back and enjoy a few drinks served by someone with a t-shirt that reads “my other bar’s a mitzvah”!

This year, the volunteer organising team had three challenges. One: after two years of online Limmud, would people come back at all? Did the event itself have a future? Two: the volunteer pipeline had been severely damaged by the pandemic. This year’s team was the smallest for a long time. Would they be able to pull it all off? And three: whilst the height of the pandemic is thankfully over, there remain significant uncertainties over mass-gatherings and travel. How would the team successfully plan when there are so many unknowns?

To challenge one, the team planned and hoped and prayed and had faith. Registrations came in, presenters submitted sessions and in the end a festival of almost 1500 people felt busy, buzzy and bursting with life.

To challenge two, they simplified and streamlined. They took the bold decision to return to the essence of Limmud Festival and cut some of the optional extras. And in a stroke of strategic brilliance, they ran a hugely-successful young adult leadership programme, inviting 70 younger Jews to not only volunteer but also have their own sessions so they could bond as a group, build their own vision of community together and think through what their own Limmud volunteering journeys might look like. I was honoured to be asked to do 1-to-1’s with a few of them as part of the programme and I can tell you the future is bright indeed.

To challenge three, the team were brave in being honest and up-front about risks. They didn’t allow the best to be the enemy of the good. We were asked to take COVID tests before we travelled, strongly advised to get travel insurance and some participants chose to be masked. I can only imagine the hard decisions Limmud must have had to make to get Festival off the ground this year, and I applaud them for it.

At the last night gala, the team took the applause of a roomful of grateful Limmudniks. And in an important moment, the Chairs of the 2020 and 2021 online Festivals were also recognised. They did heroic work to keep the Limmud flame alive through the darkness of the pandemic years. Festival 2022 has proven that their work was not in vain. Limmud is back. I’m already excited for Festival 2023.

• Robin Moss is the Chief Executive of Unitas Youth Zone and has been attending Limmud since 2009.