Ira Leibowitz grew up in a traditional household in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Yet as he got older and went to college, he stopped practicing the traditions he had grown up with.

After Ira and his wife, Amy, had their first son, they decided they wanted to explore their Judaism. “We started feeling that there was something more that we were looking for,” says Ira. So Ira and Amy connected with Rabbi Josh Gordon of Chabad of Encino, who made a big impact on them. They became Shomer Shabbat, and Ira started attending Rabbi Gordon’s classes on Chumash and Tanya. 

“I saw that a lot of the guys were learning out of this publication called Dvar Malchus,” says Ira. “I thought it would be great to learn. It looked very compact, portable, and user-friendly, and it looked kind of cool, like a newspaper or comic book, l’havdil. But it was all in Hebrew, so I couldn’t learn out of it. So as soon as Chayenu came out, I subscribed. I was already learning Chumash with Rashi and Tanya, but Rabbi Gordon had said Rambam was good to do, so I decided to take it on, and Chayenu made it so easy. And I liked all the other features, like Hayom Yom, the dvar Torah, and the features afterward, like the Rebbe’s letter, the moadim, and the Chassidic stories.”

For his second son’s bar mitzvah, Ira gave out Chayenus to everyone. “I felt that it had such an impact on me, so I wanted to give it out to the shul and the guests so they could follow along in the Chumash. Not everyone was Shomer Shabbat, so I thought it was a great way to share something with them, and maybe someone would pick it up and go, ‘Wow, this is great.’”

Chayenu is so important to Ira that he makes time to learn it every day. “It’s part of my daily and weekly learning. If I ever miss a day, I make sure to make it up the next day. I learn it cover to cover, except maybe the haftorah. My day isn’t done until I have learned my Chayenu.” 

Ira is grateful that you have chosen to support Chayenu. Thank you for enhancing his daily and weekly learning!

 

For more Chayenu stories, visit the Chayenu Stories homepage.