On Monday 28 Tammuz, menahalim, mashpiim and magidei shiur from Lubavitcher yeshivos around the world came together at Anshei Lubavitch in Crown Heights for the opening day of the tenth annual Kinus Hanhalos V’Chavrei Tzevet.

The two-day gathering, convened by Igud Yeshivos Lubavitch, a division of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, brought together the staff of a network that today spans 62 yeshivos in twelve countries, supporting roughly 3,200 bochurim.

What began ten years ago as a small gathering of a handful of hanhalos has grown into the one time each year when the people carrying the yeshivos, from the largest zal in Crown Heights to a mesivta with two shiurim across an ocean, sit in the same room. That was the theme the opening session returned to. Before a word was said, the room understood why it had come, to strengthen the yeshivos one network – to learn from one another, and for each to return home with fresh ideas and renewed energy to work with their students.

The program was split into parallel tracks so that each member of the hanhala could spend the day with the sessions closest to his own work: a track for menahalim, a track for mashpiim, and a track for magidei shiur.

The menahalim opened with Rabbi Yosef Lustig on guiding menahalim through their first decade in the role, the years when the questions come fastest. A second session took up the best working methods for running a yeshiva day to day.

In the mashpiim track, Dr. Rosenthal presented on reading a bochur through his handwriting and his face, a practical set of tools for a mashpia trying to understand the talmid in front of him before a word is exchanged.

In the second room, Rabbi Nota Gerlitzky of Karmi Sheli – the branch of Igud Yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael – took up how to guide talmidim b’inyonei kedusha, one of the most delicate parts of a mashpia’s work today, and one the room clearly came to hear.

The magidei shiur track turned to the coming year’s learning. A presentation on Vehogisa 5787 walked the maggidei shiur through the structured Gemara and Halacha curriculum for the new zman and the direction it is taking, followed by sessions on the craft itself, how a maggid shiur builds and delivers a shiur that reaches a room of mixed levels.

Late in the afternoon the tracks came back together for a joint panel on the question every person in the building lives with, how to reach the bochur beyond the four walls of the classroom. Expertly chaired by Rabbi Mendel Sasonkin of Michigan, Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, Rabbi Uri Perlman and Rabbi Zalman Raksin drew on the range of the room, veteran mechanchim and newer staff, in a conversation that will carry into practical support through the year.

Following a talk by Rabbi Yosef Wiesenfeld, framed around the strengths already built into the Lubavitcher yeshiva system and how a hanhala can draw them out, the afternoon closed with parallel tracks: a session on guidance for Mechanchim by Rabbi Nochum Kaplan, director of Chinch Office, and a mastermind workshop, led by Rabbi Moshe Lieblich.

A ‘mastermind’, Rabbi Lieblich explained, is a group of peers who meet regularly, and each member in turn puts a real challenge on the table and the others give him their honest read and their counsel.

After learning how they work The hanhalos broke into mastermind groups and held a live session, each man bringing a challenge from his own yeshiva to his group.

And it does not end with the Kinus. The groups are set to keep meeting through the year – like most sessions at the Kinus, one afternoon’s give and take became something a member of staff will lean on all year round.