R’ Doron and his wife Yael Hagai take concepts from Chassidus and make them intelligible to those who are unlearned in Judaism by using the latest technology in the world of media, 3D animated videos. * Their videos are accessed all over the world, even Iran. * How can Elokus be explained in the language of animation? How does one hasten the Geula in this way? What level of professionalism is needed for it? Doron explains.
“The first animated segment we produced depicted the story of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka in honor of 22 Shevat, the famous one about the Jewish family that was being evicted and how the Rebbetzin paid what they owed. The title given to the short film was “It’s All by Divine Providence.”
“I sent out the film to all my cell phone contacts. A few minutes later I got a text from one of the numbers, ‘Thanks for the film, you saved me and made me happy.’
“I investigated to see who sent the text and discovered it was an officer who had been at Ascent where I give classes. I was curious and I called to find out why she had reacted in that way. She emotionally told me that she had lost her father in a terrible car accident a year ago. On the day she was preparing for his first yahrtzait, she had strong heretical thoughts like, G-d forbid, there is no Creator; and if there is, then He certainly abandoned her. As these thoughts were on her mind, she got the film, watched it, and it restored her faith in Divine Providence.”
Since that first film produced by R’ Doron Hagai, he and his wife Yael have produced dozens more films in six languages. They are also working on a Tanya animation project. They are up to Chapter Six. In these films which are no longer than two minutes, they manage to illustrate deep concepts in the most amazing way.
Another project illustrates concepts in Judaism and conveys the ideas of special dates in the calendar. All of it is spiced with the teachings of Chassidus.
Needless to say, the films are produced on a high-quality level, content, editing and graphics-wise. The Hagais are creating a revolution in the “spreading of the wellsprings.” R’ Doron lectures on Chassidus and is responsible for the content of the films and their production, while his wife is the artist who works on animation and graphics and is responsible for the technical end of things.
“The feedback we get from all over the world and from tens of thousands of subscribers, most of them not religious, who receive each new film as it comes out, tells us that people enjoy this style of learning. The revolution is just beginning,” he promises.
MIRACLES TIME AFTER TIME
In order to understand how the Hagai couple got involved in this animation project, we need to go far back in Doron’s past.
Doron was born in Neve Monosson in a home that was very distant from Torah and mitzvos.
“I encountered Chabad three times in my childhood and youth and was vehemently against them each of those three times. The first time was when I was sick and turned on the television. One day, I watched news from New York. It was Gimmel Tammuz.
“It was 5754, and I remember snickering at the faith of the Chassidim. I did not understand their admiration for the Rebbe.
“The second time was when I came home from school and found a flyer in our mailbox inviting us to a Lag B’Omer parade in the neighborhood. I was enraged. Not only did I throw out the flyer I had received, I spent hours going from building to building, removing the flyers from all the mailboxes and throwing them in the garbage. When my mother heard about this, she was angry and asked me why I cared so much. I got even more furious and hissed, ‘So the dosim don’t come here.’
“The third time I encountered Chabad was when I was in the army. We were doing advanced training in a base somewhere in the Negev when a group of Chabad Chassidim with doughnuts came to visit us one day of Chanuka. When they offered me a doughnut I was happy; something sweet won’t hurt. But then the man suggested I say a bracha. He hadn’t even finished his sentence when I put the doughnut back in his box and hissed, ‘You’re lucky I’m a recruit; otherwise, all the jam in this doughnut would be smeared on your beard.’”
Doron’s hatred for Torah and religious people burned.
“The anti-religious propaganda that I heard every day in the media had its effect,” Doron explained, after saying that his parents did not teach him to hate religious people. “I did not know what Judaism is; there was not a single mitzva we kept, not Pesach, not Yom Kippur, and definitely not kashrus. All we knew about Judaism was that rabbis were stealing away the State.”
Doron devoted hours to writing when he was a child. Whatever he learned, saw and experienced was translated into writing. In his free time he would write poetry and rhymes. In class he was known as a sharp-tongued child, clever with words, who could write songs and invent stories.
When he became of draft age, he and his friends requested a meaningful service. He was drafted into the armored corps.
“The IDF was in the security strip in southern Lebanon at the time, in 5759. I was a tank commander and they had us at a place called ‘Death Post’ because of the numerous soldiers who were killed by terrorists’ bullets.”
Doron’s military service in Lebanon raised the thought, for the first time in his life, that perhaps there is Divine Providence in the world.
“Time after time I saw miracles and wonders. Once, a mortar shell fell meters away from me. I was standing outside the tank’s turret at the time and all the steel on the tank was shredded and I wasn’t even scratched. When I later looked at the number of pieces that had penetrated the tank and skipped me by mere centimeters, I was stunned.
“Later I experienced another incredible miracle. It was when we lay in ambush somewhere in southern Lebanon and the cursed terrorists had discovered our location and showered us with deadly fire. During the exchange of fire, they shot a Sagger anti-tank missile at us that flew twenty centimeters over my head. I felt the force of its movement. If I was just a little bit taller, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.
“Another time, a sniper shot at me and he also missed by millimeters. During my service in Lebanon I lost many friends, including two who were close to me, and many others were wounded. Throughout my service, they fired 174 mortar rounds at me, fourteen anti-tank missiles, and a sniper’s bullet that miraculously did not hit me.”
The good thing that happened to him during his service was he stopped believing in theories such as the Big Bang and other atheistic ideas. For the first time in his life he felt the hand of Divine Providence and realized that Someone is running the world.
“It took me another six years to understand Who the Supernal Power is and what He wants of me. I never imagined that He wanted me to become a dos. I believed that the religious people behaved the opposite of the way a believing person should behave.”
When he finished his military duty, he got a job as a security officer on an Italian tour boat.
“The First Mate was a major anti-Semite. One day, when I went down to my room after my shift, I was shocked to see that someone had sprayed an anti-Semitic design on the door of my room. I went to the First Mate and demanded that it be erased immediately and that they find out who did it. He laughed and said, ‘You want us to get rid of such a nice picture? Do it yourself, nobody’s your slave.’
“I was in shock. ‘What’s your problem?’ I asked him. ‘I look Italian just like you. Why do you hate me?’ He gave me a poisonous look and said, ‘Nothing will help you, you’re a Jew.’ I left the room, insulted and angry and I started thinking a lot about my being Jewish. I saw it made no difference what I did or how I behaved. The nations of the world would always look at me as a Jew. But what was a Jew? I asked myself this question and did not know the answer. Nobody ever bothered to explain to me the significance of my being a Jew. What did it mean? How was I supposed to behave? Why were we hated?
“That week I quit my job on the ship and returned to Eretz Yisroel. I moved to Yerushalayim.”
Doron began studying international relations, naively thinking he would get answers that way. He wanted to be a diplomat and explain Israel to the world. In his free time from his studies he kept up his Leftist agenda and joined the battles and demonstrations against the settlers in Yehuda and Shomron. He was even active in the Four Mothers organization which demanded that Israel get out of Lebanon.
“When I think about it now, I have no idea how my views could have been so corrupted. Every day I would demonstrate alongside lowlife Arabs against the government’s policies and against my brothers, my people.”
His Leftist worldview shattered after the lynching of two Reservist soldiers who entered Ramallah by mistake.
“That blew out all my ideology in an instant. I realized that the Arabs simply hate us and it makes no difference what we give them.
“In general, those years were stormy ones. Whenever I thought I had finally found peace of mind, it all fell apart. When I would make a personal accounting time after time, I discovered that no matter where I turned, it was all rotten.”
It was with this feeling that Doron finished his studies in Yerushalayim and moved to Tel Aviv where he attended Tel Aviv University for a degree in art history.
“It was at university that I first encountered Torah. We had a very interesting course given by the dean called ‘Stations in Western Culture.’ The first stations he took from the Torah, the Akeidas Yitzchok, the story of Kayin and Hevel, etc. I remember that after he told about Akeidas Yitzchok, I left the room in turmoil. I began looking in the university library for books that explained the story and discovered many commentaries. I began realizing that Judaism has very deep layers and dimensions. I slowly grasped that all the brainwashing in the Tanach lessons was garbage. With this insight, things moved rapidly.”
At that time, he moved to a shack on the banks of the Yarkon River which he rented from a Yemenite couple who were traditional. The first Shabbos, they invited him to eat jachnun (pastry) with them. This was the first time he was exposed to the beauty of the Shabbos table.
“When they saw that I was interested and enthused, they lent me biographies of Eliyahu HaNavi and Dovid HaMelech. I immersed myself in them and was enthralled. From there I ended up in yeshiva in Ramat Aviv after a friend recommended it.”
Doron went straight to the rosh yeshiva, R’ Yossi Ginsburg’s shiur on chapter one of Shaar Ha’Yichud V’Ha’Emuna.
“That shiur transformed me. I remember saying to myself that if the world operates this way, it’s amazing. Suddenly, all of life as I had lived it until then seemed utterly superficial to me. At the end of the third shiur, I decided to remain in yeshiva and leave university. All my childhood dreams were shelved on the spot.”
ANIMATION – WHAT’S THAT?
After two years of learning in the yeshiva in Ramat Aviv, Doron married Yael and they began to “spread the wellsprings” in a number of locations in Eretz Yisroel and the world. Then they decided to return to Eretz Yisroel and armed with the Rebbe’s brachos they settled in Tzfas. R’ Doron joined the faculty of a number of local institutions giving shiurim in Chassidus.
What happened that made you start producing animated videos on Chassidic concepts?
“In the Rebbe’s bracha of 11 Nissan 5751, the Rebbe says, ‘there is Torah learning in a way of seeing, to the point of seeing G-dliness, seeing the Giver of the Torah. This leads to Hashem Himself being in a revealed state to show every single Jew wonders.’
“There is an inyan in transforming Torah into something we see, something like we will have in the Future. With this, the Rebbe established that our generation is a generation that is more attuned to the visual, and this is the reality we see before us. Whoever is involved in publishing knows that times have changed; people read less today. People today have less patience to read in the traditional way and they derive their information more through visual mediums via the computer, films, exhibits, and other visual media.
“When I realized we had to spread the wellsprings visually, I began to invest a lot of energy into this field. I always knew of the tremendous power in this.
“At first I thought of focusing on children. My wife is a terrific graphic designer and we produced a series of books called Sidrat Efrochi. We’ve published four books so far and more are waiting to be printed. The idea behind these books is that through clever wordplay and age appropriate adaptation we teach children deep concepts in Chassidus such as the idea that Moshiach will ‘smell and judge.’
“Throughout the years, books for children were nice storybooks which instilled basic Chassidic concepts in a roundabout way. We put Chassidic concepts into our books directly. After the Efrochi series, we published another children’s book called Shofar Amok with a parable of the Baal Shem Tov which explains what the shofar blowing is about. Educators were amazed by the way we were able to break down the parable for little children. Then we experienced a crisis, since unlike the Efrochi series, very few of these were sold and we remained in debt.
“At the same time, I began realizing more and more that the youth today are getting most of their information from the computer or their cell phones. It’s popular to tsk-tsk about this, but it’s the reality nonetheless. So how do you reach them? We decided to start producing short, animated films that were Chassidic and clear, without compromising on quality and professionalism. Visuals make a great impact. Our first film was for 22 Shevat.
“When we got positive feedback, we decided to develop a series of animated shorts that would explain Tanya simply and easily grasped. We started with the introduction to Tanya, moved on to Shaar Ha’Yichud V’Ha’Emuna, and now we are in Likkutei Amarim, perek 6. Every week we put another film on the Internet which explains the Chassidic concept in that chapter. Sometimes there are several films on one chapter and we also give the viewers homework so they can come prepared for the next film.
“We are also producing animated films on Chassidishe dates. The last one was about 15 Av and before that we produced one for Tisha B’Av.
“We do a lot of work, searching for good and readily grasped parables that match up in a clear way to the concept we want to teach so that even those who know nothing about Chassidus, whether child or adult, can understand it.”
Can you give examples of the work that you do?
“For perek 6 we produced a few films. In one of them we wanted to illustrate the nature of the animal soul. The narrator explains that this time we will learn about the animal, and in the background you see a cow munching on grass. When the narrator says now we will dissect it, we see on the screen a team of people dissecting a frog on a lab table. Then a professor comes in and asks the students, while showing an animal and a person on the board, to find the differences between them. One of the students jumps up and says, ‘I know, an animal walks on four and looks down, and a person walks on two legs and can look up.’
“All along we see an animal and a person on the screen. The professor approves of the student’s answer, repeats it and then clarifies, ‘An animal thinks all day, what do I want? I want to eat and drink. A person, in contrast, thinks – what is needed of me and not what do I want, and this is what differentiates the animal soul from the G-dly soul. The only thing that motivates it is its desires.’ The homework at the end of the film is to think about whether you do what you want or what is needed of you.
“Although, or maybe because, the script is so short, a tremendous amount of work is needed, both to write a clear short script and to find the right story, not to mention designing the images, the background, and what music will be playing.”
Do people ask you if it is meant for children?
“Yes, and I answer that it is also meant for children. The idea is to break down the concepts so that everyone, of every age, will understand it. I’ll give another example. In the last of the films on Tanya, the Alter Rebbe is quoted as saying that all evil comes from the ‘I,’ the ego. That idea is a bit hard to explain, certainly in an animated film. We finally chose an entire orchestra with one musician playing a different tune and when the conductor asks him why, he says they did not hear him so he played his own tunes loudly so everyone would hear him. When the conductor motions to them to play again, he once again plays his own tunes. When he is asked again why he is doing this, he says he suddenly felt like playing something else; it sounds better to him. The conductor yells at him and explains that there is a conductor who says what to play and each one doesn’t do his own thing. The musician tries to explain that all he wanted to do was express himself, but the conductor makes it clear that they play together and if there is one wrong note, the entire thing is ruined.”
In addition to the graphics you do a superb job in breaking down concepts in Tanya. Tell me about this work.
“It’s the hardest part. Before the editing stage, I sit for a week and study the concept over and over from all directions and I am not ashamed to ask and consult others. I pray that Hashem help me to present it in the most accurate and best way possible. In the last film, I had already scripted the film on Chapter 6 and then, before doing the graphics, I suddenly had another idea and I changed everything.”
What difficulties are there in producing an animated film?
“I write the script, and then choose the images that will be in it, how many there will be, and what each one will say. We also add the appropriate background scenery. If it’s a yechidus room, for example, then we stage a yechidus room with all the details, and if it’s Noah’s ark, then my wife designs it. She gets the script from me, along with the instructions, and she does the artistic work, turning thoughts and ideas into reality.
“We will tinker with a film sometimes one or sometimes two days until it’s perfect, visually and musically. Before we send it out we do additional reviews to see whether we can improve the graphics and the wording so it will be understood in the best possible way.”
Tell us about feedback.
“The feedback doesn’t stop coming and it’s always surprising. One day, someone contacted me via WhatsApp, wanting to subscribe. I am used to area codes from the US, France, Brazil, but this time it was a number that started with plus 98. I was curious about where he was from and he said he was writing from Iran. He said these films get passed along from one to another within the Jewish community and he wanted to subscribe so he contacted me.
“I think that these films are the biggest Tanya class in the world with tens of thousands of participants. I see the films on many sites around the world. Before Tisha B’Av they put the film on Channel 7 and it had thousands of viewers. It is amazing to see the people who subscribe on WhatsApp, most of whom look far from religiously observant.”
Do you consider this another step in preparing the world for Moshiach?
“Sure. Today, the Internet is held captive by external forces and we know that whatever Hashem created in the world, He created only for His honor. Today everybody talks about the dangers in this media, but it exists and is here to stay. Those who are familiar with it know that you cannot ignore this revolution. The Internet has already conquered the world and we need to transform it to good and positive ends (not that I’m encouraging using it, but for those who are using it anyway).
“I think it’s the call of the hour. We need to catch up quickly in order to establish an army of soldiers who know how to use 3D technology, which is the ‘last word’ in the field, and to make Chassidic videos to spread to as many people as possible, in as many places as possible.
“In Chabad there are big experts in gaming on the one hand and in media on the other hand, and we need to connect the two and turn it all into learning in a visual way.”
What are your plans for the future?
“Our goal is to join those who are transforming Torah into something visual as a preparation for the Future. The Rebbe’s sichos, especially the D’var Malchus, are full of amazing advice and ideas and we want to bring them down and make them into short films.
“We actually make our living from public relations films for organizations and Chabad Houses. From every money-making film, we produce another few films on Judaism and Chassidus that are distributed for free.
“Our plan, with Hashem’s help, is to produce a large number of films on an array of topics so we can have them running 24 hours a day on a channel of our own. Last year we started producing films in Russian, Portuguese, English and French. We see that the interest in Jewish animated messages abroad is huge. In many places, these are, more or less, the only Jewish messages our viewers have. We would be happy to collaborate with shluchim around the world or other activists in spreading Judaism in order to prepare the world to welcome Moshiach.”