The Retreat Where Shluchim Step Back to See Their Moisad From Outside

Ten Shluchim, from eight years on Shlichus to more than fifty, gathered at a retreat for M54's Shluchim Cohort 5, for three days of Chassidus, organizational health work, and farbrengens that stretched into the early morning.

Ten Shluchim, from eight years on Shlichus to more than fifty, gathered at a retreat for M54’s Shluchim Cohort 5, for three days of Chassidus, organizational health work, and farbrengens that stretched into the early morning.

In a large home on the Long Island Sound, ten Shluchim gathered to do something they rarely have the chance to do: step back from the moisad they carry day and night, and look at it from the outside.

They came as participants in M54’s Shluchim Cohort 5 – Organizational Health. One has been on Shlichus for eight years; another for more than fifty. Some run small two-person operations, others lead large and complex organizations. What brought them together was a shared aim: to learn to see their moisad as a system of its own, to notice where its energy is well spent and where it drains away, and to discover how to make it truly effective.

The work began long before anyone arrived at the retreat. In six weekly ninety-minute Zoom gatherings, the Shluchim learned to hold the picture of their organization in their mind and to recognize the four elements of an organizational system. Each gathering opened with a section of the classic avoda Maamar Lo Tee’heye Misha’kayla, which the Rebbe recited in 5712 (1952). Before the retreat, each Shliach sent a questionnaire to everyone working in his moisad, measuring the health of the organization through the eyes of the people inside it.

The retreat opened not with a lecture but with stories. Each Shliach shared the perspective he first went out on Shlichus with, and how it has ripened into something uniquely his own, the L’datecha the Rebbe spoke about in the Sicha of Parshas Shlach 5749 (1989). One recalled his yechidus with the Rebbe in the early lameds. Another spoke of the instructions he received from Rabbi Chodakov. One grew up non-observant, another is a third-generation Shliach, and another was born after Gimmel Tammuz. It was the first of many moments over the three days that felt less like a session and more like a farbrengen.

From there, the Shluchim were introduced to the Avoda Pnimis framework developed by M54, known as the Soular System, built on three movements: Noticing, Unpacking, and Doing. This framework lies at the root of all the work done together, and it framed everything that followed. Each Shliach then received his moisad’s Organizational Health Diagnostic, a report that tells the story of his moisad as a system in the voices of the people who work in it.

This diagnostic was not handed over casually. Each Shliach first read it alone, then reviewed it with a chavrusa, and only then did the group gather to share what they had learned. As Rabbi Mendel Gurkow of Shaloh House Chabad of Stoughton, MA, later reflected, “Through this retreat we realized that in every Shlichus there is inner success, and in every Shlichus there is inner room to grow.”

The days that followed moved between the practical and the deeply personal. Shluchim used metaphors to describe their Shlichus and traced the themes and patterns running through their shared experiences. They learned about role clarity and decision making to reduce organizational confusion, how to hold people accountable, and how to turn a seeming failure into a learning experience. “To me, this retreat was a refreshing and stimulating summer camp-like experience for Shluchim,” said Rabbi Alex Kaller of Chabad Russian Center in Sunny Isles Beach, FL. “A perfect balance of a three-day-long farbrengen and a methodological, hands-on seminar that taught practical tools for being more organized, systemic, and attentive to the processes in the moisdos we run. And of course, the daily cheese board!”

One question kept surfacing in conversations throughout the retreat, because it touches nearly every Shliach: what does it mean to work with family on Shlichus, whether a spouse or a child? The Rambam’s framing of relationships, learned in one of the Zoom gatherings leading up to the retreat, offered them language to see it: the Instrumental, a relationship built for getting something done together, where hierarchy and power are a necessary part of the work; and the Intimate, the friendship of confidence, where hierarchy and power undermine it. On Shlichus, both live in the same home, and the work is learning to carry them together and navigate between them. Can you fire a child for incompetence in the afternoon and have him over for a BBQ in the evening?

Each Shliach had the chance to bring a real dilemma from his organization before the group. His peers thought about it with him from a systemic perspective, not offering solutions, simply helping him see it more broadly. “Areas of Shlichus that have no place to surface in any other space come forward here in a constructive manner,” one participant observed.

The Shluchim also learned the Art of Listening: how to practice bitul by helping a fellow be truly seen in a conversation and find his own meaning in what he is sharing. The same skill, they discovered, can be turned inward, to uncover what is really going on beneath a situation. And they explored what makes the culture of an organization, and how it can be changed.

Each of the three mornings began with Chassidus: one third of the Maamar Ve’ata Tetzaveh, the foundation of M54. And in between the sessions, the connections deepened on their own: over meals, on walks, and at late-night gatherings around a fire pit, where Shluchim shared about themselves and learned from one another.

“I cannot remember an event of this type, a seminar, a course, or a retreat, that so beautifully blended authentic chassidishe concepts with such professional and sensitive application,” reflected Rabbi Yisrael Deren of Chabad of Connecticut.

Toward the end of the retreat, the Shluchim returned to their Organizational Health Diagnostics, this time to imagine forward: three or four concrete outcomes they would like to see in their moisad a year from now.

The final night was an eight-hour farbrengen that stretched into the early hours of the morning. Shluchim spoke of the joys of being a Shliach, the deep challenges and dilemmas they face, and the stories they carry. At one point, a Shliach gifted another a personal artifact he had from the Rebbe. At another, a Shliach quietly made a large gift to a fellow Shliach facing financial difficulties. By then, the distances the group had arrived with, between eight years on Shlichus and fifty, between a small moisad and a sprawling one, had quietly disappeared.

“This is what the Kinus should be like,” one participant reflected. “Real and relevant work, and deep, authentic connections among Shluchim, regardless of status.”

The work is far from over. In the weekly Zoom gatherings following the retreat, the Shluchim will develop strategies for integration to strengthen their organizational systems and reach the outcomes they envisioned for the coming year. “This is something that needs to be scaled to more Shluchim,” one participant urged, “even making it a requirement before going out on Shlichus.”

Beneath the frameworks and diagnostics lies the real aim: Shluchim more energized and empowered to do the Rebbe’s Shlichus, and to bring nachas to the Meshaleach.

This is the twelfth M54 Shlichus cohort: five Shluchim Cohorts, five Shluchos Cohorts, and two Fellowships for Avoda Pnimis. M54: The Institute for Insourcing – עבודה פנימית was founded in 2021 by Chanie and Peretz Chein, Shluchim to Brandeis University, who, together with Stephen (Shimon) Markowitz of Yerushalayim, have been facilitating the cohorts.

“M54 has enabled my wife and me to reach new heights in our Shlichus, and we see it in the feedback from our students and community,” said Rabbi Binyamin Murray of Chabad of Middlebury, VT. “Unlike other trainings, it shows how to build organizational strength through the Osios of Chassidus.”

M54 iy”h will be launching four new cohorts:

Shluchim Cohort 6 – Organizational Health
Shluchos Cohort 6 – Avoda Pnimis
NEW! Anash Men Cohort 1 – Avoda Pnimis
NEW! Anash Women Cohort 1 – Avoda Pnimis

To receive an update when applications open for each of the cohorts, click here.

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