Episode 205 - How Jewish Teens Can Find Faith And Clarity In A Noisy World

What if the loudest voices in a teen’s life aren’t in the room, but in their pocket? We sit down with Rabbi Glenn Black, CEO of NCSY Canada, to unpack how 40 hours a week on social media reshapes truth, identity, and belonging—and how emuna and bitachon can ground young Jews in a world that won’t stop scrolling. This isn’t a theory class. It’s a look at the front lines of Jewish education where mentors, Shabbatons, and deep meaningful conversations turn confusion into clarity.

Glenn shares why the Shabbaton is such a powerful reset: remove the constant feed, add real friends, role models, and shared prayer, and watch teens ask better questions about who they want to become. University-aged advisors bridge the gap between aspiration and access, telling honest stories of growth that make change feel possible. We explore practical middot—respect for parents, dignity in dating, thoughtful speech—and how these habits build inner strength that holds under pressure at school, online, and beyond.

Parents aren’t spectators here. We dive into programs that bring families into the journey—learning nights, holiday gatherings, mothers-and-daughters events, and even Israel trips that mirror the teens’ flagship experiences. The goal: a family system that can carry faith forward. Glenn leaves us with a concise, transformative mindset: Hashem does not do things to you; He does things for you. That shift turns setbacks into training, and it invites teens and parents to meet challenge with courage, curiosity, and trust.

If this conversation sparked something for you, follow the show, share it with a friend who could use a lift, and leave a review to help others find it. Your support helps us bring more voices, more stories, and more practical wisdom to a world that needs it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 2:05 Teens, Social Media, And Truth
• 7:30 Why NCSY Matters Now
• 11:50 Shabbaton Magic And Role Models
• 17:40 Deep Meaningful Conversations
• 22:00 Engaging Parents As Partners

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

Hello and welcome everybody to the Trust Factor, the podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Welcome to another of our interview series, which have been massively, massively successful over the last few weeks. Today, we're joined by a true leader and an inspiration, a good friend, Rabbi Glenn Black, the CEO of NCSY Canada, an organization that has shaped thousands of Jewish teens with powerful programs, mentorship, and spiritual connection. In this episode, we're diving into what we normally speak about, Emmuna and Bitachon, trust and faith. How do we build them? How do we live them? And how do we bring them into our families, our relationships, and our daily struggles? Rabbi Black brings decades of insight, real life stories, and practical wisdom from the front lines of Jewish education. If you're searching for clarity, motivation, or a stronger connection with Hashem, this conversation is going to speak directly to you. Let's jump in and welcome Rabbi Glenn Black, who likes to go by Glenn. Glenn, how are you? Okay, Baruk Hashem. What a such to be here with you, my good friend Jesse. I can't believe that you have this podcast. I'm so I'm so honored. Right, Baruch Hashem, amazing. It's been going so well. Thank God the listenership is growing, and this interview series has just been amazing. It's a game changer. People are learning so much and have noticed so many people because I'm promoting it. People are tuning in, they recognize the name, they recognize the organization, and it's drawing in a crowd. So that's it's really amazing. I wanted to focus our conversation on the fact I mentioned that you're on the front line with Jewish teens in the education system, usually in high school, a very, very formidable year for these people who are just starting to figure out the course of their future and they're being inundated with information. Some of it might be confused with propaganda, and there's just so much pressure on them to be able to know right from wrong, especially when it comes to Judaism and Israel and what's been going on in the last couple of years. So really the first question I think is what do you see? I mean, what are you getting? Give us some insight into are you getting Nachis from these children? Are you getting, you know, is it a good vibe? You do you have faith in our Jewish future, the next generation? Or what are the what are the challenges that they're facing?

SPEAKER_01: 2:54

Well, it's a great question. I think you nailed the uh you you nailed the issue right away. The kids are hearing, um, you know, there are studies that are done on how much time kids, teens specifically, are on social media, and you would be shocked to find out. And I wonder what your listening uh l listenership is uh would guess to that, but the uh the answer is in excess of 40 hours a week, kids are online, on Twitter, on Instagram, searching and listening and getting influenced by I mean, anything you can possibly imagine is accessible to a teen today. And so they're getting influenced by people who you would never allow into your home, who you would never allow uh a book or a magazine that has that kind of ideology or or or discussion into the the kidusha, the holiness of of a Jewish home. And yet the access that these kids have, and it's not just the access, it's the 40 hours, it's the influence, it's the pounding day after day, idea after idea. What is considered truth today used to be, you know, top-down parents, grandparents, educators passing information down to the next generation. And what we're seeing today on the front lines is that it's bottom-up. And that is the information is getting funneled to them directly into their phones, into their brains. And the influence that you think a parent thinks that they are the greatest influence on their children, and most likely they will be down the road, but there is a dark side to that that is happening all the time. And kids are inundated with what they don't know, what they consider truth, because what is truth today uh in social media, it's whatever whatever you decide. So it's not just October 7th, where there is a massive surge of hate and anti-Semitism and re-questioning who I am and how I belong to the Jewish people, what I'm about. It's this has been going on for a very long time. And unless we better understand the impact of social media on the minds of teenagers, which by the way become the mind of university students and eventually even adults, we won't fully understand how we are we can be better influencers, be better role models to our kids.

SPEAKER_00: 5:28

You know, it's uh I think that just drives home the point or the importance of why organizations like NCSY are so important much more today than in so many previous generations, because they're targeting that generation, the education system, while they're young and malleable. That's where the message is being targeted, whether it's at the high school system or post-secondary education, these are their formidable years. And so it seems like the messaging is getting loud and it's drowning out a reality. And so, because of that, I think we need your organization and other ones like it so much more today. And I don't know if you've heard this, but you you're what you just mentioned reminded me of a lecture that I heard many years ago by Rabbi Jonathan Rieti. Um, I haven't heard from him in a long time. I think he's on Torah anytime, and I would encourage people who are interested in the subject to go and try and dig up this class that he gave because he has a history. His father was in the entertainment business, so to speak, and commercials and voiceovers, and he gives over a spectacular discussion about what you just talked about, which is getting your child's attention and making sure that the information that's going to form their opinions and who they are comes from home and not outside of home, but today, even inside your home with your phones and your computers, I mean, you're bringing the world into your child's bedroom. And so that makes it so much more challenging. I mean, do you see the confusion in the children these days? We sure do.

SPEAKER_01: 6:58

Um, and that's you know, that's the um I guess that's the beauty where emunan bitachone start to take a real to take shape because you know, thank God, we're reaching a lot, not reaching as many kids as we want to, that's for sure, but we are reaching a lot of kids, and we play a very significant role in their lives. You could ask any alumnus of the organization, any alumni of the organization. I mean, it was these formative years in which they were seeking direction, and they came to people who are our ambassadors, Hashem's ambassadors really, of Torah, to these kids who are are getting these very twisted messaging. And because they come to places like NCSY, not exclusively NCSY, where they have places where they can turn to and ask the real question and discuss, is this true? How should I how should a man deal with a a woman? How what does dating look like in a normal environment? What is the appropriate you know, respect to be given to our parents uh and to adults? You know, in some public schools they allow and maybe it's not just public schools, but they allow kids to call the teacher by their first name. Like that's I never grew up like that. I'm sure you never grew up that way. I'm shocked when I heard this and I saw this from my with my own eyes and ears. There's a lack of like decorum and str and structure that the the young generation, this generation might be, you know, can be confronted by. And so having these relationships, I don't hate the word normal, but normal relationships of how do you treat you know somebody of the same gender, a different gender, conversations that are appropriate, not being awkward because they spend hours in front of computers. How do you interact? So, like a Shabbaton, uh the Shabbaton where 200 kids come together and they hear powerful Torah messages and they meet incredible role models, and they're frankly, they're taken away from their homes for you know 24 to 48 hours, and they're together with like-minded teens, and they realize, wait, I'm not alone. The kid from this school or that school, kid from Holton Hills or even Forest Hill, they're not they find each other at these NCSY conventions and they say, wait a minute, I thought I was crazy. And the kid, other kids says, Yeah, I thought I was, but you're not crazy. You're you're the normal one, you're the one who's learning and growing and trying to grasp what MS is and how you try to relate that that truth to Akkharish Baruch, and how does a God, how do you allow Hashem into your life, whereas the world is sort of blocking that out. In the world of NCSY and the outreach movement, we are creating huge opportunities for that for the kids to become vessels of opportunity for for Emuna and Bitachon and allowing Hakarsh Baruch's light into their world. And they're not alone. There's thousands and thousands of them today. NCSY, just our organization, this is not a plug, but I just tell you, you can you can see this. We have our own data system. We see over five to and a half thousand kids a year today. NCSY is enormous, not just in Canada. Wow, from East Coast to West Coast. It's a tremendous influence that we are trying our best to do. It's only one out of 20, one of every five kids, 20% of kids today part of the organization. And that's why we have to do so much more, because I really do believe that the messaging of what we're putting out there, role modeling and Torah and Bitachon and using Torah biblical personalities as paradigms of what kind of life you should be leading, that message has to get out there more and more and more.

SPEAKER_00: 10:43

Let me tell you, Glenn, I know it's been a while. It's certainly been a while. We've had the merit of knowing each other for a very long time, and our families have been very close. I had the merit with my family on a couple of occasions, many years ago, to come to one of these shabbatons that you were just talking about. And I gotta tell you, as much as I know you as on the personal side, I think that's where you shine more than anywhere else. Because for those who don't know this, who've never been to a Shabbaton or their children have never been or they've never heard of NCSY, the ability that you have in these Shabbatons, not just you, but the people that you surround yourself with, the employees, the people who give of their time to be able to inspire this next generation, that this Shabbaton is transformative. It really is. So give us a bit of an insight about, because a lot of these kids are coming from secular backgrounds, they're coming from the public school system. They're not religious in many cases, or in most cases. How do you begin to approach whether it's at a shabbaton or a one-on-one, just the conversation about recognizing that there is a God and that there is a purpose and that there's more to life than what we see.

SPEAKER_01: 11:53

Right. So, you know what at a Shabbaton, the magic of a Shabbaton is something called a DMC, deep meaningful conversations. And NCSY, we master this. And the way we master this is that besides the full-time staff, like you talked about, that come to a shabbaton, we also we bring uh 30, 40, depending on how many kids we have, university students who we call advisors, and they're basically mentors to these kids, and they're just you know, they're in university, so they're just three or four years older, they've all gone to yeshiva, they've all learned somewhere, and they have so much to offer these kids, and they discuss their own journeys. The the advisors talk about their own personal journeys with these kids, and it becomes yeah, you did that, I can do that too. Where did you come from? You came from this city and that family and that situation, and you overcame and you you found Hashem and you you want to grow and you're Yiddish guide, you want to become a Torah Jew, and you went to yeshiva, you went to seminary, and now you dress a little differently than you did before, you grew up differently. When they see these role models, total game changers. The conversations are not about music and celebrities and just sports, and that also happens. It is all elevated to a new level of what do you want your life to look like? And if you never come to a shabbaton, you may never have a conversation like that. That's why they're so profound and they're so powerful, why we do them so often, why we invest so much time and energy and money on a shabbaton is because when you capture the shama of the kid, the heart of the kid at a Shabbaton, I mean, that kid was usually never the same.

SPEAKER_00: 13:39

You know, it's I wish we could translate the importance of this through the podcast. I don't think people can really understand it until they really experience it. But the reality is that we all know you just have to have eyes open to recognize that the systems, especially the education systems around Western democracies, are full of ideals that fly in the face of a lot of the values that were taught to us by the Torah that have allowed humanity to survive and to indeed thrive and to get to this point. But somehow there's been, it seems, a concerted effort in the education system to turn everything on its head. And these children, their kids, are becoming influenced by it. So when they see, like you just mentioned, somebody who's senior to them, who's been through the program and who is thriving and who is coming to dedicate their time and energy to help the next generation, I think it's tremendous and it's critical. We can't do without it. There are so many other programs at NCSY, like the Learn and Earn, for example, where the children come out and they get paid a small nominal amount, but nonetheless, it gets them to come out. And whatever we can do to get these kids to come out and learn and grow and interact with people who are there to inspire them, I think it's critically important. Then there are the parents. You also, by virtue of dealing with the children, you deal with the parents. Are you seeing that more parents are becoming involved? Or is it strictly just the kids? Is there a natural progression to be able to start talking to the parents about their relationship, their connection back to their Judaism? Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

I mean, I you know, Jesse, I we I hope that everybody's listening knows how important a role you played at a very crucial moment in NCSY's growth. A few years back, there was one parent. I won't say the name unless, you know, we don't want to reveal it, um, although you can tell it if one day, where a parent dropped off their kid at this same learn and earn that you're discussing, and he asked, When can I come back and pick up my son? And somebody said, an hour, and he goes, Well, I live a half hour away. By the time I get home, I have to come back, so that's not gonna work. And then somebody invited him, so why do you have to leave? Why don't you stay and learn with your son? And Jesse, you were that Kavrusa, you were that learning partner for that family, if you recall, I'm sure you recall, and you're still friends. That moment changed NCSY's entire trajectory of how we we always knew parents were partners, but we didn't program for that. Since that moment, NCSY created something called the Jewish Family Experience, where we now run weekly programs and learning programs for moms and dads, where we engage five, six times a year at holidays. We invite teens and their parents to come to learning programs, chalebakes, mothers and daughters. We just had one two weeks ago with Mrs. Shelley Shemtov, who was the mother of Omer Shemtov, the the um hostage that was Barch Hashem, who survived her mother, his mother was here. Incredible, 250 mothers and daughters. Um, we run trips to Israel called TJJ for moms, where which actually my wife runs, um, which TJJ is NCSY's flagship trip for teenagers. And every time parents would always say, Well, what about me? Why why can't I go on a crazy trip like this, an amazing trip? Yeah, you're right. Why not? And so we created that, and we're continuing to grow, grow, grow our parents. Parents need today, more than ever before, partners in educating and raising their children. You know, the expression, you know, it takes a village. It really does take the village, and they lean on us. I have calls and emails on a regular basis from parents. Many of them, by the way, are alumni of NCSY who are very still, I'm still very close with. I have this situation with my teenager now, you know, they're 20 years out of NCSY, but uh, they still want to connect and they they come back to their source, they come back to their inspirational uh history and past. What can I do about my kid? How can you help me? My son needs this, my daughter needs that. How can you serve serve them? We're dealing with parents all the time as partners. There was, I'll just say one last thing. There was there is an idea that in the Kirov movement, the goal, and it maybe, maybe, maybe 40 years ago, 50 years ago, even before my time for sure. I'm around 35 years, so before way before my time, there was this divide and conquer strategy. We're gonna save the kid at all costs, no matter what the parent wants, no matter what is good for the family. And I'll tell you the truth, I I've been doing this since um 1992, okay? So a long time. That was my first, it's my first and and still only job. Simply no one else really wants me. So I I've been doing this for a long time, and we're so proud of our transparency of what we're trying to do with the kids because we don't see the parents as an obstacle. We we see them as an absolute partner in engaging their family towards a more Jewish lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00: 18:53

I can, Glenn, I can attest to that. The relationship you were talking about happened many years ago. I had the merit of being part of your program, the Learn and Earn, and I had the merit of helping a family that was open-minded and they were looking for growth. And because they were looking for growth, and NCSY had these programs, then we invited them in. And I know intimately this wonderful family that grabbed on and changed their entire surroundings. They literally moved, they sold their home that was in a non-Jewish neighborhood, they came to a Jewish community, they they became members of shules, the children started learning and growing and got married and are living Jewish lives and bringing Jewish kids into the world. It's just spectacular. And it all really is a testament to NCSY and the connecting of the parents back and making it a familial approach to Judaism, which is really the way that it's supposed to be. But I want to ask this, and maybe we'll end with this because we, I mean, we could talk forever, and God willing, we'll have you on again for sure. But how do you, because you're dealing with these people at all different stages of their relationship with their creator, how do you address whether it's with a parent or whether it's with a child that is coming from a secular background, introducing them to this concept and you want them to start testing out this idea of having faith or having trust in a creator? What's a step? Give me a practical thing that you might say to somebody to say, hey, listen, there's a God, he wants a relationship with you, and you're going to benefit if you have a relationship with him. What would you suggest to them would be a practical step or tool or exercise to be able to venture in that direction? Okay, that's a heavy question.

SPEAKER_01: 20:41

And if it's only one sentence, um, and that was a regal achas, I would say uh really only one thing that I say so often. I can share a quick story if you'd like. Sure. Share with the kids as well. But I I tell the kids that Hashem does not do things to you, he does things for you, and that is a paradigm shift in kids' minds when they think about like all this stuff that's happening in the world, it seems so horrible and negative, big adoles and the grand scheme. And then in personal life's not so good, school's not so great, friends are not working out right now, you know. I broke up with my boyfriend, girlfriend, I got a situation. How do you view those moments? Is God giving you a patch? Is this a is this something that God is punishing you for? Is this God out there that just wants to make me unhappy? Hashem is not doing things to you, he's doing things for you. It changes everything in the way a kid looks at herself or himself. If he realizes or they realize that every moment in their day is Hashem guiding them and giving them that challenge so that they can overcome that challenge, so they can be better people, that they could when they come on the other side of that challenge, that's where true growth happens. That's where their their true identity emerges. And so if I had one sentence, what do you tell these kids?

SPEAKER_00: 22:04

This is what we tell those kids all the time. It's one word, it's a changing the word that he's doing things to you, that he's doing things for you. It changes everything because now you've got somebody at your back, you've got the the most powerful, the most capable at your back who's ready and willing and wants to be able to see you grow and succeed. It's unbelievable, it's transformative. That was Rabbi Glenn Black from NCSY. Rabbi Black, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy, you're running so many programs. I encourage everybody to go online and look up NCSY and get involved. It doesn't matter where you are, they're everywhere. Get involved and get your children involved, and you will only stand to benefit. Rabbi Black, thank you for being on the show. Oh, an honor and a pleasure and continue your holy work, Jesse. I'm really proud to have been part of this. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Thank you all for joining Rabbi Glenn Black and myself in this powerful conversation on Emunan Bitachon. If you've heard something today that moved you, then save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. And be sure to subscribe on any of the platforms so that you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.