The Lubavitcher Rebbe in Kfar Habad. The inaugural One-to-One Global Forum broadcast, an initiative inspired by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – More than 230,000 viewers in 142 countries participated earlier this week in the inaugural One-to-One Global Forum broadcast, an initiative inspired by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson.

The broadcast featured 12 hours of educational talks artistic performances by more than 75 global “changemakers,” who gave their presentations at The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building from June 20-21. Among the prominent presenters were actress and activist Monique Coleman (the forum’s host), former New York City mayor David Dinkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Dr. Ed Boyden, media impresario Randi Zuckerberg, and Charity: Water non-profit founder and CEO Scott Harrison.

One-to-One was cosponsored by the United Nations Foundation, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, HarperCollins, and the New York University’s Bronfman Center. Many of the presenters conveyed how the teachings of Schneerson—who is commonly known as “the Rebbe”—influenced their personal or public lives.

“We’re in a world dominated by linear things; the linear check-box way of solving a problem with our computers and our systems of looking at mathematical decision theory as the rule, or to evidence based medicine as the only way to look at something when really that applies to a cloud of people and not to an individual. We need to be using the Rebbe’s technique of studying everyone individually, knowing what the values are of the situation and know how to bring them out in maximum kindness and peace,” said Dr. Ira Weiss, the former senior attending cardiologist at Evanston Hospital in Illinois, who served as the Rebbe’s private cardiologist.

The presenters also commonly drew material from “Rebbe: The Life and Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson, the Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History,” the popular 2014 book by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin whose publication coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Rebbe’s death.