httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAXs3mBt5v4&rel=0&autoplay=1

A Singing Torah tool is demonstrated above with Cantor Jodi Sufrin chanting.

Singing Torah: Integrated bar/bat mitzvah learning system synchronizing voice of your cantor to underlying Hebrew Bible text, automatically.

Connecting with Community

A meaningful bar/bat mitzvah can determine the path to joining a family’s community.
But at the cusp of this journey, there is an archway that we can still walk through with them, where we can still guide, support, and love them, holding their hand as long as we can.
Modern society creates an expectation of individual choice and devalues long-term emotional commitment and attachment.
This is a point of discontinuity for any tradition.
Singing Torah helps children connect with our tradition and build our community.

Problem

For young adolescents, learning Torah for Bar/Bat Mitzvah can be stressful and difficult, involving both reading Hebrew and learning trope (intonation).
Busy tutors and cantors lack sufficient time to spend with each student, especially those with special needs.
Learning needs to be more individualized, to increase mastery & self-confidence.
Synagogues have been unable to deliver shul skills and knowledge during critical adolescent years that promote lifelong attachment to Judaism, until now.

Solution

We make synagogue cantors and Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutors awesome:
(a) Students actually practice between lessons, because practice is more engaging and fun.
(b) They hear your voice and how you chant, even when you are not there.
(c) They learn mechanics much faster, so you can focus on nuances you enjoy.
(d) They progress further in same number of lessons, so become more Jewishly literate.
(e) They feel comfortable in synagogue, so they come more often and bring more friends and family.

Define the 1 year and 5 year impact that you hope to accomplish? Use whatever metrics are most appropriate for you (e.g., revenue, profit, jobs, societal benefits)

Chosen Synagogues deploying Singing Torah teach Hebrew Bible more effectively and will strengthen Jewish identity and communal values, with less clergy effort, and more parental satisfaction.
Fewer children abandon Jewish synagogues.
More synagogue doors remain open, so members develop and sustain community by praying, learning, and observing life cycle events together: births, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, marriages, deaths, and preserve safety net for the poor, infirm, lonely, divorced, grieving.

Endorsed by a Panel of Mass Challenge Judges

Mass Challenge Judge 1:

One of very few really unique ideas I see among the MC applicants – so well done.
You need to develop your customer approach.
You should be able to get client synagogues easily.
Then you need to branch out to other cultures and languages.

Mass Challenge Judge 2:

This is a very interesting idea with a strong team behind it.
Spend a bit more time explaining how the technology could be broadened from the very niche Bar/Bat Mitzvah training.

Mass Challenge Judge 3:

This has merit as a very focused, application-specific solution to a very well-defined problem.
While I lack the cultural context to fully appreciate the value proposition, I like the intention of using technology to educate and strengthen faith-based community, and to preserve important traditions.

Mass Challenge Judge 4:

The product and plan sound excellent.
Both seem to be matured beyond the point where an accelerator would be truly necessary.

Mass Challenge Judge 5:

Impressive and unique product in a specialized market.

Mass Challenge Judge 6:

The mission here is great, as is the team.
I wish the team great success!

Mass Challenge Judge 7:

Seems like you have a strong team and technology which is not common to have and it gives an advantage as a startup company.
On the other hand, your target market is too small. Doing good is important, but in a business perspective you have to find a business model that in 5 years will make you at least $50M a year.

Mass Challenge Judge 8:

Team seems to know the market quite well, with a credible plan.

Student Reshapes Learning

“I love the fact that the student is directly involved in reshaping the learning; it is bottom-up, with the child receiving direct feedback to modify her pronunciation.
The student who truly masters her bat mitzvah portion feels a deeper connection to her community — as a choice. She feels that this is part of her.”
An educator, President of Sisterhood @ CKE.

Strengthen and Preserve

The immediate goal of this technology is to strengthen and preserve Jewish culture by assisting synagogues and the cantors and rabbis teaching within them.

Educator-centric Model

We help kids learn for Bar/Bat Mitzvah through their synagogue with their cantor/tutor/rabbi by providing innovative software and curriculum on computer.

Our educator-centric model takes the voice of YOUR (or any) cantor or rabbi and automatically synchronizes their chanting to the underlying Hebrew Bible text, using techniques in speech recognition of cantillated Biblical Hebrew.

Think back to your own Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

Did it prepare you to feel at home as an adult in the Jewish community?

Did you feel that you had enough time with your Cantor or Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutor? Or could you have used some additional help?

Do you remember being frustrated, struggling to memorize words and melodies without understanding the meaning behind them?

We believe that a meaningful Bar or Bat Mitzvah experience lays the foundation for a life-long love of Jewish learning and connection to the Jewish community.

We offer online, interactive tools to help make such an experience accessible to students and their synagogues in North America.