Wellsprings of Wisdom Navigating the high-tech world oflearning Torah?

Before you went on shlichus, you likely had a fantasy of what life could be like: After waking up not too early, and not too late and dunking in your beautiful mikvah, youd learn an hour of chassidus before davening Shacharis (with a packed minyan, of course) in an expansive shul made entirely of Jerusalem stone. Or youd learn all day and give a shiur to the hundreds of Israeli backpackers that flocked to your far-off corner of the world by night. Or youd delve into a dusty hemshech to find the answer to a profound question posed by a know-it-all graduate student. Regardless of your fantasies, every shliach learns something about shlichus when they start: Theres no time to learn! Between courting balebatim, taking care of children, cooking for Shabbos, balancing budgets, and attending meetings, theres hardly time to meet new Jews, much less have your own kvius in Torah (if, by some miracle, you DO find time to learn, the rest of us look forward to your workshop at this years Kinus)! So when you do find time, youd better get your moneys worth. Fortunately, theres an app for that! Thanks to the Internet and mobile technology, its now possible to have a million-dollar Jewish library in your pocket 24 hours a day, 6 days a week, available whenever you have a free minute. Here are a few examples: Siddur: iOS users have RustyBrick to thank for the best siddur apps available: Siddur for iPhone and Siddur HD for iPad. Each comes with zmanim, location-based minyanim, a Hebrew-English calendar, and more. The siddur updates based on the day (on Rosh Chodesh, for example, the davening will be structured accordingly, with Hallel and Musaf). This functionality comes at a price, however: The iPhone version costs $10, and the iPad $15. Its another $5 on each device to unlock Nusach Ari. For Android users, theres Smart Siddur, which offers up many of the same features as its iOS counterpart for far less money. The free version engages in the same cool daily-update wizardry as Siddur for iPhone, and the $3 full version comes with zmanim, luach, and more settings. Last but not least, iDaven.com is completely free and completely simple. Just hit up the website from your browser and choose what you want. Audio Shiurim: For Chitas and Rambam, iTunes podcasts are your best bet. Simply search for what you want in iTunes (Tanya or Rambam 3 Chapters per Day) and subscribe to that podcast. Each day, the portion for that day will appear in iTunes. You can make it show up on your iPad, iPod, or iPhone.

For a wider variety of shiurim, available on anything with an internet connection, there is mp3shiur.com. The content includes Gemara and Halacha and Nach classes as well as mussar shmuessen. Just find your shiur by category, click download shiur and click on the link to play immediately or follow the instructions to download for later. ArtScroll Digital Library: Just a few months ago, Artscroll (in conjunction with the Jewish app gurus at RustyBrick) released an iPad version of the Schottenstein Edition Talmud. If you have an iPad, theres no better use for it than to learn some Gemara when youre on the go, or at home. The app downloads the pages so once youve got them, you dont need a data connection to access them. Websites: We all know about Chabad.org and its mobile site, but what about some others? Hebrewbooks.org is the ultimate tool for research. With over 50,000 volumes scanned into the site, it has just about every sefer ever printed. Unfortunately, the web design is pretty dated and not as user-friendly as it could be. Also available is sichosinenglish.org, which provides its indispensable collection of Chassidic texts in English for free, and the Colel Chabad app for iPhone and iPad, which serves up handy, practical info about the Chabad customs for every day of the calendar. Pocket: A truly amazing little app called Pocket allows you to save anything from the web that you want: Audio, video, and text. Not only does it format everything into an easy-to-read layout, it syncs your items and progress instantly. For example, you could save a sicha from sichosinenglish.org to pocket using the handy Google Chrome extension. Then, when youve read part of it on Pocket for your phone, you can open up the website on your computer and keep learning, right where you left off. Its free and works with iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire, and any web browser. Sign up at www.getpocket.com.