PunkTorah

Independent Jewish Spirituality Online

Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary: Online Rabbinical Program

by

Imagine this being your rabbinical school! Rabbinical education from anywhere, anytime

Through our relationship with Darshan Yeshiva, we are supporting the launch of Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary (PRS), what we hope to be the very best in practical, distance learning based rabbinical education.

What do we love about this project? PRS is the only rabbinical school with a focus on helping students launch innovative Jewish projects around the world. It’s both a rabbinical smicha program and a Jewish communal incubator.

PRS has three goals:

  • To train and ordain future rabbis for the future of Judaism
  • To provide the absolute best distance education rabbinical education possible
  • To be a leader in Jewish pluralism

Three reasons you’ll LOVE LOVE LOVE Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary

Multi-Denominational Smicha

Rabbinical education comes from Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and post-denominational rabbis. Smicha, ordination, is through this trans-denominational bet din.

High Learning Standards

This is not quickie smicha. This is not private ordination in the back room of a deli. This is 100% legitimate education from MA and Ph.D. educators. PRS’s rabbinical education program includes two years of studying text, history, language, and practical rabbinics using distance learning tools that create as much interaction between students and educators as possible.

Students also must do elective learning through a system of podcasts and videos, homework and quizzes.

Finally, students also must present at the end of two years a thesis in the form of a program, product or project launch that will make Jewish life better.

PRS goes to great lengths to stress the intensity of the program. The academic calendar provides a one-week break per quarter, which is filled with the independent elective learning.

Seeking Non-Traditional Students

At PunkTorah, we’re proud to be non-traditional (even if by non-traditional we mean being super traditional in a non-traditional way). In supporting PRS by way of Darshan Yeshiva, we’re helping find non-traditional rabbinical students who continue to work full time while studying with Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary.

So what if you want a more traditional career? As PRS puts it…

There are many options for rabbinical education and we would encourage students seeking more traditional careers to attend more traditional rabbinical schools.

https://jewishpluralism.org/about/

What is the relationship between PRS, Darshan Yeshiva and PunkTorah?

PunkTorah Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, which began as this blog. This blog went into archive mode (no longer updated) many years ago.

PunkTorah now runs Darshan Yeshiva, a distance learning-based “yeshiva for beginners” including a popular conversion to Judaism program.

A team from Darshan Yeshiva including technologists, marketing people and educators has put together PRS. PRS is ran separately from PunkTorah and Darshan Yeshiva, though some educators work at both Darshan Yeshiva and Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary.

Learn more about Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary’s online rabbinical smicha program here.

Now Hiring: Rabbis, Educators & Creatives

by

Rabbis Sought
Want to work one-on-one as a rabbi, educator and mentor for an organization that is growing by leaps and bounds, utilizing new models of Jewish community as well as the latest learning technology?

Darshan Yeshiva is currently searching for rabbis to be part of our growing conversion program. In particular, we are seeking rabbis outside the USA and Canada, with an ideal focus on the UK.

As part of our conversion program, you would be responsible for mentoring students via phone, Skype or in-person, assisting students through their online educational process, providing a meaningful rabbi-student relationship, as well as facilitating the student’s mikvah and bet din. You get to choose how many of our students you work with and can add more students at any time. You will generally meet with students once per month for ten months and at the end of ten months they will come to you for their mikvah date. Rabbis can choose to work online entirely (working with students from all over the world who come to them for their bet din and mikvah) or with students in their area.

Send an email with your resume/cv to info (at) darshanyeshiva.org

Creatives Sought
We’re always on the lookout for creative people with amazing ideas. Want to pitch us an idea? Send an email to questions (at) punktorah.org

Become a Jewish Spiritual Leader

by

Screen Shot 2013-04-17 at 5.23.21 PM

Our online leadership school, Darshan Yeshiva, teaches you everything you need to know to become a Darshan, a lay Jewish spiritual leader serving unaffiliated communities all over the world. There are so many Jews out there who need community, but for whom there will never be a brick-and-mortar synagogue community. That’s where YOU come in!

The Darshan Yeshiva curricula includes:
  • Prayer Book Hebrew
  • Liturgy for Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv
  • Shabbat and Holiday Services
  • Jewish history, philosophy and literature
  • The Jewish calendar
  • Lay chaplaincy including hospital visits
  • Life cycle events including bar/bat mitzvah, baby naming, funerals and shiva minyanim
  • Practical halacha and Talmud
  • Maggid training

OneShul: Live Streaming Jewish Services

by

OneShulAfternoonService

OneShul is the world’s only online chavurah: a synagogue not led by a rabbi, but by the community who makes OneShul happen. Shabbat, Rosh Chodesh, holiday and special services are our regular monthly live streaming events, as well as classes on lots of Jewish topics and special chat sessions where people from all over the Internet can experience Judaism together. Join us by clicking here.

Hanukkah Watercolor Lantern – Jewish Crafts

by

These lovely lanterns are sure to brighten up your house on a dark Winter night. They are easy for little ones to make and the result is beautiful.

You will need:

White paper
Glitter glue, sequins, markers and any other decorations you might like to use
Some olive oil
An iron
Watercolour paints
Paintbrushes
An empty glass jar
A battery operated tealight

Start by painting the whole piece of paper. We decided to paint our paper blue, but you can pick a different colour or even use multiple colours, too.

Let your paper dry. When it has dried use a cloth or paintbrush to paint the entire paper with olive oil. This will make your paper see-through.

Place your paper between two tea towels and iron it on a low setting to remove any excess oil. This is a step for the grown-ups, so please mind little fingers!

When you have ironed your paper you can decorate it any way you like. We decided [Read more…]

PunkTorah Inc.
PO Box 1641
Midlothian, VA 23113

questions@punktorah.org
YouTube
Facebook

Read our DMCA notice

What We Do