Students and Alumni Attend JSLI Retreat
Jewish Spiritual Leaders’ Institute (JSLI) and Rabbi Steve Blane continues to make history with its innovative approach to a virtual school. On March 1st it held it’s second online reunion for alumni and students. JSLI classes are all online and alumni hail from North America, Europe, Australia, Israel and Japan making an in-face reunion costly and challenging for folks to attend.
Last year Rabbi Steve Blane, Founder and Dean, noted, “Why not an online reunion.? Virtual is the way of the future and has worked well for our to date 150+ ordained Rabbis and Cantors.” Always a visionary Blane founded JSLI and the online synagogue, Sim Shalom, after serving in brick and mortar congregations for years. He realized the real unmet need in the Jewish world and developed JSLI as a pragmatic approach to training clergy to serve interfaith and unaffiliated Jews.
The afternoon included worship, time for sharing and networking as well as 5 well-crafted presentations: Rabbi Craig Mayers (Florida) presented “Al HaTorah: Great Jewish Torah Commentators Through the Ages” from a 2-part series he is offering to his congregation. Rabbi Craig is the consummate teacher and his congregation as well as students of JSLI always enjoy his pearls. Rabbi Steve (Dean and Founder of JSLI) presented How to Build a Website in 45 minutes. Rabbi Steve loves to share his knowledge about one of his favorite topics – the internet, online and websites! Rabbi Daniel Betzel (Ohio) presented “Professional Rabbinic Development–or–Semikhah was just the Beginning. How do we continue to grow as both Rabbis and individuals after Semikhah? Together we will explore how we can build on what we received from JSLI to advance our Leadership, Competency, and Professional Skills.” Rabbi Daniel shared his struggles and successes as he continues to develop and grow his Rabbinate in the Diaspora aka Columbus, Ohio. Rabbi Jordania Goldberg (Nevada) presented “A Journey Through the Tree of Life for Self Care” that included information from her newly published book: KSTechnique: Healing the World One Person at a Time. Sara Shonfeld (New York) presented “Learning through Music and Rhythm, stories, dramatic play. How to engage children to enjoy learning about Judaism. “
Many attended for the entire afternoon revamping and revising their websites in the moment while others dropped in and out – another welcome feature of an online event. Rabbi Blane was pleased with the turnout as well as the reason some could not attend – they were busy working to “repair the world” Tikuun Olam in their communities.