JSLI to Ordain 17 New Rabbis This January!

On January 12, 2014, JSLI will ordain their Sixth Class of Rabbis. Seventeen students from around the world including Australia and Israel will gather in Delray Beach, Florida to be granted Rabbinic Ordination (Semicha) by a Bet Din (Rabbinical Court) of three Rabbis.
Most of the students in this class have spent years serving the Jewish Community in one way or another. Some have served as Cantors, while others already serve their community as Spiritual Leaders and have been deeply involved with providing education to the Jewish Community for many years.

 

This JSLI class is the first to have benefited from the use of an Online Learning Management System (LMS) which is similar to the kind used by Colleges and Universities for online classes.
Weekly assignments in specific areas of study such as Shabbat, Kashrut (Jewish Dietary Laws) Officiating at Jewish Weddings, etc. are available online for students to study. The LMS allows the JSLI courses to be easily accessed by students from anywhere in the world and also requires each student to submit their “homework”- a sermon derived from the Torah portion of the week.
Each week, students also log into a Video Conferencing Session during which Rabbi Blane, Founder and Dean of JSLI or a guest Rabbi offers a fully participatory lecture on the weekly topic.

 

Students participate in stimulating discussion and then each delivers their Sermon live to their virtual classmates. Each student listens to and learns from all of their colleagues sermons during the full year of study and has the ability to hone and develop his or her oratory style. As the technology used to study at JSLI is advanced, JSLI provides full technical support to its students and will get them up to speed so that they all may log-in and learn quickly and painlessly.

 

The overall continuity and structure of these classes has proved a great success. Students study the subject material before discussing it in class, weekly classes are held via the video conferencing application, and students write and deliver weekly sermons. In this way, a very full curriculum is completed in just two semesters (one year) of study.

 

The seventeen students becoming ordained (granted Semicha) as Rabbis in January, will bring the number of JSLI Rabbi’s to more than sixty. Our rabbis are doing wonderful work throughout the the world – in Portugal, Australia, Israel and Scotland and almost every state in the USA. The JSLI Online Rabbinical School Program makes all of this a reality.

 

JSLI Rabbinical School requires two semesters of study. Semesters begin in January and September and students can begin in either semester.