Distance Learning Courses

Midrashim on the Exodus Begins March 4

Register now for Conservative Yeshiva Online Learning. Students of all Hebrew levels and Jewish learning backgrounds are welcome. Students should be self-motivated and willing to devote 1-2 hours per week to study.  Hevruta – study with a partner – is strongly encouraged for all students including those with no prior experience in hevruta study.  Conservative Yeshiva Online students have set up hevruta study in person, by phone, and even via Skype.  The Conservative Yeshiva’s course management system makes online learning easy and fun!

Midrashim on the Exodus (Four-week mini-course begins March 4)
Rabbi Gail Diamond

A Jewish Theology of Human Rights (Eight-week course from January 22)
Dr. Shaiya Rothberg

See below for course descriptions.

Registration: To register for a class, please click here and select “online fall 2011” for your choice of program. Follow the instructions for completing the application.  Alumni of the Conservative Yeshiva, please email yeshiva@uscj.org to register.

Tuition:  $200 for the eight week course, $100 for each four week course.  A 10% discount will be given to Hevruta partners who sign up together for the class, to alumni of the Conservative Yeshiva and to members of USCJ congregations.  If all three apply to you, go ahead and take a 30% discount! Students from Asia, South Africa, Eastern Europe and other developing nations will receive a 50% tuition discount.
College and university students may enroll free of charge!

For more information about the course or about on-line learning with the Conservative Yeshiva, please contact Rabbi Gail Diamond at yeshiva@uscj.org.

Course Descriptions

Midrash on the Exodus
Beginning March 4

Enhance your understanding of the Exodus and your retelling at the Seder by studying Midrash – early and later rabbinic teachings about the Exodus.  Learn the story behind the story.  Find out by the merit of which actions by righteous women we were redeemed.  Learn the true nature of the waters that covered Pharoah and his army.  Examine what really happened at theRed Seaand what the witnesses saw…and explore the meaning of all these teachings for our lives today.

Instructor:  Rabbi Gail Diamond is the Associate Director of the Conservative Yeshiva. She received her M.H.L. and Rabbinic Ordination from theReconstructionistRabbinicalCollege.  She teaches Psalms at the Yeshiva and Prophets for Project Oded.

A Jewish Theology of Human Rights
Beginning January 22

Elie Wiesel has famously spoken about a modern “secular religion of human rights”. The world movement for human rights seeks to guarantee the most basic conditions for the flourishing of humanity, like life and at least minimal freedom. While this is a “secular” effort for some, in important Jewish sources the flourishing of humanity or ADAM is nothing less than the revelation of God. In this class we will study the divine significance of humanity in three sources: The Zohar, Maimonides, and the modern religious-Zionist thinker Rabbi Chayyim Hirschenson. Perhaps together these sources constitute a modern Jewish theology of human rights.

Instructor:  Dr. Shaiya Rothberg received his doctorate in Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University and his B.A. in Jewish Philosophy and Talmud from Bar Ilan University. Shaiya has also learned in the Conservative Yeshiva Kollel since it began, and earlier on at Machon Meir, Machon Pardes, Hamachon Hagavoah Letorah (Bar-Ilan’s yeshiva) and Machon Hartman. He teaches Theology, Kabblah and Written and Oral Torah from Midrash to the Middle Ages. You can find some of Shaiya’s theology and interpretation at bitterchocolate.faithweb.com.