Instructor: Rabbi Patrick Beaulier (Rabbi Patrick)
Contact Information: pbeaulier@jewishpluralism.org or on Slack
About This Course
Most Jews engage with Judaism through aggadah (narrative) more strongly than through halacha (law). For example: a person who is against Jews getting tattoos because of the memory of the Holocaust, rather than a biblical and rabbinic prohibition. Professor Yuval Harari says that what makes us human is our ability to tell stories. What makes us Jews, I believe, is how we use stories to bring ourselves to life.
Learning Objectives
- To understand your role as darshan(it)
- To understand various sermon structures and write to each structure
- To see how sermons impact people and to “read the room”
- To improve your Jewish study skills and public speaking
- To find many, varied and unusual ways of bringing Judaism to life through technology
In addition to the weekly material, I have created a homiletics resource section. These are sermons, essays, study guides and other interesting tidbits from all over the Jewish spectrum (and non-Jewish materials) that you may wish to draw from.
Course Content
The course has the following components:
- Audio, visual and written materials to study
- Slack huddle classes where we learn together by practicing sermon delivery
- Video-based homework due after class and commenting on your fellow students work
- If you’re lucky, some guest visitors
The only thing I am grading is participation. You must participate in every single element of this course with no exceptions. If you have trouble with using any of the technology, please reach out to me before you find yourself late on an assignment. Missing ANY assignments or live classes will mean immediate failure of the class.
Homework Assignments
Every week will be the same:
- Before Tuesday: review the content for that week and follow the instructions for writing that week’s sermon. Most of the time you’ll write about anything you want, any way you want…though that may not always be the case, so be sure to read the instructions. Your sermon must be ten minutes in delivery.
- Tuesday at 8PM Eastern: live class in Slack. I’ll do some short lecture, then you will present your sermon and I will offer feedback. There may be special guest rabbis in the class as well (to be determined)
- Wednesday by 8PM Eastern: record a different, ten minute sermon to YouTube. Post the link in the Homiletics Slack channel. It must be on a topic/text that is different than the one from the live class (no repeats)
- By Thursday at 8PM Eastern: comment on at least three of your fellow students sermons. Your comments should be around 3 minutes
The reason I am asking you to post on Youtube, then share the link to the video in the Slack, is so that your sermons can be longer than five minutes. But your replies/comments on others sermons should be using Slack’s built in video feature.
Class is every Tuesday starting June 2nd. I suggest being 5 minutes early to class to work out any tech bugs you might have.
About “Double Dipping”
Some students also serve pulpits. I am OK with you using a sermon that you would be delivering on the bimah that week, though I ask that you not use old sermons.
About AI
In accordance with our student handbook, students may not use AI to write their sermons or other work. I will be testing your sermons at random using AI detection software. If a student has been found to use AI, they will be reported to our Director. Using AI for coursework at PRS is grounds for immediate dismissal.
most intense class in my PRS experience to day...2 ten minute sermons per week does 2 things: 1)simulates life of a pulpit rabbi, always needing to be thinking about next sermon and 2) helped me as a student dig deep about the issues I really care about rabbinically. I really appreciate that Rabbi Patrick himself put his heart and soul into teaching us and reviewing our work constructively.