About This Course
Note: this course was originally developed as one of three Innovation courses which were required at PRS. With the founding of the Innovation & Synagogue Engagement Program, it is now one of several options, but is no longer a required course on its own.
This havrutah is an alternative to the Innovation and Synagogue Engagement Program’s asynchronous Jewish Innovation Unbound course. In this havrutah, you will learn directly, one-on-one with Rabbi Patrick, who will teach you everything from this course in only six, one-hour sessions.
While free mentoring is included in the Innovation Program, students may choose this premium, one-on-one alternative for many reasons:
- It allows you to move through the course faster
- It prevents you from being stuck at the last minute trying to “get through it”
- Some students prefer a live format to an asynchronous learning format
- Provides much needed structure to a student’s learning
- Allows students who are in their first steps of Innovation to brainstorm ideas and “think outside the shul”
You may take a combination of havrutah and traditional courses in the Innovation & Synagogue Engagement Program, so long as they are not the same course itself (for example, taking both Business Model Canvas AND Business Model Canvas Havrutah).
Note that this is not an additional elective, and students do not receive more credit for this course. This is to help you get through Jewish Innovation Unbound and receive credit there.
This six week intensive requires students to listen to a select number of the podcasts from the Jewish Innovation Unbound course and to be prepared each week to meet with Rabbi Patrick.
We will use our time in this course in two parts:
- To discuss what we’ve learned from different podcast episodes (5 weeks)
- To utilize Canva and podcasting as a tool for creative expression from what we learn from this course (1 week)
Final Projects
Beyond discussion, students will be required to complete the following at the end of their havrutah learning:
- Develop a social media post for each of the “weeks” organizations (5 total). They can be promotional for those organizations/individuals, or be media that inspires dialogue about themes or questions from those podcast episodes
- Record a podcast between you and someone you find to be an innovator. Consider interviewing one of your fellow students or alumni. Podcast should be one hour long
Post these in the #innovation Slack channel
Course Objectives
- Students will encounter new strategies for Jewish engagement and innovation, which they can implement in their own institutional contexts.
- Students will engage deeply with social media (using Canva) and audio content with Audacity. At some points this engagement will be as a listener, and at other points it will be as a creator!
- Students will compare and contrast Jewish institutional models that are incredibly different from one another, in order to gain a sense of the vast diversity of organizations that exist and to build a sense of what the kind of Jewish projects you might create yourself.
Typical Meeting Times, Availability & Course Price
Typical Meeting Times & Availability
Monday-Thursday 8AM-Noon Eastern
Course Price (USD)
$1,200 for six sessions
Payment Methods Accepted
Students will be billed through the PRS Paypal invoicing system. 100% of fees go to support Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary, not Rabbi Patrick.
Getting Started
Reach out to the educator via email at: pbeaulier@jewishpluralism.org
