By Rabbi Patrick Beaulier
Money is tight, and that’s why we want to make sure you get the best deal possible at Darshan Yeshiva. We never want people to have buyer’s remorse after joining our program.
While our six programs are all unique, I wanted to give you a sense of my two favorite courses that provide the largest number of Jewish courses for the least amount of money.
Judaism For Beginners
You could do First Steps, our least expensive program, and pay less than $50. Sure.
But if you want to receive our eighteen part Basics of Judaism and our most popular course, Judaism For Beginners courses for only $26 more, then go with Judaism For Beginners. No coupon or discount code needed.
What I Love About It
It’s the most number of courses for the least cost-per-course. That may be why it’s our most popular course, or something else entirely.
What I Don’t Love About It
We just created the B’nai Mitzvah course, and that content is not in Judaism For Beginners.
My Hopes For The Future
Often people take one of these three courses are part of a conversion to Judaism path. Judaism For Beginners is in many ways the non-conversion mirror of the conversion program. But I’d love to see us put something very specific in one of these classes about whether conversion to Judaism is a good path for them.
Darshan Training
Do you want to serve your Jewish community as a Lay Spiritual Leader? Then this program is perfect for you. That simple. It’s great for people who are the “most Jewish” of their friends and always get roped into leading Passover seders and lighting the hanukiyah. It’s also great for people in rural areas who feel like they are the only Jewish person around and could offer help when Jewish individuals, couples and families are in need (like a para-rabbi).
What I Love About It
You receive every course on Darshan Yeshiva and although it’s our most expensive program, you can pay for it over five months.
Plus you get free access to a large number of the electives at Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary (PRS). So it’s like two websites in one. And considering that the PRS electives are $500 alone and come free with Darshan Training, it’s a worthwhile deal.
What I Don’t Love About It
In a perfect world it would be less expensive. But it’s worth it, especially for the PRS buy-one-get-one.
My Hopes For The Future
We’ve done a lot to strengthen the beginner levels of Darshan Yeshiva with the First Steps and Basics courses, as well as our newest program B’nai Mitzvah. My hope is that we’ll be able to work harder on the Darshan Training program itself (as opposed to all the surrounding courses), start incorporating more leadership-focused skills and some other foundational skills of language, ritual, etc. that I don’t feel we’re 100% there yet.
And Lastly, Conversion To Judaism
OK, so I couldn’t just talk about Judaism For Beginners and Darshan Training. While we never sought out to be the only worldwide, multi-denominational conversion to Judaism program, that’s what we’re known for. It’s amazing how you try to do one thing (Darshan Training) then God throws you through a loop with a number of emails asking about conversion to Judaism.
Apply for our program, let us know what you think.