Adult education series to teach courses in Jewish law, history

Stroudsburg, PA — Monroe County attorneys interested in Jewish law can earn credits with a course that’s part of a Jewish adult education program being offered in the Poconos.

The Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education Board has accredited a course titled “You Be The Judge,” which examines the Talmud, the primary text of Jewish law.

People don’t have to be Jewish to take the nine-credit course, said Rabbi Mendel Bendet of the Jewish outreach organization, Chabad Lubavitch of the Poconos. Students get to question, discuss and argue on real cases in the Jewish court of law, based on Talmudic principle and precedent.

“The course puts the student in the driver’s seat,” Bendet said. “It’s truly a ground-breaking new approach to studying ancient Jewish wisdom.”

“You Be The Judge” will be offered at the Hampton Inn in Stroudsburg and run for six Tuesdays from noon to 1:15 p.m. and six Thursdays from 7:30 to 9 p.m., starting Nov. 7 and 9. This way, students have the option of taking an afternoon or evening course. The fee is $99 and includes textbooks. Partial scholarships are available.

The course is the first of three in a Jewish adult education program being offered through the Jewish Learning Institute.

The second is a winter course, “The Kabbalah Jewish mysticism of Character,” which deals with restoring balance to the soul to make life more productive and meaningful.

The third, a spring course titled “Flashbacks in Jewish History,” looks at the Jewish diaspora’s challenges and achievements dating back to ancient civilizations.

The Jewish Learning Institute began in the 1990s as a pilot program organized by rabbis in 10 U.S. cities, Bendet said. The goal is to provide religious education to Jewish adults, many of whom have not had any continuing education since they achieved their bar mitzvahs for boys or bat mitzvahs for girls at age 13, marking the completion of Hebrew school.

With its central board in New York City, the institute now offers programs in 200 communities or regions around the world, most recently in the Poconos.

“There are criteria a region has to meet in order to be considered by the central board as a location for an adult education program, such as whether there’s enough of an interest in adult Jewish studies in that particular region,” Bendet said. “The Poconos, being an ever-growing, ever-diversifying community, is an ideal location.”