(Courtesy of PTI) Rabbi Yehoshua Styne will speak at Yeshiva Ner Boruch-Passaic Torah Institute (PTI) on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 8:15 p.m. on “Living a 1st Choice Life.” From filmmaker to rebbe at a Jerusalem yeshiva, Rabbi Styne’s life reads like a screenplay with a story arc of two parallel paths.
“If you would have told me 20 years ago that I would be married to an Israeli living in Israel I would have laughed,” he said. “I grew up from a nice culturally Jewish family, but I was always searching for more. When I was 5 or 6 I remember seeing these Chasidim with yarmulkes and beards and asking my parents, ‘Are they Jewish?’ When my parents said yes, I said, ‘I don’t get it, how come we don’t look the same?’ My parents responded something like, ‘They do what they do and we don’t but we’re all Jewish.’ I remember not being satisfied.”
Rabbi Styne is currently the Israel Educational Director of Meor Israel which provides outreach to university students at over 20 college campuses. Meor offers trips to Israel for a taste of yeshiva or seminary learning for a week or more. He is also mashgiach to students at Machon Shlomo, a baalei teshuva yeshiva.
“I was a truth seeker. In middle school I started reading books about Judaism. I started in college learning on and off with a rabbi there. Over my four years at college I became more observant. At the end of grad school I went to yeshiva at Machon Shlomo for two years and then Mir Yeshiva for almost a decade. … [Then] I took the job of running the Meor trips to Israel.”
“The best teachers are the ones who are out there on the front lines. If you learn for 10 years and can’t explain it to your grandmother then you didn’t really integrate it inside yourself. The best teachers are the ones who go out to the young professionals and the campuses. If you can take the true depth of Torah and make it accessible to their level that means you really know it yourself.”
PTI has serious learning for men and women on five levels, from the complete novice to the advanced student, seven days and evenings a week. The young professionals meet Sunday morning, and Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. PTI is located at 441 Passaic Avenue in Passaic. For a full schedule of classes contact 973-594-4774, email [email protected] or visit https://pti.shulcloud.com.
