Machon Shlomo and the Passaic Torah Institute

Rabbi Yehoshua Styne spoke to an audience of 70 at Yeshiva Ner Boruch-Passaic Torah Institute on “Living a 1st Choice Life.”

Rabbi Styne’s first career was as a filmmaker. “If you would have told me like 20 years ago that I would be married to an Israeli and living in Israel, I would have laughed,” he says. “I grew up from a nice culturally Jewish family, but I was always kind of searching for more.”

He’s now the Israel educational director of Meor Israel, which provides outreach to university students at more than 20 college campuses, including Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and Yale. Meor offers trips to Israel for a taste of yeshiva or seminary learning for a week or more. He is also mashkiach, spiritual advisor, to students at Machon Shlomo, a baalei teshuva yeshiva.

“I was a truth seeker,” he said. “In middle school I started reading books about Judaism. Over my four years at college I became more observant and left to go straight to USC graduate film school in L.A.

In L.A., I became fully observant and at the end of grad school I decided that I don’t want to be on the outside my whole life. I wanted access to insider information. So I went to yeshiva at Machon Shlomo for two years and then Mir Yeshiva for almost a decade.

“The best teachers are the ones that go out to the front lines, to the young professionals and the campuses. If you learn for 10 years and can’t explain it to your grandmother, then you didn’t really integrate it inside yourself. If you can take the true depth of Torah and make it accessible to their level, that means you really know it yourself.”

PTI and its sister program Neve, an affiliate of Neve Yerushalayim, has serious learning for men and women on five levels, from the complete novice to the advanced student, seven days and evenings a week.

Its young professionals program meets on Sunday mornings, and Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. It also provides affordable student housing.

For a full schedule of classes call (973) 594-4774, email
ptitorah@gmail.com, or go to pti.shulcloud.com.