Welcome to Sefaria’s online course! Each class will include:
A brief video outlining the lesson and orienting you to the content of the lesson
A series of tutorials (images, gifs, written descriptions)
An assignment to be submitted if you would like to take this class for Sefaria certification.
If you have questions or need assistance, please contact Rachel Buckman, at [email protected]
Please keep in mind that Sefaria is always changing. The videos may not match exactly with what you see on your screen, but we are always updating them when significant changes are made. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
About Sefaria:
We are the People of the Book. For thousands of years, our culture, our traditions, and our values have been transmitted through our texts. From an oral tradition to handwritten scrolls to a vast corpus of printed books, each new medium democratized knowledge, and brought more people into the great Jewish conversation. We are the generation charged with shepherding our texts from print to digital in a way that can expand their reach and impact in new and unprecedented ways.
Pedagogy is shifting in all subject areas in the digital age, as teachers and institutions adapt to the realities of having vast quantities of information easily accessible. What we consider to be “traditional” methods of teaching texts are designed primarily for a culture in which books are the way in which material is accessed. We need to rethink both what it is that students need to know, how they need to know it, as well as how we present it to students to maximize their ability to grow their own knowledge in the future. We hope that this course gives you the tools to begin this journey with your students.
Click here to watch “The Sefaria Story”.
Sefaria co-founder, Brett Lockspeiser, talks to Really Interesting Jews about rethinking the Jewish bookshelf.
“This Torah Study Tool is Everywhere...” Click here to read what they’re saying about Sefaria source sheets.
1. Create an account on Sefaria
If you don’t yet have an account on Sefaria, click “sign up” and follow the prompts to create your own account on Sefaria.
Once you have an account, log in. This icon will appear in the upper right hand corner of your screen when you are logged in.
If you would like more detailed instructions, click here for our tutorial: Creating a free Sefaria account
2) Click play below to watch this week’s video.
3) Create a profile (if you already did this while watching the video, just move on to the next step):
4) Navigate our text library: In the video above, I showed our library page and demonstrated how to open a Biblical text. The gif below shows how to open another type of text within the library. Try opening a few different texts that interest you!
5) Pursue textual connections by clicking on sources in our library: Again, the video above demonstrates some of the possibilities. With the help of the image below, make sure that you know how to use all the different kinds of connections offered in the sidebar.
6) Assignments: To wrap up each lesson, you will complete an assignment on Sefaria.
The work you submit is private and can be seen only be you and the Sefaria education team.
When you have completed all your assignments, we will ask you to submit a form (which will be included in lesson #10) to let us know that you have finished the course. Scores of 80% or higher on the course as a whole will earn a Sefaria Educators' Certificate.
Comments and scores will be available within one week from the time that you submit the form. If you would like feedback on a particular assignment as you work, please email [email protected].
When you are ready to get started, click here and follow the instructions!