64 | JULY 14 • 2022 

A

s director and 
founder of Chabad 
Academy, a free 
international online Jewish 
learning program affiliated 
with the Bais Chabad Torah 
Center in West Bloomfield, 
Rabbi Elya Silfen has made 
it his life goal to help others 
connect with and learn about 
Judaism.
However, his own encoun-
ter with Judaism was one that 
happened by chance. “I grew 
up in Chapel Hill, North 
Carolina, as a totally secu-
lar kid,” Silfen, 35 of West 
Bloomfield, explains. “There 
wasn’t much of a Jewish edu-
cation over there.”
Yet, once Chabad came 
to town, Silfen says he was 
“totally hooked.”
On Friday nights, he began 
attending Shabbat services 
while still in high school. “It 
was cool to hang around cool 
Jews,” Silfen describes. “That 
sparked my interest.”

A LIFE-CHANGING 
EXPERIENCE IN ISRAEL
As senior year of high school 
approached, Silfen’s parents 
told him he could take a gap 
year before starting college. 
When someone asked him 
if he wanted to spend that 
year in Jerusalem, Silfen, who 
had never been to Israel, was 
immediately intrigued.
For his time, he would 

earn college credits 
and experience a full-
fledged travel program. 
Yet there was one 
caveat: Silfen would be 
attending a yeshivah.
However, joining the 
yeshivah worked in his 
favor. As the young-
est of his roommates, 
Silfen met young 
Jews from all over 
the world, including 
Australia and South 
Africa.
“I wanted to emulate 
them,” Silfen recalls. 
“They were 24 and I 
was 18.”
In learning about 
Judaism, Silfen discov-
ered a whole different side 
to the religion that he hadn’t 
known previously. He studied 
mysticism and what it meant 
to have purpose in life.
Before, “it was always 
about candles, eating matzah 
and attending boring services 
on Yom Kippur,” Silfen says. 
“This was just a flip on its 
head. It was very relevant and 
very practical.”
As the year wrapped up, 
Silfen wanted to continue his 
Jewish studies. For the next 
seven years, he pursued a 
rabbinical degree, working 
in investment management 
at Morgan Stanley for sev-
eral years before deciding 
he wanted to become a full-

fledged rabbi.
“This was always my pas-
sion,” Silfen says of rabbinical 
studies.

ONLINE INSPIRATION
Moving to West Bloomfield 
in 2015, where his wife 
was from originally, Silfen 
became ingrained in the 
Metro Detroit Jewish com-
munity. As COVID-19 hit 
some five years later, Silfen 
discovered an opportunity to 
help others stay connected to 
Judaism online.
On social media, he posted 
a mix of educational Jewish 
content. Inspired by a friend 
known as the Millennial 
Rabbi, who uses social media 
in a similar fashion, Silfen 

says people were enthralled 
by the content and expressed 
interest in taking classes.
Finding a group of vol-
unteer teachers, Silfen 
built what is now Chabad 
Academy, which operates 
like a nonprofit and is entire-
ly donor-based. “Now we 
have about 13 teachers and 
200 students,” he says of the 
academy, which celebrated its 
one-year anniversary in June.
Chabad Academy sees 
students from all over the 
world, reaching as far as 
Switzerland, Sweden and 
South America. It offers four-
to-five classes a day from 6 
a.m. through 8 p.m., teaching 
a mix of different subjects 
like Talmud, Kabbalah and 

Meet Rabbi Elya Silfen, founder of a free 
online Jewish learning program.
Bringing Judaism to the World

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

NEXT DOR
VOICE OF THE NEW 
JEWISH GENERATION

LEFT: Volunteer teacher Rabbi Avrohom Wineberg leads a class. 
RIGHT: Rabbi Elya Silfen.

