Steve Lear

Steve Lear was recently a guest instructor for the Mastering Finances: Jewishly! course at Chabad – The Rohr Center for Jewish Student Life at the University of Minnesota. Chabad is one of two Jewish Student Centers at the U, providing students with a meeting place for social, religious, educational, and cultural events.

Steve’s class was offered through Chabad’s JewishU academy. This engaging platform provides Jewish college students with an opportunity to get a comprehensive Jewish education alongside their standard college courses. It offers dozens of unique classes in a welcoming and relaxed learning environment.

Rabbi Yitzi Steiner and his wife Chavi have been co-directors of Chabad on campus since 2010. Together, they are dedicated to advancing Jewish education at all levels, in the hope that it will inspire students to explore their heritage and strengthen their connections to the community.

Steve’s commitment to increasing financial capability among Minnesota youth led him to develop a popular seminar, Mastering College Finances, that he has delivered to receptive college audiences statewide. In his Chabad class, Steve taught his students the same fundamentals of personal finance, with a unique twist: the information was presented through the lens of Jewish values.

The four-week course featured a different topic each week:

• Money Mindset explored the Jewish philosophy of money, how mindset shapes financial behavior, and the Jewish prohibition against misleading or harming others financially.
• Spending Smart focused on spending with intention, creating practical frameworks for budgeting, resisting pressure to overspend, and exploring how Jewish wisdom values restraint and foresight.
• Playing the Long Game introduced key saving and investing concepts, such as dollar-cost averaging, diversification, and the benefits of starting a savings plan early in life.
• Credit, Debt & Doing Good examined credit and debt through a Jewish ethical lens, explaining how credit works, when debt can be constructive, and how tzedakah—the Jewish obligation to give to charity and aid those in need—fits into a balanced and sustainable financial life.

Positive feedback from staff and students confirms the need for this kind of financial education, and Steve looks forward to more speaking engagements on this important topic.

“Rabbi shared with me how wonderful the class went last night. We have never had a person come through the doors of Chabad and connect with the students so well, Steve, truly! I feel like this can’t stop when the four weeks are over, we have to think about what’s next!”

~ Stephanie Iskhakov, U of MN Chabad

“Nice work on the finance class! Those kids will be thanking you in the decades to come!”

~ Holly Guncheon, HDG Collective