Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on November 18, 2011 by Barer
Check out this week’s Pardes podcast about Avraham’s status as both a stranger and a resident in Cana’an Chayei Sarah
Posted on November 17, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha, with bookends describing the death of Sarah and the other descendents of Avraham and the descendents Yishma’el, deals mainly with the mission of Avraham’s servant to find a wife for Yitzchak. Reading the text, I was struck by how repetitive the story is. First, Avraham tells his servant what to do in Continue Reading »
Posted on November 11, 2011 by Barer
Check out this week’s Pardes podcast, featuring Neima Novetsky speaking about the famous conversation Avraham has with Hashem about sparing the fate of Sdom and Amora Vayera 5772
Posted on November 10, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha is chalk-full of troubling stories, from the Akieda, arguably the most challenging section of the Torah, to the destruction of Sdom and Amorah, to the episode of Lot and his daughters. What caught my attention while reading the parsha, though, was a subtler play on language related to rhetorical questions. There are Continue Reading »
Posted on November 9, 2011 by Barer
This is PEP student Rabbi Julie Gordon‘s presentation on her theological views presented today in Zvi’s Critical Issues in Modern Jewish Thought class, responding to the following questions: Where does the Torah come from? What is God’s role, if any? And how do you deal with the challenges of biblical criticism? What authority does the Continue Reading »
Posted on November 4, 2011 by Barer
This week on the podcast, we hear from Rav Landes as he discusses the beginning of Avram‘s journey – don’t forget the handout if you are listening. Lech Lecha 5766
Posted on November 3, 2011 by Barer
This week’s parsha contains many famous and thought-provoking stories, but I would like to focus on what I see as an emerging motif in the Rashbam, where he criticizes his grandfather’s reading of a verse before offering an alternate interpretation which he sees as sticking more closely to the pshat, the simple reading of the Continue Reading »
Posted on October 31, 2011 by Barer
[This is a slightly emended version of the D’var Torah I gave to the Fellows last week:] “We have benedictions for all occasions…And on beholding a Jewish audience [of 600,000 or more] the Talmud [Berachot 58a] prescribes a special benediction: [“Baruch chacham harazim sh’ein da’atam dome zeh la’zeh v’ein partzufeihen domim zeh la’zeh”] Blessed is Continue Reading »
Posted on October 29, 2011 by Barer
Did you know that there is a Pardes podcast? There is! And it’s called Pardes from Jerusalem, featuring weekly audio podcasts by Pardes Faculty members about the weekly parsha. For the parsha that just ended, we have Rav Meir talking about the Dor Haflaga – the Tower of Babel story: Noach 5769
Posted on October 28, 2011 by Barer
The end of this week’s parsha, like last week’s, details the lineages leading to the main protagonists of Bereishit, mainly those of Noach’s children. Unsurprisingly, for those who know the story that comes next, the lineages rush through the generations in between Noach and Avram and then slow down just in time to talk about Continue Reading »
