My Ayeka Journey

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Annie Matan Gilbert

Among the many blessings I have experienced this year is the Ayeka course facilitated by David Bogomolny. I share here some of my favourite take-aways from the course (handily preserved in my writing exercises and reflections.)

This module was about bringing God back to the conversation. I felt like it gave me a place to engage with my relationship with God and my beliefs in a spiritual way amidst a year of otherwise mostly intellectual pursuits. I always manage to find my way back to faith and my relationship with God but in the Ayeka sessions, God was our starting point, not only the destination.

Session 4, on the conversation or hitbodedut, took place during the Pillar of Cloud preparations. According to my reflections, hitbodedut at this time came as a welcome relief during a time of confusion, when I felt inarticulate and confused. Here is what I wrote: Continue reading →

Essence of the Awe

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Bogo

I discovered the following text during an Ayeka session, and found it very challenging… then, in spiritual havruta, I fought with myself to think about this with an open mind, and I’d like to share my subsequent thoughts further below.

אור ישראל, הרבי מסאלאנט	Ohr Yisrael, Rav Yisrael of Salant
מהו מהות של יראת שמים?	“What is the essence of the fear/awe of Heaven?”
הנה ידוע כי יש שתי בחינות ביראת ה’. וחכמי היראה והמוסר יכנו אותם בשם: יראת העונש ויראת הרוממות.	It is known that there are two aspects of fearing God. The experts in this field call them: 1) Fear of Punishment, and 2) Awe of Reverence. Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] A Single Priceless Line

Posted on March 2, 2013 by admin

Aryeh Ben David (Year '80) shares the following
on the Ayeka blog:

I find that good poets talk from their soul story.

William Stafford gave me insight into my life in a single priceless line.

Any Journey

When God watches you walk, you are
neither straight nor crooked. The journey
stretches out, and all of its reasons
beat like a heart. Coming back, no triumph,
no regret, you fold into the curves,
left, right, and arrive. You touch
the door. The road straightens behind you.
It is now. It has all come true.

“The road straightens behind you.”

I think of the glitches in my life – the terrible mistakes I’ve made and some of the sad cards I have been dealt, the detours and bumps of my life – and when I look back – it is so clear that I needed all of them and they brought me to here. “You touch the door.” The next chapter of my life begins – I’m excited about it, and grateful to God for the crooked/straight road I’ve traveled.

It might lead to a very interesting conversation to ask a close friend – “What was a ‘crooked’ moment in your life, and now looking back, how do you see it as part of a straight road, leading you to yourself?”

[Alumni Guest Post] Thoughts on Gratitude by Aryeh Ben David

Posted on February 16, 2013 by admin

Originally posted on Ayeka Blog
By Aryeh Ben David (Year ’80)

A few years ago a colleague, Rabbi Gordon Tucker, told me the most depressing observation about parenting. He said, “You’re only as happy as your least happy kid.”

What?! That’s not fair at all.

We have six kids. If 5 are happy and one is going through a hard time, then shouldn’t I be 5/6 happy? Or even better – can’t I be as happy as the happiest kid we have?

But he was very insightful and I have found out that there is a lot of truth in his very demoralizing comment.

Recently I gave a session on gratitude to our facilitators. I asked them to write 3 things for which they were consciously very grateful. Then to write 3 things that they were grateful for, but often just took them for granted. Then I asked them to write about 3 things in their lives for which they were NOT grateful.

Everyone wrote. Then we learned beautiful sources from Rav Kook and Rav Dessler.

Then at the end I asked them to write one more time. This time – to take the thing they were NOT grateful for and reframe it – to try and find some way they can also be grateful for the difficult things in their life – things like challenging family members, debt, stress of deadlines, health issues, and more.

Everyone wrote. I told them that we would not share how they had reframed their difficult challenge because it was probably very personal.

To my surprise, everyone wanted to share. Some through tears and some with smiles, everyone reframed. A week later, they tell me it is still resonating.

We’re only as grateful as the least grateful part of our lives.

The word – Jew – means “one who is grateful”. It’s an ongoing challenge for all of us to become more Jew-ish.

[Alumni Guest Post] Ayeka: The Cherry on my Spiritual Journey’s Cake

Posted on January 12, 2013 by admin

By Mira B. Shore (Summer ’09, ’10; Year ’12)

As a self-identified progressive, liberal, secular Jew growing up at Jewish Day School, I spent a lot of my time and energy speaking about why prayer and G-d were NOT a part of my life. I actively ran from prayer. Once I had my bat-mitzvah, there was nothing my parents could do to get me to synagogue. I prided myself on my rebelliousness and frequently claimed my atheism as a controversial badge of honor.

For university, I continued on my secular path by attending Sarah Lawrence College, named the #1 least religious college in America by The Princeton Review in 2011. While Sarah Lawrence was the perfect school for me in all other ways (academically, socially, professor/student ratio, philosophy, classroom dynamics, etc.) it was very taxing on my Judaism. After my sophomore year, I decided to go back to Israel and study at Pardes to try to find something I felt I’d lost.

Deciding to come to Pardes in the summer of 2009 was a difficult decision for me as a proud, secular Progressive, and I was concerned about how it might feel alienating. I was right. Continue reading →

[PCJE Dvar Torah] Annie Gilbert – Parshat Vayechi – a Poem

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Annie Matan Gilbert

This week’s PCJE Dvar Torah is on Parshat Vayechi and is heavily inspired by the amazing divrei Torah of Yaffa Epstein and Jenna King-Brill at recent Pardes Night Seders. It’s also a little bit connected to this week’s learning in Ayeka, about “The Hard Stuff” in relationship with God and others.

I have been pondering themes of open-heartedness, blessings and forgiveness these past few weeks and I think this is Joseph’s answer.

For him, God was with him all along (at least in hindsight) through each test and challenge. And through his eyes, God was even with his father, who arrived in Egypt aged and jaded because, unlike Joseph, he couldn’t see the blessings that followed him there. Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] The Word “Jew”

Posted on December 20, 2012 by admin

Originally posted on the Ayeka blog
By Aryeh Ben David (Year '80):

Sometimes I start a workshop by asking people if they know what the word “Jew” means. It is amazing how many people do not know what it means.

thk I checked a few encyclopedias, googled it, and was surprised to see how many theories exist regarding where the word came from and how it came to be used as a reference for the people of Israel.

But then I decided not to let these theories complicate my life. There’s really only one definition that I like. There’s really only one that I want to think about when I hear the word Jew.

And that comes from the name Judah, which comes from the word l’hodot, which means to be thankful. I like to think of the word Judaism as meaning – the practice of being grateful.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t still kvetch. I still grumble over why Continue reading →

Kavuah T’filah

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Bogo

Fixed prayer is a salient element of halakha (Jewish law). Jews committed to halakha pray 3x every day (morning, afternoon, evening), and for many it is challenging to find meaning in the mandated, daily recitation of standardized liturgy.

A couple of years ago, I took a class that explored various spiritual practices in Hasidic and other Jewish traditions, and I came across the following quote:

R. Kook

“The perpetual prayer of the soul continually strives to… become revealed and actualized… Prayer is only as it should be when it arises from the awareness that the soul is always praying. At the moment of actual prayer the perpetual prayer of the soul is revealed in action. She then resembles a rose which opens her gentle petals toward the dew or the rays of the sun that shine upon her.”

Rabbi A. I. Kook, 1865-1935, Jerusalem
Introduction to Olat Ra’aya

Continue reading →

Ayeka: Getting Personal with G-d

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Stuart Matan Lithwick

Hello!

Over the past month, I have been a part of the Ayeka class, being run by David Bogomolny at Pardes. It’s funny. When I first arrived at Pardes, I had no idea of the meaning of the word, “Ayeka”. I had no idea of its significance in the Tanach and in everyday life. However, through my Chumash classes, and the work that I have done so far with David, I have gained much more insight into what this 1-word question really represents.

When Adam eats fruit from the tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden, an action that has been strictly prohibited by G-d, G-d poses this one-word question to Adam. Ayeka? Where are you? G-d does not understand how or why Adam would disobey. It seems to me that though Ayeka, G-d seeks to strengthen his/her relationship with Adam.

My wife, Annie Matan Gilbert, had previously participated in Ayeka when she was studying at Pardes three years ago. She chose to not provide much description of what exactly the program was, to ensure that it would still be new for me, but assured me that it was something that I had to be a part of. From my experience so far in Ayeka, it has lived up to this recommendation.

Ayeka, for me, has been about strengthening my connection with G-d on a personal level, something that I have never really engaged in before coming to Pardes. The experience has at times been really tough, simply because I have, through most my life, brought G-d into my life only through communal prayer. Having a one-on-one conversation with G-d is an experience that you do not quickly forget. That being said, it has been an invaluable experience, one that has been made much easier through support by other Ayeka participants.

I am excited to see where we go in the second half of the course, and explore how to further bring G-d into my life.

Best wishes,

Stuart Matan Lithwick.

[Alumni Guest Post] Aryeh Ben David – What is Spiritual Education?

Posted on December 3, 2012 by admin

Posted by Aryeh Ben David (Year '80)
On the Ayeka Blog:

(These thoughts were influenced by Parker Palmer’s A Life Unidvided)

Holding the space for souls to reveal. Soul evoking soul. If I had to summarize Judaism in a sentence it might be: souls evoking souls. Sympathetic vibrations of our souls. First – I pluck the soul string of my life – and that evokes the sympathetic vibration of another’s soul string. I don’t have to pluck his string. I don’t have to do anything to him. If I do it authentically to myself – it will have the result of his being moved, being moved without him even moving himself. His soul string will be plucked, and then he will realize what happened. He will become conscious and aware of what is going on within himself.

We need to create the space for our soul strings to be plucked. A place of quiet, of sincerity, of authenticity, of caring and love. A place of “kol d’m’ma daka.” A place of whispering. Not a place of clamoring. Continue reading →

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