Tag Archives: community lunch / breakfast

Pardes According to Me

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6This blog is about my school, the purpose and the aim of my sojourn in Kookooland (for English speakers, the title of my blog is zizilend meaning kookooland). Pardes (meaning “orchard”) is a yeshiva (Hebrew school) where Jews of all backgrounds and affiliations can study their religion, at any level. In this yeshiva, boys and girls study together. (This is extraordinary since traditionally, yeshivas were only for boys). Here there are boys who do not wear a kippah and girls who do. The leadership is Modern Orthodox. The teachers (mostly Americans) are generally consciously liberal and open-minded. Before the year started, I thought that in the breaks between classes, my future classmates would jump up on the desks and perform their feelings in a live version of High School Musical . Later I found out that I was wrong. My Zak Efrons would improvise songs from the bottoms of their hearts during class. Though I was right about the jumping on the desks.

They do not give you candy for going davening (prayer) and do not look down on you if you do not daven

You can be anybody coming from anywhere, the most important thing is that you want to study. Continue reading →

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A Párdesz [Hungarian]

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6Ez a bejegyzés az iskolámról, az egy éves zizilendi tartózkodásom okáról és céljáról szól.

A Pardes (a szó jelentése citrus- vagy gyümölcsliget) egy olyan jesiva (héber hittudományi iskola), ahol bármilyen háttérrel rendelkezők, bármilyen irányzathoz tartozók tanulhatnak zsidóságot, bármilyen szinten. Ebben a jesivában fiúk és lányok együtt tanulnak. (Gy. k.: ez egészen rendkívüli, mert a jesiva egy olyan intézmény eredetileg, ahol kizárólag fiúk tanulnak.) Itt vannak fiúk, akik nem hordanak kipát és vannak lányok akik igen. Modern ortodox a vezetés, a tanárok általában rendkívül tudatos liberális és szabadelvű gondolkodók. És amerikaiak. Mielőtt belevágtam volna ebbe a nagy kalandba, azt gondoltam, mivel a suli amcsi, tuti lesznek majd, akik a szünetben feltérdelnek a padra és elénekelik az érzéseiket mint a Highschool musicalben. Aztán rá kellett jönnöm, hogy rosszul gondoltam. Itt a Zak Efronok az órán imprózzák el dalban, mi ül a szívük mélyén. A padra térdelés stimmelt.

Nem adnak cukorkát, ha elmész imádkozni, és nem néznek le, ha nem Continue reading →

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In Honor of Fred Worms z”l

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I presented this in Fred Worms' (z"l) memory
at today's Pardes community lunch
Della and Fred Worms

Della Worms and Fred Worms z”l

When I first started learning about Mr. Worms I felt an instant connection because of his love of sports. I love sports and playing sports, as well. In a speech that Mr. Worms gave when he stepped down from being the Honorary President of the Maccabi World Union, he talked about Muslims and Jews playing basketball together at Gan Ha’apamon. I have refereed American tackle football in Israel for three years, which is made up of Israelis, Americans, Brits, Palestinians, Russians, Australians, Jews, Muslims, and Christians. I don’t think he would have been surprised by the diversity that makes up the teams, but would have been happy to know that this sports league exists and is thriving in Israel.

As I continued learning about Mr. Worms, I only became more grateful for him and for the mitzvot that he did which actually have an affect on my life today. Continue reading →

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O-bla-di, O-bla-da

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Originally posted on my blog:
      (from yesterday)

Today is Thanksgiving!

After the last few days, I am even more grateful for all of the blessings that I have in my life. With thanks to God for FAMILY (and Skype technology), amazing FRIENDS near and far, a wonderful and supportive community here in Israel, a hope for continued peace here in the Middle East, and of course, all of the overpriced, American-influenced stores here that carry canned-pumpkin…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving feast for lunch at Pardes. It’s not the same as my Mom’s home-cookin’, but it’s still delicious!

My beautiful friends at lunch! Cara, Heather, and Me

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Introducing the Volunteering-Monitor

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Hi Everyone,

You will see on the wall that there is a volunteering monitor. Every time you volunteer please shade in a square. The aim is to get 400 hours by the 31st December to honour the memory of Ben and Marla the Pardes students who were killed during the Intifada.

Below is what I read in community lunch last week.

Happy volunteering
Naomi

At age 16 I was on a tour of Israel with my youth movement. We were walking in Tel Aviv when my Madricha burst into tears. Later, I found out that we were at the spot where her friend Yoni Jesner had been killed during the Intifada. That night she told us his story and his legacy has stayed with me since.

Yoni Jesner was a British 19 years old he was on his gap year studying at Yeshiva when he boarded a bus that was targeted by a suicide bomber. I would like to share with you what his brother said at his funeral.

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[Alumni Post] Just Send Me Back To Pardes

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by Andrew Lustig, Year Program 5772

Just send me back to Pardes. Please, please, please. I promise I’ll learn at Night Sedar every week. And I won’t take a lot of bathroom breaks. And I wont distract my friends. And I wont use conversations with Robby and Donna and Joanne as clever ways to get out the Beit Midrash. And I promise I’ll put a Shekel in the jar every time I get a cup of tea. And I wont keep tallies of how much I owe in my head. And I’ll wash my cup. And I won’t keep the water running because God knows Israel needs its water. I promise I promise. I promise I’ll davin Mincha every afternoon. Even on community lunch days when I’d rather be staking out a good seat… or a good block of seats. And even if I do cordon off an entire table for my friends I promise I won’t move all the hummus and all the pita there. And even if I do I promise I’ll wait until Egal is done before I eat. And while I wait, I promise I wont loudly blame Egal for taking to long. And even if I do I promise that when they do finish I won’t loudly yell “Oh, Egal’s done. Now we can eat!” I promise I will show up on time every day. And by on time I don’t mean on time for class. I mean on time for Shachrit. And I when I am late I wont pretend it was because I had to make a minyon at the imaginary synagogue on my block. And when I am late I won’t take any cereal. Not even a little bit. And I won’t even do that thing where I ask someone who’s done eating to take more so that I can eat from their bowl. I promise. I promise. Please just let me come back to Pardes. If you do I promise to RSVP for things. And on time too. And not just for the free pizza. But I also promise that if you have more pizza ill RSVP for more things. Ugh. If I could just come back to Pardes…
I’d buy a box of Bourekas every morning and immediately put them on the Hefkr table. I’d bring my own mug and just leave it there. And never claim it as mine. So that every day someone who didn’t have time to get coffee could have a nice big mug and they’d get their Shekel worth. If I could just come back to Pardes I would let all the first years know exactly how to finagle Arnona and exactly how to get a visa and exactly how to find an apartment so that Donna and Joanne didn’t have to. And I would give money to Robby every day. Literally piles and piles of money. I’d just hand him stacks every time I saw him. Like seriously. I’d buy a funnel and just rain Shekles on him. Until he was buried in Shekles. Like I’d just wind up and whip handfuls of 10NIS pieces at his door every time I passed. And every now and again I’d attach a note to one of the bills that said, “Please, please, please let me come back to Pardes. Where everybody gives so, so much. And where I’ve been treated so, so kindly and fairly. Please, please, please let me come back to the place where Judaism came alive to me. Where I figured out that being Jewish and being progressive aren’t mutually exclusive. Where I realized that I don’t have to choose between the spiritual practice that I so strongly desire and the tradition that I feel so comfortable with. That I don’t have to go to India to be mindful. Or San Francisco to do social justice work. That I can take ownership over Judaism. And even though I’m still not exactly sure what Pardes is an acronym for I am sure that it’s a really smart concept that made sense to me when someone explained it to me and that it’s the name of one of the levels of the parking garage at Ben Gurion airport and that when I got off the plane at Ben Gurion for the first time and saw the word Pardes in my face I knew that I was in the right place… so please, please, please… let me come back. To Pardes
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Week 39:

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

So this is it. The end. It’s over. After Shabbat, I’m going to see everyone again in the fall at best, never at worst. Still, this is ultimately what I signed up for, to become a Pardes Alum.

I’m almost positive that from the moment I touch down in Pittsburgh and for the entire rest of my life, I’ll have to really try hard to convince myself that this whole year wasn’t a dream—usually a good dream, sometimes a bad dream, but always a dream nonetheless, certainly when compared to the reality I used to know. I don’t know how long it will take to readjust to reality (i.e. America), but even if I do readjust, I’m not the same person I was when I left, I’m much tanner now. I’m also wiser, know tons more Torah and can’t wait to live and teach it to whomever I can however I can, know much more Hebrew and Aramaic, have a wider circle of friends, can cook more things. I am more independent and more dependent, more optimistic and more jaded than I was ten months ago. I will have to get used to the weekend being Saturday and Sunday, to being able to understand people on the street, to being able to plug my stuff in without an adapter, to knowing exactly what signs are saying, to supermarkets not having sales related to my holidays, to being a minority, to shoving and being shoved not being acceptable means of getting where you need to go (I am so not ready for Wisconsin), to knowing what the hell is going on around me.

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Week 38: Jerusalem in a Week

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

This week really started last Shabbat afternoon as I sat in a corner of the Tayelet (promenade overlooking the Old City and East Jerusalem) reading the opening chapters of James Carroll’s Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Carroll begins the book by discussing the tension between the two Jerusalems, the earthly and the heavenly and how, when the two rub up against each other it generates “a spark that ignites fire.” He then describes the city’s importance in the 3 Abrahamic faiths, takes a tour modern Jerusalem (a chill went down my spine as I read his description of how “Jewish intellectual elite” gather on Emek Refaim as I sat in my apartment on that very street earlier that day. I mean, I know Continue reading →

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Week 37: The Practical Dictionary of the Pardes Lexicon

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

One of the unadvertised perks of Pardes is that after studying holy texts in their original in the Beit Midrash for a whole year, no matter how advanced your Hebrew level, you come away with a black-belt in using dictionaries. Yet I have noticed that for all the dictionaries we have for Jewish religious language, there is, incongruously, not a dictionary of “Pardesian,” that unique jargon you learn upon entering the Orchard. Until now. As a gift to any incoming students who may be reading this and as a memento to those who are leaving, I present this necessarily abridged first edition of The Practical Dictionary of the Pardes Lexicon, heretofore to be known as “The Kwait.” You’re welcome.

Avoda Zara – Idol worship, literally “foreign service.” This is an all-encompassing term used to describe worship of foreign deities and/or the self, and commonly used around the Pardes Beit Midrash to describe any “Jewish” subject that does not involve learning Gemara and/or Halakha. There is a Makhloket about the Tanakh.

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