These and Those

Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem

Tag Archives: creative writing

Two Yerushalmi Poems

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Sarah Marx

This blogpost was originally published on the author’s personal blog, Ramblin’ Maidel. Inspired by Jerusalem, as always, and its characters, and its millennia of liturgical music. The Electrician’s Psalm Unhemmed Creator, spinner of the world, Today beneath Your power lines a man Crouched down, his battered palms burnished like leather, His skin limp with the Continue Reading »

Pardes on the Moon: Shmeir on the Elevator

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Elana Weiner

It was one of those days at Pardes on the moon. It was a lazy, unfocused kind of day and everyone in the Beit Midrash was bitulin Torah, even Shmeir Meiger. He just couldn’t focus—the thunder outside was deafening, every time he looked at his page of Gemara, a flash of lightning would distract him and he’d lose Continue Reading »

Parshat Vayigash

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Binyamin Cohen

I don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve this. I’ve changed, we all have. We don’t deserve this, Yehuda thinks to himself, as he approaches the strange man on the strange throne before him. Strange, yet oddly familiar. This man on the seat of power, robed like an Egyptian vizier, but with eyes that make Yehuda Continue Reading »

And the Drums Beat

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Elisha Ancselovits

And the drums beat in the thickening heat as we contemplate knives and count down our lives   In the city of gold with traditions so old We eye with suspicion each other’s munition   And the Other is foreign as I am an alien Yes we share the same dream but not the same Continue Reading »

The Story of Pardes on the Moon

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Elana Weiner

There once was a school called Pardes. In fact, Pardes was a Yeshiva and it was located on the Moon. The students at Pardes were very learned, for they studied long hours in their Beit Midrash. Their Beit Midrash had all the books they could ever need to learn about Judaism. And they learned Torah Continue Reading »

The 103 Worlds

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Sarah Marx

At Thursday’s Pardes open mic, I shared a version of the story (midrash? heresy?) below. Tonight, I wasn’t sure whether or not it would be appropriate to post it on the blog — after all, I can hear fireworks and gunshots in the distance, and I feel as though I should be writing about that Continue Reading »

Return – A Poem

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Robbie Grabowitz

I want to return to the past In my mind I see a Golden Age When I was Pure Pristine Like Adam and Eve Before the Fall And in that age, I was blissful and young I could laugh Really laugh! of a light-hearted but deep and Full Belly Laughter.

(PCJE) .דע על מה אתה עומד

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Geo Poor

There was a wise man who wanted to deliver a speech, so he thought and he prepared himself and he stepped forward and built a Stage.

“Til then my heart will stay here”

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Joseph Levin-Manning

I wrote this song to the tune of “I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane” None of my bags are packed, Though I must go. My here now has come to a close. I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye. But the dawn is breakin’, It’s early morn. The hope’s still here, It’s growin’ more. Continue Reading »

Birkat Hamazon

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Rory Sullivan

It took me eight years to get back to Pardes. During a Birthright trip my freshman year of college, we sat in the Beit Midrash, the great big room filled with tables of four chairs each and books lining every wall. We studied a text that I don’t remember. What I do remember is liking Continue Reading »