Tag Archives: Encounter

[Alumni Guest Post] Lauren Henderson — Parshat Beshalach

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From Lauren Henderson's (Summer '09, Year '10) blog:

The d’var torah (more or less) that I gave at Sunday night’s Encounter Leadership Seminar:

When I first got to Israel in the fall and started to get acquainted with the current stagnant political situation (for both domestic and foreign issues), I started to actually hope that things would get really, really bad this year. I got attached to this morbid fantasy that the Haredim would do something so horrible and offensive that the rest of Israel would have no choice but to rise up together against them and shift the power dynamic, or that (God forbid) there would be another intifada, and the brief period of violence would somehow lead to renewed peace negotiations. I knew that the situation here would probably have to get worse before it got better, but I was impatient for a quick fix. I wanted things to be resolved once and for all, and it would have been really convenient for it to happen all in the course of one academic year – right?

The desire for shortcuts and quick fixes shows up in the much-commented upon first verse of Parshat Beshalach, Exodus 13:17:

ויהי בשלח פרעה את העם ולא נחם אלהים דרך ארץ פלישתים, כי קרוב הוא, כי אמר אלהים “פן ינחם העם בראתם מלחמה ושבו מצרימה…”

And when Pharaoh was sending the people out, God didn’t lead the people by way of the Philistines, because it was close, since God said, “Lest the people be led (astray) when they see war and return toward Egypt….”

God intentionally doesn’t lead the people by the most direct path out of Egypt, because it’s the shortcut. Instead, God chooses the long, windy route through the desert. The long route isn’t safer or easier – the Israelites still encounter war, famine, and plenty of other challenges along the way – but at least there isn’t the fear that they might actually be able to return to Egypt if things get especially bad. Continue reading →

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[Student Profile] Bruce Shaffer

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Bruce Shaffer was raised in an assimilation-bent household in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Northwest Detroit, fairly typical of what he saw around him. His curiosity for Jewish learning and Jewish text was seeded at his Hebrew school. There was no core of professional Jewish faculty – Bruce’s teachers were mostly Yiddish-speaking European refugees, and he had very little understanding of what they’d been through despite the featured Holocaust newsreels he’d been shown at his Jewish summer camp. Bruce still remembers a Mr. Plofkin with his baggy clothing and foreign accent, always carrying a piece of apple in one pocket, and a paring knife in his other.

“I remember Mr. Plofkin in level hey Hebrew class asking me, ‘What’s your Hebrew name?’ ‘Baer,’ I responded. He said, ‘That’s not Hebrew – that’s Yiddish,’ and Mr. Plofkin began calling me Baruch. In later years I’ve grown to appreciate that; and I continue to strive to become my Hebrew name.”

By his high school years, Bruce’s family had moved to the suburbs.

“My friends were still mostly Jewish – all the ex-pats from the city. That remained the case at the U. of Michigan, but as the times-were-a-changin’, the social pool, too, was expanding and certainly by the time I moved back to attend Wayne University Law School, I was hanging out with a broader range of people from the diverse student population of an urban school.”

After completing law school in the mid ‘70s Bruce moved to Continue reading →

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[Alumni Guest Post] Encounter: Bringing More Into View

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Bruce Shaffer‘s (Pardes Summer ’06, Spring ’11) testimonial about Encounter originally appeared in Boulder Jewish News, March 8, 2012. We reposted to These&Those with his permission. Copyright 2012, Boulder Jewish News.

Encounter: Bringing More Into View

By Bruce Shaffer on ‍‍March 8, 2012 – 14 Adar 5772

Zoomed in tight, images from the West Bank of Leila’s eyes flash anger. Shireen’s hold sadness. Sami’s seek possibilities. Ali – who could’ve given up – still looks for understanding. But at my Limmud Colorado 2011 photo show, it was the viewers’ expressions that interested me. There was dissonance, between perceived on-screen faces and on-the-ground facts presumed. Surprise, that I could enter Palestinian Authority administered towns such as Bethlehem, Hebron and Ramallah. And getting a bit personal… curiosity about my friendships on the other side.

Got me wondering, too. Our American Jewish community is focused on the multifaceted picture called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet most of us – and those who inform us – have never met a Palestinian, nor come face-to-face with Palestinian perspectives. Wouldn’t that experience, provided capably and credibly, complement our advocates’ and policy-makers’ understanding of and relationship with the situation? My viewers seemed to think so, and some wanted to know how-to.

Continue reading →

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‘Encounter’ing and Machloket

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I made aliyah in August 2009, after completing my MPA at Columbia University, knowing that I wanted to come to Israel and use my degree to make a positive difference in the future of the Jewish people. Today I do that through my studies at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and work at Encounter, a non-profit organization aiming to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through face-to-face understanding.

The Encounter November 2010 Trip for people with Israeli citizenship was a poignant experience for me. I came out of the trip truly believing in the Encounter model and its Communication Agreement to help people’s listening skills and communication techniques develop when confronted with difficult issues. The Encounter model makes a space for listening and processing over time – while allowing people to keep and/or adjust their own beliefs and perspectives – I would call my personal beliefs “responsibly Zionistic”.  Meaning that Continue reading →

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[PEP Student] Consumed by the Fire?

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Dear Friends,

This past week’s parsha includes one of the few narratives in the book of Vayikra, namely the divinely ordained death of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, upon presenting their voluntary fire offering. But the telling of the acts of Nadav and Avihu and their subsequent deaths are brief and perplexing. We do not have a clear sense of what Aaron’s sons did to deserve such a harsh and quick punishment. Naturally, the verses which describe this story are lush for rabbinic interpretation. Some identify the source of Nadav and Avihu’s misdeeds as egotism: Nadav and Avihu took their own fires and thought that they knew the best, most pleasing way to serve God. Others attribute their sin to inappropriate conduct in the Tabernacle: they were drunk or not dressed appropriately.

Last week I read an incredible interpretation from the Talmud — one that I had never heard before — to explain the acts of Nadav and Avihu. In Tractate Sanhedrin, which deals with setup and functions of a rabbinic court, the Talmud offers a much less literal interpretation of this story and claims that Nadav and Avihu suffered from spiritual zeal and ecstasy. They yearned for a deep and intimate connection with God and did whatever they could to achieve it. Consequently, God condemns them to a life of spiritual emptiness. So when the “fire came forth from God and consumed them”, God devoured their religious fervour. By the end of this episode, the Talmud posits that Nadav and Avihu were stripped of their passion and left to a live a life of physicality and normalcy. They were forced to maintain the status quo.

In thinking about last week’s jarring events in Israel, this drastic shift from passion to apathy and normalcy speaks to me. I have spent a large part of the last 18 months in Israel trying to re-define and deepen my connection to and understanding of the State and the Land of Israel. I have travelled many places and met different people and shared in their experiences, as well as my own, living in this beautiful and messy place. More than that, I have tried to bring my commitment to making Israel better, my love, my idealism and my openness to enable me to dream about what Israel could be.

But in the wake of this past week’s headlines, I wonder: thank God many of us survived these attacks physically, but what is left of our spirit? Will we fall into the abysmal end of despair and unrest and let this “fire consume us”? Will this event dim (or even erase) the light at end the of the tunnel?

For me, working with organizations like Encounter and meeting Palestinians has complicated my relationships in Israel. But most days I am grateful for that chaos because it allows me to engage in larger questions of what Israel’s goals and fundamental values are and how the Jewish State ought to be. More specifically, juggling and weaving my meetings with Palestinians and hearing their stories with my own narrative and those of Israelis has also revived my idealism because I am pushed to dream and to imagine what kind of Israel I want to see.

And yet, in light of last week’s events, I feel like I’m falling back into the trap of despair, fear and cynicism. I try to resist but it feels like the tide of anger and “He started it. No, she started it!” is overpowering me.

So I wonder: echoing the Talmud’s interpretation of Nadav and Avihu, will this past week’s events leave my body intact and consume my soul? Will the fire of the rockets in the Negev or the bomb beside the bus stop I frequent in Downtown Jerusalem devour my hope for a brighter future?

I hope not.
But I’m not so sure…

Shavua tov,
Tamara

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[PEP Student] Rehabilitate the Trauma

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Dear Friends,

I hope you are all well and had a good week. This past week was my first back at Pardes after the semester break, so it has been a bit of an adjustment: new classes, new people and new schedules. Having said all that, I’m very excited to be back in the Bet Midrash!

In addition, last week I traveled to Hebron to learn about Palestinian life there and some of the challenges facing this city as part of a seminar I’m participating in with Encounter. Part of my experience there was meeting a family whose ancestors had saved a group of Jews in Hebron during the 1929 massacre. Another part of the trip included a walking tour of the Old City of Hebron and learning about their interaction with settlers and IDF soldiers, and generally some challenges facing the Palestinian community there.

This past week’s parsha, Mishpatim, speaks about the first series of laws given to the Jewish People. (These laws are understood by some commentaries to traditionally have been given at Sinai.) The parsha is introduced is as follows: (Ex. 21:1)

א)  וְאֵלֶּה, הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים, אֲשֶׁר תָּשִׂים, לִפְנֵיהֶם

1) Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them.

Reading this verse, I was struck by the phrasing “before them”. Why does the Torah go out of its way to say that these “ordinances” are to be given to the Jewish People? Aren’t they the assumed target audience? It would seem that the language of “before them” is redundant! But as the first law is recounted in the parsha, I began to glean some meaning from this funny wording.

The next verse describes the laws of Israelites (Hebrews) owning other Hebrew slaves:

ב)  כִּי תִקְנֶה עֶבֶד עִבְרִי, שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים יַעֲבֹד; וּבַשְּׁבִעִת–יֵצֵא לַחָפְשִׁי, חִנָּם

2) If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

Of all the places to begin and all the possible laws to share with the Jewish People, we begin with that of Hebrew slaves?! Didn’t we just leave bondage in Egypt? Why are we taking slaves from our own communities? Has enough time elapsed for the Jewish People to have recovered from the trauma of Pharaoh’s tyranny?

I would like to suggest that the Torah is very conscious of the rawness of this trauma for the Jewish People. God wants the Jewish People to understand that to be a ‘servant of God’ in its highest form is to be sensitive and aware of the world around us and elevate it as much as possible. Sanctification of the mundane is our charge. As such, God summons the Jewish People to return to their own trauma in Egypt and use their self-knowledge, their pain to open themselves to others and empathize with the Hebrew slaves. If an Israelite chooses to take his fellow as a slave, he must treat him with dignity and sensitivity.

In a workshop I didon Friday run by Encounter, Ilana Sumka (Executive Director) shared with us some of her training in trauma rehabilitation. Ilana taught us that a person often needs to search inside him/herself for inner resources–be they courage, faith, love, openness and the like–and draw on them in order to confront their trauma. And when the trauma is too overwhelming and too difficult to face head-on, a person must spiral back to his/her inner resources and draw strength from there to re-engage with trauma and eventually work toward rehabilitation. 

I think this model is very much the “music behind the words” (to borrow Daniel Silberbusch’s language) of last week’s parsha. To own a Hebrew slave requires an understanding of self of the owner: s/he must get in touch with her/his recent bondage in Egypt and recall the pain and suffering experienced, so as not to inflict that on another person. Sanctifying this relationship of master and servant goes back to our primal mission of elevating the mundane. This is what Nachmanides writes in Leviticus when he explains the commandment “Be holy for I am Holy, I the LORD your God am holy”. (Lev. 19:2)

In reflecting on my experiences in Hebron last week, learning about the struggles of Palestinian life and seeing Israeli soldiers guarding their posts nearby, I hope for a time when Jews and Palestinians of Hebron can search deep inside themselves and use their inner resources to acknowledge and rehabilitate their trauma. Then, and only then, can all parties channel their self-knowledge and understanding of their challenges to speak to the other and be sensitive to his/her needs, wants and maybe even dreams!

I challenge us all to incorporate this 3-step process into many aspects of Jewish practices, our interpersonal relationships, and those larger and beyond the Jewish People!

  1. Identify my inner resources.
  2. Address and rehabilitate trauma I’ve experienced using these inner resources.
  3. With renewed understanding and healing of my trauma, be conscious that I am not inflicting that trauma on others.

In the language of the parsha, if I can put my experiences “before” myself (using steps 1-2 listed above), then I can engage with the other (step 3).

I wish all of us Behatzlacha (“Much Success”) in this endeavour!!

Shauva tov!
Tamara

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