When I spoke at Community Lunch yesterday, I only had an outline. This is the closest I can remember to what I actually said.
Hi, my name’s Derek. I’m from Pittsburgh. I’m a Fellow here at Pardes, which means I’m in my second year, so if you have any questions about Pardes or Jerusalem, I’ll be happy to try to answer them.
Oh wait, wrong speech.
That’s the speech I wish I was giving—it’s so much easier to say hi to a stranger than to say good-bye to a loved one. And for me, Pardes is very, very much a loved one.
But you know, when I thought to start my speech this way, it occurred to me that when you study a text and when you meet good, smart, Pardes-kinds of people, every meeting is really a new introduction. It never ceases to amaze me how each time you go back to a text or a person or anything holy, it’s like meeting them all over again, because each time they surprise you with new insights, surprises, nuances, innovations.
There’s a great quote from Andrew Lustig Continue reading
On Shavuot, 
I’m going to talk about the parsha this week, Behaalotcha. It seemed to me that Bnei Yisrael had short term memory loss in this week’s Parsha. I’m pretty sure they were enslaved in Egypt and were crying out to be freed. Then, they were actually freed. Now, they are complaining about the food to Moshe. They are not happy with the food they received because they desire meat, not Manna.
