Tag Archives: halakha / Jewish law

[Alumni Guest Post] Ready!

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Sarah Margles (Year '02, PEP '04) reflects upon preparing
for Shavuot... what does "readiness" mean?

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I remember when I first started at Pardes, I would spend much of Fridays getting ready for Shabbat – shopping, cooking, cleaning. When the siren went to light candles, my roommate would inevitably yell out, while running from the bathroom in a towel, “But I’m not ready!!” When we speak of Jewish holidays, we often say things like, “The holidays are so early this year,” or “I love it when Pesach is late.” There is something about readiness that seems integral to our Jewish experience.

Shavuot has a lot to teach about readiness. In Shmot 19:11, as the people are getting ready to receive Torah, God tells Moses to tell the people to go prepare for God will arrive on the third day. But Continue reading →

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Bound. because I Want to.

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I’m leaving for Israel and my father hands me two bags. “Take these with you. The furrier, Shlomo, your great grandmother’s brother-in-law, left them to me. Find out if it’s meaningful for you.”

The first is black felt, light to the touch, with a golden Magen David embroidered in cord on its front. The Tallit inside is thin, composed of silky white fabric that is shifting towards an aged grey. Blue stripes run along its slender frame while an intricate latticework of linen falls away from the edges only to tangle up with the Tzitzit at the corners. It’s German Reform, classic and beautiful. So light I barely feel its weight when I try it on. So thin and delicate it barely covers my shoulders. It’s not my first Tallit.

The second bag is old and mustard yellow, fine prismatic threading has frayed across its front where it spells out the words “Tefillin” in Hebrew. The Tefillin inside are old with paper caps atop the Shel, each heavy with lacquer. The leather is cracked and aromatic, the black stain no longer present along the edges. The two bags go into my duffel, right next to my other Tallit, but as I put them down one Tefillin fall out of their yellow bag. The paper top tips off and the shin of the Rosh stares up at me like blurred eye still heavy with sleep. I stare back. What do I do with you?

Why does a Reform Jew wrap T’fillin? Continue reading →

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[Pardes from Jerusalem Podcast] Emor 5773: Laws for the Priests

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Pardes 1000xThis week, Rav Meir Schweiger discusses Parashat Emor in “Laws for the Priests.”

emor ’73

Shabbat shalom!

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Mishna Brachot in Poetry

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Presented at Night Seder on April 22:
Dustin and Melissa Gutierrez

Dustin and Melissa Gutierrez studying at Pardes Night Seder

Melissa and I decided it would be an interesting experience and test of our marriage to learn together, so for the past few months we’ve been having what we fondly call “Mishna Mondays” here at Pardes night seder. We started at the beginning with Brachot, which as you can imagine covers all sort of blessings – beginning with the shema, ending with blessings over food, and covering everything else in between. We finished about a month ago, just after the start of Adar, so it only made sense to have a bit of fun with Continue reading →

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Unexpected Encounters: Jewish Holidays and the Other: Yom HaAtzmaut

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Pardes is pleased to present the second episode of our new podcast series by Rabbi Daniel Landes, Unexpected Encounters: The Jewish Holidays and the Other. This episode is on Yom Ha’atzmaut.

Episode title: Yom Ha’atzmaut and the Naqba–Is a Jewish Theology of a Palestinian State Possible?

Pardes thanks the Alexander Soros Foundation, the sponsor for the series.

Click here to listen

Click here for the accompanying handout.

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A Peek into the Black and White World

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From my blog:

I have Haredi cousins.

I did not know this until last Friday night, enjoying couch-conversation with one of said cousins before Shabbat dinner.

So many different types of Jews...

So many different types of Jews…

“So what do people in this neighborhood call themselves?” I asked, wondering (after seeing all the black hats and streimels) which sect of Ultra-Orthodoxy I had resigned myself to for Shabbat.

“Mostly Haredi,” she replied. “Some Hassidish and Chabad, but most people are Haredi.” She paused, then added, “I’m Haredi.”

What is “Haredi”? According to the Oxford University Press, Haredi is defined as: “a member of any of various Orthodox Jewish sects characterized by strict adherence to the traditional form of Jewish law and rejection of modern secular culture.” Therefore, I was very surprised to find out that my cousin works for Continue reading →

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[PCJE Dvar Torah] Tongue Parmesan – by AdAm Mayer

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lhI was sitting in the chadar ochel (dining hall) during lunch yesterday with a number of Pardes students, and Zvi Hirschfield turns around from the next table and decides to poll our small group: “Lashon Hara –an aveira [sin] or just good advice?” As to be expected from any gathering of Pardes students, there was a wide variety of answers and explanations.

[Lashon hara is spreading gossip, talking about
people who are not present, spreading the feathers 
from the pillow – as the story goes- etc.]

Of course everyone seemed to know that it was (more or less) something to avoid, but to what lengths will I go to avoid it? Continue reading →

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[Alumni Guest Post] Educating my Jewish Daughter by Whitney Fisch

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Whitney Fisch (Year 2008-09) shares a personal challenge
of hers, regarding the role of women in Judaism:

w1Whitney Fisch grew up within the Reform movement in Marietta, GA. She started her career in Jewish communal work at the University of Georgia Hillel as the Jewish Student Life Coordinator, which led her to other positions in the Jewish world, most notably as the Outreach and Education Coordinator at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in Chicago and Education Director for the Anti-Defamation League’s Florida region. Tired of being considered a ‘super Jew’ for working in the Jewish world but feeling like she needed or even required more Jewish education for such a title, she decided to attend Pardes’ year program from 2008 – 2009. She met her now husband while in Jerusalem for that year. She is a middle school counselor at a private Jewish day school, a new mom and blogger at JewHungry.

Eight months ago my life forever changed… I became a mother of a daughter. My husband and I decided to find out the sex of our baby at 20 weeks and, of all things to say to all people, the ultrasound tech looked at me and said, “Oh! You have a little princess!”

Oy. Listen, I get it. Our culture celebrates women/girls as princesses. But in that moment, in that exact moment, I thought to myself, “this is exactly what is supposed to happen.” See I’m a social worker. I’m also a feminist and Continue reading →

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Old Matzah or New? Tastes the same to me…

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From my blog:

“So I was walking down the sidewalk one day, and a bus hit me in the head.” Such are the stories you hear at a lunch table in Israel. But we’ll come back to that.

In more recent news, I just finished celebrating my first day of Pesach in Israel. And let me tell you, the matzah here is amazing. Israelis actually spend a good portion of the pesach seder laughing about the fact that Americans still haven’t discovered the conspiracy that makes American matzah taste like dusty wood chips. They call it “מבצע ביצה” (Operation Egg) in code.

So many meanings at this time of year!

So many meanings at this time of year!

For the first (and only) seder, I went to the house of one of my Pardes teachers. The seder was absolutely wonderful; it was Continue reading →

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