Only 5 weeks left in Israel!

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Stuart Matan Lithwick

I can’t believe we are down to our last 5 weeks in Israel! David Bernstein said that it would absolutely fly by, but I never realized how right he was! I feel like my time in Israel is slipping away, and there are so many things still on my bucket list!

I have had such an incredible time, with so many memories! But I know that the connections that I made here will continue on even once we have all left and headed back to our homes. Friendships can cross all distances.

I wonder what it will be like to be back in Canada! I am really excited to see all of my friends and family, and go back to my old hangouts, but I know I am going to miss the energy and openness that I found here. It’s unlike anything I had ever experienced.

Stuart

[Alumni Guest Post] Connection by Distinction – by Eryn London

Posted on April 8, 2013 by admin

X-posted from Eryn's blog post:

Eryn London (Summer ’06 & ’07, Community Education ’10, Year ’10-’11, Hourly ’11-’12) made Aliya from New Jersey three years ago. She is currently studying in the Manhiga Hilchatit Program at Midreshet Lindenbaum, which is a 5 year advanced Halacha learning program. Beyond learning she also runs activities at a nursing home, teaches theatre, and directs plays on the side.

The brand-new Divrei Mahamal blog is written by the women that are currently studying in the Manhiga Hilchatit Program. The blog should be updated weekly by one of the women. The d’vrei Torah will be written in English, Hebrew or French.

Why is it important to distinguish between things? Twice in this week’s Parsha, Parshat Shimini, B’nei Yira’el are told להבדיל, to create distinctions.

The first time it is mentioned is after we are told that Nadav and Avihu were killed for bringing a “strange fire” into the Mishkan, and the Torah gives a ruling: Continue reading →

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

Posted on April 5, 2013 by admin

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

Whitney 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!”

: Whitney with her mother
and her daughter Siona

: Fellow Pardesnik, R. Andy Shugerman leading Siona’s Simchat Bat ceremony

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 →

Pardes According to Me

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Eva Vadasz

This 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 →

A Párdesz [Hungarian]

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Eva Vadasz

Repost a blogomból

Ez 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 →

[Alumni Guest Post] Alumni Focus: Rachel Meiner

Posted on March 18, 2013 by admin

Rachel Meiner (PEP '06-'08) teaches 2nd and 3rd grade Judaic
Studies (Chumash, Yahadut, and Tefillah) at The Hannah Senesh
Community Day School in Brooklyn, NY. She lives two blocks
from school with her husband and four month old daughter,
Neomi.

I returned to teaching three weeks ago after being on maternity leave for the past three months. If I thought teaching was exhausting before, teaching and then going home to a four-month-old is exhausting on a whole other level. Every morning I must make sure to leave the house with my brain intact!

Even though this is my fifth year in the classroom, returning as a mom has given me a whole new perspective on my job as a Judaics educator. Two things that remain clear are that I still love my students and that their humor makes all of my efforts worthwhile. I also have much more patience for my students’ parents and their concerns for their children. I have always believed that every child is different and that a teacher must find a way to reach each child, but now I see Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] My Pardes Experience by Eric Brief

Posted on March 8, 2013 by admin

Eric Brief (Yr. 2008-09)
sent us the following reflection of his year at Pardes
to post on These&Those!

Check out his blog to see his beautiful art
and weekly divrei Torah!

Eric Brief – Self Portrait

If I remember anything about my experience at Pardes it is that I got more than I could have ever imagined. I’m not exactly sure why I decided to go as I look back to when I booked my ticket to Israel just two weeks before Rosh Hashanah in 2008. I had just finished college a few months earlier and right before I went to the Burning Man Festival in Nevada I chose that Pardes was the plan for the next year.

I was a pretty skeptical when I arrived. I had a hard time believing that all these people were uprooting their normal lives to come to Israel and actually study Torah – you know – for real. I kind of felt like a spy – like I didn’t truly belong there. A product of Upper West Side NYC Jewish day school, early on in life I secretly decided that nobody truly cared about learning outside of school – except the future rabbis. At Pardes I found teachers that were extremely passionate about their work, lives, and Judaism in general. The students seemed to catch on to this and Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] Purim as Israelis

Posted on February 23, 2013 by admin

Stef (Year ’07, PEP ’07-’09) and Matt (Year ’07) celebrate
Purim in Haifa!

Purim is here! Which means lots of dressing up in costumes. In many cultures there seems to be at least one calendar day dedicated to dressing up in costumes: Holloween, Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, Carnival in Brazil, and Purim here in Israel. The one thing these days, among others I’m sure, have in common is that we all get to pretend to be something we’re not.

I personally love to get dressed up, Matt less so. But Matt did some of his own “dressing up” this week as his Maritime Survey Methods class went out on a boat, and Matt had to wear a wet-suit.

In the course the students learned how to locate, map out and excavate archaeological sites, both on land and underwater. This was great for Matt because his absolute favorite thing to do is go on boats! (read that last sentence with the heaviest sarcasm you can muster). Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] Update from Matt Rissien (Year ’08)

Posted on February 21, 2013 by admin

Pardes-nicks,

I just found out about the student blog, and I think it’s so great!! I took my Junior year off from the University of Kansas, and studied at Pardes in ’07-’08. Being still partially in the college mindset, I don’t know that I took full advantage of everything Pardes had to teach me; though I did still gain a lot from my year there. While you are at Pardes, soak it all in and take lots of notes, the knowledge one can learn from the faculty and students there is incredible, and I wish I knew that back when I was there. It is one of the most unique communities I’ve been a part of, and I hope one day to be able to come back and study again at some point.

I have now graduated the University of Kansas, and spent last year as a Campus Fellow at the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, NC (A Pluralistic Jewish Boarding School-check it out, it’s a really amazing place). I am currently living in Chicago, working as a Youth Director at Congregation Beth Shalom in Northbrook, one of the largest Conservative synagogues around. So that catches you up to where I am in life, but I wanted to share with you - Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] Friends for a Lifetime by Sarah Levy

Posted on February 20, 2013 by admin

Sarah Levy (Mechina '07, PEP '08-'10) shares
a personal reflection about Pardes:

Sarah & Benny Levy

A friend of mine once told me that she felt all of her friends fell into one of three categories:

Friends for a reason (and once that reason no longer existed, neither did the friendship)
Friends for a season (and once that time period ended, so did the friendship)
Friends for a lifetime (and the friendship would last forever)

Although I am not totally sure I agree with her classification system all of the time, I do often find myself thinking about the relationships in my life and whether they would be reason, season, or lifetime friendships.

I remember when I was in college, for example, it seemed as if I could easily make friends, but I didn’t feel as if I was making lifetime friends; these were more like reason or season friends. I never sat at a meal alone, always had a study partner, and never lacked for what to do on the weekends, but I just wasn’t sure that any of these friends had that lasting, lifetime potential.

One evening I was discussing this thought with a classmate, and she suggested that maybe I should think about what my passions were and join clubs and activities aligned with those passions. Maybe, she suggested, if I were interacting with people who had something significant in common with me, there would be lifetime potential. Continue reading →

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