“Peak Attack”

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Eva Vadasz

I shared these words in the beit midrash
on the last day of the 2012-13 Pardes year

I dressed up in white. Because whenever I am preparing to do something big, I always wear white. This is a principle of mine since I have known Zsolt Erőss. Zsolt – a Hungarian mountain climber. Zsolt, who told me that when they prepare for the final climb, for the final 200 meters in the Himalayas, the so called peak attack, they wash with melted snow and dress up in white.

I had the chance to work at the book publishing company where Zsolt’s books were published. I edited, I marketed and I got to know a great mountain climber. This was more than 10 years ago. Since then I follow his hikes and I am proud of him and proud of that I know him. Zsolt started climbing when mountain climbing was not fashionable, he really was climbing for the sake of climbing and the spiritual experience. With a huge commitment and an eternal love of life. Two years ago he had an accident in the High Tatras and his leg was injured that much that it had to be amputated. He got a special mountain climbing prosthesis. Recently I knew it but only passively that he was climbing again. I saw the posts on Facebook and did not have time to read them. But I thought about him several times last week, because I was also preparing for Continue reading →

To Feel – To Know

Posted on June 2, 2013 by Bogo

Here is the reflection I shared at Community Lunch last week-

One of the many things that I tell people when discussing Pardes is that I wanted to study here before I ever knew that Pardes existed.

As a college student I started wearing a kippah publicly before I had any idea what halakha was – I didn’t know about keeping Shabbat or kashrut, or much at all about traditionally observant Jewish life – I simply wanted to express my Jewishness.

This led me to meet Orthodox Jews for the first time, and I began to adopt Jewish traditions in my life, as I learned of them – I began to keep Shabbat and Kashrut, and I began to wear tzitzit. But after a couple of years, I found myself questioning why I had incorporated these mitzvot into my life – were they meaningful to me personally, or had I come to adopt the lifestyle Continue reading →

Shining Bright

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Brian Blumenthal

“למען ציון לא אחשה ולמען ירושלם לא אשקוט עד יצא כנגה צדקה וישועתה כלפיד יבער”

For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth like radiance, and her salvation like a burning torch. (Isaiah 62:1)

This semester in Yaffa Epstein’s Bekiut Talmud class we studied the 16th perek of Masechet Shabbat, titled “כל כתבי” (All of the writings). The perek focuses on what you can save from a fire on Shabbat—including holy writings (such as a Sefer Torah) and food for the Shabbat meals. The discourse in the chapter encompasses the meaning of holiness in relation to texts, Shabbat, and community.

Following a lengthy discussion of Oneg Shabbat (the joyful essence of Shabbat) and all of the actions associated with the special day—including preparation (Hachana), welcoming (Kabbalat Shabbat), eating (Seuda), and even escorting (Melava Malka)—the Gemara brings up the topic of what you are NOT supposed to do: desecration (Chillul Shabbat). This then launches into Continue reading →

[PCJE Dvar Torah] The Challenge of Conviction by Stu Jacobs

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Stu Jacobs

All the way back in December, I shared some insights on Parshat Vayigash, a parsha I mentioned as near and dear to my heart, as it is my bar mitzvah parsha. This week’s parsha, Parshat Sh’lach, is also very dear to me, as it is the parsha of our daughter, Elinoa’s, birth. I’d like to share a variation on an insight I gave in honor of her 1^st birthday, as we now celebrate her 3^rd birthday this week… Continue reading →

True Blue

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Bogo

I shared this dvar in honor of the Robbin Landes Family @
a 7 Brachot meal for Hannah Robbin Landes & Eitan Gavson:

Dear Sheryl, Rav Landes, Isaac, Hannah and Eitan,

I am so touched to have the opportunity to address the five of you directly in celebration of Hannah’s & Eitan’s marriage. Thank you.

You all mean a great deal to me – both as individuals, and as a model of a beautiful family. And in both cases, you demonstrate a searching for meaning that is expressed in the thoughtfulness of the choices that you make. Your Judaism – the Judaism that compels me – is a delicate balance of commitment to our Halakhic heritage, and the embracing of every individual’s self driven journey to find his or her best and most true self.

I’d like to consider one component of Parshat Shlach with you now, examining it through the lenses of choice and commitment.

At the very end of this week’s Parasha, on the fringe, so to speak, we find the mitzvah of tzitzit (Numbers 15:38-40):

לח דַּבֵּר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם, וְעָשׂוּ לָהֶם צִיצִת עַל-כַּנְפֵי בִגְדֵיהֶם, לְדֹרֹתָם; וְנָתְנוּ עַל-צִיצִת הַכָּנָף, פְּתִיל תְּכֵלֶת.	38 ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them throughout their generations fringes in the corners of their garments, and that they put with the fringe of each corner a thread of blue.
לט וְהָיָה לָכֶם, לְצִיצִת, וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת-כָּל-מִצְו‍ֹת יְהוָה, וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם; וְלֹא-תָתוּרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם, וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם, אֲשֶׁר-אַתֶּם זֹנִים, אַחֲרֵיהֶם.	39 And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that ye go not about after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go astray; Continue reading →

Our Prophecy at Pardes

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Sydni Adler

My dvar Torah from the Galil Shabbaton:

syd On Shavuot, Rabbi Ruth Gan Kagan spoke about the prophetic power of G-d’s ruach – G-d’s spirit, breath, or wind. Throughout Tanakh, whenever ruach appears, G-d pervades material being, and often, individual human beings.

In both the Torah and Haftarah portions of Be’haalotecha, we deal directly with ruach and the prophecy that results. At one point in the Torah portion, for example, when Moshe feels that he cannot bear the burden of prophesy alone, G-d descends G-d’s ruach upon seventy elders. These elders begin prophesying immediately, even the two who happen not to be in the same location as Moshe and the others. When Yehoshua questions the prophesying of these two, Moshe replies, “…Would that HaShem had set all the people as prophets, that HaShem had set his ruach upon them!” (Bamidbar 11:29). In Moshe’s ideal world, in a world where power and decision-making could be distributed among Continue reading →

אחד – ONENESS

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Shoshana Rosen

From my blog:

Am I awake or asleep? Maybe a dreamlike state in between the two.

I leave my apartment 4:45 am to continue my journey

But all I am thinking about is my bed, snuggling between my warm blankets, head on my pillow. But then I thought of the people who used to walk, to travel for days, weeks during THIS day to get to the Beit haMikdash (the Temple) and I figured I could suck up the half an hour walk to the Kotel.

I didn’t even have to really pay attention to where I was going, I followed the people, each person coming from his/her home, learning center, dressed all differently, to walk to the same place.
Continue reading →

[PCJE Dvar Torah] From Desert to Dessert: a Shavuot Reflection – by Tani Cohen-Fraade

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Tani Cohen-Fraade

In Rabbi Meir Schewiger’s Parashat ha-Shavuah (weekly Torah Portion) class, while learning Sefer Shemot (Book of Exodus), we spoke about the desert as a place where one goes to prepare for Torah study. When B’nei Yisrael (Children of Israel) leave Egypt, they flee through the desert and are on the run until they get to Yam Suf (Red Sea) and cross to safety. Even after getting to Har Sinai (Mt. Sinai) and receiving the Torah, they still spend another 40 years in the desert wandering and preparing to enter into the Land. On the festival of Shavuot, we celebrate Zman Matan Torateinu (our receiving of the Torah at Sinai). We have just finished counting the Omer, the period of time from Pesach up to Shavuot and while we have now received the Torah and have celebrated this by a long night of learning and Torah study, B’nei Yisrael is still in the desert. For the rest of this year, leading up to the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) and Simchat Torah, we will continue to follow them as they travel through the wilderness in preparation for their entry into Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel). I liked the idea of the desert as a place for preparation and when I thought back over the last few years of my life I began to like it even more.

In the fall of 2010, I had been living and working at home in Connecticut, teaching in the Jewish community for a year after graduating college and I was ready for a change. I volunteered with the Kibbutz Program Center and after consulting with friends of friends, was placed on Kibbutz Yahel in the very south of Israel, about a 40 minutes north of Eilat in a region called the Arrava. Arrava means wilderness and this was exactly what I found when I got there. This was the absolute middle of Continue reading →

The Reason that my Tallit Belongs at the Kotel

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Gabby Goodman

Reflections on Rosh Hodesh Sivan with Women of the Wall, 5773 – 2013

Throughout the year I have studied here in Jerusalem, I have learned that the Wall has its own identity crisis. It is part of a larger structure that was built and carried, lost, built again and then destroyed, and built again, and built over again and destroyed again. There are more stages in between of deeper and deeper details. The figurative symbol of complete purity, it was more often an embodiment of utter corruption. The man who inspired the design of the particular Wall before which we stand today was a gifted, paranoid maniac, maddened by grief and riches and conflicting loyalties. The Temple itself, and the Wall it became, changed owners and took on ideologies of shocking variance over the centuries. And yet here it still stands, a testament to physical stability, containing all of its tumultuous history behind the serenity of its stones.

On the first Shabbat I was in Jerusalem, I walked with a group of very new friends into the Old City for the first time. I knew nothing about it except that it was the last of the Temple, a remnant of a Judaism from long ago, one with which I had trouble relating, but that it was “supposed to”, maybe, inspire a surge of feeling within me. Perhaps a feeling of closeness to the Divine? Perhaps an intense unification with the Jewish people? Perhaps bafflement or even, perhaps nothing? I was curious, and determined not to judge whatever feeling arose. Continue reading →

Paying a price

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Avi Benson-Goldberg

From my blog:

This week, in Israel, has been particularly focused on the costs of establishing an idealist state in a previously inhabited plot of land. I’m not trying to dig too deep into the politics of it; rather I’m interested in the idea of the prices we pay to live where we do.

After all Carlos Arredondo, brought back into the public eye by the current tragedies in Boston, has paid high prices. It is not an infrequent thing, the terrible burdens families bear on their backs for their communities, for their countries.

This past Sunday, at my Yeshiva, we had a panel of faculty speaking about their personal Israel narratives. They spoke as individuals and then in a dialogue. In light of today’s theme, I’d like to highlight what Leah Rosenthal said. Continue reading →

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