[Alumni Guest Post] Choose Wisely!

Posted on May 21, 2013 by admin

Tamara Frankel (PEP '09-'11) is in her second year of
teaching at Chicagoland Jewish High School.

It’s one of the first sunny days in Chicago this spring and my students beg me to take them outside for class. We negotiate and decide to review our homework in class, on the board, and then go outside to start the next sugya. Eleven rambunctious and extremely insightful freshmen sit on the grass beside the bleachers while I stand up top. I ask my students to imagine that they are at the foot of Mount Sinai and that God is holding the mountain over their heads, expecting—maybe even threatening—them to accept the Torah. If not, they will die.

My students think I’m crazy. I tell them that Rav Avdimi recounts this dramatic “filling-in-the-gaps” of a pasuk in Shmot 19:17: “ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר” “And they [the Israelites] stood at attention at the foot of the mountain”. For a moment, I’m off the hook; I could never make up this story! Continue reading →

[Faculty Guest Post] In Memorium: Michael Rosenak z”l

Posted on May 19, 2013 by admin

In Memorium: Michael Rosenak z”l

- Rabbi Daniel Landes

Michael Rosenak

The loss of Mike Rosenak is of particular significance to the world of Jewish education, and certainly to Pardes. Mike was an early leader of Pardes and saw and promoted its promise. From my vantage point, he was interested in two large ideas. The first was the creation of two groups – the first was an educated laity who would incorporate the enthusiasm for Jewish living into the very fiber of their beings. He saw Jewish communal living as well as Jewish text study as vehicles for the creation of, as he put it, these “lively and alive” young Jews. The second group was a new core of Jewish educators who Continue reading →

The World is a Mirror

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Jeff Amshalem

From my blog:

Marc Chagall’s
The Mirror

A nugget from Zeev Wolf of Zhitomir, from Or haMeir on Parshat Naso

Everywhere you happen to look and everything you happen to see, even the ugly and the coarse, you should understand that it was not for nothing that God showed you this thing. Rather, it is because you yourself have some lack that you have not yet realized. So when you see another doing something wrong, you should learn from this what you must fix in yourself and for what you must ask forgiveness from God…

[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 →

L’Havdil

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Avi Spodek

The incidents at the Kotel these past few months have dominated the atmosphere where I study. There is an overwhelming sense of support for the Women of the Wall and their efforts to be recognized as legitimate players in the Jewish-religious narrative. Many of my friends have donned their Talitot and Tefilin (some for the first time) and made headlines in the process. I can personally attest to the character and passion of these people and I believe their intentions are sincere.

And yet I struggle.

I struggle because I believe that Jewish history provides us with important lessons for the present. And when I view what is going on at the Kotel plaza it is as if I have been transported to Jerusalem just prior to the destruction of Second Beit HaMikdash (Temple). Both Josephus and the Talmud record a time of great division amongst the Jewish people and both ascribe the ultimate loss of the war with Rome and the destruction of Beit HaMikdash (Temple) to this infighting (Tradition calls it Sinat Chinam (baseless hatred) while Josephus explains it along Continue reading →

Face to Face at Sinai

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Jeff Amshalem

From my blog:

Moses Shows the Tablets of the Law, by Marc Chagall

Two brief teachings by R. Kalonymus Kalman HaLevi Epstein on Shavuot, excerpted from Maor vaShamesh

ויחן שם ישראל נגד ההר And Israel camped there under the mountain. Exodus 19:2

Rashi points out that ‘camped’ is in the singular, and explains they camped there ‘as one person with one heart.’

To receive the Torah, the essential thing, on which everything else depends, is that there be love and brotherhood among the children of Israel, as our sages said, ‘The entire Torah depends on the mitzvah of ‘love your fellow as yourself.’ For when there is peace among us, the divine Presence rests among us, since the totality of our souls equals 60,000, the number of letters in the Torah, for we each have our soul’s root in one of the letters of the Torah — and this is hinted at by the very word ישראל ‘Israel,’ which stands for Continue reading →

Rosh Chodesh Sivan at the Kotel

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Andrea Wiese

From my blog:

Watch the actual video: here.

Friday morning was a blur. A scary blur. I didn’t wake up until 6:24 AM when my roommate screamed, “WIESE.” And I jumped out of bed, how could this happen, on a day that was so important to me? Never mind…we jumped in a taxi and I ran down to the women’s section with my bag. I couldn’t even get to the regular spot because there was a sea of light blue shirts of seminary girls from all over Israel. I quickly realized that they had been bussed in for the exact opposite reason I was there. I ran into my dear friend, and later saviour, Melissa. She was also lost. We didn’t know where “Women of the Wall” (WOW) was praying because there wasn’t space where they normally gather. (Smart thinking ultra-orthodox girls…if there isn’t space, maybe they can’t pray at the Kotel. Makes sense.) We went down together into the sea of blue, maybe they were there somewhere. They weren’t. But it was time to daven, so Melissa started pezukei dezimra (the “warm up” blessings, as I like to call them,) while I started to put on my tefillin. It was worse than the paparazzi that normally come to women of the wall. The girls thought they were seeing an alien or the devil…it was true what their rabbi told them, there are women who put on tefillin! They started taking pictures of my and then scuttled away, they didn’t want to be too close, maybe I could contaminate them. Many were already tisking at the action. But then, I pulled out my tallit (I know I should put on my tallit first and then tefillin, but there isn’t a lot of space and it’s difficult, so I reverse the order,) it was like poison. The girls backed away like if touching it would burn them, or something worse. They started making this hissing noise, I have never heard such a frightening/bizarre noise in my life. No one wanted to talk to me, it was too shocking to them. And I was there alone with my tallit and tefillin. I still didn’t know where the other women were. Melissa had finished pezukei dezimra and she looked at me, we knew we had to get out of there. It wasn’t safe. I was already flustered. Melissa, calm and cool, Continue reading →

[PCJE Dvar Torah] Is Your Honor Also My Honor? by Hannah Perlis

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Hannah P.

פרשת במדבר

Parshat Bimidbar

Imagine that you are applying for a promotion at work and your dear friend gets that promotion instead of you even though you’ve worked really hard. Do you support that friend, or do you become resentful, and secretly a little jealous?

In this week’s Parsha, Bimidbar, after a lengthy census, the tribes of Bnei Yisrael were each given a different job helping with the Mishkan building, traveling, and protecting. But, the Levites were given special attention and they were assigned jobs that the other tribes were told explicitly not to do because that was not under their jurisdiction.

In Perek Aleph, it states some of the jobs of the Levites,

Chapter 1:

נ. וְאַתָּה הַפְקֵד אֶת הַלְוִיִּם עַל מִשְׁכַּן הָעֵדֻת וְעַל כָּל כֵּלָיו וְעַל כָּל אֲשֶׁר לוֹ הֵמָּה יִשְׂאוּ אֶת הַמִּשְׁכָּן וְאֶת כָּל כֵּלָיו וְהֵם יְשָׁרְתֻהוּ וְסָבִיב לַמִּשְׁכָּן יַחֲנוּ:

נא. וּבִנְסֹעַ הַמִּשְׁכָּן יוֹרִידוּ אֹתוֹ הַלְוִיִּם וּבַחֲנֹת הַמִּשְׁכָּן יָקִימוּ אֹתוֹ הַלְוִיִּם וְהַזָּר הַקָּרֵב יוּמָת:

50. But you shall appoint the Levites over the Tabernacle of the Testimony, over all its vessels and over all that belong to it; they shall carry the Tabernacle and they shall minister to it, and they shall encamp around the Tabernacle
51. When the Tabernacle is set to travel, the Levites shall dismantle it; and when the Tabernacle camps, the Levites shall erect it; any outsider [non Levite] who approaches shall be put to death.

I think it’s impressive that the other tribes weren’t jealous of the Levites (or at least Continue reading →

Starry Night Havdallah Set – glass tray, kiddush cup, candle holder and spice container

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Avigayle

In the Gemara, Shabbat is defined by the work that surrounds it and goes into preparing for it. We light the Sabbath candles to mark the beginning of Shabbat and light the Havdallah candle to mark its conclusion. Shabbat, therefore is book-ended, suspended in time between these two rituals of light. Interestingly enough, lighting a flame is the only Continue reading →

Tu BiShvat: Seven Species of Israel – glass bottle

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Avigayle

Seven Species of Israel – glass bottle
by Avigayle Adler
(PEP 2003-05)

Grapes, Pomegranates, Olives, Dates, Figs, Wheat and Barley have a special significance to the Land of Israel and are given special mention and priority on Tubishevat, the Jewish New Year for trees. Indeed they have priority when blessing food as well. I have always been enchanted with Continue reading →

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