Tag Archives: Pittsburgh

December 14, 2008 (I think)–The Day that Accidentally Changed my Life Forever

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Never underestimate the impact of one good deed, on the doer at least as much as on the recipient.

I went on Birthright through Hillel in late December 2008. During one of our pre-Israel orientation sessions, they told us we would have the opportunity to pack suitcases filled with clothes, shoes, toys, etc.at the JCC something like the Sunday before our trip, which, from looking at calendars, I guess was probably December 14, to bring to kids in the children’s village in Karmiel, Pittsburgh’s sister city, during our day of community service.

I turned to my friend and asked if he was going. He wasn’t sure.

“If you go, I’ll go,” I told him. He said he’d see.

That Shabbat, he told me he was going. So I decided I would go too.

When I arrived at the JCC, I didn’t see him and considered turning back (I get immensely shy in new places where I don’t know anyone, and this goes triple for those places where you need to explain yourself over an intercom to get in), but then I thought of the mitzvah, took a deep breath, waited to catch the door after someone coming or going, then went in. I soon recognized some people, including my friend, in a room just to the right of the entrance stuffing suitcases with colorful clothes, toys, and, since these were for Israeli children, Crocs. I went in, said hi to my friend, found some stuff to stuff, and began stuffing it for tzedaka.

Shortly after I arrived, a woman came up and introduced herself as Tsipy, the Director of the Agency for Jewish Learning. I told her I was a student at Pitt. She asked me what I study. “Writing,” I said.

“Do you want an internship?” Continue reading →

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My Dvar on Mishpatim from Chabad House on Campus’ Student Shabbat 2011

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The University of Pittsburgh’s Chabad House, run by two of my heroes, R. Shmuel and Sara Weinstein, is one of my favorite places on earth and one that has had an inestimable impact on my identity as a Jew. Once, when in late January 2011 they took a very rare Shabbat away, we students decided to take the opportunity to make Shabbat on our own. All the regulars took on different tasks; I volunteered to help set-up and give the dvar Torah below.

 

This week’s parsha is Mishpatim, or as its sometimes called, Where the Torah Starts to Get Really Boring, because this is the point where the Torah shifts abruptly from being about fantastic stories of our ancestors to being, except for Numbers, little else than lists of seemingly random laws. Even worse, this list comes immediately in the wake of the drama and excitement of the Revelation at Sinai—thunder, lightning, smoke, loud shofar blasts, the Voice of God, a nation trembling in fear, then…civil legislation! What gives?

Like any good speaker on Torah, I’m going to answer this question in a very roundabout way. Starting with this: Continue reading →

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[Student Profile] Mike Backman

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Mr. Backman in Petra over Sukkot

When it came to picking out a college and a major, Mike knew he wanted to work with numbers and that he wanted to do something practical. So he searched and weighed the available data: He looked into economics but found it boring. He looked into physics, but thought it just wasn’t for him, then mathematics, but found it “too theoretical once you got beyond a certain level.” He at last discovered the perfect combination of numbers and practicality—the statistics program at the University of Pittsburgh, saying, “It’s applied, you know, it has real-world applications, it’s not solely theoretical.”

Though Mike may not have factored this into his university decision, his time at Pitt also made him appreciate the value of Jewish diversity from an unexpected new angle when he met Orthodox and non-denominational Jews for the first time at Pitt’s Hillel and Chabad House, both of which he was heavily active in throughout his college career. “Growing up, all the Jews I knew were Conservative or Reform. [College] taught me that Orthodox Jews, or even people who weren’t Conservative or Reform like I knew it, could still interact with the real-world.” He said Continue reading →

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Why I’m Not Making Aliyah

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“Oh, so you’ve been here [almost a year/two years]! So are you planning on making aliyah?,” they say, bearing their teeth and gently lifting their eyebrows in anticipation of the upcoming hearty “Mazel tov!” they’re sure to owe me.

“No.”

“Oh,” this is less an expression than the sound a face makes as it falls. “Why?”

Since coming to Israel, I’ve had this conversation with more people than I can keep track of. I’m here to articulate my answer to this disappointed “Why?” in the best way I can. I know my answer probably won’t be good enough for you olim out there reading this, but hopefully I can at least get you to understand and maybe, maybe even to respect my decision not to make aliyah as much as I respect your decision to make aliyah.

Let me begin by saying this: I love, love, LOVE Israel and consider myself a Zionist. Over the past thirteen months, I have come love this country, and to love Jerusalem especially, more than I thought I could ever possibly love a place that doesn’t begin with “Pittsburgh.” I shouldn’t even have to say this, but I want to anyway because it’s so true .But there’s different ways of loving something:

You came here on Birthright and you just felt it. Good for you, I didn’t. Or maybe it’s that ever since you first heard there was a place for Jews, you knew you just had to live here/this is the only place in the world where the Jews have a future/you want to share in the historic fate of your People and your Land/you couldn’t find a job in your home city/you come from Europe/you came for a visit and just couldn’t bring yourself to leave…and you can’t understand how I, as a fellow passionate, committed Jew did not want to move to this country as soon as I stepped off the plane. I get it.

What’s more, I know how much you’ve sacrificed in order to live here. You’ve left your beloved families, friends, communities, jobs, to come live in a tiny, upstart nation in what still is—in spite of its and your Jewishness—a foreign culture where things are overpriced, jobs are hard to come by, people are rude, you don’t speak the language, you live under constant threat of annihilation, and you know that possibly you, but certainly your children, will have to sacrifice, at minimum, only the best years of their lives in its defense.

I can’t tell you how much I respect all that, olim. I also can’t tell you how hard it is for me to look you in the eye and tell you I have no plans of making aliyah when I know that for you, it must seem like I’m telling you that I think it’s right for you to have to struggle to begin your life over again half-way across the world and for your children to fight terrorists for the sake of the Jewish people, while I visit my parents on weekends and my children go to ice cream socials at their universities’ Hillels. I totally understand.

But here’s what you don’t understand: Messianic dreams notwithstanding, I can think of almost nothing worse for the State of Israel or for the Jewish People than what would happen if every Jew (or even every Jew who cared) picked up and moved to Israel. Jobs would be harder to come by, our border issues would increase at least hundredfold, and no one would ever have enough water. The Kinneret would cease to be.

But these are minor, solvable problems. The bigger, much more lasting problem would be what would happen in a world where all the Jews lived in one tiny rift in the Middle-East? Who would support Israel? Who would fight anti-Semitism, or just be around to live around non-Jews and show them that they shouldn’t believe the lies, most of us are actually pretty cool people? I know that in my life, growing up around almost entirely non-Jews, many people thought they didn’t like Jews or that Jews were this way or that, until they discovered I was, not only a Jew, but an actual human being just like them, too! If I go to Israel, who will be left to prove them wrong? Why should the world respect a people or a religion that can only work in one place far away from them?

If every Zionist Jew like myself makes aliyah, there will be no Jews, Jewish influence, or Jewish ethics left in the sciences and the arts anywhere else in the world, and medicine, technology, economics, science, government, and culture all over the world will suffer enormously.

Further, it’s not easy being a Jew in America. No, we don’t have to worry about terrorism or overt anti-Semitism, thank God, but we have our own set of challenges. Yes, no Jewish community in history has ever been more accepted or more affluent, but no Jewish community in history has ever been as Jewishly illiterate, indifferent, or intermarried. We face the unprecedented challenge of trying to make Judaism matter in a free market place of ideas, and I believe as much as I believe anything that Judaism is more than up to that challenge, that its wisdom, beauty, depth, and divinity are more relevant and more needed now than ever. To this end, helping to capitalize on the equally unprecedented opportunity modern diaspora Jews have to create open, robust, committed, learned, diverse communities that will be a blessing for their residents, for the wider communities surrounding them, for the Jewish people (including those in the State of Israel), and maybe—in some small way—even for the entire world, genuinely excites me far more than the prospect of making aliyah. Yes, this is somewhat of a dream, but no less so than the idea that my moving to Israel will have some huge impact on making it the kind of Jewish State it needs to be.

One last point, and this comes from a friend who recently made aliyah: Israel doesn’t need me. It could use me, sure, but it doesn’t need me. Thank God, unlike in the early days of the State, it now has enough native population and new immigrants to support a viable, diverse economy and culture. If this weren’t so, if lots of talented, educated Jews weren’t making aliyah, and if America’s Jewish community was thriving, then I would strongly consider making aliyah. But since I don’t believe Israel is sorely lacking for a thoroughly unathletic Jew whose most valuable skill is his ability to write in English, I think I’ll stay in America and do my best to serve the Jewish community there.

So in the end, disappointed olim, I believe the world needs both your kind of Jew and mine, I only ask that you respect my choice as much as I respect yours. What matters most is that we’re in this together.

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How to Write a Blog Post*

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Last year was my blogging year. This year is the one where I step aside and help other people blog Pardes. This suits me just fine since this is also the year where I have no time to blog (almost). It occurred to me, however, that if I am to run this blog, then I should let people know what to do. The new posters have all been great so far, but I, like all the great Jewish visionaries**, am constantly focused on the future. So, as a public-service, I thought I’d devote some of my precious free time towards compiling the following “User’s Guide to the Blog,” a list of “Do’s and Don’t's” for all you aspiring These and Thosers out there (they exist, right?……please?)

DO:

  • Capitalize the phrase “Do’s and Don’t's” and put it in quotation marks for reasons you are not quite sure of.
  • Write about what interests you. Just because something happened to you during the week, does not necessarily mean you need to write about it. As a general rule, if you find it easy to write about, others will find it easy to read; if you struggle to write it, others will struggle to read it. No one cares that garbage collection days in Jerusalem are different than the ones in your hometown, or that, after paying attention for one week, you think you’ve noticed that Joanne’s hats seem to get bigger as the week goes on. And if either of these things is the most interesting part of your week, you have bigger problems than blogging.
  • Be selective about what you choose to include in your blog post. This is the second-most important step in determining what to write about. Now that you have what interests you, filter out the information you want your family, friends, Pardes peers and staff, and the world at-large to know. The events of last Thursday night at HaTzatzua may really interest you, but you should most definitely not mention them on your blog. Sometimes this is just a matter of careful wording:

WRONG: Hey “Abba”and “Imma,” Guess what?!?! I just spent Shabbat in a West Bank settlement over the Green Line (this means it’s illegal under international law) with a family of Religious Zionists!! But don’t worry, it was safe—even though they were religious, the husband always kept a gun in his belt, even on Shabbat! Viva la Pardes!!

RIGHT: Beloved parents, I just experienced a Shabbat in the beautiful Biblical land of Judea, in a quiet, scenic gated community to the east of Jerusalem with a wonderful Orthodox family. Never worry, I feel very safe here in the Holy Land.

  • Include something for all your readers. If you have readers back in your hometown(s), include references that they will get both to draw them in and to show that you haven’t entirely flipped out. For example: “We did a meditation in Self, Soul and Text that really helped me find my center, that helped me to find regain the inner peace and sense of hope that I lost after the Pirates stabbed me in the heart this fall.” In a similar vein, include an inside joke or two to reward your Pardes readers. One well-placed “Kah Echsoyf” reference can go a long way towards earning you some serious Pardes street-cred. The important thing is balance.
  • Let your personality shine through. Write about your adventure at Pardes as only you can:

WRONG: I went to the Shuk on Friday morning. It was really busy.

RIGHT: On Friday mornings, the Shuk is, as my roommate put it, “a chaotic clash of Middle-Eastern culture and Captialism.” It’s a kaleidoscope of color and movement and noise as Israelis, tourists, and those of us somewhere in-between scramble to try to balance the two mitzvot of preparing the finest foods for Shabbat with that of staying in budget. It’s simultaneously a cesspool and a sanctification, dirty, cheap, and impossibly miraculous, who ever said the Gathering of the Exiles would be pretty? It is Modern Hebrew, it is Israel. And I can’t handle it.

  • Make it visually interesting with pictures and jokes and lots of interesting links.

DON’T:

  • Be boring.
  • Ramble. Very, very few people are clever enough to make their rants entertaining to anyone else but themselves. Unless you have a special on Comedy Central in the works, assume you are not one of them and keep your rants to your own private blog.
  • Go over three-and-a-half single-spaced pages. If it’s too long, no one will read it to the end, trust me. I might not even, and that’s my job.
  • Use yeshiva jargon. There’s no makhloket about this one, chevre. B’emet, there is no better way to make your friends back home feel mamash alienated and make potential students and donors think that Pardes is some super shtark place that only wants davka to makarev people than by writing your blog posts using some of the more technical, tachlis terms we use in the beis.
  • Be anything other than yourself. This is the most important point of them all.

In keeping with the Jewish tradition of not ending on a negative note, I’ll close with one last do

DO:

  • Let people know how you’ve been since your last post. So far, this second year at Pardes has been nothing short of amazing—amazing classes, amazing people, amazing times. In so many ways, this year feels like the completion of the last, as I’m constantly getting to build on the intellectual, spiritual, and social skills I acquired here last year. The combination of coming away from a positive summer work experience, heading into this year already comfortable at Pardes, and knowing I earned a leadership position resulted in my beginning the year with more self-confidence than I’ve ever had before. For the first time ever, I feel with it. This new me has been somewhat hard to get used to—even harder to get used to than being the person who actually knows what’s going on for once in his life have been the looks of surprise on new students’ faces when I tell them I’m actually an introvert. Harder to get used to than this even has been the realization that, more than informing other people, I’ve actually been saying this more to remind myself. In the wake of the High Holidays, however, I believe that this is not a new me, just a better one. I’m starting to really know who I am and like it. This is not to say that life is perfect, just that I’m extremely grateful for my current set of problems

Viva la Pardes!!

–

*I was originally going to call this “How to Write a Good Blog Post,” but then realized how presumptuous that sounds.

**So much for not being presumptuous.

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Dvar Torah for Shoftim

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This week was my last back at my shul Young People’s Synagogue, which last year, raised around $7,000 to send me to Pardes for a year. Yesterday, I delivered this speech to let them know how their investment turned out.

So, how have you all been? For those who don’t know, from September through the end of May, thanks largely to the generosity of YPS, I was living in Jerusalem studying Torah at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, the world’s only non-denominational co-ed yeshiva and widely considered to be the world’s greatest yeshiva above a Mazda dealership. Then from June 8 through August 12, I worked as the mashgiach at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.

I’ll sum up my experience at camp with the following anecdote: When I told my Rosh Yeshiva at Pardes, Rabbi Danny Landes, that I got the job, but I was nervous since I had never been a mashgiach before, he asked, “Are you a detail-oriented person?” “Yes,” I said “Are you paranoid?” “I’m Jewish,” I said. “I think you’ll do fine.” He was right, I loved my job.

But your investment was in Pardes, so that’s what I’m going to talk about. Continue reading →

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Meet the Fellows 5773

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Amir Zinkow

Amir Zinkow is from Columbus, OH, via St. Paul, MN, via San Mateo, CA. After graduating from The Ohio State University in the fall of 2010, he flitted off to Uganda with an AJWS Volunteer Summer Program. After two weeks back in the States, he came back to the same time zone as Uganda, to Israel, where he was a participant in Otzma, a 10 week Masa program. In trying to find a way to stay in Israel and get on track to go to rabbinical school, Amir decided to attend Pardes, where he fell in love with studying Talmud and Halakha. He hopes that a second year immersed in study will help him achieve his goal of becoming a Posek who doesn’t necessarily follow halakha.


For his fellows project, Amir will be working with Robby in the fundraising department. So don’t be surprised when he asks you for money. Amir believes in the Pardes ideal and vision, and loves the idea that studying Jewish texts is not exclusive, and can be for anyone. He looks forward to furthering this vision and having the opportunity to learn with a diverse group of people for the second year in a row.


Amir is the Irving Weinstein Memorial Fellow this year!


Derek Kwait

Derek Kwait never spent longer than five consecutive weeks outside of his native Pittsburgh area prior to fulfilling his dream of studying at Pardes last year. After attending one year of film school at Point Park University in 2007-8, he transferred to the University of Pittsburgh in fall 2008. He graduated in 2011 with a degree in writing with a fiction concentration and minors in Film Studies and Jewish Studies– the prestigious Triple Crown of BS. His subsequent life-changing year at Pardes was largely made possible by a generous scholarship from his beloved synagogue, Young People’s Synagogue. He spent the past summer as the mashgiach at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, so if you have any questions about kashrut during the year, he will be happy to direct you to Rav Meir.


For his fellows project, Derek will be ruining any claims Pardes still has for being a non-coercive institution by running the student blog, “These and Those,” which last year, boasted a record average of 200 hits per day (on average, only 198 of these hits were from spammers, plus another one from Derek’s mother looking for his posts). Derek hopes to build on last year’s success by editing the words “Kim Kardashian” and “sex” into every blog post for as long as he is the editor.


While he is very excited for another year of learning at Pardes, Derek is most looking forward to reading your blog posts.

Laura Herman

Laura Herman is originally from Toronto, Ontario. Before coming to Pardes last year, Laura spent three years working at Hillel. One year at the International Center in Washington DC and two years on campus in Toronto. Laura is enthusiastic about diverse Jewish communities and recently discovered her love of text study. She feels that being at Pardes is the perfect place to blend these two passions.

Laura is planning on helping out with Pardes recruitment during the upcoming year and wants as many people as possible to experience the richness of Pardes. She knows first-hand how invigorating it can be to spend a year in Israel and would like to help others have this experience.

When Laura is not learning Gemara at Pardes, you can find her roaming the shuk or at different cafes in Jerusalem. If you ever need to know the best place to get fresh fruits and vegetables, Laura is the person to ask. She’ll only ask that you repay her in mangoes.

Laura is one of the Marla Bennett and Ben Blutstein Scholarship recipients this year!

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Week 39:

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

So this is it. The end. It’s over. After Shabbat, I’m going to see everyone again in the fall at best, never at worst. Still, this is ultimately what I signed up for, to become a Pardes Alum.

I’m almost positive that from the moment I touch down in Pittsburgh and for the entire rest of my life, I’ll have to really try hard to convince myself that this whole year wasn’t a dream—usually a good dream, sometimes a bad dream, but always a dream nonetheless, certainly when compared to the reality I used to know. I don’t know how long it will take to readjust to reality (i.e. America), but even if I do readjust, I’m not the same person I was when I left, I’m much tanner now. I’m also wiser, know tons more Torah and can’t wait to live and teach it to whomever I can however I can, know much more Hebrew and Aramaic, have a wider circle of friends, can cook more things. I am more independent and more dependent, more optimistic and more jaded than I was ten months ago. I will have to get used to the weekend being Saturday and Sunday, to being able to understand people on the street, to being able to plug my stuff in without an adapter, to knowing exactly what signs are saying, to supermarkets not having sales related to my holidays, to being a minority, to shoving and being shoved not being acceptable means of getting where you need to go (I am so not ready for Wisconsin), to knowing what the hell is going on around me.

Continue reading →

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Week 38: Jerusalem in a Week

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(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim)

This week really started last Shabbat afternoon as I sat in a corner of the Tayelet (promenade overlooking the Old City and East Jerusalem) reading the opening chapters of James Carroll’s Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Carroll begins the book by discussing the tension between the two Jerusalems, the earthly and the heavenly and how, when the two rub up against each other it generates “a spark that ignites fire.” He then describes the city’s importance in the 3 Abrahamic faiths, takes a tour modern Jerusalem (a chill went down my spine as I read his description of how “Jewish intellectual elite” gather on Emek Refaim as I sat in my apartment on that very street earlier that day. I mean, I know Continue reading →

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