Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on October 31, 2011 by Barer
[This is a slightly emended version of the D’var Torah I gave to the Fellows last week:] “We have benedictions for all occasions…And on beholding a Jewish audience [of 600,000 or more] the Talmud [Berachot 58a] prescribes a special benediction: [“Baruch chacham harazim sh’ein da’atam dome zeh la’zeh v’ein partzufeihen domim zeh la’zeh”] Blessed is Continue Reading »
Posted on October 25, 2011 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog Yinzer in Yerushalayim) We had all of Sukkot off, plus 3 days, making for 2 weeks of free time. Many of my peers went on trips through the country of went camping. While I didn’t do either of those, I had an adventurous holiday nonetheless. The adventure started before Sukkot Continue Reading »
Posted on October 12, 2011 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog Yinzer in Yerushalayim) There is nothing like Yom Kippur in Israel. During a community guest lecture about 2 weeks ago, Jeremy Benstein, director of the Heschel Center gave us a chart showing Israeli energy usage hour-by-hour during Yom Kippur, it virtually flat-lines For 25 hours, the entire country shuts down. Continue Reading »
Posted on October 2, 2011 by Avi Strausberg
the language of parshat ha’azinu seems to be in a poetic world of its own, amidst the torah verses that surround it. a prophetic moshe, nearing the end of both his journey and his life, spews forth a mixture of his own words with God’s in another rage against the people’s disobedience. according to moshe, Continue Reading »
Posted on July 7, 2011 by Avi Strausberg
this week’s parsha strangely focus on the story of one non-israelite, balaam the diviner, and his journey of how he came to know and understand God. okay, let’s back up a little bit. there’s a bad guy in this story, balak, head of the amorites, who summons our diviner-friend balaam to curse the jewish Continue Reading »
Posted on June 19, 2011 by Tamara Frankel
Dear Friends, As some of you may know, I’m still in Jerusalem and about to complete my final project at Pardes. Although it is a bit bizarre to learn in the Pardes building with many of my friends, colleagues and teachers missing, I have enjoyed studying Torah lishma (for its own/Heaven’s sake) and participating in Continue Reading »
Posted on May 17, 2011 by Avi Strausberg
in parshat behukkotai, God makes us an offer we can’t forget. on one hand, if we follow all of His Laws and observe all of His commandments, all will be right in the world. abounding peace, a land free of enemies, produce to our hearts’ content. however, if we spurn Him, if we disobey His Continue Reading »
Posted on March 10, 2011 by Shivonne
Rabbi Melchior visited us at Pardes today, hosted by the Peace & Conflict Track. The students present for his talk ended up arriving a bit late to their afternoon classes because none of us wanted him to leave 🙂 The subject of his talk was whether or not religion could/should play a role in conflict resolution. Here’s my favorite quote: “If you Continue Reading »
Posted on December 20, 2010 by David Bogomolny
… Is the feeling that the situation cannot possibly continue forever really a reasonable guarantee that it will eventuallly change?” -David Grossman, The Yellow Wind, Ch. 17
Posted on November 15, 2010 by Jean
The beginning Mishna class at Pardes is called Foundations of Judaism, which sounded, to me, suspiciously like Judaism for Dummies. However, not once has the instructor patronized us with statements such as “Pesach is when we eat matzah” or “Chanukah commemorates the miracle of the oil.” The instructor has asked us more interesting questions: If Continue Reading »
