These and Those

Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem

Archive: November 2010

Negev Tiyul

Posted on November 9, 2010 by Pious Antic

This is a cross-post from my personal blog. The Hebrew word tiyul has no exact translation in English. A tiyul could be a long walk in a city park, a week-long guided bus tour of Israel, or a multi-week backing trip through South America. Last week, I went on Pardes’ annual tiyul to the Negev Continue Reading »

What I Learned at Pardes This Week #5: Hillel, Shammai and Uncle Vanya

Posted on November 6, 2010 by Pious Antic

This entry is a cross-post from my personal blog. This week, in my Talmud class, we looked at a couple of classic sugyot in the Gemara, one of of which, in the first chapter of Tractate Eruvin, discusses some conflicts between the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai. Before the Montagues and the Capulets, before Continue Reading »

What I learned at Pardes This Week #3: Tefilin

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Pious Antic

I’ve started doing series of posts called “What I learned at Pardes This Week”  on my blog (1, 2), and I thought I’d cross-post the latest one (3) here… enjoy! — One of the strangest and yet most everyday of mitzvot (commandments) is that of laying tefilin. Every day Jewish men (and in some liberal Continue Reading »

A Spoonful of Sugya Helps the Medicine Go Down

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Pious Antic

The rumors were swirling even before the day of Rav Landes’ shiur k’lali last week.  Tuesday morning he would be addressing the Pardes community about kavod shel Beit Midrash (respect for the Beit Midrash) and what this means in terms of behavior. Although presumably no one knew in advance exactly what our Rosh Yeshiva was Continue Reading »

Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Pious Antic

  During a Shabbat picnic in the Tayelet, the group of Pardesniks I was with was approached by the most evil-looking tomcat I have ever seen in my life.  Of all the feral cats I’ve encountered on the streets of Jerusalem, none approached this one for pure badness.  This was the Leroy Brown of cats. Continue Reading »