These and Those

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

Archive: April 2014

Continually opting in to Orthodoxy

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

From my blog, Redefining Rebbetzin: There has been a lot of talk online over the past few months about Orthodox Feminism – ranging from how it is not possible, to how oppressed we are, to why we stay Orthodox. The posts on the latter topic seem to come mostly from women who grew up within Continue Reading »

Pardes *is* my family

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

As I progress in my pregnancy and it becomes so visibly obvious people become more and more free with their questions, and one of the most common ones I get goes something like this: Person: Are you going to have the baby here or go back to America? Me: Here! 🙂 Person: Is your family Continue Reading »

Life is a journey, God is the guide

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

Today in Neima’s Chumash class, we were asked to think / write about how we view or relate to God as part of a discussion about revelation. I had to (sadly) admit to myself that I don’t really think about God on a regular basis, I have just internalized the relationship as a part of Continue Reading »

Behold, the power of words

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

My Talmud class (level Daled, taught by the amazing Leah Rosenthal) is working our way through Masechet Kiddushin. We began by learning a few sugiyot (discussions) in the first two prakim (chapters), then we dove into the third where it starts to get really interesting a month or so ago (or maybe my time is Continue Reading »

Creating Together

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

Today is the fourth annual Global Day of Jewish Learning and this year’s theme is “Creating Together: Jewish Approaches to Creativity and Collaboration.” Two very broad and important things in my life, and as I sit here attempting to consolidate them with my experiences at Pardes this year, their coalescence becomes so obvious to me. When Pardes’s weekly Continue Reading »

The Youngest Fellow

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

This is what happens when you have a married couple who are both fellows…. From our blog The end of 5773 did not fill our lives with happiness, nor health, so it is our great wish that these be abundant for us and all of our friends and family in the coming year. Luckily, there is Continue Reading »

Mishna Brachot in Poetry

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

Presented at Night Seder on April 22: We decided it would be an interesting experience and test of our marriage to learn together, so for the past few months we’ve been having what we fondly call “Mishna Mondays” here at Pardes night seder. We started at the beginning with Brachot, which as you can imagine Continue Reading »