Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on October 14, 2013 by Jeff Amshalem
From my blog: From Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev Kedushas Levi, Perushei Aggadot When you say the words of the living God in studying Torah, or engage in the holy work of prayer, you should intend to cleave to the blessed Creator. But you must consider the question, how can a person of flesh and blood cleave Continue Reading »
Posted on October 14, 2013 by Deborah Renert
There is a high supernal spiritual level to which various exalted Jewish spiritual personalities subscribe, such as Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. The crux of the idea i think is–is that if all comes from G-d and emanates from His Oneness, then all must necessarily be good irregardless whether we experience joy or we experience pain. Continue Reading »
Posted on October 13, 2013 by Jessica Baverman
Posted on October 13, 2013 by Baruch Tauber
Dear Friends In January, I attended my first meditation retreat at Awakening the Divine. As a beginner to meditation practice, I definitely had my doubts. Sit for hours at a time?! Not talk to anyone?! Really?! Will I have a million emails when I get back? Will I die from boredom? What the hell will Continue Reading »
Posted on October 13, 2013 by Hannah Joy
From my blog: This past week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, made me think of my own decision to take a year to study in Israel. The first verse reads as follows: וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ. Vayomer Hashem el-Avram Lech Lecha me’artzecha umimoladetecha umibeit avicha el-ha’aretz asher ar’eka. “And Continue Reading »
Posted on October 11, 2013 by The Director of Digital Media
Yisrael Campbell’s (Year ’01, Fellows ’02) 5th episode of the Times of Yisrael!
Posted on October 10, 2013 by AdAm Mayer
So many of us are Searching – see ourselves somewhere along our Jewish Journey. This post-modern cultural phenomenon with which we are all too familiar, I would argue, is not a modern ‘phenomenon’, rather began in ~1948 (~1813 B.C.E.) with Avraham. Or to put it another way, Avraham was the first to successfully share his Continue Reading »
Posted on October 9, 2013 by Alanna Kleinman
Time has come to define my year here. Not exactly time itself, rather, how I interact with time. When I describe my goal for the year, the whole concept of my studies here, it often becomes described as “taking time off.”This phrase boggles me. Can someone actually take time off from life? This phrase hints Continue Reading »
Posted on October 9, 2013 by The Director of Digital Media
What do diabetes and Pardes have in common? For you, probably nothing. But I’ve been at Pardes for two years, with one more to go. And for me, these two are intrinsically linked! See, in the last month of my first year at Pardes, I was mistakenly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I left for Continue Reading »
Posted on October 9, 2013 by Hannah Joy
From my blog: Some more of my observations, now that I’ve been here for about a month and a half: Only in Israel… Would the entire country (including the airport) shut down on Yom Kippur, and the streets be empty of cars, but full of people dressed in white walking to synagogue, and bikers enjoying Continue Reading »
