These and Those

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

Tag Archives: The Arava

A NFTY Gmar Chatima Tova (A good signing into the book of life.)

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Andrea Wiese

From my blog: During Yom Kippur, we are commanded to “afflict ourselves.” “עינוי נפש” The gemara has a very lengthy discussion of what this could mean. Does it mean we don’t have sexual relations, does it mean we physically hurt ourselves? No, the gemara concludes, it means that we don’t eat or drink. But how Continue Reading »

[Student Profile] Mary Brett Koplen & Adam Masser

Posted on June 25, 2013 by David Bogomolny

If you walked the halls of Pardes days during our 2012-2013 year program, you might have noticed two students spending a lot of time together. You might have heard them laughing on a Jerusalem park bench. You might have seen them learning together in the Beit Midrash. If you found them at your Shabbat table, Continue Reading »

[PCJE Dvar Torah] From Desert to Dessert: a Shavuot Reflection – by Tani Cohen-Fraade

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Tani Cohen-Fraade

In Rabbi Meir Schewiger’s Parashat ha-Shavuah (weekly Torah Portion) class, while learning Sefer Shemot (Book of Exodus), we spoke about the desert as a place where one goes to prepare for Torah study. When B’nei Yisrael (Children of Israel) leave Egypt, they flee through the desert and are on the run until they get to Yam Suf (Red Continue Reading »

Arava!

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Lauren Schuchart

From my blog: It’s been a while since my last post. Apparently, graduate school essays are a bit of a time-suck. In any case, here are some pictures from my school’s trip to the Arava in January. We went all the way to Eilat in the southern tip of Israel for a few days of Continue Reading »

On “I’m Sorrys”

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Tadea Klein

I first presented this on the Arava Tiyul,in a slightly different form. Around the middle of the first semester, someone said something like this: “I’m sorry, but I won’t pray in a place that doesn’t accept me all the time.” This person was not sorry at all. And whether or not I agree with their Continue Reading »

Song of Clarity

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Eric Feldman

From my blog: In this weeks parsha, Beshalach, one of the most famous events in all of the Tanakh occurs when God splits the Red Sea through the staff of Moses, allowing the Israelites to finally escape the centuries-long enslavement in Egypt and become a free people. The result of their freedom is that the Continue Reading »

For the Win

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Naomi Bilmes

From my blog, posted after the Arava Tiyul: One year ago, I was about to take a semester off from college. I was the thinnest I had ever been; I could no longer run or bike; the slightest bit of yoga made me dizzy. My stomach twisted and turned every day, and I hated my Continue Reading »

Swirl Swirl Desert Stop

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Naomi Bilmes

From my blog: (written two days ago) So, last night, I sat around a crackling fire with a group of religious people chanting incantations in ancient languages while passing around a hand-carved knife and letting the blood from our left pinkie fingers drip over the hot, scalding flames… Okay, that was an exaggeration. But I Continue Reading »

Week 37: The Practical Dictionary of the Pardes Lexicon

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Derek Kwait

(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim) One of the unadvertised perks of Pardes is that after studying holy texts in their original in the Beit Midrash for a whole year, no matter how advanced your Hebrew level, you come away with a black-belt in using dictionaries. Yet I have noticed that for all Continue Reading »

Bring-your-Mom-to-Pardes Day

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Mira

The shift from first semester to second semester started during our week off when half of Pardes went on a tiyul to the Arava desert. I’m not a hiking fan, but I love the desert in Israel and have always felt connected to it. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to reflect on my Continue Reading »