Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on October 11, 2012 by Lauren Schuchart
This past Sunday night was Simchat Torah. I spent the evening in the Pardes beit midrash, dancing and singing, along with many of you. The energy in the room was palpable, and filled me up with a feeling of pure joy. I experienced a particularly moving moment when the singing shifted to “Am Yisrael Chai: Continue Reading »
Posted on September 9, 2012 by The Director of Digital Media
by Andrew Lustig, Year Program 5772 Just send me back to Pardes. Please, please, please. I promise I’ll learn at Night Sedar every week. And I won’t take a lot of bathroom breaks. And I wont distract my friends. And I wont use conversations with Robby and Donna and Joanne as clever ways to get Continue Reading »
Posted on September 8, 2012 by Leah Kahn
In looking back at our Poland Heritage Trip in January, it’s quite difficult to fathom just how much we witnessed in 5 short days. We began with the colorful tapestry of Jewish life that existed in Warsaw and Lublin, which was hardly a foreshadowing of what was to come. We tapped into the spirituality of Continue Reading »
Posted on August 5, 2012 by Falynn Schmidt
J. Benedict Roth will never forget the first time he learned Gemara (Talmud) 23 years ago with Pardes faculty member, Leah Rosenthal. “Leah showed me that the Gemara is like a rough diamond,” Benedict explains. “You take a stone which looks rather uninteresting, and you think you can understand it. But then you crack it open, and suddenly Continue Reading »
Posted on July 16, 2012 by Rachel Bikofsky
(Cross-posted from Little by Little לאט לאט Shalom from Israel! I do feel like I should apologize for the long stretch without any postings…as predicted, getting computer access has been a bit tricky. But, though I haven’t been writing, I’ve been quite busy exploring Jerusalem and reuniting with dear friends after many, many months apart. This Continue Reading »
Posted on June 14, 2012 by Jessie Gindea
By Jessie Gindea, PEP ’12 What an evening this is. As I look around this Beit Midrash, surrounded by my brilliant teachers, my esteemed colleagues, and all of the people who have effected my experience in the last two years, it seems only natural to turn to psalms 133, verse 1: “Hiney mah tov umah Continue Reading »
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 »
Posted on March 8, 2012 by Leah Stern
Most people have never even heard the word shtender. They think I am making up a pretend word, though to my knowledge it is Yiddish. I said it recently to an Israeli friend and the closest word I could use to explain it was the word מעמד, which means a stand, but that isn’t even Continue Reading »
Posted on February 12, 2012 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim) Some of my fondest Jewish childhood memories are of Tu B’Shvat. Every year in Sunday School, we at Beth Israel Center threw a huge seder, with tens of species of exotic and familiar fruits, and a student-made Hagadda. Every year I looked forward to watching the grape Continue Reading »
Posted on November 24, 2011 by The Director of Digital Media
