These and Those

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

Tag Archives: community

Hachnasat Sefer Torah

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Annie Matan Gilbert

Today at Pardes, we had the honour and the pleasure of dancing our new sefer Torah, (donated in honour of a recent Bat Mitzvah) around the school. We heard lovely divrei Torah from Pardes student, Dr. Aileen Heinberg and from Rav Landes. There was some mention made of the fact that a Hachnasat Sefer Torah Continue Reading »

[PCJE Dvar Torah] ‘Sacrificing Our Time’ by Aliza Geller

Posted on April 26, 2013 by Aliza Geller

Devar Torah Workshop, Parashat Emor Over the past couple of weeks, students in their first year of the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators have been participating in a Devar Torah workshop with DLK (Rabbi David Levin-Kruss). This is the Devar Torah I wrote to be presented at the workshop yesterday, for Parashat Emor. Please keep Continue Reading »

[Alumni Guest Post] Living In and Through Tragedy

Posted on April 24, 2013 by The Director of Digital Media

From Ben Barer’s (Fellows 2011-12) blog: This post also appeared on State of Formation. It has been a tough week to be in Boston.  It is almost as hard to add anything to all that has been written about the tragedy, confusion, and sadness that the week brought, to Boston and to the world as it Continue Reading »

Why I am Making Aliyah

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Liviah Landau

April 15th, 2013 It’s Erev Yom HaAtzma’ut and just a few days ago I had my first meeting with Nefesh b’Nefesh, an agency that works for North American Jews intending on immigrating to Israel. My application is in, and a few more papers are needed, but the decision has been made. I am making Aliyah Continue Reading »

Group 15, or why the Masa Israel Leadership worked out

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Avi Benson-Goldberg

[x-posted to bensongoldberg.com] A couple of weeks ago, I snuck out of Pardes, and instead of learning Torah, I learnt community organizing, best practices, and how to laugh again. It was fun, it was a refresher, and I made some amazing friends. Here’s what I took away from it: “Honestly, you were just a bunch Continue Reading »

[Student Profile] Emly Oren

Posted on March 28, 2013 by David Bogomolny

Emly Oren left Israel with her family at the age of four, but in many ways Israel never left her family. At school in Orange County, Emly was the only Israeli student; but her family continued to speak Hebrew at home, and they only watched Israeli television programs. The Orens would travel to Israel every Continue Reading »

Golan Tiyul, or Adversity Builds Community

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Aliza Geller

Now that the craziness of preparing for Pesach and the seder itself is over, I have time to write about the Golan Tiyul. It was so beautiful! Flowers in bloom everywhere! Last week we experienced such a different climate than in Jerusalem, it was rainy and much cooler. We were joined by the families of Continue Reading »

[Alumni Guest Post] On Pardes and Faith

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Aaron Voldman

I miss Pardes so much. As I shared with my classmates and teachers before departing, it was a dream to learn in Israel and my experience at Pardes turned out so much better than I ever anticipated! I feel very grateful to my classmates for sharing your insights in class, and for in havruta study Continue Reading »

[PCJE Dvar Torah] Midrashic Messages by Andrea Wiese

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Andrea Wiese

Our double Parsha – Vayakhel-Pekudei is focused on building the Mishkan or Tabernacle. And as we know, God calls on Betzelel to build it. There are two contradicting Midrashim around Betzelel and the order in which he builds the Tabernacle (Mishkan משכן), the Ark (Aron ארון), and the vessels (כלים the keilim). In Shemot Rabba 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 »