Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on February 27, 2014 by Hirsch Fishman
This week’s parasha, Pekudei, is the last portion in the Book of Shmot (Exodus), and the final section in a series on the building of the mishkan, or tabernacle, in the desert. As such, I think it would be instructive to look back at the idea of “God’s house” in an earlier segment of the Continue Reading »
Posted on February 4, 2012 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim) I decided to challenge myself this semester, to fully take advantage of my time here by trying new Jewish things and getting outside my comfort zones. Since every subject of Torah has its own special jargon, world view, sources, legends, authorities, inside jokes, the result has been Continue Reading »
Posted on January 31, 2012 by Barer
[Cross posted from my blog] Last week at Pardes marked the end of a four-part lecture series given by professor James Kugel, one of the preeminent scholars of the Bible alive today. He painted an extremely interesting picture in answering the question that titled the lectures: Has Modern Biblical Scholarship Killed the Bible? The lectures Continue Reading »
Posted on January 27, 2012 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim) Despite popular belief, the Creation narrative in the Bible does not depict creatio ex nihilo, a creation of something out of nothing, or יש מאין (yeish mayain), as we say in Hebrew. In fact, as even the most cursory glance at Genesis 1 will tell you, before Continue Reading »
Posted on January 8, 2012 by Derek Kwait
After getting over Hevron, the subject on everyone’s minds and lips all last week was the craziness in Beit Shemesh. I was going to write this blog post with a lot of complaints about how more people aren’t speaking out against this behavior, but since I could have attended the protest and did not, perhaps Continue Reading »
