Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on September 17, 2014 by Geo Poor
Parshat Nitzavim starts with the children of Israel nitzavim – standing – before God and community, ready to enter into covenant, a covenant with rights and responsibilities, in order to become established as a people. At first glance, this seemed to me like a perfectly logical entrance to a covenant, but then it occurred to Continue Reading »
Posted on September 9, 2014 by Sarah Marx
For a place so much associated with desert and stone and sun, Jerusalem is full of blue. My morning walk to school is painted blue, in both broad and slender strokes: the giant turquoise sky, or the thin stripes of the Israeli flag, or the joyful cerulean paint on someone’s shutters or garden fence. Even Continue Reading »
Posted on February 7, 2014 by Jessica Baverman
There has been a lot of hype around women wearing tefillin lately (see here, here, here, and here). Since I just started taking the “Women and Mitzvot” class, this is a topic that I have followed. I’ve also been intrigued by the whole idea of tefillin for a while now. For most of my life, I saw tefillin as Continue Reading »
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 »
Posted on May 27, 2013 by Derek Kwait
At the end of last year, I gave the world “The Kwait“ the necessarily abridged First Edition of The Practical Dictionary of the Pardes Lexicon. Now, as my Pardes experience comes to a close, I present this still necessarily abridged Second Edition, to be known as “The Kwait Shayni.” This edition, like its predecessor, is Continue Reading »
Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Director of Digital Media
By Mira B. Shore [Summer ’09 and ’10, Year ’12] It has been 7 months since I was in the Pardes Beit Midrash. 7 months since I walked the streets of Jerusalem, honoring my ancestors and being part of the Jewish story. 7 months since I actively and constantly questioned my religion, my spirituality, and Continue Reading »
Posted on January 1, 2013 by Derek Kwait
When it came to picking out a college and a major, Mike knew he wanted to work with numbers and that he wanted to do something practical. So he searched and weighed the available data: He looked into economics but found it boring. He looked into physics, but thought it just wasn’t for him, then 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 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 May 8, 2012 by aliza
וארשתיך לי לעולם, וארשתיך לי בצדק ובמשפט ובחסד וברחמים. וארשתיך לי באמונה, וידעת את הי And I will betrothe you to me forever and always, and I will betrothe you to me in righteousness and in justice and in loving-kindness and in compassion. And I will betrothe you to me in faith and belief and Continue Reading »
