Three Years of Pardes Learning

I am currently on an airplane flying from Israel to the US. Last night I somehow stuffed all my belongings (less the boxes and boxes of books I had sent via ship last month) into three overweight suitcases. At some point during the packing process it finally hit me what I'm leaving behind in Jerusalem: everything. However, the subject of this email is specifically about Pardes, my school these past three years.

Pardes is an open, co-ed place for the learning of Jewish texts. There are many more words that could be used to describe it, but none of them are perfect. Pardes is a place where students from diverse backgrounds and practices, going in any number of directions, take time out of their adult lives to learn traditional Jewish texts in the traditional method – paired study in a beit midrash which is, for lack of a better way of describing it, a really loud library. The teachers at Pardes are phenomenal; the students incredible.

My first year, my primary chevruta (learning partner) was a man more than twice my age who had spent years of his life meditating on a mountain top in India before his path eventually led him to learning Talmud in Jerusalem. My second year, my main chevruta had come to Pardes straight out of undergrad in New York City. My third year, my main chevruta got married two weeks before the school year started, and had a baby boy two weeks after the school year ended. These chevrutas will always be a part of my life, along with the entire Pardes experience.

This year, at the end of the school year, we had a short panel discussion about the various movements in Judaism. Now, this is something that I have been to many many times before. There are usually three or four rabbis who sit behind a table and repeat the party line of the movement of Judaism they represent, be it Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, and occasionally Reconstructionist. However, this panel was slightly different for a few reasons.

The first difference was that six "movements" were represented: Reform, Reconstructionist, Orthodox, Renewal, Non-Denominational, and Conservative. The next difference was that not all of the representatives had actually finished their rabbinic training, about half of them were still in school to become rabbis. However, the true reason I'm writing about this panel is because every one of the people on the panel had been a student at Pardes for the previous ten months. It's hard to understand what a Jewish, non-denominational beit midrash would look like, but Pardes has somehow figured it out. Pardes is a place where a newly ordained Orthodox rabbi can learn Talmud with a student in the program for Renewal rabbinate training, while a Reform rabbi on sabbatical can learn Prophets with a student taking a year off from Conservative rabbinical school.

Sure, there were a few points of awkwardness during the panel, primarily because for the past year of learning, no one ever mentioned what sort of Jewish anyone else identified as. But that is what makes Pardes so amazing in my mind. We're all incredibly different, we all learn together, we all learn from each other. I am so lucky to have been able to spend three years in this incredibly special environment.

And yet Pardes is not primarily about the community that forms there, though that's definitely a large part of the Pardes experience. People come to Pardes to learn Jewish texts, and learn they do. I have learned so much in my time there that, when sitting down to write my speech for graduation from the Pardes Educators Program a few weeks ago, that was what I knew I needed to focus on. Below is a copy of my graduation speech. [I know that there are some Jew-y terms in it, but I think it be probably understood without knowing every word. If not, of course just ask me what something means.]

Three years ago I walked into Pardes, having taken some Hebrew classes over the years, but never having studied Jewish texts in depth. I was placed in Meesh's Gimmel Talmud class I was shocked that someone thought I could survive in a class at that level. It was Elul and the first text we learned was the third perek of Mishna Rosh HaShanah. This perek mentions briefly the idea of outsiders, a theme I wasn't expecting to find in a chapter dealing with what sort of shofar should be used when.

מי שהיה עובר אחורי בית הכנסת,
Someone who is passing behind a synagogue,
או שהיה ביתו סמוך לבית הכנסת,
or his house is next to a synagogue,
ושמע קול שופר...
and he hears the shofar…

Then what? Does he fulfill his obligation? Did it "count" for him, even though he wasn't standing there within the community?

As I thought about this question without a clear answer, I looked back at the beginning of that particular mishna. It reads:

התוקע לתוך הבור או לתוך הדות או לתוך הפיטם
If you blow a shofar into a pit or a cistern or a really big barrel,
אם קול שופר שמע, יצא,
If you hear the sound of the shofar itself, you have fulfilled your obligation,
אם קול הברה שמע, לא יצא.
But if you hear the echo, you have not fulfilled your obligation.

This week, when going back to some of the very first mishnayot I'd ever learned, three years ago in this beit midrash, this particular line spoke to me very deeply. I've always wanted to work in Jewish education, and that's not just a line I've said in my interviews though I have, both to get into this program and more recently, to actually get a job, it's really true. I've always wanted to work in Jewish education. But four years ago, when I found myself teaching in a day school, I realized how little I actually knew. What I did know was that to be the teacher I wanted to be, I would need to spend years working on acquiring text skills for myself. And now, three years later, I think I am a lot closer to that goal.

אם קול שופר שמע, יצא; אם קול הברה שמע, לא יצא
If you hear the sound of the shofar itself, you have fulfilled your obligation, but if you hear the echo, you haven't.

Before Pardes, although I was an active member of the Jewish community and a teacher in a day school, I only heard the echo. Three years later, thanks to the help and support from all my teachers here, and the patience of all my chevrutas I think I am finally beginning to hear the קול שופר, the sound of the shofar itself. Thank you for helping me become a learner of text and soon, a fellow teacher of Torah.

And on that note I am going to close my computer for flight attendants to come around and serve us breakfast. Once again, thanks for traveling on this journey with me.

Happy Summer,
Sarah

PS – A few people have asked me to write about the adventures of moving to New York City and eventually, becoming a middle school teacher. I give no promises that I'll actually write at all regularly, but if you're interested in hearing about it, let me know.

Three Years Later

Today is June 25th, 2008. On June 24th, 2005, I sent out an email to almost all of you guys, with the subject line "I've Arrived!" Over the past three years I've had lots of adventures, traveled a lot, learned huge amounts, and made a life for myself in Israel.

Yesterday I was walking through the park with one of my closest friends here, who arrived in Israel at about the same time that I did three years ago. We took a short detour and ran into what appeared to be a dance performance by middle school girls for their families to celebrate the end of the school year. After a minute or two we got bored and continued home where my friend was going to help me begin the packing process.

As we left I realized that this small event, had it occurred three years ago, would have been the subject of an entire email home. I would have described the scene in detail and used it as a jumping off point to comment a bit about Israeli society and the community that I have found for myself. Yet these days, I doubt that I will even remember the performance in a week's time.

My life here in Israel is just that – a life. I no longer complain about the weird hours of the post office or banks, I just learn to live with them. I have lots of friends here, and sharing huge Shabbat meals with them is no longer an exciting event, but a weekly occurrence. I still love learning Torah at school every day, but that's what it is – learning at school every day.

It's hard to remember to write exciting emails about my life in Israel because it's a life just like everyone else's. I go grocery shopping, I buy produce, I do laundry, I cook, I go to school, I go to bars, I watch movies, I play pool. Sometimes I argue with a taxi driver or try out an exciting new restaurant or make a new friend. I know all the streets in my neighborhood and in most of the surrounding ones and the adventure of getting lost has been replaced by the more frequent giving of directions to people visiting Jerusalem.

In less than a week I will get start building a new life for myself all over again. I have accepted a job teaching 5th, 6th, and 7th grade Jewish studies at a school in Greenwich, CT. I will be living in New York City, on the Upper West Side. And once again, I will learn a new system of public transportation, new grocery stores, and new night-time hang-outs. I will make new friends and try to keep in touch with my old friends. I will build a new life for myself.

These past three years have changed me in many ways, but primarily they have helped me more fully become the person I am now. I apologize for not being more in touch as my time here has gone on; it seemed to have been a natural development from living in the same place for many years. Hopefully I will send out one last email before I go, but I'm not so good at those promises, so don't hold your breath.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me,
Sarah

A Biblical Journey into the Desert

I spent this past weekend at a Rainbow Gathering in the dessert in the south of Israel. You may have heard of Rainbow, if not, it's pretty hard to describe, but basically it's a bunch of hippies gathering together and forming a temporary intentional community in the outdoors. Rainbow gatherings happen all over the world and vary in size and duration. For more basic information, you can check out either of these two sites.

Anyway, the Rainbow in Israel takes place during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan which is October/November and lasts for four weeks with the peak being on the full moon. I went for my third year in a row, with a group of friends for the weekend closest to the full moon. Actually, this year we lucked out and were able to be there for the full moon itself. This year, the gathering took place in the Arava, the southern desert close to Eilat. I went with a small group of friends and had an absolutely amazing time. We were there from Thursday until Saturday night and there were maybe 250 people gathered at the time.

Something about the location this year, in the middle of the desert, specifically, in a huge dried up river bed, reminded me numerous times about what it must have been liked to live in the time of the Bible. I was hoping to be able to share a few of those moments with you guys.

Since we were in the desert, water was in short-supply and yet more necessary than ever. We brought loads of bottles of water with all our supplies when we arrived, but they eventually ran out and we needed more. Luckily for everyone at the gathering, someone with a pickup truck put a huge water drum in the back of their truck, filled it up at a nearby settled area, and returned with hundreds of gallons of water in a humongous container on the back of the truck. The water container, parked in the middle of the site, had only one small spigot and almost immediately, people from all over the camp started walking to the pickup truck with empty water bottles, jerry cans, and every other water carrying receptacle imaginable.

With empty bottles in our hands, I also walked to the truck with some friends. Standing at the water truck, waiting for our turn, we ran into a number of other friends who had set up their tents far from ours. As more and more people surrounded the truck, waiting patiently to turn the spigot on into their own smaller water containers, people with instruments started joining us at the truck. Soon people were playing guitar and oud and flute, dancing and singing and banging on their water bottles as they waited for their turn. Even after I had filled up my bottles I stuck around the water truck for a while longer. It was truly the place to be. Everyone was hanging around, chatting, catching up, singing – for the entire time that the truck was parked in the middle of the site, it became the central location of the gathering. This struck me as incredibly Biblical. So many stories in the Bible echo the importance of the well to the social life of biblical figures. We joked about finding our future husbands at the water truck, as Rebecca (Genesis 24) and Rachel (Genesis 29) did, but the longer we spent at the water truck the more deeply we understood how natural it was for Isaac and Jacob to find their spouses by looking towards the wells. After all, it seemed that everyone from the campsite stopped by at some point or another.

On Friday night, after we "prepared for Shabbat" (this consisted primarily of changing into slightly less dirty clothes) a very diverse group of slightly more religiously inclined people gathered together for services. But after about three minutes, some of the women decided we could do better than the male-controlled mumbled prayer service and a group of a dozen or so of us just stood up and started walking. Since the gathering was held in the desert, we just started walking away from the clumps of tents further into the desert. We walked further and further, by the light of the moon, without prayer books, until we could no longer hear any of the noises from the main campsites and could barely see the tents in the distance by the moonlight.

We held hands and started singing the songs and psalms used to welcome Shabbat. We stood, we danced, we sat, we jumped, we swayed, we sang in unison and in call-and-response. We welcomed Shabbat. Less than halfway through our singing of the introductory psalms, one of the men from the main service came over to our gathering and said that they were done with the entire service and could we please come back and join them for the closing part. We nodded and then ignored him and sang our hearts out to the desert and the rising moon and the mountains for another hour. It was just so powerful to be in a women's only space in the middle of the desert, not quietly reciting prayers written by rabbis hundreds of years ago, but joyfully singing psalms replete with nature imagery composed thousands of years ago. As we stood among the awe-inspiring backdrop of the desert, surrounded by mountains in a dry river bed that would flood in a few months when the rains from up north would cause a flash flood, as it did every year, I was able to sing the following line from the Psalms and understand it like I never had in many years of singing it every Friday night. Let the floods clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy, Let them sing before the Lord. (Psalm 98)

Then, on Saturday afternoon, we sat around preparing afternoon snacks and reading from the weekly Torah portion while some of our friends were volunteering at the Welcome Center. The Welcome Center is basically a main base, usually just an open-sided tent at least a kilometer or so away from the main camping site, near the road and parking area, which is used as an introduction to Rainbow. At the Welcome Center people put down their packs, have some snacks or tea, learn about the rules for Rainbow, and just rest and put away all their mental baggage from the outside world before entering Rainbow. Our friends who were welcoming people sat under the make-shift tent-awning, away from the heat of the afternoon sun, welcoming strangers to Rainbow and blessing those who were leaving for a safe continued journey.

As we sat under the tree that we had pitched our tents next to, we started reading the weekly Torah portion, which began with chapter 18. In just the first four verses we were blown away by how much more deeply we could understand the text from our campsite in the desert. The story opens with Abraham, sitting in an open-sided tent, greeting three strangers who approach him in the desert not far from where we were sitting at that very moment. And while we sat and cut fruits and vegetables, our friends were imitating Abraham and his welcome tent, by welcoming journeyers into the oasis that was Rainbow. Three verses later, Abraham offers his guest water with which to wash their feet. Before this weekend, that verse didn't mean much to me. Okay, so people washed feet in those days. Nowadays we're obsessed with Purell hand sanitizer. Everyone should be allowed their own hygienic quirks. No big deal. But we read the verse very closely this time.

Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. (Genesis 18:4)

Upon a second reading, we thought the following: Who washes feet in the desert?! We have so little water, imagine using some of our precious water to wash feet! What a waste! Oh, but look, the verse says, "a little water." Well that makes sense, with water being so scarce in these parts. But still, that truly shows their generosity. And then we looked at the second part of the verse. Yes, trees do exist in the desert, even far from oases, after all, we were sitting under one right now! And after just a few days at Rainbow, we truly appreciated the shade provided by trees. Tents provided us with shade, but even with the flaps up, the refreshing desert breezes couldn't be enjoyed anywhere near as well as they could from just sitting under a tree.

We continued reading the Torah portion slowly and closely, with a closer understanding and a deeper connection, as the sun sank lower in the sky. With the waning sun light, we decided to follow an ibex path up one of the mountains surrounding the camp site. At the top we had an incredible view of all the surrounding areas. We watched the sun slip lower, now more visible than it had been earlier from the dry river bed below us. As the sun approached the horizon, we decided to pray the afternoon prayer service individually from the mountain top. We each walked a bit away from one another, oriented ourselves toward Jerusalem by using the setting sun to the west and the Jordanian mountains to the east, and said the final prayers of Shabbat. The services closed, as all services do, with the line, It is our duty to praise the Master of all, to acclaim the greatness of the One who forms all creation. Watching the sun set over the desert, standing on top of a mountain surrounded by dry river beds that were still somehow filled with trees and bushes, even a line a said multiple times every day was invested with new meaning.

As we left the gathering I truly felt like I understood how characters in the Bible lived more deeply than I had before. Plus, I had an absolutely awesome time camping with my friends for a few days. I'm looking forward to doing some more hiking in the desert with my classmates in a week and a half – I can only hope it will be half as amazing as this trip was.

Wishing you a week filled with seeing nature's beauty,
Sarah

A Long-Awaited Update!

Dear Everyone-I-Should-Have-Been-In-Touch-With-Much-More-Frequently,

I know I haven't written to you guys in a very long time, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to start writing regularly again, but if nothing else I thought I could just give everyone a brief update on my life.

Yes, I'm still living in Israel. I'm currently in my fourth apartment in Jerusalem but I'm not planning on leaving this one until I move back to the States in the summer. My apartment is beautiful and I share it with two other girls who I rarely see as I'm almost never home. I moved in almost two months ago and there are still a few boxes that have not been unpacked yet. Which is to say, I've been quite busy.

I'm still learning at Pardes, in my third and final year of the Educators Program. This means three significant things.
1. I'm constantly busy with school work.
2. Next year, I will be working as a teacher somewhere in North America.
3. I'm starting to get very nervous about the applying, interviewing, and getting-hired process.

But since you haven't waited months since my last update to hear about my fear-of-the-future inanity, I may as well tell you a bit about school this year. Right now I'm taking a mix of Jewish-text focused classes and education focused classes. [This makes sense because my goal is to have a masters in Jewish education by the end of the school year.] In the mornings, I have a three-hour class on either the book of Exodus or the books of Kings. We read the texts and their commentaries in Hebrew and the classes are also conducted in Hebrew, though we often switch into English for heated discussions. Next, I have a short class, either a survey course on the early books of the prophets, or a one based on the biographical sketches of personalities in the Talmud. In the afternoons, I either having class on pedagogy ("the art of teaching"), or one on teaching the holidays from a text-based model. This class is neat because we take a holiday and trace it from its biblical roots slowly throughout rabbinic literature until how it is practiced today, while at the same time also learning lots about how we would teach similar material in our futures classrooms. In the evenings I'm taking another class on the theory and psychology of education along with a class on how to chant from the book/scroll of Esther. Oh, and I also have three additional chevrutas (partner study sessions) in the evenings with two friends during which I'm learning some Talmud and the laws of prayer.

I know that all may sound quite boring to you, but I'm having loads of fun with it and am very much enjoying all of my classes, teachers, and classmates. And yes, I have some free time, too. I still enjoy going out with friends to bars and parties, having guests over in the evenings, and hosting large and small Shabbat meals. Oh, and I decided to start teaching myself guitar!

Not much else is new in my life. I still walk around barefoot. I still have blue (and pink and purple) hair, though it's getting long! I had a fun time wandering around Central Europe for a week and a half this summer and I also enjoyed seeing my aunt and uncle and cousin when they visited last month.

Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon, but just to cover my bases, Happy Fall, Happy Winter, and Happy Spring!

Wishing you only the best,
Sarah