First Day at Pardes! (10/7)

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to take my first class at Pardes, after Ulpan of course, at 2:30 this afternoon. In between Ulpan and Pardes, I rushed back to my apartment to make a quick lunch (basically a scrambled egg/veggie mixture, stuffed in a pita with some cheese, resembling a breakfast sandwich, but not for breakfast) which was absolutely fabulous. Healthy, delicious, easy and quick to make. Did a quick clean up and walked down Rivkah to the Pardes office so I could meet at 2pm with Yaffa, one of the Pardes staff, before walking into the classroom at 2:30. She gave me a brief overview of the Pardes program, showed me around the facility (which is not so big but was VERY busy) and I met Meesh, the instructor for the class called "Peace and Social Justice." My friend Aviva is already in the class; I don't know anyone else in the class but everyone welcomed me with open arms and greeted me very nicely. The first portion of the class was the presentation of the idea/topic which we'd be discussing for the duration of the class period - dealing environmentally with water - who's water is it, who has rights to it, etc. according to Torah and other Jewish texts. We split up into chevruta (I'll explain what that is in just a second) for about an hour and 10 minutes, discecting some texts and discussing the various parts of them, and bringing them back to the main idea. Then we rejoined as a class for about 35 more minutes before being dismissed.

Chevruta learning is paired or tripled learning. Once a group becomes 4, you split into 2 groups of 2. The Hebrew word "chevruta" comes from the word for friend, "chaver," so you study or learn with a friend or someone who may become your friend. (This is the same "ch" sound as challah bread, not as in cheese, so get used to hacking up a lung from the back of your throat when you say it out loud.) There are many aspects of chevruta learning; one of them is that when you are only with 1 or 2 other people, there is much discussion on the subject at hand. In a classroom, one person speaks at a time so there can really only be a handful of ideas out on the table for discussion. This is a serious basis for Jewish learning. The Beit Midrash (house of study) is the room where this chevruta learning takes place, and it's not only our class that is in there, so it's quite a noisy room! (I think that rabbis and Jewish scholars would love to know how noisy it is in there, so much discussion and debate about many a Jewish topic!)

The short story is: I really enjoyed my time at Pardes today. I enjoyed the instructor's perspective, the class structure, the openness and freedom of the chevruta learning in the Beit Midrash, and the coming together at the end of the class. I also do not think I could take a full courseload here - it is SO intense! Kol hakavod (great job) for those of you who study at Pardes full time! Not for me right now, but glad to have a taste.