Life At Pardes - Pardes Moments
Learning How to Rest
Megan H., left |
In my spare time, I love to write, cook, listen to music, go out at night. And most of the time, I am thinking, worrying, planning. Work creeps into fun and fun finds its way into work. There isn't always a lot of time for thinking about why.
I never really thought that doing twenty different things all the time mattered-or that there was a different way to do things. So I brought a lot of things with me to Israel-because why wouldn't I have time to read books for my thesis in between camel rides and nights in Tel Aviv?
And of course I was going to write letters to friends in between learning how to cook Middle Eastern food from my new Israeli friends and taking classes at Pardes.
Then reality set in, and my Birthright Israel compatriots and I discovered that we barely had time to eat with something scheduled from morning till late into the night-learning, touring and absorbing as much of Israel and Judaism as possible.
But much to my surprise, the best thing that I did in Israel was "rest."
On Saturday morning, I was in Jerusalem. The night before I had attended Shabbat services with my Pardes Birthright Israel trip and we had all thought a lot about what the next day would be like. Our classes at Pardes during the week had suggested new ways to approach Shabbat and guided us through the Parsha.
So as I walked through Jerusalem, I mediated on the question of why G-d hardens pharaoh's heart, and what lessons that passage may hold for understanding human behavior and how to act in the world. But I wasn't trying to solve any problems and I knew I wouldn't find any answers.
Walking into the Old City, without a bus in sight, the calm and meditative atmosphere that surrounded the ancient walls and buildings was truly bewildering and unlike anything I had ever experienced before. By actively resting on this Shabbat, I found myself able to rejoice in the foreign sights and sounds of the city. And I finally realized what my family and friends who had been to Israel before me meant when they said that Jerusalem was unlike anything else in the world.
To celebrate Shabbat, Pardes Year students welcomed us into their homes for a Shabbos meal. Walking into neighborhoods and being greeted so warmly with food and song made Jerusalem feel like home for a day. By the time the sun was setting, I was sad to see Shabbat leave, but the sweetness of the Havdalah spices renewed and excited us all for the work of the next week in Israel, the learning, and then our next Shabbat back home.
Taking an entire day to really reflect and meditate on the experiences and feelings that the trip produced was a revelation that I will not soon forget.
Megan H. is a Birthright Participant
Yale University '00