Life At Pardes - Pardes Moments
Work in Progress
I don't keep kosher. I am not Shomer Shabbat. I am not Shomer Negia. My most significant romantic relationship has been with a non-Jew. I object to the way Israel is run, and to many actions that it takes on a daily basis. And I love Talmud.
I love deciphering the thought process. I love arguing with my Havruta. I love arguing with Rashi, and Tosefot, and Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch. I love the sense of connectnedness, of history, of eternity, that comes from grappling with the same issues that my bookish predecessors were grappling with long before I became bookish myself. And I love the way that Pardes affords me the opportunity to engage in the centuries old debate without demanding that I be someone else.
I am who I am. I am a work in progress, and I am constantly discovering, and rediscovering what it means to be a Jew, what it means to make choices, and what it means -- for better or worse -- to be inextricably bound to this hotly contested piece of real estate that is only the size of New Jersey.
I need a supportive environment to ask these sorts of questions. To discuss the various approaches to living, and to engaging with tradition and to discovering where "I" fit into "us".
This is where Pardes consistently succeeds. Every student comes to Pardes asking these sorts of questions -- and ideally, each student will still be asking these questions when s/he leaves. And Pardes will continue to acknowledge that it does not have any definitive answers. But Pardes succeeds in connecting together those of us who dare to ask these questions. And by creating the environment where different approaches can coexist, and thrive, and learn from one another.
So, I am still not Shomer Negia. I am still selectively Shomer Shabbat. And I am still asking lots of questions. But I'm on my way, and I feel connected to something greater.
Avi F.
New York University