A new semester of the Pardes Year program has begun!
While the Pardes Beit Midrash was hardly empty this summer with all the fantastic programming we had, we are excited to see it fill up once again with new and returning Year Program students and our Elul Program participants.
We began the week with our Opening Circle, a well-loved activity that helps build the community that our students will be a part of for the next year (and years to come).
After a week of getting to know each other, getting settled in Jerusalem, and engaging in rigorous Torah study, our students gathered together at the beautiful Tayelet for a pre-Shabbat meal and hang-out. Delicious food, story-sharing, and songs combined to create another meaningful experience and bring our community closer together.
Student Spotlight:
Sophie Gregoire (Weill)
Elul Program Participant ’23
Toulouse, France
Where are you from?
Toulouse, France, but I feel that’s too restrictive. I have lived in Paris, London, and Cambodia, and I’ve solo-traveled in North America and other parts of Asia for a few months.
What are some moments at Pardes that have stood out to you so far?
There are already a few important memories I’ve made here at Pardes.
One was particularly significant for me. It’s connected to our name tags. There was a typo on mine, it was “Sophia” instead of “Sophie” – which led to me having my name tag changed. I subesquently decided to include father’s last name, Weill, that I don’t normally use, which is connected to my Jewish Ashkenazi heritage. This would be too much of a long story for here, but, so far, I normally don’t use this name, and doing this was a big step on my journey back to Judaism.
Pardes felt like a great place to reclaim this. The name tag ended up playing an important and even symbolic role within my first week here.
Which passuk, passage or text is speaking to you right now?
I am going to refer to something we just learned in class. The more Yonah refused God’s calling, the more he went “down.” Even more importantly, in my opinion, as he ran away from his “highest” path, random individuals would ask him where his God was. It’s as if these strangers were “used” by God’s energy to speak directly with Yonah.
This made me think and reflect. Often, one can’t refuse their soul’s calling. It comes back to you when you need to actually hear it. This story is still very relevant to our daily and modern lives. When we don’t listen to our intuition, signs and messages from a higher source, life finds ways to direct us back towards the “right” path – the “highest” path we can take, the one that’s the closest to our most divine calling and highest potential.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself!
I have purchased cat food to feed the cats around my apartment here in Jerusalem. I love cats and have a big white one back in France, Mikado. In the past, I forced him to go and live with me in Cambodia. He is such an elegant and intuitive guardian companion!
Also, I write poetry. My book, She is the Moon, contains poetry and short inspirations from my travels.